(… with inevitable ChatGPT flourishings…)

Political Testament

To escape from a totalitarian universe—and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a camp, a prison, or another form of incarceration; the theory applies to any kind of product of totalitarianism—there is the (mystical) solution of faith. This will not be discussed in what follows, as it is a consequence of grace, which is inherently selective.

The three solutions we refer to are strictly worldly, have a practical character, and present themselves as accessible to anyone.

The First Solution: Solzhenitsyn’s

In The First Circle, Aleksandr Isayevich briefly mentions it, elaborating further in Volume I of The Gulag Archipelago.

This solution consists, for anyone stepping over the threshold of the Security Service or any similar investigative body, in resolutely telling themselves: At this very moment, I am dying. It is permissible to console oneself with thoughts such as: What a pity for my youth, or woe to my old age, my wife, my children, myself, my talent, my possessions, or my power, my lover, the wines I will no longer drink, the books I will no longer read, the walks I will no longer take, the music I will no longer listen to, etc., etc., etc. But one thing is certain and irreversible: From now on, I am a dead man.

If one thinks this way, unwaveringly, they are saved. Nothing more can be done to them. They can no longer be threatened, blackmailed, deceived, or tricked. Since they consider themselves dead, nothing can frighten, seduce, or provoke them. They can no longer be manipulated. They no longer have—because they no longer hope, because they have left the world—anything to yearn for, preserve, or regain, nor anything for which to sell their soul, peace, or honor. There is no currency left in which the price of their betrayal can be paid.

Of course, this requires the decision to be firm and definitive. You declare yourself deceased, consent to your death, and eliminate all hope. You may have regrets, like Madame d’Houdetot; you may lament—but this moral and anticipatory suicide does not fail. The risk of yielding, of agreeing to denounce, or of making a fabricated confession then vanishes completely.

The Second Solution: Alexandr Zinoviev’s

This solution is embodied by one of the characters in the book The Yawning Heights. The character is a young man presented under the allegorical nickname “The Misfit.” The solution lies in total non-conformity within the system.

The Misfit has no permanent residence, no proper documents, and no employment; he is a vagabond, a parasite, a penniless drifter. He lives from one day to the next, surviving on what he is given, what falls his way, or what he can scrape together. He wears rags, works sporadically, sometimes, and only if the opportunity arises. He spends most of his time in prisons or labor camps, sleeping wherever he can. He wanders. Under no circumstances will he enter the system—not even in the most insignificant, sinful, or low-commitment job. Not even as a pig keeper, rejecting the example of the protagonist in an Arthur Schnitzler novella, who, obsessed with fear of responsibility, ends up as a swineherd.

No, the Misfit has existentially projected himself once and for all as an outcast, a scapegoat, a Buddhist beggar monk, a madman, free (and mad) in the name of freedom.

Such a person, existing on the fringes of society, is also immune: no pressures can be exerted on him, for there is nothing to take from him, and nothing to offer him. He can be imprisoned, harassed, despised, mocked at any time—but he slips through their grasp. Once and for all, he has consented to live his life following the example and model of a perpetual night asylum. Out of poverty, distrust, and unseriousness, he has made a creed; he resembles a wild animal, a scrawny beast, or a highway robber. He is Ferrante Palia from Stendhal. He is Zacharias Lichter from Matei Călinescu. He is a secular iurodivyi (holy fool), an untiring wanderer (and if Wotan descended to this earth, what name would he bear? Der Wanderer), a wandering Jew.

He is outspoken, talks incessantly, gives voice to the most dangerous anecdotes, knows no respect, mocks everything, says whatever comes to mind, and speaks truths that others dare not even whisper. He is the child from Andersen’s tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes. He is the fool from King Lear. He is the wolf from La Fontaine’s bold fable: he knows nothing of collars.

He is free, free, free.

The Third Solution: Winston Churchill and Vladimir Bukovsky

This solution can be summarized as follows: in the face of tyranny, oppression, misery, disasters, calamities, dangers—not only do you refuse to give up, but you also draw from them a mad desire to live and fight.

In March 1939, Churchill told Martha Bibescu: “There will be war. The British Empire will be reduced to dust and ashes. Death is stalking us all. And yet, I feel as though I am twenty years younger.”

The worse things get—the more immense the difficulties, the harder the blows, the more surrounded or attacked you are, the less hope you have, the more the grayness, darkness, and viscous entanglements intensify and tighten—the more you long for the fight, and the more you experience a growing, inexplicable, and overwhelming euphoria.

You are assaulted from all sides by forces infinitely greater than your own: you fight. They defeat you: you defy them. You are lost: you attack. (This is how Churchill spoke in 1940.) You laugh, sharpen your teeth and knife, and grow younger. You are tingled with happiness—the indescribable joy of striking back, even if far less effectively than they strike you. Not only do you refuse to despair, to declare yourself defeated and overcome, but you also fully savor the joy of resistance, of defiance, and you feel an unstoppable, madly exuberant sense of joy.

This solution, of course, requires exceptional strength of character, a military philosophy of life, a formidable moral resilience, a will of hardened steel, and adamantine spiritual health. It likely also requires a sporting spirit: to enjoy the battle itself—the clash—more than success.

This approach, too, is salvational and absolute because it is based on a paradox: the more they strike you, hurt you, impose ever more unjust suffering, and corner you in increasingly hopeless situations, the happier you become. The stronger you grow. The younger you feel.

Churchill’s solution aligns with Vladimir Bukovsky’s as well. Bukovsky recounts that when he received his first summons to the KGB headquarters, he couldn’t close his eyes all night. Naturally, the reader of his memoirs might assume it was due to fear, insecurity, or emotion. But Bukovsky continues: “I couldn’t sleep out of impatience. I could hardly wait for morning to confront them, to tell them everything I thought about them, and to charge at them like a tank. I couldn’t imagine greater happiness.”

This is why he couldn’t sleep: not out of fear, worry, or emotion, but from the impatience to shout the truth to their faces and to charge at them like a tank!

I doubt more extraordinary words have ever been spoken or written. And I wonder—not claiming it as truth, merely pondering—whether this universe, with its swarms of galaxies each containing thousands or millions of stars, each surrounded by billions of planets, all measured in light-years, parsecs, and unfathomable distances; whether all this matter, these stars, comets, satellites, pulsars, quasars, black holes, cosmic dust, meteors, and so on; whether all the eras, eons, times, and space-time continua, whether all Newtonian and relativistic astrophysics—could have come into existence for the sole purpose of allowing Bukovsky’s words to be spoken.

Conclusion

All three solutions are certain and unfailing.

I know of no other ways to escape from a life-threatening situation, a totalitarian universe, the clutches of a Kafkaesque process, a domino game, a labyrinth, an interrogation room, fear and panic, a mouse trap, or a phenomenal nightmare. Only these three. But any one of them is sufficient, effective, and liberating.

Take note: Solzhenitsyn, Zinoviev, Churchill, Bukovsky.

  • The acceptance, assumption, anticipation, or provocation of death.
  • Indifference and defiance.
  • Bravery accompanied by a wild sense of joy.

You are free to choose. But you must realize that, speaking in worldly and human terms, it is highly unlikely you will find another way to confront the iron circle—which, in large part, is also a chalk circle (see Camus’s State of Siege: the foundation of dictatorship is a phantom: fear).

You may protest, perhaps, arguing that these solutions imply a form of life equivalent to death—or worse than death—or involving the risk of physical death at any moment. And that is true. Are you surprised? That is because you have not read Igor Shafarevich, because you have not yet learned that totalitarianism is not so much the solidification of an economic, biological, or social theory, but rather the manifestation of an attraction to death.

And the secret of those who cannot fit into the totalitarian abyss is simple: they love life, not death.

But death — who Alone has conquered it? The One who, raised from the dead, dieth no more.

[…]

December 31, 1959

On the other hand, the quality of being a Roman senator doesn’t seem tied to any particular historical era, just as Schelling explains that romanticism is not a literary school belonging to a phase in the evolution of taste but rather one of the enduring propensities of the human soul. The old man, over 82 years of age, the small pensioner from Bucharest, suddenly revealed himself to me, in the simplest way, as capable of authentically senatorial feelings.

After I told him how things had transpired, he said to me:

“Why did you come home, you fool? You’ve given them the impression that you hesitate, that there might even be a possibility for you to betray your friends. In business, when you say ‘let me think about it,’ it means you’ve already agreed. For nothing in the world should you accept to be a witness for the prosecution. Go, leave now.”

I know him from the days when he used to return to Pantelimon in the evenings, standing on the carriage step—martial—when during the movements of 1919, he roamed the factory workshops in uniform with his sword unsheathed. Yet even now, I can’t help but think, at least a little, that he’s putting on a show—for both himself and for me. I watch him mostly in secret, afraid to confirm that he’s just being brave. I point out that I can’t find anyone now and that sitting at the Security Service gate with my suitcase until Monday makes no sense—heroism is dangerously close to ridiculousness. And I feel exhausted; there’s also tonight’s dinner to consider. I explain to him what prison really means, that he’s old, that he will be left alone with a very small pension, and he shouldn’t expect pity from anyone, nor visits. And I’m afraid. After all, all they’re asking me to do is to tell the truth. We’ll never see each other again, and I’ve caused him nothing but trouble my entire life; at least now, at the end, I could sweeten his days a little. And, to be honest, the thought of prison, of suffering, combined with the thought of his misery, terrifies me.

(The imminence of pain always moves us, and repentance, like a loyal dog, follows in its footsteps.)

In the well-known parody, Stephen the Great’s mother feels sorry for her wounded son, opens the gates of the citadel, and tends to him. How little that parody understands the twists of the human soul and the surprises a Bucharest apartment can hold (more gripping than The Mysteries of Paris). Listening to my father leaves me in no doubt: Lady Oltea really did act just as Bolintineanu’s poem suggests. If this old man, this Jew, can speak to me as he does, what else is not possible? Artificiality is as widespread as naturalness; theater belongs to the essence of life. Corneille describes people as they are, and at the end of the school year, in primary school recitations (I in the third grade: “You believed, O King, and thus you triumphed”), banalities are spoken.

“It’s true,” my father says, “you’ll have very hard days. But the nights will be peaceful—” (I must repeat what he said, I must; otherwise, God would punish me)—”you’ll sleep well. Whereas if you agree to be a witness for the prosecution, you might have decent days, but the nights will be unbearable. You won’t be able to close an eye. You’ll have to live on sleeping pills and sedatives; you’ll be numb and dozing all day and tormentedly awake at night. You’ll writhe like a madman. Get on with it. Don’t hesitate. You have to go to prison. It breaks my heart, too, but there’s no other way. Besides, even if you testify for the prosecution now, don’t be a fool—after six months, they’ll still take you. That’s certain.”

This last argument, perfectly logical, practical, and lawyerly, especially impresses me. But six months of living in fear feels like an eternity.

My father, increasingly like a Roman senator, continues:

“So prepare your things for Monday. Make sure to take only worn-out items.” (Here he was entirely wrong.) “And in these three remaining days, don’t say a word to me about the trial. Security, prison—I don’t want to hear about them. I want us to spend this time together, pleasantly and peacefully.”

And that’s what we do. Strangely, I sleep fairly well and even eat with some appetite (after all, even the condemned man in Kafka’s In the Penal Colony eats on the torture device) and behave relatively sensibly.

I leave the house only on New Year’s Day, at noon, invited to lunch by lawyer D.P., whose wife is a very old friend of mine—and my first and only love from my youth. They tell me (they have two children) about a New Year’s Eve party they attended where one of the guests dropped dead during the celebration while dancing. “What a way to start the year!” they comment. If only they knew that, on top of that, their New Year’s Day guest is someone who, in three days, will be a prisoner…

I casually ask the lawyer (though this is why I came, leaving my father alone) what he thinks about Article 209 of the Penal Code. He shrugs, somber and preoccupied: “The conviction is certain—and very severe…”

January 3-4, 1960

“I don’t think it will be too long,” says my father. “They’ll probably give you eight years. I’ll make sure to leave some money with Gică or another relative, from selling the radio, the cooking stove, the gas cylinder, and the books—so you’ll have something when you get out.” (He has no idea about the total confiscation of property for political convicts.)

On Monday morning, I am calm. I wash, shave, dress, and check my little suitcase (full of rags). I wasn’t allowed to cry even once during those three days. My father, the enforcer of this prohibition, wouldn’t even consider it.

The evening before, I run into Professor Al. E.L. on the street, a former spiritist. Moved to the point of trembling, I begin telling him—so impassioned that I see his astonished sympathy—that there are indeed Jews who truly love Romania. “There’s no doubt about it,” he responds politely, but not just politely. I spoke with great theatricality. He looks at me for a long time.

When I’m ready, I bid farewell to my father. I am deeply gloomy. But my father—in his pajamas, small, chubby, cheerful—is all smiles, offering me last-minute advice like a coach before a match; hurriedly, like someone seeing you off at the station, speaking only at the very last moment after remaining silent in front of the train car until the final instant:

“Did they tell you to make sure I don’t die like a dog? Well, if that’s the case, I won’t die at all. I’ll wait for you. And make sure not to shame me,” he says. “Don’t be a cowardly Jew, and don’t soil your pants.”

He kisses me firmly, walks me to the door, stands at attention, and salutes me militarily.

“Go,” he says.

I descend the stairs at a normal pace without looking back. I exit the block’s gate.

There are destinies, omens, telepathy. On the street, completely empty at first—even though it’s not early—a single person suddenly appears around the corner: an officer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I shiver.

The Worst Moments at the Security Service

Two Instances:

  1. The Confrontation with the Group Leader

One night, very late, I was stubbornly denying something—on a point, incidentally, quite secondary: who brought from Paris Mircea Eliade’s latest novel and Eugen Ionescu’s plays? Was it Marietta Sadova? (I find that for a coward like me, stubbornness is the only safe haven.) Suddenly, I was threatened with a confrontation with the group leader.

At first, I didn’t understand why the confrontation was presented as a threat. (I was still a novice.) On the contrary, I found solace in the idea of seeing Dinu again. The prospect of meeting in the middle of the night, in the Security Service offices, with a former prominent representative of the “pro-legionary” intellectuals, carried me on the foolish and naïve wings of adolescent imagination—the same candid and disarming imagination that even the most battered and mediocre of old men still carry in the hidden corners of their souls. There, stupidity fortifies itself, like treponema driven by bismuth into the depths of vital organs. I envisioned something dramatic, noble, and heroic. We would compete to deny. We would compete to defend each other. We would smile. We would shake hands. We would suffer together.

“Bring the leader in, officer,” I said. “Let him come.”

The investigator rang a bell, whispered an order, and, after a long, silent wait, Dinu Ne. was brought in. I had been strictly ordered not to speak a word, shattering many of the elements of my projected heroism.

I sat quietly at the desk at the back of the interrogation room, watching; I was focused, attentive—just eyes and ears. (Just eyes, like Mikhail Strogov watching his mother, Marfa.)

What horrified and depressed me beyond any expression was both Dinu’s physical appearance and his demeanor.

  • Appearance: Thin, yellowish, unshaven, dressed in shabby clothes that didn’t fit but hung off him. It had only been a year and a few months since I last saw him, and yet he seemed to have traversed unknown slopes of another world. And those black glasses, my nightmare—they symbolized darkness, the opposite of Christ’s light. (“Come, receive the light… He was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness…”)

    The black glasses weren’t just a police accident, a mere technique for intimidation during interrogation. Nor were they simply a refined method to strike at the most vulnerable nerve centers—those of higher reason. They were much more—and that’s why they were so terrifying. (“Surround me, Lord, with the boundless power of Your life-giving cross, and protect me, Lord, from all evil, amen!”) The glasses were the sign and seal of the beast, the father of lies, the prince of fear, the ruler of darkness.

  • Demeanor: This skinny, ragged specter, once introduced into the room and seated by the guard with his face to the investigator’s desk, immediately stood at attention. The glasses weren’t removed, and I wasn’t allowed to speak, so he had no way of knowing I was present.

All my imagined heroics turned to dust. We were in the same room, yet on entirely different orbits—practically, he was on Alpha Centauri. We were like soulless electrons, hostile nations within some ancient Assyrian empire founded on conquest, or like the parallel lives of chickens, cats, dogs, and calves in a barnyard, indifferent to each other. All these creatures share only one geometric point of connection: us, humans. And even we are so different, reduced to interjections and onomatopoeias when attempting to communicate with them, living on circles that never intersect.

