Fear No Men

By Lonely Wolf and Marinela Christel

A child born in a Communist country. A car accident. Unfaithful husbands and fathers. Unfortunate friends, relatives and strangers.

Corrupt role models.

City life or Transylvanian villages steeped in centuries of blood and traditions.

Gypsy fortunes and misfortunes; sharing fruit with the Communist President.

With stigma attached to her like a Jewish star or a cow brand, a little girl encounters termination over and over and the scars map the way to the beginning of the road ahead.

The perseverance to wage battle against the odds with rudimentary weapons fashioned from experience in the school of Hard-Knocks would drive anyone else into the faraway fields of madness and mayhem.

Her splayed footprints follow the paw prints of her model and mentor, the wolf; always faithful, always courageous, always committed and always working for the good of the pack.

Her tragic yet childish innocence attracts predators along the way and she learns how to heal the pain within, by becoming even more passionate and compassionate of human nature, never losing faith in her power to change destiny.

Follow this child as she grows up under the Communist umbrella. At times her trips are violent, sometimes funny, sometimes deadly, but during many stumbles, falls and scrapes, she will take you into the twisted world of adults, to show you the light in her spirit and her unshakable power of believing in oneself.

Due to the graphic nature and details in her world, adults will feel uncomfortable and younger audiences should not attempt to enter.

The language used is that of the narrator as a child who becomes a teen and then a young-adult, throughout the chapters of her life.

Whoever considered or labeled this child crazy, is either dead, old, or otherwise committed to the solitude of eternal damnation and any similarities to real people in life is purely coincidental.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465364418

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Wow! What a ride! What a flight! I knew it would be exciting and different but not like this! Nothing was tied with rusty wires, all doors had latches and all windows were firmly in place, no gaps! And it was clean; sparkling clean!

On this plane too, my third in two days, when food was served, everything was wrapped neatly in cellophane, everything smelled and tasted foreign, even the peanuts were fresh, opposed to what I was used to; stale, rancid and bitter. I was enthralled when I realized I was sharing a space with genuine, English speaking, classy individuals; I promised myself to observe and learn how to be one of them.

When we hit air turbulence over the ocean and my bag of peanuts flew out of my hand and onto the floor of the plane isle, I immediately unbuckled my seat belt and got down on my knees to pick up the delectably salty treats. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was a slob or I wasted food. Most passengers were asleep and some barely cared, and only one, young and pretty stewardess, with long legs and gorgeously coifed hair was patrolling the isle, whispering to people or getting drinks, a blanket or a pillow. She looked at me and nodded kindly; I picked faster.

That’s all right Miss, we’ll take care of it she smiled at me from above and promptly ran a silent contraption on the carpeted floor; all peanuts and pieces disappeared before my eyes inside the hungry underbelly of the little red contraption. Such class!

I thought of Mom. She would have been soooo happy to crunch the peanuts instead of wasting them; but she was probably already back home, thinking and wondering if anyone was feeding me. Little did she know that I was on my last leg of the journey and soon I was about to meet my husband and I would have all I wanted to eat and plenty of it too.

Ladies and gentleman, the Captain requests that you extinguish all cigarettes and return to your seats. We are about to land at our destination, Chicago’s own O’Hara airport. We request that you… one of the stewardesses announced in a highly sophisticated English accent and I was having a hard time sitting still and not jumping ahead of everyone to get to my first American bathroom. I speculated if they had the same system in America as they had back home; the antiquated two iron footprints, a hole in between and if lucky a flush; I wondered how much would they charge for toilet paper and for washing hands? Probably, they would even have a real toilet where old people could sit down, like they had at the hotel in Bucharest. I wanted to know, my bladder wanted to try it out!

We landed after a few bumps and I let go of my breath and my seatmate’s hand which nearly turned purple from the pressure I held it with between my talon like fingers. I knew I was the epitome of unseasoned traveler, but I didn’t care.

Clutching my purse to my chest, I waited, chomping at the bit, for elegantly wrinkled and sleepy people to shuffle ahead of me, as the isle was now too narrow and it seemed that mysteriously, everyone had an extra bag in their hands. I didn’t have anything else, just my purse and somewhere, lonely and forgotten was my nomadic cardboard suitcase and it could be given back to me at some point. My life of eighteen years was in that suitcase. I realized that I was somewhat mawkish about it, but that’s all I had to ensure a near future; my belongings, as few as they were, I had something to hang on to.

The cloying smell of deodorant and confusing mixtures of perfumes and colognes rushed in through the plane’s open door and I couldn’t get enough of it all!

I couldn’t see ahead of me; everyone was tall, taller than anyone at home, even the women were taller than any I’ve seen through my entire life until now. My seatmate on this plane, an old English professor and his tall 10-year-old granddaughter who never stopped whining about all her wants and needs, wished me luck on American soil, while towering over me, his smiles genuine and engaging. I thanked him and for a moment I wanted to ask him if I could go with them because I really didn’t know anyone else in Chicago; but then I remembered I was supposed to be strong and able, not to mention, one day, famous.

At last; I was standing in the doorway, which opened into an enormous room filled with eager hosts waiting for their loved ones and I searched faces to find my mustached, tall, long haired husband. The sea of people moved and came, left and cried, laughed and embraced and all I could do was swallow the lump in my throat and quell the fear in my heart. My husband was nowhere in sight.

