swath of light cuts across theroom, revealing Daniel’s cellmates: rubbies, by the looks of them, stinking and bearded and accustomed to spending their nights in places such as this. Through the window, Daniel can see shoes and the bottoms of trousers, and he realizes the cell is in a basement.
His cellmates are coming awake now, their snores replaced by breathy yawns and cursing. Beside him, a big man stirs and groans. He sits. Though dishevelled and smelling as though he’s bathed in tuica, he’s nonetheless in better shape than the other men, if only because his clothes aren’t torn and he has both his shoes. He shakes his head, and as he does the few hairs left on the top of his head waver like antennae.
“Oh boy,” he says to no one in particular. “Oh boy, oh boy. What in God’s name have I done?”
He meets Daniel’s gaze.
“Hey,” the man whispers loudly, “you got a cigarette?”
Daniel shakes his head and looks away.
“Not one?” the man repeats.
“No.”
The man coughs, and sniffles. “Your clothes,” he says. “You’re not from here, are you?”
Daniel’s first instinct is to tell the man to mind his own business. Brusquely, he shakes his head.
“So where
are
you from then?”
“Maramures.”
The man laughs heartily, and slaps one of his knees. “Maramures?” he says. “Really? Maramures? From where in Maramures?”
“A small place. Called Camarzana.”
“Camarzana! Really! Well then, boy, you’re looking at a guy from Baia Sprie!”
Daniel raises his eyebrows and eyes the man suspiciously. He doesn’t even need to ask: the big shoulders, the bull’s neck, the flattened nose. “You’re from the mines.”
“Yes! And you?”
“The strawberry fields.”
The man thrusts his hand toward Daniel.
“What else is there, eh? My name is Gheorghe Mihoc.”
Daniel takes the man’s plump, coarsened hand. “Daniel Pacepa.”
Gheorghe leans forward, his breath sour and hot.
“Well then, Daniel Pacepa. What brings you to beautiful, beautiful Bucharest?”
“I’m on the way to Spain.”
“To Spain?” “Yes.”
“Algeciras, maybe?”
Daniel nods.
“What
is
it about that place? Sometimes I think that half the people in this cursed country are walking around with Algeciras on the brain. I take it you’re going to get on a big ship?”
Daniel nods, and is annoyed when Gheorghe laughs.
“You know they say that in America you’ll never find a square, ugly, Communist building.” He laughs, harder now. “They say that every house is made from wood, and that they they pay you not to work!”
Though Daniel tries to smile, his face looks more tense than pleased. “Gheorghe,” he says. “Is this your first time in jail?”
“Are you kidding? I know the Baia Sprie drunk tank better than I know the back of my hand.”
“Then how,” Daniel asks, “do we get out of here?”
When a meal of thin, greasy soup and stale bread arrives, Gheorghe and Daniel eat it with relish, licking their lips and rubbing their stomachs, as though it’s the best meal they’ve had in weeks. Later in the day, a rhythmic tapping comes at the tiny window. When a guard passes in front of the cell, Gheorghe says loudly, “It’s so nice and dry in here, eh, Dani? So nice to be out of the rain, am I right, Dani?”
At night, when the jail fills, Daniel and Gheorghe have to sleep sitting up, leaning against the cold wall, their shoulders touching. As Daniel drifts off, his dreams fill with barking dogs, and swirling red lights, and the revving of black vans, so that throughout the night he keeps waking up, feeling haunted and weak and alone. In the morning, the vagrants who came in the night before—the ones covered with scabies and sores and patches of dead skin—are turned loose, the men remaining being the ones who look as if they might be able to scrounge up a dollar or two for their freedom. After the drunks have been cleared out, and the two men have again smacked their lips