Lyon Airport
In Lyon-Saint Exupéry, it's early morning in the summer. Céleste has one bag and a boarding pass on her phone screen. Margot walks beside her.
Célestea glance toward the departures board by habit, then resuming her pace Tu n'avais pas besoin de venir jusqu'ici, Margot.
You didn't need to come all the way here, Margot.
Margotnot quite keeping up Si, parce que tu aurais trouvé une raison de ne pas partir au dernier moment.
Yes I did, because you would have found a reason not to go at the last minute.
Célestewithout turning her head C'est n'importe quoi.
That's nonsense.
MargotTu as regardé les horaires de train deux fois cette semaine.
You checked the train times twice this week.
Célesteslowing very slightly, looking forward Je voulais juste voir combien de temps ça prenait.
I just wanted to see how long it would take.
Margotpausing for a bit Et ce garçon, il vient te chercher comment?
And this boy, how is he coming to get you?
Célestea brief look En bus.
By bus.
Margotprocessing that, then En bus. Et tu lui ressembles en rien, d'après ce que tu m'as dit.
By bus. And you're nothing alike, from what you've told me.
Célestea small exhale Je n'ai pas dit ça.
I didn't say that.
Margota direct look Tu m'as dit qu'il parlait de politique roumaine pendant une heure.
You told me he talked about Romanian politics for an hour.
Célestethe trace of something, not quite a smile Deux heures, et j'écoutais.
Two hours, and I was listening.
Margotslowing slightly, looking at her C'est ça qui t'a plu?
That's what you liked about him?
Célestestill walking, after a moment Entre autres.
Among other things.
Margotcatching up, her voice quieter now Céleste, pourquoi tu prends l'avion?
Céleste, why are you taking the plane?
Célesteher eyes ahead, honest Parce que le train prenait trente heures.
Because the train took thirty hours.
Margotstopping her Et tu as appris quoi, finalement?
And what did you actually learn, in the end?
Célesteturning to face her for the first time since the car park Beaucoup de choses sur la littérature roumaine.
A lot of things about Romanian literature.
Margota flat look Sérieusement?
Seriously?
Célesteleaning slightly on her bag strap, settling into it Il y a eu une révolte paysanne en 1907. Les paysans n'avaient pas de terres, ils travaillaient pour des propriétaires qui les traitaient comme moins que rien, et à un moment ils ont décidé que ça suffisait.
There was a peasant uprising in 1907. The peasants had no land, they worked for landowners who treated them as less than nothing, and at some point they decided that was enough.
Margotquietly Et ça se finit comment?
And how does it end?
Célestea small pause Mal, l'armée est intervenue. Il y a un roman qui s'appelle Răscoala, qui documente exactement ça, et un autre qui s'appelle Ion, sur un homme qui ment à une femme pour avoir accès à des terres et finit assassiné.
Badly, the army intervened. There's a novel called Răscoala that documents exactly that, and another called Ion, about a man who lies to a woman to get access to land and ends up assassinated.
Margottrying to connect to Céleste, who is standing in front of her with a boarding pass Et c'est romantique, pour toi?
And that's romantic, for you?
Célestewithout hesitation Ce n'est pas le mot que j'utiliserais.
It's not the word I would use.
Margotsoftly Mais tu pars quand même.
But you're going anyway.
Célestepicking up her bag, already turning toward security Il m'a appris ce que je ne savais pas que je ne savais pas.
He taught me what I didn't know I didn't know.
Margotstopping her C'est comme la Jacquerie, non? Les paysans sans terres, la violence, l'armée qui écrase tout.
It's like the Jacquerie, isn't it? Peasants without land, the violence, the army crushing everything.
Célestea small, surprised look Exactement comme la Jacquerie. Je lui ai dit la même chose, mais plus tard, en messages.
Exactly like the Jacquerie. I told him the same thing, but later, in messages.
Margotwatching her now, carefully Et c'est quoi, ce qui le rend particulier? Tu as passé un après-midi avec lui à Genève, puis une journée entière à Lyon, et là tu prends l'avion pour aller à Bucarest.
And what makes him particularly special? You spent an afternoon with him in Geneva, then an entire day in Lyon, and now you're taking a plane to Bucharest.
Célesteher bag strap adjusting on her shoulder, thinking genuinely C'est un peu comme Before Sunrise. On a joué le film, sauf que lui connaissait le film aussi, et moi aussi, et ça a tout changé.
It's a bit like Before Sunrise. We played out the film, except he knew the film too, and so did I, and that changed everything.
Margother coffee going still in her hand Attends, tu me parles de Before Sunrise là?
Wait, you're talking to me about Before Sunrise right now?
Célesteflatly Et Before Sunset.
And Before Sunset.
Margota long look Vous avez joué les deux?
You played out both?
Célestequietly Pas exactement. À Genève c'était Sunrise, à Lyon quelque chose de plus proche de Sunset, sauf qu'on n'avait pas attendu neuf ans et qu'on avait échangé les numéros depuis le début.
Not exactly. In Geneva it was Sunrise, in Lyon something closer to Sunset, except we hadn't waited nine years and we exchanged numbers from the start.
MargotAlors, c'est quoi ça, la suite?
So now what is this, the sequel?
Célestealready moving toward the security queue Je ne sais pas encore, c'est la première fois que je vais chez lui.
I don't know yet. It's the first time I'm going to his place.
Margotfrowning slightly, trying to picture it La Roumanie c'est quoi exactement? Parce que moi je vois... je sais pas, les Carpates, Dracula, les gens qui mendient à la Part-Dieu...
Romania, what is it exactly? Because I see... I don't know, the Carpathians, Dracula, people begging at Part-Dieu...
CélesteC'est un peu plus compliqué que ça.
It's a bit more complicated than that.
MargotJe dis juste ce que je connais.
I'm just saying what I know.
Célestestepping forward in the queue Il m'a décrit une ville construite sur une autre ville qu'on a effacée. Des boulevards trop larges, des blocs d'immeubles soviétiques, une corruption tellement présente qu'elle est devenue presque normale, une presse indépendante qui essaie de documenter l'effondrement plus vite qu'il ne se produit.
He described a city built on top of another city that was erased. Boulevards too wide, Soviet housing blocks, corruption so present it became almost normal, an independent press trying to document the collapse faster than it happens.
MargotEt Dracula?
And Dracula?
Célestea dry expression Il n'a jamais mentionné Dracula.
He never mentioned Dracula.
Margotfinding the bin, then back to her Mais les gens, ils sont comment? Les Roumains?
But the people, what are they like? Romanians?
Célesteher boarding pass back on her phone screen Je connais un Roumain, Margot. Sa famille s'en sort, il peut penser à construire des choses, mais l'argent pour les construire vraiment n'est pas là.
I know one Romanian, Margot. His family gets by, he can think about building things, but the money to actually build them isn't there.
Margotturning this over Donc il a des ambitions mais pas les moyens.
So he has ambitions but not the means.
Célestea small nod Il parle de coopératives, d'intelligence artificielle éthique, d'un café social. En même temps il calcule combien il lui reste sur son compte.
He talks about cooperatives, ethical artificial intelligence, a social café. At the same time he calculates how much he has left in his account.
