I love darkness, especially in unknown places. I feel free in it. But hush! Don’t tell anybody. My private thoughts must stay private. This is the Socialist Republic of Romania, where the individual is indistinguishable from the whole. I’m a communist youth, and a communist youth is always grateful.
We are grateful for all the freedoms we have: the freedom to build majestic factories and giant power plants, to work towards our bright communist future, to go full speed ahead with the Five Year Plan. The freedom to shout out with 23 million strong voices, “The Party, Ceauşescu, Romania,” and trust, trust, tovarish, that when you cannot breathe anymore, the slogan will transform to a more melodic “Ceauşescu and the nation deserve our admiration!” Then breathe, breathe deep, and let your savage “Uraaahhhhh!” echo through the magnificent concrete housing projects. Shout it a hundred times—when you’re hungry, when you’re tired—and you shall be grateful. Grateful to our wise leader, tovarish Nicolae Ceauşescu. He is the helmsmen of our ship, the lighthouse of our future, the great teacher of our nation. He steers us on the glorious path to communism. Uraaahhhhh!
This is the official truth. If you watch us, you might think that our life is one unremitting cheer. We cheer in classrooms, in factories, and on the streets. Wherever you turn, there is nothing but Ceauşescu and his cheering people. We cheer in kindergarten as Falcons of the Fatherland; in grade school as Pioneers of the Communist Regime; and later, we cheer as members of the Communist Youth Union.
And there are rallies, big rallies, with flags and banners and portraits—countless replicas of Ceauşescu’s face float in an ocean of red and gold. He is the Man exalted above others. We must revere His likeness. So don’t stare at his potato-chin, or his shallow eyes, and don’t say that his smile is slightly crooked. Hush! Hush your lips! And hush your mind!
Ceauşescu’s face is everywhere. His smile greets us in the first grade on the first page of our first reader, and it keeps greeting us throughout school, framed in gold above the blackboard, where the crucifix used to hang before the liberation. It is the icon of our times. Painters paint it, poets acclaim it, songs glorify it. We see his image more often than we see bread, so learn to respect it. Don’t let your back slouch or your arms droop while holding Him up in a rally. If you think too much, you will fall. So don’t fall, cheer.
I’m a nineteen-year-old girl with brown hair and brown eyes. I fit in the standard-size army uniform. Even my ponytail looks standard-issue. And, like almost every citizen of my age, I’m a member of the Communist Youth Union. I would be one indistinguishable girl out of many, if my name wasn’t spelled the way it is. I’m Hungarian, but I’m not a foreigner. I’m a native citizen, born here in Cluj, also known as Cluj-Napoca, Kolozsvár, Klausenburg, or Klojznburg. My city has always been the multiethnic heart of Transylvania, a mix of Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Gypsies, and Jews. We are used to funny names in Cluj, but at the School of Chemistry, most of the students come from the all-Romanian mainland.
But being Hungarian is not a problem. The state, led by the Communist Party, provides equality for all cohabitating minorities. I’m free to make the best of who I am. My mum says that anyone can cheer, but few can achieve. I had perfect scores throughout school, and now that I’m in college, I have the highest grades in my cohort. As long as I do not look different, sound different, or think differently from the rest, I should be fine. If only we wouldn’t have to cheer so much.
The same staccato cheers resound throughout the entire country. It doesn’t matter whether we are here in Cluj or anywhere else in Romania. I’ve never ventured further than the surrounding forests, but I can assure you that everything is the same everywhere. If you switch on the television at night, you’ll see tens of thousands of people cheer with robotic persistence. There is no difference between the very different cities of Cluj, Bucharest, Iaşi, or Timişoara—the cheering is the same everywhere. Cheering is our official way of life. Commonalities are hushed like improper pillow talk. The individual self must be eradicated to prepare the way for a communist society. There is only one way to be, one way to dress, one way to talk. There is only one way to think. Individuality is a wretched remnant of the past. The group-self is the only self. We must become miniature replicas of it. We must smother personal sorrows and joys—they are bad for the greater good. If I would let it slip that I love darkness, I’d stick out like a sore thumb. So, hush! Forget that I ever told you a thing. The Secu might be listening. The Secu is always listening to everyone, watching everything.
I like silence. Silence is safe. The absence of sound. And sound, we know, is a mechanical wave, a repetitive pressure-variation transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, to the listening devices of the secret police. They tell us that silence and darkness are the friends of the enemy. But what about sound and light? Whose friends are they? They are both waves. They have amplitudes, frequencies, wavelengths, and speeds. They belong to the greater field of science. And science, as my mother says, transcends party, poop, and politics. Science is the mightiest power in the Universe. Even a gold-framed portrait must obey the law of gravity.
