I Must Betray You (12 page)

We sat in the kitchen, glued to Radio Free Europe and reports of revolutions in other countries.

There will be danger here.

That's what the woman said. What did that mean? Should I tell Bunu?

“Poland and then Hungary!” shouted Bunu.

“Shh . . . too loud!” said my mother.

“Now East Germany. My god, the Berlin Wall is falling!” said Bunu, his hand upon the radio. “Do you know what this means?”

“Yeah, Poles, Hungarians, and East Germans make revolutions and all we make are Bulă jokes,” I said.

“Just wait. Be patient, Cristian. Trust me.”

I did trust Bunu. But the woman from Boston had said America was focused on Germany and didn't know much about Romania.

“Bunu, if no one knows much about Romania, how will they know we need help?”

“Romanians who live outside of the country—the diaspora and exiles—they're on our side and will spread the word,” insisted Bunu.

“Too loud! Be quiet,” whispered Mama.

My father joined us late that evening. Normally quiet, he began to make comments.

Just single words here and there.

Bold. Hold. Fight.

The tone and strength of his voice sounded so foreign.

In hindsight, that makes sense.

Because at that point I didn't really know my father.

At all.

Reports continued to flow into Romania.

My often-absent father suddenly spent more time at home.

In the evenings, our entire family lived in the kitchen, waiting for broadcasts. I hated that Bunu was still weak and we were Kentless, but I was grateful to him for saving our radio.

“Bunu, how do we know that these broadcasts are accurate?” asked Cici.

“Freedom of the press is democratic,” replied Bunu.

“But if Radio Free Europe was created by the Americans, how can we trust it?” whispered Mama.

My father stared at her. “Mioara, what choice do we have?”

“We can turn off the radio! It's too stressful!” she insisted.

“It will be more stressful without information,” said my grandfather.

“Bunu,” I whispered. “Do you think the regime is listening to the reports?”

“Of course! They need the the information themselves to strategize.”

The developments and reports bolstered a flutter of activity. Over the next few days, Bunu had a steady flow of visitors and colleagues who seemed very concerned about his health. News of revolutions and
chats with his friends strengthened my grandfather but angered my mother. I couldn't figure out why.

“Bunu, why is Mama so angry?” I asked.

He responded with a shake of his head and just one word.

“Fear.”

The night air was crisp with cold. A full moon spilled light onto the street.

I stood, tucked within a shadow on our balcony. The Secu agent who lived beneath us rummaged through his boxes. I peered over the railing. The agent lifted a tarp and retrieved something from a crate. A bottle of cognac? Interesting, I had pegged him as a vodka man. Maybe he had a date. I waited, watching the street below. The agent emerged in his long dark coat and strode toward the black Dacia.

And then I saw her.

Liliana walked down the sidewalk with her brother.

I retreated into the fold of shadow, watching. She suddenly stopped and turned, glancing across the street. The ends of her purple scarf lifted in the wind. Was she looking for me—or was she looking at the agent? I had voices on both shoulders:

You don't want Liliana.

Liar. You want her more than ever.

You're angry. Be angry at her.

That's garbage. You're in love with her.

I quickly slipped back inside our apartment.

The low hum of our radio warbled with news. Bunu shivered. I put a brick in the stove to tuck under his blanket for warmth. And then I stood next to Cici, listening.

‹‹Satellite states formerly aligned with the Soviet Union are quickly breaking away from communism. We've yet to receive a reaction from other Eastern Bloc allies such as Cuba, China, or North Korea.››

I shook my head. Poland, Hungary, and even East Germany, they had all marched toward freedom. “What about Romania? We'll be left behind,” I lamented. “All these countries will be free, and we'll be left behind.”

“No,” whispered Cici, putting her arm around me. “Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria aren't free.”

True. We weren't entirely alone.

Maybe it just felt like it?

Czechoslovakia was next.

November 17th. The beginning of the end.

The Velvet Revolution, they would call it.

Czechoslovakia had endured forty-one years of one-party rule. Nearly half a century under communism.

And now that was crumbling.

Bulgaria.

Our neighbor on the southern border.

Their leader of thirty-five years had forced the country's Turkish minority to take Bulgarian names. He was unpopular. Even Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev disapproved of Bulgaria's leader.

The country began . . . to oust him.

Poland.

