Winter evening became winter night beyond the windows of our train. The train passed through mountains as jagged as rotten teethwhether they were the Fagaras Range or the lower Bucegi Carpathians, I could not remember right then and the dismal sight of huddled villages and sagging farms faded to blackness broken only by the occasional glow of oil lamps through distant windows. For a second the illusion was perfect and I thought I was traveling through these mountains in the fifteenth century, traveling by coach to the castle on the Arges, hurrying through these mountain passes in a race against enemies who would . . .

I realized with a start that I had almost dozed off. It was New Year's Eve, the last night of 1989, and the dawn would bring what was popularly thought of as the last decade of the millennium. But the sight out the window remained a glimpse of the fifteenth century. The only intrusion of the modern age visible in the evening departure from Timisoara had been the occasional military vehicle glimpsed on snowpacked roads and the rare electric cables snaking above the trees. Then those slim talismans had disappeared and there were only the villages, the oil lamps, the cold, and an occasional rubber-wheeled cart, pulled by horses who seemed more bone than flesh, guided by men hidden in dark wool. Then even the village streets were empty as the train rushed through, stopping nowhere. I realized that some of the villages were totally dark, even though it was not yet ten P.m., and leaning closer, wiping frost from the glass, I saw that the village we were passing now was deadbuildings bulldozed, stone walls demolished, farm homes tumbled down.

“Systematization,” whispered Radu Fortuna, who had appeared silently next to me in the aisle. He was chewing on an onion.

I did not ask for clarification, but our guide and liaison smiled and provided it.