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From Romania to France via America Novels ¥ La Traversee du Styx (Recrossing the
Styx) Plays: a Tragedy, a Comedy, a Farce &
a Highly Controversial Sequel ¥ Flush Game, or the Gospel According to
Henry Miller ¥ Beyond The Styx Nightingales DonÕt Sing |
Death Row Diary: First chapter Letter from the Underworld The
terrorist age was in full swing. Afghanistan was being sanitized and Iraq was
making the headlines. A larger United Europe was a step closer to its
superpower dream, and France was still on America's shit list. Moi—an expat in Paris—was under the spell
of a capricious and delicious marquise. Light of my art, trickster of my
heartÉ But that's a different novel. One June
morning, as I was stretching my sleepy limbs for a jog in Jardin des Plantes,
the Polynesian concierge shoved a letter under my door. As I was doing
pushups, it came to rest under my nose. It was neither the electric bill nor
the statement from the rental agency, which, along with an occasional card
from an extinguished flame and a nearly illegible letter from my evangelical
father, was my monthly intercourse with the postal service in the Internet
age. The
addressee's name: a certain Ana Amarovich followed by a multitude of letters
and numbers. The name was vaguely familiar. I scrolled my memory with no results.
My morning exercise yielded to curiosity. "Dear
Doru," began the letter in a neat calligraphic handwriting. "We met
last year at a soirŽe given by an American expat in ParisÉ Now I am a
convicted cold-blooded killer on California's death row." A chill ran
down my spine. I instantly thanked my lucky star for choosing someone else
for the deadly honor of sending her to the antechamber of institutionalized
demise. In our turbulent domestic times, one never knows what a kitchen
knife, an ice pick, or a frozen turkey can do. It all came
back to me in a flash. It was chez J.H., the colorful American legend behind
the Sunday dinners who caters to the Anglophones visiting the City of Light
for a weekend or a lifetime. The moment I walked thorough the door of his
ground floor atelier, the King of Expats announced from his royal stool that
this former Romanian refugee wasn't the only "vampire" on the
premise. And before I had the chance to fake some interest, he introduced me
to Ana, a Romanian-born English teacher from Seattle—medium height,
collarbone-length brown hair curled inwardly, dark eyes—and Nathan, her
teenage lanky son with an androgynous sweet face and a becoming scar on his
cheek. I couldn't
help commenting that she looked more like his older sister than his mother.
J.H., the eternal womanizer, added that if he had a mom like her when he was
a teenager, he would have contemplated incest. A sudden blush revealed the
most striking poignancy I've ever caught on a woman's face, as if all the
unhappy mothers in the world had contributed to its making. The expression
only lasted for an instant, her forced laughter chasing it away. "He's
the love child of my sweet sixteen," she said with a motherly kiss on
Adonis' cheek. Nathan, flushing scarlet, looked away embarrassed. He would
have given anything to be somewhere else. I needed a
drink, so I excused myself to fetch one. On my way to the booze stand I was
detained by a French dame and a bulky American businessman feeling lonely in
their chateau. By the time I freed myself from their verbal dungeons, the
cook was dishing out the main course: baked chicken aux herbes de Provence. I grabbed a plate and went outside in the garden,
bursting with vegetation and guests. Trees were in bloom and their pollen
stirred by the gentle breeze triggered allergic sneezes. It was a balmy
spring evening, ideal for new amorous blunders. Next to a
rose bush I spotted the sexy mom and son. Her tight burgundy jeans and fluffy
pullover gave my thirty-something compatriot a girlish appearance. She had
succeeded in minimizing the age gap between her and the faun next to her.
Unlike teenagers of his generation, Nathan didn't fall for baggy pants,
extra-large tee-shirt and baseball cap worn backwards. An elegant beige
jacket sans tie and matching trousers gave him the air of a promising dandy.
They were quietly sampling the food on their plates without much appetite. I studied
them from my vantage point, J.H.'s veranda. Now and then the mother raised
her eyes to her love child with the tenderness of a lioness ready to maul
anybody intending to harm her cub. Something made me think that such extraordinary
maternal devotion was the result of a traumatic past. I joined
them, hoping for a novelistic treat that spanned from Romanian childhood to
American adulthood with special emphasis on "sweet sixteen." The
fact that I was Romanian-born gave me an undeniable edge over the other
guests. My intrusion was expected and even encouraged with a long look in my
direction. Not even five minutes into the
conversation, Nathan wandered off. He was uncomfortable in the presence of
grownups entertaining his mama. But our tte-ˆ-tte didn't bear the plump
juicy mango I hoped for. Her verbiage didn't ricochet like stray shrapnel,
dwelling luxuriantly on casualties. As I was to find out from her diary, Ana
left out the part which would have made my jaw drop into my lap. She was the
daughter of an aeronautic engineer who forgot to return to Romania after participating in a US conference
organized by NASA. Two years later, the eight-year-old Ana and her mother
joined him. By then her father was working for Boeing. At sixteen Ana fell
for a seventeen-year old schoolmate, and that's when all her troubles began.
The English teacher and her son were spending spring break gorging on the
sights of Paris. While loitering on the Pont des Arts at sunset, they had
stumbled upon J.H. "et me voilˆ avec ma solitude et ma
mauvaise humeur." Her French put
mine to shame. Little by
little our conversation became more animated. But for some mysterious reason
she wasn't entirely at ease. Something worried her and I took a guess.
