House of the Lost

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Romania, early 1980s

There were times in Budapest, at the Royal Drawing School, when Matthew felt deeply guilty for being so happy. It seemed to him the ultimate delight to be living in this beautiful city; to have a tiny studio apartment of his own with marvellous views over the rooftops; to go with fellow students to the cafes and bars; to take the metro to visit castles and churches and study the fragments of breathtakingly beautiful Turkish and Magyar art, and see the influences of the Italian Renaissance. He learned some Italian so he could understand Italian painting and sculpture better, and from there found it not too difficult to pick up a little more English and French. But to draw and paint all day and every day with people who understood that this was the most important thing in life, and who were patient in helping Matthew to become better – that was the most wonderful thing of all.

The memory of his father did not leave him. His father’s words from all those years ago – the words written by the Englishman Thomas de Quincey – were vividly in his mind.

‘There is no such thing as ultimate forgetting: traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible.’

He would not forget his father ever, and if he had known how to go about finding him, he would have done so, despite what the bank manager said. But as things stood, he had not so much as the smallest clue.

But during a summer vacation visit to Wilma, who still kept the house going, a clue did come his way. It was Mikhail Ionescu, now nearing the end of his own schooling, who provided it. Mikhail had been reading about the Securitate’s methods and found Matthew a sympathetic listener.

‘It’s forbidden reading, of course,’ he said rather defiantly. ‘I know that. But who cares?’

‘You’ll care if they find out and haul you off to some wretched prison,’ said Matthew, smiling at Mikhail’s earnestness, wanting to draw him in this mood, but knowing his expression would change too swiftly to be captured.

‘Like Pitesti Gaol?’ said Mikhail. ‘The house of the lost. Well, one of them, at any rate.’

The house of the lost. The words plucked at the deeply buried memories of Matthew’s childhood.

‘Pitesti’s where they used to practise what was called reeducation,’ Mikhail was saying, ‘they did it in Jilava as well.’

‘What’s re-education?’

‘A form of brainwashing. Haven’t you ever heard of it? Come down from your Magyar ivory tower, Matthew, and live in the real world.’

‘What is it?’

‘Its eventual aim was to alter personalities to the point of absolute obedience. They made prisoners denounce personal beliefs, renounce their deepest loyalties and loves. Or maybe persuade them they’d committed some horrific crime so that everyone hated them. If anyone was particularly devout, they’d be forced to blaspheme religious symbols.’

‘That’s grotesque,’ said Matthew, horrified.

‘I know it is,’ said Mikhail. ‘It’s supposed to have been stopped years ago before you and I were born – in fact way back in the 1950s – but there’s a belief that it still goes on here and there.’

After Mikhail had gone, Matthew found his father’s old atlas and looked for Pitesti. It did not look too bad a journey, but even if he went there to search for his father, he could not think how he would get inside. You could not just present yourself at the gates and ask to see a prisoner. If you had money or influence you might be let in, but Matthew had neither. He was not sure he had the courage, either; it would take a lot of nerve to demand admittance to a State prison, and he did not think he was a very courageous person. In any case, Pitesti was one of a great many gaols.

But maybe one day he would have courage, influence and money in abundance and he could travel to all the places where his father might be. Or maybe one day the world would change – something would happen to change it – and the lost prisoners in the forgotten prisons could be set free.

Mara did not exactly count the days until she would be free, but she did mark the years. She was twelve, fourteen, fifteen… the years wheeled by, each one the same as the one before or the one that came next. A good, quiet student, the nuns said, pleased, and when Sister Teresa made her twice or thrice yearly visit, told her how well things had worked out. Would Mara be allowed home soon? Surely, when she was seventeen and her studies finished, she could be regarded as grown-up? They had heard, with sadness, that Mara’s grandmother had died the previous year and they had offered up a Mass for her soul, but the brother was still living in the family house.