A little woman waved delicately at me. A tall, young man by her side grinned happily and stepped forward, towards me. They were both looking at me expectantly and I didn’t know what to do next. Their eyes were alike and I recognized something familiar in both their faces. My knees went weak, my hands turned to claws inside my sweaty palms as I took a reluctant step forward and sucked in a deep breath of my new life among strangers.

My mind snapped and I detached from reality as a question reeled in my frenetic mind’s soul.

What am I doing here? I asked aloud in Romanian.

So, you’re the little alien? the smiling, yet dour looking, little woman asked. I didn’t have an answer; I didn’t know what an alien meant. The young man by her side grinned apologetically and grabbed my hand Hey! I’m Doug, Gary’s brother. You look lost… don’t be scared…

My eyes searched the window to his soul and I found nothing to be afraid of, aside from the demons, which crossed the ocean with me.

*

CHAPTER ONE

 ~ When I die ~

Grandpa’s favorite explanation and cure for everything was simple; ‘Cacat vechi’ meaning ‘old doo-doo’. As soon as one purges, one feels whole again, or at least not as burdened. I am taking his advice, a little late, but better than never.

*

Noises from the adjacent room make me jump from the table to peek through the glass door separating the two rooms. Mom and Dad were quarreling just a minute ago and I pretended I was playing with my play dough, but I was just listening to them fight. I was silently asking God to not let it happen but it seems that God was busy and he didn’t hear me. I prayed I wouldn’t encounter his wrath for daring to disturb him. I looked up at the faded, colorful picture on the wall in its old and peeling frame and God smiled at me; a stony smile, as if he held the secrets of life itself in his hands. I wanted him to teach me some of his secrets so I could stop Mom and Dad from fighting, forever!

Dad’s beating up on Mom, again. Mom is in a fetal position, jerking and curling into herself more and more; muffled sobs escape her lips between thumping punches and kicks. Dad has sudden and irrational demonic outbursts often and Mom is the recipient of his cruel side.

I’m small and frightened and I don’t know what to do. The door’s locked from the inside and Mom’s not protecting herself or moving anymore. I press my face into the glass window and call to them. I scream, but neither one hears me. I pound on the glass door with my fists but they still don’t hear me. I taste the blood on my tongue as I bite it hard. I feel horrible because I can’t help Mom. I must run outside to get our neighbors. They’ll know what to do to stop Dad. If not by holding him, by the shame he’ll feel when they see him beating on Mom again; it hasn’t even been a week since the last time they pulled him off of her, one of them reminding him that he’s a doctor and he’s supposed to save lives, not end them. He’s their doctor too. He treats them all with pills and shots when they’re sick. He’s everyone’s doctor in the neighborhood. Maybe they’ll bring the policeman. No, I’ll get our neighbor, Mrs. Piringer. She’s big and strong and speaks German to my Dad and he doesn’t understand her, but always does what she says. She laughs at him and he gets shy around her. Maybe she’ll be able to stop him. I don’t know… I’m getting her!

Mrs. Piringer waddles her three bellies as fast as she can and pushes her way through the narrow kitchen, planting herself in front of the glass door; Dad’s still cussing and slapping Mom from side to side. Mom’s face is white, with streaks of crimson across the cheeks. Her nose is bleeding and her eyes are closed. Oh God, please don’t let her be dead!

Mrs. Piringer shouts, Halt in a commanding, thunderous German voice that makes the dishes rattle in the peeling cupboard. Father stops in mid strike and a look of surprise crosses his handsome face, now contorted by pure evil.

Mother curls tighter. Her body convulses. Father combs his brilliantine slicked hair by running his fingers through it. Those long, pale surgeon’s fingers… able to inflict such pain or heal…

He unlocks the door and I run to Mom and cry out her name. She uncurls and with a movement of her eyes she wordlessly tells me to go away. Mrs. Piringer wants to help Mom, but father blocks her. He tells her there’s a small misunderstanding and there’s no need to be alarmed. She should take me and let me play with her kids, while he tends to mother. She doesn’t push it but gives him a stern look. He understands he must behave or else—don’t know what the else could be, but he doesn’t want to find out. There’s an air about Mrs. Piringer that leaves no room for argument.

I try to resist going with her by stiffening my legs against the carpeted floor and grabbing Mom’s hand. Mrs. Pirringer pulls me by the arm. I feel as if I’m about to be torn. Mrs. Piringer cradles me instead and picks me up as if I weigh less than a feather. I look at Mom one last time. She tells me to go. My head is pounding, my ears are ringing and I feel pukey. Two chairs are turned upside down, their legs as skinny and stiff as mine.

Mrs. Piringer soothes my fears in German words and I don’t understand, but it feels safe; she holds me tight to her ample German bosom that smells like baked apples. She drops me in a chair in her large kitchen. The kitchen also smells like baked apples, rum and vanilla. Edi and Karin, her children, are in the kitchen with their Dad, Mr. Piringer; he stretches his right peg leg on the spotless, wood, yellow floor and I can see he’s about to take it off. I wonder how he’s going to walk without it? He’s a fat man, with a huge belly and kind face with triple chins. Edi tells me that his Dad has to fix the straps and I don’t understand how he can do that because he’s just a watch repairman. There are hundreds of watches all over their kitchen in all sorts of shapes and sizes and tick-tock sounds. Some have little birds or little people come out and make noise or music or pirouette in an endless dance. I love being in their house. Everything seems so happy, so calm…

I sit quietly and listen to them all prattling in German. Mrs. Olas, their grandma, comes out of the room and mumbles as she shuffles back and forth between us.

