“The few words I exchanged with Constantin Gane will remain among my most cherished memories of Zarca”
From the first moments I was in solitary confinement,[1] immediately after the guard left, I tried to make contact with the neighbouring cells. From the right, no sign of life! From the left I got an answer. Every time I knocked on the wall I got an answer, but that was all. My neighbour didn’t try to talk to the wall. Suspecting that he didn’t know the system, I began to move my knocks along the wall, trying to make him understand that he should come to the window. Only after much persistence did I finally hear him open the window.
Thinking at first that the guard was still busy dividing the table at the other end of the corridor, I hurried to open the window as well, jumping up and grabbing the bars. Measuring my voice carefully so as not to be heard all the way to the courtyard, I addressed my neighbour, first telling him who I was, where I came from, and under what circumstances I had reached the floor of the Zarca[2].
He answered me with the trembling voice of an old and suffering man. He began by apologising for not being able to answer my call sooner. He was suffering from severe rheumatism and was finding it very difficult to move, let alone climb to the window. When he told me his name, I was astonished: it was the writer Constantin Gane! At the time of my escape, while I was hiding in the Hariton house, I had just re-read Three Lives of Ladies. The conversation I had with him lasted as long as his strength kept him hanging out of the window.
He was delighted when I told him about his grandchildren, Stefan and Gheorghe Gane, whom I had seen in Bucharest a year and a half ago. When he found out whose son I was, he told me:
– It can’t be that Tilică’s son is not in prison!
At that moment another voice came from another window:
– Boy, am I glad to hear your voice!
The intruder was Radu Gyr! An exchange of holiday greetings followed, then the conversation abruptly stopped. The footsteps of the guard could be heard in the corridor! Constantin Gane had just told us that he was no longer strong enough to stay behind bars. I also thought of the effort Radu Gyr must have made to climb up to the window. A few months earlier, I had seen him carried on Cărămidaru’s back to the doctor.
The few words we exchanged with Constantin Gane, his speech with a Moldavian accent and the charm of that soft, slightly sad voice will remain among my most cherished memories of Zarca. I never had the opportunity to hear C. Gane again, but every morning and evening, while I was in solitary confinement, I greeted him by tapping on the wall and received the same answer.
(Ion Ioanid – Our Everyday Prison, Vol. 2)
[1] The action takes place in Aiud prison on Christmas Eve 1954.
[2] The reason why the memoirist ended up in solitary confinement was because of his protest against the accusation of talking too loudly in his cell.