“Guilt walks on all fours.
It creeps, encircles, and climbs.
It presses its thumbs to your throat.
And it waits.”
That’s the heartbreaking beauty Sepetys brings to her historical novels; and also why she is one of my favourite authors. Her writing is a work of art that rips apart your mind, body and soul, and then puts them back together; leaving you whole again with a knowing that something in you has shifted permanently.
This book made me wonder, how many such Stalins, Hitlers, Ceaușescus, Mussolinis, Francos has the world birthed to date? How many such stories are still hidden behind an iron curtain even today? I cannot believe that something like this existed in the same world I live and breathe in.
I did not know about Ceaușescu before this book.
I deliberately stopped myself from googling about 1989 Romanian Revolution, or searching for pictures of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena while reading this novel. But in the end, when I saw their smiling faces posing with other world leaders (pictures from archives that Sepetys included in the end), I did not know whom to hate more. Them or leaders of rest of the world. How could the so called leaders be so ignorant, or chose to stay ignorant while millions suffocated in the dark?
The audacity of this whole gig has left me dumbfounded. Will there ever come a time when I can say I have learnt enough of the worlds’ adversities; that nothing would surprise me anymore? When I read books like this I go thinking, this is it, nothing can be worse than this, until I uncover something new later.
I admit, the knot that formed in my chest in the first chapter of this book, kept getting tighter and tighter till the last 80th chapter; and then just snapped when I saw the pictures.
I felt like I was back in the American library standing with Christian, staring at the album of colourful pictures of his beloved leader with the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Queens, Leaders and Mickey Mouse.
“It wasn’t disgust. It was despair. That’s what I felt, seeing colourful photos of our leader ….”
The sources that Sepetys lists in the end, lets us relate the story to real people like Irina Nistor who dubbed movies from the west to Romanian and became an important voice of freedom during the regime; Ionel Boyeru who was one of the three soldiers assigned to execute Ceaușescu; Nadia Cománeci the Romanian Olympic gymnast who defected from Romania etc…
Of the fictional characters, Bunu was a ray of sunshine in the darkness. Or rather a bolt of lightning, every now and then. The power his thoughts held, we need one such person in every family, who can light a candle in the darkness of the mind. Christian, Luca, Cici, Lili, Alex, Dan; they all were a representation of over 20 million people who lived their fear, drank their darkness, breathed their desperation.
Conversations like below, can you imagine the shred of strength it takes to laugh at the face of your misfortunes?
“””
“Romania is so efficient in the winter" said Bunu, "Such a time saver not having to put on a coat"
I laughed. Breath fogged from my mouth. We never put on coats, because we never took them off.
“””
If you had to live every second whispering your thoughts, not knowing who was an informer; your friend, teachers, neighbours, parents, siblings, spouses, children; can you imagine the state of mind living in such mistrust; for decades; destroying the soul of an entire generation? I don’t know if there’s a detox for such a poison even after freedom was achieved.
“Paradise: If communism is Paradise, why do we need barriers, walls, and laws to keep people from escaping?”
This is just a sad reminder, that freedom, which we treat as a necessity, that we take for granted like the air we breathe, is a luxury bestowed to general public by the few in power. If the dynamics of the society changes tomorrow, there’s no guaranteeing, this freedom won’t be taken away. It has happened before. It can happen again. What fear, hunger, misinformation can do to millions of people; what it can lead the majority to believe in; what it can take away from you. It’s heartbreaking.
Sepetys, thank you. Like “The Fountains of Silence” and “Salt to the Sea”; “I must betray you” has moved me beyond words. All I can say is, thank you for bringing this story to me.
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