Margotgenuinely C'est attachant, ça.
That's endearing, actually.
CélesteC'est honnête, différent.
It's honest, different.
Margotstopping at the security entrance, her hands now free Tu vas faire quoi là-bas, exactement?
What are you going to do there, exactly?
Célesteflatly Tu verras.
You'll see.
Margota long look, then a small exhale Bon. pulling her into a hug briefly Appelle-moi quand tu atterris.
Fine. Call me when you land.
Célestealready through the barrier, turning once Je t'enverrai un message.
I'll send you a message.
She turns at the security gate and does not look back. Margot stands a moment longer on the other side.
The 100
After a few days, at the Henri Coandă airport, the sliding doors open onto a pickup zone white with early summer light, taxis banked along the curb in both directions, their drivers smoking or scrolling. Céleste places her bag on one side. A blue STB bus marked 100 pulls in along the dedicated lane and she watches the doors open.
Vladexiting the bus and extending a hand Bienvenue a Fierbinți et Urâțeni!
Célestetaking his hand, squinting slightly in the flat summer light Tu as vraiment pris le bus.
Vladtrying to translate her sentence You wanted to... take the bus?
Célestea dry correction Took. You really took the bus.
VladOf course, I don't have a car. We have to use the STB.
Célesteglancing at the bus, then at the taxi drivers, then back How long does it take?
VladAround here several minutes at most. If you are going to inner city, then the bus arrives pretty fast but if you are going to outer city, which we are going to do, the bus is going to arrive in like ten minutes, like the 381 arrives to Ion C. Brătianu in ten minutes.
Célestewatching the road where the bus will come from And where exactly are we going?
VladIf we had things to visit in Lyon and Geneva, then here we don't have much to visit besides some boring museums. So, we are going to 13 Septembrie, where I eat at the kebab restaurant. And be warned that those people only speak Romanian or speak it most fluently, so you will have to rely on me.
CélesteWhich part of the city is that?
VladIt's in Sector 5, on the other side of the city. Right now we are north of Bucharest, but I live in the south and that place is in the south.
Célesteafter calculating So like crossing Paris end to end.
VladYeah, we will have to cross through city center. searching for the route on his phone So, we have to take 100 to Piața Romană, then get off and transfer to the other side of the boulevard and board 226 where we will get off at the neighborhood, and then the restaurant will be close by.
Célesteglancing at his phone Show me the map.
Vladshowing the map on his phone Yeah, sure.
Célestetracing the blue line south with one finger Starts in a field and takes an hour.
VladYeah, if the airport is on a field... noticing it begins to rain Oh... another five-minute rain.
Célestelooking up at the sky Five-minute rain?
VladIn the summer, there occasional rains that are intense but are extremely short. It usually rains at night, but it can also rain the afternoon. And if you look at me, you may notice that I am transpired from top to bottom. This is because today is part of a series of tropical days and here on the field it's thirty-one degrees, but once we will enter the city, it will be thirty-five degrees.
CélesteFierbinți is the word for hot, isn't it?
Vlad"Fierbinți" is actually a toponym for a hot place, the proper word for "hot" is "fierbinte".
Célesteafter a moment Like Chaudes-Aigues. Places are named for what they do to you.
VladThe same happens here. Now, where is Chaudes-Aigues?
Célestemoving slightly toward the shelter of the bus stop Auvergne, a village with thermal springs, the name means "hot waters". Nobody goes there except the old and the lost.
Vladalso moving slightly towards the shelter So, what have you been doing in the meantime?
Célestewatching the rain Translations, a seminar, one argument with my mother about something neither of us remembers.
Vladlaughing slightly The argument... and then she goes to make a big thing, scene note, and they both laugh, scene note, and then they thing deeply, cut the parts where it's too much, change the landscape to EXT. CITY, then move camera to EXT. STREET, position camera so both are in frame and make sure they are walking to ensure flow.
Célestea quiet look at him We're supposed to be walking.
VladThe bus will arrive in like seven minutes if you don't mind, I mean, to the producer, if you don't mind.
Célestestill looking at the rain Jesse and Céline didn't wait for buses.
VladThey teleported from the train station then to the tram then to the record shop. The record shop, in real life, is several kilometers away from the train station in Vienna. Let's try teleporting in the bus and closer to the city, so we don't break the flow of this film.
Célestestill looking at the rain Fine. Cut the airport. Open on the 100, moving south, Vlad explaining the stops to a young woman who is already reading them herself.
Vladmaking a sign with my fingers and moving my hand back and forth It's not enough... we need to talk in a room behind the scenes...
Célesteturning to face him slightly, deadpan Push the camera in, lose the gray, make it look like the rain is a choice, cut the bus schedule, nobody needs to know about the seven minutes.
VladI'm sure we are going to make a film that literally will get 100% ratings and it's scientifically impossible despite claiming to, in subtle ways.
Célesteslowly The wait will be described as a meditation on anticipation.
Vladsitting up Ah... wait, the bus has arrived.
Célestealready reaching for her bag Good, the meditation was getting long.
* * *
They board. Céleste taps her card against the validator. Vlad steps on behind her, the bus already pulling away from the curb.
Célestesteadying herself against the pole, looking out at the flat road north of the city beginning to move past the window Did you just not pay?
VladStudents usually don't pay directly or at all, and in fact, most people don't pay at all.
Célestea glance at the other passengers, half of whom have done the same Lyon would have an inspector on this bus within two stops.
VladWhen I was on the 428, I once told the inspectors I was a student, and then just I was about to pull my school identity book, they just moved on already, and then at the next inspections, it was like I am not there.
Célestewatching the stop go past with no inspector in sight They saw the book and just kept walking?
VladThat is what usually happens when a metropolitan line is intensely used by students or when inspectors are very rare. And then I have a large backpack and a small bag where I always keep my drawing book.
Célesteglancing at the small bag You draw?
Vladpulling out his notebook and handing it to her Yes, I do, or I did once when I was free, but now I have started to write.
Célesteturning pages slowly, looking out the window These are outside right now.
VladIt's only small houses and warehouses outside, we will see the large buildings later once we really enter the city.
Célestestill with the book These came before or after you decided to write?
VladThose came before, obviously, I fill the book with whatever comes in my mind.
Célesteturning one more page So do I, but mine has verb conjugations and disputed etymologies.
VladWhat disputed etymologies?
Célestestill looking at the book "Dor" in Romanian is usually claimed as untranslatable, but linguistically it shares a root with "dolor", which is just pain. The untranslatability is partly constructed.
Vladpronouncing slowly Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
Célesteclosing the notebookIt's scrambled Cicero with five centuries of technically correct filler.
Vladthinking about a dialogue Avem ceva de la Șomcuta la Zalău. Liber la Zalău colegu. Mersi colegu. Drumuri bune colegu. Băi colegu, vezi că te-au mințit, este radar în Somcuta. Măgar împuțit, l-ai mințit pe Neo de la Strehaia!
Célestereconstructing it line by line "On a quelque chose de Șomcuta à Zalău... libre à Zalău, collègue." pausing Then "merci" and "radar" I follow, then something about lying, and at the end an animal I don't recognise.
