Since I remember I wanted to build a house. Many children have this dream and play house. So I suppose it's not unusual. However, the impossibility of it only made the dream dearer to me. During the communist period houses were treated like churches: they were demolished, and replaced by apartment buildings. My parents' home was one of the last houses to be demolished just before the Romanian revolution in 1989. The house that I still dream myself in was replaced by a parking lot.
After I moved to Timisoara in 1988, I was going to be given an apartment from work. The apartment building was unfinished. I remember visiting it with my children, and dreaming we will live there. Then the laws changed. By 1991, I gathered my savings, sold our two cars, and prepared to buy a house for my family. I was 41 years old and still believed I and everyone I loved would live forever. I thought I had time. I saw all houses on sale by foot. I was armed with a map, and with a lot of ideals. I rejected proprieties for facing north, for being draughty and old, for having sandy soil, and for plenty of other reasons that don't make sense to me today. Then I found this house on a dirt street that seemed worse than most others. There was no plumbing, but it was close to work. It was also surrounded by gypsies, who were terrorising the old couple who had built it. The other neighbor was Dr. Death. He had an interest in the property, too, and worked together with the gypsies to get the property for 70,000 lei.
The gypsies beat up the old lady. She died two weeks later. Their daughter was desperate to sell the property, and, of course, the only people who would have had the courage to buy it were either the gypsies themselves, who would not have paid much for it, or Dr. Death who offered the 70,000. That was true until I showed up.
I misguidedly liked to play the knight in shinning armor. I bought the house for exactly the amount they asked for -- almost 250 000 lei. House prices in Timisoara varied between 70 000 lei (the price of a new car) to ten times the price of a new car. The market is similar today. The 70 000 lei usually implied one was buying a ruin. This house had 4 big rooms, and a nice garden. All my other considerations flew out the window once I decided to buy it. I reconciled with my ideals by saying I was going to demolish it and build my dream house. It was going to have four levels: a basement, a ground floor where my wife and I would have our medical cabinet, a first floor with plenty of space for us, our children, and each set of parents when they wished to visit, and a finished attic.
I moved from the apartment I shared with my family to the old structure. I bought lots of books that explained how to build a house and plenty of tools. I made friends with the few neighbors who had no interest in the house. The lady next door had a big German Shepard. His name was Rembo. She'd let me use her entrance, and I brought plenty of food for her dog, who adored me. I hired an architect, and had the plan drawn and re-drawn until I was happy with it.
At first, the neighbors thought they would scare me away. The grandfather gypsy had served an 11 months prison sentence for murder. They had killed a young officer. The sentence was light because the gradfather was old and suffered from tuberculosis. Next to them was Rembo and his lady, and after them there was Dr. Death. He was the coroner who had been named so by the mob for sending Timisoara's dead from the 1989 revolution to be burned in Bucharest. It was rumored that young men and women entered the County hospital shot in the arm or in some other non-life-threatening location, and were later sent to the crematory in Bucharest with a bullet to the head. They said he personally got the job done in some cases -- perhaps if the person reached him alive. However, staff who tried to testify against him were later found dead, not shot, just held down until they drowned in rain puddles. This was because Romania's leadership did not really change after 1989 and those involved in the cover-up were too strong to be found guilty. Some gypsy clans sometimes worked together with the police and with people like Dr Death and got the right kind of jobs done. They survived and sometimes even thrived.
At work I tried to be fair. I have never asked for bribes, and supported my staff. As a doctor in triage, I tried to make sure all those in my department had the maximum salary they were allowed to get. Most of my staff was formed from women, and I made sure they were promoted. My job was to find what was wrong with people as quickly as possible and to send them to the right department to get cured. I did that to the best of my ability for all the years I was in service. As a colonel and an officer, I hanged out with the soldiers and sub-officers, and ignored my superiors to the best of my ability. My inferiors loved me, and my superiors thought I was mad. I'd often make jokes, and I was known for remarks of the form "sa moara comandantul daca nu-i adevarat" (let my commander die if I am wrong) made sometimes while kneeling perferably in front of the painting made by my sister with the skull and the bones. I now believe that it was a combination of the devotion of the many people I had helped that kept me alive combined with luck and madness and fear or lack of fear. I also had a strong presence and a way of convincing the masses. They were right: I was mad since I don't remember being afraid of anything or anyone while they were afraid of death, and after the revolution they were afraid of paying for what they had done. None paid in this life since there seems to be an endless interest in this world in promoting the corrupt because they do what they are told and can be led easily. I'll find out soon enough what's after death.
