Lucky, LeBron, and the Danube (Travel to Galati -- think Galatz, forget the “i”)

If I lived in Galati, I would want to take this walk along the Danube every morning. You descend steps from street level (careful, the cement is invariably fractured in spots – you cannot afford to “blithely” skip down); looking toward the Danube on my left reveals the Macin Mountains in Dobrogea, in the distance. Large public steel and concrete sculptures (think Richard Serra) line the wide path, reminding me of our public sculpture at Cal State, Long Beach, also erected in the 1960s for an art-expo. Some of the pieces look like giant girders dropped from space. Others are more ornate and less “organic.” Plenty of joggers. I’m not sure why everyone on the path is not humming “The Blue Danube,” a waltz – “the” waltz – by composer Johann Strauss, because it’s probably the most famous, dare I say “top of the pops” waltz ever written – I cannot imagine how many films and TV shows should be paying out royalties. Here’s a few familiar occasions: Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (during space travel and space-docking, even over the credits), “The Jungle Book,” “Titanic,” and yes, “Squid Game.” Trust me: you know this waltz.

This walk makes me think I could or should visit the “Poetry Park” near my house every day for my last three weeks here, stroll and sit on a Mihai Eminescu bench, white benches painted with large black texts of his poems. I love the idea of this celebration of poets, even though I don’t have too many kind words to say about Eminescu. He is certainly Romania’s national poet. He demanded strong anti-Jewish legislation in his life (though Wikipedia thinks that’s okay – not kidding). Controversy swirls around his death – did he die from a secondary infection after a blow to the head or from mercury poisoning, then a supposed cure for syphilis? Apparently, his last wish was for a glass of milk. In Romania, there are 133 statues and busts dedicated to Eminescu. There’s also a crater on planet Mercury, which seems a bit ironic.

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My trail seems to be dead ending into a parking lot at a port. I saw two runners approach a set of poles; both touched the pole and turned around. It made me smile because that’s what I do with certain friends on various trails, like the ones at Newport Ridge or the Back Bay; we reach one ending, touch a fence or pole or boulder and go back “from whence we came.” I wish I knew what these shrubs with each branch containing maybe a dozen discrete slim leaves was called. I wish I had taken that botany class. This is part of the period of time — late morning, here — when I get wishful. I can’t talk to anybody from home unless I know they stay up very late. It’s a time I must own for myself.

I am walking back more quickly having photographed every giant piece of public sculpture. It’s more crowded now, a little less peaceful. I see a little squad of ducks. They look like mallards from here, but perhaps they’re not. For some ridiculous reason, I suddenly (poets hate that word but sometimes it’s the one) find myself concerned about our proximity to Ukraine. I don’t know why this just occurred to me. I think that yesterday, Haley told me something about a Russian incursion not into Romania but not far from the border. I don’t know if I purposefully blocked it from my consciousness or just forgot after two Bellinis and dinner, a little roast chicken and sliced potatoes with oregano. (Delicious, but always on the lookout for my Ciorba Raduteana.) So I found my imagination lunging down this terrible path, made phone calls in my head and then nearly slapped myself to shut down this line of thinking. The lapping waves contributed to that project by becoming a little louder. A Romanian friend told me she tires of hearing the NATO planes, which is when I realized that I hear a loud hum frequently in Iasi from my apartment. Having been to the Iasi International Airport many times and watched the “de minimus” arrival and departure board, I imagine that I’ve been hearing the NATO planes, too. Not sure how this makes me feel.

I climb the wide cement stairs and shrug at a swath of graffiti – I would pay people to refrain from bubble-writing, and am not a fan of tagging public art, whatsoever. (Make your own art.) I get ready for the day’s next adventure, a visit to the Galati synagogue. I’ve been told the cemetery is off-limits; it’s been vandalized too many times.

I am reminded of the Elizabeth Bishop poem, “One Art,” a villanelle (French form, just tuck the word away if you don’t know it) that begins with a famous assertion: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” Of course she spends the poem cataloguing losses, small to big, concrete and abstract, and ultimately pretends that losing the beloved is something that can be dealt with, which, of course, it cannot. For some reason I think of this as I approach the Craftmen’s Synagogue, or the Worker’s Synagogue – in Romanian, Templul Meseriasilor. It is the lone synagogue remaining in Galati; before the war there were 22 or 28, depending on your source. I will be meeting Sorin Blumer’s wife, Violeta, outside of the synagogue. Sorin is the president of the Galati Jewish Community. We don’t have community presidents in the United States; we have synagogue presidents (yes, I was one) but no single representative. Perhaps I have never lived anywhere with so few Jews that a lone figure could be tapped to serve.