VladWe have something from Șomcuta to Zalău. Free at Zalău. Have good travels. Looks like they have lied to you, there is a radar in Șomcuta. Smelly donkey, you have lied Neo from Strehaia.
Célestereconstructing it line by line "On a quelque chose de Șomcuta à Zalău. Libre à Zalău, collègue. Merci, collègue. Bonne route, collègue. Alors collègue, ils t'ont menti, il y a un radar à Șomcuta. Âne puant, tu as menti à Neo de Strehaia."
VladThis is a random trucker joke dialogue from Unguru Dublan. It's about a communication between two truckers traveling from Șomcuta, a random village, and Zalău, a city big enough not be random. The trucker at Șomcuta tells the trucker in Zalău that it's all clear, but then another trucker at Șomcuta points out that there is a radar in Șomcuta and a fourth trucker is telling the first trucker that they lied to the trucker in Zalău.
Célestelooking out the window, the first buildings beginning to appear "Coleg" several times, like there seems to be a whole social contract in that word.
VladOf course, but that dialogue is fiction, I have not heard any real radio conversation.
Célesteafter a silence Do you have anyone here you actually talk to?
VladHere in Bucharest no, or rather, I started talking to some people in university on first year. My close friend is in Măgurele, just like me.
Célestelooking out at the buildings rising on either side The one who is also a tanguy?
VladYeah, because if you are just out of high school or fully into university, you are actually still economically dependent on parents, I have probably said this already. Mandating part-time jobs has been introduced by the previous minister of education, however, it was never actually discussed and probably shouldn't because not everyone can add labor hours.
Célestewatching the stops go past You said it, yes. after a moment Does your friend know you are picking me up today?
VladOf course they do, and they said okay, have fun.
Célestestill looking at the window That's all they said?
VladIt's not everything they have said, but that's what they have said in short.
CélesteWhat did they say in long?
VladFirst, she has been impressed to see that I have grown close to someone else from another country, although that is not exceptional. Second, if it's a good friendship we can continue talking. And maybe that's all, I haven't provided much information.
CélesteImpressed you grew close to someone, or impressed it was someone from another country?
VladPrimarily that I have grown close to someone, less so from another country.
Célesteafter a quiet moment She worries about you.
VladYeah, she does. What about you, how much do you care about me?
CélesteA lot, and by the way, I had thirty hours to rehearse what I should be saying when arriving.
VladWhat do you mean?
Célesteturning from the window On a train you have time to think about what you will say when you get off and a plane is too short for that.
VladAnd why have you chosen to not have that time to think what you will say?
Célestea pause Maybe I didn't want to arrive with a script.
Vladslowly putting an arm on her shoulder You know, when the chairs are high, I and my close friend sometimes sat together like that.
Célesteleaning slightly into him She sounds like good company.
VladAnd you are good company.
Célestequietly So are you.
The bus passes Băneasa Shopping City, its glass facade along the left side of the road. The commercial buildings continue south, lower now, with gaps between them. Trees line part of the pavement and the road is straight.
VladThis is a literal highway if you haven't noticed, like we are passing through bridges and everything looks boring.
Célestelooking out It looks like the A7 going into Lyon from the north.
VladWhat an excellent romantic place... we will be passing by the Herastrau lake and the bus will turn into a boulevard that is still designated DN1, that is, a national thoroughfare except that it will have a middle road in an attempt to imitate Champs-Elysees but more trees and greenery, and then we will pass through the Arc de Triomphe which is not the real center of the city.
Célestethe lake passing briefly through the gaps between trees on the left Champs-Élysées works as a symbol because it terminates something, twelve roads meeting at one point with the whole city confirming the axis. A boulevard that copies the form without that function is a monument to the desire for such an axis, which is more representative about what Haussmann was doing in the first place.
VladHaussmann actually decided to push the poor underground so he can replace the center with something that looks superficially beautiful.
Célestestill watching the trees He wanted a city that looked like it had always been that way, tore it out and rebuilt it and called the result historical.
VladIt is modern, like those apartment complexes you will see once we pass the treelined streets. And did you know about Negoiță?
CélesteWho is Negoiță?
VladNegoiță is the mayor of Sector 3. He is known for being a very corrupt mayor that defeated Ciceală, the seemingly sensible alternative, in the last election and he loves separators, cars, parking, destroying parks and other essential infrastructure, making high-speed thoroughfares everywhere he can, building roads illegally on top of gas pipes, creating unregulated development and so on...
CélesteCollomb ran Lyon for nearly twenty years and built the Confluence on reclaimed industrial land, glass towers and a designer waterfront. The people priced out of the neighborhoods around it were not part of the consultation.
VladWhat is the Confluence?
CélesteA peninsula at the junction of the Rhône and the Saône, the southern tip of the city. It was industrial land, warehouses, the old wholesale market. They cleared it and built a mixed district with an architecture museum and apartments nobody who worked in the warehouses could afford.
VladAnd Negoiță has been showcasing luxury at Hala Laminor and of course there are like a ton of scandals involving this showcase warehouse, such as the road behind it and properties built around it not being legal or desirable to live in.
Célestea quiet look Same instinct; find an old industrial building, make it a cultural trophy, and leave the surrounding streets to sort themselves out.
The bus is passing on the right side of the Arc. South of it the trees close in on both sides, tall and dense, the buildings behind them invisible.
VladAt the end this road there is the Victoria Square with an incomplete painted EU flag and then there is the famous Calea Victoriei, which the bus is going to skip. Of course this square is home to a parking lot and massive intersection and has no greenery, because no one actually thinks about greenery, only cars.
Célestewatching the trees All these trees lead to a parking lot...
VladEvery single mayor, not just Negoiță, are concerned with the "availability" of parking lots, which should be irrelevant at this point.
CélesteIn Lyon they started removing parking spaces two years ago, the mayor before that added them. It goes back and forth.
VladYeah...
The trees end at Victoria Square, with wide asphalt and no shade. The bus passes through without stopping, and after a few minutes, at Piața Romană, the doors open.
Piața Romană
They step off at Piața Romană into the heat. The boulevard is wide, six lanes, traffic in both directions. On this side, university buildings and shopfronts. On the other side, the 226 stop. They wait for the pedestrian light.
CélesteHow many transfers do you normally do every day?
VladUsually two, I get off some place further from the restaurant and then transfer further north.
Célestewatching the pedestrian light change And you draw on the bus, or write?
VladNeither of those things now, and in fact, I socialized with strangers when I could, enough to create what I would call a "remote community effect". When you interact with enough people who for example happen to be from the same university, it creates a trace that can be used to make it easier to interact with new people who happen to be from the same university, even if it's a single brief interaction. One person tells the others about having interacted with me, an interesting person from the same city, then I happen to meet another person who happens to be in that group and when I tell them I interacted with that previous person they remember, and then they will also tell the same group they met the same interesting person, and then there will be another person who will remember that person telling them that they have interacted with that interesting guy who also interacted with the other and so on...
Célestestepping off the curb Sounds like the small world, except you built it on a bus line.
Vladalso stepping off the curb, crossing the boulevard Yeah, it does. I usually live in the moment when interacting with new or rare people, but then I realize just how big of a network I created, and that is usually called in advice, spreading yourself thin.