I’m a chemistry student now, and in three years, I’ll be a full-fledged scientist. I’m like a snowflake between a million others, falling softly from the sky. But I’m not an ordinary speck of ice. I know about bond-angles, understand crystal-structure, and appreciate fluid dynamics. I can ride the wind and choose my place to land.
MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1989
Every morning I board the trolley at the Monostor project district and travel from a young world of concrete and steel to the ancient permanence of the old city. Today, in spite of the heavy snow, the ride is smooth. It’s still dark at six in the morning. Neon-lit trees zoom by like orbs of cotton candy. The trolley gently rocks from side to side and a pleasant sense of anticipation envelopes me. It’s the first day of the semester.
The trolley moans like a wild animal, and as I sit snug in its hollow gut the electric purr swings me in reverie. I imagine a metal beast with two long feelers stick out from the top of its carapace, holding on for dear life to the double-wire stretched above the road. It’s a new species, Trolleysaurus Rex. The beast is mostly tame, besides the occasional stalls when its horns lose grip, prompting its handler to get off, go to its rump, and lasso greasy ropes until the feelers are properly repositioned.
The beast neighs electric and comes to a halt at its downtown stop. I get off. People jostle to transfer to other lines, but I quickly slip into a quiet side street, and almost instantly, my coat fills with hundreds of shimmering stars. It’s actually my mum’s old coat, but camelhair is made to last, and it’s warm.
Mum used to walk this way twenty years ago, when she was a chemistry student. I try to imagine her being young, but I can’t. Soon after I was born, her joints started to ache, stiffen, and contort. By the time I learned how to crawl, she could hardly get around without a cane.
Under the snow, the old city dreams of the past. The flurry is whiter in the yawn of a gothic gate, and a tiny Baroque church kneels silently behind some shaggy firs. My steps are soft and light. The Cluj School of Chemistry slowly emerges from under the frenzied whirl. It’s a neoclassical palace with white walls contrasted by vivid pink highlights. In this dense snowfall, only the highlights are visible. Three-stories of crimson window sashes, bas-reliefs, and trims float eerily behind a wrought-iron fence.
Across the road is the park, its trees arching under the snow. They’re all asleep now, but there’s a special tree in there—a maple, Acer platanoides. It looks like one among many, but it was the first to change color in the fall. It started with one single leaf turning red, a leaf that all the other leaves followed.
I brush the snow from my coat and pull open a door set deep beneath an ornate portal. Tall-ceilinged darkness welcomes me inside. The Cluj School of Chemistry is silent, like a church. It’s my favorite moment of the morning, when the old walls are submerged in timelessness. Soon the frazzled flock of impermanent characters will spill in and break the magic.
The lights are off. The neo-classical spirit of the building draws me in—it feels basic, pure, and immutable. The whiteness of the snow filters in through the elongated arch-windows. I take in a deep breath to enjoy the silent solitude—
There’s something, somebody, big and dark, standing by the bulletin board. A man!
I snap into a formal state of mind and keep on walking towards him until I reach the standard greeting-distance of six paces. Then I stand stiff at attention and salute him the way a communist youth is trained to salute.
“Long live, tovarish!” I bark.
“Hello, milady.” The shadow bows gracefully.
Did he say “milady?” I’m not sure that I heard him right. And he bowed! Nobody has ever bowed to me before, except a clown in the circus, when I was three and cute.
“I am Bianka Sülester, second-year chemistry,” I introduce myself in the official manner.
The vaulted corridors echo: Sülester…ester…ster, Chemistry…estry…stry…
With a couple of hesitant blinks, the ceiling lights flicker to life. The custodian must have arrived. I can see now, in the artificial glow, that the man I greeted wears a gray anorak. He is not a professor. Professors wear suits.
Oh, shit. He could be from the Secu! He does not quite look it, though. Secu officers wear leather jackets. But he could have taken it off. I don’t think he got here wearing only an anorak in this weather. And he has a mustache. Don’t people who work for the government have to have a clean-shaven face? And would a Secu officer salute, bowing like Robin Hood? He doesn’t look like a Robin Hood at all. He’s got Hitchcock’s pursed lower lip and strong brow. Maybe without the moustache.
“Don’t worry, Milady,” he says, stepping closer.
“I never worry, sir.” I instinctively step back to maintain the standard tovarish-to-tovarish distance.
“I see,” he chuckles, without another attempt to shorten the space between us.
I didn’t say anything funny. Was my accent that bad?
