Visit to Codlea Prison
Today I got a Roma with a car to take me to see my father. He's in the Codlea prison. It was not such a scary place as I thought it might be. I told them that he was my uncle, but they didn't have a record of him having niece. I sure wasn't going to tell them that I was his fugitive daughter. They had to talk to him first. He'd never had a visitor. Been in prison three years and no visitor. He's in for life, or at least that's what I thought.
At first I didn't recognize him. We were in a room with a bunch of people, and then he just walked in like it was the most usual thing. I didn't know what to say. He thought I was someone one else. Then he grabbed me and hugged me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I came to see you, Papa," I said.
"My goodness, ChaCha, I never thought I'd see you again." He had tears in his eyes. He used to call me "ChaCha". "Where's your mother?"
"I don't know, Papa," I said, and then I started to cry. I wish he hadn't asked about Mother.
We sat in two chairs facing each other. He held my hands. His were rough. "I've been working in the prison garden," he said. "We grow vegetables and get some of the money. What's in the box?" he asked.
"I brought you something, Papa," I had bought him a new pair of shoes, a pair of pants and shirt, some under clothes. He cried harder. "How did you know what I needed?" he asked.
"Everybody needs clothes," I said.
I wouldn't tell him that I was staying with a band of Romas. He kept asking, but I just said, "With a family." Finally he quit asking.
He said he got one letter from my mother, and that he'd written to her but she hadn't written back. He gave me the address. My father is an educated man. He has a couple of years of college. Many people in Romania do, but there are no jobs.
"They told me I might be able to get out in another fifteen years." he said. "They are reviewing my case."
"They better not look too close," I said. My father did a bad thing in killing a man. He says it was just an argument gone wrong, that he was defending himself. Still, he killed a man who had money, and the system turned on him. But the government doesn't like to keep people in prison. It costs too much. So maybe some day he will get out.
We talked for a half hour and then he had to go back.
He was sheepish about the shoes and clothes. "You've become the parent," he said to me. I had a strange feeling all the way back to the Gypsy camp, like I'd done something important.
I don't feel at home here in the Roma camp any more. Makes me wish I hadn't seen him. Now I want my family back. I want to see my mother. Her being gone hadn't bothered me in a long time, but now I want to see my mother. I was almost feeling like a grown person, but now I feel like a little girl again.
