Doctor Vasile Voiculescu – gentle, mild-mannered, peaceful, with a reassuring presence

The van took us slowly and hurriedly from Malmaison to Jilava before noon[1]. We got off at Fort 13. We were greeted by Lieutenant Ștefan, with the face of a primate, of an anthropoid, the gestures and the look of a prison sergeant in a film noir. He takes great pleasure in it, playing his role in slow motion, like a gambler spinning his cards.

We spend the rest of the day in a small, unimaginably filthy quarantine cell, the doors unopened. In the evening we are moved to the cave, a huge, dark, smelly cave, which, although electrically lit, has a number of dark recesses.

Like so many places of punishment, but this is the first contact, everything looks so gloomy and oppressive that it doesn’t seem real. The presence of Dr. Voiculescu, very old, every bone in his body, gentle, gentle-hearted, peaceful, noble, quick-witted, but broken by weariness, is touching.

A strange feeling of immense happiness. Reasons: Because I have finally escaped the investigation. Prison, according to the Securitate, is a limbo, an oasis, a heaven. Then the first meeting with the legionaries (not only our lot were in quarantine), from whom I rushed to learn the Morse alphabet and verses in Crainic and Gyr – my hasty enthusiasm amused them. And, of course, the very reassuring presence of Voiculescu. But also the memory – exhilarating – of the time I spent in the van.

(Pr. Nicolae Steinhardt – The Diary of Happiness, Polirom Publishing House, Iași, 2008, pp. 125-126)

[1] The action takes place on 5 March 1960, according to the memorialist.