Interactiuni

All this actually happened. Yet how it really was can now only be approximated. It was more than sixty-two years ago, or about eighteen years from her birth, in an Orthodox family, in interwar Romania, latitude 46, longitude 27. On May 21, 1930, when the water broke, her mother was still convinced that she would give birth to her first born child through her armpits. Or so the legend runs in the family, from generation to generation, and I am dutifully passing it down to you. At this very moment, the first born looks at me with her light blue eyes, and the camera records in a Saturday afternoon light a strange flicker in her right eye due to recent eye surgery. Obeying the first rule of the “Vow of Chastity” proposed by Dogme ’95, no props or sets were brought into her living room during shooting. The setting consists of an armchair and a few scattered files, documents, and typed poems, forming a semicircle on the floor. The walls are dusty yellow, the door is left open, the street noise remains in the background. The interview takes place on the fifth floor of a communist block of flats, in a common place with common people, with a replica of the Little Mermaid. (the view is cinematic)

The woman in front of me, sitting slightly bent forward on the armchair, is now eighty years old. When I initiate flashbacks, there’s almost a metallic quality to her eye quivering. Her eyes respond faster than her voice, her thoughts follow a set of narrative patterns to go back to the Second World War and its aftermath. In 1944, the year of the refuge, the entire family traveled by train to Lipova, where they remained from March to September. Afterward, she alone moved to Bucureşti and stayed with her aunt and her first husband, Boris – a discreet individual in the family portrait, remembered for his Russian name and for his gift of music. Fifteen years old at the time, she finished the eighth grade in the capital city, at “Domniţa Bălaşa Brâncoveanu” high school. The enrollment at this institution started with a fraud. When she retells the incident, the camera records a cheerful glimmer in her eyes, as if she were saying “I was an ingenious and determined girl.” In the fall of 1944, the applicant had forged a letter from the Ministry of Education and admitted herself to that school. The forgery was clumsily committed, with the right hand of a teenage girl that used new ink and a blade to make the official letter read, “This candidate is to be admitted even if the number of places available is exceeded.” This brave act of fraudulence had not only turned the subordinate clause in the applicant’s favor, but it also enabled her to get her first job as a typist a few years later, after the war, due to the fact that she had learned typing and shorthand at that school, in Bucureşti. By that time, however, she had to describe herself in more appropriate terms. “Endowed with democratic abilities,” the interviewee would write in a letter, “I am politely requesting to keep my job as a typist, despite the fact that I am not yet eighteen years old.” And so the job was hers for a little longer, until 1949, when she was asked to resign for religious and political reasons. She shook her head. “This is a difficult story,” she muttered, her voice fading, as if fearing the bad timing of a digression. (an ambulance siren)

After living in Bucureşti for almost a year, with her aunt and Boris, she returned to Iaşi and continued her studies at a commercial high school for girls only. It was her parents’ ambition to see her getting a good job as soon as possible and the commercial profile of the school, as well as the student fee, matched their idea of the daughter’s future: accountant at the train station. Meanwhile, the war had decided otherwise and the urgency of getting a job turned her into a typist. Having seen some of the documents she typed and the transcript of records from high school – all lying in a semi-circle on the floor – I can testify that neither typist nor accountant were the appropriate professions for the eighteen-year old. (picture a blurred image of the war)

She remembers the last few years of high school, before she got married in October 1948, as dancing years. The first ball she attended was in a village, close to where her husband-to-be was living. They didn’t know each other then, they didn’t meet at that ball either, and the love story that is left from those few teenage years does not quite concern him. This scene had to be cut. (a picture of the green box on the top shelf) This first ball she attended was organized in a village school. “The situation is clear,” she explains. “The school has two main rooms and the hallway in between serves as a bar. The ‘intellectuals’ go dancing in the room on the left, the ‘peasants’ on the right.” In the hallway, a student is nervously pushing a chair against the wall with his leg time and again – the hallway rhythm is a schizophrenic mix of waltz, tango, and horă.

