When I open my window I see Anisoara Odeanu's house. Anisoara Odeanu wrote the first novel I read, which still happens to be the only novel I have read to date that was written by a Romanian woman. The house has a commemorative plaque installed by the city of Lugoj in 2012. The school my children attended is named after her, and the Anisoara Odeanu Street exists both in Lugoj and Timisoara. This summer the house changed ownership. It was bought by one of the four gypsy families living on my street. Of course, there exist people who are not gypsies in Lugoj, but the gypsies are the ones who have the money and the desire to invest some of it in properties. The owners had to empty it by June. None of the belongings were kept. There is no room or corner dedicated to the writer.
After 1944 the writer was harrassed and censured. She was not allowed to publish any of her writings for more than twenty years. They said this was because as a journalist she had dared to write articles aggainst the Russian occupation. Most writers are also journalists and most journalists wrote such articles. Furthermore, as the daughter of a professor and the wife of a doctor, she had an unhealthy origin. So, her house in Lugoj was given to the Harcas. They were the kind of people who controlled the koulak (chiaburi), and took whatever they liked from them. Anisoara Odeanu was allowed to keep a room in the house. In 1965 she was reabillitated and finally allowed to publish again. She died in 1972 after preparing everything for her own funeral.
The house was later bought by Mrs. Harca, who left it to the family who took care of her before she died. She had no children. This family now sold it for about 100,000 euros. In a twist of events, the lady who sold it died soon after. She is survived by a paralyzed husband and two children who are perhaps my age.
I am moving again in September. I have not had the strength to sell my house to the gypsies even though we are friends and they are the primary buyers in the city. Of course, the gypsies stand out, but the different mafia secotors are mainly composed from people who don't stand out. Some are called politicians. It seems that the whole world is ruled by rude war-lords who have had little education -- Donald Trump is the primary US example -- and in spite of their lack of manners (or perhaps because of their mercurial manners) they win and win until they appear to have all the power.
Even so I will miss Lugoj -- also known as Logos. I will miss looking at Anisoara Odeanu's house and imagining her peering through her window from the city of Words. She must have done so while she was writing her novels, and turning them into the masterpieces that stayed alive for the past 80 years or so. Perhaps the house won't be modified. But even so it seems wrong to not keep at least a memorial room or some tiny musem that the children who go to the school named after her could visit.
