A long poem-for me-about my trip to Romania a few years back. Several Romanians have taken issue with it but I found their country fascinating. Every nation has it’s problems, challenges and usually, a turbulent history.
POVs
DAY 1
At Heathrow I am wan, so pooped my heart quits
palpitating. I stop scrutinizing threat level colour codes,
unattended backpacks, retreat to my insignificance,
listen as a wife recites The London Times,
as foreign to me as Rome’s Il Messaggero. Katrina who?
These are disturbing times, dear. Cartoonist hit lists.
Boils of slam. Novelist fatwas. Bird flu dread.
Spread by beak or spicy chicken wing?
Off to hotbed of Romania, host to more than one virus.
Online scamming. Corruption. HIV. European Union
bid in peril. Does the average Brit give a feck?
Do rhetorical questions require a question mark?
DAY 2
Bucharest terminal quiet but for the cabbies. I nearly miss
foundation staffer Caroline’s hand-inked sign.
She leads me to a young American with a Welsh name
and an English woman with a broken tooth. Wait here
while we search for the poet laureate of New Hampshire’s
luggage. Not another reality show, please. Pale silhouettes
amble past a riot of architecture, crepuscular on the banks
of the Dâmboviţa. Baroque. Modern. Renaissance. Gothic.
Squat, Soviet blocks abut opulent cathedrals.
DAY 3
Currency—lei—so overwhelms me with zeros I don’t buy
books or icons of Mary and the saints. Resistance heroes
in stone. An Arcul de Triumf and a monument
to the 89 coup d’état, Memorial of Rebirth, a tall, marble
pillar and orb locals scorn as the toothpick and the olive.
Redheads rule Romania now, mine violet in the gamut of tints,
ox blood to bozo carrot. I don’t blend in. Women in heavy kohl
stumble on cobblestones. Toward vogue. Glamazons vying
to be Western and like their nation, falling short. In stilettos.
We’re mini-vanned out of the city to Grimm fairytale countryside.
Medieval haystacks resemble Cousin It.
Wish I could hide in one of him. Them.
We reach Busteni. Yellow houses. Lacy red grillwork gates,
livestock grazing downtown. No dearth of roadside
shrines, rusting tin roofs and Coca-Cola signs.
Garbage collectors on strike? I learn trashcans are stolen.
The villa is a boarding house, proprietors dwelling in the garage.
I lope up stairs, past confusion, snag a room with a view.
Transylvanian Alps. Hardscrabble peaks, like Squamish.
Home, distant as a vague notion.
DAY 4
Dining in Romania. Waiting. Sitting. Waiting. Salivating under stuffed
heads. Fox. Boar. Stag. Begging for beer. Wine. Anything. Something
to drink! Our host translates the menu. Everything delicious.
We may have ciroba. Soup. Ciorba de perlshoare. Ciroba pescareasca
or ciorba tzaraneasca. He orders for the long table of hapless authors.
Science. Children. Food. Travel. Australian, Russian journalists.
British poets. Boston and Nashville novelists researching the devil’s son,
Vlad the Impaler. I, the lone Canuck. United, we wait, aghast
at southern belle expatriate Caroline’s take on the Roma.
Gypsies. Thieves. Bimbo. Bigot. The dumb leading the blind?
A brawny waitress appears to hurl mashed potatoes and mititei-
sausage. No fries. No substitutions. No free bread. No mustard.
I just want a friggin’ beer! Please. I have money. On the brink of revolt
we are granted native pilsner, vino. “Too sweet” declares the wine critic,
bottle soon drained. I guzzle an Ursus, Romania’s king of beers.
Back at the inn, feeling frayed, grimy, I remain aloft.
I’m able to squelch Canadianisms like, “loonie” and “eh”
but not my diffidence. They’ll think we’re snobs.
Canadians are snobs, in the main,
or trailer trash. I am both, neither aspect inclined
to listen to drunken poets and plumbers spouting Shakespeare.
DAY 5
Awakened early by cowbells and braying roosters Romanians ignore
the way they look past emaciated mutts, orphans, vagabonds, AIDS.
Russian comrade reports it took forty minutes for the mistress
of the house to eject the poddatogo’s vzashey. Aren’t plumbers VIPs
around here? More talking, barking, Dostoevsky and dogma.
All very amusing until boiled wieners for breakfast, then falling off
a parlour step with no apparent purpose, shattering my foot.
Limp to the picnic in a sparse pinery bereft of birdlife.
Burnt sausage. Bread. Beer. The staples. Doughnut of silicone tubing
adorns a fir branch like a Christmas tree ornament. Scraps of denim
cap a bush. Red shirt drapes a boulder in the Praheva River.
Angler with a tree limb for a fishing pole. What might he reel in?
DAY 6
Train it to Sinaia. Drag my mangled foot ligaments up a steep staircase
to Peles castle. CLOSED. Admire its turrets from a café, lolling in resin
chairs, consoling ourselves with Heinekens, POVs clashing.
Americans annoy the Russian with questions. Stalin? Putin?
Romanians pester, make derogatory remarks, bring up history.
She smiles, offering each detractor a Yava smoke. She is superior
to can-do Americans arrogantly taking action, employing their famous
know-how. Amusing, their futile attempts at improving things.
I voice no opinion, prefer to watch.
DAY 7
Taken to Brasov to see the Black Church. Why?
We are left to discover the significance of all things Romanian.
No matter. It is CLOSED. To the monastery of exquisite frescos
miraculously OPEN. Gruesome crucifixes. Gold leaf
on parchment. Indecipherable documents encased in glass.
Priest locks a lapsed Catholic inside until a crone in shawl
and babushka chuckles at my frenzied knocking
and retrieves the sheepish Father to liberate me.
DAY 8
Hauled to the horseshoe of the Carpathians. Castle Bran,
Dracula’s castle guarding trade routes since 1212.
Flanders to the west, Turkey to the east. The Count did not reside here.
Bram Stoker never saw it. Well, I have and it’s perfectly benign,
including the secret staircases. Trek back. Surprise! Foodie Jen-
Lady Bountiful bought fruit, first rate wine, cooked up a righteous
meal. Antipasto. Baquette. Linguini. Red sauce. Eggplant. Mousse.
DAY 9
Chaos ebbing. Back in Bucharest we scout our own patios, parks,
art museums. Drawn to the mystical 16th century Kretzulescu Church,
ceilings darkened by eons of candle smoke, incense. Stroll into a festival
celebrating beloved Romanian composer George Enescu.
Our fraternity meets at the Hilton, infamous English Bar for one last drink.
Noroc! Rehash how we have prevailed over the farce—
the program—guides, lousy at it, good at losing us, and face.
Charm of Romania’s towns, intact despite the strife. Hunger
circuses, legacy of Ceausescu’s systemization converted to malls.
Time to pay up. Someone is confusing the blue bills with the green bills.
Oh, just give me the cash, I’ll use my credit card. No one hears.
How many writers does it take to pay a Romanian drink tab.