Rooted in Zalău

5

I live in a town in Romania called Zalău. It has everything I could possibly want, and I think it’s enormous. I’ve only walked a few of its streets, but Dad says it has sixty thousand inhabitants. I can’t quite grasp what that means, though once I counted to 120 and I could have kept going if I hadn’t grown bored. I’m very good at counting.

Our neighborhood—my entire town, really—feels like a tree with its roots at the kindergarten, where Mom is a teacher. Every morning, my mother, Simina and I walk there, and at noon we walk back home. I love these walks because I get to ask all the questions and Mom never gets bored of my questions.

The kindergarten building is like a castle. It has bidets in the bathrooms and a huge yard. Adults say this used to be Ceaușescu’s house—he was president when I was born, but they killed him. I’ve heard he was a bad man.  Still, this must be an important town since Ceaușescu had a house here. When I grow up, I would like to be the cleaning lady here. There are so many children, even two Hungarian-speaking classes, but we don’t really play with kids from other classes.

Climbing the trunk of our neighborhood tree, on the right there is a bar. We never go in. It’s for adults—perhaps only for men—and it smells bad.

Farther up the trunk stands our apartment building, home to us and many other families. There are lots of children in our building and in all the buildings in our neighborhood. We play in front of the block as long as our parents allow it, and when a mother leans over a balcony and calls a name, we all pray it won’t be ours. Here we play with Hungarian children too—unlike at kindergarten.

In every building there seem to be families who fight and families who don’t; families with cars and families without; families with color TVs and families who still watch in black and white. The ones without cars fight more, but Dad says it’s not because of the car, it’s because the husband is a drunk. I hate seeing the neighbor across from us come out crying. We all watch her from our windows and fall quiet, because we know he hit her. I feel sorry for her children.

Dad isn’t a drunk and he owns a Dacia, so we don’t fight—even though our television is black and white. I don’t like television much anyway. There’s only news, folk music programs, and Dallas, which isn’t for children. But I know a rhyme about it:

“One, two, three, Pamela wants babies,
Bobby won’t agree,
'Cause she’s too pretty.”

I learned it from the children in our building. At kindergarten they don’t teach such funny poems.

On weekends we drive to our grandparents’ house and sing nonstop until we get there. Others have car stereos  and don’t sing at all. That seems very boring to me.

I’ve heard it’s good to be rich, and I think we are, because Dad once went to France and almost no one travels abroad. We also have a bathroom—Grandma doesn’t—so we must certainly be rich. On Saturdays we hurry home from our grandparents’ because the hot water runs, and we can take a bath in the tub. I love taking baths in the tub!

Higher up the trunk, on a branch to the left, lives Ramona, with whom I share the same grandparents. She’s older and teaches us silly things. When we go to her place, we pretend we’re dancing with boys. 

Nearby are the grocery store and the produce shop—the two shops of our neighborhood. The grocery store rarely has much, but sometimes they sell Kiss chocolate with strawberry foam. I don’t think there’s better chocolate in the world!

Even farther up live Anca and Liana, with whom I share my other grandparents. I like playing with them the most, but outside, because inside their apartment you mustn’t disturb a thing. 

On a branch to the right there’s a park, though I don’t care for it; its two swings are always broken. But there’s a metal bar where I pretend I am Lavinia Miloșovici performing on the uneven bars. Sometimes a father comes to beat carpets and claims my stage.

At the top of the tree, at the edge of my neighborhood, there’s Meseș, a mountain covered with a forest that I think never ends. We go there with family friends for picnics, for snowdrops in spring, for sledding in winter. In the middle of the forest there’s the Brădet cabin, next to which are two swings that aren’t broken. Deep in the forest there are winding steps that seem to lead somewhere secret. Mom and Dad say they’re just tree roots, but parents lie sometimes. Perhaps they don’t want us climbing all the way up.

10

I know almost the entire town now. I’ve seen every neighborhood, though ours remains my favorite. I travel alone by bus to music school in the center. There’s a two-story shop called Silvania, though it rarely has anything worth buying. Next to it is the open air market, where you can find everything: jeans, evening dresses, sandals, cassette players, magazines, car parts, vegetables, fruit. I’m allowed to go there alone. I buy any magazine that features the Backstreet Boys.

Two new shops have opened in our neighborhood, and they're full of sweets and chips. We even have second-hand stores now, but Dad forbids us from going because he says they sell old junk. Mom lets us.

More people own color televisions, and we have cable now. There is finally something to watch.

Some people bought foreign cars, and we upgraded the  Dacia with one with  a stereo. We don’t sing anymore.

My father's boss has a Volkswagen and he makes us take our shoes off when we get in the car. I don’t like this, but I love the car — it’s worth taking my shoes off. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever been in, and he drives at 120 km/h. Ours doesn’t go that fast.