“You’re here,” he states.
I think to myself, of course I am, I’m talking to you, but I say nothing. Is he waiting for an answer? Did he ask, “Why are you here?” instead of stating the obvious? Who is he anyway?
I shouldn’t be staring at him as if he’s some sort of oddity. I glance out the window. The snowfall is becoming lighter.
“Why chemistry, Milady?” he asks, so softly that I can barely hear him. “Why did you choose to major in chemistry?”
Oh, that? What a silly question.
“Because I love it, of course.” My bark involuntarily softens.
“You do?” His brows lift ever so slightly.
Why is he looking at me like that? Was my grammar bad? I had better be sure to speak proper Romanian. I string my words together carefully: subject, prepositional phrase, predicate.
“I am in love with chemistry.” I’m all mixed up.
The man listens, motionless, then his lips start moving softly, as if caressing the vowels and kissing the consonants.
“In the light that’s softly sifting,
through the snowy clouds below,
dreamily a girl is drifting,
science major in her tow.”
His words sound soft and secretive as they form under his short mustache. A triangular gap, occasionally revealed between his top front teeth, distracts me.
Almost involuntarily, my lips whisper, “Who are you?”
“I am forty-three, and I have gonadic dysfunction,” he says.
I start subtracting nineteen from forty-three. I can look up the word gonadic later. Or was it monadic?
“So?” the man whispers. Maybe he only sighed, but I feel compelled to say something.
“Are you a professor?” I ask, knowing that he’s not.
“Do I look like one?” He straightens his anorak. The canvas windbreaker does not fit quite right on his rotund body, and this somehow gives me courage.
“So, if you not a professor…”
“Then who am I? Bold question, Milady.” He suddenly steps close — so close that I can see each hair of his mustache. “I’m a magician,” he whispers.
Magician?! At six forty-five in a socialist institution? A door slams in the far end of the corridor, and I realize that this building is always open. Any random nut can come in. He’s so close to me, and so big. I feel the urge to run, but that would look very silly. I step back to maintain the safe and proper distance.
“Nice meeting you, tovarish magician. I must go now.” I snap back to attention. “Long live the Party.” I make a crisp left face and start to march away. For all it’s worth, he could still be from the Secu.
“Wait, wait, wait, milady. That was a joke,” the man says, without trying to chase me down.
I stop and turn. Outside, it’s slowly clearing. The snow-clouds are gone, and the sky is pink.
“I’m a research scientist.” The dawning light reflects in his eyes. They were only shadows a minute ago, but now they are the softest eyes I have ever seen; not blue, not green, not gray, but a combination of all three.
“What kind of research do you do?”
“I work on a spark-emission spectrometer,” he says, and it is only his lower lip that moves.
“You got a spark-spec?”
“Yes. Down in my lab, Milady. It’s an ISKRA 300.”
“ISKRA 300?”
“Russian instrument. Less than two years old.”
I’m safe with him. I know all about specs. Emission spectrometers excite the atoms of the sample in order to make them emit. “Excite” means making the electrons jump up to a higher quantum state. Higher quantum states are short-lived. The electrons return to their ground state by emission of a photon—a photon that can be captured by photographic emulsion. Each atom has its own electron structure and its own pattern of emission. If you know these patterns, you can easily identify any atom present in your unknown sample.
Spark-emission means that a spark generated by a high voltage arc excites the sample. That is why the alternate term for “spark-emission” is “arc-discharge.” But doesn’t “spark” sound much better than “discharge?” I know how it works, but I’ve never seen the actual instrument.
“Would you like to see it, milady?” The man scratches his nose.
“How big is it?”
“Big.” He smiles.
I check my watch. An electric thrill sweeps over me. I have about an hour before class starts.
“Can I come right now?”
“Now? Sure.” He nods.
I suddenly remember my mum telling me never to trust a stranger.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“My name? Simon Albu,” the man says, and the triangular gap between his front teeth no longer bothers me. “Is that acceptable?”
“It certainly is, sir. Certainly,” I rattle. From now on, I should address him as tovarish Albu.
He turns to leave and I fear I’ll never see him again. He is walking away.
“Mr. A—” My tongue slips.
“Follow me, milady,” he says, without turning around.
The next thing I know he’s halfway down the corridor. As I catch up with him, we pass the custodian. He’s fiddling with some keys.
“Long-live!” He lifts his hand to his black beret in a salute.
“Morning,” Mr. Albu says, without a bow.
“Big weather.” The custodian points his scabrous chin towards the window.
“Big weather,” Mr. Albu agrees, then turns to leave. I’m tagging alongside him.
