Rock Bottom

Her countrymen hated her, her

children, alcoholic by now,

loathed her. The only one who

loved her was her diminutive

husband because she told him

what a great man he was. It’s

a sad fact: women who do that

often go far.

Born a peasant, Elena had

a peasant’s lumpen body:

wide hips, large ass, and

the animating charm of a

horsefly. This was no shame,

lots of us are ungainly,

but when she fit into designer

clothing in her garish palace

and then put herself on display,

her countrymen laughed as they

starved. “Codoi,”* they called her.

“Worms,” she called them.

“They’re always out for

what they can get.”

And all those abandoned babies!

Deprived of love and touch, they

grew hollow-eyed, festered

like wraiths, tied to beds.

Very difficult to overcome

that lack of attachment.

Insanity grew, sniffing glue

on the streets of Bucharest.

As the Eastern Bloc fell, Elena

met her fate along with her

husband on Christmas Day,

1989. Those who overthrew them

couldn’t stand to give them

more than a short trial, as if

being in the same room was

noxious. As it was, the

Ceaușescus were tied up and

taken out to a courtyard bordering

a privy. Only gunfire stifled Elena’s

curses.

(What must have her childhood

been to produce such a person?

One supposes she absorbed cruelty

and shot it back like an electric eel

shoots current. With her arachnid

eyes, she loved to spy, and suck

one’s essence like a famous

countryman.)

After it happened, everyone, even

former supporters, said they

were glad. It was a Christmas

present to the nation. Unholy

inversion of Jesus’s birth.

Baptism of blood.

But now, given the distance of

decades, given freedom and risk,

some of their countrymen say

they long for the days of Ceaușescu’s

rule. He, Tatặ, and she, Mamặ

—the best leaders Romania

ever had. Maybe they’re saying

this because the present is

uncertain. But one thing is

true: if the Ceaușescus were

the best, I’d hate to see the worst.

*Big tail

About the author

Ruth Rouff is a freelance educational writer living in Collingswood, NJ, USA. Her work has been published in various literary journals, including Philadelphia Stories, Parhelion, New Texas, and The International Quarterly. In 2016, Bedazzled Ink published her collection of poetry and prose entitled Pagan Heaven. The same company will publish her novel Lone Star, based on the life of famed athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias.