After 10 years of moving from one rental to another, I got tired.
So in the pandemic I moved back into my parents' house. Expenses obviously dropped, money added up. I said this is the moment. After adventurous searches, I found the gem. Dusty, unpolished. Exactly how I like it.
In November 2021 (1) I was holding in my hand with a grin the deed of my own house.
Meaning a 30-square-foot little apartment in a 1900s fall building, with (2) fallen plaster and the stairwell door wide open. Not for another reason, but the doorknob wouldn't hold it shut.
Around January, my folks come for a visit to see what the offspring has gotten. That was the first contact with the neighbor, whose existence I didn't know of. He flew out like a kite from behind a cloth covering a door next to my door. (3) And I remembered asking the former landlady what was there, and she demurred, finally murmuring, "a closet."
With his head hunched on his shoulders, his hair caught in a ponytail at his back, a nervous look and a sharp tone, he began to speak (4). I listened to him for almost an hour to see who I was dealing with. He talked to us about the Caracal case, how I shouldn't walk alone in the park, and how to his daughter "do you know why this could never happen to her? Because she would never get into a stranger's car." Then he told us about a "gorgeous blonde" in the building across the street.
Months later, he followed me around the nearby park with the hood up.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The night I met him, he proudly and loudly said he was (5) the director of the Metropolitan Library. I asked him to give me a phone number and he said to wait a bit, that he had more, because he was also working at (6) SRI. About families…about the family he told me that the father is very rich and that he will inherit about (7) 500 thousand euros and with that money he will buy the whole building. Then he said that he doesn't even live there. That he lives in Ploiești.
I interrupted the conversation with a "the man has to go". We were stupefied (8).
I didn’t run away for many reasons.(9) It's not like me. And not because I'm some big brave girl, but because I was super naive and (10) sure I'll find a way. Besides, I'd spent all the money I had on this far too beautiful view. (11) You couldn't hear cars and there's a huge park 2 minutes away. The garage was bigger than the apartment. And we had grapes and a walnut tree in the yard. I won't find such a hidden jam anymore.
So, we started the constructions.
(12) A building site requires a lot of patience, coordination of many people, money, creativity, calm when problems arise, negotiating with neighbors fed up with the noise. It's a hard and exhausting job and it's preferable to stay well on the other fronts, with your health, with the important people in your life, with work.
But on Valentine's Day in 2022, while my dad and I were carrying bags of rubble, a major shock (13) dissipated love across Europe. We were making the trips between Dedeman and home by tram, our clothes dusty with plaster, our eyes glued to Telegram channels where images of the unimaginable were streaming. War. Next to me. My father shook off his fears by hammering the walls. At the end of the day we'd watch, smiling sadly at the progress and how the prices of building materials were doubling because of the invasion.
It's hard when neighbors don't get along and when one really goes crazy. And while, thank goodness, no one bombed my house, I experienced on my own skin what it's like to have aggressive neighbors.
Over the course of two years the neighbor (14) attacked my door like it was a living thing, chased me through the park (15), cut the wires (16) to my surveillance camera that I put after the door thing, (17) short-circuiting half the building, ripped (18) my doorbell off in a (19) psychotic episode, threw his urine and feces in the backyard trash cans (20) putting the entire housing complex at risk of losing the contract with the sanitation company, threatened to slit the throats of upstairs neighbors and screamed that he was Satan.
Anyway, the list is longer, but there isn't time to display them all because we listed them at the police station and we lost count of the number of youth squads who (21) showed up without solving anything. I made three criminal complaints, attached evidence, had witnesses. Every interaction with this institution tripled my anxiety. I (22) somatized and arrived two days before sepsis at the hospital with a terrible throat infection. Probably from everything I wanted to scream and couldn't.
Because I am part of this generation that grew up with a fairy tale that democracy, human rights and institutions are the cornerstones of a functioning society. (23) I grew up with the idea that the state protects you, that if something bugs you you can put a megaphone to your mouth, that our taxes support a body that is meant to help the citizen when he is in danger and even when he's a danger to himself. Just like my neighbor who only needs specialized help.
