It is reported that, in the final years of the Ceaus¸escu regime, several thousand children were deliberately infected with AIDs in Romanian state orphanages. These children were all infected with the F version of HIV-1...
Népszabadság, 22 February 1997
(From our Rome correspondent)

My favourite month is May. The time when everything turns green and the trees begin to flower, exuberantly, selflessly, not caring that frosts may still come. In these parts, in the mountains where we live, the more well-to-do often put up a maypole, decorate it with ribbons, then drive it into the ground near a bush of goldenrod or lilac. In the village of paupers where I was born, no one bothered with such things; I saw these spring decorations for the first time on the day my father brought me here, to be with the others. It was the day before the big cattle fair, and on the way, driving along in the cart, we saw a great many market women and horse copers along the tracks leading down into the valley, saw how they watched over, how they guarded the light-footed horses, the glossy apples, the chicks raised with painstaking care all through the long journey. It was only themselves they did not spare, and the young children accompanying them; I still remember the young lad whom his father flung to the ground and then kicked with the toe of his well-worn boot as he lay in the dust for not feeding the horses properly. It all happened a long time ago. Not one, not two, but five springs have passed since my father put me in the orphanage and promised I could come home in a month's time. He got up in the cart and I never saw him again, nor heard news of him since.

Many of the children don't mind living here. It's all the same to the little ones, brought here as babes, bundled up, whimpering or crying, by relatives or a parent, and the child may never learn where he comes from. It is harder for us older ones. We still remember the cosseting and the caresses, can still recall the smell of home, still understand a couple of soon to be forgotten words. Here in the home the carers give orders in another language.

The house is large. It was built in the days of my grandfather's youth; they say wealthy invalids were cared for here, and there used to be pretty cottages in the park and a fountain at the centre of the lawn. Now everything has changed. During the war there were soldiers here, later the building was used as a school, and finally as a foundling hospital.

The people from the neighbourhood scorn us of course. No one wants their children to have anything to do with us. We don't like their brats either, they remind us of the time when we were still free to go about as we pleased. At home

I had proper food, proper clothes. Bread, potato soup, maize-meal porridge, everything I needed. I had trousers, a coat, two shirts, boots handed down from my brother. I had no need of anything else. Here I went barefoot for a long time, but nowI've figured out how to steal shoes for myselfwhen I get the chance. There are plently of second-hand clothes and shoes in the stock-room because people send us parcels, but they keep them locked away.

At home I used to have a playmate, a girl. She lived next door to us. Her name was Veronika, but I used to call her Pretty Vera. Everything about her was pretty, her hair, her eyes, her mouth, and she came out every day in a freshly washed dress. We liked to go to the brook, throw pebbles in the water, or float small boats. My brother made me those boats in the evenings. He did not have the time to make them in the daytime because he was always working in the kitchen garden or in the stables. They did not think I was old enough to be entrusted with a proper job, so I was allowed to roam freeon the fringes of the forest. On holidays my brother would sometimes go with me. One time I fell into the brook and he jumped in after me and pulled me back onto the bank. I was soaked and he just kneeled there beside me on the ground and laughed. My brother radiated strength, he was impetuous, high-spirited and good-humoured, I always felt calm and safe when I knew he was near me. I can see him still, there on the bank of the brook, laughing, laughing at me, soaked to the skin like a flooded-out ground squirrel. He died the following winter. He was gathering brushwood in the forest, and he caught a cold in the great snow, he coughed for a long time, then the fever took him. They buried him beside my mother. My father did not cry, just stared at him without saying a word. Pretty Vera cried. She liked my brother.

There are some who were brought here to the home with their brothers or sisters. Only rarely are they allowed to stay together. The carers do not permit it, as they do not permit our making friends either. Here it is everyone for himself, left to himself, alone. That is what they consider safe. They do not allow us to speak to each other in our own language among ourselves. We must use their words if we want something; if any of us should have the nerve to want something, to have a will of their own. Silence is safest.

I only asked them once, when my head was crawling with lice, to give me some soap. They shaved my head instead. It was strange. I kept feeling my head, even started up from my sleep, I missed my hair so much. I told myself it would grow out again, but they won't allow that. Nowadays I wear a knitted hat, Foxy gave it to me, crafty Foxy. He's got hats hidden everywhere about the place. Foxy too was ashamed of his hairless head at first. But in the end you got used to everything.

