I Must Betray You(5)

5


    CINCI




I took a breath, listening closely. I risked a glance over my shoulder.

A shadowy figure lingered nearby. A girl. Carrying a large stick tucked beneath her arm. And then her quiet voice emerged, saying hi.

“Bun?.”

“Bun?.” I nodded.

She stepped closer and suddenly, we fell into step.

My pulse tapped.

Liliana Pavel. The girl with the hair hiding her eyes. The girl I wanted to “coincidentally” catch up with after school. I had created a grand plan with precision timing, but it evaporated after the meeting with Agent Paddle Hands.

Liliana lived in Luca’s building and also studied English. She was quiet, smart, a mystery beneath brown bangs with a clever sense of humor. When my responses carried an irony that Comrade Instructor didn’t catch, Liliana did. Her efforts to hide a smile, they gave her away.

Most students loitered in groups, but Liliana often wandered somewhere to read. Her folders were covered with hand-drawn flowers and zodiac signs. Sometimes—the way she looked at me—it felt like she could read my mind. And I liked it.

Our apartment blocks faced each other at the tail of a dead-end street. Liliana’s father managed a grocery supply—an extremely desirable job in a city where most people were starving.

Unlike some chattering girls, Liliana didn’t speak to just anyone and everyone. When we were younger, she once paid attention to me. I was standing amidst a group on the street and out of the blue she walked up to me and gave me a piece of Gumela.

“It’s for you,” she said. My buddies snickered.

I was secretly elated but didn’t want my friends to know.

“It’s just gray gum. It turns to sawdust in your mouth,” I had said with a shrug.

I was an idiot back then too.

I still remember the sad look on her face. It had taken until now, two years later, for her to approach me again. Should I apologize for being a jerk about the gum? Nah, she probably didn’t remember.

We walked in silence, the darkness punctuated by the occasional tap of the stick Liliana carried. She pointed the stick, gesturing.

“What’s the English word for these?”

“Streetlights,” I said. “But guess what, in other countries I think they actually work.”

She laughed.

The streetlights in Bucharest weren’t illuminated. Too costly. Romania was rich in resources, but for several years, our “hero” exported all of our resources to repay the country’s debts. As a result, electricity and food were rationed.

We passed a long, snaking line of people in front of a State-controlled shop. They stood, huddled against the cold, clutching their ration cards and waiting for some scrap of food that no other country wanted.

“Russia gets all of our meat. Isn’t that unfair?” Luca once asked. “We get nothing but the patriots.”

The feet of slaughtered pigs and chickens were sometimes available in the shops. We called them “patriots” because they were the only part of the animal that remained in Romania. Dark humor, it entertained us.

I pointed toward the shop. “Daily ration of delicious patriots, right?”

“Patriots . . . and that Gumela you love so much,” said Liliana.

She looked at me, serious, then broke out laughing.

I laughed too and shook my head. “Sorry, I was a jerk.”

She gave me a wordless nod. And then a smile.

I tried not to stare but stole glances as we walked. Her purple scarf, it wasn’t something you could buy. Did she knit it herself? Should I ask? I knew that beneath the scarf was the necklace she always wore—a brown suede cord with a silver charm. Her hair fell in soft, loose waves, hanging just above her shoulders.

Liliana looked at the food line, grimacing. Over the past few years, the feeling of darkness had grown beyond electricity. To me, the darkness felt poisonous, leaching into everything. Did she feel it too?

She flashed a look over her shoulder and spoke below her breath. “My father said that Bucharest used to be called ‘Little Paris.’ There were trees everywhere, lots of birds, and even Belle époque architecture. Do you remember what the city used to look like?” she whispered.

“I remember some parts. My bunu used to have a house. He said that Bucharest was once a luxury stop on the Orient Express.”

“Really?”

I nodded.

It was happening. I was walking home with Liliana Pavel. We were having a conversation. If I could speak freely, I’d say, “Yeah, Bunu said that after visiting North Korea, Ceau?escu decided to bulldoze our city to build ‘the House of the People’ and cement apartment blocks. Our beloved leader destroyed churches, schools, and over thirty thousand private homes, including Bunu’s. What do you think of that?”

But I couldn’t speak freely.

No one could.

“I wish our neighborhood had more trees,” said Liliana. “I miss the birds.”

Trees appeared in parks and on large boulevards where they could be shared by all. Families, like our family of five, were herded into one-bedroom, ashtray-sized flats. I looked at the cement apartment blocks we passed. Some weren’t even finished. They had no doors, no elevators, no stair railings. Similar concrete hulks loomed around the city, gray staircases to nowhere. Concrete walls gave birth to concrete faces.