Norman Manea - The Hooligan's Return

We go out to look for a taxi. Joanna offers to accompany us and help us find our way. I take from my pocket an envelope marked SEDER. “Dear Mr. Botstein,” it reads, “We have saved two places for you and Professor Manea at the Passover Seder on April 21, 1997. The Seder will begin at around 20.00 hour and the fee is $15 per person, to be paid at the entrance to Mr. Godeanu. The Seder will take place in the Jewish community’s restaurant in Bucharest, at no. 18 Popa Soare Street.” The letter is signed by Alex Sivan, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania. The Romanian Embassy in Bucharest had arranged the invitations, as Leon wanted to be with his co-religionists for the Seder.

The streets are deserted, there is no taxi in sight. We walk toward the university and a taxi appears. The seats have no suspension and we sink into a hole in the middle. I give the driver the address; he hasn’t heard of it. I try to explain, a cross street off Calea Călăraşi; the former Calea Călăraşi, as it turns out, has disappeared so that a wide road can be built to the Grand Presidential Palace. “I don’t know this address,” the driver repeats sullenly. We are back on the street, and the rain is getting heavier. Two empty taxis pass by without stopping; we get into the third. The driver recognizes the address, although he doesn’t quite know how to get there. We reach the Rond, he turns toward the former Dimitrov Boulevard, from there to the right, then right again, then left. “When you see the lines of policemen, it means that we’re there,” I say helpfully, remembering the socialist Seder nights, when the street was cordoned off by militiamen around the Jewish restaurant and identifications were checked at some distance from the restaurant, to deter Arab terrorists, troublesome dissidents, anti-Semitic agents provocateurs, and Zionists demanding passports.

We drive around in circles, until the driver announces triumphantly, “I knew it, there it is, Popa Soare.” Indeed, the sign on the street corner confirms the fact. We turn back to number 18 and I recognize the building. This time there are no police cordons, just one armed guard and a plainclothes man wearing the habitual leather jacket.

An old man wearing a skullcap greets us. Yes, he assures us, we are expected. He does not ask for the fifteen dollars. We are offered two white skullcaps. Leon’s briefcase and raincoat, as well as my parka, are left behind in the cloakroom. We climb the staircase to the brightly lit hall, where the Jews of Bucharest will be celebrating Passover for this Hebrew year 5757.

The tables are arranged as they were ten, fifteen years ago. There is a head table, for the presiding panel of community officials, and eight other tables for the guests. We are directed to our seats at a table on the left. We can see the president, a well-known biologist, his wife, and other community dignitaries. I clutch my copy of the publication we were given, The Jewish Reality , the successor to the former Review of the Mosaic Cult . “Cult” was a term the Communists tolerated, post-Communist Jews prefer more neutral language.

There is no fuss made over the American guest, the college president and conductor, or over the former member of Romania’s Jewish community. I instantly remember that time in 1982 when I made public declarations against official nationalism and anti-Semitism, and found myself cut off even by the community’s officials. Such imprudent gestures, it seemed, hindered, rather than helped, relations with the authorities and were the preserve of the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Moses Rosen, a deputy in the Grand National Assembly of the Socialist Republic for two decades, who played an intricate game in which American and Israeli Jewish organizations functioned as lobbies and pressure groups. Now times have changed, the current president of the Jewish community is no longer the Chief Rabbi, and the old strategies are no longer necessary.

“Wherefore is this night different from all other nights,” my former self asks. Age has plastered new masks on the faces of yesteryear. At the present gathering I cannot detect the former air of festive duplicity, the quarter-truths, wrapped in puzzling hints and gestures, as required by the secret code of the time and, equally, by attempts to undermine it. I can no longer see the servile smiles of the bosses disguised as servants and of their doubles, all decked out in their dress uniforms. Also gone are the quotations from the Book of Regulations on Conditioned Reflexes. It seems useless to try recapturing the perverted animation, the complicity, the picturesque bit players. The atmosphere of the year 5757 lacks the former air of excitement and risk it had in the time of slavery, complicity, and evasion. All that is left is a sleepy assembly of apathetic survivors, gathered to join in the ancient recital.

“Welcome back!” A hearty voice breaks my reverie. The massive gentleman sitting across the table from me extends his big, open palm. He is a stocky, bald, smartly dressed, bespectacled man. He smiles, waits for a sign of recognition from me, and then, in disappointment, says his name in a firm, imposing voice. I should have recognized him. In the time of Romania’s Socialist Pharaoh, he was one of the few palatable figures on television. I turn to Leon and introduce him to Mr. Joseph Sava, who will be interviewing him on his television show, The Musical Soiree . Leon bows ceremoniously to the music critic and his wife, whom he promptly engages in an animated conversation, in German, on the forthcoming performance.

“You’re going to be invited on the show, too, of course,” Mr. Sava tells me.

“Oh, no, I regret, but I can’t. It’s Mr. Botstein’s interview. I made that quite clear last week, from New York.”

“You must be there, too. It will make the interview even more interesting, and you can do the interpreting. It’s settled. I’ll be expecting both of you on Friday morning at the television center, on Pangrati Street,” he says confidently. Somewhat startled, unaccustomed to such a commanding tone, I turn nervously left and right.

“This discussion is pointless,” the critic’s wife intervenes. “Mr. Botstein speaks perfect German, and I can do the interpreting myself.”

I look around. I can recognize poets, actors, functionaries of the community, all visibly aged. I identify a friend of my friend Mugur, two actors from the Jewish Theater, a famous composer of pop hits. But this night is indeed different from the similar nights of the past. What is missing is its maestro, the indefatigable Chief Rabbi Rosen, then also president of the community, the director and leading actor of so many performances on the totalitarian stage, a deputy in the Communist parliament, a consultant to the State Department, an intermediary for Israel and diplomat-at-large of the Socialist Republic of Romania, always entrusted with important missions and roles.

It was not easy to forget the various Jewish festivals that were celebrated here, in the festive hall of Rabbi Rosen’s restaurant, in the latter stages of the atheist Communist state — the tables decorated with traditional foods, the imported wine, the honored guests sitting next to the Party officials, and the visitors from abroad. Such evenings stood out as the culmination of all the efforts of the great Chief Rabbi, who could have served equally well as Minister for Public Works, or Information, or Industry. The system tolerated and even encouraged such shows, not only in order to confuse the outside world, unaccustomed to these extravagant examples of Communist “freedom,” but also in order to be able to record the names, faces, and words of the participants.

Those occasions were feasts of contradictions, under the surveillance of informers disguised as parishioners, or their atheist enemies. They had plenty to see, the ambiguous, mutually advantageous cooperation between the duplicitous masters and the even more duplicitous slaves, serving two or more masters at the same time. There were even informers cast as hardworking citizens, wearing their own faces and uniforms as masks.