Like we got used to the cold. We made ourselves a nest out of old cast-off quilts, burrowed into them and curled up together for warmth. Foxy lay on one side of me, Dumpling on the other. Foxy is a tall, lankyboy, Dumpling is short, scrawny and freckled. They arrived on the same day. I was already here when they came, and I helped them find their way about, get their bearings. The most important thing was to make them realize they must never contradict, never defy the carers. Resistance never did any good in the outside world, here in the home it leads to beatings, punishment, confinement. The word "No" must be forgotten immediately upon arrival.

The winter is long. A cold wind blows, the sky is overcast. We rarely go outside into the courtyard, we haven't enough clothes. There are mounds of snow in the yard, piles of debris and weeds. We break icicles off the eaves and slip them down each other's backs. Pretty Vera used to suck icicles, I remember, and smiled and joked. Does it taste nice, I asked her, why don't you try it, she asked, and laughing, she ran away. Dumpling sucks icicles too, but only when they forget to give us supper.

In the evenings, Foxy tells us that he'll soon be going home, and will eat walnuts with honey, and milk-loaf, and chocolate at Christmas. He speaks of chocolates wrapped in silver foil. We listen to him, our mouths watering. We used to have a walnut tree in the garden back home, but I can no longer remember the taste of walnuts.

At night, Dumpling often screams in his sleep. He wets the bed. At such times Foxy jumps over to him, clamps his hand over the freckled boy's mouth, and when he's quietened down, we get rid of the traces. Quickly and silently. The carers must not notice us. They do not like noise, and they never stop to think before they hit.

The winter is bleak, dull, monotonous. We sit about shivering, waiting for the spring. My favourite month is May.

Dumpling has no parents. He has no one, not even a proper name. He was found on the fringes of the rubbish tip, a grubby bundle. He couldn't have been more than three months old at the most. A family took him in. They lived on the tip in a corrugated iron shack, and subsisted on what they found. They roved the narrow, straggling paths winding between the heaps of rubbish, foraging all day long. Dumpling learned to walk in the muddy cart ruts, holding on to rusty pipes strewn about on both sides of the path. He never saw anything around him except rubbish. He always walked with his eyes cast down, searching. That is probably why he is so stooped, his head hunched between his shoulders; he really does look like a pitiable, badly shaped dumpling. He lived in the shack on the tip until he was about six. In the summer he went about naked, in the winter he wore rags. He slept in the daytime, in the mornings, because there weren't enough beds to go round at night. In the evenings he sat down on the doorstep and huddled there until morning. He was always hungry. Then they brought him here. Dumpling did not protest, he says he likes it here. It's better than at the tip.

Foxy comes from very different surroundings. He is the only city boy among us. His father was a trucker, doing rounds in the neighbourhood. Foxy used to live in a beautiful, spacious flat, went to school, and once spent a summer holiday by the sea. Crafty Foxy is a clever boy, he can read and write perfectly, and he knows all about machinery. Here in the home there is just a radio and a telephone, but we are not allowed to touch them. Foxy would never have ended up here among us if his father had known what was good for him and closed his eyes and ears like his neighbours. But Foxy's father was a proud, headstrong man, and one day, ignoring his wife's entreaties, he put on his best suit and joined the procession of people marching to the memorial on the outskirts of the town, carrying flags and flowers and singing. The group was dispersed. At night some of the men disappeared. The next day the flag-bearer was nearly beaten to death in the main square. The third day they found the truck by the roadside. Foxy's father was never found. His mother died soon after of a heart attack. Crafty Foxy hopes that in a couple of weeks his father will come to take him away, in the winter, or perhaps in the spring, but in the summer at the latest. Every year he spends a couple of days crying.

Foxy spends a lot of time leaning on the window-sill, staring at the gate. It was he who first caught sight of the car. He gave a great shout, he thought his father had come for him at last. He ran along the corridor, pounded down the gap-toothed stairs, and would have stormed through the dining hall if one of the carers hadn't caught him, given him a vigorous clout on the back of the head and a hefty shove towards the stairs, go back to your room, she hissed at Foxy, don't you dare disturb the doctor.

