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Retezat |
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Monday morning I switched on the TV. The news on CNBS announced that the unemployment will increase in Europe, the interest rates of the major European banks will drop, the economic perspective is rather grim and there are intensive talks between Swedish, English, German and French banks to save the colossus called Altrom from bankruptcy. I felt a sudden headache and nervousness creeping up my spine. This encouraging news made me decide that I have to stay another day in the paradise of no worries where I am. Lia and me spend this weekend in a heaven where TV was out of place, this serpent destroying the happiness and offering the poisonous apple of the real world. Up in the Carpathian Mountains there is a natural reserve park called Retezat. We found there a small hotel, a group of four huts each with three rooms. Inside you could enjoy all the benefactions of modern life, still outside you felt the pristine nature. The lawn ended in a mountain river, with very clear water. Chaotically strewn rocks forced the river to boil and form small cascades and the small pools came sometimes alive when the trout hunted the flies above. The very high and steep cliff on the other side of the river is sometimes visited by shy shadows, black goats that live only in the wilderness of high altitudes. Our hosts tell us that sometimes bears come to the river to drink water, which maddens the three dogs that he keeps around the house. Our hosts are a very nice couple, Anita and Marius. Marius is the former mayor of Hateg, a town not very far away. In 1993 he had the chance to visit US for a year on an assistance program designed for mayors. In his case the money were very well spent; he was extremely receptive to everything he saw and is trying hard to apply in his business all that he learned. His wife Anita is a German born in Romania, and returned after the Revolution to start business here. She was an intellectual, coordinator of foreign languages education and she traded the security of a fixed job in Germany for diving deep into the adventure of doing what she likes. She had no experience in tourism or cooking, but she is now a very good cook, I can witness that in front of any jury. The couple has big difficulty getting help to run the place, in spite of high salaries that they are prepared to offer. The region around is declared a "de-favored zone" because of the 70% unemployment. There were numerous coal-mines here that had to shut down their doors after they had to face the competition coming from other places of the world. In order to avoid social movements, the government gives subsidies to the former workers and this seems to diminish the desire to accept any kind of work. In communist times, official propaganda proclaimed the steelworkers and miners as the heroes of the new times, the real producers of goods, and they had higher salaries compared to others. I cannot stop to add with a little bitterness that intellectuals were considered just a tolerated class, people that didn't have the guts to accept the challenge of the real hard work. Those involved in services were also sometimes regarded with a slight contempt, as people looking for easy money. The former miners have a very high resilience to mentality novelties and probably this is one of the causes that creates the paradox of no one available where no one has a job. Each day we very busy doing "nothing", and it is so rewarding to be totally committed to it. In the middle of the stream I found a very large bolder with a flat surface almost the size of a bed. The water of the stream was ice-cold and the bottom slates covered with slippery mud made walking to my place a real adventure. On this bolder, on my protected fort, I spent one or two hours each day, surrounded by the white foam of cascading water, listening to the murmur of it, admiring the glitter of the sun on the moving surface of the liquid crystal and shutting my mind to anything disturbing; the best Yoga exercise imaginable. We made trips to monasteries in the neighborhood and we could see remote places where basic life has very little changed in the last 100 years. In the evening we admired the light of the stars in the completely cloudless sky. Or we told stories with our hosts or other guests around an open fire, admiring the flames licking the wood branches or the firework of sparkles when a piece of wood cracked. One of the other guests was a German that came to Romania for his 50th anniversary of high school ending. He was part of a Hungarian-German family that joined completely and with enthusiasm the German side. One of his cousins went to SS, another to Wehrmacht. He could do neither of it, since his mother was Jewish. Still they kept very good relation in the family. When the war was over, each of the cousins, except him, had to hide for many years, out of fear of reprisals and they knew nothing of each other for many years afterwards. One of the cousins volunteered in 1944 at the age of 14, when even children were admitted in the German army. He was sent to France to an SS detachment, and was given in charge the electrical generators. In 1944 the morale of the army was not so high and other older comrades of his advised him to declare that he was forced by the Germans to join, in case he is captured. One day they had an awesome American bombardment, that minced them to pieces, then they were attacked by the Americans. The boy was knocked unconscious, had severe wounds and was carried to a local hospital, fortunately for him while having a blue overcoat, and not military clothes. When he came to his senses he saw a big black face leaning on him. He never knew that there are people with a different color of skin and he started to shout desperately calling his grandmother, and of course he shouted in Hungarian. This only strengthened his story afterwards, when he claimed that he was abducted by Germans and he has no idea where he came from. A local French family adopted him, was hired as an electrician, and married one of the daughters of the family. He didn't dare to contact his family until after 10 years, and even then he did it on hiding. Hollywood stories are nothing compared to this real one. Time is so relative. Weekends have a fixed length of two and a half day, but are they all equal? How many weekends do I remember? This time we had a little bit longer than a weekend, but we gathered so many memories, lived experiences at the border of the absolute, met interesting people, went back in time, heard enchanting stories and relaxed. Four days? It certainly looks to me much longer. Dorel Jurcovan 22 March 2003 |