Some Poetry About Socialism Some Poetry About Socialism When my father arrived home from the university, his face sallow and sagging as if he were sick, he dropped his briefcase on the kitchen floor and braced himself at the sink. "He''s gone. They''ve killed him," he said. At the table, my mother set down her copy of Femeia magazine. She glanced at me before she stood, took Tata''s hat from his head, pulled him toward their bedroom door, and shut it quietly behind them. It was mid-July in 1989, and the electricity in Bucharest was off more often than on. Our tower-block concrete apartment building baked us like cabbage rolls in a clay pot, so we always let in the breeze through the balcony doors. I had been sprawled out on the living-room floor beside my Great Tome, the warm air tugging at the pages of my stories.

Now I laid my coloring pencil aside and stared, my heart thudding faster with each sound that came through the wall. The apartment was so small you could see it all at once: the balcony where we dried our clothes, the living room and kitchen stuffed together, the tiny bathroom, my parents'' bedroom, my bedroom. My mother liked to say--when my father wasn''t there to stop her--that if we were again forced to move, they would squeeze our whole family into a closet. She missed the apartment we''d had before, with the dining room and the pantry and the corner office that held her piano. I didn''t remember it, since we''d had to leave when I was a baby, but I knew my parents had only been able to keep what could be carried. I knew they''d only been given a day. As I sat there, tense and listening, I couldn''t stop thinking it would happen again--that whatever had frightened my father would force us to pack up without warning and leave. I wondered how much worse things would get if we moved.

When the Leader had torn down our first home to make room for the wide, gaping boulevard and the palace, he''d stuck us, like everyone else, into horrible gray concrete buildings, stacked one after another, all the same. Sometimes I would imagine my family''s life before then: our pantry stocked full of bread and jam, my father''s books lining the walls from ceiling to floor. In my memory of a place that I didn''t remember, we always had enough food, and the hot water worked on more than just Saturday nights. We could bathe whenever we wanted, even in winter when the central heating went out. But I collected stories, both made-up and true. And I was usually good at spotting the difference. My family had never had enough food. We''d never had enough hot water, enough space, enough light.

At ten years old, I could already see how everyone, even me, talked about before in a special kind of voice and with special kinds of words. If we believed that before , things were better, we could imagine they''d be better again. This was the way we survived. There was a loud thump behind my parents'' bedroom door, something striking their dresser. I jumped when it happened again. Muffled sounds came in great, rolling waves: my father''s words rising, my mother suppressing the swell. I knew she didn''t quiet him because of me, not really. She did it for the neighbor whose ear might be pressed to the wall, for the passerby in the corridor who might pause, fingers feeling in pockets for a pen.

It was always best to assume someone was listening. When the door finally opened, I knew I must have looked frightened, so I pretended to be busy writing in my Great Tome. I was working on "The Baker''s Boy," a retelling of a parable from school, but my eyes couldn''t focus on the words. I kept glancing up at my parents, who had settled into silent preparation for dinner. I tried not to think about who might have been killed, distracting myself by drawing loaves of tan-colored bread around the edge of my title page. But when the sun dipped low, its fading light turned all the Great Tome''s colors to ugly shades of gray, so I tucked the book under my arm and carried it to the couch. With the power still out, the TV screen was just a dark reflection of me holding my stories, but I sat down and stared at it anyway. Thinking about the movies I loved made me feel a bit better, even if I knew there was no chance I''d see them.

We used to get two channels that had shows all day long. My mother still talked about when they''d aired the one from America with the man in the cowboy hat, which always ended with somebody shot or in a car that exploded. But now we only had one channel, just two hours a day during the week, and it didn''t air shows like that anymore. The programming was usually boring: speeches given from inside the grand palace; televised sessions of the Communist Party, the little men on the screen all cheering together, booing together, raising their fists; broadcasts that reviewed the state guidelines on "rational eating" or politely reminded viewers of local curfews. On Sundays, though, Gala Animation would come on, and we''d get five whole minutes of a cartoon. Everyone I knew who had a television made sure not to miss it. Last summer, over the course of several weeks, I''d caught all of 101 Dalmatians and bragged to the other children when we went back to school. This summer they were showing The Aristocats , and the last episode had left the poor kitties scared and alone out in the country.

I wouldn''t get to see the next five minutes till the weekend, but if the power came back tonight, our handmade antenna might pick up something good from Bulgaria, and my whole family might sit down to watch. Then, just like always, we could leave behind whatever horrible thing had happened. Luck seemed to be on my side, at least for the moment, because as we were setting the table, the electricity flickered to life. I asked my father, "Can I turn on the fan?" Sometimes he said no. The taxes were very high if we went over our energy allotment. But tonight he didn''t even look at me. He just gave a little gesture with his hand, which I took for a yes, then sat down in his place. The lines around his eyes and behind his big glasses looked deeper than usual, and I began to worry he might really be sick.

At the table, the wind blowing through my choppy brown hair, I turned my gaze down and picked at my food. Pie with eggplant and potato but no meat. The queue had been too long at the butcher''s. When the line manager had told me and my mother that it would take five hours, maybe six, to get our rations, I thought she''d make us take turns waiting, but instead we''d simply gone home. Nibbling a stale piece of bread and avoiding as much eggplant as possible, I did my best not to complain. My father was still quiet. The sickly look had not left his face, and I kept glancing up, wanting someone to speak. I knew they wouldn''t tell me who was killed or why, because they''d never told me before, but the longer everyone went without talking, the more anxious I grew, thinking that this time it had been someone important.

When I could no longer take it, I did what I always did with silence. I tried to fill it with a story. "Do you want to hear the new one?" "Maybe another night," my mother replied. My stomach fluttered. My cheeks flushed. They never said no. I returned to poking at my dinner, suddenly frightened as I tried to guess who was dead, because it had never been this bad. It had never meant this much.

My father put down his fork. "Is that what you did today? Work on your stories?" I thought he was mad about me not doing my summer homework, so I said quickly, "It''s a school story. Mrs. Dumitru told it to us before vacation." "Another night," my mother repeated, and this time I took her words for what they were--a warning. "No, I want to hear it. I want to hear what they''re telling my daughter. I want to hear what she''s writing.

" I looked between them, shrinking into my chair. A chime from the clock let me ask, "Can I be done?" My mother glanced at my plate with a frown but nodded. "Bring in your dishes. And turn off that fan. You''ll catch cold." "What about your story?" my father asked. "I forgot it''s not ready," I lied. After filling the sink with soapy water, I switched on the TV and sank down into the worn couch.

My parents began to clean up. When the dark screen filled with static, I peeked out onto the balcony, worried that someone had climbed up and stolen our wires, but everything seemed okay. I looked at Mama. I hesitated. She was elbow deep in dirty dishes, my father helping dry. They were both still silent--a bad sign. Usually, after supper, I had to turn up the TV extra loud because my mother loved to sing and my father loved to join in and bellow off-key. If it wasn''t that cacophony, they would at least be chattering away about work.

Back in the old apartment, my mother had given music lessons from home. But once she''d lost her piano, she''d had to take a job as a secretary. Now she filed stacks of papers and made calls and typed up copies of documents, since copy machines were illegal. Sometimes there was so much work, she had to get special permission to take a typewriter home. "I have the worst job in the world," she would say. "At least it''s safe," my father would answer. Tata was a professor at the University of Bucharest, where he lectured in literature and composition. He''d never been a very good writer, but he loved stories almost as much as I did, so he''d spent his whole life learning how to listen to them.

He could hear what was i.