Wake up, Angela, wake up, a timid voice whispered into Laura’s ear.
Heart fluttering under her skin, her t-shirt drenched in cold sweat, Laura wiped her forehead, turned into a mushy snail. She instinctively checked her phone; she’d always keep it next to her. 00.57 and one Belated-Happy-37th-Birthday-kiddo.-I’ll-make-it-up-to-you-heart-emotion-heart-emoticon-kiss-emoticon message from Dad. He must have sent it when Dana, his third wife, was nursing the baby.
Shivering with cold, Laura wrapped herself in her old blanket like in a cocoon, and wobbled to a hobbling coffee-dinner table, on top of which a magazine had been abandoned.
Wake up, Angela, wake up, a brazen voice was calling from between its covers. Laura grabbed it with her fingertips and tossed it back face down, when a sudden chain of bang-bang-bangs filled the night outside her room. She perked her ears: nothing but a car choking, its angry vroom in competition with the rolling rumble of the thunder. Damned Voicu. He must be drunk if that pimply booger-eating thug of his, Adam, got his filthy hands on that ancient Honda once again. One day that hoodlum was going to kill someone.
A firebolt stabbed the night setting the sky ablaze, the blindening flash licking the oily road, before abandoning the street into a hell-born night. The world was surely ending with a storm like that in the middle of October. At least her world was hanging upside down, Laura muttered to herself, closing back the window smashed against the wall by another gust of wind. She sighed, taking one long look along the street engulfed in smokey darkness, before she shut the window shut.
But perish the thought she could have some peace and quiet in this God-forsaken slum. The Colonel, a lispy gopher, a stone-deaf naked mole rat, the tit-obsessed-mouth-drooling perv had fallen asleep as usual with his TV blaring in the background. Why in the dead or undead saints’ name did she have to listen to the shockingly and unbelievably sen-sa-tio-nal-extra-or-di-na-ry-brea-king news of Octomom, the woman who gave birth to octuplets? Some women simply won’t or can’t have any. Laura knew everything there was to know about willing and failing. Negruleasca’s boys were squealing in the flat above. Slaughtered piglets in wintertime; most likely alone again, in the middle of the night. Some women could but simply shouldn’t. Ever. Laura muttered, banging on the ceiling with a ruffled broom. And of course, that oh-ah-eh-baby-gimme-more-don’t-stop floozy next door was having fun again tonight. Changing men like socks. Or underwear. Although Laura probably changed her underwear less frequently. Or showered for that matter. Who would she even do it for? It had been weeks, but she’d have to dig within and bore some strength again, Laura pondered sniffing her armpits, one by one. They smelled like onion and sourdough.
A thunder rumbled closer, as dogs were growling and yelping in another fight in the pouring rain under her window. Laura hadn’t been outside after dark in years. Not since that little boy was mauled to death by a pack of rabid dogs in the park outside the block.
Wake up, Angela, wake up, that voice kept calling.
Not a damn moment of peace, Laura pressed her palms against her ears. She couldn’t even hear her thoughts, although thoughts, she could live without. She could do with some peace and quiet. No peace or quiet for her though in this hubbub brouhaha. A slimy slum at the edge of Timişoara. A ghetto made of concrete, a match box choked with burned out matchsticks. A public graveyard for the living.
Laura went back to measuring the length and width of every corner of her condo. One step at a time. Seven and a half in total. The squeaky couch – her bed, sofa and eating chair – was torn in much need of repair. Like everything else around here, Laura groaned.
The clock struck midnight on the wall. The coucou had gone mute a while ago. And who would even fix it? Yet time kept ticking without it. 387 days. 387 days since that damned September afternoon. “A frigid whale,” he called her, “with saggy skin and dropping tits and a bucket-wide vagina,” her husband, Marcu, slurred, before he slammed that door behind him when he left. As if to mark the end of life or at the very least the beginning of something. No fucking beginning for her. Or fucking like that slut next-door. A mere limbo at 37, a chain of identical days and nights, in expectation of her own GOD-oh.
Until now, when her end seemed near, the clock, crunching every minute of her living time.
Wakeup-Angela-wakeup, the words kept twirling in her head.
It had been years since Laura ever thought of Angela, let alone seen her. Why now? What deeply buried stories was she bringing back to life again?
The first time she visited was just a few days after Laura had first laid her eyes on her. Laura didn’t even recognise her at first until she saw the boots. Red lacquer boots. The kind Laura herself would beg her father to buy her, but the answer she would always get – especially after her mother passed in ’87 – was “not for the likes of us.”
After that first visit, Angela would come without a warning; she would just approach, her fragile body wrapped in a duffle coat as white as snow, splattered with blood-like polka dots that matched her stockings. And her spectacular scarlet boots: as shiny as a mirror. Her little face remained unrecognizable, veiled in an air of mystery, but always there, always lurking in the shadow, always prowling . It’s been so long since -. When did Laura even meet her?