The group leader spoke in a submissive, prompt, concentrated tone—a tone that evoked long and painful training. We will all end up like this.

He denied nothing, confirmed everything, and pronounced my name carelessly, indifferently. (Later, from the case file before the trial, I would discover that I was first on the list of friends he associated with.) The examination was short, and the candidate answered quickly and accurately. He even bowed a few times. The black glasses gave him the air of a pitiful beggar, resigned and obedient, like the poor and destitute characters in the moralistic novels of the previous century, when society was strong and stable, and everyone behaved in accordance with their station.

I wasn’t any better than him; I remained silent, obedient to orders. I didn’t shout: “Dinu, I’m here! Dinu, hold on, my friend! I’ve decided to do the right thing.” I didn’t shout because I was afraid and because I was angry—like a child from whom a toy has been taken away. Sulking, simmering with rebellion, shivering with disappointment, and burned by betrayal, I watched Dinu and the investigator as a child watches grown-ups—resentful and heartbroken, realizing they’re only good at making promises and breaking them, leading you on and then abandoning you.

  1. The Second Confrontation with T.

Much later, after being brought back from Gherla, first to Jilava and then again to the Security Service, I was confronted with T. This time, T. had acquired a strange new role as a “professional witness.” She hadn’t been sent to serve her sentence in a penitentiary; they kept her at Malmaison and brought her to testify in various trials for the prosecution.

This time, the investigator threw it at me from the start:

“You’re not who you used to be.”

I had wised up. I had become cunning, a seasoned prisoner familiar with interrogations. I knew how to defend myself; I had learned. I had picked up their tricks. I had heard them laugh. (This, by the way, is the great difference between us and those in the West—the unknowing ones. We have heard them laugh. And, whether we liked it or not, painfully, slowly, we too were forced to awaken, to access the hard-to-understand and even harder-to-achieve condition: that of the cunning survivor.)

February 1962

“And your joy no man taketh from you.”
— John 16:22

“Hold yourself upright! Do not lose your soul.”
— Paul Claudel

The cells in the Reduit at Jilava are especially grim and have the reputation of being even more severe than those in the main sections. I arrived at cell 34 after being held in “the secret” while on hunger strike, in an unheated cell that had remained so since the fort was built—part of the useless belt of fortifications around the capital, designed by engineer Brialmont. The cold—more terrible than hunger or thirst (though the worst is sleeplessness)—penetrated me to the core.

I must have looked pitiful, because the famous Sergeant Ungureanu, who received me at the gate of the Reduit, almost smiled at me (as a gourmet might soften in front of a well-aged piece of game) and entrusted me to the cell’s leader with instructions to give me my own bed and to take care of me. I was placed in the bed closest to the door, like a suspect, under the watchful eye of the cell leader—a Russian-named Bessarabian, a large and somber man with a harsh gaze. I soon learned he was considered dangerous, rumored to be a defrocked priest.

Cell 34 was like a dark, long tunnel, full of nightmare-like elements. It was a tongue, a canal, an underground intestine, cold and deeply hostile. It was a barren mine, an extinct volcanic crater, a rather successful image of a faded hell.

In this almost unreal, sinister place, I experienced the happiest days of my entire life. How absolutely happy I was in cell 34! (Not even in Brașov with my mother during childhood, not on the endless streets of mysterious London, not on the proud hills of Muscel, nor in the postcard-perfect scenery of Lucerne—no, nowhere.)

The cell housed many young men, who were subjected to special treatment by the guards and especially by the cell leader. (The hatred of the old against the new generation—sometimes even aligning with the most ruthless guards to form a common front against the unruly and the disrespectful. A solidarity of age, much like the class solidarity that drove some peasants, workers, and petty clerks to hate their fellow prisoners from noble or bourgeois backgrounds more intensely than they hated the representatives of the administration.)

From the very first day, I noticed a fierce thirst for poetry throughout the cell. Memorizing poetry was the most delightful and inexhaustible pastime of prison life. Happy are those who know poetry. Those who have many poems committed to memory are rich in detention—theirs are the hours that pass unnoticed and with dignity; theirs is the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the café of Florian in St. Mark’s Square. The abbé Faria knew what he was doing, preparing for the island of Monte-Cristo by memorizing entire books.

From this perspective, I was fortunate. I knew by heart The Morning Star (Luceafărul), The Letters, much of Coșbuc and Topîrceanu (very popular), and perhaps thousands of verses by Gyr and Crainic (learned early alongside Morse code from veteran Legionaries). I also picked up many poems by Verlaine, Lamartine, and Baudelaire; Arvers’ sonnet (“Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son mystère”) of course; and Samain’s Au jardin de l’Infante. Teaching these poems or reciting them carried me back to the paradisiacal afternoons of Pitar-Mos Street or the magical literary references from La Medeleni.

I quickly found a circle of young men eager to learn Luceafărul, waiting desperately for someone who could teach it. Among them was a young Lutheran pastor from Brașov, resembling Gösta Berling, whose native language was German. He was himself a poet, a passionate admirer of Rilke, from whom he translated superbly. He recited Rilke with vibrant emotion and incredible depth, with unrelenting patience and boundless goodwill. Everything about him wavered between semi-divine and saintly.

Bruder Harald Sigmund—his sufficiently Wagnerian name—was the rare miracle a prisoner might encounter. When such a figure appears, they teach you what joy truly is: he was courageous, proud, unyielding, polite as if in a prince’s salon where le thé à l’anglaise is served, always smiling, dignified, and never sullen or tired. He was eager to learn, discuss, listen, tell stories, and share all he knew—a gentleman, a nobleman, a hero. His presence stirred a bitter resentment against modern times and the democratic chaos of tramway crowds.

In cell 34, the young men’s resilience (moral, though many were tubercular) and the pastor’s noble demeanor created an atmosphere of grandeur, medieval in its ceremonial dignity. Invisible purple cloaks fluttered, Damasc steel flashed, and every gesture revealed a latent Don Quixotism.

My arrival, weak and pale from the cold, trembling even in my gaze, accompanied by the aura of a hunger striker, only amplified this noble defiance of reality. Everyone seemed to outdo each other in kindness and politeness. People recited poetry from dawn to dusk, told serious stories, and Bruder Harald exceeded himself—reciting, translating, teaching, and sharing the life and doctrine of Dr. Martin Luther with love and humility.

In cell 34, the inescapable harshness of prison life—the bitter cold, scant food, worm-infested water, suffocating air, regular beatings, and cruel taunts from the guards—combined with the spirit of poetry, faith, and rebellion to create something resembling paradise.

As Dostoevsky said: “The absence of enthusiasm is a sure sign of ruin.” But in cell 34, there was no lack of enthusiasm, and so, nothing and no one could be lost.

Here, I realized once again, as I had before, that miracles are a part of real life. They belong to the fabric of the world. The miracle in cell 34 was evident and accepted as an undeniable fact: the way we treated each other, striving to help, speak gently, and make life more bearable for one another.

One evening, after a search confiscated my precious bottle—used to store the black liquid we received as “coffee”—I found, to my astonishment, a new, larger bottle placed under my blanket. I could not know who left it, nor could I ask. This anonymous act of generosity overwhelmed me. Tears of joy and gratitude streamed down my face as I clutched the so-called “pillow,” unable to contain the profound happiness that engulfed me.

January 1960

In the First Cell at the Securitate

I shared a cell with Mircea M., a former journalist at Universul, caught in a dangerous web of complications. He greeted me warmly but with an effort at politeness. It was clear he was worn down by constant harassment. As a newcomer, I still had the small bread I had brought from home, which I shared with him, giving him his first taste of white bread in two years.

After interrogation, I usually returned battered. Lieutenant-Major Onea employed “standard Securitate methods,” preferring repeated blows to my head against the walls. At other times, he stomped on me with his boots. There was also Comrade Major Jack Simon—mustachioed, cold, and with a crystalline voice—who informed me he had decided to personally kill me as a “Jewish Legionnaire.” For now, I was subjected to the “iron bar” treatment, an unpleasant but less dramatic punishment compared to the threat.

Mircea M. was very kind. He would wet both his towel and mine and, with a mix of fatherly embarrassment (though he was younger than I), he gently applied them to my head, ribs, or soles as needed.

One late evening, when I returned uninjured but visibly disturbed, he sensed something was wrong. In a few words, I confessed—driven by a base instinct for chatter—what had happened. I had been confronted with “her” again. The officers had expressed dissatisfaction with the “merchandise,” but they hadn’t pressed further. In the end—mirabilis res—they lit their cigarettes, started chatting, and motioned for us to approach each other and talk freely. She came towards me and spoke. I didn’t respond. I was flustered, couldn’t hear properly, and the moment felt endless. The two officers, meanwhile, continued their pseudo-conversation at the desk like background actors in a play while we, the main characters, took center stage.

She spoke for a while, then turned to the officers and said she was done. Without haste, she kissed me twice—once on each cheek, tenderly.

Mircea M. found my story sensational and worthy of the Securitate’s annals. He asked me to repeat it, relished it, and wouldn’t stop commenting:
“Women, my dear sir, women. You never know with them.”

It was more complicated than that. But my urge to confide passed, and I refrained from offering a more elaborate explanation. Still, what I had shared seemed to please and amuse him. It relaxed him. No longer under interrogation, he was now under the narcotic spell of gossip, setting off down the endless caravan trail of male wonder at the feminine enigma. Ich bin der Räuber Orbazan.

Evening Prayers and the Idea of Baptism

Every evening, my cellmate prayed briefly. (Praying was allowed at the Securitate, unlike in prison, where I later learned it was forbidden.) When he stood to pray, I would stand as well, frozen and uneasy that I couldn’t join him except through a vague, inconclusive gesture of politeness. I did not make the sign of the cross.

In the second cell, I shared space with N.N.P., a convert to Catholicism. He encouraged me, prayed often, and recited St. Anthony’s rosary. To him, I confessed my desire to be baptized. It was less a concrete decision than an old dream, a tendency. Yet, I realized it had become a persistent desire, now bordering on impatience.

When I returned from the registrar, where I was informed of my sentence—thirteen years of hard labor, a melodramatic term that provoked a nervous smirk—I told him I likely wouldn’t last and should get baptized as soon as possible. But how? Fate seemed set against it. N.N.P., more experienced than Mircea M., reassured me that I wouldn’t stay long at the Securitate and would surely find a priest in prison willing to baptize me clandestinely but validly. All prison cells were full of clergy of every kind, though most were understandably cautious. Since I was determined, he advised me to seize the first opportunity.

On Impossibility

What is demanded of us is the impossible. Without it, there is no escape, no deliverance, no beatitude—or even minor peace.

The legal maxim—ad impossibilia nemo tenetur (“no one is bound to do the impossible”)—does not apply to moral life. On the contrary, in moral terms, it is the impossible that is required. The legal principle holds only in the realm of mutual obligations.

But there are two types of impossibility: the physically impossible and the morally impossible. The physically impossible—like the jurists’ old example of contracting to travel to the moon—is irrelevant and lacks significance. But that is not what is asked of us. What is demanded is not a journey to the moon but the moon itself—preferably blue.

As long as we remain confined to what is possible and calculable, we can neither conceive of nor aspire to paradise.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree

This, I believe, is the meaning of the seemingly unjust parable of the barren fig tree, where Christ does not so much curse the tree as reject it, saying, “Depart from me.” Does Christ demand that we act according to schedules and regulations, like a banker? What an excuse: “It is not my season!” There is no wrong time to do good. There is no wrong time to owe a debt to Christ. Just as the Kingdom of God will come unannounced, so too must the deeds that herald it disregard timetables and contracts.

Friendship, likewise, does not hinge on saying, “I will help you if I can.” True friendship demands action without conditions of time, place, or manner. And how greatly the Lord delights in calling us His friends!

A Call Beyond Comfort

With God, there is no room for complacency or ease. “Leave your country and your kindred,” “Take up your cross,” “Come after me,” “Watch therefore,” “Wash and purify yourselves,” “Go and cry aloud,” “Arise, take up your bed, and walk.” These commands allow no idleness, no soft dreaming. Oblomov is condemned; no one can hide behind laziness, illness, or folly—not even justice itself (as the fig tree demonstrates).

This, then, is the Christian call: to transcend the impossible and conquer the heavens through faith and effort. To believe, as Sir Thomas More put it, in the paradox: “I trust I make myself obscure.”
Herein lies the ultimate mystery of faith: “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.”

Autumn 1966

In Arthur Miller’s play After the Fall, there is a line whose absolute and prophetic value has been confirmed and amplified over the years. These years have seen the rise of drugs, hallucinogens, LSD in particular, marijuana (the pot), mescaline, peyote, ololiuqui, and teonanacatl (I learned these from Gigi Tz., who copied a list from an American magazine), along with opiates, hashish, and heroin. All these substances, deified by Thomas Leary and his countless followers, have become mass commodities and widely consumed goods:
“But no pill can make us innocent.”

Yes, pills may bring sleep, or more specifically drowsiness, or an escape into apathetic disconnection. But innocence, no. Only Christ can grant and preserve that, in His paradoxical way, as always: by giving us a sense of guilt.

The Paradox of Christ: Life, Death, and Transformation

Christ works paradoxically with sinners, with life, and with death. As Karl Barth explains: the grace of justification is our life, and the grace of sanctification is our death. This means that, in the act of justification, the Lord tells the dead (the sinner): Live! Then, after He has raised the sinner from death and called them to life, He tells the now-living: Die! The repentant sinner—the once-dead who has been called to life—must now die to worldly things.

“Under these two determinations, and no others, the Christian life must be lived.”

Here lies the complete dialectic of mors et vita: first, He brings you to life; then, He calls you to die, so that you may truly live.

Ah, if that is life, life is no easy thing—it is a kind of death. We often talk about life as if we understand it, yet perhaps we do not truly know what life is (just as we do not know what death is). Perhaps we grope through the stifling haze of a limbo, confused by a vague language. This is the state of the lukewarm.

From Arthur Miller’s statement, it also becomes clear that happiness and peace cannot be created by ourselves, materially—they are given to us from above. Yet another proof of God’s existence.

December 31, 1959

I was not at all surprised when my father woke me up early on the morning of the 31st. I was perfectly calm, having slept soundly. I believed I had passed the danger, that on New Year’s Eve there was no longer any risk.

But why was my father waking me? He was worried about the bread.

I glanced at the clock: five o’clock. I assured him there was plenty of time.

“It’s not about the bread,” he said. “You have something to do. At eight o’clock, you are summoned somewhere.”

He showed me a slip of paper. Yes, it was an invitation to appear at 8 a.m. on Ștefan Furtună Street—as a witness.

I understood. But not entirely: why as a witness? Why hadn’t they come at night to take me, as they had with everyone else?

I grimaced bitterly at my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I shaved. I wasn’t afraid so much as I felt mocked, tricked: at the very last moment, snatched onto the train just as it departed. What irony—someone was toying with me, leisurely, like a cat with a mouse. And that’s why the cat is devilish—it’s the only animal that mocks its prey before devouring it.

I was fuming. The bitter, ironic smile of a pessimist who knows everything ends poorly stayed on my face even as I got ready.

My Father

My father was a small man, rather plump, with a slightly crooked shoulder. He moved with difficulty. He had been an engineer and worked in the factory, not an office, until he was 79 years old, in 1956. At Scăeni, where he worked in his later years, the glassworkers would point up when I asked for him—he would be perched atop a furnace, just inches from the ceiling.

“If an engineer cannot replace any of his workers and do their job at least as well as they can,” he used to say, “then he’s lost.”

He had served in the war as an officer and was decorated. He had received citizenship through a special law voted by Parliament before 1914. But ultimately, who was he? An old Jewish man from Bucharest, a very small pensioner, with a few memories, a handful of friends, some medals hidden in a little box, and one son.

We lived together in a single room. My entire life, I had caused him trouble. “He’s not a bad boy,” he would say, “but he’s an old child.”

The Summons

The summons had arrived on the afternoon of the 30th, while I was out. It was handed to my father, who had signed for it. But he hadn’t shown it to me when I returned late in the evening—he didn’t want to disturb my sleep.