Célesteafter a short silence, reaching the other side of the boulevard Spreading yourself thin assumes there is a fixed amount of you to distribute. Maybe some people generate more when they give more, and the thinning is only what it looks like from the outside.
Vladalso reaching the other side, walking alongside her I have the capacity of automatically managing my boundaries, so I don't actually have to ask people to give me space. In fact, I realized I am more extraverted than I initially thought I am, and I like being around people provided I can actually talk about interesting things to them.
Célestelooking at the buildings across the boulevard You told me in Lyon you were still learning how to socialize and the bus network sounds like where you practiced.
VladIt was one of the places where I practiced socializing and still practice to this day, although less. When you are young, it is sometimes easy to start practicing socializing with people on the same line. But as you become older, you start to practice less and less because it's less required.
CélesteYou make it sound like a skill with a window, like learning a language young. Do you think there is an age where it closes?
VladI don't think there is a specific age where the window of opportunity closes. However, I would say it fully closes once you are at the age of thirty because there will be no longer enough young people with low enough difference in things like age to talk to.
CélesteYour theory assumes you can only practice with people close to your age.
VladIt's a safe assumption designed to increase the chance of a successful start by reducing the safety concerns. It is a safety concern when the older person, who is at least more than five years apart, initiates the interaction, however, for some reason, it is not necessarily a safety concern if the younger person iniates the interaction, like when I was sixteen, I briefly interacted with a person twenty years older than me who had a cat.
CélesteThe asymmetry is strange. A sixteen-year-old talking to someone with a cat is fine because you chose it, but if the same person had approached you first it becomes suspicious. Stranger danger works the same way, most of the harm comes from people already known to you, but the framework seems to survive because it feels judicially clean.
VladThat's why I assumed there is an age limit to my practice, because I imagined that if I, the young person, talk to another person who happens to be older intentionally, then in part, I demonstrated that I understood and given consent of interaction to myself, the supposedly more vulnerable person. But if I'm an older person talking to a younger person, then it's not possible to demonstrate consent on the part of the younger person. thinking for a bit But at the same time, I am realizing this overcomplicated theory may come from social stigmas associated with how basic consent actually works.
CélesteOr you could skip the age framework entirely and say that any interaction between strangers is acceptable when either person can leave at any moment without consequence. A bus is actually ideal for that as the next stop is always an exit.
VladYes, that could be a better theory, provided you can actually reach the next bus, which is rather difficult outside the inner city. looking at the distance after a few minutes Looks like 226 arrived early this time.
Célestepicking up her bag Good, I was starting to memorize this intersection.
Vladstepping into the bus as it arrives I knew this road and intersection for a while, like, I was going to courses by the metro long ago.
Célestefollowing him, finding a seat You took the metro too?
Vladpointing to a seat I took every form of transportation there is. Now, you or me by the window?
Célestesitting by the window without answering
Vladsitting on the aisle seat besides her without saying anything
The 226
The 226 moves west, away from the city center. The traffic is slower and Céleste watches the city pass.
Célesteafter a while, without turning from the window What do you think about when you are not thinking about anything?
Vladthinking for a long time Honestly, I don't know how to answer that question. Like, when my mind is idle I think about all kinds of things.
Célestelooking at the window Mine circles back to sentences. I will be standing in the kitchen doing nothing and realize I have been silently conjugating a verb in a language I am not studying, or rewriting something someone said to me three days ago into a version that means what they actually meant.
VladLike Czech or Polish? Because I have also been thinking about languages I didn't learn.
CélesteLast week it was Romanian, the conditional. I was trying to figure out if "aș vrea" carries the same weight as "je voudrais" or if it lands differently.
Vlad"Aș vrea" and "vreau" is informal, for example, "aș vrea să iau niște jumări", but "je voudrais" sounds more formal, like "mi-aș dori", "mi-aș dori să semnez un contract".
CélesteSo the conditional in Romanian lowers the register. In French it raises it, "je veux" is what a child says, "je voudrais" is what you say to a waiter.
VladThe conditional does not actually lower or raise the register, "vreau să iau niște jumări" has the same register as "aș vrea să iau niște jumări".
CélesteThen the conditional is doing something else. If it does not change formality, what does it change?
Vlad"Aș vrea" is less aggressive than "vreau", it changes the directness of the message. To raise the formality, you use "mi-aș dori", which is always in the conditional.
CélesteSo Romanian splits it into two axes, with the conditional softening the demand and a different verb raising the register. French does both with one move, which means we lose the ability to be direct and formal at the same time.
VladYeah, and did you notice that we are doing the same things all over again? Like, when we arrive somewhere, we always start going into some place to eat.
Célestetilting her head slightly In Geneva you suggested it after the lake, and in Lyon we forgot for so long that I had to find the bouchon myself. At least this time you planned where to eat before I landed.
VladWhat have you been doing in the meantime while I was not here?
CélesteI finished my master's thesis on loanword phonology in Occitan dialects. Defended it in March, passed, felt nothing for about a week. Applied for a doctoral position in Lyon and one in Paris, got the Lyon one, deferred it until October. Spent April translating technical manuals for a company that makes industrial ovens and read your messages mostly at night.
VladWe talked mostly at night, but not very frequently.
CélesteThe frequency was fine. Some people write every day and say nothing while we wrote rarely and each time it changed something.
VladI used to write every day to my former close friend and I was overwhelming. Now I write less to my current close friend and I'm not that overwhelming.
Célesteafter a silence, looking outside Where are we now?
VladWe are approaching Eroilor, after traversing the bridge we will get to Cotroceni, and then we will reach 13 Septembrie, or at least that's what I remember after I traveled on the same route to get to the airport.
CélesteEroilor is heroes?
VladYes, it likely refers to the heroes of the 1989 revolution, which can be argued that it was more like coup than a true revolution.
CélesteYou told me about that in Geneva, the Velvet Revolution in Czechia as the peaceful version and yours as the violent one where the old structures stayed.
VladI still believe that is correct, and additionally, in Czechia there was a concern about leaders not knowing how capitalism works and teaching leaders how it works in the west, but in Romania there was no such concern. Despite western capitalism being faulty in neoliberalism eating away from social democracy and leading to the rise of the far-right, the fact that in central Europe there was a concern about economic education is rather impressive.
CélesteHavel said something similar in a seminar text I read, that copying the West outright was a mistake because both systems were entering the same crisis and that the West was just better at hiding it. He wanted the Civic Forum to be a permanent thing, not a temporary bridge to a party system that reproduces the same problems.
VladIn this country, there was no such concern. There was the FSN lead by Iliescu, who wanted to take full control over the media and institutions and then there was the CDR, which opposed Iliescu and supposedly wanted to prevent such overreach, but as both the FSN and CDR fragmented into multiple parties, they started to homogenize into organizations that started to behave similarly to mafias, engaging in fraudulent privatizations and extracting the limited pool of public money. Many politicians were frequently switching teams, and they were called "traseists" because of the opportune nature of their tracks.
CélesteWhat do FSN and CDR stand for?