Sister Teresa thought once Mara was seventeen, she might be allowed home. Mikhail was living in the cottage on his own which was not absolutely ideal, but he seemed to manage well enough, despite his youth. Neighbours kept an eye on him and helped with shopping and so on. He would soon be thinking about what to do when he left school, of course. Going out into the world.

‘Yes, of course he will,’ said Mara, and, taking her courage in both hands, she asked about Zoia.

‘As far as I know she left the district shortly after you came here,’ said Sister Teresa. ‘The Black House is empty and boarded up. Doubtless a few legends will grow up round it, but I should think Zoia would still have her spies around. She’d want to assure herself that the bargain we made has been kept. If you came home, what would you do?’

Mara did not really know. She had seen nothing of the world beyond her small childhood village and this convent, so she had no comparisons to make, no idea of what might be possible or attainable. All she really wanted was to live in the cottage once more. She was deeply sad that her grandmother had died, but Mikhail would be there. If she and Mikhail could live in that beloved cottage, the two of them together again, she would have everything in the world she wanted. But she understood people had to have money in order to live, and money had to be earned by working. So she said she had wondered about teaching. Might she teach at the school where once she had been a pupil? She had worked hard at her studies, and the sisters here thought she had done well.

Sister Teresa thought this might be possible. She would ask Reverend Mother about it. Teachers needed proper qualifications, but they were difficult to acquire in Romania nowadays. Still, it might be possible for Mara to be trained in their own classrooms in the Founder House school.

Lying in the narrow bed in the dormitory, Mara was gradually aware of a new fear – a fear churned up by the suggestion that Zoia would still be watching her. Was it possible that Zoia might still exact a warped revenge? That she might take an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. Mara had been the cause of Zoia losing Annaleise – and in some way Mara still did not fully understand, Zoia had loved Annaleise as if they had been husband and wife. Supposing Zoia decided to take from Mara the one thing Mara loved best in the world? Supposing she tried to take Mikhail? The more Mara thought about this, the likelier it seemed, and the more she became convinced she would have to be very clever about protecting him.

Zoia would admit that ending the Black House’s reign had been unexpectedly easy. Sister Teresa had been partly responsible for that of course, taking the children away and sending them to England. The arrangement had been a quid pro quo, Zoia knew that. What Sister Teresa had really been saying was, Let me take Mara Ionescu and I’ll deal with the children for you. But at the time it had suited Zoia to agree to the bargain, even though it had cheated her of her revenge.

But that could wait. Planning Mara’s punishment was something to cling to during the long lonely nights – the nights without Annaleise.

And so the snivelling children went off to England, and everyone working in the Black House was paid off and sent back to wherever they lived. Zoia did not enquire into that. She was not in the business of giving charity to anyone, especially when she might shortly need charity herself. The Black House was suddenly empty of people, and most of its furniture removed so that Zoia’s footsteps echoed eerily when she walked through the high-ceilinged rooms. As far as she had been able to make out, the house and land had been sold to some nameless department within the Party and would probably be torn down.

The Politburo man, Gheorghe Pauker came to help her close the place down and deal with the final formalities, and on the last night Zoia cooked supper for the two of them. Afterwards they sat at the big scrubbed table in the main kitchen, with the dirty dishes stacked in the sink. Zoia had not much minded cooking because they both had to eat, but she did not see why she should wash up as well. Pauker had found the small stock of wine, and had already downed one bottle while they ate. Now he was making inroads on a second.

He told her Ceauşescu was no longer as popular as he had been, at least not in his own country.

‘It’s the debt,’ he said slurrily. ‘Romania’s massively in debt. Billions of dollars to Western banks for all that industrialization in the 1970s.’ He tapped the side of his nose in a knowing gesture. ‘It was bound to catch up with him in the end,’ he said.

‘With Ceauşescu, d’you mean?’

‘Yes. He’s det— determined to pay it back though, an’ thass honourable of him. You have to ’dmit it’s honourable.’

