BETWEEN FEELINGS AND REASON

April 1978 Timisoara, Romania

It was a usual April day in Timisoara, Romania. Even though the snow had melted more than a month before, the Town of Flowers still carried the mark of winter. I expected the Banat region, and especially Timisoara, to look very different from other cities in the country, but this spring, the streets, the buildings, and even the parks needed more retouching to confirm their places of honor. It is said that "Banat is the forehead," but for this year, "habit is second nature" seemed a better description. This city had the power to capture the imagination of any visitor, worker, or seeker of adventure. The climate, the school, the jobs, the housing, and the western border were chief among the reasons it attracted many people. My first year in Timisoara was 1978.

The Park of Roses, the Green Forest, the Bega Canal, the private markets, and the farms in Banat tried to tie me every day to them with many strings, as well as to the nation I was raised in. Before that, I left Brasov with great difficulty. It was a town I never expected to leave, blessed with strong industry, a breathtaking mountain setting, and many impressive tourist sites. I would exchange it only for the Western world, where I had dreamed of going one day. Before that, it was difficult for me to leave Suceava, the place where I saw the daylight for the first time. It was home to my parents, grandparents, five brothers, six sisters, nephew, and many friends and colleagues.

Reading my Bible, I realized that when God told Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, God's reason and Abraham's feelings were in conflict. For the time being, like Abraham, I had to follow reason and ignore my feelings in the service of a greater good.

I got to Timisoara carried by a dream and a desire. I was close to the border, very happy in a way. I had dreamed of a life in the West, but at the same time, the thought of not seeing my country again soon, if ever, troubled me deeply. What bothered me most was the thought of leaving my wife and children behind. Try as I might, I couldn't shake the belief that through my inaction, I was assisting at the funeral service for my most wonderful memories and dreams.

I had made the decision to leave Romania many years before. I dreamed of completely changing my destiny and that of my whole family. I had dedicated that year to the great risks and trials of leaving the country. I forced myself to face the reality of choosing between a new life outside the country and accepting the life I had in Romania, with all its needs, discontents, troubles, and compromises.

For most of the families in my home country, money, fairly earned, hardly lasted from one payday to the next. In Timisoara, as well as in the whole country, we faced crises of all kinds, including food crises. People waited in line to get meat, flour, and oil. We waited in lines at the convenience store, the drug store, and the doctor. We lined up for the bus and even to get a gas cylinder.

Despite all the challenges, Timisoara was a beautiful town, yet many people were still living with the desire to leave the country. We all knew that life in the West was easier. We knew that wages were much better and goods were of better quality. It was nothing new to hear that somebody you had never expected to succeed had done just that after he or she crossed the border illegally.

After I got off the bus from Utvin, I got on the first tram heading downtown. Vasile Tepei got on at the first station, Iosefin Square. When he saw me, he came straight to me. Before he even greeted me, as if we were supposed to meet, he assaulted me with a question. "Do you have the photos with you?" he demanded.

I knew that Vasile had connections with somebody who was making passports in Italy. There was the risk that if you were caught, tried, beaten, and condemned to jail, you would also be marked as a traitor for the rest of your life. When Vasile Tepei first talked about this possibility of leaving the country, it had seemed a dream to me.

"I thought you were joking," I said. "You said nothing about photos!"

Leaving the country was the most important topic in every conversation and meeting we had, so I was surprised by his question. Was it meant to remind me of my plan to leave, or was he simply continuing our ongoing conversation about leaving the country?

"Seriously, don't you have the photos? Today is the last day. I have to give them to our connection; he's leaving soon to go to Italy to make the passports."

"I am very serious," I said without hesitation. "But until now, I haven't heard a thing about passport photos."

Vasile worked at the tram factory with Ionel Ciuruc, my brother-in-law. If Vasile had sent any news to me via Ionel, I never got it — or was he just a bigmouth?

"Have you sent me any word about photos?" I continued. This meeting had been completely unplanned.

Vasile just looked at me with equal parts guilt and gravity. I thought it was better just to drop the issue of messages not reaching me. I had more important concerns.

Now I needed passport photos. I was not sure it was even possible to make passport photos without any legal documents related to an eventual foreign visit. "What can I do in this situation? Is there any possibility of urgently making some photos?" I asked him.

"Yes. You can make some photos downtown, right across the street from the Continental Hotel. They make them in two hours. They have a white shirt and a tie," he said in a hurry. The time was passing quicker than we thought.