Asteo kutofaia she says and swats the air with her hand as if she’s spanking a bare bottom. I have no idea what she means by that phrase but I hear it at least once every day, although I’ve never seen her spank Edi or Karin, his sister, only the fat, white cat that sleeps in her room and poops on our doorstep every morning.

Everyone smiles politely as she mumbles in German and she’s satisfied; she made her point and after pinching some of the warm apple struddle, she holds the pastry in one hand and cups the other underneath, looking at me expectantly. I jump off my chair and hop to her door, open it and she goes into her room. I’ve never been in her room; I don’t think anyone’s allowed into her room, even when she’s not there. She likes to take her walks every day, her cane worn, yet still golden and curved, with a wolf’s head curled just right for her hand. Her white hair is always expertly twisted in a generous tight bun; her high, red cheekbones support her entire body, it seems. There’s not a gram of fat on her upper body or face. Her breasts are pendulous and braless. Her waist is small without layers, yet under it, her tummy is huge and sagging and her ass is enormous. She always looked like an oddity to me as if God’s had some fun putting her together from two different bodies. I always thought of her as a platypus.

She pokes her head out of her room and looks at me with a scoff; her eyeglasses magnify her intense, rheumatic blue eyes and she doesn’t blink, her eyebrows questioning me. I wonder what I should do; she scares me most of the time, although, in the past, she’s soothed me many a time when Dad got in his psycho moods. I keep my eyes down and she goes back into her room, thumping her cane on the wooden floor. I wonder if she wanted me to cry or talk about what Dad was doing to Mom again?

I pretend to be interested in the baked goodies that Mrs. Piringer places in front of me; I feel a little less nauseated as Karin, her daughter, dances around me in her newly made tutu. I wish I had one, but we don’t even have a sewing machine.

Edi holds a bunch of colored pencils in his fist and a blank page between two fingers. His blond whitish hair shimmers like a golden hedgehog’s under the kitchen light. He looks expectantly at me and motions me with his head and eyes toward the opened door. I know that’s my only avenue; to follow him and I’ll be able to hear my Mom and Dad and can dash in, if anymore trouble starts.

His Mom smiles and nods and we both scramble out, the goodies forgotten. I wasn’t hungry anyway, not even for delicious sweets.

Edi stretches on his belly on the cobblestones and starts sketching; he’s watching my face. I glance at him and lick my salty tears as they run onto my lips. I’m watching an ant trail, imagining I’m one of them. I see big black ants carry small dead ants to the hole in the ground and I want to follow them. Maybe some day we’ll carry my Dad like that. Right now I wish him dead so he cannot and will not hurt Mom anymore. A large tear escapes and falls onto the ants. I know that my sorrow will drown them, and hurriedly I try to remedy the situation. I manage to mangle and cripple ants in my eagerness to save them. There are more tears as I sob quietly inside my chest, my mouth firmly closed, although I can’t get enough air through my stuffy nose.

Edi sighs. He whispers that I shouldn’t cry, there’re a million ants left in the world and I whisper back that there’s only one Mom. He nods with understanding. I think he’s wise and kind.

I look anxiously towards my door. There’s only silence in there, like a tomb. Our door is a double door, and between we store perishables and pickled stuff. I’ve never seen a refrigerator aside from the ones at my Mom’s workplace, at Dunarea Tavern. I wish we had a fridge. I could collect all the tears and freeze them and take them out when I need them. Maybe make a drink out of them and serve them to Dad… maybe he’ll get as sad as I am and he’ll understand how much it hurts.

Edi gets up on his knees and admires the few lines he sketched. He grins at me as he turns the paper over for me to see the beginning of a likeness to my hair and tears. My face is invisible on the paper. His knee crushes a few ants. A little ant struggles to right itself and instead it curls up, helplessly. My Mom curled up that way.

I pick up the crippled ant and bathe it in my tears. It stretches and lies still. Edi watches me in silence. The ant is dead. Mom isn’t. I won’t cry over Mom, I won’t let my tears touch her. I just won’t cry anymore!

I forget about Edi and walk to my door. I have to stop for a second to take a deep breath of fresh air, before passing the grilled canal where sewage is continuously flowing with its stench and various carcasses; everyone in that courtyard, including my family discard the contents of bedpans, dishwater, laundry water and other things, into its abysmal stench.

Once, Krista, a girl ten years my senior, threw out her aborted fetus after she had a back alley abortion; a bunch of us kids watched her as she carved its little limbs, one by one. It was smaller than a kitten and its eyes were closed. It looked more like a frog than a baby.

Her father beat the shit out of her, so bad that she squatted right above the canal and shit on the remains of her own baby as her father kicked her in the back and pulled her hair out. The smell of blood and shit stayed with me for months and when I closed my eyes at night, I could hear baby cries coming from the sewer. Edi told me once that he could hear the cries too, but it was probably only our imagination or the horny cats on the prowl and we shouldn’t tell anyone, because the communist watchdogs would be on us like flees on a dog. Not about the cats, but about Krista’s abortion. No abortions were allowed. Our Communist father, Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, wanted more and more children. Maybe there was no baby crying that Edi and I could hear… maybe it was a cat! Neighbors would often kill the newborn kittens by throwing them to drown in the canal. We never found out what the cries were. I didn’t look in the canal for fear that I might see parts of Krista’s baby still hanging on the slime covered walls, or even a new born kitten in agony or worse; dead!

