Let me tell you what happened once when I actually had a trump card to play against the authorities, that is politicians such as Cozmanca, of whom so few are left. The one that I beat up was a sort of Cozmanca, some Central Committee leader in charge of party county branches, so he was the one appointing party secretaries in each county, the guy was a big shot. He had a booze up and I fought with one of his mates and the other one as well, and I won. Nobody bothered me with anything. There was a trial but I wasn?t questioned in front of the court. There were others who stood before the court and testified so that the others shouldn?t get into trouble. The boys lost anyway. They were drunk, made lots of noise on the banks of the Danube, came into conflict with us, didn?t calm down, got into a fight and fired their guns. I told them from the beginning that if they tried to cover it up, I was Manea Manescu?s nephew, and if this went to Ceausescu, they were finished. When they heard of Ceausescu, they forgot it all. They were all afraid things might go that far. There were others as well who had their problems in their sector, but the moment they complained about it at the Central Committee and got some sort of an answer, they were made justice, although they had fought with the party. When they heard of Ceausescu, they would all wet their pants. I think that was quite a decent thing, the fact that they had their separate activity areas, with their shops where you could find everything, and their isolated little areas where they could lead their lives at a certain level, but that was all. That was some sort of decency, wasn?t it? They wouldn?t make a show of themselves, as those today, with newspapers, the press, and the TV? You would still find out about it, eventually, because of the rumors, but that was something else. To keep rumors from spreading you would have to live on another planet, wouldn?t you? (C. M., 142)

AGE

Widely used word, designating periods like, for instance, the ?slave age? or Ceausescu?s ?golden age?. The envious used to say (in absolute secrecy, of course) that there wasn?t much difference between the two. (51)

In high- schools, vocational schools, students of agronomic studies, pupils were taken to various agricultural labors (in autumn, sorting potatoes, harvesting tomatoes, grapes, peas). This work was very useful, but unpaid. It was considered a duty. Not even the institution the pupils came from was paid.