Expat In Romania

In the summer of 1988, my mother took me along on a trip to Cluj.  My recollections are vague; the giant 'Mathias Rex' statue in today's  Unirii Square (back then known as ' Libertatii -freedom - Square'), excitement at taking the tram and the bus, an oppressive summer sun beating down on the city. But I also remember a small leafy street, mom holding my hand tight as she pushed past a small gate into a little yard, and the affectionate welcome we received from her former French Literature professor, Doina Cornea. I knew there was an element of danger to the situation though what I understood about it is uncertain. What is certain is that they left me outside to play, while they went to speak inside a walk-in pantry. I later understood they had gone into the pantry because there were no microphones there. At the time, I did not associate microphones with singing and live music. I understood microphones to be small, hidden devices, planted inside people's ...

On top of P-ta Mihai Viteazul (aka "Complexul Leul"), in the heart of Cluj, sits a large, brutalist, cement clock. It's so drab that, on a dreary day, you won't even notice it against the grey sky. Besides, it doesn't even tell the (right) time. For the past 26 years, it's been stuck at 12:07. A man named Jozef Palko stopped it the moment the Ceausescus fled by helicopter from the roof of the Central Committee building in Bucharest. As the building's administrator - and a witness to the previous day's shooting of anti-communist demonstrators in Unirii Square - he thought it important to capture the moment in history; the minute that communism fell in Romania. Many years later, when I took this snapshot, I found that the contrast between the crisp, bright flags and the dreary commie architecture is a reminder that, with time, things do change.

When you can say, "it's been a quarter-century" about something, it's not surprising that it feels like a lifetime ago. But during the most violent uprising of 1989, I can only remember peace. On the 22nd of December in Blaj, not a soul stirred. I remember looking out the window and all I could see was a ghost town. It seemed as though even the stray dogs knew it wasn't the time to be out in the open. I think we were all expecting the army to come in. We heard about the uprising and deaths in Timisoara, we knew that Bucharest was in full revolt, and there was little information beyond that. I don't know why I don't remember anything on TV that day - maybe the antenna was broken and we had no signal. I was secretly excited by the thought of seeing a real-live tank rumble past. And anyway, in my mind, the soldiers were the good guys. We also kept waiting to hear the gunfire that would signal that the revolution had arrived to Blaj, but there too, I was dis...