Repressive regimes always want their citizens to feel one thing: fear.
It’s an emotion that’s present from the opening pages of Astronaut! All 8-year-old Lia wanted to do was buy a pretty yellow vase, and before she knows it the angry shopkeeper is marching her home, interrogating her parents about the multi-colored money she paid with when they get there. Lia knows she’s made a serious mistake but doesn’t know what or why. In Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania, there’s little respite from that feeling.
At school, Lia’s teachers are unpredictable and demanding. In the village, neighbors are constantly suspicious that they’re being watched or informed on. Lia’s parents worry for their impulsive daughter when the “prize” for a school contest turns out to be more of a burden than a reward. To top it all off, there are vague stories coming to town from across the country of a string of gruesome deaths. The news trumpets stories of a crazed bear on the loose, or maybe more than one. Huddled in their homes and apartment hallways, people whisper to each other of worse things.
Constantin is one of the police officers assigned to investigate the situation. He’s one of a privileged few to know there’s more going on than the official story tells, but even with clearance and a badge, nobody will tell him everything. Before he knows it, he’s caught in a maddening dance of half-truths, bound by the need to keep his own family safe.
Oana Aristide, who was born in Romania under communist rule, masterfully weaves together the lives of these two protagonists in a story that reads like an imagined version of her own childhood.
Aristide’s fictionalized history of the final days of communism in Romania is often grim. The central police characters are usually depicted muttering curses at each other as their investigation into the murders grinds on. In the office, they drink chicory water, coffee being a rare luxury. And yet, through it all, hope shines in this book. Interspersed with fruitless days in the office, Constantin writes bedtime stories for his young son Sandu in beautiful green ink. Telling those stories each night, he smuggles in lessons for Sandu, encouraging the boy to be independent and free-thinking. Lia takes refuge in multi-colored chalk drawings and memories of candy brought from far away. I’m not sure if Aristide is a Christian, but the lesson of Astronaut! resonates with the words of 1 John 4: “there is no fear in love.”
Through the wisdom of her characters, Aristide shows true courage as an everyday act. One of the book's most endearing characters is the creaky Comrade Mantea, a former university professor whose important connections shield him from the worst dangers his radical activism would otherwise certainly bring.
Waxing poetic to a mostly uninterested Lia, Mantea wishes everyday people could learn the hard work of courage. “In wars, you have to face guns and cannons and soldiers, and the situation is somehow so obviously serious that we mobilise our courage,” he says. “But here, we are supposed to be heroic at our kitchen table, at the factory, on the bus. We are supposed to risk terrible consequences just for saying some perfectly commonsense thing. It never seems worth it.”
In the end, Aristide’s characters find their courage. Good historical fiction should leave readers with the feeling that this is how history could have gone. While the ending isn’t precisely accurate, in some ways it’s true regardless. When even a few people dare to dream, they just might change the world. (W. W. Norton &Company)