VladFSN stands for "Frontul Salvării Naționale" and CDR stands for "Convenția Democratică Română". FSN was the organization responsible for overthrowing Ceaușescu and was conservative, encompassing part of the former structures and the previous regime. CDR was an alliance that formed later as an opposition to FSN, since immediately after 1989, Romania still had a predominant party system and FSN was about to create a one-party system once again. CDR had also been a largely conservative organization, and it is where the vast majority of mainstream parties came from.
CélesteSo the people who ran the revolution became the first problem and the opposition that formed to stop them eventually became the same thing. In France after the war, the résistants and the former Vichystes ended up in the same administrations within a decade.
VladWho were the Vichystes?
CélesteThe people who collaborated with the German occupation through the Vichy government, Pétain's regime in the south. After the liberation, de Gaulle needed administrators who knew how to run things, and many of them had served under Vichy. So the purge was selective, a few public trials, a few executions, and then quietly the rest went back to work in the same offices under a new flag.
VladAnd UDR was a Gaullist party, right?
CélesteUnion des démocrates pour la République, yes. It went through several names before that, UNR under de Gaulle, then UD-Ve, then UDR, then Chirac turned it into the RPR in 1976. Each time the name changed, the leadership consolidated power and adjusted the ideology just enough to keep the same people in charge.
VladThe FSN was relatively the same, except that it was eventually merged into a party from the CDR. FSN became PD, then PD-L, then the majority was merged into PNL, but part of the party split into PMP, and PMP is a party where some politicians merge into other larger parties.
CélesteHow many names can one party have before it stops being the same party?
VladNot many, as from the very beginning, none of the political parties had coherent positions, only claimed positions. PSD claims to be a social democratic party concerned with everyone's well-being, when in practice it was the party most concerned with manipulating pension rates, raising them just before the elections, and then dropping them slightly. It was also the party that appeared most in reports about public funds being drained and right now it is cross-breeding with AUR, a nationalist and highly conservative party. Twenty years ago, Piedone promised safety, parks, cleanliness and for some reason, parking, in Sector 4 but only delivered some more parking and nothing else. He became a symbol of corruption, functional illiteracy and performative action, and he is one of the people that benefit from early releases from prison, such as the case after Colectiv.
CélesteYou mentioned Piedone some time ago, alongside someone called Vanghelie. What happened at Colectiv?
VladAt Colectiv a fire occured after the DJ released some sparkles that ignited into the ceiling and the building was not properly secured against the fire, and sixty people died. Piedone was accused of approving this club that was not verified to be fire-proof.
Célestequietly Sixty people. And he was released early?
VladHe was released early after being imprisoned for approving such building, so yes.
CélesteI keep trying to think of something comparable in my country and I cannot find one.
VladBecause this corruption is specific to my place, and apparently, corruption and defensiveness escalated, with Recorder, the organization responsible for demonstrating that the justice system has indeed been compromised, being accused of compromising the justice system. Of course, Recorder cannot actually be brought to court based on internal discussions because the accusations are fake.
CélesteI saw the protests in December, with the press organization proving the system is broken and the system responding by saying the press organization broke the system. I recognized the pattern from what you told me.
VladI think this is one of the biggest democratic backslides I have ever seen in recent history, where Lia is trying to fight hard against the independent press after she has been investigated for corruption. And then the police also tried to fight back after Recorder found out that a large portion of inspectors have been named via "empowering", a commonly abused emergency decree where the named officer requires no specific competence.
CélesteMediapart had the same thing with Sarkozy. They published the Bettencourt documents, then the Libyan financing, and the response from the government was to call them a front, an "officine", and try to discredit Plenel personally. The investigation was never disputed on the facts, only on the legitimacy of the people who published it.
VladWhat exactly happened with Sarkozy?
CélesteThey published recordings in 2010 showing that Liliane Bettencourt, the L'Oréal heiress, had been making cash payments to people around Sarkozy's campaign with envelopes and undeclared Swiss accounts. Two years later, they published Libyan documents suggesting Gaddafi had transferred around fifty million euros to finance the 2007 campaign. The trial started in January and lasted three months, twelve defendants including three former ministers, and in September he was convicted to five years for criminal conspiracy. He tried to bribe a judge in a separate case while the Libyan investigation was ongoing, which gave him another conviction.
VladIt does not sound like a typical corruption case in Romania, where money usually moves between or inside institutions and taxpayer money is directly used.
CélesteMaybe the direction of the money tells you where the wealth actually sits. In France there are private fortunes large enough to buy a president, so corruption flows inward from private interests toward the state. In Romania, if the private sector has less concentrated wealth, the state budget becomes the largest accessible pool, so corruption flows outward from institutions toward individuals.
VladMy mother is employed in the public sector, and in fact, the public sector is one of the biggest sources of employment. Additionally, it is much easier to remove public money than to insert it.
CélesteWhat does your mother do?
VladShe is a director at CNAS, the national insurance system.
CélesteYou told me about her Geneva trips with the Surface laptop. She has been there a while then, if she is a director now.
VladShe has always been a director, and she writes norms and procedures, the documents with headers.
CélesteThe documents nobody reads until something goes wrong and then everyone reads them very carefully.
VladYeah, and part of the documents are internal. In fact, there is an abundance of branded material and books. Some of the material refer to CaPeSSCoST, which I shortened to as "Capscot", which has been interpreted in an acting course as a non-existent roof-removing device. This project is supposedly concerned with the management of the quality of medical care, although I am not exactly sure what it actually does despite being public since I have not read the norms.
CélesteFrench public health also has the same acronyms, CPAM, HCAAM, ONDAM, each one longer and less readable than the last, and I am certain half the people who work inside them would also struggle to explain what the project actually does.
VladAnd relating to explaining how things actually work, did you know that Florin Iordache resisted being asked questions? Like, every time you asked him a question, he said, "another question".
CélesteWho is Florin Iordache?
VladFlorin Iordache was a former minister of justice under the Dragnea government, known for deflection after being asked about why he weakened prosecution policies related to corruption. The Dragnea government itself was known for aggressively encouraging rather than seeming to combat corruption.
CélesteDupond-Moretti did something similar with a different technique. He was a criminal defense lawyer before becoming justice minister, and once in office he opened investigations against the same magistrates he had fought as a lawyer. When the press asked about the conflict of interest, he used his courtroom voice to make the question seem naive. He was acquitted, which may be worse than being convicted, because it teaches the next one that the method works.
VladI don't know specifics, but your case sounds more complex than Iordache simply saying "altă întrebare".
CélesteMaybe that is what makes it worse. Dupond-Moretti needed skill to deflect because in France the press will follow you to the next question and the next. If Iordache could walk away by simply repeating the same two words, it means nobody in the room had the power to make him stay.
VladThen in France the independent press must be stronger than here.
Célesteafter a short silence Maybe it is just time. France had its own press captured by the state for centuries, and it took a long time from the revolution to the point where a journalist could stand in front of a minister and refuse to move on. Your democracy is younger, the institutions still learning how to resist the people who run them.
VladLooks like we are getting close, you can see the buildings in 13 Septembrie.
Célestelooking out the window Which stop?
VladYou'll see, when I stand up.
