Beltane                                                             Garlic Moon

Reading a novel right now called the Hundred Days.  A fictional rendering of Ceausescu’s last months in power it offers a picture of Bucharest in 1989. Grim doesn’t capture it.  A genuine horror show.

Example.  Queues.  People would line up for whatever was available, even if they didn’t need or want it.  Buying the shoes or bread or meat or alarm clock would allow you to barter on the black market for things you needed.  You could never count on any particular thing being there.

Other examples.  Rampant corruption.  Bribery for even basic care.  In a hospital.  Women charged after a miscarriage for damaging the integrity of the Romanian family.  Beyond understanding.

Now.  What’s really beyond understanding is that Mariana and Vasily, Nicoleta’s parents, lived through this.  I sat in their house, shared food with them with only a vague idea of what is, in fact, the very recent past.

Only a block from the Best Western hotel where I stayed was a Carrefours with plenty of food, produce, meats, cheeses.  Sounds like this kind of grocery would have been available only to those in the party elite.  In 1989.  Less than 23 years ago.