Krista was an only child to Osi and Luki. They shared a wall with our kitchen and I could hear everything if I placed a glass on the wall and pressed my ear to it. I didn’t understand much of their Saxish German dialect, but I understood the tone; they were mad at each other. They were both drunkards and brawled and bickered a lot. Krista was a teen with many plans, including defecting to Germany where they had some relatives who escaped the Jewish roundup in the WWII. They adopted Walter, a skinny little, nasty kid with large lips and a vicious temper. He was even younger than I was and not someone I wanted to play with. As a family, they were dirty and un-kept, lazy and crowded in a small room the size of a truck bed. Their 30 cats were the masters of that room and when they left the door open, the entire courtyard reeked of cat piss. Years later, my sister Ica would leave her son Ducu, in their care and although they were good people, I couldn’t stand to touch my nephew as he stank of cat piss, booze and cigarette smoke, in addition to the fleas clinging to him like pepper grains.

I look at their door and I can see that Osi is drunk as he lurches outside, then looks at me crookedly and growls like their dog, Volfie, a huge German Shepard; the dog growls in response and tugs at the chain, jumping to get closer to Osi. I ignore them both and look at the ants again.

Mom’s voice startles me. Mom’s my ant… She lays there all curled up and one day she’ll go stiff and my little fingers can’t dig up a grave to burry her in.

My father comes out of the house in a rush and almost trips over me. Volfie barks madly and Osi cusses the dog and my father.

Dad kicks my black cat out of the way and without a backward look, he leaves through the huge portal leading to the busy street. His spit shined black shoes echo on the cobblestones, a rhythm that matches the beat of my heart. Hard and determined! I hate Dad!

I get up and peak around the doorframe to see my Mom spread eagle on the kitchen floor. She either moved or was moved from the other room. She’s barely breathing. She can’t die! I won’t let her die!

She moans and opens her arms to me. I listen to the beats of her heart, and they are weak, like little moths fluttering against a windowpane. She kisses the side of my face and tells me that it’s over and everything’s all right; Dad went to get some medicine for her foot. I pull away from her and examine her foot. I didn’t see anything wrong when I came in. There’s a towel over her right foot and a crimson stain spreading like a carnation. An overturned chair is missing a leg; flakes of rusty iron pepper the yellow wooden floor. A nail sticks up from the overturned chair and there’s lots of blood around it. I pull off the towel and examine Mom’s foot.

I look in horror at the blood oozing steadily out of a dark wound in the heel of her foot. There’s something stuck in the wound. She tells me that’s the other half of the rusted nail. I want to take it out and end her pain, but she says no. Tata will be back and he’ll save her foot. I know he can do that. I’ve watched him at the hospital when he was doing his job, with the most delicacy I’ve witnessed in any other doctor. Dad was an angel to his patients. Now he was the devil; he put that nail in there, that was no accident, and I wished a nail like that would pierce his heart. For a moment I feel myself inflate to the size of a lion. I have enough strength to roar and scare my father into a little mouse. Wishful thinking… the beat of my heart deafens me and I feel as if I’m strangled. I take a deep breath and swallow my angry tears and snot.

I cradle my Mom’s foot for a long time and pray for a day when my father will be nice. Just nice; no beatings, no swearing, just peaceful. Mom moans and I come back to reality; my father’s back in the kitchen, standing in the doorframe, looking at us; I didn’t hear him come in. I feel the butterflies in the pit of my stomach lurch and propel me forward and with all my might, I charge my father, just like I did a moment ago in my daydream; he didn’t expect that. He topples over the two cement stairs. The glass vials in his hands fly and make a small ping, like a tinkle bell as they shatter.

"Futu-ti Dumnezeul tau! God fucker!" he swears and I realize what I just did.

The antibiotic vials were for my Mom’s foot and my anger has just destroyed my Mom’s chance of recovery.

Maybe I should have never been born. I wish I wasn’t. I wish they still allowed abortions when I was conceived and I wish my Mom aborted me too, like she did all the others. Dad didn’t want kids.

President Gheorghe Gheorgiu Dej was instrumental in creating the Communist Party and not even prison for 12 years taught him anything about human conditions or nature. He ruled by his own rules and had his little lackey dog Nicolae Ceausescu at his heels at all times. When he died in 1965, I remember many people celebrated and Dad was overjoyed that the terror of Communism was over and maybe someone from the region of Olt, where Dad was born, would be a better leader and stronger figurehead to lead the nation into progress and freedom. What Nicolae Ceausescu did when he was elected president in Dec. 1967, and thank God my father was dead by then, was to immediately ban all abortions, implement food rations and make it mandatory for all women to have children.

Since neither president was firm enough to curtail my life in some way, I guess I had to live and make my Mom and Dad miserable. I had to live with fear, my closest and best friend. I would never be good enough at anything!

*

The bed is hard and itchy. I’m swaddled in vinegary, wet sheets and I try to remember what happened. I know I have a fever; I can feel the blisters on my lips with my fingertips. The vinegar drips into my eyes from the cloth on my forehead; I’m starting to feel cold. Maybe the fever’s gone. I call out for Mom and she answers from outside; she comes into the kitchen carrying a bucket of water. My lips are swollen. She sets the speckled metal bucket on the floor and gets the speckled, long handled tin cup off its nail. Mom’s hands are shaky and she limps as she comes closer to me. Her foot is tightly bandaged and now I remember what happened; all of it was my fault!