In the city, however, they deal the cards differently.

In Iaşi, after the war, balls were hosted on occasion at the flamboyant, neo-gothic Palace, where not only high school and university students would come, but also the rank and fashion of the city. That one time when she went to the ball at the Palace, she received all these postcards as tokens of affection from suitors. The custom was to offer a postcard to the one courted. The greatest number of postcards received would determine the queen of the ball, and in turn, she would choose the king of the ball and dance together the queen’s waltz in the sumptuous ball room. The ball would usually end at daybreak. (looking at the camera, she grabbed the green box and closed it) “Many such balls I attended and I have lots of other stories to tell, but more than enough is too much,” she murmured and shied away. Her gleeful voice became slightly irritated. “I was not necessarily looking for a man to marry, on those occasions. It was a new world to me and I loved dancing. The conditions to marry a man – the conditions that my parents imposed – were two: the young man had to be enrolled at university and he also had to fulfill his military service.” There was a long pause in the discussion, initiated by the annoying ring of the phone, which she did not pick up.

All these young and hungry people had survived the war. They ate dog meat and bread with sawdust, they knew little of politics and romanticized their adolescence. (the camera is shaking) The questions are now different, yet the layers of the past seem to be made of brick. The answers are built in. Behind the wall, there’s a boiling kettle. The mother pours the hot water into a small tub and bathes the smallest baby, then the next one, and the last one. In the same water, the father washes himself and the mother does the same. Once a week, always at the end of the week. Everything was used and reused – fabrics, water, shoes… There were no dancing shoes, only public bathhouses for common people. The railway company had a public bathhouse for its employees and family and it was free of charge. That’s where she would go for a steam bath and a shower, together with her much younger brother and their mother. Usually, on Wednesdays. “Aaron also had a public bathhouse. My mother preferred his, because of the steam quality, but we had to pay so we didn’t go there often.” In the steam “amphitheater,” the sturdy ones would sit on a board closer to the ceiling – “See, my mother, she was up there, holding a bunch of oak leaves she used for some sort of medical reason.” The worker would come in every now and then to pour water over the heated stones in the oven. After showering, the clean customer could lie down for a while in bed. (white sheets)

After she married and moved to Bacău, the family lived without a bathroom in the house for another fifteen years. The boiling kettle and the brick wall of the war period were transformed during communism. The kettle ritual would sometimes be performed at candle light, fault of electricity and hot water, whereas the brick wall would multiply greatly and ears would grow on them like ivy.

Cu fereastra larg deschisa, se aud rotile de bicicleta scartaind de dimineata. Nu mai e nici o indoiala, si la piata sint ridichi si cas. Sa fie pentru toata lumea!

“They have no memory of communism and Ceausescu. They were too young to remember, or were not born yet. They are the Generation ’89, they look towards the future, they want to change Romania.”

Generation ’89, a videoreportage by Francesco Martino and Davide Sighele

Highlights: pentru noi ’89 reprezinta doar o poveste; cel putin daca ar arata si Romania cum arata Germania; sa ma tin in continuare de blog.

Post matinal din fraze scurte. we have a dream situation. Putin mai multe despre Balcani nu ar strica blogului. Gandurile de dimineata se duc inspre Macedonia. Foltin si muzica. Precum cu Johnny Weir intr-un fel, e o problema cu “fitting in”. Muzica lor e greu de clasificat. the tip of the tongue. Excentrici? Un raspuns, in Osservatorio balcani e caucaso.

What we say is that we do pseudo-emigrant cabaret or that we play music for “dry, nervous fingers”

donkey hot

Am gasit  cateva fotografii din seria “casa, dulce casa” .  Primele sunt facute iarna, cu vreo doi ani in urma (cand ne intorceam de la Budapesta). “Casa” ne-a facut cu ochiul ei discret si inghetat. Am oprit langa un sant (undeva dupa Reghin) si am facut doua – trei poze in viteza (era frig rau!).

