One was DH Lawrence, a book I didn't know. The other was an author I didn't know. It was hard to talk to her as she didn't speak English very well. She smoked and apparently drank coffee. (A stimulant for exams I think). The other person left before we really got to know them. She was about 25 and had a white top and rather bad eye make up. When we arrived George spoke to the ticket conductor. I think he was complaining about us, as we didn't look very good. The ticket man (who we didn't know of) seemed to explain that we were British and probably told him more. George seemed happy with this. George opened his bag and gave us a sandwich each. It was egg and a strong cheese (I thought the strongness was pepper but anyway.) We left our dry loaves of bread that we'd brought with us. We told him our story. Train, fenetre, superman jump, cut throat, twice, Krakow, baggage. He said 'My God'. He told the women. They said 'No?!' and we said 'yes' and he said 'My God, I'm sorry' and I said 'it's not your fault' and this went on for quite a while. John kept drifting off into sleep/unconsciousness. Eventually we broke away from this and talked about the Olympics, pop music, films, Ceaucescu. George is 25. He wore very smart jeans, shirt and maybe a cardigan. He had a large bright bag. His wife was thin. She was 21. She wore a holey wool jumper. She went to the toilet and he subtly gave her some toilet paper from his back pocket. (I know it's not a very nice subject but I'd been looking for a toilet to sit on since we entered Romania. The train on the journey to Sumeria had really horrible toilets. Just a filthy hole that dropped straight through to the ground beneath, no flush or anything and no toilet paper.) Goby was very quiet and didn't speak English. Her sister was in Germany and she wasn't able to visit her. Maybe she was German. His brother was in Germany and was a bad boy because he never visited and George couldn't visit him (it is very difficult for Romanians to get visas out of the country). They married 18 months ago. There were problems about the relations attending each others wed- dings. George, Goby and Diana got into a conversation. They told me they'd been telling her that George had been a 'spy'. He had been conscripted into the Ceacescu army but had been part of the revolution and had killed people. Since the revolution things in Romania had improved by 0.0000000001%. (A lot of this conversation was carried out using a pad of paper and a pen as well as waving arms around etc.) In 10 yrs time things might get better. Romania, as someone said the previous night, is 50 yrs behind Britain. He said that 25% of people didn't know until two years ago that there was a world or even planets outside Romania. He said that their capacity for learning had been repressed. He showed us his train timetable and was very excited that he'd got information.
Information was very valuable. George, Goby and Diana had a conversation about DH Lawrence. They shouted so much I thought they were going to hit each other. George said that he worked for a water company. He later showed us a translation book which said he was a lathe operator but I think that just meant he was an engineer.
When we stopped at one station George got out and bought coke or something for all five of us. He also gave John and me his bottled water. We were supposed to all share it but no-one else had any. We talked in English very loudly with the door open. George had said, as had the train people on the earlier train, that you shouldn't travel on the train at night but in the day it was per- fectly safe. People in their early twenties with shorts and rucksacks started gathering outside our compartment. There were many open windows to smoke out of but the one outside our compartment was bolted down. When the 'interrailers' discovered this they took an axe (about a foot long, like a tomahawk) out of their rucksack and attacked the window. George saw this and was disturbed. At last someone had seen that we weren't making it up; that people were giving us more attention than one would normally expect. When he finally realised that we were just going to turn up in Bucharest on our own with nowhere to stay, and we asked if there were hotels in Brasov where he was getting off, he had a chat with Goby and after calming her a bit he asked us to come home with him. (Visiting Brasov was originally in our plan anyway as it is in Transylvania and we wanted to visit Dracula's castle, but at this point we just wanted to get to the airport and get home). George was definitely worried by these people. When we got to Diana's stop he walked her off the train to her platform and then shouted to her out of the train window. Goby shouted too. Unfortunately while he was gone a man brought his bag in and put it on the seat where Diana had been then went away again. We managed to keep the rest out, but I wanted George to hurry back to fill compartment. For the next hour the people outside increased in number and aggressiveness. I was terrified. So was George. He kept trying to calm Goby and making plans with her. John was oblivious to it, he was basically unconscious, but he could see I was worried. George kept saying to us, 'you come with us to Brasov' and showing us the minutes passing to when we would arrive. John was annoyed that he kept repeating himself because he didn't realise the significance of it. The man with the bag came and sat in the carriage so we couldn't speak easily. As the man went out to smoke at the window George picked up his paper and asked if he could read it. A ploy to tell the man and the interrailers that he was Romanian. No-one had spoken loud English for a good couple of hours. He showed us the paper and said it was political propaganda and not worth reading. It had nothing about the Olympics in it.
