TWO ADVANTEROUS STORIES ABOUT RETURNING STOLEN KIDS

So, first to Arad. But my guy from Vrsac tells me that taking into consideration that he is now a taxi driver in a foreign country, I should better take a Romanian taxi to Arad. I somehow dislike that, I am scared to be without him, and he finds me a solution with a Romanian colleague driver who would go in front of us for 20 German marks and we would follow him. First, we leave to Temisoara railway station, so that I buy tickets for Arad-Budapest train. However, there I found out that foreigners can only buy tickets at one place in the city, and not at the station. The Romanian taxi goes first, and we follow it. Here we are at that place. I enter, marble gall, marble pillars, a counter on the first floor, as high as my nose. I hop to see the clerk. I answer a number of questions: who I am, what I do, why I am in Romania, why I go to Hungary. The tickets are written by hand, for hours, slowly. I pay with German marks, and I start to feel a new kind of fear, paranoia; I feel uncertain, as if I am guilty of something. The clerk, ice cold, no smile, finally hands me the two tickets. I leave for Arad. Works on the road, everything is slow, nobody dares to say anything, a lot of police. Strange. The only support is the yellow Dacia in front of us, with the Romanian taxi driver who waves and smiles friendly from time to time. We arrive to Arad around two hours before the train leaves. The station is in the centre of the city, but the tax driver tells us how he took us the longer way. Later, at the restaurant, I would find out that he is an English language teacher, that he has a wife, a ballerina who works in a show factory, and a seven-year old daughter, that they live hard in Romania, but he would say all of this in a beautiful, fluent English, with a smile, a proof that life finds its way well and gracefully even where it is destroyed. He tells us that he took us to the station following a longer way, but also along beautiful streets, through a line of neglected Ugric beauties, between the tree lines with some golden, cinnamon color. Not a single unlocked toilet at Arad station, in the restaurant, you won’t believe me, nothing but vodka in a cardboard package, like a children’s juice, with a straw! There is no water, because there are no glasses. Some kid sold us several cans of Coca-Cola. We sat down. I feel the Romanian taxi driver is ashamed and embarrassed. I told him that I would always remember his birth city for its beautiful long street that we passed. He laughs and feels a bit better. Leaving, he kisses Dora’s and my hand. So, our Vrsac taxi driver, whose name I forgot to ask and dad leave us at platform numbe one, because we don’t know how late the train will be and both taxi drivers want to go back home. I look at dad, I see his fear and I don’t know how to calm him down. The taxi driver will return him to Vrsac, he promises me that, since it would already be nighttime when they arrive, he would stay at his place and the next day he would take the bus to Belgrade. “By the time you’re home”, I tell him, “we’ll already be in Amsterdam, don’t warry and take care”. And so, Dora and I remain alone, confused and scared, I admit. We must not fall asleep in the train, the taxi driver from Vrsac warned us, because the thieves would take your shoes from your feet in that train.