For the first time, I felt a faint, almost imperceptible inkling of something noble, a premonition of the magnanimity I would later encounter often in detention. For now, it was just a flicker, a slight tremor. But my father’s gesture—it could not have been easy for him to act as though nothing had happened—tied a knot of emotion in my throat.

Transformation and the General of the Resistance

In prison, I heard stories—widely varying—about the film General della Rovere.

It’s a product of Italian neo-realism and a tale of transformation with a touch of Pirandello. A petty thief from Rome, through a series of complex circumstances, ends up playing the role of a general who is the head of the Italian resistance. His physical resemblance helps him assume the role, which he gradually falls in love with, as well as the world of political prisoners, where sacrifice and honor are commonplace.

Eventually, the former crook and conman, refusing to betray the real leader of the resistance, pays the price of his imposture with his life. The German officer who oversees the execution respects him. The fake general dies solemnly and with dignity, perhaps surpassing even the true General della Rovere in courage and grandeur.

This story captivated me and left a profound impression. The Christian-Pirandellian transformation of the protagonist—a wretched thief turned noble hero—was deeply moving.

Christianity as Transformation

Christianity is transmutation—not of chemical elements, but of humans. This is metanoia.

This is Christ’s greatest miracle—not the multiplication of wine, fish, or bread; not the healing of the blind, the paralyzed, or the lepers; not even the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son, or Lazarus. These were signs for the weak in faith or acts of mercy.

The true miracle is the transformation of the soul. This miracle can take someone as flawed as Peter, who denied Christ, and inspire him to request crucifixion upside down. This is the wonder of faith: the profound, paradoxical transformation that transcends human limitations and leads to eternal life.

4 January 1960

On Monday, at eight in the morning, I arrived at the Security headquarters after three days of so-called “reflection.” The gates were locked tight, and I found myself in the ridiculous situation of waiting in front of a prison—or its antechamber, at least—like someone stranded at a desolate train station, clutching my battered suitcase as though I were waiting for a third-class passenger car on a train that might never come.

Eventually, a hurried soldier arrived, unfastened some chains and locks, and allowed me to enter. I was escorted to the room designated for witnesses.

Inside, the same committee awaited me. My suitcase immediately drew their ire, sparking an explosion of indignation.
“So, you didn’t come to your senses? Still making a show of yourself? Have you been infected by the Legionary fanaticism? Don’t worry; we won’t give you the pleasure of being arrested. You want to play the hero? Forget it. Didn’t you talk to your father? What did he say?”

Compelled by some demon of pride, and perhaps by a reckless desire to impress (as my friend Alecu would later remark), I coolly repeated my father’s words—an amalgam of stoic defiance reminiscent of Regulus and Cambronne. Then, to punctuate the moment, I casually pulled a vitamin C tablet from my pocket, placed it in my mouth, and felt a surge of calm and pride.

The Performance Repeats Itself

One by one, the members of the committee addressed me again, replaying the same theater as the last interrogation. This time, however, the urgency was gone. Everything felt slower, more deliberate, and professional. The threats returned in full force, but so did the cajoling. It was a cyclical dance: intimidation followed by soothing words, then back to intimidation.

The narrative about my father was a central refrain:
“Your father will die like a dog unless you cooperate.”
They seemed frustrated by my failure to yield to their vision of my father’s wisdom and influence. The drawn curtains were again employed to oscillate between creating an oppressive atmosphere of fear and moments of deceptive relief.

Oddly, by this second round, I was less frightened and more entertained, even amused by the predictability of their tactics.

The Turning Point

Around 4:00 p.m., arrest still seemed unlikely. But suddenly—perhaps at a preordained moment—the atmosphere shifted dramatically. The questions came faster, the voices climbed into harsh registers, and every word was raw and cutting.

By 5:00 p.m., the transformation was complete. They unleashed a torrent of insults:
“You scoundrel, you wretch, you piece of trash!”

I was ordered to stand and empty my pockets. My vitamin tablets, notebook, watch, handkerchief, and even my belt were confiscated.
“You’ll see, you fanatic, you showpiece!”

Finally, the words I had both anticipated and dreaded were spoken:
“You are now under arrest.”

March 1966

Discoveries in Dostoevsky and Holbein’s Vision

In Dostoevsky, I always find—stated plainly—what I have been sensing in darkness: light, suddenly. Regarding Holbein’s vision, I find the precise text:

“The painting is not beautiful… it is the corpse of a man who has just endured unspeakable suffering… if such a corpse (and it must look exactly as it does) was seen by his disciples… how could they have believed, looking at it, that this corpse would rise again?”

They did not believe!

“If death is so dreadful and the laws of nature so ruthless, how can they be conquered? And these people, who stood around the dead man, must have felt that night a terrible sadness, a deep dismay that suddenly shattered all their hopes and nearly everything they believed in.”

He did not give them a knowing look!

Socrates and Jesus Christ

It would be logical for Socrates’ death—as a man—to bear the mark of disorder, blood, betrayal, and turmoil; but no, it was as serene and dignified as could be. By contrast, Christ’s death bears the full weight of tragedy, disgust, and horror.

  • Socrates dies calmly, surrounded by faithful and attentive disciples, who hang on his every word as he serenely drinks the painless poison offered deferentially by the jailer.
  • Abandoned and betrayed by his own, Christ writhes on the cross, tormented by thirst and covered in mockery.

Socrates dies like a nobleman; Christ dies like a wretch, between two thieves, on a wasteland.
Socrates thanks the gods for escaping the troubles of the material world; Christ cries out: “Why have you forsaken me?”

The contrast between their deaths is total. Surprisingly, it is the divine death that appears inferior, clouded. The truth, however, is that it is infinitely more human. By contrast, Socrates’ death, for all its grandeur, seems literary, abstract, staged, and above all, unrealistic.

Socrates—sincerely and largely successfully—ascends from the human state to the divine. Christ, however, descends fearlessly into the lowest strata of the human condition.

March 5, 1960: Transfer to Jilava

The van carried us, moving slowly and jolting, from Malmaison to Jilava before noon. We disembarked at Fort 13. Lieutenant Ștefan greeted us—an ape-like figure, with the demeanor of a penal colony sergeant in a noir film. He relished his role, drawing it out as if carefully playing his cards in a poker game.

We spent the rest of the day in a quarantine cell, tiny and unimaginably filthy, with overflowing waste buckets. In the evening, we were transferred to the “Snake Pit”—a vast, sinister, foul-smelling cavern. Despite the electric light, many dark corners remained, amplifying the oppressive atmosphere.

Everything—just like in so many other penitentiary places, though this was my first contact—appeared so lugubrious and heavy that it hardly seemed real.

Meeting Dr. Voiculescu

The presence of Dr. Voiculescu, frail, mannered, peaceful, noble, and sharp of mind but visibly exhausted, brought an unexpected sense of peace.

Yet, I experienced an odd sensation of immense joy for several reasons:

  1. I had finally escaped interrogation. Compared to the Securitate, the prison felt like a haven, an oasis, even a paradise.
  2. My first encounter with the legionaries (at quarantine, it wasn’t just our group); I eagerly learned Morse code and Crainic and Gyr’s poetry, which amused them.
  3. The calming presence of Dr. Voiculescu.
  4. And finally, the exhilarating memory of the events in the van.

An Epiphany in the Van

In the van, I was placed in a cramped compartment alongside Sandu L., a former legionary. Squeezed tightly together, he spoke to me almost immediately:

“I am sincerely sorry for having been a legionary. I ask for your forgiveness; it must be very unpleasant for you to be stuck here with me. Aren’t you disgusted?”

He barely finished before the roof of the van seemed to open, revealing the blue sky. I replied that he need not apologize and, if anything, I should apologize for being Jewish and for having to sit so close to him.

“When it comes to guilt, we are all guilty, equally, together,” I said.

I suggested that, now that we had asked each other for forgiveness, we should reconcile, embrace, and call each other by name.

Under the dim light of the van, beneath the blue sky, we kissed each other on the cheek. We immediately experienced a state of indescribable happiness—pure, overflowing, and divine. Compared to this, all earthly pleasures—drink, eroticism, spectacles, food, books, travel, achievements, ministerial portfolios—were nothing but dust and ashes, illusions, emptiness, and vanity.