That is how we learned that our visitor was a doctor. He had a long talk with the director, then we saw the black car jolting along the garden path and passing through the gate. For some time after this nothing happened. It was almost spring when one morning we woke to hectic hustle and bustle. We were ordered out of bed, and given soap and towels, for the first time since Christmas. There was no water in the taps so we washed out in the yard, by the water-butts. They opened the stock-room and everyone was given a clean shirt. There was a feeling of suspense, of something about to happen, we all felt it, Foxy said maybe we'd have our photographs taken. We lined up in the corridor. We were divided into two groups, the little ones were made to stand apart. Some carers came in, they had put on white smocks over their clothes. Aha, said Foxy, there's going to be a medical examination. What's that, asked Dumpling, but all he got in reply was a poke in the ribs, and he was told to shut his mouth. The two groups were counted, and made to stand in pairs. So we waited for a while in silence.

It really did not take longer than a second, as I remember; Foxy, who was standing beside me in the line, said it looked like we were getting an inoculation, perhaps there'd been an outbreak of smallpox or some other contagious disease in the neighbourhood; it took only a second, no more, a quick prick in the arm, fleeting pain, nothing to speak of. They shepherded us into the dining hall in pairs, where the unfamiliar white-overalled doctor was sitting at the table, reading through a large stack of cards, sometimes he wrote something in a notebook, and in the meanwhile the nurses gave us our inoculation. They were pretty and cheerful, one of them was wearing lipstick, and a velvet ribbon in her hair. I leaned close and inhaled her sweet scent, she noticed and laughed softly. At this Foxy sniffed too. The doctor looked up from his papers, smiled, and said something in a language we did not understand; then he waved us away. It pleased us that he was so nice.

Along the dark corridor from the opposite direction came the girls, shepherded to the dining hall from another wing of the building. They walked hurriedly, almost at a run, but as they passed us a small, close-cropped girl in a cloth coat, one of the last pair, waved to me timidly; do you know her, asked Foxy; who,

I asked, that egg-headed one at the back of the line, she waved to you; Dumpling said something too, but then the carers told us to be quiet.

Later we went back to the dining hall. The long table had been laid, fruit, pastries, milk loaf and milk were set before us. At first we did not dare touch anything, then everyone fell on the food, sounds of noisy chewing and smacking of lips came from everywhere. A small boy gorged himself on cake and threw up.

He was not given a beating this time, for once the carers were kind, pleased with the good food. Everyone looked satisfied and ate as much as they could.

I was eating my third slice of milk loaf when someone touched my elbow.

I turned. The close-cropped, spotty-faced girl was standing behind me, hugging her cloth coat around her as if she were cold. Don't you recognize me, she asked sadly. I trembled at the sound of her voice, my stomach churned; is it you, Pretty Vera, I whispered huskily. She had lost a lot of weight, her face had become pinched and drawn, they had shaved off her blonde hair, pustules marred her skin, only her big blue eyes were unchanged. Shebegan to cry, the tears coursing down her disfigured face. How did you get here, I asked dismayed. They took everyone away, she sobbed, they took half the village, they knocked down the houses, demolished the church, I don't know where my parents are, I haven't heard anything about your father either, we children were thrown into a bus and now here I am, I've been here for over a week, and I can't bear this place, I can't stand it that we can't wash. You'll get used to it, I mumbled, and pressed her hand encouragingly.

From then on I was always there beside Foxy, leaning on the window-sill; he watched the gate, I watched the terrace of the wing opposite, and the courtyard. The girls were allowed out to take the air more often than us, and when they were outside, Pretty Vera grown plain waved to me. That was all we could do, and we both waited for the day when the boys would be allowed to go out into the garden as well.