Hungary.

East Germany.

Czechoslovakia.

Bulgaria.

Their communist regimes had all fallen.

“Yugoslavia will be complicated,” said Bunu. “They have six republics to balance. Conflicts since Tito died.”

If Yugoslavia would be complicated, what did that mean? Was Romania the last ring holding the Iron Curtain? I shivered in my closet, making entries in my notebook.

Do you feel me?

Heating a brick

To warm my sleep

Drifting into dreams

In search of myself,

In Search of a conscience, a country

Later that week, Starfish appeared in his black boots and a brand-new suede jacket. He pulled me aside on the street.

“Nice coat. Where'd you get it?” I asked.

“Forget the coat, did you hear? Nadia Comăneci defected. She trekked through the woods, made it over the border into Hungary, and requested asylum.”

“What?” Romania's star Olympic gymnast, Nadia Comăneci, had defected? “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

“Tass, the Soviet news agency. I know someone,” said Starfish. “News about it has been blacked out here.”

News
was
blacked out. But we soon heard it on Voice of America.

Nadia Comăneci had arrived . . . in the United States.

One of Romania's biggest celebrities had no access to a passport, no privacy, and no freedom. Of course not. She had been considered property of Romania, owned by the State. Until now.

Nadia's international attention probably enraged Mother Elena. After all, there was room for only one hero in Romania.

Him.

I began the slow march to the entrance of my gray apartment block. Had Mr. Van Dorn helped Nadia? How many others were trying to run through the snow toward the Hungarian border? If Romania's superstars were suffering, would the world finally understand the terrible plight of the ordinary Romanian people?

No. Of course not.

How could we expect others to feel our pain or hear our cries for help when all we could do was whisper?

I wanted freedom. I wanted Romania to fight back.

I filled my notebook with statements, lists, and information about our country, cries for help that I hoped Mr. Van Dorn would share with others. I created a section called
Gânduri
—Thoughts—which contained musings like these:

Paradise:
If communism is Paradise, why do we need barriers, walls, and laws to keep people from escaping?

I raked my hands through my hair, thinking. There were probably rules. Rules preventing diplomats from knowingly accepting something controversial. I needed to get around that, make sure Mr. Van Dorn couldn't refuse the notebook. Think of ways to encourage him to share the information with others.

What if the notebook just appeared? The author, unidentified?

I took a breath and wrote the following on the cover:

SCREAMING WHISPERS

A ROMANIAN TEENAGER IN BUCHAREST

BY ANONYMOUS

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.

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 Ceauşescu 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?

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.”

“Mama, where's Bunu?”

“Come here, please.”

A cold twist of fear seized my abdomen. I slowly approached the table.

“I came home from work,” she whispered, “and found your grandfather.” The illuminated cigarette in her hand began to vibrate. “We've put him . . . in the bedroom.” She set the quivering cigarette on the lip of the ashtray and reached for my hand. I helped her out of the chair, then followed her to the closed door. She took a breath, turned the knob, and pushed the door open.

And then she turned her back.

Bunu lay on the bed. But it wasn't Bunu. Life had fled and left a waxy corpse—a withered leaf that had lost its water. Bunu's gray skin stretched gaunt and taut over his angular cheekbones. His open eyes stared hollow and his mouth pulled wide, as if living a silent scream, gasping for freedom.

My chest rose and fell, panting. “Bunu . . . no. He was feeling better.” I stared at the husk of my grandfather and then I realized.

“Mama—”

She turned to me, shook her head, and put a finger to her lips.

I took a step closer to the bed.

Bunu's hands lay like broken birds. Their color, a purple so dark, nearly black. The bones above his palms were snapped, smashed.

Mama pulled back the blanket covering his legs. A wave of nausea rolled through me. Bunu's bare feet had been clubbed beyond recognition.

“His chest. The same. All ribs broken,” she whispered in my ear. “They beat him to death.”

My body was instantly cold. A rush of shock and frozen fury. I stood shaking at the side of the bed and felt myself buckling to the floor. Who did this? Who would viciously beat an elderly man? And why? My god, was leukemia not enough?

Bunu. My grandfather, my teacher, my inspiration.

My hero.

How could I ever live without him?

My mother kneeled down. She laid her hand upon my shoulder.

“This,” she whispered, “is what happens to philosophers.”