ORADEA

The Greeks lived in a palace in Oradea; a real one. You do not live in a palace in a Socialist state, but the Greeks did and all because of Socialism. It was the former Episcopal Palace, an opulent eighteenth century Baroque building, which the Romanian government took over when the Communists came to power. It was one of many grandiose buildings, remnants of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which were nationalised and suffered a humbling reversal of circumstance. The government shooed away the Bishop and the priests and found another use for it in 1958, something which its grand Austrian architect, Franz Anton Hildebrandt, who modelled it after the no-expense-spared masterpieces of the Italian, Giovanni Battista Ricca, never anticipated. It was to house displaced and homesick Greek refugees.

The U shaped building had three floors and was set on raised grounds, surrounded by open spaces, with gardens dominated by imperious old trees. The palace had about a hundred rooms, and as many windows as there are days in a year. To the side, in front of the main entrance, stood a bronze statue of a long forgotten Bishop which had somehow escaped dismantling. He stood between cherry trees and bushes and was still dignified, despite birds resting on his head and doing unspeakable things in the name of nature. It’s hard to know what was worse for the poor stone cleric - the pestering birds - or the obnoxious children clambering on his crosier and dangling on his arms like monkeys on a tree.

To the left of the Palace enclosure and part of the entire architectural complex lay the commanding building of the Roman-Catholic Cathedral, before wrought iron gates. Never attended by the Greeks, it was faithfully embraced by the Hungarians each Sunday. Entering its high doors they would lower their gaze and avoid the Palace, now inhabited by irreverent atheists. They would wade into that dark, secretive place and perform rituals which we neither respected nor understood. Across the road from the Cathedral was the monastery itself, an elongated two tier building with the ground floor supported by colonnades all along its exterior corridor, mirroring the acorn trees that ran besides them.

Each family was given a room in the Episcopal Palace, which was to become their ‘apartment’. The chambers were accessed from wide corridors with windows facing the inner court yard. The windows from the rooms themselves faced the gardens surrounding the Palace. Not for the first time, strings were fixed crosswise from one wall of the room to another and blankets hung as partitions for makeshift bedrooms and a kitchen, where a sink was already in existence. The sinks had been formerly used by priests for their daily ablutions. A more utilitarian role was now added, that of washing vegetables, meat and dishes.

In a manner of utilising whatever was given to them, albeit temporarily, the refugees set tables and chairs under the old chestnut trees in the inner court yard where games of chess and dominoes were played by men in all seasons but winter. They would linger there into the night, until, having had enough of chess they would discuss political manoeuvres, and always Greece. During the day the courtyard would be overtaken by pensioners, watched by whispering old women dressed in black.

“Did you hear about Maria?” they would gossip above the cooing of the pigeons in the trees.

“I knew she was no good all along,” said another.

“She speaks to anyone, Romanian or Hungarian…”

In no time at all a new community sprang up in the Palace. It had all the characteristics of a Greek village - what you should do and what you should not do. At least it was now lived in, never mind that the habits of its noisy inhabitants were far removed from the consecrated tone of its former brothers. A cacophony of sound would overpower the place, with doors being opened and shut, mothers calling for their young or loud greetings with enquiries about someone’s state of health or latest news. The greatest noise of all came from the games of the children, either spread outside into the dusty enclosure, or finding some mischief in the corridors of the Palace. Slippers would be thrown against someone’s door, the offender quickly hiding in the deep niche of a window, unseen by the baffled inhabitant who opened that door. As most of the rooms were too small, the space near the entrance was often used to stack provisions. Potatoes or onions were used as ammunition to catapult against a rival and the noise would continue until late in the evening when mothers, without leaving the confinement of their apartment, would shout for their child to come home. If there was no response, another child would be called to go and find him.

Wide stone staircases lead to the Banqueting Hall, in the centre of the building, where we would have our shows, celebrating festivals and other events to remind us of Greece. The frescoes on the ceiling, with images of three dimensional flower motifs, intertwined with pastel coloured silk ribbons, were already painted over, no doubt on instruction from the new regime. Any depiction of wealth and decadence was wiped out and replaced by the symbols of Socialism - youths with red ties around their necks, looking determinedly ahead as they stood by red flags flying in the wind. Later in the sixties when the local government decided, wisely, that the Baroque Palace should become a Museum, we were all re-housed in more appropriate blocks of flats. The astonishing paintings were revealed and the ensuing renovation of the Banqueting Hall restored the beauty of the Baroque-style murals in all their splendour.

