I Must Betray You(8)

     One teenager camped out in a closet making radio antennae, writing illegal jokes, thinking about Liliana Pavel, and hiding a secret notebook of reports and opinions about Romania.





The transgressions made me think of the Securitate agent. These were the type of things I’d probably have to report about the American family. Things I myself was guilty of.

Yes, I was guilty.

And walking up the stairs that day, I suddenly realized—

I knew who had informed on me.





8


    OPT




You’re late,” whispered my mother. “Your jacket. Cristian, what happened?”

“A pack of dogs attacked a little girl. We walked her home,” I replied.

“We?” said Cici, turning from her sewing machine. “Who is we?”

I ignored her query. I stepped to the kitchen to check on Bunu and hear the daily joke.

“How are you today, Bunu?”

I didn’t have to ask. Bunu was a strange mix of gray and green. His voice was a murmur.

“I’m doing very well,” he lied. “In fact, I’ve had some good news from Bul?.” A grin crept across his face.

Joking about the regime was illegal and could ferry you straight to Securitate headquarters. But people told jokes anyway. In a country with no freedom of speech, each joke felt like a tiny revolution. Some jokes were relayed through a fictional character named Bul?.

My grandfather waved me forward for the joke. The blue veins in Bunu’s hand now lived above the skin instead of beneath it.

I leaned in.

“Good news.” He smiled. “Bul? says Romania is repairing the country’s tanks—both of them.”

Our laughter was momentary. The ration of breath left Bunu coughing, hacking so deeply my parents came running. The cough, it sounded painful and evil, like wild dogs were living inside Bunu, barking and tearing through his innards. How did this happen? Bunu had been so fit and healthy.

“Did you take the iodine tablets? All of them?” asked my father.

“Gabriel,” Bunu wheezed. “What’s happening to me . . . it’s not from Chernobyl.”

“Cristian, go to the wardrobe. Quickly! Count the cartons of Kents,” instructed Mother as she bent a trembling knee to my grandfather.

Kents.

Kents were Western cigarettes.

Kents were used as currency. For bribes. For trade. For the black market.

We needed Kents for a lot of things: seeing a doctor, gratuities for our schoolteachers, bribing the apartment administrator. If you’re sick and Kentless, you’re out of luck. But use your Kents wisely. Do you really need stitches—or that toe? Save your Kents for what really matters. I once opted to go Kentless for a filling. Instead of using Novocain, the dentist put his knee on my chest while he drilled and wrenched. The socket became infected and my face was swollen for a month. My psyche is still swollen. Definitely bribe the dentist.

How many Kents did kids in other countries need for the dentist or for their teachers? Did others buy Kents in a hotel gift shop like we did? I had written those questions in my notebook.

Merchandise had value. We had Romanian lei, but what could you do with Romanian currency when there was nothing in the local shops to buy? The shelves were always empty, but the apartments of doctors and dentists probably looked like a well-stocked store.

I headed to the wardrobe in my parents’ room, but I already had the count. A recent notation in my notebook reported our family bribe inventory—three cartons of Kents, two yellow packages of Alvorada coffee, one bar of Fa soap, and one bottle of Queen Anne whisky. Russian vodka was worth something, but we didn’t have any. We traded our vodka for an X-ray last year when my father had pneumonia and was coughing up blood.

“You should have drunk the vodka,” Bunu told my father. “Better than medicine.”

Even my sister dabbled in the black market. Cici worked at a textile factory. After hours, she made clothes and mended things for others. She had a particular talent for copying designs from the West German Neckermann catalogs. On occasion, Cici traded her sewing for black market contraband. She had a locked box hidden under her folding bed that contained a host of unusual and banned items.

Bunu’s coughing ceased. And then the retching began.

The sound, it was excruciating. A heaving of jagged glass.

I stood in my parents’ room, thumping my forehead against the wardrobe. Bunu’s suffering, it made my own chest heave and ache. The thought of losing Bunu terrified me.

But it was temporary.

I’d give the agent the information he wanted.

The agent would give me medicine to cure Bunu.

I had made the right decision. Hadn’t I?

I was smart. A great pretender. What if I turned the tables? What if I secretly spied on the agent, somehow gathered information that put me a step ahead? I’d know the game and outplay him.

That’s right, I thought I could outwit Paddle Hands.

The very idea—was it blazing ignorance or blazing courage?

In hindsight, a bit of both.

Ignorant courage, blazing.





9


    NOU?




The shadows followed me into the closet, onto my bed of rugs, and across the night. But I made it through school on Saturday without thinking of agents, spying, or Bunu.