It was crafty Foxy who first thought of running away. At first he just joked about it, then it somehow became serious. We decided to hide in the forest. We were a bit worried because it was the rainy season, it rained all the time. It doesn't matter, said Foxy, once we're over the fence, it'll be as easy as pie; you're cazy,

I replied, you don't know the pinewoods, you don't know this region. That doesn't matter either, said Foxy, I know the carters who used to live in the city, then moved up to the deserted kilns of the charcoal-burners and ended up in a cabin at the top of the mountain; they carry food to the woodcutters on trolleys they fixed up with rollers, goimg up and down between the marketplace and the mountaintop several times a week; on their way back they get trucks to pull them up the mountainside, my father often took them, willingly, whenever they asked him to, said Foxy, and his lips narrowed to a slit, like a blade, he sat there silently for a while, then muttered that we could trust him, he was no fool.

I trust you totally, said Dumpling, who was lying behind us in the nest of quilts, poor little freckles had the shivers ever since we got our inoculation, and wet the bed every night, so he had to use a rag as a nappy, I trust you totally, Foxy, just please tell us how we're going to get over the fence or through the gate. Well, that's the part I don't know yet, answered Foxy listlessly, then turned to the window, because Plain Vera was waving to us from the courtyard.

Luck was on our side. The next day a consignment of potatoes arrived for the kitchen, a couple of crates of onions and a big parcel had also been put on the truck. We watched the director from the corridor, walking around the dilapidated truck, talking to the trucker. It appeared that one of the tyres was flat. Foxy pinched my arm, we'll never have a piece of luck like this again, he said, articulating with care. I'd got to know Foxy very well by then, and knew that when he spoke slowly, he'd thought of something clever.

Soon after, we were taken in to supper, and we saw that the truck was still standing outside the entrance to the kitchen. Foxy happened to notice that the trucker was sitting in the director's office, they were laughing loudly and drinking brandy. After supper I stayed behind in the washroom and waited for the girls; don't fall asleep, I whispered into Plain Vera's ear, I was still whispering when one of the carers shouted at me and sent me upstairs.

We waited until the rest of the boys were all snoring and snuffling in the dormitory, and the weakly-lit corridor grew silent. We crawled carefully out of bed, quickly put on all the clothes we owned, Foxy took out several hats from various hiding-places, and thrust them into his coat pockets. We knew we had very little time, just as long as it took for the carer to drink a shot of brandy down in the director's office, then he'd be back to stand guard. We slipped down the stairs and across the courtyard, keeping close to the wall. Plain Vera arrived from the direction of the terrace. With a practised movement, Foxy jumped up into the loading space, pulled up Dumpling, then me and Vera. We lay silently, flat on our stomachs behind the crates.

Around midnight, when the truck was swerving to avoid the potholes along the high road and we could plainly hear the driver's continuous loud swearing, Foxy gave the sign and we jumped off the truck at a level-crossing gate. We lay in the ditch and did not dare climb out until the hum of the engine receded into the distance. We watched the fog swallow up his tail-lights and set off towards the pinewoods in pitch darkness.

What came after that has become blurred in my mind. The cold, the rain did not matter, the mountain was ours, we could go where we liked. Next day we found the cabin, and the carters let us stay on sufferance. We did what we could but they did not really want or need our help. There was hardly anything to eat, just enough watery soup to spare us a bowlful each. We spent a lot of time wandering around in the forest. It turned out that Foxy was very good at climbing trees. He climbed up as high as he could, perched among the branches like a bird and stared at the countryside for hours. He did not mind getting drenched in the rain. He could see as far as the city, he claimed he could see the house they used to live in. Dumpling took no notice of anyone, he made up a bed of blankets in a corner of the cabin and slept all day. Foxy said he didn't like the look of the freckled boy who could not stop coughing, he'll end up with pneumonia, Foxy grumbled, but Dumpling smiled, told us not to worry, his cold would soon be gone.

I hung around Plain Vera, who was slowly turning into Pretty Vera again. Her hair began to grow out, blonde wisps framed her face, and the red spots were beginning to fade. I watched her at night as she slept. Sometimes she was angry, sometimes she didn't mind, and once she took hold of my hand.