Her face is flushed and sweaty but her smile is the best sight. The usual crease across her forehead is smooth. I look past her and she shakes her head. Dad’s not behind her and the world is all right. She talks softly and bustles about in the kitchen as I peel the wet sheets off my body. I’m shivering and my teeth clatter.

Mom wipes my body and face roughly with a towel, her eyes filled with love. The friction of the towel makes me feel warm and alive again. She hums one of the popular songs on the radio, doua rindunici two little sparrows, by Margareta Paslaru. I love her voice and I start feeling good, full of energy and happiness, yet, I smell the booze on Mom’s breath and my stomach hurts again. I’m used to Mom drinking, but I still feel that chocking sensation in my throat, like I want to cry and beg her not to drink anymore. Dad insists she drinks with him whenever they’re together and it always ends up in some sort of fight. No worries right now. She’s singing and telling me that Veronica, my Dad’s niece from the village will be staying with us. Veronica never went to school in her village. I don’t even know if she can read. She’ll be taking care of me and taking me to kindergarten and maybe to play in the park. I never met her and I feel like she’ll be the salvation I need. Dad won’t fight with Mom anymore and he won’t beat her up. He’d be too embarrassed to be brutal in front of his niece. Or, at least, I’m hoping so.

*     *     *

Mom’s cooking tripe soup and it stinks for hours since it has to be boiled until it’s tender, instead of rubbery. Then she cleans the ruffled insides and slices it to shape of wide noodles; yuck!

Tripe is a rare delicacy and as far as I know one can only make soup with it; it’s a sour soup with plenty of vinegar and loaded with garlic but I can still taste the unique flavor of cow’s stomach and it’s not my favorite no matter how much sour cream I plop in it. I’d rather eat grass; although, Mom’s the best cook in the world and I love all of her other dishes, even deep fried, breaded brains and racele, the boiled pig’s foot encased in gelatin and sprinkled with plenty of paprika, tripe is not on my list.

Dad comes home and they talk softly. Mom’s sweet to him and she hums a song while serving him lunch; he worked a nightshift again, but he seems fine, not cranky. I feel almost safe to be happy.

Dad tells me I can go out and play, but to come when they call me, to meet my cousin. He and Mom will be going out to look at and get something that will cheer me up. I know what it is; it’s a bike! None of my friends have a bike and I will be noticed and they’ll want to play with me; at least the boys will. I can hardly wait to go out and play with my friends but I won’t tell them about the bike, not yet.

My friends are all boys: my best friend Edi, Silviu, Gabriel, Danut and Ioan, but Ioan is older and most of the time he just watches us and snitches on who hid where; all of them live right in my own little world and courtyard and we all share at least a wall in common between our divided apartments. We can hear what’s going on in each other’s home. I’m the only girl in the gang and I’m usually their prisoner in all our games. It’s the only way they accept me, if I let them tie me up and not cry like a girl when they leave me all alone in the cellar. The cellar smells like unwashed underwear, cloying, fishy and putrid and I can see the rats’ fat asses and long tails bouncing from place to place as they scurry around; some of them come close to me but I kick at them and they run away making weird high pitched sounds like they are mad at me for not letting them bite me. I hate it when they tie me up and leave me alone! It feels like a bad dream and even when I go to sleep in my own bed, I start my sleep journey with thoughts on how to escape faster the next time they will tie me up. I hate it, I hate it!

I solemnly swore alliance to the gang and after cutting each other’s pinky, we exchanged blood droplets and spit into each other’s face. I was now one of them, sort of, and although I am the youngest, I feel I am strong enough to whoop their ass each time they leave me tied up in the dark. I hate that because I hear whispers coming from all corners of the old cellar.

Silviu, the leader, is a grown-up of nine, Edi is eight and I am six, almost seven. We get to run wild through the neighborhood streets too. There aren’t many cars around and the tramway’s loud and slow, not too dangerous.

I love the streets with all the bumpy smoothed stones of different colors and shades. Images of Roman horses having galloped or strutted on these narrow roads, set my imagination to believe I was one of those Romans, a handsome lad, fighting for justice for the locals, the Daci. People said that whoever walked through the town left their footprints as a memory. I wonder if I left mine too, hundreds of years ago?

In our history classes, years later, I’ve learned that the town itself was built near or on a Roman settlement, one that would be known during the early Middle Ages as Cedonia. I often wondered if I am of Roman descent or Dacian descent. I’m dark skineed and haired, but on my father’s side there are blondes and also other many dark haired relatives… maybe a crossing of the two, or more?

In the 14th century, Sibiu was already an important trade center. In 1376, the craftsmen were divided in 19 guilds. Sibiu became the most important ethnic German city among the seven cities that gave Transylvania its German name Siebenbürgen (literally seven fortresses). I often felt I was going from forttress to fortress as I walked through town. There was always a long wall to walk along, always another hill to climb to the next wall, a porticle, a watch tower that overlooked the entire perimeter of the main city hold. I never really did much research at my young age, just listened to others who would tell of the city’s history, and all I knew was that I loved my town.

The attics and courtyards that Silviu knew were the best and darkest hiding places, even in the Ursuline church. The basement always scared, intrigued and fascinated me. It was my favorite hiding place, although the spookiest. As I hid there, I often heard voices chanting around me; to overcome my anxiety I examined the walls where the nuns were buried in little slots, some of the skulls gleaming in the dim light which penetrated through small windows barred with iron grates. I can swear I saw figures moving and floating by; some cried and some sang in a foreign tongue I didn’t understand but seemed familiar. I tried telling all that I experienced to my family and my playmates but all I got was something about a wild imagination. I knew what I saw, I knew what I heard and it was real to me. That’s all that mattered.