Everyone talks about privatization, which means becoming your own boss. I don’t understand why they didn’t do it sooner, if it’s so grand. Dad works downtown now and sometimes I stop by his workplace on my way home from the music school. He has an office he shares only with the boss, and they both smoke and talk endlessly on the phone.  He seems important and that makes me feel proud.

I’ve been to Cluj and rode an escalator. I wish we had them too. They say a supermarket will open downtown, but I don’t think it will have escalators. In Cluj they have hot water all the time. When we met our godfather there, he said he’d quickly take a shower and come downstairs—he doesn’t wait for Saturday. He takes a quick shower, like people do in the movies. They also have bigger hospitals and better doctors. When we leave the doctor’s office, Dad takes me to McDonald’s. I feel a little embarrassed that we don’t have a McDonald’s. But two pizzerias have opened in Zalău, and now pizza is my favorite food.

We have a Black man in town. I saw him one day on the street while walking to school. I only looked at him when he wasn’t looking at me—I know it’s not polite to stare—but how cool it would be if our families were friends. Then I would truly feel as though I were living in the movies.

15

Most people in this town seem like idiots to me.

I take piano lessons, guitar lessons, joined the Local Youth Council. I try to read even though I dislike it. I try to learn a lot even though everything bores me to death. But I don’t want to become an idiot too. I befriend people who listen to “quality” music and I attempt to become a musical snob.

We no longer buy clothes from the market because many clothing stores have opened downtown. Everyone has foreign cars now, and we have two supermarkets. I work promotions in one of them sometimes, handing flyers and giving product samples,  and married men flirt with me while their wives stand beside them. I ignore them and speak only to the wives. 

Dad has an Opel now and he installed a gas boiler at home. I don’t know how we lived so long without daily showers. What a backward country we are!

The rich kids talk about brands, wear designer clothes and move from communist apartment blocks into big houses. I realize we are neither rich nor poor—we hover somewhere in the middle.

My boyfriend is astonishingly intelligent and cultured. I wonder who taught him everything he knows. He introduces me to the best films and the best bands, and I pretend I’ve already heard of them. His grandmother has a university degree, and I realize most people my parents age  are the first in their families to finish high school. Few of us have grandparents who completed more than eight grades.

Cultural life is scarce, but I try to take part in it. I spend time with the rockers and we drink too much. There isn’t much else to do, but at least I learn history and politics from them. I pretend I dislike every other genre of music. I listen to rap in secret.

Since I’m hopeless at sports, I compete in academic contests and Olympiads in my spare time so I won’t waste it. I know that in three years I’ll move to Cluj and I hope I’ll stay there. In a year I’ll go on a trip to Western Europe.

I’m ashamed of my stupid accent. When I travel south, I lie and say I’m from Cluj. I heard my father telling the same lie. I suspect the shame of being from Zalău is hereditary.

20

I live and study in Cluj, and the idea of moving back to Zalău feels like the first shovels of earth striking a coffin.

I return every few weeks, and it feels just so damn  sad. We have all the wonders of capitalism now, yet we remain stupid. I want to revolt but I don’t even know against what.

My parents have moved from the communist apartment block into a new house, and more and more people are doing the same. I realize that those who have grown rich since the Revolution are rarely the ones who posses more culture or intellect. 

25

I work in Cluj and I gladly visit Zalău from time to time, but  I bring my quiet sense of superiority with me.

I attend my neighbors’ bad-music parties, but their taste in music bothers me less now. I manage to enjoy the community, so I try to judge less.  I rarely succeed.

My sister has moved back and she wants to have children. I struggle to understand her.

I no longer go out when I visit. Zalău becomes the childhood tree again, with fewer and fewer branches that interest me. The only difference is that now we live on a different part of its roots.

30

I’m an aunt now and I rediscover Zalău through my nieces and nephews. There is a mall now, supermarkets, McDonald’s, spas, gyms, skating rinks.

Some teenagers try to open a theater and organize events in their parents’ yard. I take my mother and a neighbor to one of their events. They love it. Perhaps my nieces and nephews will grow up less culturally deprived.

There’s a running joke that nobody knows where Zalău is. Maybe they should open a fucking  map from time to time. 

35

I live in Budapest.

I visit Zalău every couple of months and stay for a week. On the drive, I listen to the kind of Romanian music that drunk uncles dance to at weddings, and now I enjoy it.

The town seems ugly to me and I love it. I feel like I owe it a lot — it made me who I am, and I like who I am.

My accent returns the moment I step out of the car. I am no longer ashamed of it. On the contrary.

I walk every street. I ride bikes with my nieces and nephews. We go to the forest, to the new parks, to the pool, to the mall. If there were a bouldering gym or a karting track, it would be wonderful — we could do even more together, and I know they would love it.

I watch them delight in the town and it makes me remember my own childhood.

I hope they will want to leave one day.