Waves of joy washed over us, overwhelming us. I asked Sandu—unintentionally echoing Saint Seraphim of Sarov with Motovilov in the forest—if he too could see the smile on my lips, which I could see on his: the smile of peace born from uncreated energies.

Christ in Prison

At the Snake Pit, the guards were cruel, the atmosphere dramatic, and the memory of my encounter with Sandu L. vivid. The certainty of long suffering ahead filled me with the conviction that Christ was present in the prison.

I could not believe that everything could be so complete, that I could be so blessedly fortunate.

Dr. Voiculescu and Bishop Leu (crippled, moving on crutches, dressed in the rough garb of a mountain shepherd) were mocked and insulted at length by the guards, who seemed bored. Both were subjected to humiliation, insults, and curses.

The Possibility of Christianity

Despite this, I began to realize:

Christianity is possible; it is possible to act in a Christian way, to perform Christian gestures. Christianity can also be made tangible.

I felt that perhaps the bells of Capra Church had not tolled in vain for me.

February 25, 1960

Paul Dim., Witness

He is calm, speaks deliberately and slowly, with the ease of an experienced prisoner, and the cold politeness of a fallen angel or a defiant nobleman. Unlike those of us in the dock, he has already served a few years in prison and has been in custody for some time during this round.

However, he knows very well what he is not supposed to know and what the court cannot officially disclose: that Petru Dumitriu, the celebrated writer and regime beneficiary, has defected.

A delightful operetta-style scene unfolds, worthy of Donizetti or Rossini.

  • “Did the accused use hostile language against the regime in your presence?”
    • “Yes.”

The judges’ expressions light up with satisfaction. The prosecutor seems to swell visibly, as if inflated by a pump.

  • “In what way, exactly?”
    • “They systematically slandered progressive writers.”

The judges, led by Colonel Adrian Dimitriu, appear even more pleased.

  • “Can you give specific examples?”
    • “I can.”

A dramatic pause follows—Paul Dim. handles his testimony like a professional actor, taking his time.

  • “Well, let’s hear them.”
    • “I heard them violently slander the progressive writer Petru Dumitriu, whose work reflects the accomplishments of the regime. They criticized him, claiming he was a hypocrite, not truly democratic, and that he wrote only to benefit himself. They even argued that all his novels were actually the work of Henriette-Yvonne Stahl.”

The presiding judge, who shares the same name as the saint, cannot interrupt him—he is not allowed to reveal that the esteemed Petru Dumitriu has defected to the imperialists. And so, Paul Dim., the third “Dumitriu” (though in truth, a Dimitriu), continues to pile on references to the progressive writer and the slanders, entertaining us—and himself—until he is politely dismissed. He exits with glacial politeness, a performance as impeccable as Sam Weller testifying in the Bardell vs. Pickwick trial.

Definitions and Observations

Definition of Life, According to André Breton

“Life is the way an individual appears to have come to terms with the unacceptable human condition.”

On Liberty

  • Alfred Jarry:

    “There are people for whom being free is a nuisance, a burden.”

  • Thomas Mann:

    “Freedom is a pedantic and bourgeois notion.”

These remarks cast doubt on the survival prospects of liberty in the world that Ortega y Gasset aptly named “the world of the masses.”

  • Alexandre Herzen:

    “The masses care nothing for individual freedom or freedom of speech; they love authority. By equality, they mean equal oppression. Only civilized individuals desire freedom.”

We intellectuals and political prisoners should be less convinced that everyone is desperate for freedom.

  • Denis de Rougemont:

    “Freedom is not a right; it is the assumption of a risk.”

This reminds us not to be overly certain that people are willing to take risks. They may want rights, but they see risks as obstacles, schemes, or insults.

Scriptural Insights

  • John 20:29:

    “Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”

    Freedom, therefore, is above all an act of faith—a daring and irrational wager.

  • 2 Corinthians 3:17:

    “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

    If we are not free, we are not worthy of being called Christ’s friends, as He desires us to be.

  • Revelation 3:20:

    “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

    Let our hearts melt at the thought of the popular depictions of Christ, with staff and satchel, waiting for us to open the door—freely, of our own volition.

  • Nicolae Bălcescu:

    “He who fights for freedom fights for God.”

This phrase is rarely quoted by Bălcescu’s modern admirers.

On Writing and Creation

Great writers truly create worlds and beings, much like God. Balzac offers two supreme moments that demonstrate how real his characters were to him:

  1. In Ursule Mirouët:
    François Minoret, a dishonest and odious character, writes letters filled with spelling errors, reflecting his stupidity and lack of education. However, when Minoret is struck by misfortune, repents, and confesses, Balzac corrects his spelling in the final letter he writes.

    Balzac explains:

    “I corrected his spelling because it would not be right to laugh at a man struck by misfortune.”

    These extraordinary words reveal several things:

    • Balzac’s God-like empathy: He feels compassion for his characters as if they were real people.
    • His Christian kindness: He refrains from mocking a human being in their suffering.
    • His nobility: He demonstrates profound respect for the dignity of those who show repentance, even in fiction.

  2. In Colonel Chabert:
    The colonel renounces all his rights and claims when he realizes his remarried wife is deceitful and acting in bad faith. Overwhelmed by disgust and disdain for the “Countess Ferraud,” he ceases his struggle, relinquishing everything. This act recalls Christ’s silence before those determined to condemn Him under Caiaphas’ advice, pretending to judge Him.

Corollaries of Justice

  • Personal Injustice:
    If faced with gross injustice, you may renounce the fight as a form of condemnation. Refusing to duel with an unworthy opponent is a profound form of defiance.

  • Injustice Against Others:
    When injustice is done to another, it must be denounced, fought, and corrected.

The Christian cannot ignore public injustice, as it is their duty to protect the innocent and defend the common good.

Faith and the Red Parrot

“I would rather believe in God than see Him in all His glory.”
—Paul Valéry

Is God, who abandoned Christ on the cross, also absent for us? This is a reality we often fail to grasp, as did Christ’s contemporaries, who awaited a Messiah in glory.

Kierkegaard reminds us that God is not a giant red parrot. If such a bird suddenly appeared in a marketplace, everyone would flock to see it, realizing it was no ordinary thing. But faith cannot be this simple—a pre-chewed certainty.

Instead, belief requires freedom, risk, and daring—a leap into the unknown. Dostoevsky explains:

“If God did not come down from the cross, it is because He wanted to convert humanity not through the coercion of an obvious miracle but through the freedom of belief.”

Christ invites us to a bold and thrilling adventure—to trust in what is unseen and defy the obvious.

Leon Bloy

“O Christ, who prays for those who crucify You and crucifies those who love You!”

February 24–26, 1960

We were first brought into what appeared to be a waiting room or an antechamber. Judging by the tile that covered the walls up to waist height, the space must once have been the kitchen of a noble house or a boarding school. They seated us on long, parallel benches, one per bench at each end, as if we were about to take an exam and they were afraid we might cheat. We were forbidden not only to talk but even to glance at one another. It was cold, and we were hungry.

We waited for what felt like an unbearably long time, and then, just as the guards’ mealtime arrived, they pulled out their meal packages and ate with great relish, smacking their lips noisily. The sight filled us with an overwhelming hunger. I suspected that the others, like me, felt the same humiliating sensation as we fixed our longing gazes on these calm eaters. We could only look at them. It felt like being a caged beast—except that we couldn’t even pace back and forth or approach the bars like animals.

Later, an officer entered, and Păstorel, ever affable and witty, asked him casually for a pencil and paper. He claimed he wanted to jot down some verses he had composed while in custody, verses that “it would be a great loss for Romanian culture to lose.”

The officer, somewhat intrigued, asked what kind of verses they were. “Ah, nothing hostile,” Păstorel replied, “lyrical and patriotic.” He explained he had composed them in his mind and now wanted to write them down, lest he forget them in his old age. His mental act of composing verses was, in any case, a feat—perhaps not on par with scoring a goal or breaking a record, but a feat nonetheless. Admiration flickered faintly in the air. Păstorel smiled, distantly but amicably.

