I Must Betray You(35)

Czechoslovakia was next.

   November 17th. The beginning of the end.

   The Velvet Revolution, they would call it.

   Czechoslovakia had endured forty-one years of one-party rule. Nearly half a century under communism.

   And now that was crumbling.





41


   PATRUZECI ?I UNU




Bulgaria.

   Our neighbor on the southern border.

   Their leader of thirty-five years had forced the country’s Turkish minority to take Bulgarian names. He was unpopular. Even Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev disapproved of Bulgaria’s leader.

   The country began . . . to oust him.





42


    PATRUZECI ?I DOI




Poland.

Hungary.

East Germany.

Czechoslovakia.

Bulgaria.

Their communist regimes had all fallen.

“Yugoslavia will be complicated,” said Bunu. “They have six republics to balance. Conflicts since Tito died.”

If Yugoslavia would be complicated, what did that mean? Was Romania the last ring holding the Iron Curtain? I shivered in my closet, making entries in my notebook.


Do you feel me?

Heating a brick To warm my sleep Drifting into dreams In search of myself, In Search of a conscience, a country





* * *



? ? ?

Later that week, Starfish appeared in his black boots and a brand-new suede jacket. He pulled me aside on the street.

“Nice coat. Where’d you get it?” I asked.

“Forget the coat, did you hear? Nadia Com?neci defected. She trekked through the woods, made it over the border into Hungary, and requested asylum.”

“What?” Romania’s star Olympic gymnast, Nadia Com?neci, had defected? “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

“Tass, the Soviet news agency. I know someone,” said Starfish. “News about it has been blacked out here.”

News was blacked out. But we soon heard it on Voice of America.

Nadia Com?neci had arrived . . . in the United States.

One of Romania’s biggest celebrities had no access to a passport, no privacy, and no freedom. Of course not. She had been considered property of Romania, owned by the State. Until now.

Nadia’s international attention probably enraged Mother Elena. After all, there was room for only one hero in Romania.

Him.

I began the slow march to the entrance of my gray apartment block. Had Mr. Van Dorn helped Nadia? How many others were trying to run through the snow toward the Hungarian border? If Romania’s superstars were suffering, would the world finally understand the terrible plight of the ordinary Romanian people?

No. Of course not.

How could we expect others to feel our pain or hear our cries for help when all we could do was whisper?





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    PATRUZECI ?I TREI




I wanted freedom. I wanted Romania to fight back.

I filled my notebook with statements, lists, and information about our country, cries for help that I hoped Mr. Van Dorn would share with others. I created a section called Ganduri—Thoughts—which contained musings like these:


Paradise: If communism is Paradise, why do we need barriers, walls, and laws to keep people from escaping?



I raked my hands through my hair, thinking. There were probably rules. Rules preventing diplomats from knowingly accepting something controversial. I needed to get around that, make sure Mr. Van Dorn couldn’t refuse the notebook. Think of ways to encourage him to share the information with others.

What if the notebook just appeared? The author, unidentified?

I took a breath and wrote the following on the cover:

    SCREAMING WHISPERS

A ROMANIAN TEENAGER IN BUCHAREST



BY ANONYMOUS



Chills formed at the back of my neck. It was a netless leap. Suicide, some might say.

But I had to try. As the saying goes, better to die standing than live kneeling.





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    PATRUZECI ?I PATRU




The next time I met Dan at his apartment to go to the library, I was ready. I would use the assignment from Paddle Hands to my advantage. I not only spied Van Dorn’s desk, I decided exactly where I’d leave my notebook when I was finished.

“How are your college essays coming?” I asked Dan as we walked to the library.

“Good,” he said. “My dad thinks they’ll be appreciated with the recent events in Eastern Europe.”

Hmm. Would my notebook be appreciated too?

“Will you go home for Christmas?” I asked.

“Mom and I will, but Dad has to stay. Punch Green is arriving. He’s the new U.S. ambassador. The embassy’s been without an ambassador for six months, so Dad has to be here for the transition.”

A new ambassador. Interesting.

The American Library bustled with activity. Were readers gathering information from foreign media? Or gathering courage? Perhaps both.

As Dan collected his music magazines, I returned to the section of world news periodicals. The new issue of TIME featured young people from East and West Germany standing together atop the Berlin Wall. The title in bold type was just one word: