Din conversatia printesei Ileana cu Ana Pauker

AT ABOUT this time Bodnaras said he thought I should make the
acquaintance of the rest of the government, and would I accept an
invitation to a dinner party at his house? I thought it over and saw
that it had its advantages. Since the King had accepted the compromise
urged upon him at the Moscow Conference and there was now a political
relationship between him and the government, there was no real reason
to say no. I accepted the invitation, and when I arrived at the house,
there they all were! It was the first time I had met Groza, who had a
cheerful manner and certainly knew how to get a party going, with his
loud laugh and his far from conventionally refined jokes. Sitta once
told me that of course one could always be grateful at these
gatherings for his complete insensibility to atmosphere which allowed
him to fill all gaps in the conversation noisily and with entire self-
satisfaction. There was Ghiorghiu Dej, the former railway mechanic,
big, burly, and not unpleasant looking; Maurer, whose appearance was
perhaps more well bred than that of anyone else in the group; Lucretiu
Patrascanu, the Minister of Justice, with his beautiful, talented wife—
the only smartly dressed woman present; and there was the small,
unpleasant Theohari Gheorghescu, Minister of the Interior, who did not
even pretend to be amiable.

Last, but most certainly not least, there was Ana Pauker. A big, stout
woman, with short, untidy, gray hair, fierce blue eyes under lowering
eyebrows, and a fascinating smile which was not spoiled by the fact
that her upper lip hung over her lower one, she made one know that
here was a real personality. I have always felt when I was with her
that she was like a boa constrictor which has just been fed, and
therefore is not going to eat you—at the moment! Heavy and sluggish as
she seemed, she had all that is repellent and yet horridly fascinating
in a snake. I could well imagine, simply from watching her, that she
had denounced her own husband, who in consequence was shot; and my
further acquaintance with her showed me the cold and dehumanized
brilliance by which she had reached the powerful position she
occupied.

On that first evening we talked but little. It was at a later time,
when I was trying to ease in some way the terrible treatment of those
in prison, that I conceived the plan of inviting her to dine with me
and the children in Bucarest. Somewhat to my astonishment, she
accepted. All the children were present, and as usual before sitting
down to our food the youngest one said grace—and there was our atheist
standing up respectfully with the rest of us. She was quite charming
in her manner of speaking with the children about their studies and
schools, and after they had gone to bed we sat down to a most
interesting talk which lasted almost three hours. At the end I was
surprised and a little amused to have her say:

"Now should you dismiss me, or should I leave? I have enjoyed this
charming conversation so much that I have forgotten just what the
protocol is!"

It was not a conversation in which I distinguished myself, for I was
no match for her brilliant array of half-truths and slightly distorted
facts, which she used dexterously in meeting arguments. Sometimes she
answered questions frankly, with such an open lack of all we mean by
the term "humanity" that she reminded me of those first Russian
soldiers I had seen in Bran.

I remember asking her to explain some of the Communist principles and
methods; why, for example, they used so much violence, when violence
never convinced anyone.

"It is not intended to convince," she replied calmly, "but to
frighten. When one replants, one first destroys everything that grows,
root and branch. Then one levels the earth. It is only after wards
that one can plant successfully."

She was quite frank about the reason for their treatment of the
people. She said that it was not possible, unfortunately, to destroy a
whole generation and have only the young left to train. A certain
amount of physical work had to be done—road work, agricultural work,
industrial work—to support the children in their youth. It was for
this that the older generation had to be left alive, but they must be
too frightened to dare to interfere with the Communist training of the
children. Moral and physical threats of every possible variety were
used to produce this condition, and in doing so it was not necessary
to have any regard for human life. There would be enough of the
"expendable" generation, too old to train, for purposes of labor, no
matter how prodigally they were used and destroyed.

Finally we got around to the subject of prisons, and she told me of
her own imprisonments, amounting to nine years in all. "And did you
change?" I asked her.

"No," she said, "but I have already told you that we are not seeking
to change people in prison. They are too old to be convinced; their
habits are too strong. We are only getting evil out of the way when we
jail them."

"But why not kill outright those whom you intend to punish most
severely?" I asked her.

Again there was the feeling of utter, ruthless, impersonal in
humanity. "Simple death would be too good and too easy," she said.
"And it would not frighten the others sufficiently."

Once for a moment I did manage to put her in a corner, but it was only
for a moment. We were still talking of conditions in the prisons, and
she assured me good-humoredly that many things were exaggerated; that
actually they were not so bad as I thought. I said that I wished I
could believe her.

