Never Mind the Balkans, Here's Romania by Mike Ormsby

Author:Mike Ormsby [Ormsby, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9786069390214
Publisher: Nicoaro Books
Published: 2008-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Buried

43° C, the hottest day of the year so far. I decide to walk up town, just to see how it feels. No point hiding indoors, better to adapt, that’s how humans survive. Plus, there’s something I need to do – find out about Romanian writers. The Internet helps, but not much, Wikipedia offers only sketchy profiles. I want to read Creangă in his own words, see what the wilful ruralist was up to. Caragiale too, seems he has a barbed wit. Maybe even Iorga, the historian who was shot by fascists.

I make my way through tight streets, keeping to the shade. Not many people out today, the city centre seems quieter than usual. I walk past the fruit and vegetable market at Piața Amzei. I remember shopping here in my first week in Bucharest, in 1994. I bought a big bag of juicy oranges from Portugal, or so I thought. Now I know better: portocală means orange.

I find the library in an elegant old villa. Suspended over the entrance is an ornate domed canopy of glass and wrought iron. It looks like a giant clamshell. The wide lobby has several smaller rooms leading off. Three women sit behind a counter, chatting quietly as they sort through books, tickets, and papers. They seem surprised that I should want to register, and concerned when I mention Romanian authors.

“We don’t have many of their books in English,” the lady in the polka-dot dress tells me. But she’s friendly and efficient and I am soon filling in an application form. “What do you do?” she asks.

“I wear several hats, but mostly I’m a writer,” I say, scribbling.

“I see, and where do you work?”

“These days, at home. Mostly.”

She gives me a funny look. “No, I mean where is your desk?”

Now it’s my turn to give her a funny look. “It’s by the window.”

I have a feeling one of us is missing the point, probably me. Maybe she means what business do you work for? But that’s my business. All I want is a ticket to borrow books.

She stares at me for a moment, then sighs and ticks the box marked intellectual. She has shiny red nails, and holds the pen with her thumb and three fingers. I used to write that way, until a teacher said it was wrong. I wonder why. I wish he could see my box, marked intellectual.

I walk down a short corridor into a medium-sized room with good natural light and some beautiful wooden bookcases. Old men in suits and hats browse the shelves. The ladies were right: the English section is pretty small. I scan the shelves, left to right: Brontë, D.H. Lawrence, Dick Francis, and a hundred others of varying credibility. But no Romanians, how come?

“Because English translations are hard to find,” explains a beautiful young librarian. She smiles sweetly from behind her heavy desk of polished oak. Her hair cascades in corkscrew curls onto bare brown shoulders, backlit by the morning sun. She appears to have a halo, as though she’s in an advertisement for shampoo.

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