Just a Monumental Summer: Girl on the train Read Free Page B

stockings or crazy, colorful socks. Anything to cover my uniform. They used to call me to the principal’s office. I was a bad example. They called my mother for many reasons. I also never wanted to attend the forced volunteer work field.”
    “I remember. We had to pick up apples off trees…grapes, all kind of stuff, instead of going to school.” He made a face. “It was revolting. I hated those trips to work at the field. In fact, we would do more damage than helping. Play with the fruits or veggies, throw them at each other.”
    “Well, I never went. My grades suffered because of that. And my reputation. I wasn’t a good ‘pioneer’ anymore.” I pulled a mock-sad face. “I guess I was a disappointment to the Pioneer Movement and the Communist Party.”
    The Pioneer Movement was the youth organization, under the wing of the Communist Party. The membership came automatically when children entered elementary school and continued until adolescence. Then, the mandatory enrollment into the Party.
    “Mona, you weren’t a good girl.” He was shaking his head and waving around in the air his index finger.
    I cut him off. “Good girls never wrote history! Great stories never start with ‘So, I was going to the church, and suddenly’ or ‘I went and ate a salad, blah, blah.’ A great story will start with, ‘You would never believe this shit. I saw a hot guy, and I was wasted…’”
    “Joan of Arc wrote history, but you know how she ended.” He was teasing me.
    “You know, Alin, your death will probably be from being sarcastic at the wrong place or the wrong time…just saying,” It was my turn to point my finger at him.
    He burst into laughter. “You really hate normal, don’t you?”
    A ray of sunlight slanted across his face . His eye color changed into light green while the sun was shining upon his face. Why can’t you make up your mind? Are your eyes green or brown?
    “Trying to be normal in a sick society, that’s sick. You know how it is. We live in a fucked-up system. It’s not my fault I am the way I am. I had to adjust. My way was being different; not following the crowd.” I couldn’t stop talking, which bothered me.
    I continued, “Teachers told my parents my membership could be revoked, and I wouldn’t be able to attend university or find a job without being a member.” I dismissed it with a wave of hand.
    If someone would ever request to leave the Party, it would be a gesture of significant courage, and the consequences could be huge. You would become a political dissident.
    “Anyway, I went for a couple of times, and then I refused to go. My mother went to the doctor, gave him some imported cigarettes or whiskey—the usual gifts—and he wrote me a note saying I was sick. I got away with it for a while. They noticed. As I said, principal’s office, the whole treatment. My mother was awesome. She was like my lawyer. She fought against those ass-kissing teachers. You should have seen her.”
    I stood up and tried to imitate my mother’s voice. “My children, at their age, should go to school to study and have good grades. Period. My children are not workers. This is child abuse. My children are not slaves. Period.”
    “Was she listening to Free Europe ?” He almost whispered the question.
    It was the forbidden radio show. “Yes. She used to listen with my neighbors. Oh, and the Voice of America show as well.”
    We all did, secretly. But no one had the courage to repeat what they heard.
    “Anyway, teachers were afraid other parents would follow me or complain about why their children were forced to work the field and I was not.” I was talking quickly to avoid any interruption.
    “I’m grateful to my parents. They let me be free. I was the only girl playing poker with lots of guys; with real money. When they cut the electricity, we played in the dark, at my place, by candlelight or a petrol lamp. I was cheating, hiding cards by sitting on them. I was the youngest player