It was in the Banqueting Hall that my father would tell a spellbound audience about his escapades as a partisan and war hero. He was incarcerated and severely tortured on many occasions before and after the German occupation, but he never betrayed his comrades. In total he spent nine years in political jails, joining other noted heroes and fighters for Greek independence.

On its stage, dressed in national costumes, young girls and boys would dance in the manner taught by their parents in the hope that they would not forget their culture, and it was here that I had the chance to recite, red faced and in a tremulous voice, the classic children’s poem “Little Moon”.

“My bright little Moon! My bright little Moon!

Lighten my path, my path to school

To learn new things,

Exceptional things about the world.”

I failed to understand why it was the Moon rather than the Sun that was supposed to lighten my path to school. Surely, the Sun would have been more appropriate since schools are attended during the day. Not so, it seems. In the old days back in Greece, the schools were attached to a Church and teaching would take place after Church services, usually in the evening. Roads were unlit and you were lucky if there was a full moon to lighten your way to school.

New Year’s Eve celebrations were far more important than Christmas in the Romania of my youth. Our small community would gather in the Banqueting Hall to celebrate in style. Old and young would attend the New Year’s Eve party and we children were especially coaxed to keep awake throughout the night, as the parties would usually last until seven o’clock in the morning. Nobody had ever heard of the term ‘baby-sitter’. The children were taken along with their parents everywhere and at any time. If need be, they would be housed in one of the ‘apartments’ under the supervision of anyone unable to attend or of those who preferred to stay away from the celebrations. The children would then be handed over to their parents once the party was over, or left to spend the night until they were picked-up the next day. I recall having woken up on one of these occasions when I was left to sleep in Angela’s room. I must have been distressed to find myself not in my own bed and Angela, having tried to appease me, had no other choice but to take me in her arms to look for my parents in the Banqueting Hall.

Along the walls of this huge room, tables and chairs were set and food was placed on the table by each family to be shared with everyone. Beer and soft drinks could be bought from a passageway preceding the Hall. The centre of the room was left open for the Greek dances and they would go on and on the entire night. All the regional dances and music of the people had to be covered to satisfy the origins of everyone attending. Such unity of different customs could only be found in this little Greece.

“Eleni, this is the music from Ipiros!” Uncle Nicko would call, “Show us how you dance it.”

A proud and beaming Eleni would then surface with a white handkerchief in one hand and the other placed on her hip. Waving the handkerchief in the air, she would then graciously start the dance, shortly followed by everyone else who wanted to join in. A snake of dancers with clenched hands would form, all eyeing each other and trying to emulate Eleni’s steps. Swirling away she might just as well have imagined herself back in her village square, on a hot summer’s evening, forgetting the snow which fell silently outside the Bishop’s Palace.

We children would follow the grown-ups, usually at the end of the dancing line and would have a hilarious time being swept off our feet, faster and faster. Everyone knew that the last in line, being dragged at the end of the circle, would have to cover more territory - at unavoidably high speed. In the end our tiny feet would hardly touch the floor as we tried to keep up, and we would have no other choice but to let inertia take its course and inevitably crash against tables and chairs. If we were not dancing, we would be mocking the adults’ way of moving - in particular those who were handicapped as a result of war wounds - a stiff leg whilst holding ones arms high, was our favourite way of mimicking. No offence was ever taken and a smile of complicity would shine on the face of the person who was imitated. We were never made to feel that we were offending anyone.

As the midnight hour approached, people would raise a glass to toast the New Year, one arm held on the heart trying to contain the pain and the desire: “… and next year let us be back in Greece!” They would toast in this way for more than twenty times before any of them were able to return to their country. Gradually, the room would be filled with a thick layer of cigarette smoke, with slow and tired dancers, heads throbbing from the loud music, and with somnolent children. Some of the children would be placed on two joined chairs and covered with coats for warmth. Others were still awake trying to see how long they could go without sleep. As the morning approached, people’s voices would wane, their stories about their lives in Greece, exhausted.

I don’t remember the end of any of these parties no matter how determined I was to keep awake. The chances were that my parents would find me comatose in some corner of the room and having unsuccessfully tried to wake me up, would carry me home on their shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

We had no idea what the Sunday Catholic Church worshippers thought of us. Looking back, it must have seemed sacrilege, particularly since stories were going around that an old man kept a goat in his ground floor room. A goat in the Palace? That, I knew, was not an unlikely story. Most of the refugees came from villages and saw no reason why they should change their lifestyle. As far as they were concerned they were still in Greece, up in the hills attending to their flock. One way to get on with life was to pretend you were still there. If they realized that they were not, which happened from time to time, then they still would not change. Greece was the place to which they wanted to return and they believed that was imminent.