"Why," she said, "you could see for yourself, if you just went through
one or two jails, that really it is not so bad!"

I took her up promptly. "Then let us go now, at once!" I said. "I will
be glad to have you show me that I am mistaken!"

She hesitated for a moment, obviously taken aback, but re covered
quickly. "Oh, but, my dear," she said smilingly, "what would people say
—your people and my people—if they should see us going through the
prisons together!"

Perhaps I do not need to add that my pleas for the relief of the
dreadful suffering and torture were useless.

We talked also of America. As I was to notice many times, the hatred
of the Communists for the United States was of a deadly bitterness
which exceeded their hatred for anything else. Ana Pauker, like other
Communists with whom I talked, was specific about their plans in
regard to this country. Actually I was not so much impressed at the
time as I have been since I came to the United States, for my own
knowledge of conditions here was relatively slight. It is only now
that I begin to appreciate the careful and detailed information and
appraisals with which the Communists were so familiar. Since at the
time Romanians still thought of this country as a powerful rescuer who
might at any time end the Russian occupation if it wished to, I was
shocked by Ana Pauker's calm disregard of this as a possibility.

She explained to me quite brilliantly and—so far as I have been able
to determine from newspapers and magazines I have now read here—quite
correctly, the industrial setup of the United States, and I remember
that she stressed particularly its dependence on electric power. She
had figures and statistics to prove that if electric power were
destroyed, the entire country would be so completely disorganized that
it could not possibly recover before the government was taken over by
those prepared to do so. An other easy method of attack, she
explained, was offered by the kind of water system on which a high
percentage of the population depended, and which could be destroyed or
polluted simply and easily. She explained that these and other similar
possibilities existed not only because an urban population had
forgotten the basic fundamentals of food raising and food preparation
and conservation, but it was also because the system of food
distribution itself was such that it could be seriously disarranged by
only a slight effort, and completely destroyed by a little more.
Experiments along this line had already been carried out on a small
scale in the United States, she assured me, so that information on
over all methods had been checked and made extremely accurate. Small
and strategic strikes, she thought, might make atomic bombs un
necessary; but only a few properly placed bombs would do the work if
that seemed a better method. For good measure she explained casually
just why this was impossible in Russia, where an entirely different
organization was in operation.

Was she correct? How can anyone tell that now? As I have said, she was
a brilliant talker, utterly and unhumanly a weapon of a force which is
the very essence of evil. The venom of communism is as impersonally
malignant as that of a striking snake. Certainly the facts she
presented seemed correct, and the conclusions she drew seemed at least
one of the possibilities of the situation. She had, of course, left
God completely out of the picture, and I cannot do that because I have
seen His power. Yet I do not think it is in accordance with His will
or His plan that we trust in our own ignorance to protect us. I
believe that it is His will that we trust in a Love and Wisdom which
today do not seem manifested often enough in the lives of men. I have,
after all, seen Nazism take over one country, and communism another.
One country is not yet wholly free, the other is still in total
slavery. This perhaps makes me more conscious of possibilities, and of
the need of intelligent recognition of them and defense against them,
than I might otherwise be.—But this is forgetting my story!

In the summer of 1946 I at last got a holiday, for I seemed completely
exhausted and it was felt that I badly needed a change. I had tried to
arrange my days so that I could spend a regular time with the children
and Anton, for it was sometimes hard for them to remember that the
work I was doing was not only for others but for them as well. My
activities protected them. Our whole life, even to the seventy acres
of farmland I owned, would have been under much severer control if the
hospital, serving a demonstrable use to the country, had not been a
part of that life. From small privileges up to the greater one of the
children's education, I was allowed certain freedoms because even the
Communists recognized that my life was indisputably a hard-working
one.