Célestestill watching the buildings pass, her bag already on her shoulder
Vlad stands and the bus eventually stops, eight-story blocks on both sides, balconies lined with air conditioning units. The doors open and the heat enters.
13 Septembrie
The restaurant is small, five tables, the day's foods displayed behind glass near the counter. Vlad spoke to the cook in Romanian, a short exchange that moved too fast for Céleste to follow. He ordered for both of them: soup, chicken, puree, and crushed beans with sauce. They sit at a table near the window.
Célesteshortly after sitting at the table What did you say to him?
VladWell, I have first introduced you to them as a friend, then we talked a bit about what I have been doing while I was not coming to the restaurant.
CélesteAnd what did they say about me?
VladThey were excited to see you, although it was unfortunate you did not know the language.
Célestewith a low voice I understood maybe "prietenă". The rest was too fast.
VladI would say we talked at a rather moderate speed, because the French speak even faster than we do.
CélesteWe speak faster but we articulate less. Romanian sounds precise, every syllable has a place, so when it moves quickly it sounds like a machine I can almost read but cannot operate.
VladLike, what do you mean, what happens in French?
CélesteIn spoken French, half the sounds disappear. "Je ne sais pas" becomes "chais pas", "il n'y a pas" becomes "y'a pas", entire syllables just fall out and you reconstruct them from context. Romanian keeps them, at least from what I hear.
VladIf you drop certain words in Romanian, then you lose meaning because it is not a reconstructible language, it requires all sounds to be preserved. Certain sounds may be fused or repeated in ways that do not change the core sentence.
CélesteThat makes it closer to Latin than French is. Latin required every inflection because the word order was free, so if you dropped a suffix you lost who did what to whom. My language gave up the inflections and locked the word order, which freed us to be lazy with the sounds.
VladAt the same time, when it comes to technical topics, there are not a lot of words to use for certain specialized topics, like information technology. And there is another layer that makes communicating certain things even more difficult.
CélesteWhat layer?
VladFor example, if you want to communicate that you feel lonely, that feeling has be officially recognized as a valid feeling that others can experience. The problem is, in secret, it is often not a valid, officially recognized feeling which makes it worse than the Korean open secret of intense pressure to succeed, which is at least officially recognized and shared in the press, but not casually. No matter how much statistics may or may not confirm that there is a moderate to high prevalence of loneliness, at an environment like say a random school, it may be dismissed secretly on the premise that everyone has surface-level friends, therefore, no loneliness exists.
CélesteYou said something very close to this in the past, that your loneliness was not valid because everyone around you had friends, so the condition was assumed not to exist. after a moment In French there is a distinction between "solitude" and "isolement", one is chosen and the other is imposed, but both are named. If your language does not separate them, then the person experiencing the imposed version has to borrow the word for the chosen version and hope someone understands the difference.
VladUnfortunately, there is no native distinction between solitude and loneliness, although the distinction between being alone and being lonely do exist. But I don't think it relates to language, I think it relates to emotional education and alignment. If enough people have low emotional intelligence, then complex but superficial webs can form. Those webs don't care about who is included and who is excluded, they are almost spontaneous and can disappear at any time with minimal fallout because no actual commitment exists in them. Loneliness can manifest in you being outside this web and somehow wanting to connect to a piece of the web with commitment.
CélesteThe web you describe sounds functional for the people inside it. A problem is that anyone who wants something deeper reads the web as a community and tries to attach to it with a different set of expectations, and the web does not reject them, it just never holds them.
VladThe web is autonomous, it does not respond in any way with rejection or approval. In this web, no one can join or leave voluntarily because both act like race conditions that have never been before considered and probably never will. Additionally, there is a special, intuitive way of communication that does not require transmitting any information and does not fit into any theory of small talk, and apparently, it is very difficult to engineer this way of communication primarily because it is extremely fast and by the time you are trying to interpret a topic, the topic changed two times already, which means when you try to enter the discussion, sorry, it's too late.
Célestequietly So the web has its own language, and the language is faster than interpretation. You cannot learn it by studying it because by the time you have decoded one exchange the conversation has moved twice, and you cannot practice it because practice requires slowing down, which the web does not do.
VladThat's right, by the time you have decoded one piece of the exchange, new conversations have been introduced, but that doesn't mean we can't understand or engage with anything related to this language. From what I have overheard, I deduced that there are certain self-similar individualist cultures that exist in interconnected bubble, cultures that claim to be different but are in fact extremely similar, and just how some people argued that capitalism as it appears in liberal countries sometimes manifests as a form of collectivism, the amalgamation of individualist cultures could be its own form of collectivism.
CélesteSocial media does the same thing at scale. Every group believes its culture is specific, curated, distinct, and the algorithm confirms this by feeding them their own reflection, but the structure underneath is identical across all of them, the same engagement patterns, the same hierarchies, the same speed.
VladIt does sound like social media because those bubbles indeed in part come from social media, but it's still difficult to understand how some incoherent bubbles with an incoherent communication system can form such complex structures that resist all change and make loneliness invalid.
CélesteI am trying to imagine myself at that age in the same situation, but I can't. I was also outside something, but in my case I knew why, I was reading when others were talking, I was interested in things that had no social value at fifteen, and I accepted that position early.
VladI think there exists a narrow definition of what thinks are socially valuable, and there is no scientific method for studying what certain topics are socially valuable when young. You cannot ask teenagers what they think is socially valuable, because at least when I was back in high school, the vast majority, if not all colleagues lacked the necessary education and emotional competence to even stay still or do things together.
CélesteThe circularity is a problem. You would need emotional competence to answer a question about emotional competence, and the people who have it are usually the ones who already know they were excluded by the ones who don't.
VladIt's a huge problem for a phenomena no one has an interest in studying, about how loneliness becomes an invalid feeling and those networks enforce its status as an invalid feelings. In the west, there is not a single material that talks about loneliness which is not officially recognized by any major social group.
CélesteIf no one has named it precisely, then no methodology exists for measuring it. You can study loneliness as a condition, and you can study social exclusion as a structure, but the specific mechanism you describe, where the network makes the feeling itself illegitimate, sits between the two and belongs to neither field. A psychologist would say it is loneliness, a sociologist would say it is exclusion, and the person experiencing it would say both are missing the point.
VladIt's not pure loneliness, because you still can have close friends by chance, like you and me for example, and neither is it pure exclusion, because you are still tolerated because the institution that hosts those social groups requires tolerance by force and you can still be very appreciated for talent.
CélesteSo you are present, visible, even valued in a specific register, but the social layer that would make those things feel like belonging operates on a frequency you can receive but not transmit on. The tolerance is real, the appreciation is real but the inclusion is not.
VladOf course the inclusion is not, and there is nothing that can be done in resolving the issue of inclusion because colleagues and therefore the broader web claim inclusion, just like the Internet does, except that if you want to host a website like I do, you need to control a server or a portion. You can pay from ten to thirty euros per month, but you are dependent on the provider, so if one business gets attacked, then you are also unavailable despite being totally unrelated to that business or not being a business at all. Except that when it comes to hosting, things are much more substantive.
CélesteI don't know how servers work, but the analogy makes sense. You can be present in the space, you can even have something worth showing, but your presence depends on infrastructure you did not build and cannot control, and if that infrastructure decides you are not a priority, you disappear without anyone having made a decision to remove you.