The rain would not stop. We all caught cold and coughed like Dumpling. Our throats hurt, so we drank hot water. We huddled together beneath the blankets and listened to the news from the city. The carters, who often went down into the valley, spoke of disturbances and chaos. The woodcutters sat around a crackling pocket radio. They said everything would change very soon. The next day the announcer talked a lot of nonsense, then the transmission was suddenly broken off. One of the carters, on his way up the forest path, started shouting when he was still quite a distance away that the ammunition dump had been broken into. We heard shots from a distance. Foxy climbed a tree and saw a great cloud of smoke; in the main square the presidential palace was in flames. Trucks carrying soldiers passed along the main road. We did not know what to do, wandered what would happen to us. In the night Dumpling was delirious, raving, he perspired heavily and wet the bed three times. Foxy said we would have to go back to the home in the morning, even though we'd be sure to get a beating. Dumpling needs a proper bed and hot food.

We heard gunfire during the night as well. In the morning we laid Dumpling in a handcart and with the help of two lads hauled him back to the orphanage.

It started raining again. Dumpling groaned and mumbled, Pretty Vera cried. Foxy did not say a word all along the way. When we said goodbye to the carters he picked up the freckled boy and set off with him towards the gate. I was surprised to see how strong the lanky Foxy was.

We walked into the entrance hall. We could tell at once that something extraordinary had happened. They were clearing out the stock-room, the dining hall was full of hastily done up packages; the stock-keeper and the cook were arguing about sharing them out. A loud dispute was going on upstairs; we soon realized that the director was shouting at the carers. Threats were made, the director listed which of them he would inform against and why, the carers in turn spoke of squandered relief funds and misappropriated parcels and said that there were informers among them. In the meanwhile the cook was carrying the packages outside and putting them on the back seat of a battered car. The stock-keeper ran out after him into the courtyard, they started pushing each other about, began to fight. Foxy muttered that the rats were deserting the sinking ship. No one paid any attention to us. Foxy set off down the staircase leading to the sickroom in the basement. Dumpling was in a very bad way, he was delirious. Pretty Vera turned away and brushed a tear from her cheek.

We sat in our room until evening. We learned that others had come down with the fever as well, and that the director was very angry about the inoculation. He shouted in the corridor that he'd been duped, deceived, and would now be held responsible for everything. He spoke about truth, proclaimed that truth will out, and that the guilty must atone for their sins. He was drunk. We didn't care about the truth. All we cared about was getting a proper meal, but there was no food of at all, as there was no heating or electricity either. Pretty Vera groped her way over to us from the other wing in the dark, we held hands and shivered with the cold. Every now and then Foxy would swear softly. He was very worried about Dumpling, but they would not allow him down into the basement. We knew there were no medicines in the building, but we did not speak of this. We sat and listened to the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of the city.

At dawn the shouting recommenced, rousing us from our sleep. Then we heard the hum of an engine. Foxy ran to the window and gave a shout. A truck was driving through the gate. We rushed along the corridor, down the creaking stairs. Someone was pounding on the entrance door. The director staggered out of his room in an overcoat, holding a candle. He was bringing the keys. The man who walked in through the door was tall, gaunt and grey-haired, his face scarred. He stared at Foxy, rooted to the spot. Foxy made a strange noise like a bark and threw himself into the man's arms. They embraced each other, Foxy sobbed, and from time to time a yelping sound escaped from his throat. Then he collected himself, quietened, and stared at his father. I've turned grey, that's what you're staring at, isn't it, asked the man. He spoke with difficulty, with a lisp. Where are your teeth, asked Foxy. They smashed almost all of them, replied the gaunt man with an expressionless face, but that's not important, come on, let's go while we can. Home, said Foxy happily. The boy's not going anywhere, said the director. Foxy's father did not bother to reply, spoke only to his son, we're going across the border, pack your things, son! Foxy stared at him uncomprehendingly. Haven't you got any clothes, his father asked. Of course I have, I'm wearing them, said Foxy. In any case, said the director, I think you ought to know that these little rascals did a bunk, if you'd have come yesterday, you wouldn't have found your son here. The gaunt man, as if noticing the director for the first time, looked him very calmly in the eye. I hope you were only speaking in jest when you called my son a rascal, because if you weren't, I'll make you eat this candle. Not so fast, said the director, raising his voice, don't you dare threaten me, and I'm not letting the child leave, what do you think, you can't just take a child away from here like that, you have to get authorization from the town hall!

