Last meeting with Gioga Parizianu

One summer I cut short my stay at the seaside[1] and with the money I had left I bought a “circuit ticket”, valid on RATA trains and buses, which took me across the country for ten days. I had long wanted to see some friends who were scattered around the various towns.

My first stop was in Moinești, with Gioga Parizianu, who had found a job in the local pharmacy. Hoping and expecting to be able to continue his medical studies, which he had started before his arrest, he had taken a job as a nurse or “medical assistant”. She jokingly referred to herself as a “nurse” in the hospital.

I hadn’t had time to announce my visit. The surprise and joy of the reunion was so great that when he returned from work he found me waiting for him at the family home where he had given me the address. (…)

The house where I met Gioga was inhabited by a Macedonian family, if I am not mistaken, refugees from Dobrogea after the cession of Cadrilater. (..)

I stayed in Moinești for two days, spending my time either with the Macedonian family or just with Gioga, who had taken a leave of absence so that we could spend more time together. We both went over our old plan of running away through Bulgaria again. Both for personal reasons and because of the general situation, we felt that it was not the right time to take the risk of a clandestine border crossing. (…)

The two evenings we spent with Gioga went late into the night. We shared our impressions of everyday life after our release from prison. We talked about the material hardships we had to face, and each of us confessed our disappointment at regaining contact with the outside world, and even with friends from whom we felt alienated. We shared our views on the political situation, tried to justify our incurable optimism, deluded ourselves with arguments to justify our hopes for the future we wanted. But we always ended up remembering prison and invoking the names of the people with whom we had lived in prison and thanks to whom we had experienced unforgettable moments of satisfaction. We both missed them, and after their release neither of us found anyone in the outside world who could make up for their absence.

Late at night, when we were sleep-deprived, we would say goodbye, making a bitter joke about a freedom[2] that had the gift of awakening our longing for prison. Gioga went to sleep with the Macedonian family and gave me the room that the local authorities had allocated to him for the night. It was in a miserable building where the employees lived. (…)

Gioga’s room, as shabby as a cell, had only a bed and a chair for furniture. On the floor, in a corner, a suitcase served as a wardrobe. In Gioga’s absence, only the colourful Macedonian cherry wood covering the bed softened the room’s austerity.

Two days later we left Moinesti. Gioga drove me to the bus station. I waved goodbye from the steps of the car, before I got lost in the wave of passengers crowding the bus entrance.

Little did I know that this was the last time we would meet.[3]

(Ion Ioanid – Our Everyday Prison, Albatros Publishing House, 1996, Vol. V, pp. 211-212, 214-215)

[1] The action takes place after the release from prison.

[2] In fact, it was a pseudo-freedom, since Romania was at that time the “great dungeon” of communism.

[3] This is the last information we have about the life of Gioga Parizianu.