Nu e rolul meu [It is not my role]
We sat across from each other in this Camden pub
Both blonde
Both 5’ 5’’
One is a professional model (guess which)
The other is a roving intellectual
Last time I saw Mirela was in a photograph
Black and white, she was brunette then and very tiny
Wearing an ie – the traditional Romanian blouse
Standing next to Moș Crăciun, Galaţi’s Santa Claus
“You know, Cris, you were my Neverland.”
I-am zis că am știut pentru că ea a fost la fel pentru mine [I told her I know because she was the same for me]
“I lived for the next box of toys and clothes
For our grandmother to return from a trip and tell me of you guys
Through photographs, you, Tisa and William were my family
I’m not close to my parents you know?
But when bunica noastră [our grandmother] died – it all stopped
No more contact from you
And no one ever told me why
I asked my father
Over and over again
And nothing”
‘Our fathers are different,” I told her.
“My father serious – yours the family rebel.”
In that moment I had the chance to tell her ….
But she was so happy
And I decided that: Nu e rolul meu
It’s not my role to tell her that I had been told
her parents tried to starve our grandmother to death for her apartment
It was 1994
Property had just been returned to Romanians by the state
They locked her in hers
A 90 year old woman with Alzheimer’s and deformed hands from a lifetime of filling medicine bottles as a pharmacist
My father only found out because a Galaţi friend got wind of the terror
And called him in North Carolina
I was twelve
My sister was ten
My brother was four
And my American grandfather had been dead for two years
I know now that we forgive family
But that doesn’t mean that we have to discuss everything
Mirela and I are friends now
Și nu e rolul meu
