Mirel Marin Stănescu

"I: My mother taps on my window: 'There are two men at the gate looking for you.' I go open the gate and they come in. It was morning, in the summer, I was wearing shorts and an undershirt. He says: ' We'd like to talk to you for a second.' They entered the house, I had my books on the table (my school books, and I also used to read DOXs, those were at that time)... R: Yes. I: I don't know if you've ever heard of them. R: The Adventures of the Submarine DOX [a noir-fiction literary serial written by Henry Warren] I've heard of them. I: The Adventures of the Submarine DOX, with Pongo and Marian. R: Yes, I've heard of them. I: The Adventures of the DOX crew or of the DOX Submarine. There were some fascicles left from the 1940s, before the outbreak of the war. They used to be read 'under-the-counter'. R: Why under-the-counter? I: Well, they were forbidden. R: The DOX series? I: Well of course. R: Well, there was nothing subversive about them. I: It was considered decadent literature. It was not allowed. R: Really? I: Yes, of course. They were not read. Only under-the-counter, they were moved around like that... And they come in, these two guys, dressed as civilians, and they ask for my ID. I give it to them... R: What year was it? I: It was 1957. R: In 1957, what grade were you in? I: I was in tenth grade. It was the summer between the 10th and the 11th grade. So, they looked through the library, through books, here and there, under the table, I had a shelf, they also looked under that shelf. They grabbed these books, they were colorful and had brightly colored covers, I don't know if you have seen these colorful fascicles from the DOX novel. Have you ever seen them? R: Yes, they were reddish. I: 'Look what he's reading here! Decadent literature, take a look at what he is reading! Get dressed, you're coming with us!' I said to them: 'Where do I have to go?'' You are going to give a statement'"

"And the guard was opening the peephole with the lever from the corridor, from where they were watching these cells. When they took you to the toilet, you were only allowed to stay in there for a minute. God forbid, had someone been constipated or something! After one minute you would hear a knock on the door: 'Enough, out with you! Faster, get out! ', they didn't let you stay longer. And you had to carry your own urine, with glasses on. Imagine having to walk with that pot full of urine, blindfolded! So they gave you the goggles on the peephole and you had to take your pot and put the goggles on, then you were taken to the toilet to empty the pot and also to urinate. The food was awful. I remember that at the Securitate the food was full of flies. The guards would always change, they were working shifts so we were watched day and night. They would observe you through some small peepholes. There was the cell peephole through which they put the bowl with food and there was also the watching eye so small, you never knew when it was there, observing. And I remember - I have a rather unpleasant memory etched in my mind - this food full of flies. My God, what food we were given! It was full of flies! ‘Here old man, take this and eat. It's chicken.' How ironic, chicken, as in dead flies, that's what he meant to say, and the old man, that was me, sixteen of age."