Here at the templul, I seem to have a spirit cat, a dark grey cat that eyes me and flattens herself beneath the gate that will not admit me. She lingers just under, her tail in full view, as if providing a reminder that being small can be advantageous. I await Violeta. I found Sorin through Maria, a wonderful young woman with a Ph.D. in Archaeology who works for Galati’s Cultural Affairs doing something more important than I do. I found Maria through Margarita, a young woman on the Romanian Jewish Genealogy page on Facebook. Did I ever claim that access was direct and easy here in Romania? Nope. Violeta arrives and opens the iron gate. She is kind, pointing out the kosher restaurant on the premises, a decent-sized room with two long tables. I don’t know when or how often it’s open, but she said it was open regularly, so I’ll go with that. Once we crossed the threshold, three or four cats accompanied us, following us into the restaurant’s anteroom where Violeta doled out dollops of food in a bowl. Violeta pointed to one, and said, Lucky. I asked, her name is Lucky? She nodded. Lucky had been hit by a car and survived. Lucky looked sufficiently sturdy, a striped beauty with green eyes. Lucky, indeed.

Could my family have attended this synagogue? They were workers, were craftsmen – on documents, my grandfather and great-grandfather wrote down “tailor,” though in Canada, my great-grandfather worked as the caretaker of the Romanian-Jewish synagogue that he helped to co-found. Shuey has found the minutes from many of the synagogue board meetings, written in elegant cursive. Said minutes prove that little changes about synagogue life – people disagreeing and arguing about small matters and sometimes larger matters – various bills and practices, strong personalities emerging from the texts. There is always a decision-making body containing someone on the outs and others pulling strings behind the scenes, all with the best intentions: exist, survive, thrive, help others, stay out of harm’s way.

I enter the templul with Violeta; I think of Professor Blumenfeld, the lovely and slightly formidable former department chair at my Romanian university; first name Odette. How many older Jewish women I meet here whose names are anything but biblical – no Rachel or Rebecca, none of the usual suspects from the Hebrew bible. Names trend and reflect common practice, the times, whims. Violeta tells me she speaks no English (while speaking a little English), but speaks French and German, as well as Romanian. She asks if I speak Yiddish and I shake my head and think, why don’t I speak Yiddish? As usual, I am shamed by my limited language skills.

My mother never would have taught me Yiddish – that’s an Old Country language – and I don’t really know how much she spoke though I suspect she understood it well. She once told me a story about her mother-in-law, for whom I am named (Gertrude/Ghitla/Geela/Gitel – Gayle, my middle name). My then-young mother was gardening, getting a little dirty, and apparently, Gertrude and one of her daughters (probably my Aunt Toots – real name Ethel/Etta — my mother would say she was “a piece of work”) commented something like, “She’s young, let her work,” in Yiddish. My mother’s interpretation of this was not positive and she told me, they didn’t think she understood. I could have told them: never underestimate my mother. Funny how these are the moments one remembers – the moments, for better and worse, that have something to teach you, and it’s your lifelong job to figure out what. This is also the work of poetry. What you remember, I tell my students, has something to teach you, because there’s already so much you have forgotten that does not need your attention.

I asked Violeta, do you keep Shabbat at the temple? She said, yes, though I don’t know the frequency and she said there would be some observance for Hanukkah here. (Later, Maria told me much of the small Jewish community’s efforts went toward caring for their elderly.) Inside the foyer, a large plaque referring to the Jewish Federation Joint Distribution Committee, which I imagine is largely responsible for this renovation, along with local and foreign donations. Currently, there are 20 Jews in Galati. Copii? I ask Violeta. (Children?) She shakes her head. In 1930, there were approximately 20,000 Jews here. From a website called Kehilalinks/jewishgen.org: “Before World War II, twenty-two synagogues, a kindergarten, two elementary schools for boys and one for girls, a secondary school, a trade school, a hospital, an orphanage, an old-age home, and two mikvahs served the Jewish community. A cultural-religious society, a Zionist society, a youth organization (Zeirei Zion) and a ‘culture’ club also existed for Galaţi Jewry.” It’s a Catch 22; the Jews still in Galati stay because that is their home, but why would Jews now move there, if they want a community? I am constantly worried that we take our communities for granted. I am getting tired of shaking my head in empty synagogues and overgrown cemeteries.

I realize now that I have not done the work of describing this incredible structure, an imposing building of several stories containing two spacious levels of the womens’ gallery, brightly painted in a baroque style to resemble a theater. Remember “Trompe-l’oeil” from art history class? The optical illusion of making two dimensions look like three? Everywhere here. Those curtains? Not real curtains. Something I have never seen: large, round lightbulbs with names and dates artfully written on the surface. Much prettier than the small plaques we now favor. I wonder how the subtly of modern architecture will age. One would never get bored looking around during services here.

When I am ready to leave the templul, Violeta and I walk toward the gate. The cat who preceded me on entry lingers there. Violeta points at him and says, LeBron. I say: LeBron? And this lovely woman, several years my senior, makes the gesture of shooting a basketball through a hoop.