Whisper in Bucharest

August 1983. It's now two weeks since my arrival in Romania and I keep wondering about this city, Bucharest. Closed, silent, a blank wall for me. Empty. That's how it feels – closed, silent, empty. The long boulevards are lined with large buildings, at street level the shops have displays but their windows still seem empty. Above the shops are windows and balconies of apartments set in flat blind walls. The balconies are mostly closed in with glass or plastic or whatever. Sometimes you can see plants. On Bulevardul Republicii where I walk to work at least the buildings are older and some of the balconies have wrought iron, the windows have wonderful carved pediments and there are trees, but on Calea Mosilor there's only a dingy cement façade rising on both sides and stretching forever, a long wide urban canyon of nothing.

There are people but the city still seems uninhabited. Shadows walk and don't speak or, if they speak, almost whisper to one another. Cars don't honk and there aren't many of them. The trams clank and a rooster crows somewhere in the morning. The staff tells me that everyone has left since it is August but tomorrow is September first and it's still silent.

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