Category: Stories
The factory of my childhood
Posted by Alina on February 11, 2009
My heart sank as my eyes took in the view. Fallen concrete walls, debris reminiscent of bombing and an empty space that allowed me to see far beyond the railway, beyond the river, to the hills and the village tucked in their lap. We were on the train, just leaving Piatra Neamt, when this view opened up in front of me. The children were unfazed. Rupert was interested – after all he contributed to the town’s development strategy and one point of that strategy was that the old paper factory had to go. A residential area is to be built on its ruins.
But the train did not allow me to linger on the view, to suck it in properly and let it settle in my mind. In my mind, that space is still the factory of my childhood, one of the coordinates between which I knew I was allowed to play. On one side of my granny’s house there was the road, dangerous with traffic, on the other side was the railway track and behind it ran the wall of the paper factory. It was called Reconstructia, meaning Reconstruction, which was a good communist name to give to a paper factory that dated from capitalist times, before the Second World War.
The factory was a big polluter of an otherwise nice mountain town, which claims fresher air than many others in Romania. And while other companies pollute in a “silent way”, Reconstructia always came with a bang. Apart from the noise its siren made from time to time – reason unknown – it produced an unbearable smell. We used to say “Reconstructia farted again” and this was a cosmic fart that would engulf a big chunk of the town. Or so I remember.
It didn’t look good either. It had a menacing black tower, which was demolished a few years ago, and various buildings that were ugly at best. After communism, the factory started crumbling. Its windows were broken, the walls were eaten by decay and were used for graffiti. It looked terminally ill and I knew it was going to go.
And yet, when I saw that a large part of it has been demolished, a part of me was sad. I remembered the story that I once heard from my granny’s neighbour, an old lady whom we called tanti Buzoianu. She was like a second granny to us and I will always carry with the me the image of her either knitting, or running from one shop to another in search of another queue for food. And tanti Buzoianu was a young woman in 1944, when the Russians came and when the last German defenses in the town were in the paper factory. She was heavily pregnant with her third child and, fearing the Russians who were portrayed as savages, she
took refuge in the factory. There were rumours that Russians used to slit the bellies of pregnant women, she said. I tried to imagine her fear as the Russians came in the dark hall.
She said the soldier who saw them first was very decent. While he made a threatening gesture towards her belly – probably more out of frustration that all Russians might be seen as belly slitters – he wiped the nose of her boy, who was scared and was crying. And that simple gesture, during a war, in a paper factory, made me like the hideous building.
The factory was also the place where I found my puppy. I was 10 years old and during a short cycling trip with my father and brother we saw through one of the factory gates three puppies. I so much loved the dark-furred plump one that we asked the guard to give it to us. It was like a fluffy playful ball, the way it jumped around its brothers, trying to engage them into some sort of game. And we took the bundle home, my dad holding him with one hand while his other hand was on the bike. The dog stayed with us until it died, 14 years later.
Alina Wolfe Murray, Feb 09
February 11th, 2009 at 10:46
Absolutely brilliant.Alina, you should take up a career as a writer,or perhaps you are already.
Lots of love
Jimmy
February 11th, 2009 at 16:09
I don’t know why you wondered why you had written such a piece Alina. I think it will take us all back to a time most of us never really knew. I can see the incidents in my mind’s eye now and actually feel the place with its depression and its humanity. I can see your father carrying the fat, round puppy in one hand, bicycle handle in the other. He’s still sweet and generous with his grand-kids.
February 12th, 2009 at 17:33
This story has real punch. But the introduction should be cut out, along with the final paragraph. Both put the reader off, both detract from the power of what is in between. It reads like the start of a novel.
February 12th, 2009 at 23:06
I agree with Chris Stephen.
Lots of luck with the novel…
February 14th, 2009 at 20:53
Thanks for all the comments folks. I agree with Chris and Daoud about the last paragraph, which has now been deleted, but what’s wrong with the first one? I really can’t see why it should be deleted or what’s wrong with it
February 16th, 2009 at 17:07
Perhaps not the whole first paragraph. Just the last 2 sentences, since:
We don’t know who the children are (or what they are unfazed about), nor Rupert; and it’s very early to learn that it’s a paper factory; and we don’t know anything about the time frame of Rupert’s development strategy; and I half thought that the rest of the essay would be about post-socialist development strategy (which nearly put me off reading on!)
In my opinion these last 2 sentences contain an awful lot of info. at the wrong time, most of it irrelevant. But the 1st paragraph could end quite successfully: “…in front of me.”
Well, you did ask. What a great idea, though, your family blog. I like it a lot. All families should have one.
