Romania, 2010: chapter 2 – i’ve already saved for that rainy day

“travel is like an onion, unfolding and revealing
itself one layer at a time. sometimes it makes you
cry.”

chapter 2 i’ve already saved for that rainy day

may 16, 2010

berlad, romania,

you know, in my country, there’s an expression about
saving for a rainy day.” i wouldn’t be surprised if
the saying existed in many other countries. it’s part
of human nature, right? don’t spend all your money when
you’re young, “save it for a rainy day.” it’s what
keeps the bank account growing, or wanting to grow.
it’s what, if they’re lucky, keeps the twinkle in the
middle aged parents’ eye, as the wrinkles get deeper
and deeper and they save for their prized child’s
education and their idyllic, long-awaited, and
hard-earned day in the somewhat not-too-far distant
future when they can retire and spend “a little on
themselves”. you know, the “rainy day”, when all the
hard work and savings will pay off… the long-awaited
day…. in the future… … when things WILL BE…
over.

i’ve never subscribed to this philosophy. because,
unfortunately, as far as i can see, for most of us, the
rainy day never comes. sure, it rains like hell. there
are lots of storms. hurricanes. disasters. even new
fangled tsunamis and collapsing world trade centers.
lots of those. but the idyllic, long-awaited,
hard-earned, rainy day? it never comes. the money gets
spent along the way. it’s never the right time to
retire. to start enjoying life. to pack in “the career”
and to indulge in the long-anticipated photography
fantasy, traveling the world and writing about it in
long-winded, self-indulgent photo essays.

wait. let me back up. before i left on this trip. i
had a reading. you know, a “psychic” reading. perhaps
from a gypsy. she was armenian, the closest i could get
to romania. at least in LA, where we have the largest
armenian population outside of armenia. right across
the concrete river in glendale.

yes, andreea (2 “e”s) was armenian, with deep set
eyes, a potato face, and a dark, east european soul. my
ancestors must have looked like her, coming as they did
from odessa and kharkov, on the eastern steppe. andreea
had me choose 6 tarot cards from her starred and
knighted deck. she spread them out on a small black
wooden card table in front of her, and she looked deep
into my eyes. i was calm, not fearing her
pronouncement, as i’ve always been in the past. “dees
will be a good treep. beeznuss and plea-shure.” i was
still a little wary, we jews always waiting for the
trouble-bearing sky to fall on us. “do you have a
children?” she asked with her throaty but reassuring
contralto. “no, i can’t,” i said. “i see children, a
child,” she said again. “very soon. a child. you should
prepare.”

i did. which is to say, i did nothing. and two weeks
later, here i am in barlad, romania.(they seem to spell
it with different vowel every time you see it!) it’s
the poorest part of the country, in moldavia, in the
northeast corner, but still not as far from bucharest
as moldova, one of the new countries carved out of the
former soviet union. i’ve been invited by mirela, one
of my new, eager romanian students to go to an orthodox
baptism with her and her family. i can’t exactly
remember which student she is, even looking at her
facebook picture, which, of course, is how she has
invited me… via facebook. (whoever doesn’t believe in
the magic of chance encounter via the internet, you’re
cheating yourself out of an unpredictable confluence of
coincidence and destiny!)

we’ve met at the gara de nord, a little like paris’
gare du nord, but about a hundredth the size. still,
it’s got the charm and bustle of a classic european
train station, which means almost anything can happen
there. hellos, goodbyes, espionages, trysts, murders.
we, however, have met in front of the banal mcdonald’s,
the most recognizable and hateable icon in all of
bucharest, a city curiously straddling the past and
present, a little like prague was 20 years ago, i’m
told… a creative frontier between the hungry
capitalism of the wild west and the still sad, but
authentic, stolidness of good old marx-leninism.

mirela and i have just descended the platform in
berlad, having taken a 4 and a half hour train ride
through the spring green romanian countryside. no hills
like in transylvania’s carpathian mountains in the
central northwest towards hungary. just flat, potato
and polenta-growing fields of grasses waving in the
wind, and new rows of young green vegetables planted in
rich brown gypsy soil. the walk to her apartment
building is depressing. the buildings are sad and gray,
showing a sort of abandoned grime about them, like
they’ve been shot and left for dead along with
communism and ceaucescu (their fierce and fascist
dictator kicked out of office and shot to death after
1989’s infamous christmas eve revolution).

