I remember the hospital I was in when my two baby boys were born. At the time I thought the hospitals looked perfectly normal. On looking back now, I realize they were squalid. I didn?t seem to mind back then. I even worked in the hospital of the Jilava Prison, since I hadn?t got Bucharest residence. Bucharest was a closed city. Hard to enter. I?ve seen a lot in Jilava. I don?t like to remember about those things. But there was good will, too. The medical personnel were quite united. We had to hold together if we wanted to cope. A lot of people there were confined unjustly. Others were real criminals, though. They often pretended to be ill, and the pretense was perfect, in order to exchange the prison cells for the hospital wards. They?d do anything to get away from the prison life. They were very difficult men, but if you knew how to handle them, you could manage.

I had my first baby while I was still working in Jilava. Some law had been passed which said that women had to have their babies in the hospitals specifically appointed to their work places. It was absurd: you deliver where and when the time comes. I for one had to go to the ?August 23^rd? Hospital, and I lived at the other end of Bucharest, in the ?Militari? area, which was only being built at the time. I took a taxi that jolted me through the whole city until we reached the hospital (we did not own a car then). It took us a lot of time to get there, I wouldn?t know how much. When I arrived, I told the doctors I was going to deliver that very instant. Nobody believed me, as I gad just got to the hospital. But it was just as I?d said. Next to me there was a lady who had already been through a lot of pain. After her baby was born, she told me she had hated me for delivering so easily, while she had to endure so much. She didn?t know that I had been through my labors while in the taxi.

It was customary for the woman to speak with a certain doctor in advance and give him ?his due? to take better care of her. Just that there was no guarantee that he would be in hospital at the exact time of your labors, so it was still the doctor on duty who assisted the birth. What was the use, then? Birth is something physiological. Something normal. And afterwards you could pay the due, naturally.

It was a midwife, not a doctor, who assisted my second birth. I went to the hospital and that woman gave me so much confidence that I told her I wanted to have the baby with her by my side. She was a bit elderly, you could see she had experience. When I told her that, she stared at me and said OK. She only told me we had to work together and that I would have to obey her completely, and everything would be all right. It was hot, and she was a bit chubby. She closed the door, and took off all her clothes except the panties and the bra, and helped me deliver. I don?t remember what I gave her afterwards. (E. I. A., 16)

When I was a student, I made my pocket money by selling blue jeans on the black market. I bought them in the hostel from foreign students and sold them in my town at double price. The money would never stay in my pocket for more than three days: I went with my friends to the Budapesta Restaurant and stood treats for everyone. (G. S., 86)