Viviana Ball

I am alone in the huge room. I feel drawn to the television as if a little dwarf inside of it is calling my name. I know that I am doing something wrong. That is because my Grandmother and Grandfather don’t allow me to watch television. It is a waste of time. I don’t agree, but who cares what I think. I get closer to the small wooden box with a small sign in the bottom corner that says Electronica. My heart beats in my ears. My heart jumps out of my chest and bounces in the room like a crazy dwarf. I turn on the TV. I have to wait for a long time for it to start, I know that. All this time I listen to the door. I don’t want my Granny to catch me doing something like this!

Suddenly, Ceausescu is on. He is a strong man. He is big and determined. I know from my school class coordinator that he is the best man in Romania. He is just and wise. I slowly sit down listening in awe. He is talking about world peace, and about Romania’s role in keeping the peace. His voice raises and he starts beating the air with his fist. He starts mispronouncing words, but I can understand why. He is a patriot and when he talks about Romania he becomes a god who sometimes mispronounces words. My Romanian teacher in school does the same, although she teaches us Romanian. I guess all patriots have a problem pronouncing words in Romanian. I am watching the Romanian hero, leader of our people. He is talking about Romania’s efforts to become a multideveloped country. I feel very proud. He inflates my heart. I feel my cheeks burning. I feel my heart going up my throat and hot tears come out of my eyes. I wipe them quickly, because I feel crying is not something a patriot does.

Pasarelele tipa asurzitor. E cald, penibil de cald. Dupa friguri sinistre natura s-a trezit artificial si acum pozeaza varatic intr-un martie fara capatai.

Draperia mea maro inchis, lucioasa si teapana ma fereste de razele care stiu ca mi-ar penetra creierii si mi-ar arde pielea. De cativa ani mi-e frica de soare. Il simt agresiv in crestet cateodata, simt ca ma ataca prin parbriz, ca ma cauta si isi prelinge razele lase pe langa mine. Soarele a decazut.

Am senzatia clara ca pot sa ma uit inauntrul capului meu. Atat de rau ma doare. Parca ochii ar fi intorsi invers, si ar vedea toate circuitele ciudate, care mai de care mai incalcite si mai dezorganizate. Gandurile mele sunt niste circuite, niste viermisori, niste rame care se incolacesc una in jurul alteia si se sugruma una pe alta si mor in acelasi moment si renasc in acelasi moment. Unele mai mari, altele mai mici, mai prost hranite cu pamantul vointei mele, dar toate infierate cu un singur cuvant frumos din sase litere. Ramele mele ajung hrana la pesti sau mor uscate la soare cateodata. Multe intra in propria piele, cu capul inante, si uita sa se mai intoarca inapoi. Unele se zbat, se lupta.

Nu, nu scriu doar de dragul de a scrie. Si nu scriu ca sa pot sa folosesc alegorii, epitete, metafore si alte chestii care suna imbecil cand sunt denumite dar minunat cand sunt simtite. Scriu pentru ca tot ce astern pe foaia alba dezleaga niste rame si le infunda la loc in pamantul in care le e locul.

Sunt lucruri care ma fac sa simt. Si cuvinte. Cand spun „pamant” simt cum am bagat degetele in pamant tare, tare cand eram mica si m-a sagetat ceva pana in moalele inimii. Sa fi fost o insecta, un ciob, nu stiu. Dar pamantul inseamna pentru mine durere ascutita de atunci.

Da, acum e mult mai usor sa inteleg de ce nu vreau sa se intoarca ramele mele in pamant. De frica.

We take a bath every Saturday. At 7 pm sharp my Granddad goes to the bathroom and turns on the gas to the boiler. The boiler is old. Granddad changes parts of it when it breaks. One time I remember we could all have died because the neighbor forgot to turn off the gas, but we were all ok in the end after a lot of smoke and apparently some funny noises I was not exposed to. Granny blamed the neighbor’s wife. It was just a little bit of fuss and my Granny cursing the careless wife of the policeman next door.