‘Yes. How will he pay it?’ Zoia did not care if Ceauşescu paid off Romania’s debt honourably or was thrown into a debtors’ prison and left to rot, but the habit of gleaning information, however small, persisted.

‘Tighten the country’s belt,’ said Pauker. ‘Tha’s his plan. Starve the people. There’ll be more food rationing before we’re all much older, see if there isn’t. You’ll all be fighting each other for a loaf of bread. Cuts in electricity supplies as well, I shouldn’t wonder. Sad, I call it.’ He reached for the wine again and Zoia silently pushed the bottle nearer. ‘The rest of the world doesn’t much like Ceauşescu or his wife. Not s’posed to say that.’ He laid a finger on his lips, in an exaggerated gesture of silence.

‘I didn’t know that – about the rest of the world not liking Ceauşescu.’

‘’s true. Other countries don’ like his policies or what’s happening to the people here. Television cameras get sneaked in, you know, and things get shown to other countries. England. America.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Well, places like this one. Orphan – ornof – children’s homes.’

‘There’s no money to run these places,’ said Zoia defensively. ‘I did the best I could.’

‘Oh, there’s no money for anything any more,’ he said. ‘All a damn shame. Course,’ he downed another glass, ‘Elena pushed Nicolae into things. You know that, I ’spect. Gave orders about who could be given posts in the Party and who couldn’t. ’strordin’ry woman, Elena. D’you ever meet her?’

‘Once.’

‘Quite ’strordin’ry. An’ now she’s first deputy premier. They made her that in 1980.’ He tried to count years on his fingers and gave up. ‘It was Nicolae’s doing, of course, ev’rybody knew that. Case of nep— netop—’

‘Nepotism?’

‘Sssh. Shouldn’t say things like that. Never know who might be listening. But I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said, suddenly more alert, ‘she’s absolutely ruthless, that woman.’ He was so pleased with himself for having pronounced this without a slur, he said it again, ‘Abso-fucking-lutely ruthless.’

‘So everyone says.’ Zoia opened another bottle of wine in case Pauker was going to be indiscreet about Elena. Indiscretions could be very useful at times. And the wine might as well be drunk as left here to gather mildew or be stolen by vandals.

‘Automaton, that’s what Elena is,’ said Pauker. ‘No heart. Call her the Mother of the Nation – pshaw, load of bollocks. Not a motherly bone in her body. Set the Securitate to spy on her own children, can you b’live that? Perfeckly true, though. Cold-hearted bitch, she is. As for all those grand qualifications she says she’s got – d’you want to know something?’ He drew nearer, his tone confidential.

‘Tell me,’ said Zoia.

‘Bought half of them,’ he said. ‘Paid for them in sordid coinage. An’ the ones she didn’t buy, she invented.’

‘But I’ve seen her speak at meetings,’ said Zoia. ‘She seemed very learned.’ She had, in fact, only heard Elena speak in public on two occasions, both times in company with Annaleise, but she had been quite impressed by Elena’s public manner.

‘Smoke and mirrors,’ he said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘If you listen properly she always defers to a “Comrade Engineer” or some such, for the real answers. Smoke and mirrors, tha’s what she is.’ He nodded solemnly into his wine glass, and Zoia surreptitiously topped it up.

‘This is all very interesting,’ she said.

‘I tell you, Elena Ceauşescu’s never written a thesish – pardon, thesis – in her life. My opinion she couldn’t. Mind you, neither could I, but I’m not the Mother of the Nation – bloody good joke that, don’cha think? Where’s the wine gone? An’ why aren’t you drinkin’ with me? Got to drink with me. Friendly. Here.’

Zoia gave a mental shrug and drank the wine he poured almost in one go. Here’s to you, Annaleise, she said silently, as she almost always did when she took a drink.

