Norman Manea - The Hooligan's Return

Augustus is thinking, A beautiful country, fine intellectuals, many decent people. Also, something not quite definable, slippery, too many diminutives, the charm mixed in with the dirt.

At seven o’clock in the morning we arrive in Frankfurt. There is a two hour wait for the Bucharest flight. We wander through the airport shops. Leon buys some cigars, some ballpoint pens, and pencils, to add to his collection. We return to the lounge, find two seats, and try to get some rest. I hear my first exchanges in Romanian, and I panic. Near the window is a group of youngsters dressed in old sweaters and jeans, swearing cheerfully and profusely in my native tongue. I look around. Are the ordinary-looking passengers perhaps really agents of the new mafias or of the old secret services, hired to keep an eye on the suspect returning to his motherland? I can pick out the Romanian academic returning from a conference, the old lady who has just visited her daughter in Germany, the doctor, the politician, the businessman. In a corner, a man in a dark suit is bent over his expensive briefcase and pile of papers. Is he a secret agent, too?

We board the plane bound for Bucharest. The division between first class and tourist is less clearly marked. The cabin is filled with bustle and noise. I am now attuned to the pulse of my anxiety. Leon is watching me, intrigued; he understands that I am already at home.

We land at Otopeni Airport, provincial-looking, small, but somehow appealing in its very modesty. Passport control goes swiftly and soberly. We wait for our luggage in a restricted, crowded space, choked with passengers, passersby, policemen, porters, loiterers — the full Oriental buzz of impatience. Our luggage is late in coming down and we look for a baggage cart. Yes, there are actually carts to be had; some things have changed, after all.

At the currency exchange desk, a pretty young woman is in charge. “How much?” Leon asks me. “A hundred dollars,” I reply. Leon seems to consider this too paltry a sum and exchanges two hundred dollars, receiving in return a million lei. He stares in bewilderment at the profusion of crumpled banknotes. “Look,” I say, “you’re a millionaire at last!” Outside, we are met by a representative of the Bucharest Symphony and a chauffeur.

We drive through Otopeni, an impoverished suburb full of potholes, lined by billboards advertising American offerings. Near the Şosea quarter, the perspective opens up, there are trees, parks, old villas. Leon seems intrigued by the area’s architecture, a strange mix of East and West. I mutter some tourist-guide drivel. Yes, the area once had a certain splendor, a sort of elegance, gone to seed under the proletarian dictatorship and further degraded under the subsequent generations of parvenus. We drive along Calea Victoriei, one of Bucharest’s main thoroughfares. My first disappointment. The famous avenue, remembered as elegant even under Communism, now has a shabby look. We cross the bridge over the Dîmboviŏa River, not far from my last residence, turn to the left at the university, and then again to the left in the direction of the Intercontinental Hotel.

“I wonder if the Securitate still have their eavesdropping devices in the hotel,” I whisper. I tell Leon the story that made the rounds of Bucharest in the early eighties. A nice old French lady staying at the Intercontinental approached the receptionist and said timidly, “Excuse me, I have a request…” The friendly secret police agent, disguised as a receptionist, asked her politely, in acceptable French, what her desire was. She said, “I’ve been told there are microphones in the rooms. Would you be so kind … could I have one without?” Poor chérie . For months she was the laughingstock of Bucharest.

Three p.m. We make our triumphal entrance into the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, the former branch office of the Securitate, Foreigners’ Section. Now I am a foreigner myself, although the receptionist welcomes me in Romanian: “Bine api venit.” We check into two adjacent rooms. At 4:30 the orchestra’s car will return to collect the American conductor for his first rehearsal. I enter room 1515 and am about to unpack when the telephone rings. A pleasant young female voice is on the other end, from Romanian television. She asks for an interview. I decline politely. She understands, I have just arrived and need some time to think it over, perhaps later. What would I talk about— Transnistria, Periprava, Eliade, my success as an exiled writer? No, I shall remain firm in my decision. “You have the honor of being detested,” Baudelaire once told Manet, admiringly. I repeat these words to myself like a mantra, to protect me from emotion and politeness. Should I appear onstage as a public enemy or as the victim of Fascism and Communism, or as the shy, retiring writer applauded by the Americans? I am an intruder, that’s all, and all I want is to be ignored.

A recent story about Milan Kundera in Prague: After a few secret visits home, after the events of 1989, he finally accepted an official invitation to receive the award that would reconcile the motherland to its famous wandering son. However, just before the ceremony, he suddenly felt that he could not participate. He locked himself, like a besieged man, in his hotel room and watched the proceedings on television, as his wife accepted the honor on his behalf.

The telephone rings again. My friend Bedros is calling to welcome me back. I am happy to hear his voice after so many years, I am happy that I can still feel happy. He is coming over in half an hour to see me. I have no time to unpack, as the phone rings again. This time it’s my old friend Naum, Golden Brain. I throw my jacket on the bed, open the window, and unlock the suitcases. I notice an envelope pushed under the door, a fax from the Romanian Television Society: “We repeat our request to you to grant an interview, to be conducted by the Department of Cultural Programs of the Romanian Television Society. We hope that you will understand our wish, given that your presence in this country will not pass unnoticed. The department has a television team available on Tuesday, April 22, 1997. We would be grateful, etc., etc.” I take my clothes out of the suitcase and hang them up, and wash my face and hands. Bedros arrives.

He stands in the doorway for a while. We look at each other, smiling. We see ourselves in each other’s face, as if in a mirror, a sad measure of the time that has elapsed, but also a measure tinged with the kindness that time accords to such reunions. He has the same face, the same black beard, the same big eyes, small hands and feet, the same gravelly voice, as though he were one of the characters in his own Encyclopedia of the Armenians . He even seems to be wearing the same sweater. Short and stubby, a fast talker, he hasn’t changed a bit from those latest days in the Bucharest of socialist masquerades, when we used to talk about the day’s books and exchange literary gossip. Subsequently, we had corresponded for a while. Apparently he still keeps in touch, as the fax from the television people, slipped under my door, turned out to be at his behest, as head of Cultural Affairs.

“Yes, the message was my idea, I admit.”

I explain why I want to keep my return discreet, why I do not want anyone to approach me, why I do not wish to trouble anyone.

“I’ve been thinking about you lately, especially when I was reading Sebastian’s Journal . It’s strange how the past returns.”

He pauses for a moment, then continues in his brisk fashion: “A character enclosed within brackets, that’s how I remember you, a character from Proust. I’ve been thinking about you, and talking to friends. They all agreed, definitely a character from Proust.”