The Confession

92

The crowd lined the entire length of Yalta Boulevard, sprouting out of Victory Square and growing straight and sure past state security headquarters at Number 36, out to where Yalta terminated in the middle of the Seventh District. We were somewhere in between. The announcements had been plastered on walls ever since Wednesday, and the radios had broadcast unending reminders of the time and place, but I never imagined so many would heed the call. After the Sixth of November, this kind of turnout seemed impossible. But here they were, all the discontented of the Capital alongside the satisfied and even the apathetic. And they were all weeping.

Children sobbed on fathers’ shoulders; mothers clutched their heads whenever anything appeared on the cleared boulevard. Banners fluttered down from windows, announcing that MIHAI LIVES FOREVER IN THE HEARTS OF THE WORKING CLASSES and quoting him: “ THE PATH TO FREEDOM IS TREACHEROUS, BUT WE ARE GREATER THAN MERE TREACHERY.” His younger portraits hung from lamp-posts like Roman standards and filled shop windows. Magda grabbed my hand as we were pushed forward. The motorcade began with white Militia cars, their aerials bound in black ribbons, then came the long hearse. Magda slipped as the crowd surged, but steadied herself on my arm. Bullhorns on the hearse’s roof bellowed a slow dirge and a deep voice listing all his titles: Liberator of the Nation; Friend to the Young and Old; Fount of Impenetrable Knowledge…Wails shot up around us.

On a family vacation we once drove to Baia Mare to see Mihai’s childhood home. It was a letdown-a two-room shack outside the city, with portraits of him everywhere, looking down on the ratty BED WHERE HE SLEPT and the clay oven in the KITCHEN WHERE HE ATE. I didn’t understand until Magda sighed, and said, He really is one of us, isn’t he?

Magda’s fist covered her quivering lips, and her red eyes tried to see past shoulders and heads. Then she buried her nose in my chest. I turned to my other side. “Where’s Agnes?”

Magda’s face was twisted. “What?”

…Seed of the Land; Thunderstorm in Times of Drought…

“Agnes!” I shouted. “She’s not here!”

Magda unlatched herself and pushed people aside to see for herself. “Agnes?”

We split up and threaded through the crowd. I shoved women and men aside and kneed children who stood in my way as the worry became frantic. “Agnes!”

…Academician of Worldwide Acclaim; Friend to the Animals of the Planet…

As I pushed I imagined her trampled beneath feet, dragged away by molesters, knifed by Nestor Velcea or tortured in a wet Canal District mansion, her corpse carried to the mountains for disposal. Not once did I imagine the most evident scenario, which was proven as the Politburo cars slid slowly by and Magda caught up with me, dragging our daughter along: She had squeezed her way to the street in order to cry and wail where she could better see the object of her adoration.