Urmatoarele sunt facute in cea mai fierbinte zi din august. Veneam de la Bucuresti  si aerul conditionat din trenul meu nu mai facea fata.  Au inceput sa se certe pasagerii. Unul avea nevoie de aer (dorea cu ardoare sa deschida geamul), o doamna in varsta ( ca sa nu zic baba) urla de mama focului ca “e curent” si raceste.  In timpul asta ne apropiam de Iasi si am facut cateva poze din mers cu “vastele” apartamente.   Am apreciat faptul ca “locatarii” nu aruncau gunoiul pe calea ferata ci si-au atasat la casa un frumos cos.

Cu greu, am revenit on-line si, dupa cum am promis, ma apuc de treaba pentru a termina serialul inceput (printre picaturi, adica printre lucrari pentru sfirsitul de semestru, curatenia romaneasca din ajunul Craciunului, invirtitul sarmalelor si salivatul in fata usii cuptorului). In curind vor aparea si ultimele episoade; pina atunci insa, vreau sa va urez tuturor sarbatori frumoase, Craciun fericit, si un an nou ceva mai bun totusi decit asta care a trecut! Va las cu un “colind” – se pare ca e ceva mai vechi, dar eu abia acum am aflat de Guess Who. Pregatiti-va vreo 10 batiste, ca la filmele indiene de pe vremuri! Aici – Enjoy!

Mai jos aveti si doua fotografii de la ferma la care stam. Au fost facute de arankas in urma cu o saptamina – din pacate, acum a ramas doar amintirea acelor clipe – am revenit intre timp la ploaie si noroi…

(click pe fotografii pentru a le mari)

Scurt, ca nu e timp: nu-l credeam pe Patapievici – care inca imi este drag, oricite prostii politice a facut – in stare de asa ceva. Sa spui tu, un intelectual de marca, despre existenta unei casete in care lui Geoana i se face sex oral si sa nu dai nici o proba, ba mai mult, sa fii contrazis de unul din propria ta echipa… Foarte urit! Sint uluit si inca nu imi revin.

Astazi ar fi trebuit sa apara (probabil) penultimul episod din “Decizia Crucifixul”. Din nefericire, in urmatoarele aproximativ 12 zile imi va fi imposibil sa mai lucrez la acest proiect, intrucit alte indatoriri -au acaparat complet, si nu suporta aminare. Cu scuzele de rigoare fata de putinii cititori constati ai serialului, voi reveni cu ultimele doua-tei episoade in saptamina care incepe pe 21 decembrie.

Pina atunci va las sanatosi, sper sa va regasesc la fel si, cum zilele astea se desfasoara mari miscari de forta intr-un mic pahar cu apa la Copenhaga, va doresc din tot sufletul sa rezistati indoctrinarii la care vor sa va supuna apostolii noii religii!

(sursa)

Am descoperit si eu, cu niscaiva intarziere,  filme romanesti vechi, colea – un exemplu ar fi Independenta Romaniei (Grigore Brezeanu, 1912). Altul, mai pe scurt, e desenul animat cu Haplea (Marin Iorda, 1927), Frosa si catelul Zdup. Drept e ca eu n-am crescut cu Haplea – tot ce a ajuns la mine a fost zicala “De ce esti Haplea?” Voi cum stati la capitolul Haplea, episod din copilarie?

I confess that at that time examining the movement of hands and arms was one of my daily default activities, running somewhere in the background of every conversation or metro ride. I wasn’t impressed with prominent veins, I wasn’t interested in the color of the polished nails, I wasn’t trying to find hypotheses for green finger tips. Why and how they looked didn’t touch me much. With those impressions in mind, I would then return home, look at the turn-of-the-century building from across the street, and imagine stories about each window that still had the light switched on late at night. My stories were a collection of hands and windows.

Budapest, last night.

