A dead dog in a vacant lot next to his unconscious master, an officer and his incompetent trainee, children playing detectives, an aviator with a glass eye who mysteriously speaks volumes, grandparents bordering on sainthood, turtledoves, a taciturn tram driver… Between broths, cherry trees, corn, gypsies, communism and greenery, Laura Nicolae restores, for this first novel awarded the Robert-Cliche prize, all the light of Romania in the 1970s, isolated by an imposed political regime. Because in her eyes, the resistance of a people is often hidden in the quiet strength of a neighborhood that helps each other, despite the jealousies that erect barriers between the flowery fields.
Spiridon Popescu lies in hospital after being left for dead on the vacant lot next to his property. Who beat him up? Who could possibly want to kill an ordinary civil servant and his faithful four-legged companion? The officer and his intern question the strange inhabitants of Escalei Street one by one to shed light on this opaque affair that would remain in place for weeks because of its almost supernatural dimension: “Every time the officer took up this file, his head would empty, the ideas he had had ten minutes before would evaporate, his muscles would become heavy and his face would finally calm down. He had a strange desire to laugh and sleep. “It must be the evil eye,” he said to himself.”
In Escalei Street, The investigation is actually a pretext to present a number of characters linked to each other by blood, marriage, friendship, devotion or disappointments. Because a large part of the richness of the work is due to this host of Romanians with their detailed portraits, larger than life, but resolutely credible. “My intention was partly to write about my grandparents’ generation, because it is a very special generation in my eyes,” explains the CEGEP professor. “These people lived through the First World War as children, and the Second as parents. And despite everything, I always found them very benevolent, very bright… So I started with the characters of Sofia and Constantin, who bear the names of my own grandparents. But they were not enough for the story. When, a little later, I had the idea of the aviator, everything fell into place.” “He is a character who had both inner and outer wounds, and it spoke to that whole generation. Then the beekeeper Puiu, the children, Andrei and his cousin Gabriela, appeared to me.”
The aviator in question, Captain Stănescu, also touches the heart. A great nostalgic, he is interested in Romanian history and the technical and military exploits of his country, and enjoys delving back into the memories of his dashing youth serving in the air fleet. His anecdotes are always wrapped in a strange touch of mysticism. “When I was young,” he confides to the wise Sofia, “I believed only in the great deeds of science. But I learned in the war that there is much more than that in the world. I saw things in the sky…”
Old Stănescu sways on his cane while offering the Marcu family unwavering support. He encourages little Andrei to read and invites him to travel through the memories of his glass eye. And who could not be moved by his fusion with the birds, which carry him with them beyond the forest of Andronache and its surroundings to look down on the neighbors who go about their endless business?
“During communism, we grew up a lot like that, in a vacuum. We had no choice, because there was a lot of denunciation,” recalls Laura Nicolae. “We had to be careful who we talked to in order to stay safe. Sometimes, people talk about all this fear they had, about this censorship that was so heavy. So, I said to myself that I was going to write a book in which we don’t fear the regime. The investigation is not really threatening.”
Nor does the historical weight of the context jeopardize the balance of the narrative: well-balanced, the novel constitutes more of an invitation to take an interest in the political trajectory of Romania than a mine of factual information.
Knowing how to wait for the right season to sow the garden
Nourished by postmodernism and the light of the Bucharest Julys, the one who has been writing fiction in her notebooks since she was ten years old finally felt ready to publish. “I sent the manuscript without expectations, but with the joy of having dared to make the gesture. Now I am at the stage of leaving the magical realism that surrounded the entire writing and publishing process to return to reality.”
Because the author almost succumbed to the lure of her own fiction. “At one point, I was so close to my characters that I began to believe that I would meet them if I went to Escalei Street.” Today, she marvels at the idea of seeing the typical characters of her childhood come to life in the hands of Quebec readers.
The jury that selected his book was composed of journalist Anne-Frédérique Hébert-Dolbec, bookseller Mike C. Vienneau and writer Caroline Dawson. The latter, who was suffering from cancer, left us earlier this spring.
Like Escalei Streetthe editorial process also had its share of astonishing improbabilities. “Life has its share of mystery and coincidences. I didn’t find out the identity of the jury members until after I won the prize, and I think Caroline Dawson was reading my manuscript at the same time as I was reading her book. We never met… but there was a dialogue between our texts. I hoped we would meet. In the end, we only spoke to each other through our writings,” says Laura Nicolae, smiling, overcome with emotion.