I wonder though what the Hungarians living in Oradea thought about us Greeks living in the Baroque Palace. If they had any murderous thoughts, they said nothing and we remained under the illusion that they did not mind. Though it must have been a misfortune, they accepted it with poise. They had lived in these parts for centuries and considered this their country. But Transylvania was no longer theirs, having been annexed to Romania after World War II, because Hungary had been on the ‘wrong’ side during the war.

The Romanians, of course, had lived in these parts from ancient times, their origins being traced back to the Dacian rule in the 2nd century BC and the Roman conquest in the 1st century AD. They were called Romanian because they spoke a Romance language, the result of the Roman occupation. As conquerors do, the Romans brought their own people to settle and intermarry here after they defeated the Dacian natives and the language that evolved was Romanian. Not surprising, therefore, that today’s Romanians can understand Italian with ease. Even before the annexation, the Romanians formed the third largest group in Transylvania after the Hungarians and Germans, and after the takeover, were the majority when many of the latter fled to their respective countries. Not all Hungarians and Germans managed to return and those that remained had no other choice but to adopt a new country as well as a new regime.

Under this regime, the Hungarians found that their faith and culture were trampled upon. The kindergartens and schools were slowly being eradicated in favour of Romanian- speaking institutions. They muffled their heavy hearts with wailing violin music, which poured loudly into the streets through windows, kept purposefully open, with net curtains fluttering in the breeze, in a vague allusion to national flags in protest. In hindsight, there must have been feelings of simmering resentment and dejection at the hopelessness of it all.

Even the place name was changed, from Nagyvarad to Oradea. Oradea sounds so much nicer though. My heart skips a blip every time I utter the word. It recalls notions of childhood, familiarity, colour and, strangely enough, something close to being Greek, although in practice our imprint on the town was minute. Cosseted in the basin of the Crisana valley, and surrounded by hills, a fast-flowing river undulates through the middle, dotted with bridges here and there, Oradea is like a jewel kept away from prying eyes for fear that it might be stolen. It is a sparkling Baroque and Art Nouveau town and the expense bestowed, to build this little place in this manner, is a wonder. We were so used to its beauty that it didn’t mean much to us until we left the place and saw it as we should have done, with admiring eyes.

Oradea had about sixty thousand inhabitants when we lived there and people knew each other well. Taking their daily walk in the High Street in the evenings, they would stop and chat with their friends, continue their walk and stop and chat again with others until dusk. The promenade would spill into parks too, as people took the air, nibbling on snacks or cracking sunflower seeds between their teeth. High above them, darkening the evening skies like a scene from Hitchcock’s movie, ‘The Birds’, endless rows of crows were going about their daily migration. These most intelligent of creatures would leave Petofi Sandor Park, where they had been feeding during the day, to nestle in the trees of another park, the C. Bratianu, for their night’s sleep. In the morning they would fly back over the roofs tops to Petofi Park. This daily occurrence of flying crows and walking men is still happening to this day.

During Ceausescu’s regime, religious faith was anathema to the socialist state. The Churches, of which there were many, because this was a bishopric from the fifteenth century, were particularly marked for destruction. In front of the Town Hall building, a Roman-Catholic Church, the Szent Laslo, with its tall spire, stood defiantly. This was an intolerable situation and its fate was sealed when it was decided to pull it down. Only the Hungarian’s daring resistance - no person in his right mind would think of resisting the Government - stopped it from happening. Women, dressed in black with candles in their hands, made the rounds of the Church, day and night, crying and chanting as if in mourning. They threatened to remain in the building, should the bulldozers arrive and, in the end, even the harsh dictatorship of Ceausescu could not tear down the Church.

It was an odd situation though. The Hungarians lived as if this was Hungary and insisted on speaking only Hungarian, pretending not to understand Romanian. The Romanians, on the other hand, claimed rightly that this was now Romania and insisted that the Hungarians speak Romanian. The Greeks spoke only Greek, because of their inability to speak either language. We children spoke all three languages, and for a long time I lived under the impression that all little children in the world were translating for their parents. For some reason, which I neither questioned nor condoned, the adults were incapable of speaking more than one language and it seemed natural to speak Greek at home, Hungarian in the streets and Romanian at school.