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Authors: Barbara Wilson
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dominator societies, they were partnership communities. None of the ruins that have been excavated show fortresses or anything that would suggest they fought with each other. Most of the statues are fertility figures.”
I thought of the little statue in Vienna. “So, did the Venus of Willendorf come from around here?”
“Yeah, but she’s no Venus. That was just something that the male archeologists said, because they couldn’t imagine a powerful figure without sexualizing her. But in the old agrarian Goddess societies, she was a fertility figure—back in the days when fertility belonged to women and wasn’t controlled by men.”
“Still, Cassandra,” interrupted Eva. “You must admit that the Hungarians were treated very badly in Transylvania by Ceauşescu.”
“The Hungarians have no great claims as defenders of human rights. You want to talk about what happened to the Jews who were shipped off to Auschwitz the last year of the war? You want to talk about how the Hungarians treat their own population of Gypsies?”
“The Romanians treat the Gypsies worse! All the Romanian Gypsies have run away to Germany and now Germany is selling them back to Romania.”
“In a partnership society,” said Jack, “we wouldn’t know how to talk like this about other people. The words wouldn’t even begin to make sense.”
“In a partnership society, wouldn’t we be sharing the biscuits?” I said, taking the package away from her before she could devour them all.
“You’ll see when we get to Romania,” said Eva, who was determined to get the last word in. “That’s the real Stone Age there. And they don’t have chocolate biscuits, either!”
It had been dark when we set out, but away from the city it was darker still. We were crossing the puszta, once a thick forest, then, after the trees were chopped down, a bog. Still later, by some peculiar twist of geography and climate, the puszta turned into grasslands like the American prairies or the Argentinian pampas. Years before I’d been to a great livestock fair in Debrecen. It had been like some version of America’s Wild West, with cowboys and hundreds of head of steer.
We were in marchland, borderland, a buffer zone, where the frontiers had shifted dozens of times over the centuries and the maps had been drawn and redrawn. But where maps showed lines, the landscape rarely did. Sometimes there was a river or a mountain chain, sometimes there was nothing but a fence through a pasture, and sometimes there was nothing at all. Sometimes when you passed from one country to the next, there was a sharp and immediate change. Sometimes the barbed wire, armed sentries and floodlights spoke of enmity and tragedy. Sometimes there was only a softening, a gentle blurring, people speaking two languages, eating similar foods, sharing relatives, customs and memories.
The real borders now were economic. Fortress Europe had pulled up the drawbridge on the former Soviet bloc countries, all begging to be part of the European Community. Hungary might manage it in the years to come; Romania would not. Traveling into Romania from the West was like leaving the wealthy drawing room upstairs for the downstairs servants’ quarters. Hungary might be a butler, able to mix in both worlds; Romania was the scullery cook.
Near the border Eva stopped and filled the tank with petrol. She opened the hood and peered inside.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t think so… Sometimes I think I hear a kind of thumping noise. I’m probably just imagining it.”
“Good,” I said. Car maintenance was never my, nor Jack’s, strong point.
The night was eerily lit here, greenish-white, and the roar of heavy trucks filled the air and then departed, leaving thick silence. The wind came cold and hard across the plain, but there were stars overhead, and the sky was clear.
“Did you know, there were great witch-hunts around here, two, three hundred years ago?” said Eva, as we
I thought of the little statue in Vienna. “So, did the Venus of Willendorf come from around here?”
“Yeah, but she’s no Venus. That was just something that the male archeologists said, because they couldn’t imagine a powerful figure without sexualizing her. But in the old agrarian Goddess societies, she was a fertility figure—back in the days when fertility belonged to women and wasn’t controlled by men.”
“Still, Cassandra,” interrupted Eva. “You must admit that the Hungarians were treated very badly in Transylvania by Ceauşescu.”
“The Hungarians have no great claims as defenders of human rights. You want to talk about what happened to the Jews who were shipped off to Auschwitz the last year of the war? You want to talk about how the Hungarians treat their own population of Gypsies?”
“The Romanians treat the Gypsies worse! All the Romanian Gypsies have run away to Germany and now Germany is selling them back to Romania.”
“In a partnership society,” said Jack, “we wouldn’t know how to talk like this about other people. The words wouldn’t even begin to make sense.”
“In a partnership society, wouldn’t we be sharing the biscuits?” I said, taking the package away from her before she could devour them all.
“You’ll see when we get to Romania,” said Eva, who was determined to get the last word in. “That’s the real Stone Age there. And they don’t have chocolate biscuits, either!”
It had been dark when we set out, but away from the city it was darker still. We were crossing the puszta, once a thick forest, then, after the trees were chopped down, a bog. Still later, by some peculiar twist of geography and climate, the puszta turned into grasslands like the American prairies or the Argentinian pampas. Years before I’d been to a great livestock fair in Debrecen. It had been like some version of America’s Wild West, with cowboys and hundreds of head of steer.
We were in marchland, borderland, a buffer zone, where the frontiers had shifted dozens of times over the centuries and the maps had been drawn and redrawn. But where maps showed lines, the landscape rarely did. Sometimes there was a river or a mountain chain, sometimes there was nothing but a fence through a pasture, and sometimes there was nothing at all. Sometimes when you passed from one country to the next, there was a sharp and immediate change. Sometimes the barbed wire, armed sentries and floodlights spoke of enmity and tragedy. Sometimes there was only a softening, a gentle blurring, people speaking two languages, eating similar foods, sharing relatives, customs and memories.
The real borders now were economic. Fortress Europe had pulled up the drawbridge on the former Soviet bloc countries, all begging to be part of the European Community. Hungary might manage it in the years to come; Romania would not. Traveling into Romania from the West was like leaving the wealthy drawing room upstairs for the downstairs servants’ quarters. Hungary might be a butler, able to mix in both worlds; Romania was the scullery cook.
Near the border Eva stopped and filled the tank with petrol. She opened the hood and peered inside.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t think so… Sometimes I think I hear a kind of thumping noise. I’m probably just imagining it.”
“Good,” I said. Car maintenance was never my, nor Jack’s, strong point.
The night was eerily lit here, greenish-white, and the roar of heavy trucks filled the air and then departed, leaving thick silence. The wind came cold and hard across the plain, but there were stars overhead, and the sky was clear.
“Did you know, there were great witch-hunts around here, two, three hundred years ago?” said Eva, as we
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