mirela points and waves to a tiny figure in a window
on the 5th floor of her building. it’s her pixie
goddaughter, miruna, a dark-haired 6 year old beauty
who misses her actress godmother desperately. we tug
our luggage through the barely-breathing town, which
does its best to reveal her 21st century post communist
charm. thankfully, mirela is a blond-haired, wide-eyed,
young bombshell whose effervescence and loquaciousness
more than make up for the torpor of the town. we climb
the 5 flights of stairs (why does everyone i know live
on the 5th floor?), and her stout, east european mother
and wiry, hard-working father greet us
enthusiastically. in romanian, naturally.

what was i thinking? i came all the way up here to
northeast romania with a girl i couldn’t even remember
from class. i was so eager to “experience” another part
of the world that i didn’t bother to check out the
details. where would i sleep? what should i bring to
wear to the baptism? the weather? could i bring her
parents a little gift? now i saw the answers standing
in front of me. and none of my concerns mattered. they,
the family, would be taking care of me. in romanian!
dad asked me to sit down in the living room on a tiny
wood chair that he had carved himself. i squeezed my
oversized, american gulliver ass into it and dad sat on
the one next to me. 12 inches away. we smiled at each
other and sat. i think he said the word, “cowboy”. so
much for following my instincts and saying yes to the
train of opportunity. it was going to be a long
weekend…

but travel moves in odd and mysterious ways. what
she first reveals to you in one light, often an
uncomfortable one, soon becomes another thing entirely.
another “window” of opportunity, another layer of her
onion. the best way to deal with her, or it, or life,
me thinks… is to just “go with the flow”, “roll with
the punches”, “say yes to the information, make it your
own, and add something new”.

so i do. by saying yes to mirela, who recues me from
dad’s chair and takes me down the tiny hallway to meet
her 22 year old, younger brother. she bursts into his
room, with her cock-eyed enthusiasm, and introduces me
enthusiastically. mirela does everything
enthusiastically. it’s a tiny room full of colorful
european football posters, but i can’t see anyone
there. mirela starts rattling off my introduction in
romanian, but then politely switches to english. me?
i’m, also politely, standing in the doorway, so as not
to intrude (i hate people suddenly appearing in my
bedroom, don’t you?), when her brother, marius, pops up
from his bed in his underwear. i’m slightly embarrassed
for him, but apparently neither of them are in the
least. marius sticks out his eager right hand, wiping
sleep from his eyes with the other. “hi, i’m
marius.”

marius is de man. or at least my savior in berlad.
he’s travel’s unforeseeable, white knight in green
under shorts. mirela leaves me in his well-spoken hands
and happily goes out to the kitchen to visit with her
darling family. i join marius on his bed, the only
possible place for me in the tiny room, and ask him if
i can use his laptop, command central of the world
according to marius. he agrees, i check my e-mail, and
soon i’m relaxing on his bed, leaning back against the
wall on one of his pillows. no, this isn’t a
homo-erotic story of a romanian-american dalliance, but
isn’t that interesting: “romance”… “romananian”…..
never mind.

soon marius is at command central himself, playing
me i-tunes from his extensive deejay-like library. in
fact, marius is a part time dee-jay on the local berlad
party circuit, where he knows a lot of people from his
job, that being the local willy loman of the town. it’s
my good luck though. for the next hour, marius plays me
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romanian gypsy music, along with the more recently
bastardized version called “minela” that has a very low
reputation among modern-day gypsies, but which i find
contagiously danceable like its indoneisan sister
music, “dandut”. “you have to make me some cds, man.”
no problem,” young marius smiles shyly, obviously
pleased that i’ve joined him so enthusiastically in his
musical world according to marius.

“dinner’s ready.” mirela bolts in and drags us to
the tiny table in the tiny kitchen. mom, dad, mirela,
marius, and miruna are all squeezed around the tiny
formica table, a la 1960s east european communist
fashion, leaving me the whole side against the wall. i
feel a little embarrassed and gulliver-like again, as
they pull the table out for me to squeeze in, but being
the guest, i guess, sometimes does have its awkward and
gulliver-like responsibilities. the one thing i have no
trouble doing is… eating. if there’s one thing you
don’t know about me, it’s that i’m an excellent dinner
guest. any time you want to invite me, and you have
some new, interesting, food, i’m available.

which, of course, mrs buhunescu has: a local pan
fried white fish, grilled chicken, barbecued beef,
local home grown veggies, fried potats, a cucumber
salad, and the piece de resistance, a giant, puffed up
mamalega”.

