Excerpt
The journey from Iernut to Constanța lasted two days aboard the
freight train. At the harbor, after nightfall, we drove the terrified
animals onto the ship. Some fell into the sea and were hoisted out
with cranes.
“Cine-i șeful dintre voi?”* I heard a voice ask from the darkness.
They pointed at me. The man stepped closer, pulled out a wallet,
and asked how much I wanted if I looked the other way and allowed
two animals to be taken. Fear paralyzed me. I sensed danger.
I refused. Later I imagined the money in my pocket — a pocket
that remained empty then and later as well.
A similar situation arose years later during an ordination ceremony
in Alba Iulia. A few first-year seminarians, including me, were
stationed with baskets before the cathedral to collect donations. The
baskets quickly filled with hundred-leu bills. Seeing this, a Székely
woman slipped money into the pocket of my cassock to make room
for further offerings. At the end I carried everything into the sacristy
and emptied my pockets as well. Although I never once regretted
my decision, whenever I suffered from lack of money, the missed
opportunity often returned to my mind — what might have filled the
emptiness. And the emptiness was not merely material.
The noise of the crowded hall did not reach me gradually but all
at once, as though it had been there the entire time and only now
allowed into my consciousness: the dense, overlapping bodies of
children and parents, the gazes directed toward the podium where
the school principal stood in a ceremonial pose, slightly overplaying
his role, as though he were handing out prize books not to us
but to some invisible future memory. When he pronounced my
name, at first I did not react because I expected nothing, had prepared
for nothing — indeed I was certain it could not possibly be
meant for me, merely a mistaken name — and when they said it
again, then once more, now several people at once, glancing at
each other, turning their heads as though searching for someone…
_______________________
“Who is the boss among you?”