She was walking down the boulevard, heading to Hősök tere. As she passed by, I couldn’t help but notice that her left arm was swinging in the air in the most bizarre fashion. Her right elbow was resting on the large green leather bag she kept somewhat up, placed on her hip. The left arm, though, was mysteriously attractive, gently moving back an forth, as if almost estranged from the rest of the body. Its appearance was that of an abstract shiny sculpture and its movement that of a flying fish in a gliding flight over the water. It truly seemed like the body did not form a whole. Its strange and enticing combination of qualities made me follow the flying fish arm at some distance. I can hardly remember any other detail of the woman with a green bag, but for some reason, it made me think of two fashion advertisements from a Romanian gazette, from the early 1900s. A modern woman holding a cigarette in her hand, sitting crossed legged in an arm chair, wearing trousers, and pointing to her magnified Viennese gum heels that “every woman had to wear,” as the ad imperatively recommended. In contrast, another woman, with a forme droite, rationnelle, representing the reshaping of the woman’s body into the new “S-bend” corseted silhouette. As compared to them, it was as if the undefined arm was performing a coming out of some sort. A seemingly free gesture, I thought and was delighted by its sheer movement. But as I lapsed back in time for this one second, my unusual synecdoche too slipped into a crowd of tourists on Andrássy út, and I was left alone with my musings.

And so I carried on. Late that night, when I reached the end of the Andrássy boulevard, it was already 1896. The yellow metro was silent, and the preparations for the Millennium celebrations were over.

Brassó 1893, black ink.

She blinked a couple of times in a row, as if trying to hurry her thoughts and get to the conclusion. It was past midnight. In the yellow light, she caressed her ear and a few grey locks, and then her hand grabbed the glass of water, holding it half-way to her mouth, while writing the last lines of the report. Her handwriting was calligraphic. She then put in order the eight pages written in black ink, and patiently went through the numbers again in pencil. After all, the budget for the girls’ boarding school and for the orphanage was the crucial point of the report. Added up, the yearly expenses amounted to roughly 4,500 fl. – a manageable sum, with some efforts and donations.

She spaced out for a second, re-evaluating her work. “The Romanian women’s association in Braşov,” she thought, “has an important mission. The truth is that the boarding school and the orphanage that we are running are tremendously useful for our people. We are bringing up little girls, who are either orphans or come from our middle class, and we give them a practical education, which they otherwise wouldn’t get. We have to increase the number of girls that we educate, to have a bigger impact. Organizing the ball will help us raise some funding for that…” Meanwhile, her long bony fingers lit a cigarette, and the ash fell on her long black dress without her noticing. On the carpet, the shadow of her hand moved and looked like a pair of pliers, always ready and useful. Shortly, she cracked the window open, and drew the curtains.

On the first floor of the same building, a small silhouette appeared at the window. The little girl pressed her forehead against the cold glass, and felt her temples throbbing. She was one of the girls from the boarding school. The place had been established a few years earlier, in 1886, but it was still financially fairly insecure, especially given the fact that the women’s association had been trying to link it to a more recent project, that of an orphanage. Managing both of them was challenging and it implied to some extent a fair amount of networking and lobbying. But the little girl didn’t know any of these things. Her days at the boarding school weren’t particularly exciting, and she had to obey a strict program for three years. During that time she learned how to take care of a household, of the kitchen, how to wash, iron, sew, and make clothes. She learned knitting and the art of embroidery. She was also exposed to some pedagogical principles insofar as they were applicable to bringing up children. To this curriculum, the women’s association committee further added the practice of hygiene, a few aspects of gardening, religion classes, Romanian language and literature, arithmetic, and household bookkeeping. It was the woman in black dress with bony fingers that moved like a pair of pliers who wrote this curriculum.

The thirteen year old took a breath of cold night air, closed the window with a shiver and rested her palm against the window again. She had always liked feeling the contour of her hand, the first few seconds of touching the cold glass, the burning warmth of her hand. She innocently looked at her dim reflection – she was calm now.

The building was completely silent and dark. I sank my hands into my pockets and went down the street, pleased with this peaceful night and its detours.