Written By
Ted Nicolaou
During the Making of Subspecies
September – December 1990
NOV 17 — Sat — The phone on the nightstand rings at 8:30 AM, waking me from a restless sleep.
“Hello,” I croak.
“Ted?”
“Yes.”
“Ted?”
“Who is this?”
“Sleep?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Luminita.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go, Luminita. Goodbye.” I set down the receiver.
I have to get up and pack my stuff for the trip back to Bucharest. Before we leave, I’m meeting Vlad and his camera crew to shoot a few atmosphere shots at Rasnov we’ve been hoping to pick up. I pack my bags and jump in the shower.
There’s a knock at my door.
“Who is it?”
No answer. Just another knock. I turn the tap on full and wait for hot water. There’s another knock, louder this time.
“Who is it?”
No reply. More knocking, louder and louder.
“Who is it?” I yell. “I’m in the shower!!!”
I hear her voice.
“Luminita.”
My heart starts pounding - not with ardor - but with a sudden fear she’ll get the maid to unlock the door, rush in and kill me with a witchy jeweled dagger. “If I can’t have you, no one can.” Thankfully she stays out in the hallway, pacing back and forth outside my room for a really long time.
I go down to breakfast before heading out with Vlad and his crew. Luminita’s waiting in the lobby to kiss me goodbye.
We shoot some final landscape shots at Rasnov fortress and head back to the hotel for lunch before we take off for Bucharest.
Over lunch, Oana tells me a story told to her by Mara, the actress playing Rosa. I was very apologetic to Mara last night. We’ve called her to Brasov from Bucharest three times now and barely shot with her at all due to our scheduling complications. But according to Mara our film seemed super organized compared to the Russian co-production she just finished working on. With the Russians, everyone — cast and crew — were drunk all the time. One actor she had a scene with was so drunk it took three days of shooting before he nailed his two lines of dialogue. The Russians would run out of liquor, go into the actresses’ dressing rooms, steal their perfume and drink it mixed with mineral water. When there was no perfume to be had, they’d drink rubbing alcohol, or spread shoe polish on bread like it was butter, and eat it.
We take the Wild Ride back to Bucharest. Michelle, Laura, Anders and I in Viorel’s Mercedes, John Lennon, Dire Straits, Benny Goodman on the stereo. Former race car driver Viorel speeding around mountain curves, slamming on the brakes to avoid collisions, hitting the gas so hard your neck snaps. The Wild Ride always makes me carsick. And the roadside shrines whizzing by make me pray to the god I don’t believe in to please please get me home safe after all this is over.
By late afternoon we’re in Bucharest at Hotel Flora — our home for the next few weeks.
Like other fancy hotels in Bucharest, it’s grandiose, brutalist, weirdly decorated, hazy with cigarette smoke, and so dark from the shortage of light bulbs you feel like you’re going blind.
Bu the lobby is filled with people. There’s a wedding in the ballroom, people dressed up, music and dancing. Life that we didn’t experience in Poiana Brasov. Compared to the people around us we’re dressed like tramps. There are signs throughout the hotel proclaiming: NON-STOP YOUTH. It sounds like the slogan of some hip underground youth scene, which lifts our hearts, but upon closer examination of the posters, and exploration of the hotel, we realize NON-STOP YOUTH is a slogan for GEROVITAL treatments, the original Romanian anti-aging formula. That’s when we start noticing the nurses gliding by carrying trays of serums and hypodermic needles.
We’re hungry, so we head to the restaurant and sink into the hard-bottomed red velour seats.
I’m already missing Poiana Brasov, and starting to think we had it pretty good there.
We order chicken ciorba (soup), and are pleased to find no bones in the brew, only juicy morsels of white meat in a pleasantly creamy and sour broth. The salad’s pretty tasty, with lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes. Encouraged, we order some chicken to do a serious comparison of city versus Transylvanian poultry. When our plates arrive, we stare at them in disbelief. The scrawniest drumsticks connected to puny little thighs, and nothing more. All the white meat went into the ciorba. Or possibly to the fancier guests. We pick at the bones in disappointment.
By 10 PM, the teeming life of the hotel lobby is fading fast. We explore, checking out the pool, the Gerovital treatment centers, the closed dollar shops, the bar that’s closing, starting to realize this might not be the city life we’ve been dreaming of.
Anders, Keith and I decide to take a cab to the Hotel Intercontinental to check it out and have a beer. We get there, but the doorman won’t let us in, telling us it’s closed.
We walk to the Athenee Palace, a more historic hotel with a basement cabaret that features a weird floor show: magic act, Romanian songbirds, contortionists, and a goofy Batman dance number that Ion brought me to see at the start of preproduction. We try to talk our way in the door without reservations but the doorman refuses us. We walk to the Hotel Bucurest, another modern hotel on the boulevard, and feel encouraged by the brightly lit lobby. We head for the lobby bar and order beers, but the bartender tells us the bar is closed, and he won’t even accept some extra dollars for beers. He tells us we can buy 3 beers for 5 dollars at the desk, but the lady at the desk tells us she has no beer, to go to the snack bar, but the snack bar door is just being locked as we approach. We give up, hail a cab and head back to the Flora.
Another Saturday night, searching for fun that keeps slipping away like a mirage. You know there’s some kind of action out there in the night, but maybe it’s not for foreigners like us. We’re in Bucharest now, without Vlad and Oana or our interpreters in our midst, suddenly on our own in a suspicious and sinister city.
Thanks for reading. Please hit the “like” button, tell your friends, and come back for more.
Ted Nicolaou
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