When her companion re-filled her glass, she drank that straight down as well, and followed it with a third. He was very fuddled by this time and his eyes were unfocused, but he was not too unfocused to suddenly thrust a hand into the bodice of her dress, and prod her small breasts. Zoia felt the familiar revulsion and was instantly plunged back to the small shabby cottage and the feel of her father’s rough labourer’s hands on her skin. But she controlled her disgust.

‘Bit of comfort tonight,’ he said. ‘S’all right, isn’t it? Sad day closing down one of our houses. Bit of comfort.’

Zoia said flatly, ‘You want to fuck me?’

‘Doan’ need to pretend, do we?’ he said. ‘Romance, all that stuff, lot of balls. See you don’t lose by it, though.’

‘How much?’ said Zoia coldly.

‘Don’t mess about, do you? Much as you like. Here…’ he pulled out his wallet and tipped the contents onto the table, ‘have it all. No use to me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Zoia, scooping up the notes, not bothering to apologize or explain that tomorrow she would be homeless and jobless. ‘D’you want to go upstairs or do it here?’

There had been quite a lot of money in the wallet. She put it safely in her own bag, and then, because you never knew what might come in useful, took his Politburo card as well. There was an address just outside Resita. Zoia was careful to note this down, because there might be a time in the future when she needed to make use of that encounter.

If it had not been for Gheorghe Pauker’s cash she would have had nowhere to live in the weeks that followed, but she was able to take a small room in a lodging house. The days were shapeless, the nights filled with lonely agony. Several times over the dreary years she thought about suicide – a bottle of pills, a jump into the river. Easy. But then the hatred of Mara and the desire for revenge burned up again warming Zoia’s cold heart, and she knew she would keep on living. Annaleise would have wanted it.

Eventually she found work in a library in a town near Mara’s own village and a room in a slightly better house. It was not really what she wanted, but she needed to remain near enough to Mara’s home to pick up news of what Mara was doing and to know when the creature finally came home from the Debreczen convent. She counted the years, hardly noticing when the 1970s slid into the 1980s, only really recognizing the years of Mara’s life. She would be fourteen, fifteen, nearing the age when the convent would send her home. Zoia did not go as far as disguising herself during those years, because it would have been melodramatic and probably would not have worked anyway, but she did not think anyone would recognize her from her time at the Black House. Her hair had turned grey after Annaleise’s death – it had gone what people called pepper and salt grey, and Zoia had it cut very short, pudding-basin style. It was remarkable how it altered her appearance. She lost weight as well – she had always been thin but now she became bony because she could not be bothered to eat much. Her skin grew dry and leathery-looking. It did not really matter how she looked – Zoia did not think it would ever matter again – but it was one more thing to lay at the door of that evil spiteful child.

Gheorghe Pauker’s drunken prophecies were turning out to be true. You had to queue for food – sometimes for hours. There was bread rationing. People said it was a sick joke, because you could hardly ever find a loaf of bread anyway and as for sugar for baking or sweetening coffee, forget it. In any case, you could not get coffee any more than you could get sugar or flour. A scientific diet, Ceauşescu was apparently calling it. And what was happening to the money saved by starving everyone, they would like to know? Was it paying off Romania’s debts? More likely it was going towards the grand palace he was said to be building for himself and his wife.

Standing in food queues, Zoia sensed the anger in other shoppers, but it was a strange, slightly frightening anger, as if something was gradually but inexorably coming to boiling point. Once Elena and Nicolae Ceauşescu had been seen as glittering and untouchable, but Zoia had the increasing sense that the glitter was starting to be perceived as pinchbeck.

Living in obscurity, she heard a number of things, some of which might one day be useful, others which were too trivial to bother with. Matthew Valk was studying art in Budapest. That was one of the things worth knowing and Zoia tucked the information away in her mind. She wondered where the money for it had come from. It might be worth finding out about that, as well, if she could.

And then, one day towards the end of 1982, midway through a long dull afternoon at the library, she heard the news she had been waiting to hear for so long. Mara Ionescu was finally leaving Debreczen and coming home.