look at it. it’s a thing of beauty, is it not? a
giant and graceful polenta pie. in a trendy LA
restaurant, it would be on the cover of and mesopotamia, to greece and carthage. from ramses
and hamuraibu, to alexander and hannibal. i devour the
chapters: the phoenicians, the agaean sea. the fall of
rome, the english revolution. it’ all here. a delicious
desert. and breakfast the next day. and many more meals
to come. of course, mr. loon (not as in “crazy as”, i
hope), over simplifies and paints in broad strokes,
but, if you want a big picture, to try and figure out
what was happening around the globe in say, the year
800 a.d., then this loon is your man. then again, it’s
an almost entirely euro-centric history, including,
well drawn antagonists such as the heathen huns and the
menacing muslims, but leaving out the entire parallel
histories of china, india, japan, africa, etc etc. but
as i say, if you want a well-packed and useful cliff
notes of the entire history of western man, check it
out, my brothers and sisters.

mirela bolts in again, bursting my perfect
historical bubble, now focused on the break up of
greater romania in 1940, and she blurts, “time for the
party.” “huh? what party?” “the baptism party, indeed.”
indeed? i thought we were going to the baptism in the
orthodox church tomorrow morning.” “no, that happened
yesterday morning. saturday” shit! wrong day! i came
all the way up here for the orthodox baptism, don’t you
know? not the local after party. i mean, i this
circumcised, self-hating new yawk jew, came all the way
up to this, at-one-tine, anti-semitic, bad ass berlad,
to see a god damn baptism. i mean, a god blessed
baptism. i already knew that the ghosts of my jewish,
holocaust-surviving ancestors from odessa and kharkov
were turning in their moldy russian graves, but had
made my bed. where’s the goddam orthodox baptism,
mirela?

sorry. no baptism, just party, trules. get with the
program! alright, at least my ensemble will still work.
vintage gray light-wool slacks, a nice black cotton
dior dress shirt…. both freshly ironed by mrs.
buhunescu. a slick black leather dress jacket from my
chilean brother in law, and one of my father’s many
1960s “schmata” work place ties, that i’ve inherited in
2008. it’s drizzling as we walk through the slick
birladian streets to the little restaurant where the
party is, but i have my trusty LA umbrella,
proof-positive that i am, indeed, already prepared for
my rainy day. any time……..

we’re the 1st guests to arrive, and we’re greeted by
the happy husband and wife, the beaming parents, and by
the guest of honor, the little bastard, i mean, the
little baptee, cuddled in mom’s loving arms.

mom’s a too-young, half-gypsy girl, maybe all of 22,
but as beautiful and radiant as she still is tonight, i
can already see her romanian future hovering about her:
the thickening waist, the sagging breasts, the years of
quiet, unknowing desperation, slowly piling up about
her.

you have to see this place. post-communist party
chic. very depressing, you might say, in its chintzy
orange-curtained lack of charm. the buhunescus said it
was a local restaurant, but to me it looks like a
bare-bones VFW hall, a la detroit, 1956. it’s not,
obviously, but it is bare bones and it is depressing.
like, simply put, there just weren’t any more resources
to make it any different. in fact, the guests have to
pay for their own dinners tonight, per head. and with
the economic “crisis” being especially hard-hitting in
the hinterlands, there just aren’t nearly as many
guests in attendance as were invited. looks like it’s
going to be a lonnnnnnng night.

i convince marius to take a walk outside with me, as
we wait for some more desperately-needed guests to
arrive. he takes pity on me and agrees. we walk out in
the fine moldavian drizzle, past the empty berlad train
station, over to the small collection of outdoor,
umbrella-clad tables, attempting east european charm,
but at least tonight, looking more like the last chance
saloon. marius orders us two delicious ice coffee
frappes, and as he says hello to his many friends, i
take a walk in the rain. i curl around the abandoned
train station to the far-reaching tracks laid towards
romanian infinity. i feel like neal cassidy, the
infamous and outrageous beat from jack kerouac’s “on
the road”, walking the lonely track he died on, down in
barren north central mexico, his body found and
identified only long after his invisible death. i’m
missing the lovely wife back in immaculate lala land.
i’m missing my mother and father, and my uncle bunny,
and all the sadly departed souls i still carry around
inside me. i’m missing my medical marijuana
prescription that certainly would come in handy right
about now.

and then it hits me. hard. this is the
rainy day i’ve been saving for. or not saving for.
right here. and right now. in beautiful, impoverished
northeast romania. not too far, after all, from where
my schtetl-living ancestors toiled away, under the
exterminating germans and oppressive russians or
whatever power-wielding anti-semites were the jealous,
jew-hating fascists of the day.

oh yeah, the ever-ready… perfect… rainy day. or
rainy… night, as may be. or… another of spalding’s
elusive perfect moments. right here. and right now. not
in the future. not in the past. but right here on the
tracks. in moldavia. in the rain. with my trusty LA
umbrella. nothing to need for. just the present. just
the now. thanks, very much, senor ram dass.

so we go back to the party…. and look… there are
at least 20 more guests.