WEEK-END

Summer, 1983. One of those Saturdays when Lali and Uncle Victor go to this farm outside Bucharest to get the live chicken family supplies. (The family prefers dead chicken, but he has no choice.) The operation is complex and requires much virtuosity: the men tip the keeper, sneak their car into the yard, meet behind the shed with someone in charge there who fills their trunk with 50 insubstantial creatures; they give him the money (twice the official price), sneak out with a beating heart and go home, thanking God the chicken are so feeble they can?t even cheep. When the chicken have been unloaded, I double-check the trunk for any lost chicken that might signal its presence three days from now by its stink, as happened last month when we were queuing for gas. Mr. Caldare, our neighbor, an obliging yet insensitive man, cuts their heads off. Mother and I scald and feather them. As a rule, the tap water only runs if and when it pleases. Today it won?t, so it takes us the whole day to feather the chicken. We sit there, sweating in the steamy kitchen, surrounded by feathers, entrails, pots, basins and kettles. When I go to bed, a pillow feather floats into my mouth.

On Sunday morning, we carve the victims and squeeze the meat into the freezers. The water still doesn?t run properly, so I have to wash by portions: first my neck, then one wing, one leg? I?m crushed and I stink like perfumed corpse, but I have to go to the British Embassy lunch, so I ask Lali to drive me there. We were both invited, but Lali was ordered to fall grievously ill.

The Ambassador?s guests are three English people and three Romanians. (I suspect there should have been more Romanians, but they might have all fallen ill, like Lali; I see the boy furtively removing the extra dishes.) I pretend not hearing the names of the people introduced, I want my report to refer strictly to the weather, the state of cancer research, and the latest evolutions of the Javanese GAMELAN.

For reasons I consider extremely strong, I believe one of my fellow citizens to be a Securitate officer. I am tense, I stumble against the carpet, I take the mistress of the house for the chamber maid, my English is bad, I can?t think of any chat topic, I am no good at scooping the soufflé with my spoon. The ambassador is having a bad day, he slips the salad bowl on his pants. 

In the evening, we have guests over. They seem low-spirited and moody. I?m not doing better myself. Conversation is dull, so I decide to tell them about the two last days of my life. I don?t know why it seems like a memorable thing to me. But Lali resents the idea, he says it?s too long and nothing to laugh about. I?d better watch that chicken in the oven, it always gets burned. (133)