"Maybe junior has succumbed to some little French girl's charms. Falling
in love at a tender age seems to run in the family." Ana
chuckled, assuring me that I was on a wild goose chase. My
compatriot preferred to eat dessert in the living room, where she could keep
an eye on her son's debut into cosmopolitan society. The kid didn't appear to
have a dull time. A Russian doll, one of those creatures who know exactly
what they want from life, was entertaining him. Their languorous glances
hadn't spared me eitherÉ But that's a different novel. Soon enough
we ended up in front of J.H.'s mini library. My "Romanian novel,"
which dealt with the delicious sins of my youth clashing with the sinister
sins of communism, was among them. She browsed through it, making me
devilishly restless, as if she were about to criticize my style. She must
have stumbled upon a corny passage, for she giggled, then, as she jumped several
chapters ahead, her good disposition vanished with a sigh. "Is it
for sale?" "You
can have it for free, only if you postpone the lecture until you get to your
hotel room." I signed the
copy and inserted my card in it, just in case she wanted to chew out my
literary ass. The moment she confined the book to her bag, her curiosity
targeted my future projects. "What
is your narrator up to now?" "A
dangerous liaison with a Russian femme fatale married to a French aristocrat.
What about dinner tomorrow night? I'll give you an earful about it." "You
already have your hands full. You don't need another distraction." "It's
not certain." "I'm
leaving tomorrow." "Just
my luck!" The Russian
"distraction" kept monopolizing my thoughts, and little by little
Ana was shelved in some cobwebbed corner of my memory. Dear
Doru, We met
last year at a soirŽe given by an American expat in Paris. I was the pretty
mama you wanted to invite to dinner. Now I am a convicted cold-blooded killer
on California's death row. I am not
writing to you so you can feel sorry for me. Nor am I discussing my case
here. All I can say is that I am a model prisoner, I give no interviews to
the media, I write no pen-pal letters, and I refuse to appeal my sentence. I
merely ask to be left alone, and it's not always easy. Alors, cher compatriot, why am I
bothering you? It was
your "Romanian novel" that made me do it, your characters'
astounding stories that are as sad as our old country's history. There is no
doubt in my mind that you'd relate better than anybody I know to my personal
tragedy. You understand a woman's heart, a parent's despair for a lost
child... That's why with your permission I would like to send you my diary,
which I wrote late at night, when my fellow inmates' howls died down. I am
not a writer, just an English teacher, but it was my blood and tears that
went into the ink of my journal. Losing
family members and friends to illness or old age are the hard facts of life.
We weep our tears, mumble ashes to ashes, and life goes on. But when dear
ones vanish into the night before their time, our tears never dry. I just
can't leave this world taking my awful truth to the grave. Just between you
and me, I am NOT GUILTY of murder and can prove it. I can be a free woman, if
I want to. But I've lived through an unprecedented nightmare from which only
the sweet sleep of death can liberate meÉ If you
can still be reached at this address and want to receive my diary, just
respond to my letter. After I am gone, you may send it to a publisher. Just
do me a favor. Have patience. Don't search the periodicals or the Internet
for information about my case. You don't want to spoil a mystery. Please DO
NOT send packages. I have my own funds for purchasing whatever my present
condition allows. The only thing you may send me is your "French
novel." Your
"deadly" friend, Ana
Amarovich Her letter
ruined my entire day. I didn't doubt the veracity of its contents because I
didn't see the point of a hoax. If she were eager to see her diary in print,
she would have had more luck herself. Ana wanted me to have her diary for
exactly the reasons she gave in her letter. Even though she asked for nothing
in return while she still cast a shadow, I couldn't help wondering: Is it
possible to change her mind? My mandatory
jog in the Jardin des Plantes became a race down to the Seine and back. I
almost knocked down a senior citizen feeding sparrows in one hand while
shooing away the pigeons with the other. Dear Ana, I was
beside myself reading your letter. How the devil did you manage to fool the
American justice system? I guess it's much easier to prove one's guilt than
one's innocence. By all
means, send your diary. Rest assured, I won't spoil your mystery. But la
noblesse oblige. PLEASE don't do anything foolish. What's the rush? Don't
underestimate the resilience of the human ghost. I didn't
send you my "French novel" because I prefer to hand it to you. Your
"pro-life" friend, Doru
Moraru Just
to increase the chances that my letter would reach her, I mailed two copies.
On my way back I couldn't resist the temptation to enter a cybercafŽ and do
some research online about capital punishment. My knowledge on the subject
was scanty. Like the average Joe, I'd heard about serial killers such as Ted
Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, but I was blissfully ignorant about women on death
row. To my
surprise there were hundreds of sites on the subject, which made me feel like
a starving man in an all-you-can-eat mega-buffet. It turned out that there
were nearly 3000 men and 50 women on death row. Among the 50, many were
mothers who had killed their children. Another chill ran down my spine. Did
Ana murder her son? Patience. The average wait for the executioner's song is
11 years. Unlike the existential prisoners from Beckett's play, some inmates
either kill themselves or volunteer to be put to death. As I was
clicking here and there, the probable happened. I came across her name on an
official list posted by the Department of Correction of the State of
California. I closed the site and left. I just couldn't break my promise. While
replaying my encounter with the "cold-blooded killer," a forgotten
incident resurfaced. As I ventured further in the blossomy garden, I spotted
Adonis and his pretty mama in a questionable filial embrace. She had her arms
around his shoulders, and their faces seemed to converge. I couldn't see
clearly because of the dark. The trees blocked the faint light coming from
the building. I gyrated military style and walked away. Was the embrace innocent,
due to motherly exaltation? On the other hand, I couldn't stop wondering
whether Nathan was indeed the lovechild of her sweet sixteen. Was the
mother-son scenario just an alibi for another teacher having an affair with a
student? The publicized case from Washington State came to mind. Two weeks
later, as I was returning from my morning jog, I discovered a bulky envelope
under my doormat. Doru Moraru, Paris |