VladYeah, and then some people can set global limits on you, which means they set a dynamic number of interactions you can have with them and for how long, which means the conversation can be interrupted in the middle in messages, and then when there is a convenient moment of sickness, the global limit can be declared as reached or exceeded, the interaction cut permanently and the limit can never be removed or reinstated because the fuse has been burnt, like how certain low-level software write permanent variables into the NVRAM that cannot be removed unless you physically de-solder the NVRAM or replace the motherboard.
CélesteIt sounds like a boundary, which is supposed to be a healthy thing, except that the fuse can be lit whenever the other person assembles a justification, and the justification only needs to feel coherent in the moment. Once it fires, the person who set it treats it as a permanent moral fact, and any attempt to revisit it confirms the original justification. The colleague you told me about in Geneva sounded like she had the same mechanism.
VladYeah, because I have identified the mechanism and made a general description. And did you know that I have watched videos of people physically de-soldering components and have seen just how easy it is to burn the board with the gun?
Célestea curious voice What do you mean?
VladWell, to remove this little configuration chip, the NVRAM, you need to open up the computer, which should be pretty easy if it's not a shiny product, then you need to remove the entire computer from the case, and maybe remove components so it will be easier to work with the letcon, the heat gun, which you should be very careful to not point at the table or the wires of the gun itself. Then, you need a de-soldering solution or simply have a safe way to heat or dissolve the solder. After that, you need to locate the NVRAM and carefully de-solder the pins until the chip is fully disconnected. after a short pause Now that it has been removed, the computer will no longer be able to save low-level settings like the system time, so you need a compatible chip that can store the same data in the same format as the previous one, and good luck finding that ideal chip.
Célestelooking at him And even after all of that, the new chip is empty. The settings are gone, you are starting from nothing, and the board might be damaged from the heat.
VladYou have a good intuition, the setting will be gone and it will be January 1970. Similarly to how you can't do this on computers you don't own, you can't reset the limits or the fuse of another person, no matter how hard you are trying to freak them out by self-talking in the distance about it, because the limits are truly permanent, set specifically for you.
Célestequietly I have never had someone set a limit like that on me, where it was permanent and manufactured in the moment. The boundaries I know are mutual, you discuss them, they adjust, sometimes they break and you repair them.
VladIn my situation, she was sick, had no capacity to automatically manage boundaries so she told me to distance, which I did, and I think she found the perfect opportunity to set a silent limit. Automatic boundary management, therefore, is an ability that is extremely difficult to develop, the idea that you can manage boundaries without asking anyone so you have the capacity to talk to everyone without ever having a limit.
Célestesubtly So she could not regulate the distance herself, asked you to do it for her, and when you complied she used the distance as confirmation that the relationship was already over.
VladMaybe, that's what happened, and it was really disrespectful for me.
CélesteIt was. after a moment You gave her what she asked for and she held it against you.
VladAnd now what can we do? Maybe you can pay respects, you know, press F to pay respects.
Célestea brief exhale through her nose F.
VladExcellent, you have paid my respects by pressing F.
Célestelaughing, covering her mouth with one hand You just made me mourn a friendship with a single letter from a video game.
VladIt was never a significant friendship to begin with, she was a colleague from England who initially thought we had a similar form of autism but then she started becoming incoherent and not holding onto promises or even basic relational rules, because my local close friend doesn't make promises but at least we're consistent.
Célestestill smiling I would rather pay respects to the friendships that actually held up.
VladRemember the time you told me that I just talked you out of the game you were not going to download?
Célestelightly I downloaded it three months later. You were right, it is sometimes addictive, then boring, but it is good for killing time on the tram when I have nothing to do.
VladIf you downloaded it, then fine, because I have told you not to.
CélesteYou told me not to after having described it in a way that made it impossible or at least very hard not to try.
VladOkay... anyways, let's finish eating because I have thought about going to a hot park after getting out of this restaurant. And you know where...
Célestelooking at him The park with two people in it.
VladYes, you have good memory.
CélesteThree now.
Vladquietly And I know this is weird, but I noticed your hair became red, previously it was black.
CélesteIt was always red. I dyed it black for two years, I stopped in February.
VladYou look better that way, with the red hair and curls.
Célestea small voice Thank you.
VladIt was a banal compliment that never appeared in the film.
Célestestill small They had ninety minutes and everything banal was cut for time.
Vladcontinuing to eat Alright, let's finish eating before we get cut.
Célestequietly laughing as both continue to eat
Eventually, they finish. The plates are cleared and the cook says something to Vlad that makes him nod. They reach for their bags and exit into the still hot outside.
Drumul Taberei
The scene shifts to Parcul Drumul Taberei, to the shaded alleys under the trees, the lake visible through the gaps and an artesian fountain throwing water into the heat. They walk slowly, the concrete of the boulevard behind them.
Célestewalking beside him, her bag across one shoulder If you had to describe what you want from the next ten years in a single sentence, what would it be?
Vladafter thinking for a moment If I had to describe what I would want from the next ten years, I would say I would want to be both happy and loved.
Célestelooking at the trees You said happy and loved as if they were two separate things.
VladIt's because many times, people can feel happy without any kind of substantial love. For some people, it's okay to be placated by social media, by those platforms that create artificial happiness but are also often fundamental to the formation of modern social bonds, and not experience any kind of love from a real person. But for me, it is not okay to be placated by those platforms and I want real love from real people.
Célesteafter a long silence, her eyes on the path ahead I still love you and I think you know that. But somewhere between Lyon and now it became something closer to friendship, and I am not sure when that happened, or if it was always going to be this.
VladWe didn't have much time to talk to each other, but I liked that you have been consistent most of the time and it was fun talking about all those things.
CélesteI don't make promises because I can't always keep them. What I can do is try to maintain trust.
VladI try to do the same, knowing I can't necessarily keep my promises.
Célestewalking slightly closer to him Then we are doing the same thing from different directions.
VladYeah, now there is not much to say, and besides, you have been mostly observant all this time.
CélesteYou gave me a lot to observe.
VladLike what?
Célesteslowly You talk about semi-historical things and somehow it tells me more about who you are than most people reveal in a year. You've described loneliness with the precision of an engineer and felt it with the openness of someone who never learned to hide it. I have met people who are analytical and people who are vulnerable, never both at the same time with this little distance between the two.
VladI am certainly analytical, but I don't think myself as a vulnerable person. In fact, I think myself as an honest cold person. I once wanted to become friends with someone who had an artistic voice, but then I have realized that is simply not possible in my environment, and even if I do find someone with that desired voice, the connection may end up being superficial.
Célestelooking at the branches above them You have your own voice. It sounds like a realist's voice, and realism is often mistaken for coldness because it is not decorated. When you speak there is a rhythm underneath that pulls people forward, and that rhythm is what kept me listening for hours and what made me take the plane.
VladThere is a reason why fantastic literature or magic exist, to escape from the mundane and harsh nature of the real world and realist literature.
Célesteafter a few steps Tolkien said the same thing, that escapism is what a prisoner does, and that mocking it only serves the jailers. But I think realism does something the fantastic cannot, it makes you look at what is actually in front of you and still find something there.