When I was outside work, I'd hang out with Rembo while working on my new building. My neighbors would play various tricks on me. I'd often find my gate wide open, and in the middle of the path, there would be trash or shit. I mostly ignored them and entered my house via Rembo's territory to avoid seeing them. One day I told them to give up on their tricks and that if they don't I'll break their gate and put their trash inside. Later that evening I found myself surrounded by gypsies holding various garden implements. They told me they wanted me to leave their street or die. Another year in prison for the old man was not much hardship. So they declared they wanted to beat me to death like they did the young officer. I had an ax nearby. I had used it to cut fire wood. I brandished it around and told them that, yes, I was outnumbered, and if they tried they could beat me up and kill me, but I was not going to go down quietly. At least five of them would go down with me. So, I asked "who is ready to die? who will go down with me? which five of you?". Rembo joined me. He was growling and his fur was raised. He looked like a porcupine or like a wolf ready to strike in my defence. They were armed and willing to use their weapons, but I was much taller than most of them. They did hit me a few times. I hit nobody, but cursed them to the best of my ability and brandished the ax a lot while Rembo growled. I was full of bruises when my wife came that evening, but at the end of the day they had given up and accepted me as a neighbour. I told them to swear on the sharpness of the ax that they will cause no more trouble, and promised I'll rescind my curses in turn. They kept their word for the many years that followed. We formed a strange kind of friendship. We'd always say hello when we'd meet. I'd bring medication for them when they were ill. I even tried curing their grandfather from tuberculosis. He mostly chose to give the medication I provided to their pigs. It would make them fat, and they could eat them faster. He'd chew tabacco instead to cure his cough.
In time the gypsies lost their house. A dentist bought it. He eventually sold out too; as did the son of the lady next door after she died at the age of 91. The new owner demolished it. Now it's an empty lot (somebody will likely build another tall building on it. What the area needs is a parking structure and more trees.) Dr Death has died of old age some years before me. He left behind two children just like me. Only I also have grandchildren. He has some of the present through his children, I have more of the future through my grandchildren.
Other gypsies moved on the street. They are much richer. They no longer keep pigs or any other kind of animal. They have a huge mansion that looks like a palace. Part of it is rented to a furniture store. Scumpi (the Expensive one; the name of my neighbor) has a blond, beautiful wife who looks younger than my daughter. He had shown me his scar from an open heart surgery and told me it was performed when he was in prison abroad. I showed him my scar. I had an open heart surgery the year Edward was born, only mine was performed in Timisoara.
It took me 30 years to finish the house. For many years, most of what my wife and I earned went into either paying workers or building materials. My children went to school abroad. They studied hard and obtained fellowships, and even sent money home. Now the house is built. My parents and my in-laws have been dead for many years. I have never opened a medical cabinet. At 67 I had a major stroke from which I have not recovered. Since then the damage deepened and is getting closer and closer to the bulb. I am 70 now and I am heading towards the other realm.
I built a house. It was never a home, but perhaps it will be some day. It has not been a medical cabinet either. It might still be one day.
Ira George, my grandson who is 10 months old, was born in one of the bathrooms I designed. The hospitals were closed due to a case of COVID-19, and my daugther chose not to go and give birth in a tent because she wanted to breast-feed. The rule was that they would take the child away until their COVID-19 test came back negative, which would take days. Instead, she gave birth in the bathtub, while my wife, a retired gynecologist, led the delivery. He is one of the proofs that life moves on independently of the many mistakes we make. However, my daughter chose not to live in the house I built. It's too big and too central she says. She is trying to rent it instead. She moved into her grandparents' former house, which has always been a home to her, and is now preparing to leave yet again.
I hope the world will head towards economic recovery, and stop the lockdowns, and that we'll fight for sanity and not for some crazy new normal. Lockdowns are not compatible with democracy. They damage mental health and well-being. I won't live to see "the new normal" (I hear too much about it on the radio as it is), but I'd like to know my children and my grandchildren are safe and free.
My daughter points out I should not have my story harm minorities. I simply stated things as I remember them. I have had many gypsy friends throughout the years, and some of my daugther's best friends were of gypsy origin. Her best friend in grade school was Alina Litra -- a little girl who welcomed the friendship of lonely a child that had no friends because she had changed three schools in fewer years. Our best neighbor -- the only one who opens our door regularly -- since I've been sick is an old gypsy lady, who even wears the flowing skirt atire. Her extended family owns many houses in Lugoj. While her grandchildren and great-grand children are abroad she maintains the houses, and finds the time to befriend us. Here we have no Dr. Death nearby. However, the house next door used to be owned by Mr. Devil. The nickname arised from his connections with the special police. I don't know the details of his actions, since I never wanted to find out. I've heard enough about injustice. His grandson owns the house now. He works at the Town Hall. He likely is involved with the new order. I heard him the other day discussing with the gypsy neighbor under my window. They said something about returning from Germany because somebody hanged themselves or had to hang themselves. I did not understand the details. However, it seems that the street still is a safe place to discuss things, and that the old and the new orders are not as different as I hoped. Also, Western Europe is not a safe place we'd like to think it is...
I have, however, drifted from my title. I now think people should build homes, and be there for their children and significant others because life is finite. The world needs kinder people, fewer heroes, fewer houses, and more homes.
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