Chills formed at the back of my neck. It was a netless leap. Suicide, some might say.
But I had to try. As the saying goes, better to die standing than live kneeling.
44
PATRUZECI ?I PATRU
The next time I met Dan at his apartment to go to the library, I was ready. I would use the assignment from Paddle Hands to my advantage. I not only spied Van Dorn’s desk, I decided exactly where I’d leave my notebook when I was finished.
“How are your college essays coming?” I asked Dan as we walked to the library.
“Good,” he said. “My dad thinks they’ll be appreciated with the recent events in Eastern Europe.”
Hmm. Would my notebook be appreciated too?
“Will you go home for Christmas?” I asked.
“Mom and I will, but Dad has to stay. Punch Green is arriving. He’s the new U.S. ambassador. The embassy’s been without an ambassador for six months, so Dad has to be here for the transition.”
A new ambassador. Interesting.
The American Library bustled with activity. Were readers gathering information from foreign media? Or gathering courage? Perhaps both.
As Dan collected his music magazines, I returned to the section of world news periodicals. The new issue of TIME featured young people from East and West Germany standing together atop the Berlin Wall. The title in bold type was just one word:
FREEDOM
I stood, staring at the seven letters, while a lump the size of a fist formed in my throat. Half a dozen communist regimes had fallen in succession, yet Romania remained unaffected. Why?
Had the world forgotten us? Or had Ceau?escu ingeniously built a fence of national communism that was impenetrable from the outside as well as the inside?
He had stolen us from ourselves, for himself. He had broken the soul of Romania and parched a beautiful country into an apocalyptic landscape of the lost. My notebook told the real story. But would Mr. Van Dorn do anything with it?
“You okay?” Dan asked as we left the library.
I shrugged.
“Yeah, I imagine it’s hard, seeing the progress of other countries while things remain the same here. Sorry about that.”
I nodded and removed the folded Springsteen article from my pocket. I handed it to him. “I should give this back. If I’m caught with it, it could cause more trouble than the dollar you gave me.”
“What dollar?” asked Dan.
“The U.S. dollar you put in my stamp album,” I whispered.
“What?” He looked at me, confused. “I never put a dollar in your stamp album. Just toss the article if you don’t want it.”
I did want it. I still held hope of giving it to Liliana. I returned it to my pocket, trying to appear calm. We said goodbye and agreed to meet the following Saturday. And then I stood, hands clenched, as Dan disappeared into the dark. The anger burned, flaring within me.
That U.S. dollar had led the Securitate to me.
It gave them leverage to recruit me as an informer and plunged me into moral misery.
It crushed my conscience.
It crushed my relationship with Liliana.
But if Dan didn’t put the dollar in my stamp album—
Who did?
45
PATRUZECI ?I CINCI
Blinks of orange.
I saw them as I approached our building. Burning taper candles stood in pots of sand, flickering through the darkness. A six-foot wooden cross, hauled from a nearby church, leaned against the entry of our building. The tradition when someone dies.
At least Mrs. Drucan hadn’t suffered long. Her daughter was probably already packed for Boston. Her comment still haunted me.
How many Kents will I need to make sure they turn up the gas?
I shook off the thought.
The Reporters were absent from their perch. I passed Mirel, standing in his familiar spot near the building. I nodded to him.
“Sorry,” he said.
I shrugged. What was he sorry for?
My feet stopped.
The candles. The cross.
No.
Bunu?
I ran inside and up the stairs. My father stood outside our apartment door.
“Go inside. Now. I’m waiting for Cici.”
“But—”
“I said, go inside.”
His tone wasn’t of someone who had just lost his father. It was terse, urgent.
Mama sat at the table, a shadowed stick figure beneath a crooked beam of light, smoking an open package of Kents. Her thin hand trembled. The tip of the cigarette glowed as she pressed it to her lips. We used Kents for bribes. We didn’t smoke them.
“Mama?” I looked into the kitchen toward Bunu’s narrow couch. Empty.
“Come here, Cristian.”