Even as the officer and his subordinates resisted this charm, a sudden spring-like breeze seemed to sweep through the frigid and glacial atmosphere of the former kitchen. A hint of nostalgia for childhood streets and familiar places seemed to warm the space. Mihai Vodă Slurdza joined in with a jovial comment, and for a moment, the room’s heavy mood lightened.

But this rare, fleeting bonhomie broke as Dinu Ne. made a bold move, requesting a cigarette. The officer snapped out of the literary enchantment and, sourly addressing him, declared, “Don’t think we’re so stupid, Mr. Noica.” Dinu, frail and ascetic, bent humbly, his gaze burdened and withdrawn. The officer, regaining his composure, solemnly admonished all of us: “We know who you are, and don’t try to fool us with gestures fit for petty criminals.”

In the Courtroom

We were taken to a large, desolate courtroom and seated in the dock, closely packed on benches, much like students at the Spiru Haret high school we once attended. I found myself sitting between Noica on my left and Vladimir Streinu on my right. Others, like Pillat, Sandu L., and several unfamiliar to me, were seated in the front row. The four women—Anca Dr. Ionescu, Marietta Sadova, Trixi, and Simina Caracas—sat in the back of the dock.

The courtroom was immense, seemingly empty except for four distinct groups scattered throughout, separated by vast gaps reminiscent of the dizzying distances between galaxies. The lack of a public audience, family, or press added to the surreal atmosphere.

  1. The Accused: Twenty-five of us, pale intellectuals, exhausted, sleep-deprived, and many ill, surrounded by a ring of soldiers armed with automatic rifles. Their fierce glares added an absurd theatricality to the scene, as if we were a band of hardened outlaws rather than a group of aging, sickly academics.

  2. The Investigators: Security officers and inspectors, seated at the far end, observing like theater directors evaluating a surreal performance where rehearsal, dress rehearsal, and premiere were fused into one Kafkaesque spectacle.

  3. The Defense Lawyers: Numerous, almost outnumbering the accused. They appeared painfully out of place in their formal, flawless attire—dark suits with shiny, metallic fabrics, neatly folded handkerchiefs peeking from pockets, and slicked-back hair. Their anxious manner betrayed their discomfort and fear, despite their polished appearance.

  4. The Judges: Five military men sat impassively at the bench, with Colonel Adrian Dimitriu presiding in the center, visibly concerned—perhaps burdened by his responsibility as a former lawyer turned colonel.

A Quiet Gesture

As we settled on the benches, I leaned toward Noica, who looked despondent, his face tense with anguish. Whispering under the cover of the commotion, I told him: “Dinu, none of us are upset with you. We love and respect you; all is well.”

God was merciful—Noica’s face brightened, and he gripped my wrist firmly, sighing deeply in relief. In that moment, I felt I had done one truly good thing in this life.

The Closing Statements

When our turn came for final statements, we were warned that we could only admit our guilt and request leniency. Mentioning illnesses was permitted, and a certificate of pulmonary cancer was submitted for Păstorel.

Pillat began his statement:
“Although I have never been an anti-communist, I have always found a materialistic doctrine of violence unacceptable and therefore…”

He was cut off abruptly, the president of the court bursting into frenzy. Noica, pale and composed, refused to plead guilty to the court’s charges but apologized deeply to his friends for dragging them into this and asked for their forgiveness.

I had prepared my statement carefully in the cell and recited it without pause:
“Given the facts, I must state two things: First, I had no intention of conspiring. Second, had I known that Emil Cioran’s volume, *The Temptation to Exist, could be interpreted as an attack on the Romanian people (which it is not), I would not have read it or participated in its dissemination. I have always had and will always have feelings of deep respect and boundless love for the Romanian people.”*

The Verdict Deferred

When the tribunal withdrew to deliberate, the atmosphere in the courtroom relaxed. Lawyers smiled nervously like students after an exam, the officers exhaled as though a tense inspection had ended, and even the soldiers stretched their legs.

A sergeant, who also served as the prison barber, climbed onto the clerk’s platform and sat in the clerk’s chair. Beaming with happiness, he grinned as though sitting on a throne, savoring his brief moment of imagined grandeur.

Finally, the tribunal returned to announce that the sentence would be delivered in three days. We were hurried out, and as we stepped from the exit to the waiting transport van, we caught a fleeting glimpse of the gray sky, sleet falling, and a sharp breath of fresh air.

May 1939 – March 1960: Fragments of Experience

London, May 1939

The Lound family lives in the very center of London, in an elegant neighborhood near Regent’s Park. I was recommended and accepted as a paying guest—a delightfully hypocritical British phrase to mean “boarder.” I arrived in the evening, following a dreadful flight: turbulent winds had raged over the English Channel without pause, and we all, including the crew, vomited everything we had into bags at first and then wherever it landed. Once I set foot on British soil, I was met with kindness—a sweet compensation for the cold irony of the French. At the airport, strangers rushed toward us with bottles of cognac, urging us to drink, insisting that it was the only remedy after such a gut-wrenching experience. The taxi driver showed his concern, and the Lound family’s housekeeper greeted me with a deferential smile, letting me know I was excused from wearing evening attire for that first night.

The pastor of the house welcomed me with enchanting words (and let someone dare tell me, after the Security Service interrogations, five years in prison, and three and a half years of manual labor alongside gypsies, that politeness is an outdated vanity—I would spit in their face without hesitation): “In our home, please feel as though you’re at a hotel, and allow us to treat you as a friend.”

Mrs. Lound and one of the daughters (an assistant at a dental office) were somewhat more reserved. The pastor and his other daughter, a schoolteacher in a small town outside London who stayed home from Friday night to Sunday, were the embodiment of gentleness and simplicity. I quickly noticed how the English, as cold as they may seem abroad, are equally friendly and welcoming at home. Hospitable, open, and understanding, they recognize everyone’s right to be mad or to ruin their life as they see fit, in whatever way they choose. They consider the need for faith to be entirely natural.

In the afternoons, Mr. Lound would sometimes invite me to his study, where he made coffee in an electric kettle. Every morning, before the hearty breakfast, he took me for a brisk, almost military walk through the endless Regent’s Park. He showed me all sorts of elegant villas (some of very poor taste, imitations of every possible style), which had belonged or still belonged to prominent figures. There were also ponds in the park, and I eagerly approached some delightfully charming ducks. To get closer, I crouched, called to them, and cooed at them with “uti-uti.” The ducks quacked politely, just as much as needed. Back home, during breakfast, the pastor told everyone how, when he tried to draw my attention to the architectural marvels in the park, I abandoned him and went off “to worship some ducks.”

From London, I wrote to Manning in Bedford, the young civil servant I had met in Interlaken. He replied promptly and invited me to attend a Group meeting in a few days in Eastham, a suburb of London.

Calling it a suburb is a stretch, as I traveled by metro and then train for over an hour and a half. In the Eastham town hall, I rediscovered the same atmosphere of sincerity and naïve purity I had encountered in Interlaken. The speakers were passionate and serious, the audience attentive and serious, everyone taking notes and marking down the Bible verses cited. There was a palpable diligence, perhaps not surprising among people convinced that the Lord would come like a thief, possibly at any moment, unexpectedly. Why not even now?

During the break, the conversations were as lively as they had been in Interlaken. People exchanged addresses, recommended magazines and books, exhibitions and courses, and shared their most intimate spiritual confidences without hesitation. Tea was served on small trays. I marveled at how they managed to do everything at once—walk, drink tea, nibble on biscuits, talk, write, preach, stay informed, greet each other, smile, and ponder. I saw the Irishman again, who slowly approached me to remind me of the dream he had. I listened more attentively than I had in Interlaken but with even greater skepticism, accompanied by a subtle inner smile—neither malicious nor mocking, but slightly condescending. His vision of me among the Lord’s worshippers seemed both touching and childlike. I felt a bit sorry for the man—undoubtedly well-meaning—but I disliked how he put so much faith in dreams and lacked modesty in his fantasies.

In London, I often visited churches, cathedrals, and chapels—not only to see them but also to wait for something that never came. I went to my host’s church, though I did not take communion, even when invited. My reasoning was that I had not confessed. The pastor, familiar with Catholicism and Orthodoxy (he had been the titular pastor of the Anglican Church in Paris for several years), was impressed by my reasoning and did not insist. Mr. Lound, who leaned toward middle-to-high church traditions, respected a believer who refrained from the altar out of unworthiness.

