Having been born in the 80's, my memories relating to the old system are made up of blurry images of running in-between buildings, some cartoons whose names allude me now and a policeman that caught me putting bull thistles in the exhaust pipe of a car. I also remember how I sat next to the window one December night listening to far off gunfire. And I, from personal experience, know a lot more about life before 1989 than those two, three years younger than I, to say nothing of those born since '89. For all these, but also for those my age, I recommend Coada (The Line n.t.) by Dragoş Voicu.
In a provincial town the people find out one summer's day that at the store silverware' is to be brought and they run with money, bag, everything. The young Ionuŝ is sent ahead by his parents to make his way through the crowds and take a place in line. But shortly after he leaves, the young boy hits a mass of people. The entire city knows of the goods; the entire city is there, standing in the line that lasts a whole year. Personally, this reminds me of an old joke:
John, an astronaut, is to go on a mission. Before laving, he leaves his mother a note: "Gone into space. Be back in two weeks". Upon returning, he finds a note from his mom: "Gone shopping. Don't know when I'll return."
The joke fits perfectly in the context of this novel. The people have come from the get go with chairs, knowing that they will have to wait a long time. The irony is that the silverware' is in fact chicken spines and wings, but this does not matter; people come because one must stand in an line, and anyway, in reading the novel, we come to see soon enough that this gathering is in fact the means through which the book presents to us an entire world of the past.
Coada (The Line) is the story of a childhood, but also of life in general spent in the Communist period. First of all, because the narrator relates his memories from that period, the novel presents to us the life of a child back then, with slingshots made from wires, with Turbo gum, but also with the scout activities, oaths and songs. For one such as myself that has not really felt on his own skin the effects of the Communist system it is shocking to observe the subtle methods through which the slightly older generations were manipulated. I recall from the book only the Ceuşescu cult, the Comrade' as he appears here, nourished through the songs that praise him, the TV programs that are only about him and so on. All these are described in the calm tone of a man who looks at the world through a child's eyes, however the innocence of expression subtly masks the hardships, abuses and absurdities that existed then seemingly everywhere.
In the line, where Ionuŝ spends every day after school, a self-sustained society is formed. Here friendships and even loves are formed, various discussions are carried out, and the young Ionuŝ is there to relate to us everything he sees and hears. These characters around him are however more than simple people; for the intents and purposes of this novel, they are in fact archetypal symbols. Mr. Marin is the shopkeeper, Mr. Costel is the retired man, Mr. Georgescu is the teacher, Mrs. Nuŝi and Florica are the working women, and through them we find out about the lives of various social classes. Thus, the shopkeeper (like any worker there) is interested in manual labor, without understanding much of science or art. The retired man is interested only in listening to the radio and relates the difficulty with which he was able to get used to like in the city (for a long time he couldn't quite understand the concept of an in-door toilet). The Professor, feeling subjugated, writes fables with anti-Communist messages. The two working women are happy that they have a place to work and what groceries or materials they manage to steal from factories they use for commercial purposes. And alongside Ionuŝ and the others walks a nameless policeman that represents the state forces that receive bribes from everyone and permit themselves just about anything. Through all these, the novel Coada (The Line) creates an overall portrait of society in the 80's. Here the electric power in apartments keeps getting cut off, food is scarce, heat during winter is nonexistent. Without groceries in stores people turned to commerce through an exchange of gods stolen from work. And parallel to all the hardships and wants, the narrator presence the fact that the state grants freely to any citizen a house, a job and a gas cylinder, concluding with the absolutely ironic (sarcastic even) phrase "What a good State!"
What's important however is to stand in line. It is a part of life; a way of life. The morbid irony is that when the old Costel dies, his body is not immediately taken away in the hope that his nephew will manage to come quickly to replace him and thus assure that he did not lose his place in line. And in the end, after a year's wait, when the silverware' finally arrives and Ionuŝ's father (who periodically took his place in line) manages to fill the bag with the desired goods, the completed transaction is perceived unanimously as a great victory, the father is a hero, and the fact that Ionuŝ remained faithful to the line to the end is the act that changes him out of a child into a man.
