I
was happy to see so many people out to lunch, able to afford food and
particularly restaurant food, previously considered a luxury under communism
that only the ruling elite could afford and felt entitled to have and enjoy.
Adjacent
to Da Vinci’s was an old stately mansion in a terrible state of disrepair. A
tall fence covered in vines obscured the full view to the house. I peered
through the wooden slats that had separated here and there where the nails broke
or the wood decayed. The gate opened with a groan and I stepped inside the
yard. Someone forgot to lock the gate. There was neither a trespassing warning
nor any sign of habitation. The formerly tended front garden was overcome with
tall weeds, growing from the most unlikely places – like the many cracks of the
cement garden path.
I
walked to the front door and rang the massive lion head door knocker. It made a
hollow sound. I waited for a few minutes but nobody answered. I looked through
a window – the house was empty and had been empty for quite some time.
The
mansion was oozing rust from everywhere but especially the wrought iron front
foyer bump-out. The stained glass windows were still beautiful, just as I
remembered them. I used to count the squares and name the colors to pass the
time. The walls were cracked and peeling and the fancy silk wall paper hung
desolate onto the floor stained from water leaks. The Bohemian crystal
chandelier was still hanging in the dining room, missing bulbs and electricity.
The heavy rosewood furniture with strange carvings was gone. The parquet
discolorations bore witness to the place where they stood. Did the owners
remove them? Were they sold at auction? Did the communists apparatchiks
confiscate them in the 1980s and moved them to their villas?
Aunt
Ecaterina’s bedroom bay window that I admired was missing the heavy curtains.
Mom used to open them to let fresh air in. Miraculously the dingy glass was not
broken. I sat on a pillow in the bay window many Sundays checking out the lush
rose garden, now a jungle mess of weeds, or staring mesmerized at the rain. Mom
and aunt Ecaterina talked in hushed tones and she cried a lot.
She
always wore her finest housecoat and slippers made of rich silk brocade. I did
not understand at the time what secrets they shared, why we had to walk so much
to her home every weekend. It was a trek I dreaded but I was not old enough to
stay home alone.
Her
husband had been arrested because he was bourgeois. It must have been a
terrible crime, I thought at the time. I asked Grandma several times why her
youngest brother was in prison but she always avoided my question and turned
her eyes away, waving her hand in the air.
Years
later I understood. Grandma’s brother had acquired too much land and a nice
home and that was a crime in the new communist regime. He had worked very hard
to build a successful store from scratch, built the mansion, bought some land,
got married, and had a son whom he sent to the best schools to become a lawyer.
Class
envy and re-distribution of wealth sent him to prison for seven years. His wife
was devastated! The communist regime confiscated all the land, the store, the
bank accounts, and the furnishings. They left Ecaterina’s ornate bed. She
became so depressed; she seldom got out of her matrimonial bed. Mom tried to
cheer her up with our weekend visits. I only looked forward to her sour cherry
preserves on rye bread. It was a real treat.
Nobody
knows how uncle Pavel survived seven years in jail – it certainly was not a
walk in the park being beaten daily and eating potato soup and bread. He died
several years after having served the full sentence. Aunt Ecaterina never
recovered from her depression. Not only did she have to suffer the indignity of
losing everything, including the love and comfort of her husband, the communist
party moved two families of strangers into her home. Nine more people made the
large house look suddenly small and crowded. She had to share the kitchen, the
hallways, and bathrooms with total strangers. She lived long enough to see her
only adult son succumb to lung cancer. I wonder if the grandchildren inherited
the mansion and did not have the money to remodel.
It
was bittersweet, stepping back in time 40 some years, remembering the misery
and abuse of communism. I walked back into the street and to the restaurant. By
now, Ana and Stefan had arrived and were looking for me. I glanced back one
more time at the rusty tin roof – the sun was shining but the house looked
forlorn and leaning.
I
smiled when Stefan gave me a hug and threw his back pack on the ground. The day
was going to be all right, the fog of the past dissipated. Unpleasant memories still
hound me, triggered by unusual circumstances. I went back to Romania to revisit
my past but the unplanned encounters with the ghosts of communism were still painful.
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