I also visited many religious associations and centers. In London, their names appear frequently on streets, like commercial establishments. Religion is everywhere; you encounter Christ at every step. They say The Lord. On the continent, religious discretion is strict. In England, it is not. People speak of matters of the soul and faith in the most natural way. Whenever I passed by a building with a plaque bearing the name of a religious organization, I went inside. Inside, I found meeting rooms, libraries, filing cabinets, piles of magazines and brochures, photographs, testimonies, telephones, and secretaries. Offices. (But is it any different in Babylon? As Pierre Benoit said: Le Pape, c’est des bureaux.) I was received kindly by people who were a little hurried but who listened to me and summarized their respective creeds. I found this part rather stereotypical. But I was always moved when they suggested, with unforced sincerity, “a few moments of meditative silence together” or a prayer. Let us pray: they knelt in the middle of the office or reception room or archives as casually as if pulling a white handkerchief from their pocket to clean their glasses. They loaded my arms with leaflets and brochures, or “pamphlets,” as they liked to call them.

In Hyde Park, I often stopped and lingered in front of the preachers. A group of sectarians sang, and I approached them with my hat on and umbrella in hand. (It was a clear day, with no sign of clouds; if it had rained, I would have taken my raincoat instead of the umbrella.) They asked me to remove my hat since their song was a psalm. I politely declined, driven by some sudden stubbornness, refusing to uncover myself on command. What came over me? They persisted, patient and unoffended, accustomed as they were to the devil’s varied antics. Eventually, they left me to the Lord’s judgment, and I walked away—filled with bitterness.

March 6, 1960

At long last, I, too, am been taken out and brought to a small office tucked into the vaulted corridor’s alcove. I was interrogated, identified, and stripped. I was left with just a towel, a bar of soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste, two pairs of socks, one shirt, and one pair of underwear, from which I made a small bundle. I looked at the clock above the alcove and saw that it was much earlier than I had thought. A very tall and burly guard motioned for me to follow him. (At the “snake pit,” they were chatty; now they work in silence.) But he did not lead me toward the row of metal doors laden with locks and bolts, behind which I presumed the cells lay. Instead, we went outside into the courtyard.

This early March night was a blizzardy one. It reminded me of the opening of The Joker of Cards by Edgar Wallace:

“Young Gregory, known as the Cocaine Man, had been found in a ditch in Lambeth. He had died before the duty officer at Waterloo Bridge, who had heard the shots, could arrive on the scene. He had been killed in the street, on snow and wind, with no witnesses. When they took him to the morgue and searched his clothes, nothing was found except a small metal box full of a white powder—cocaine—and a playing card, the Joker of Cards!”

I stood there in nothing but a shirt and underwear. The guard pointed to a massive pile of suitcases, sacks, backpacks, bundles, and bags, ordering me to carry them all from the courtyard into a small room near the corridor’s entrance, along which the doors were lined. Some of the suitcases were very heavy. I labored, trembling and chattering, not just from the cold but also from being caught in a dreadful draft, for nearly two hours. The guard, bundled in a Siberian-style fur coat as thick as the day is long, with felt boots over his regular boots, had raised his fur-lined collar and pulled the flaps of his ushanka hat over his ears. He huddled in a corner, resembling the Invisible Man from the H.G. Wells film, sitting on a surly chair from which he likely observed me. Surely, he was also cold—and for reasons I do not know—I felt he did not enjoy watching me scurry back and forth, half-naked, skinny, and frail.

When I finished, I was glad I had shown no sign of weakness and had begun to warm up. The guard motioned for me to follow him again, rattling a ring of enormous keys. He stopped at cell 18, opened the heavy door, yawned, and shoved me inside.

“In the end, it may be that God does not need to punish us. He simply turns His face away from us, which means He withdraws His protective grace and leaves us to the whims of chance and the interconnectedness of the material world. We fall under the zodiac of randomness and mechanics: woe to us!”

March 7, 1960

I was ushered inside. Now I stand frozen near the door. I look around. I am in an enormous bomb-like structure, assaulted by an unbelievable stench. The space is brightly lit—a sort of geometric, amplified night shelter. I am gripped by a contradictory dual sensation of desolation and congestion. On both sides, there are four rows of iron beds rising nearly to the high vaulted ceiling.

The window before me is boarded up, beyond which are iron bars. In the space between the beds, there is a narrow table, two equally narrow, rickety benches, and in the back-right corner, a tub, a basin, and a covered vat. That’s all. On the floor along the beds lie seemingly endless rows of boots.

A few deep snores do not break the profound silence, much like isolated clouds that do not disturb the unity of a violently blue sky. Occasionally, there is a rasping sound. The metallic clanking of bolts and keys has not awakened anyone, and this amazes me.

I begin to shiver from the cold, standing immobilized in my scant clothing with my bundle in my right hand, blinded by the aggressive light. The breaths around me are varied and discordant. I stay like this for a long time, waiting, but I discern no movement. My eyes search for a place to settle, to lie down. I see none, and no one notices me.

After thoroughly scanning the walls with their sarcophagus-like extensions, I look downward and find a mix of clay, cement, gravel, and mud. The room seems unspeakably hostile and malevolent. I feel ridiculous and lost, overcome by exhaustion and, above all, fear—as if facing an exam for which I know nothing of the material. A wholly different kind of horror compared to the interrogations at Securitate.

(Premonitions are not always reliable. I did not know, on the threshold of that smelly, intensely lit “bomb” caught in the bifurcated whirl of snores and silence, that within it I would find access to happiness.)

For now, my eyes wander again, scanning up and down, right and left, everywhere, persistently, fearfully.

Light and emptiness.

(Everything can be trampled upon; here even the light is cold and cruel. How you have fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning. Winston Smith in 1984: the place where there is no darkness—and what does that place turn out to be? The interrogation and prison rooms! Yet, he wasn’t lied to: it is always light there. But what kind of light? Perhaps the kind struck by the fall of the angel Lucifer, when the Lord saw him plummeting, like lightning, into the depths.)

Suddenly, high up in the far-left corner on the topmost row of beds, a hand raises a finger, beckoning me to climb.

March 15, 1960

Catechesis lessons have concluded. The baptism, scheduled for the fifteenth, takes place as planned. Father Mina chooses the moment he deems most appropriate: when the prisoners return from the yard, a time of maximum commotion when the guards are busy. We must act quickly and clandestinely in full view of everyone—a conspiracy in broad daylight, like in Wells’ stories.

I remain behind while the others go out for their exercise, as I have a purulent sore on my right foot from my worn boot. Alone in the emptied room, with only a few others excused from the walk, I sense an eerie stillness. The silence becomes, as Cervantes put it, a spectacle.

When the crowd returns noisily, carrying the tub, basin, and a “reservoir” of water, Father Mina swiftly grabs the sole mug in the room—a chipped, greasy, and repulsive red enamel cup—and fills it with freshly brought water. He rushes to my bunk, joined by the two Greek-Catholic priests and my chosen godfather, Em. V., a former lawyer and professor.

Father Mina recites the necessary words, marks me with the sign of the cross, pours the entire cup of water over my head and shoulders, and baptizes me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Confession is brief: baptism washes away all sins. I am born anew, from muddy water and swift spirit.

Afterward, we move to a Greek-Catholic priest’s bunk near the tub and basin, where I recite the Orthodox creed as previously agreed. I renew my vow to remember that I was baptized under the seal of ecumenism. It is done. The baptism is fully valid even without immersion or anointing.

Reflection

To those baptized as infants, the meaning of baptism remains a mystery. For me, happiness now assails me in waves, each stronger and more precise than the last. It is true: baptism is a holy sacrament, and the holy mysteries do exist. Otherwise, this joy—so overwhelming, so complete—could not be so astonishingly wonderful.

Peace. Absolute detachment. Sweetness in my mouth, in my veins, in my muscles. A drive to forgive everyone. A pervasive gentleness, like an aura around me. And a sense of absolute safety. I am a new man, infused with a fresh vitality. Behold, I make all things new (Revelation 21:5). If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This baptism is a discovery, an unveiling of the infinite.

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