The Ursuline church became my home on and off for 12 years, since it was the school of my parents’ choice.

My school was a former Dominican church built in 1474. Maria Theresa bought the building and turned it into a nunnery.

The stories about Maria Theresa were numerous and mysterious to me. A statue of her riding on a horse was the most popular story, handed down from generation to generation and it refers to Maria Theresa being an insatiable nymphomaniac.

Every time I passed by the statue on my way to pick up Mom from work in my later years, I always dropped something on the ground so I could bend over and glance at the sculptor’s mastery of the horse’s phallus. The story said that Maria Theresa died while being impaled by a horse. I always had my doubts about that story, because from history taught in school, Maria Theresa seemed to have been a kind lady and a great archduchess and lady. She was a Holy Roman Empress and queen of Hungary and Bohemia. Hard for me to believe the rumors, but with rulers and adults, one never knew what truth was, or wasn’t.

She was well known for having many lovers, among which was one Samuel von Brukental who built the Brukental Museum which still stands in the middle of Town Square in Sibiu since 1817. In later years, I volunteered (forcefully, because of my rebellious behavior) to work at the museum, cleaning the statues, paintings, floor, glass cases and walls.

Since I was little and learned about Maria Theresa, I’ve held her image in my memory and I confronted many events in my life with her in mind. Maria Theresa was courageous, generous and kind. I was that way as far as I knew. She respected the rights of others and expected others to respect her rights.

Some historians have termed Maria Theresa as the savior of the Habsburg Dynasty. I was going to be the savior for my Mom someday. Some day I will have my own dynasty, of that I had no doubt.

Her legendary kindness to the Ursuline sisters inspired such desire in me as a child to explore some of the chambers where Maria Theresa once walked and I often followed footprints left in the dusty cement floor of the catacombs and I fantasized how I would curtsy and ask my queen who should I go and battle, for the rights of the whole clan. And then again, sometime, I would just sit there and look into the dusty semidarkness and see the legendary Maria come towards me, smiling and followed by a row of nuns and courtesans, slivers of sun reflecting off big rubies; or was it blood? Sometimes I would fall asleep watching their ghosts parade back and forth and I’d wake up refreshed and not afraid of the ghosts if that’s what they were. I was more afraid of the living, after I left the catacombs…

I so wanted to be a girl, wear pretty dresses, have long braided hair and skip and dance, have a sweet voice and be spoiled like many of the girls in school were, or the ones shopping with their adoring dads. I so wanted to be a princess, not even a queen, but a girl, a child nevertheless… instead, I was the boy Daddy wanted me to be. I made myself believe that I as tough, when underneath I knew I was gripped by relentless fear.

*

When playing, we kids never went too far, for fear of Gypsies. The gypsies came to town to sell their speckled tin dishes in exchange for clothes, money and gold. The water bucket and tin cup we had in the kitchen were from a gold gypsy, meaning she was not a beggar. Still, I could spot a gypsy a mile away just by the way they talked; real sweet, with a slimy undertone, like someone who would kiss your hand and at the same time they stabbed you in the back with the help of one of their own. Gypsy eyes were darker than the average people in town and their smiles were wicked and sly. At least that’s what we were taught and that is what we saw. We knew that gypsies stole white kids and after crippling and disfiguring them, they forced them to beg on the streets. They also kept the kids under some spell or drunk so they wouldn’t talk to strangers and even the parents of the missing kids wouldn’t recognize them. Let’s say I was weary of them; I didn’t want to end up as a crippled little beggar.

Mom was never afraid of the gypsies. On the contrary; she invited them right into the house and gave them tuica (plum brandy) to drink. She got all her dishes from the gypsies because they knew her well from the restaurants or taverns she worked at for many years. Mom was often their savior when cops wanted to beat them up or bust them for stealing. She’d pay for whatever they stole and declared that she sent them to buy it for her but she forgot to give them the money; or she would say that they were her servitori, servants. In turn, they were grateful to her for all the kindness; yet they couldn’t help themselves but bargain with Mom… anything that would make them feel that they got something more. Mom let them win every time, repeating that God always provides to those in need and there’s always plenty to go around. She was right. The gypsies came back and sometimes, when Mom ran out of clothes to give them in exchange for dishes, they knew she’d be good for credit and gave her the best, most select dishes, brooms and colorful silk scarves.

In a way, I liked watching Mom deal with them and the gypsies liked me too because I was as dark skinned as they were.

Mom was a light brunette, fair complexion with snappy brown eyes and bushy eyebrows and small mouth. I always thought she was so handsome; not pretty, not fragile looking, but handsome, strong!

Dad, on the other hand, had an olive complexion, crow’s black hair, slicked back with Brilliantine oil and penetrating black eyes. His features were almost delicate; his body was thin, angular yet muscle wiry. He looked more like a dancer, not a doctor.

I hoped the gypsies wouldn’t want to kidnap me and I felt somewhat safe because they wouldn’t dare cross Mom. I never told my gang about my Mom’s connection with the gypsies, but I knew, they knew; when Dad was around, none of the gypsies dared come to bargain with Mom. He was mean to the gypsies and they cursed him to hell and damnation. He didn’t care as long as I didn’t associate with them.

Today I had the freedom to go play with my friends and I knew Mom was safe from Dad for the time being, and life was as it should be.