My weekly bath goes like this: Granny has me sit on a piece of wood (she always says that the plank placed in the tub protects me from germs). The piece of wood is very old. I think it stood witness to the birth, evolution and death of many, many generations of germs. Next step in my washing is taking off my underwear. Granny rubs the panties against a piece of homemade soap frantically until they are all yellow. Then she orders me to rub my body with them. I hate that because the panties are cold by now. I don’t know why, but I think the only season we have in Romania is winter. Then the worst part comes. I come out of the tub and I lean its edge. Granny rubs my hair with the hard piece of soap. I squeak like a mouse. It hurts and I hate the smell. Thinking or what comes next makes me curse the day I was born and wish I died inside my mother’s womb. After the soap job, Granny pours gas on my hair. At the end, some vinegar. They are, one after another: against lice and for my hair to look shiny and beautiful. My hair never looks shiny and beautiful, because it is always cut short. But is stinks, that’s for sure. Sometimes some gas goes into my eyes. The pain is similar to the pain I have when I get a 7 and I imagine all kinds of terrible things happening to me. And they always do. My Granny does not like low grades.

We must be really poor. Or we aren’t, I never really get it. We have very good food compared to any other Romanian families. I eat salam de sibiu and chicken legs and all kinds of delicatessen from the Alimentara across the street. I see my grandmother sneaking from the house with all kinds of goodies my mother brings from foreign countries and coming back with food. I mainly see my Grannie carrying cigarettes. Kent cigarettes that you only give to doctors. There must be a doctor who gives my Granny food for me.

We don’t change the sheets often, because we cannot wash them very often. When we do, the smell of clean sheets almost gets me dizzy. It is one of the best smells in the world. Not better than the smell of new books, but close.

I never brush my teeth. Nobody does. The bathroom is miles away. We live in a room in a huge villa, but we don’t have a bathroom of our own. We share a bathroom and a toilet with two other families. I am very jealous when I see tooth paste in the sink. I think that those people live a very good life.

These are stories from my childhood. I am now 38, so I grew up in communism. I will publish a lot of stories, more or less related to communism. In fact, they are all related to communism in Romania. This is the first chapter.

I open my eyes. Both my grandparents are snoring like trains.

My Granny and I share a bed. My grandfather sleeps in a separate bed that he had built for himself. I was very proud of him when he finished that bed. I was equally impressed when he built a real sewer in our courtyard. I could feel the pride he felt, so I was proud. Every night before I fall asleep my Granny pets my hair. Or strikes my hands and forearms. She makes me very sleepy when she does that. She pets my arms very slowly going up and down my forearms. Sometimes I tell her to go back to a spot that gives me goosebumps. The worst part is when her fingers start moving more and more slowly and I know that she is falling asleep first. Then I kick her and she says: What? And I find it very funny. She forgets where she is, probably has a dream or two, so she comes back to petting my arms violently. Sometimes she slaps me and I don’t ask for more petting.

It’s early. The light comes in through our huge windows, crawling like a thief. That is the image I immediately create in my mind and I promise myself to write it down in my poetry notebook. I love writing poetry. As long as it keeps me away from doing endless boring homework.

Granny starts moving. She grunts. I know the cocoa milk time is near. As usual I will pretend I am a spoiled child and she will carry me in her arms, from the bed to the table. I cannot remember how Granddad disappears every morning, but I cannot remember seeing him much in the morning. He goes to bed last and wakes up first I guess.

So Granny goes downstairs, to the kitchen, and prepares the “lovely” breakfast I loathe from the bottom of my being. I hate the smell of milk, I even hate hearing her heavy steps as she comes back, plate in hand and cup on top of plate. By the time she arrives from the kitchen, the milk has changed its initial state of matter from liquid to mucilaginous. Semicreamy sticky rags of milk float at the surface, making it impossible to drink. So I have to gulp and eat the milk to the last drops. At the bottom of the cup there lies the best part I am never going to have: the cocoa that somehow between the kitchen and the room goes down fast and creates a thin brown front that laughs at me at the end of my ordeal. One day I will have a spoon in hand and show it! (to be continued)