February 24th, 2009 at 16:49
I really liked this it flowed into a history of personal memorys and discription of people who appeared in my head and of course something fantasic a dog.
August 28th, 2009 at 0:41
Draga Alina,
Am vazut articolul tau despre discursul antidiscriminare al Madonnei la concertul de la Bucuresti. Nu am avut rabdare sa citesc tot, insa am prins ideea ca “exista prejudecati in legatura cu tiganii”. Acum eu am sa presupun ca esti casatorita cu vreun englez sau american, te-ai mutat undeva in afara tarii si iti merge tare bine pentru ca scrii pentru Associated Press. Probabil esti plecata de mult timp, si ai uitat, sau nu iti mai pasa de situatia din Romania.. Insa ti-e foarte usor sa incepi sa scrii si sa-ti denigrezi conationalii, facandu-ne intoleranti si xenofobi. Eu insa te invit sa stai o perioada la noi, in Bucuresti, in Colentina sau Ferentari, sa simti pe pielea ta ce inseamna tiganii si ceea ce produc ei (per total) ca etnie. Ei bine, in caz ca ai pierdut orice contact cu Romania, te anunt eu ca tiganii sunt unul din blestemele cele mai mari abatute asupra tarii noastre.. si sunt convins ca nu ai avut de-a face cu ei. Asa ca, pe viitor, inainte sa te prostituezi moral pentru “lozul in plic” de la AP, poate te mai gandesti si la noi, cei care am ramas ACASA (si care mai gandim, nu suntem doar ignoranti si intoleranti), si poate iti pasa si de imaginea romaniei, si chiar a lui Traian Basescu.
De ce crezi tu ca italienii nu-i vor pe (r)rom(an)i in Italia?? Pentru ca nu poate nimeni sa integreze o natie parazitara, de-aia!
Sper ca te-ai oprit un pic sa meditezi asupra aspectului si ca pe viitor te vei gandi mai mult inainte sa scrii un asemenea articol. Daca vrei mai discutam, scrie-mi pe mail sau adauga-ma la messenger. Poate ajungi si tu cu picioarele pe pamant cu ocazia asta.
August 28th, 2009 at 13:19
I will write this message in english so that you and others may understand it.You wrote the article about Maddona being hissled in Bucharest when speaking about equality.Let us take the idea of equality. We think our world is embracing more “equality”, when in fact, facts point in another direction, i.e., towards greater and greater economic inequality.An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that we’ve made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in others. And an almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in which we’ve made progress have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where we haven’t isn’t.We can put the point more directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia – of discrimination as such – are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won’t be cured by – they aren’t even addressed by – anti-racism or anti-sexism….Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination not only performs the economic function of making markets more efficient, it also performs the therapeutic function of making those who have benefited from those markets sleep better at night.The truth is: we continue to live a world of delusions.Caritas in veritate.
August 28th, 2009 at 14:59
To see the article that the above two comments refer to please click here:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/08/27/entertainment-eu-romania-madonna-gypsies_6823409.html
I am the proud husband of the above mentioned Alina Wolfe Murray, who did a fine job of reporting on Madonna’s comment at her (otherwise appalling) performance in Bucharest two days ago. She made a very general criticism about prejudice in Eastern Europe in general (not even mentioning Romania) and the crowd booed her and there was an awkward moment in the crowd. The next day Alina wrote this article and the proverbial shit storm started. The Romanian media have reproduced (and presumably distorted) the AP article and there have been a flood of comments, two of which made there way onto this old article.
I would like to point out to Tudor, two comments above, that Alina does in fact live in Bucharest and she is not living the life of luxury in some foreign fleshpot — as you suggest. She also has a lot of experience of the Roma as her husband (my, myself, I) have worked on EU projects with the Roma and have made films about them (see http://www.productive.ro if you’re interested).
While I don’t want to deny anything negative that may have happened to any Romanian citizens it is clear to me that the Roma behave as they do because they are systematically excluded from the educational and social services. If Roma kids are excluded from school, which they are, despite official denials, how can you expect them to make a positive contribution?
August 28th, 2009 at 18:21
What’s all this rubbish about cutting paragraphs and bits from the factory piece. It’s not the beginning of a novel, it reads to me as a spontaneous piece and should be kept as it is. That’s what I say. What do you thhink Lara?
August 30th, 2009 at 11:24
You can delete my comment as my message was not understood.
September 1st, 2009 at 0:53
Rupert, I’ve just seen your response, and yes, I’ve noticed you live in Romania (having seen other posts of this blog – this current one is the highest in Google’s indexes). Anyway, having realized that, it made me wonder even more why in the world would anyone defend the gypsies when you he/she lives in the midst of them and sees what they are capable of producing.