"I am going there right away. Where can I find you to give you the photos?"

"I am coming with you and will wait until they are ready. Our man leaves today. If he doesn't have your photos, you'll miss the transport."

"Vasile, what are we going to do with my brother Costic? I told you I have to take him with me. I cannot leave him behind. I brought him from Brasov in order to take him with me. Did you know that?"

"I know; don't worry. He is going to leave with the next group. We are a group of eleven people now. I have arranged that we will leave first, together with Ionel and some other men. Next Saturday, the first four of us will leave. Our man, whom I know and trust, will come from Italy with the passports and the visas already issued. We will get in the car and learn our new names. That way, the border guards won't question us. Unless we look suspicious to them, they won't even realize who we really are. We will wait for you in a concentration camp in Austria. In the meantime, we will set things up so the others will be able to come soon, including Costic for sure."

"Okay," I said, thinking aloud. "I hope it will be so."

Was this the day when I opened a new chapter in my life? I wanted to think so, but I was running out of time. I did not want to lose my clearest and surest opportunity to leave the country. I could not imagine what might have happened if I had not met Vasile on the tram. If everything depended on such an accidental meeting, it was proof that life can offer us something good too. The saying "life is full of surprises" fit the situation perfectly.

I was not sure what to tell Costica. I didn't know if he would understand what was going on. I told myself, "All's well that ends well" and "Luck never comes twice in a man's life." The fact that nobody in our family had left the country before made any legal attempt impossible. If a single family member had left the country, it would have given us all a chance to leave. I was sure that once I got to the West, I could bring any interested family members over.

I entered the photo studio pensively. They took my photos, and I gave them to Vasile. With a worried smile on his face, he accepted them and assured me that everything was all right. "Only God has made us meet," he said to calm me. "Surely this is another sign that our way to the West is open."

We separated quickly. I left to go to work at Electromotorul Factory, where I had been working since the beginning of 1978. I can't say that I didn't enjoy my job and my life in Timisoara. Besides my regular job, I also painted apartments with Ionel and Aurel Ciuriuc, my brothers-in-law. Sometimes I also worked with Vasile.

At the factory, I had no regular working hours or time sheet, and I liked it that way. I was working according to an arrangement with the quality-control guy, who noted when and how much we worked. Nobody was interested in how much money we earned; the earnings were limited. If we worked more on one day than on another, the people who decided the workload would come and readjust everything. As a result, workers were careful when reporting the number of parts we made, so as not to exceed the workload. Otherwise, all workers suffered.

The following Saturday, while I was working the morning shift around ten o'clock, I was called to the main gate of the factory. Somebody was expecting me. I left in a hurry. I knew that Vasile Tepei, Ionel Ciuriuc, my brother-in-law, and the other men were leaving that morning.

I reached the gate of the factory to see my brother-in-law, Ionel, and Vasile. They had come to say good-bye. They were dressed in suits and white shirts. Each had a Bible hidden in a nice pouch under his armpit.

"Hey, dear brother-in-law, we had some time so we stopped to say good-bye. The car that was supposed to come in the morning is late," Ionel explained. "We will go back to Vasile's home because the car could come any minute. We think it was too crowded at the border. I hope we see each other in a week, in the concentration camp."

They left quickly so that the car would not have to wait for them. Vasile Tepei was living in Iosefin Square, the meeting place. I returned to my workplace a little worried.

When I left work that afternoon, I stopped by Vasile's house to see if the four of them had already left. There was silence in the inner yard, where the entrance to Vasile's house was. I approached the door and knocked. The door opened immediately, and Vasile appeared in front of me. I was expecting Lenuta, Vasile's wife, or one of the children.

"Has the car not arrived yet?" I asked him. "Is there any chance it will come? What do you think?"

"Sure, it has to come," Vasile replied with a smile. "We are still waiting."

My brother-in-law was relaxed. I saw him sitting in a chair, very calm, but tired and anxious. I left in two or three minutes. It was not good for so many people to be in one place, given the circumstances. We hugged and said our good-byes for the morning, and I simply left.

The next day, I found out that the connection person had not come. There was nothing to be done. Helpless, we had to leave everything for the following week.

One evening, not long after these events, all the lights were on at my place when I got home after midnight. I entered the house and met some worried looks. "You are here? Haven't they arrested you?" were the welcoming words of my mother-in-law.

"Who should arrest me and why?