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George tried to pack away my towel. I think he was offended when I wouldn't give it, but I was so grateful to have it. It's a good distraction to stop them noticing my money belt and excellent protection against a knife. George made more plans with the worried Goby. I didn't really know whether to trust him, but I could see from his behaviour that he didn't want all this. But then again maybe all he was worried about was Goby getting hurt and he was still going to get us. After all it wasn't chance that made us sit in that compartment. I woke John and told him to be alert. He went back to sleep. When we got there George took control. He said 'Easy easy' meaning wait a while for the train to clear out then we headed for the exit. I think the order was Goby first but with him virtually on top of and around her, then John, then me. The people in the train moved very slowly. We were stuck in the aisle. The interrailers stared at us but didn't do anything. There were very menacing people in the neighbouring compart- ments too. We got to the door and it was broken. Surely not a coincidence, as George seemed surprised and had probably used it at least twice already. We went to the next carriage and got off. John was scared as he didn't know whether to trust George. I said it would be alright as long as Goby stayed with us. If he sent her off some- where it would be a bad sign that there was going to be trouble and he wanted to keep her out of it. We stopped and looked at train times. I was worried as George was pointing and talking loudly about which train we would be catching to Bucharest and people were drifting around behind us. Goby disappeared. We soon found her outside the station though. She'd bought a Romanian/English translation phrase book from a news stand. More informa- tion. George was happy. He went through the whole book picking out key phrases to say what was happening. He said that Goby had a heart condition, but not to mention it. She went to a chemist as she was feeling ill. We caught a very busy tram. Nobody paid.
When we got off Goby said good-bye and went. George said that she had gone to her mother's and that we would see her in a couple of hours. John wanted to make a run for it, he really didn't know what was happening, all he knew was that I had said that we would be safe as long as Goby didn't leave us. I was scared but I remembered George's reactions on the train and decided that he was the only chance we'd got. I just had to trust him and John just had to trust my judgement. There wasn't much else we could do. We caught another tram.
When it reached it's destination we crossed the road. We walked away from the road into desolation. There were a few big block buildings. The were a few broken cars. The land was just rubble. The kind of place people get taken in London, Liverpool and Newcastle thrillers to get shot. There were suspicious people all over the place. People who lived there but would do anything for a pass- port out. George pointed out a small garage with a few cars around it, that looked like Renaults. He mentioned a make of car and seemed to say this is where they ori- ginally made this particular make of car. We walked around the building and into it. It was like a wrecked 1960s tower block but more wide than tall. He showed us where his mail arrived. The front door was broken off. He shrugged. He was a bit embarrassed. We walked along the corridor. A lot of doors were open. They were just rooms with virtually nothing in them. Maybe a broken mattress, broken pipes. We got to his door. We were dreading it. It had a china knocker thing with an '11' on it. He opened the door and led us in.
It was really nice. About 9'x16' at an uneducated guess (John, who's better at estimating says 9'x14'). There was a slight partition at the door end where there was a sink, cupboard, and folded table. He asked us to take our shoes off. In the main bit was a really nice rug, a sofa, and some shelves. There were also some shelves at the partition. These were covered by a blanket so looked quite nice. At the end of the room was a 22' 1967 black and white telly that hissed, a table, and some curtains closed by the window. He was very embarrassed by his poverty. He often picked out the word 'poverty' in the translation book etc. We told him how nice his home was. He told us to have a shower. John and I discussed the fact that I didn't want to leave my money belt while we all went to use the communal shower. John decided to wash at the sink saying it would damage his head to use the shower. George switched on his walkman which was on the shelf, connected to two small speakers. The autostop didn't work. It was a German girl called Sandra that I've never heard of. He also played Roxette, and had Aha and a couple of others. All the tapes were bootleg ones that he'd bought. He gave me some sandals and took me to the communal shower room. There were also a couple of wrecked and filthy communal toilets there and no light. It was very awkward. There were about 8 showers but he said that only one worked so we both had to use it. We took it in turns though and it was OK. When I got back to the room while George was still bathing John was in a state. He'd been in my money belt and stuck all his stuff from it down his underpants. He was convinced I'd been taken away to be shot. When we'd left John had turned down the walkman to hear what was happening and George had come back while I was in the shower and turned it up again, apparently to drown the shots. John says that this was the most frightening part of the whole trip. When we got back George went through his clothes. He went through all his underwear, saying 'mine, mine, Goby's' etc. He only had about 4 pairs of underpants and he gave John and me a pair each. Similarly for socks, shirt and jumper. They were all pretty tatty and far too small but I was very grateful. I was sure one of the reasons we were under attack was that we looked like tourists and if the mob were really after us all the time the fact that we wore the same clothes every day was helping them. Unfortunately he didn't give us any trousers. |
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