(24 - black screen) The procedures exist, but the perpetual feeling I had was that I should feel guilty for bothering the authorities, feel guilty for harming another by defending myself, that for sure I must have done something wrong.
I went down that false slope where I would rewind absurd conversations with a mentally disturbed man dozens of times, searching for the reasons behind his actions and how I could have avoided them.
In a functional state, a man who destroys another man's property, threatens or harasses, is responsible for the deed. My fantasy was that following the police investigation he would be psychologically evaluated, hospitalized and treated. That his unsanitary, without a sanitary insstallation, which moves your nose and collects centipedes beings, would be sanitized and nebulised by the Directorate of Public Health.
In reality, my scenario was delulu.
(25) It was two years before he was questioned for the first time at a station. He came back (26) agitated, nervous, gained courage, (27) and I felt even more in danger. They told me from the police to secretly install cameras, that is, to wait for something crazy to happen again. Another time they came to tell him that he'd been arrested, left him with the news and left. In that day I didn’t left the house because you can't help but think of how many precedents there are, in which the lack of empathy or competence and the lethargy typical of Romanian institutions lead to horrors.
I was asked why I didn't sell (28) in any of these episodes. Simple enough. I can't just say, as the former owner, "there's a closet here" and disappear, leaving the burden on someone else's shoulders. The second question I am asked is why (29) I didn't act differently, more unorthodoxly.
One day, I got chatting with a taxi driver and, among other things, told him a little about the neighbor. He turned to me, a father of three with a calloused expression, and said in the most serious tone, "if you need it, you have my number, just say the word and I'll set him up with the boys." I got out of the car in shock. How easy it is to break the social contract.
Why didn't I do it seeing how the authorities' inaction put me in more danger?
Because I believe in an ideal, (29_2) in the idea of a state that works with people for people, in solutions that help the victim recover and the perpetrator to rehabilitate. (30 - black screen) Nobody gives me back the peace of mind I lost, the health I had. No one can take away from me the feeling of humiliation and helplessness that I have gone through and am still going through.
But my hope hangs on a thread that is simply called humanity.
When you interact with institutions in Romania, be it police, hospital, school or ANAF, I think to myself that there is a possibility that my problem will reach the ears of a man who understands his immense role in helping others, who understands the value of the leverage he has, who is guided by work ethic and consideration for his fellow people.
And with that hope, I send another complaint.
(31) In two years on the job site, with specific problems related to (32) money and (33) craftsmen, a (34) turbulent relationship (35) with neighbors, (35) two operations, (36) three criminal complaints, and (37) no results to keep me out of danger, I have become a sullen, sad person, who judges harshly and a lot.
My relationship with myself (38) also deteriorated. With each complaint, I felt guilty that I risked handing over to incompetent authorities a man whose problem would not be solved.
When I started down this road, (39) the house was ruined, and (40) I was great. Now it's (41) the other way around.
(42) I won't leave on a pessimistic note. I don't know if the wind is changing or I've reached some sort of psycho-emotional burnout, but last winter I got together a bit and quickly organized a (43) caroling evening in our backyard.
I called my gang of friends to make sure the choir wasn't singing without an audience. I went out with a pot of mulled wine and waited. Gradually people stuck their noses out of the window, some gained up their courage and came outside, and at the end we sang ”O, ce veste minunată!” together.
Someone sang with tears in his eyes, and someone else said excitedly that "we haven't heard carols in our backyard for 30 years".
Two things kept me going: (44) humor and people. I made fun as much as I could. I turned the displayable part into Caragialistic comedy on the internet as a coping mechanism. I laughed along with my virtual village and things seemed less serious.
(45) Then, I met a lot of helpful people who helped me out of pure kindness. Some of my friends I brought right next to me as neighbors. I super open my ears when I hear that something is for sale in the assembly. Little by little, I hope I can help strengthen a community whose diversity fascinates me. In that courtyard are people of all ages, with occupations ranging from (46) priests to (47) politicians to (48) postmen, with big or almost no financial resources. It's (49) basically Romania in a capsule there and this potential excites me.
As for my neighbor, (50) I still share with him the same chess-floored hallway, where the authorities periodically step onto. All of us make one move at a time, and I can't help wondering: will anyone win?