Later on that afternoon, I met my cousin, Veronica. She was wearing the traditional peasant garb of white pleated skirt with black apron in front and back, beautifully embroidered. Her rough cotton top is intricately designed with hand-sown flowers and grapevines. Her hair is braided in two braids and piled around her head like an auburn halo. I’m thinking that if she’s going to go to school and baby-sit me and live with us she needs to get new clothes and maybe cut her hair and get a perm, like Mom or my sisters, look more town-ish, or… maybe not. I like her the way she is.

Our neighbor, Suciu, a handsome guy in his twenties comes to say hello and Veronica is shy, but I can see she likes him; a perfect chance for me to go play with the boys across the street. They’re all snickering and making fun of my cousin and me and they call me a baby and they call her a dumb peasant and I’m mad as hell. I confront Silviu, the leader. I feel like I have to defend my cousin and my family from his insults. He hits me hard across the face and I spin around from the force of his blow and my sandal slips off my foot and sails across the sidewalk to the middle of the road. I look to my cousin who’s still talking to the neighbor and she seems to not have noticed what happened; I look to my left, to my right, at the canopy of trees, the sky, along the sidewalk and I make my decision. I must retrieve my sandal from the street before some car or the tramway ruins it; it’s the only pair of sandals I have!

I dash to the street and stop to lean over and pick up my sandal; there are tires screeching behind me and I straighten up and there’s a bright, blinding light and the green canopy of trees and blue skies explode behind my eyes and everything wavers and swims and shimmers, and there’s a horrific crunching in my head and a warm wetness running along my neck and there are screams and someone’s crying and I tell them I can walk to the car, and I can do everything if they just let go of me. I’m strong! I’m tough! I can do it all by myself. And I want to ride in a car for the first time, but I’m pinned to the ground, unable to move.

The tree leaves are so green and tiny with delicate spidery veins running through, and the sky is spotless and fluffy with infinite color and I feel warm and soft.

Then it starts getting darker and darker and I’m perched on a white table and there are nurses with funny, stiffly starched hats and white coats and they yank at me and push me and bandage my head and then try to get my tank-top off and they pull and pull insistently and it hurts and… and it burns and there are bodies, little, tinny figures dancing in white silky gowns and they fly across the hallways and there are no walls and I fly through too, and someone cuts my tank-top with scissors and I’m free of pain and I float, up to the ceiling and drop and float and drop and I bounce and it gets faster and faster, up and down, down and up and I’m getting dizzy-weak and tired and it’s no fun anymore and I feel many hands on me and the tiny figures get bigger and they have kind faces and they talk to me without moving their lips and I’m scared, because I want them to move their lips and they smile and they hold me lightly and I see Mom smiling and Dad frowning and there are tears in his black eyes and I see my sister holding up her baby and I see my beautiful black cat and I see a strange land across a huge body of water and I want to go there and stay here, suspended, where there’s no pain, no sadness, no fear and then I get pushed, shoved and…

I hover and I look down and there I am, with a white turban on my head and nurses dressed in white but they’re no angels leaning over my thin body, just fat, loud and obnoxious nurses.

My Mom comes in and she cries and Dad’s tough and firm and he gives orders and I want for Mom to hold me safe and for Dad to stop being such a grouch and I bounce again, up and down, up and down and I come down hard and it all goes black; I think someone turned off the lights.

No more play for me; it doesn’t matter, I’m tired and I want to go home.

I am home… suspended above all. I’m as content to be here as field mice in a harvest bin…

CHAPTER TWO

 ~ Back to life ~

I look down through a keyhole in an invisible soft floor, somewhere in an attic. I’m confused. I wonder if that’s me. I don’t know me. It’s a thin form lying prone on rusty and peeling hospital bed, my head bandaged, knees unnaturally swollen and big needles sticking out of a big, bloated belly. There are two huge, black eyes, staring at me out of a little thin face and I can feel but do not understand the plea. Bring me back… or let me fly again…

A lone female figure stands watch and she reads slowly and awkwardly out of a book… her face looks familiar… Mom?

*

I remember learning to walk again, one step at a time; I got the story of what happened to me from everyone, in many variations. When I turned seven years old and learned to talk again, feed myself, play and understand at the level of maybe a three year old, I caught on life quickly. They told me I’ve been in a coma for over six months. Mom and Dad and my two sisters, each in turn, told me their version of what happened and how I ended up in a coma for over six months. Apparently I was pushed by my playmate, Silviu and lost my sandal; I ran out to get it, a taxi cab came and the driver stopped for fear that he already hit me. He was very drunk; wow! What a rarity!

I don’t remember ever seeing a sober adult as I grew up. It was a national past time and I always thought Romanians should have had a bottle instead of a sickle, crossed by the hammer, on the party flag.

The driver came out of the front passenger door and hit my head with the door, as the car was still moving. I was dragged down the street for a while and the driver finally stopped when people were screaming and trying to stop his cab. People had to hoist the cab to extricate me from under the cab’s door, which was imbedded into my skull.

The recovery was slow and painful. I could only sleep on one side. Part of my skull was now missing and I was obsessed with the pulse of my brain under the scalp. I spent hours looking in the mirror watching my brain pulsate to the rhythm of my heart. I wondered if the brain inflated like a balloon every time the heart was beating and sometimes I just wanted to take off the skin to see what my brain was made of, but I had no idea how to sew it back on.