Yes, they do have their people of culture, they do have honest and well-behaved representatives. I have met gypsies that were pretty good guys, and I liked them. And it’s also the person that you meet, not the stereotype. But taking them as a whole, and seeing them cause trouble every day you go out, you can’t NOT develop any grudge for them.
In any case, Madonna (even with the gypsies on the stage), had no right whatsoever to come and draw attention upon the way we treat gypsies – she doesn’t come in contact ONE BIT with the realities of dealing with them. I would have booed her 5 minutes in a row, had I been there.. And it hasn’t been really about what we think of the gypsies, but what we think about Madonna coming to our country and scolding us a bit because we were not nice to our fellow darker skinned and curlier haired!?!?
As such, I am sorry but I can only condemn this initiative to denigrate our image in the international press by a FELLOW citizen.
And to answer you on the last paragraph, they have never been discriminated on matters of education availability – not even on Ceausescu’s time – and moreover they have their special budgeted places in our state universities.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:42
Dear Tudor, thanks for replying to me in English. I understand your opinion but disagree with it (the English would say “I beg to differ”). First of all I have never had any personal problems with gysies and I’ve been living here since 1999 (and I lived in a remote village from 1990-93); and I’m not the kind of foreigner who goes around in a BMW X5 or lives in an exclusive compund like the French Village where poor people are disallowed; I live on Bulevard Ion Mihalache and I see Roma people daily. I travel through town by bike and public transport and repeat — I have never had a problem with gysies. The worst case was when I cycled through Sintesti village where there are all those grotesque mansions and I stopped to take a photo and a big woman said “get out of here or we’ll thrown stones at you”. But then in the next village I met a really friendly bunch of gypsied in PSD T-Shirts who being bussed into the centre of town as Geoana supporters; and they were curious and interesting and funny. I’ve always found that if I am open to them they are open to me and there’s no problem.
I’m not denying that you’ve had problems or that other people have, or that they represent a massive social problem, just that I personally have never had a problem with them and I don’t think my wife has either. I think they are rather peaceful considering how violent they could be if the Romanians were more intolerant towards them (and Romanians have to be congratulated on their tolerance, considering how they feel about them. It shows great self control).
I also stand by my first point which is that the Roma are systematically excluded from the education system, and if you want more detail please ask the Ovidiu Rom foundation. I know the law supports free education (and health) for all but it does not function in practise. You know perfectly well that people don’t send their kids to school if they haven’t good new clothes and supplies (rechesite). There are countless cases of poor Roma who withdraw their kids from school because they can’t afford the clothes and equipment and their kids are discriminated against from day one. And Ovidiu Rom have examples of schools that have denied Roma parents access to a school simply because of the colour of their skin. Illegal but true.
My view is that if you (Romanians) want to resolve the social problem of the gyspies/Roma the only way to do it is to make a massive effort to get all their kids through school. This will take a lot more than assisted places at University and Liceul as most Roma kids never get to that level of education. It needs to start at primary school and kindergarten and local agents need to encourage and support families to do so. It needs a massive investment of cash but it is worth it because these people could become the experts of the future, rather than a social problem. Romania’s population is in decline and if you want economic growth you must invest in education.
Unfortunately most Romanians are in denial about this problem and many think that Roma people don’t want to be educated, they don’t want to work, all they can do is steal, lie and cheat. I say this is prejudice speaking, reinforced by tradition, school and the media and not effectively challenged by anyone.
As for Madonna I think you are over-reacting. I was at the concert, which was pretty crap by the way (she can’t sing, she screeches). She didn’t even mention Romania in her statement; she said she has heard there is discrimination against Roma in Eastern Europe and this makes her sad. What’s so offensive about that? I would have thought that is the easiest statement in the world to agree with; okay so there is discrimination against Roma in E.Europe, everyone knows that. Big deal.
And my wife’s article in AP was also about discrimination in Eastern Europe and wasn’t really about Romania. It is seen as an international problem not just a Romanian one. But Romanians took it all so personally and reacted angrily, and this makes them look as if they are more prejudice than they really are (and they’re no more prejudice than people in other countries, but Romanians are worse at hiding it).
By reacting so angrily to Madonna’s statement you are simply drawing attention to the fact that you share these sentiments of discrimination, you are in denial about their problems and you would probably blame the Roma for their problems without being able to look within yourself and say “do we too share some of the blame? What can we do about this?”
I hope my comments don’t offend you but this is what I feel, and it is a point of view I would make to most Romanians and not only you.