VladRealism is my favorite literary current precisely because it makes you look at what is actually in front of you. In fact, the vast majority of texts I have read have been realist stories and non-literary articles.
CélesteIt became dominant because the novels needed it. Romanticism exhausted itself on feelings and the readers started wanting to know how people actually lived, what they ate, how much they earned, what happened to them when the poetry stopped. Balzac wrote ninety novels trying to catalogue every social type and Flaubert made a precise exploration of woman's boredom.
VladI don't think it became dominant because novels needed it, but because it eventually became appealing. In Romania, the first forms of realism were moralistic or magical and therefore reality was in author's control. Eventually, Rebreanu managed to create new form of realism that is not in author's control, but only much later. There are other currents, such as absurdism, which I think appears even later in Solenoid.
Célesteturning toward him slightly When realism loses control of its own reality, it stops being a project and becomes something else. What is Solenoid?
VladI haven't read Solenoid, but from what I have heard, it's a parallel to Cărtărescu's life, except that it flips certain things, like instead of being about a successful teacher with acclaimed words, he is a failed teacher with a failed book.
Célestewalking, eyes on the path Writing yourself as the one who failed is harder than it sounds, you have to resist making him sympathetic in the way that redeems him.
VladThe same challenge applies for realism. While Rebreanu preferred diving into historical themes, Linklater found an artifice in creating what I would call "romantic realism": you don't need to have a plot that is 100% realistic to feel realistic, you only have to make the plot feel emotionally realistic.
Célesteslowing her pace slightly The artifice has to be invisible, the moment you feel the arrangement, the realism collapses.
Vladpointing to a bench Let's sit over there by the lake.
Célestefollowing him, setting her bag down first The lake is smaller than I imagined.
Vladsitting down on the bench It is an artificial lake designed for rowing. It is not very deep.
Célestesitting closely beside him, her shoulder touching his, saying nothing
Vladafter a long silence, a bit ironic And now it's time for an Our World In Data questionnaire... how many people live in extreme poverty, according to... the global line?
Célesteglancing sideways at him Around seven hundred million, if you take the line at two dollars fifteen a day.
VladHow many people in the world live in extreme poverty, according to... the national line in France or South Africa?
Célestetilting her head, amused at the questionnaire The French line is around thirty euros a day, sixty percent of the median income, so if you applied it globally you would get about eighty-five percent of the world, nearly seven billion people. South Africa has three lines, the upper bound is around fifty rands a day, and at that level you still get roughly half the planet.
VladThat's correct, what line is more accurate?
Célestelooking at the lake The higher ones, obviously, two dollars fifteen means you can survive biologically but you cannot do anything a person should be able to do, you cannot travel, you cannot rest, you cannot choose what you eat.
VladThe reason why I asked you those questions is because I recently took the Gapminder Upgrader, which I got mostly wrong despite knowing some sociology, and then I noticed the same bad lines... maybe I did like 176 questions, but I noticed some things...
Célestealready pulling her phone out, typing I have been asking you what everything is since the airport, so let me look this up myself for once. scrolling Gapminder Worldview Upgrader, questions on the Sustainable Development Goals, you have to get them all right in a streak to pass?
VladYes, to pass the exams, but it's more like a fun applications about how much official data we don't actually know, but then you start to notice that there is actually a lot of missing data in the world.
Célestescrolling through the questions on her phone Missing how, as in countries that do not report, or as in things nobody measures?
VladWell, both, because when you have only the UN, World Bank and IMF measuring stuff and getting their datasets featured, well, you get a massive bias and under-representation of poorer countries, like the one we are in right now.
Célesteglancing up from her phone Romania is underrepresented in these datasets?
VladIf we compare with the local condition, with everything I have told you, then yes. Because every one of those organizations says our country is somewhat rich, but then we are still poor after all.
Célesteputting her phone down on her knee I can see that, I took the bus with you for an hour through this city and the numbers would not have told me what the roads looked like.
VladThe city looks terrible, and then I have seen some tourists on the internet expecting to find a walkable European city in here. And I have told you that you are not going to find a walkable European city in here anytime soon.
Célestelooking across the water You told me that in Lyon, the gray replaced city, and I could picture it then but seeing it from the bus window is different.
VladAnd then you are from Lyon, a provincial town, and I have never seen a provincial town in Western Europe by myself, being there.
Célestelooking at him Lyon is provincial compared to Paris, but it is still the third largest city in France, it has a metro, a university, a hospital system. When you say Șomcuta or Tecuci or Măgurele, those sound provincial in a way Lyon has never been.
VladLike how?
Célestepulling one knee up on the bench Lyon without Paris would still function, people would still come, the economy would hold. From what you described, Măgurele without Bucharest would just slowly empty.
VladOf course, it would, because it is a dependent, commuter town. And Șomcuta is dependent on Baia Mare and Tecuci is dependent on Galați...
CélesteSo every smaller town orbits a larger one, and if the larger one is already struggling, the smaller one has nothing to fall back on.
VladThat's correct, in Romania smaller towns orbit a larger one, in rural areas there is not much to do.
Célesteresting her head on her knee In my country the countryside empties too, but there are still trains, still a bakery in most villages, still some way to reach a city if you need to. What holds a Romanian village together when there is nothing?
VladIt's ruins, and then there was the recent case in the Praid mine, where a salt mine managed by a corrupt organization of course funded by public money, because taxpayer money is never absent, unlike in Sarkozy, and the deep shafts, including the touristic zones, have been flooded, and suddenly, the hotels emptied, the town became of life and locals don't have any hope in continuing to exist in the village.
Célestefrowning slightly, trying to recall There was something similar, a thermal town somewhere in the centre, the baths closed and the hotels followed within a year, but I cannot remember the name. The difference is that when it happened, the préfecture intervened and there were funds. If your préfecture is the corrupt organization itself, then who intervenes?
VladThe government actually intervened, but people knew the funds were temporary and were certain that they were going to be abandoned. Locals told Recorder that they were extremely certain they were going to be abandoned.
Célestequiet for a moment It is strange to me, receiving help and already knowing it will end, saying it out loud while the money is still arriving.
VladAnd when people say it's over, it's often, truly over. After the revolution, many mining towns were abandoned or nearly abandoned, and people said the same thing again and again, that it's truly the end, and it was.
Célestelooking at him So they learned to recognize the pattern before anyone in charge admitted it, and that certainty comes from having watched it happen to other towns, other mines, other people who were also told it would be fine.
VladYes, and the memory spreads.
Célestesoftly In a country that small, everyone knows someone from a town that already disappeared.
VladNot necessarily, but it's often visible when a major or important minor town disappears.
Célestenodding slowly Visible how, through the news or through people leaving?
VladBoth, people leave, then the news arrive to document the people leaving.
CélesteThe documentaries always arrive after the fact, when there is already nothing left to film except the absence.
Vladwrapping his arms around her You know, I don't have anything more to say right now...
Célesteleaning into him, her head settling against his shoulder
They stay like that for a long time and neither of them speaks. A pigeon lands near the bench, looks at them and leaves. The lake reflects nothing in particular.