“Gotta sweep the front,” the custodian mumbles, and then—shlip-thump-clop, shlip-thump-clop—he shuffles away towards the main entrance. They say that he used to be a train conductor. I wonder what happened to his leg.
Mr. Albu opens an inner door and I follow. We walk down some cement stairs, pass a sign that says EXIT, and keep going down. He suddenly stops and I almost bump into him. We are now on a landing halfway underground. Some bent pipes and a rusty boiler sit under the staircase. Then I see, gaping like an open mouth, the dark entrance to the basement.
“Is your lab in there?”
“Did you call me ‘Mister A?’”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I liked it. It sounds like ‘mystery,’” he says. Then he turns and disappears down the stairs, as if swallowed by darkness. I follow him blindly. In the absence of light, he seems to be made only of scents and sounds: lavender aftershave, soap, soft steps, the jingling of keys. He moves slowly and I feel safe. I sense a door open. He enters.
“Hang in there Milady, I’ll put some light on in a moment,” he says.
“I don’t mind the dark,” I respond.
He switches on a desk lamp.
“Welcome to my underground experiments,” he says with a bow.
“Wow!” I gasp.
I’ve seen analytical instruments before, true; much smaller ones, but that shouldn’t matter. Still, I stare at it like a cow looking at a new gate. I knew that the spark-speck was rather large and heavy, but I never imagined it could be this big. The huge horizontal cylinder splits the room diagonally and obscures the wall opposite to the door.
“Have a seat, milady.”
Oh! There is a chair hiding in the darkness.
“And the walls are black!” I can’t help exclaiming.
“To minimize reflection.” Mr. A. rolls his chair and sits behind the boxy part of the instrument—I’m guessing it’s the spark chamber.
I straighten my back so I can see him from chest up. The way he sits still in his gray anorak, he seems a permanent fixture of the room. The quietness of the place feels right and I’m finally calm. My eyes begin to adjust and I can make out the extents of the laboratory—a square room, about five by five meters. It feels much smaller, but that’s okay. As Mr. A. starts explaining how things work, the walls seem to dissolve.
“The unknown is loaded into the spark chamber where a high-voltage arc excites it. The cannon does the rest. It refracts and separates the light emitted by the unknown into fingerprint-like lines. This separated light, called the emission spectrum, is caught by the emulsion on a glass plate. The developed picture carries the key to deciphering the composition of the unknown.” His voice is only a faint whisper, but I can understand his every word.
“Let me show you.” He slides the cover of the spark chamber open and pulls out something small and black from the boxy darkness. “This is the graphite cap.” He hands me something that feels like a very short pencil between my fingers. I hold it with care, fearing I might break the invisible, important element. In regular teaching labs, they don’t let students fiddle with expensive instruments.
“Here,” he says, producing a tiny spatula and a porcelain crucible from thin air. Whatever lies outside the light-cone of the desk lamp is invisible to me.
“You can load the sample into the cap, milady, if you wish.”
If I wish? I’m dying to. Mr. A. hands me the spatula and holds up the crucible so that I can scoop its content into the cap. I neatly spoon out tiny amounts of some dark powder and carefully load it in the hollow graphite recipient. It feels a bit odd that Mr. A is holding the crucible, but new things always feel odd. One day I’ll master this whole huge instrument all by myself.
The unknown is loaded into the cap. Mr. A. shows me where it goes inside the spark chamber, and slides the lid back into place.
“Ready?” he asks, then turns the desk lamp off. In an instant, it’s darker then dark. But this darkness is legitimate. It is science.
He pushes an invisible button and a high-voltage spark zaps the unknown into metallic-smelling fumes. Inside the instrument, obscured from our eyes, shafts of light hit a photographic emulsion turning the mystery of the unknown into known data.
We need the darkness to generate this data. We need the darkness to capture it. And we need the darkness to decode it. There is nothing wrong with that. Only after the plate is developed and fixed does Mr. A. switch on the band reader.
The band reader is a square box with black curtains around it that sits on a square table. It looks like a ghastly puppet-theater. The spectral bands are projected onto the “stage.” Hunched, with our heads under the curtains, we match the projected bands with the bone-glue smelling standard cards. This last step is the only one that involves some light, but not too much. If it could only be this dim in lecture rooms, it would be so nice. We would barely notice that above the board, framed in gold, unchanging, Ceauşescu is always watching us.
Beatrix Büdy loves the darkness, but hush! Don’t tell anybody. Born in Romania, she moved to the US in 1998, and is currently an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Columbia College Chicago.