In general I tried to stick to a daily pattern which began at 6:30. I
was in the hospital at 7:00, home for breakfast at 8:00, and walked
with the little ones to their school, which stood directly across from
the hospital, at 8:3.0. Dr. Puscariu came at 8:45, and we made the
rounds; then we had outpatients and operations until about 1:00, when
I went home for lunch. I tried then to take a half hour's rest, and to
spend the afternoon with my family, but it was often necessary to
combine this with some of my work. Sometimes, for example, I took the
children for a walk so that I could visit some patient, and I tried to
interest them in my activities. I would delegate errands to them or
ask them to follow up the progress of some child dismissed from the
hospital, and one summer my two older daughters, under the supervision
of Gretl, ran the children's ward while the nurse was on her vacation.
At 4:30 we had our tea, usually in the garden in the summertime, and
from 5:00 until 7:00 I was back at the hospital. At 7:30 we had
dinner, after which there were games with the family. Monopoly was the
favorite, but sometimes I would read aloud to the younger children
while Anton played bridge with Frau Koller, Gretl, and one of the
older girls if they were at home from school. I tried to be in bed by
9:00, and on days that had been very strenuous I had supper in bed.

This program was often varied, sometimes by an afternoon picnic or a
swim in our pool, which the hospital staff were always invited to use.
At other times it was varied by the fact that I had to spend all day
and a good part of the night at the hospital during some emergency.
Also, I occasionally departed from the usual program so that I arrived
at unexpected hours for inspection, to see that everyone was at his or
her post during the slack hours of the afternoon and night.

Now it seemed that I must get away for a few days, for my visits to
Bucarest were anything but relaxing even though they provided a change
from the hospital routine. I accepted an invitation from a friend and
took the three older children with me. I had not at first wanted to go
because of the fact that Anton was still not allowed to leave Bran,
but he insisted that I needed the rest and must take this opportunity.
Cella, who had also been a friend of my mother, had a country place in
Oltania, a beautiful part of Romania which is enclosed between the
Carpathians, the Danube, and the Olt. The Olt is a large river which
winds through Transylvania to join the Danube, and which is supposed
to have carried the tears of the Romanians enslaved there to their
brothers south of the mountains, who were more free.

Unfortunately, the drought that had begun the year before still
continued, and it was a sad sight to see the parched land and meager
fields. Conditions were bad in Oltania, and I could hardly believe it
when I saw that the great Olt had become almost a puny stream.
Normally it is one of our largest and swiftest rivers, winding its way
through magnificent gorges and entrancing meadows, and sweeping past
the feet of lovely old monasteries. Yet in spite of the drought I was
delighted to find myself in this part of the country, which
historically is the cradle of Romania. It was up the Olt that the
Romans had come to attack Sarmisegetuza, the strong hold of the
Dacians. It was here also that the first Romanian voevod, or prince,
lifted his standard in the thirteenth century. The city of Curtea de
Arges, not far away, was Wallachia's first capital, and it is there,
where her first rulers were buried, that my parents also were laid to
rest. It is an extraordinarily beautiful part of the country, which
seems to present a picture wherever you look. The peasant costumes
here are the most lovely and varied of all those Romania offers: every
valley seems to have one of its own. Although I have never lived
there, something about Oltania pulls quite specially at my
heartstrings. When I think of the Romanian soil, it is there I feel my
roots go deepest.

My mother also loved this part of the country. She had a special
tenderness for these villages; for the simple, frugal people so proud
of their past; for the convents and monasteries always built on the
most lovely mountain slopes, with the white walls of the fortified
buildings standing foursquare against the green forest, and guarding
in their centers the exquisitely painted churches. The beauty,
dignity, and peace of these places—monuments which have withstood the
vicissitudes of countless wars and occupations—had always enchanted
both of us.

It was in one of these convents, that of Hurezu, that I trained and
started my first company of Girl Scouts. I remember the last day of
our camp, and how my mother came to take our pledges. I still see the
square formed by the blue-uniformed girls in the white-walled
courtyard with the lovely old church behind them, their outstretched
arms and clear young voices carried on the clean mountain air while
they made their pledge to their queen, as she stood on the old, carved
stone gallery above. That evening we had a campfire around which we
all sat, with my mother in the lovely dress of the region telling us
stories of her girlhood. The night descended and gathered beneath the
forest trees, and slowly closed around our circle about the fire. The
flame died down and we became silent. We needed no more tales, we were
living such a lovely one ourselves. It was out of deeply grateful and
happy hearts that we sang the evening prayer of thanksgiving, and as
we wound our way back through the trees to our dwelling, each carried
something precious, something I think we all carry to this day in a
world which has destroyed so much of what we lived for. —Of the thirty-
two of us there that night, I alone have escaped to freedom. You
cannot know what it is to endure such a thought!—

I was happy to be able to show my children all these places I had
loved so dearly when I was young. Cella's house was not beautiful, but
it had large, cool, whitewashed walls and a view that was deeply
satisfying. There was an untidy garden, full of flowers in spite of
the drought, and corn- and wheatfields running down to a road bordered
by large old willows. In the evening I loved to walk down this
straight and dusty road under the trees, and to see the carts drawn by
the big, patient gray oxen slowly creak their way back from work in
the fields. Then we would leave the road to walk through a cornfield
and come out upon the banks of the Olt, which was here less broad and
turbulent, though still swift. Cella and I would sit under a tree and
let the children go swimming—something which would have been dangerous
in normal times because of the current. Even now they were often
swiftly carried away on the brown waters, but there were plenty of
sand banks to stop their passage.

