How Elisabeta left Domnești and arrived in Nucșoara
I am from Domnești. I come from the family of Șuța. My father’s name was Ion. My mother’s name was Maria. When I was thirty-eight, my father died of a heart attack, leaving eight children. My mother was 36. She was two years younger than my dad. She gave birth to three and a half children. But I don’t know the others who died, I only know the ones who lived: Ion Șuța, Gheorghe Șuța, Petre Șuța, you see, Șuța calls us, Nicolae Șuța and Luca Șuța. The boys. And the girls: Ileana, Maria and Elisabeta, I, they call me Tuța, but I’m written as Elisabeta. That’s more serious…
I went only to year seven out of 8 of primary education, no more, because I couldn’t go to school, my mother couldn’t afford it. We were eight children, madam, poor, but my mother brought us up with the fear of God, with honesty, and we never upset my mother. Wherever she sent me, I’d go. To the cows, to the cows. To the pigs, to the pigs. Wherever she sent me, I went. Uncle Gheorghe Șuța also helped us. He didn’t have any children, so he raised us, his cousin’s children. He also bought a mountain to give to us, but he bought it for nothing, because the state took it. And he also married me when I was eight years old and took me to Nucșoara because he had Gheorghe Rizea there, with whom he worked. My mother didn’t want to give me away, she said there were good boys in Domnești too. My brothers didn’t want to give me away here… Because my husband had kept another of his uncle’s cousins, who died in childbirth when she had her first child, the girl you saw. The baby was eight days old when he buried her mother. She was five days old when she died, and after three days, while they kept her according to the tradition, she was eight. My uncle did what he did, he married me…
Nothing to say, I lived well. We worked, we bought land… which they took away from us! They still won’t give it to me. Can’t you see? They’ve taken everything, ma’am. They destroyed my barn, my sheds, everything I had. I have nothing left. We made something that resembled a stable, but with what? We are both handicapped. I’ve got no legs left, look at my legs. Look at them! They put me in chains and kept me in that damp Jilava. It’s no little thing to spend two years in Jilava… I was thirty-eight.
At the wedding, he came in a car to pick me up. Two cars. Then others came. The wedding was fine. Well, Mr. Șuța, our uncle, was a well respected man. He was the only village head of all the communes at my wedding. We celebrated, they went home and I stayed here. My godfather was Father Dragoi, who was shot by the communists. They hunted him down and caught him in Vâlsănești and arrested him. And when they caught them, ten years later, they took them all to Jilava and executed them.
I had a dowry… My mother dressed my house, but I don’t have any of that now. To get to where you see me, I went to Mr. Ceaușescu. I had someone in Bucharest who went around. He gave me the house. That’s all! They still have the land.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. There was still a storeroom to keep the wood from the dispensary, and I asked Ion Băncescu, who was on the council, to give me the storeroom in exchange of some money. He refused! I want to live and die well. And if I escaped from chains and twelve years of torture, should they kill me now? I don’t sleep here anymore. I’ve moved into this room. They’ll shoot me here, through the window, in bed. We sleep like this: me and Gheorghe. I say – let’s get rid of one of us, so that the children have a parent. And I’m afraid, I’m afraid… That in this country…
There were such honest people and such decent people… Madam, I wouldn’t have given this commune for nothing! Now they have taken the land from Arnăuțoiu, from those who ran away, from me, from this one, from that one… And for the land, so that they don’t give it to us anymore… Three days, if I live, but I want to know that the world has cleared up. Because the land, you see, he won’t give it to me…
(Elisabeta Rizea – The Story of Elisabeta Rizea, edited by Irina Nicolau and Theodor Nițu, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1993, pp. 19-23)