"About eight o'clock, a police car stopped at the gate and asked about you. Coca was not at home," she said. "I told them you were at work. They asked where you worked. I told them. They left a note for you before leaving. They insisted that I give you this note and tell you to go to the county police tomorrow morning at eight, in case they didn't find you at your job."

"They found Ionel at home and took him with them," my wife intervened, her anxiety easing after the emotions she had had in the last hours. "They arrested him," she continued in a scared voice and with tears in her eyes. "The police told us that Vasile Tepei had given your photos to an acquaintance who proved to be from the secret police. Now the police are looking for all of those who gave their photos. What shall we do? What if they arrest you? Would it be better if you go to the police? Will they arrest you? What shall we do?"

"Until now, things have been going well," I replied. "The police did not find me at work because I left about nine. I hope we'll have an idea by morning. Maybe we can find something out about Ionel."

I did not know what else to say. After a very long night, when nobody in the house could sleep except Estera and Dariu, our children, Ionel stopped by at six in the morning. He was free. The police had interrogated him about the passport photos and reprimanded him severely, and then they let him go home. Ionel wasn't worried at all.

Who could assure me that I would get only a reprimand? Vasile Tepei had been arrested too, and was released after he was beaten to make him tell everything. If Vasile, who was our boss, escaped with that, what was I to expect?

After I calculated all the risks, I decided to show up at the county police. I got there long before eight in the morning. I looked around carefully to see some familiar faces, to find some moral support, not that I wanted to see anybody else in my situation. I would rather not see any person I knew going to the police.

My joy soon vanished when I saw Aurel, my brother-in-law from Sanmihaiul Roman, approaching the gate of the police station. I stepped in front of him and asked, "Why are you here? Have you got an invitation?"

"Yes," he answered, calm but concerned. "For you it is a piece of cake, but not for me. I am a recidivist, and I am very afraid that I won't get out of here. That is why I am not in a hurry. It is possible that I won't taste freedom again for a while. I struggled all night wondering where to go: the police or the border."

"I don't know where you were heading, but I know for sure that you are at the police now," I said, trying to make a joke. "We will go to the border once we get out of here."

"I am afraid that it will take a while — if I get out of here!"

"If Vasile, our boss, is out, we will get out too." I was trying to encourage myself once more before Aurel. "Have courage!"

It was eight o'clock when another lady whom Aurel knew came. She had the same "invitation" in her hand. We introduced ourselves and then we headed toward the main entrance of the county police station.

We presented ourselves to the first officer that we met. We showed him our invitations and he took us to the first office. Everything looked in a perfect order. The sculptured furniture, made probably of walnut wood, was arranged in very good taste. Paintings and maps hung on the walls, like in a museum. Cleanliness, discipline, and politeness were at home.

We had to wait a short time — we were not in a hurry — until a middle-aged, serene-faced, and very spiritual officer came. He was slim, of average stature, with hair and mustache longer than I expected for a police officer. He was dressed in civilian clothes.

He introduced himself as Captain So-and-so, and then went straight to the point. He tried to convince us that Romania was a very advanced country. We did not have unemployed people. Every worker had social security provided and free access to higher education. All the civil and religious rights were guaranteed. Every citizen had the right to vote. We could vote for whomever we wanted, and any citizen could stand for election. We didn't have antagonistic social classes; we were all equals.

In capitalistic countries, it was not like that, he continued. He showed us a pile of letters he claimed to have received from people who had left the country and were sorry now for leaving. He spoke very convincingly. I didn't asked him why people in the West did not come and ask for political asylum in Romania or Russia, or how would he explain the fact that we saw those foreigners spending their vacations in Romania and then returning to the "hard lives" they had in their own countries.

There followed four hours of lectures about a theory I knew and that had very little truth to it. Then we were completely left alone. After a few minutes, another officer came. We were taken to separate rooms.

I was taken into a small office. It had nothing imposing: no flag, no picture of the president on the wall, not even the pictures of Lenin, Marx, and Engels that were part of the usual decoration of official offices. No painting, no map, no furniture, no typing machine, no copying machine, no telex, no telephone. (Correspondence was conducted via messengers.) There was only an ordinary desk and a young officer. He must have been around twenty-five, the same age as me, but he was wearing a uniform. He was a lieutenant with three little stars on his shoulders: the police uniform used to intimidate many people. Without any introduction, he gave me some white A4 sheets.