Foxy's father turned on his heel, and through the door left open a crack spoke softly into the early morning mist. Outside everything was cloaked in white. Appearing out of nowhere, five tall, rugged, grim-faced men walked into the house. They came silently, without wasting time with explanations or threats. They surrounded the director, who involuntarily took a step back.

Let's go, repeated the gaunt man emphatically, but Foxy hesitated. My friend, he said slowly, my friend is very sick, I'd like to say goodbye to him. There's no time, replied his father, there are several of us as you see, and we have to pick up others on the way. Foxy still made no move. Then Pretty Vera walked over to him, be glad you're going to be taken away from here, your father's come for you! I too stepped up to him and said, we'll stay with Dumpling, you go.

The lanky boy hugged us both. Then he snatched his most precious hat off his head, the black one he had brought from home, into the lining of which his mother had embroidered his initials. He thrust it into my hands: here, take it... give it to Dumpling... God bless you!

And they left, seven of them, like the deadly sins, but that was just chance, a small group of hardy men who had been through a great deal, and who now disappeared as suddenly as they had come out of the white mist, and crafty Foxy disappeared with them.

That left just the two of us, Pretty Vera and I. The freckled boy died next morning. There was no time to give him Foxy's hat. They did not allow us more than a moment to stand on the threshold. We stood in the narrow basement corridor and saw a small heap covered with a white sheet on the bed. The boy with no name had always walked hunched and had fallen asleep curled up into a ball.

That week more and more children got sick. On Saturday more beds were carried down into the basement. In the evening a man came from the city, someone we had never seen before. He ordered the director into his office and questioned him for hours; only half-sentences could be heard through the locked door, the strange man's sharp, stern questions and the director's defensive bluster as he kept repeating the words "experiment" and "noble aim".

Next day at noon a black car stopped before the entrance. Two men wearing dark overcoats got out. They walked into the dining hall without a word of greeting, pushed aside the carers and dragged the director away from his Sunday lunch, taking him with them.

I don't remember how we got to learn the truth. Perhaps it was the carers, grown suddenly, surprisingly garrulous who let slip the secret, perhaps it was another, hastily conducted medical examination that disclosed what had really happened, or perhaps it was we ourselves who realized that we had been infected with a disease, for money. The pharmaceutical company had paid a lot of money to have us inoculated. We were infected on purpose, that was the experiment. It was the virus that gave us fever.

The truth came out, but the director's prediction didn't come true, not completely; no one was punished. Suddenly he was back in the house and has been walking about in his shabby overcoat ever since, getting drunk on brandy in the evenings, just like before. Nothing has changed.

I don't care about any of it. I remember the day of the inoculation as the best day of my life: I've never eaten so many wonderful things; that was the day the Plain-Pretty Vera arrived, and Foxy and Dumpling were still here. And I remember the sweet-smelling nurse with the velvet ribbon, I remember her caressing my face. I don't care that the fever keeps coming back more and more often, don't mind feeling thirsty all the time, don't care that I'm getting weaker. The carers say they'll be bringing me medicine soon, and I'll get better.

I don't mind that Pretty Vera's gone either. Maybe she'll be lucky. A wealthy family is going to adopt her. Pretty Vera cried when she heard that her parents had disappeared at the time of the shooting, and she cried when the director pointed her out to the strangers who came from so far away. Pretty Vera will be put on a plane, will get new clothes and new shoes, and chocolate in silver foil, as much as she wants; she can go to school and spend her holidays by the seaside. They're still here in the city, staying at the hotel, fixing her papers.

In the afternoons I lie on my bed and stare at the sky, watch the airplanes. Wandering which plane Pretty Vera will be on. I have Foxy's hat hidden under my pillow. Pretty Vera gave me something to remember her by too, she cut the top button off her cloth coat. I was in the courtyard when the car left, Pretty Vera turned and pressed both palms against the window, pressed her face against the glass. I stood with my hands in my pockets, unmoving. Neither of us waved.

I lie on my bed, stare out at the sky, at the courtyard. Spring is passing slowly. A long time ago, around this time, my brother always picked cherries for me. Everything has turned green, the garden is really pretty. My favourite month has arrived. It is May. ß

Translated by Eszter Molnár