The hair grew sparsely around the scar and soon it got long, but Dad kept trimming it and that made me mad. He said it was better short anyway because of all the lice in schools. It wouldn’t be good if I got lice stuck to the scalp skin covering my brain. He said that once the lice established their home, the agony would be worse than cutting off your fingertips. I didn’t understand the gravity of it, but he was a doctor and I was his daughter; double respect.

Soon I was fitted with a detachable plastic plate sewn underneath my hat to fit the contour of my missing skull bone.

I was no longer allowed to play with my friends, firstly, because I didn’t remember anyone anymore, and secondly, all my friends played rough. I was no longer allowed to go outside in the rain or snow. Instinctually, hail started to scare me, snowballs were my enemies, falling fruits were missiles and school children and sports were no more than a continuous danger. I was isolated and discriminated against and sometimes judged for being "nu normala" not normal, whatever that meant.

I was, however, allowed to watch, from the window or the small mail slot in the door, as kids played in the street and in the courtyard; or, once in a while, I could play with the girls, but their teasing was too much to take, since I didn’t understand it. I watched them play hopscotch or pretend they were homemakers as they made mud cakes and invited me to eat. I did, not knowing the difference at first. Not for me.

I wanted to be in the forefront, with my guys, fighting battles with wooden swords made out of spindly Christmas tree branches, or building bridges and digging tunnels! It seemed like more fun. Girls acted as if they were scared to be around me.

The boys were afraid of me too. Especially Silviu, who got the whooping of his life when his Mom found out that he pushed me in front of the car… well… in the street. I was kind of happy he got a beating, but I wanted to smash his face in myself; I just really didn’t know why. I didn’t remember what happened and who Silviu was or who I was. I couldn’t remember who Mom and Dad were, or my sisters were, or what town I lived in. It seems like the coma erased everything I knew, everyone I loved or didn’t like. I was scared. I listened to people in my life tell me what a horrible child I was before the accident; temperamental, covered in hair when I was born, whinny, stubborn, demanding. I asked everyone to tell me about me and I couldn’t find a single story that painted me in a good light. Why was I even here, I often asked myself?

One story that always horrified and saddened me was about the day I was born.

My father went to the maternity ward and since men were not allowed to visit their wives and newborns in the hospital for the first two weeks, my Mom held me out the window for my Dad to see me. He was shocked and horrified at the sight of my little skinny body covered in fine black hair. He asked Mom to drop me down and into his arms. Mom didn’t believe he would catch me and she took a pillow, wrapped it in a blanket and threw it down to him from a second story hospital window and he just let it drop at his feet; after which he turned his back, not even checking to see if I was dead or if it was even a sign of life in that blanket and walked away. No one heard from him for three days. My Mom and I got out of the hospital next day, but Dad couldn’t be found anywhere. Finally someone found him in a gypsy hovel, unconsciously drunk, drowning his sorrow and shame of my birth, in a filthy toilet. He eventually came home and I eventually lost all body hairs and turned into an olive baby with huge black eyes, small mouth and a shock of black hair on my head. Dad was as proud as a peacock and he showed me off to everyone who wanted to know his baby. His baby… he never said he had a daughter… he always wanted a son to carry on his name. He aborted ten of my Mom’s kids before I was born, and finally when Mom lied to him, abortion was out of the question; she was too far along and here I was, whether he liked me or not. I did have all my fingers and toes, eyes, ears, a face and a voice, but he didn’t notice I was a girl.

The story of my birth never made me feel very good about being alive. After coming out of the coma and hearing it over and over, I tried my best to be the boy Dad always wanted, despite all the restrictions. I tried my best to make Dad proud of me, for me to feel or get some approval for what I did and who I was; I tried even faster and harder than before, because I just lost six years of my life. Being reborn with a handicap was not what Daddy expected and I could see it in his eyes; he loved me, yet he seemed to have lost hope in me.

I started to play soccer, my plated hat on at all times, ignoring the ridicule of my playmates. I kicked ass in soccer and I was a good and quick golly, but even that was short lived; the coach found out about my handicap and I was no longer part of the team.

I tried gymnastics and the same thing happened. I was thrown out and ridiculed; Nadia Comanici was a couple of years younger than me and she was a bumbling little idiot girl I met a couple of times during training. She was a sour and temperamental girl and I didn’t like her, but I was also very jealous of her because she didn’t have any handicap.

I began sneaking out to another school across the street on Avram Iancu, and mingling with other kids at gym time. I started to play handball, a fine medley of soccer and basketball, and did get pretty good at it, until some asshole pulled my hat off and threw it over the wall into the recess garden. Next I knew, I got hit in the head with an elbow and went unconscious. I guess the elbow kind of jolted my already injured brain. That sealed it for me with my Dad. He screamed at me for hours how he saved my life doing the surgery on my brain and skull with the help of a Russian doctor by the name of Kiowsky. He didn’t want to see me go through that again, or worse. I guessed that was some sort of confession that he loved me…

I tried hard to be good and instead of playing outside, I started to read a lot. Mom and Dad were fighting a lot and soon, Dad was beating up Mom. They would brawl and scream and tell me to get out of the house and sit on the steps. Out of fear that Mom will be hurt really bad, I screamed at them and beat myself up, with my fists, over the head and the face. That stopped Dad and he’d run to my side to immobilize me and stop my furious tantrum and self-flagellation.

Their concern for my safety became my weapon against them and I used it every time there was any threat of a physical fight between them.

Soon though, I realized that they were hardly even talking