As we sat there, a peasant or a passing gypsy would come and talk with
us, and I found it moving that so many remembered my mother's visits.
We would speak together of those happy days in the past, when we were
allowed to do as we wished with our "poverty." Once the family of
Cella's husband had been owners of almost the whole region. Now they
had hardly anything left, and that little was being reduced still more
by the new agrarian re form; yet in many ways things had not changed.
The peasants still came to the boyar—the lord of the manor—with their
troubles and needs; with their misunderstandings to be settled and
their ills to be cured.

We would return through the gathering dark to a country meal of
chickens cooked on a spit out in the courtyard, served with vegetables
and fresh cheese made of sheep's milk. We ate by the light of oil
lamps, and afterwards Cella would play a Chopin prelude or a nocturne.
Then we would retire, each to his room, with our candles, and find at
our bedsides a jug of iced water and a spoon of "dulceatza"; the thick
Romanian jam that is served on all occasions with a glass of water. I
loved to blow out my candle and look at the moon-silvered world of
fields and trees and little white peasant cottages gleaming white
among the shrubs. There was a haze of smoke from the cooking fires
still floating over the whole in the quiet air, and giving it a
dreamlike look. I would climb between the cool sheets and fall
peacefully and restfully to sleep, listening to the distant barking of
dogs and to the song of the nightingale, both part of the Romanian
night.—Forgive me if I have taken too long to describe what is so dear
to me, but the thought of it rests me even now in this strange, new
life I am beginning.—

After those too few and short days I felt greatly rested, and on our
way back to Bran we stopped at Curtea de Arges to visit the graves of
my parents, which my children had never seen. The drive there through
the hills was beautiful, even though the drought had done great harm
here too, and not only were the roads bad but we had to make quite a
detour to keep out of the way of the Russians. Curtea de Arges lies in
the southern hills of the Carpathians, in the valley of the Arges,
which is another one of our largest rivers. As I have told you, it was
once the capital, and it still shows the ruins and foundations of the
old palace of the voevods, or princes. The old church still stands,
and careful restorations and excavations have brought to light the
beautiful old frescoes, and the grave of Neagoe Bassarab, a prince of
the sixteenth century.

It is not within the old church that my great-uncle and aunt and my
parents are buried, but in another church which my uncle had restored
according to the fashion of his time, when they literally rebuilt the
entire church, although following in every thing the old plans and
painting. This stood in a great park, with a big brick palace in the
background. Half of this building was used by the resident bishop, and
half was reserved for the royal family, and it was comfortable even
though it is to be regretted that it did not at all harmonize with the
jewel of a church, all white and blue and gold. With beating heart I
drove the car to the church and walked up the steps—to find the door
locked. A monk soon appeared and opened it for us. His eyes filled
with tears when he saw me.

"We are not permitted to keep it open. Too many people come . . ."

We stepped within the cool interior, with its frescoes and dim light.
To the right as one enters are the graves of King Carol I and Queen
Elisabeth (Carmen Sylva) and of their four-year-old daughter and only
child, Maria. Beautifully carved and slightly raised marble slabs
cover them; and to the left, under a window behind arching columns,
other similar stones cover the graves of my father and mother. Here I
knelt first in silent prayer, thanking God that they were at rest and
could no more be hurt by all the sorrow that had befallen their land
and their children. I could weep for ourselves, but not for them. Then
I knelt by the other three graves, and after going up to the altar to
pray there too, and reverently kiss the icon on the right, as is our
custom, I turned sadly and wordlessly away. I felt like a ghost from
the past visiting the past. Had I known that it was for the last time
I came there, how could I have borne it? God is merciful in that we do
not know what awaits us.

I have heard that these graves are among those destroyed by the
Communists; the bodies dug up and burned; their ashes scattered. Not
so easily can a spirit be destroyed!
.