December 16th, 1989, Laura had just turned eight. Like every Saturday, she had joined her father in the middle of the night to make it in the first half of the line when the old state grocery in Maria Square would open at seven thirty. Armed with the coupons in their hands, the duo hoped to buy what they had saved from the monthly ratio for the holidays treat: 1 kg of chicken, 150g of watery butter, a whole litter of sunflower oil, 10 eggs, 500g of cheese, 700g of coarse whole-wheat flour, and 400g of caster sugar. Enough to even bake a small cake for the holidays. “They’d better leave something for us as well,” Laura’s father muttered to himself, as they approached an overfed line twisting in the darkness all the way around the corner. And yet, at eight the shop was closed, and there was no sign of movement at nine either, when the line had turned into an obese snake that was wiggling its tail in hunger.
By ten, it had become obvious that there would be no food provisions again. Unlike before, a current was blitzing through the crowd, bringing about with it the stench of fear infused with the fresh perfume of change. The thirst for it was palpable in the tremor of the growing mob, which was turning into a common voice, as though fear had been sucked in by the holes in people’s souls or devoured by the craving in their guts. Their whispers soon turned into raspy shoutings: “Down with Communism, you bastards”.
Laura’s father didn’t wait to see what change the current was bringing, rushing them back empty-handed once again. That energy, however, followed them at home, and the whole day continued under its reign. Something so new that no one knew exactly what to call. If Laura’s father hadn’t known better, he would have almost called it hope, he kept muttering to himself. When there was no risk of unexpected visits, he turned the little battery charged radio on to listen to România Liberă, where the long forgotten and forbidden words, like revolution or freedom, were uttered with effusion.
“On the roof. The terrorist is on the roof!” a man suddenly roared with a ragged voice in the growing mayhem in the street.
“He’s running away!” another man barked out of breath.
The voices seemed to be coming from under their apartment’s window in Iosefin. Laura didn’t know how close they were because her father had instructed her to lie still under the dining table. Her left cheek was burning from the coarse rug, its tiny needles stuck into her reddened skin. Despite the warm turtleneck rolled up to her chin, and the two wool jumpers tucked into cotton underpants and a pair of thick wool trousers, her whole body was shivering uncontrollably. Not even the old fur hat, or the knitted mittens could stop the violent shaking. Not even the jaw clenching could stop the teeth from chattering. The city heating was off – hardly a rare occurrence. The ten-year old Electro-Argeş heater that they used to dry their hair after the weekly bath each Sunday was not of much help either. The electricity was usually back on, late at night, with some intermittences during the day, but this time, it had been out since Friday.
The mercury thermometer on the wall barely touched the mark of 11°C, but it was dropping fast, as evening was setting in. It was only a little after four in the afternoon, but light was dying quickly, melting into a wintery darkness engulfed in foamy snow. It wasn’t long until white dotted lines stabbed the air, lighting up the sky with a deafening roar: ra-ta-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta-ta. From the kitchen, Laura could hear her father’s strained voice – she would learn soon enough he had been hit in the leg – “Don’t move. Stay where you are.” Trying to ignore the shiver in her bones, she focused on the growing growling in her belly. The can of sardines blended with onion and a drop of watery sunflower oil she had shared with her father wasn’t enough to keep the stomach rumble away for too long.
New rounds of bullets ripped through the dusky air. Ra-ta-ta-ta. Ra-ta-ta-ta. Plaster cracked into more wounds, windows shattered nearby, splinters crashing on the ground. A lost bullet stumbled upon a sack of flesh and bones, followed by the muffled sound of a body reaped like wheat in summertime.
“Help!” a woman shrieked.
Trembling under the table, unable to utter a sound, Laura waited, ears perked, for what felt like hours. The shotguns stopped, replaced now by the woman’s wailing: “Wake up, Angela. Wake up”. Car brakes squealed, doors smashed open but they quickly slammed shut: bang, bang. What was happening outside? Plucking up her courage, Laura crawled to the window and, with a firm grip on the windowsill, she craned her neck to take a peek. The street had been abandoned. The façades of the buildings where her classmates lived – the twins Alin and Alina, Dani, Cami – were now looking like a man’s face with a toothless smile, eaten away by ailment, sickness, and old age. Where was everyone? Where were the voices coming from? On her toes, Laura leaned forward for a better look. Right under the window, on the side of the road, a white two door Beetle. It was only when the car squealed back onto the road that Laura saw her. Or better said them. Through the trunk ajar, two short legs covered in red-stained white stockings and a pair of shiny scarlet lacquer boots were dangling on the edge, fat ruby blobs of blood trickling in the snow.
And now, thirty years later, little Angela was back again and to what end?
Laura groaned, pressing her knuckles into her forehead. On the coffee table, the magazine reigned sullen and aloof. She grabbed the brochure from the table once again. Its corners torn from overreading, the booklet felt too heavy in her hands, as if the past, the present and the future were pressing on her palms. She flung it back, the cover staring at her from the table. Everything you need to know about endometrial cancer. Everything? She didn’t want to know anything. Not now. Not later, ever. She just wanted a peaceful night and a quiet mind. And maybe hope for more tomorrows.
Wakeup-Laura-wakeup, that bloody voice was blaring deep inside her, as the clock was banging on the wall: tock-tock-tock.