Romania Reminescences 4

A New Abode

Ben lugged his luggage from the taxi onto the pavement before the entrance to the block of flats that was from now on to be his new temporary abode. He turned and yelled to the cab driver, ‘Multumesc! See you later.’ Then, he turned back to survey what lay before him. He reflected on the fact that he was finally here to sit on his throne as the prince of....well, Crângași!

He had waited and speculated much time about what it would be like to spend some time in this most mysterious, but intriguing of places. The moment had arrived to find out. He moved with some difficulty, due to the weight of his baggage, to the entrance of the building before him. The instructions that he had received beforehand from his host were to type 0 followed by the flat number into the ‘domafon' (he figured this must be some sort of device at the entrance of the flats to use to contact the residents of a particular flat and alert them to your presence waiting to be let in to enter the building and, as he was about to find out, it was) and then finally to press ‘c'.

As he approached the entrance, he saw that his passage into the building was blocked by an industrial-strength metal door. It was foreboding and Ben thought sufficient to warn off intruders, at least any English ones. To the left hand side, he spied what he thought must have been the ‘domafon'. He followed the given instructions typing 0-28-c and waiting. The ‘domafon' started ringing. He had seen such devices before, although usually with a simple button to press for each address. This was a more general style for high rise blocks of flats. He wasn't used to such devices, but how hard could it be?

After a number of rings, a voice responded, ‘Cine?’.

Even if he hadn't understood the Romanian, which incidentally in this case he did, it was obvious from context what was being said.

‘Sunt eu, Ben din Anglia’, was his well-rehearsed response.

‘Cine?’, said the voice once more.

‘Ben din Anglia'.

‘Cine? Nu înțeleg. Vorbești mai tare’.

Ben felt a wave of disappointment come over him as he realised that his Romanian obviously wasn't cracked up to be what he thought it was.

‘Stii, Eu sunt din Anglia. Eu vine in vizit. Eu am vorbit stai la voi,’ he said mustering all his Romanian speaking prowess.

This was followed by a silent pause. Either the person on the other end was overwhelmed by his Romania speaking abilities or he had said something wrong.
He was getting worried, but after a while, he heard the door buzz. He hesitated, wondering what this meant, but then suddenly it dawned on him this must be the moment to enter. He hurried forward but was hindered by his luggage. Just as he put his hand on the door handle the buzzing stopped. Hopefully, he tried to yank the door open, but to no avail. It remained firmly shut. So, conquering said metal door was evidently going to be more challenging than he had initially thought.

He stood for a while contemplating what to do. He didn't fancy another ‘domafon' conversion, but how else was he going to get in?

He spent a moment composing himself before typing the number into the ‘domafon' when all of a sudden a burst of inspiration hit him. He could just wait for someone to come out of the building and when the person opens the door he could burst in like Mr Bean when he was stuck in a car park without a ticket for the barrier blocking his exit.

Ben took up his position, and waited for his moment to pounce like a lion hidden in the undergrowth waiting for an unexpecting bison to pass by. Sure enough, he didn’t have to wait long before he heard a click and the door began opening. Ben startled forward in an attempt to gatecrash the opening door. However, his English pleasantries overtook him and he hesitated in his approach towards the door. He wasn't accustomed to barging over others. This allowed the victim to advance her exit through the door and suddenly it was too late. The middle aged lady who was coming out already had her foot through the door and there was no stopping her now. Ben did the gentlemanly thing and stepped to one side to allow her to pass. Stealthily though, and quite inspirationally he thought, he looked at her confidently as if he knew what he was doing and as she passed by he whipped out his hand and caught the handle of the door before it began to close. He was thus able to manoeuvre himself and his things in through the door, allowing it to close behind him. He was in! In a foreign land, even simple tasks like entering buildings can be a challenge, he thought riley to himself.

He moved forward into the building with some trepidation. It looked just as foreboding as the doorway. An old-communist affair with worn stone steps and a plethora of dull, creaking metal boxes with flaps, strewn across the wall to the right of the entrance, which Ben assumed were to save the postman from having to penetrate too deeply into the building. He himself wasn't too keen on penetrating further, but he had no choice.

After lugging his things up the first few welcome steps he stopped by the lift. A small mercy that there was a lift, however it turned out to be by far the most foreboding aspect of all. Nothing at all about the lift conveyed reassurance. The doors were old and creaky. The button to call the lift looked like it was a remnant from Star Trek (the original series). When he pressed the down button a whirring sound began that wouldn't have been out of place in an old James Bond film as the archvillian prepares to reveal to Bond his latest weapon to destroy the world.

Eventually, the lift arrived and it's doors pinged open, inviting Ben to enter. Reluctantly, Ben did so dragging his bags with him. On the door it said the lift could take ‘6 Persoane' and judging by the people Ben had seen around and about as his taxi brought him to this address, malnutrition wasn't a common problem in this place. Thus, Ben himself being only half the size of many of the people he had seen, figured that even with his luggage he was only putting the equivalent wait into the lift of maybe one and a bit or at most two people.

As the doors of the lift closed behind him, Ben surveyed the lift's floor. He began to wonder if, when it said 6 people that was taking into consideration the fact that the its floor was partially dislodged and hanging freely, so much so that you could see through the gap into empty space. Surely, this would reduce the safe weight capacity?

Summing up all his courage though, Ben took a deep breath and reached out to press button 4, his floor number. The lift mechanism whirred once more into action and the lift started moving upwards. Now, there was no turning back.