As long as I lived in Deva, it never struck me what an ethnic minority is, what rights should those who are not Romanian get-beget and what should not be allowed. I never thought I should address myself in a way to the minorities, so I would not discriminate against them, nor did I know what discrimination means, nor did I ever feel that I would be somehow better just because I am called so perfectly Romanian: Popa. There, in the Zarand neighborhood of Deva, we lived together Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons and Gypsies, “united in diversity” long before inventing this slogan, relying on each other in the “Golden Age” of the great “80’s. My childhood universe is dominated by sequences in which I return from school hungry, I go into the block of flats and in the house of the stairs I smell something good, cooked at that moment. My heart thumped and I ran up the stairs following the trail of smell, sniffing to know where I was going to fulfill my appetite. It was not necessary to knock or ring the doorbell, the doors were eternally open and there was nothing unnatural in entering and asking for food from neighbors. I walked every day past the doors, Fam. Albu, Vass, Ionescu, Schmidt, Cioaba, Males, Carp and others. Today I realize that the interethnic mosaic of national scale was replicated with fairly high fidelity at our block of flats.

The Males family lived on the 3rd floor. The family had two blonde girls, Dana and Carmen, probably a mixed family with Romanian names, it is certain they were speaking Hungarian in the house, and in Hungarian they called the parents in front of the block. “Anyu! Anyu! ” when they wanted something from Mom, Aunt Males, a great master of Dobos cake, and” Apu! ” if they wanted their father to come down to save them from a troublemaker. We, the non-Hungarian children, imitated them and we were laughing at them, especially when they bent on their father and called out “Apuci!”, That is, “Daddy,” and we understood “O, puți!” Oh, my God, how many bad jokes have been made on this theme on the Alley of Motits! But after a while, we all took over from Dana and Carmen Males that “mummy” cried out in Hungarian, and all the mothers in block P6 got to be called by their children “anyu”. As well as aunt Anica Popa, and Mrs. Ionescu and Mrs. Cioabă on the 1st floor.

On the 1st floor is still lives Mrs. Margareta Vass. Aunt Margot was among the few neighbors with higher education, I think she had done Law, and she had a huge library in the room just near the front door. I was knocking energetically twice, I was not expecting any answer, we came in by shouting a “Sarumannaa, aunt Margot!”, and in two steps I was in a space that completely contrasted with the atmosphere I had left outside under Mrs. Margot’s windows where the boys were eating sunflower seeds, screaming and arguing if Bruce Lee is called “Bruzli” or “Brucele”. Inside, the walls of the room were full of hundreds of books, an armchair, and a high-pitched lamp beside the window where, most often, I find reading Uncle Luci, Mrs. Margaret’s husband. I was returning the books I borrowed from them, and they did not let me go until we had a discussion about what I read. They were the only ones in the block who had subscribed to newspapers after the Revolution and the only ones who had not voted for Iliescu. Some strangers for the FSN-sympathetic laborer, but their strangers, were the intellectuals who were not supposed to die, and even were invited to the table.

At school I came across more Hungarian children and, thanks to their names, I quickly learned the Hungarian pronunciation. Zoltán Csaba Sáfár, the basketball player, was a colleague of mine in gymnasium at the sports class at the General School no. 4. From him I have learned that “a” reads “a” only if it has an accent, no accent is pronounced “o”, “cs” pronounced “ci”, and “s” is actually ” ș “.  Zoli opened the series of February birthdays, when we had a few birthdays weekly. He was born on February 2nd, then I on the 6th, Horaţiu Moldovan on the 9th, Sorina Hasan on February the 11th, Andreea Panaitescu on the 20th, and my good friend Lore Lăpugean closed the series on February 21th. I have been remembering this birthdays for 30 years, much like the holidays with a red cross in the calendar, and if I’m trying a bit, I even remember their fix phone numbers.

I certainly know Alice Brandisz’s phone number, my high school colleague with some ultramarine blue eyes, as only the Hungarians think they can have and with adorable parents. I have always watched them with great admiration and felt very well received in their mixed family. Also in high school I met for the first time a girl born on the same day and in the same year with me, Judith Horvath, a Hungarian from Mathematics class with intensive German. Loved her very much, probably because she was mirroring me with good stuff about me, or could I automatically transfer to myself what I saw good and beautiful about her? I do not know, it does not matter today, I just hope it was mutual feeling. She is now living in Germany and we are seeing each other every five years at our promotion meetings. Every time is great to see each other.

We are Romanian-Romanian, but in our extended family mixed marriages took place.  For example, aunt Florica from Arad married Sanyi from Oradea and emigrated after the Revolution in Hungary. “Uncle Șoni” is a very fine guy, maybe the most cerebral creature I’m lucky to be related to. It is my most reliable source when it comes to government policy of Viktor Orban. Not a political analyst, not a doctoral professor, but a retired uncle in Budapest, made it clear to me how it is at a Christmas table sprinkled with Tokaji wine. First, white was consumed, and with the desert a roze. What do you think, what did Flora make for desert? Plum dumplings, just because she knows how much I like it.

For twenty years I have lived in this atmosphere in which I have not perceived any difference, I have never thought that the land under me is more of mine than of my Hungarian friends, or that they owe me something. I have never had any sensitivity if a Hungarian made disagreements in Romanian, at most I ironized him a bit and laughed together. When a person speaks only Hungarian in the house and goes to a Hungarian school, I do not find it difficult to understand if he or she has difficulty expressing themselves in Romanian. It was only when I moved to Bucharest that I found out that this is an intolerant defiance and that the Hungarians are “naughty”, they are “bad”, and this came from the Romanians who speak with “than” instead of “only” and go on its shortcut “which” instead of “on which” people who have never left Bucharest further north of Poiana Brasov. In Harghita and Covasna they do not go because they have heard that there the Romanians cannot buy bread. I try to go at least once a year. In Baile Tusnad I go for the air, water and therapeutic massage, in Odorheiul Secuiesc one can catch me in a cafeteria on Marton Square, where they make some illegally good cakes, and in Miercurea Ciuc I go to our good friends Laszlo, Orsolya and little Marcell.

At the age when I did not think that I new friendships could be made, in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Bucharest, I woke up with a Hungarian neighbor, one of Satu Mare that you can just love. Kinga Varga, the designer, came to my life to convince me that a mature woman’s body, whether it’s in standards or rather not, as is mine, has to be cherished and celebrated. The body that has sustained you in all the periods of effort, when you may have worked a lot over the program, you slept a little and ate poorly, the body that managed to successfully carry out a task to the end of almost 40 years and after many health problems and who gave you the chance to feed your baby with breast milk, that body must be respected and put to good use. Wonderful Hungarian, is not she?

The conclusion is that the ethnic Hungarians I have mentioned here are people whose friendship honors me and imbues me. All my life experience with the Hungarians compels me to be an adversary to those who would try to hurt us. Well, is it not better to keep each other’s back in front of the irresponsible who want us to fight? That’s what I propose.

Happy birthday to all!

Source: Oszuta.ro (Translation TFP)