Astronaut! is a satirical police procedural and coming-of-age story set in the final months of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship in 1989 Romania. At the centre of the story are Constantin, a weary police detective, and Lia, a rebellious schoolgirl. Both have to navigate their daily lives in a totalitarian police state. The paranoia is worsened by a string of unexplained murders.
The plot is split into two main threads. Constantin prefers telling made-up fairytales to his young son, Sandu, each night rather than filing police reports. He is trapped in a constant moral struggle within a corrupt system, tasked with an important investigation while being set up to fail by his superiors and forced to swallow their lies.
The second thread follows Lia, who refuses to submit to any form of authority, especially a school system that demands total conformity. She calls her teacher Comrade Cauliflower because of her oddly shaped hair and notices that the world is gradually losing its colour – an idea perpetuated by their black and white TV that only shows propaganda. Lia draws a picture of a space traveller and labels it ‘Astronaut’ and refuses to change it to ‘Cosmonaut’ despite her teacher’s insistence on Soviet terminology.
When she wins a national drawing contest she earns a chance to meet the Dear Leader, she sees this as an opportunity to ask him why all the colours are disappearing from the world. Lia can’t help getting herself into trouble and her parents live in a constant state of panic, terrified that she will say something that leads to their arrest. Their fear grows when she befriends an elderly Comrade Mantea, an elderly neighbour who is an academic opposed to the Ceaușescu regime.
Meanwhile, Constantin is assigned to investigate the murder of a carpentry teacher at a picnic site. The body has no bullet or knife wounds, just deep gashes to the chest. Word soon spreads of similar murders across the country, including a priest in a spa town and an elderly hiker in the mountains. There is no trace evidence to work from and toxicology reports come back empty. There is no indication of sexual violence and not a single fingerprint is found. There are also no credible witnesses.
The supporting cast includes Titus, a coroner who looks like an older Kojak and revels in making his students squirm during autopsies; Vasile, a somewhat dimwitted police officer; and Davidescu, the nonchalant police boss. When they stop reporting the crimes on television, Davidescu comments that it is only 20 dead people out of 20 million, adding that they lose more than that to wasps.
Stopping the killer clearly isn’t a priority. At the first murder scene, Vasile writes down the wrong location. Although Constantin corrects him, Davidescu insists they leave the error, as it will make their lives easier. Davidescu fears that the news of a serial killer will put too much pressure on the police force. When Vasile suggests blaming the deaths on a bear, the narrative is set.
To complicate matters, a travelling circus happens to have lost a bear near the first murder site. Ceaușescu himself is also in the area as part of a hunting party and becomes convinced that one of the grizzlies he imported from America has escaped or has been captured by the enemy to use against him.
This is a world devoid of colour and individuality, from the weather to the near-identical décor of people’s houses. Even the shops run out of coloured crayons. Every friend or family member is a potential informant and no one can be trusted. However, the fables Constantin tells his son serve as a way to explain the world around them while adding much-needed whimsy. The clarity with which Lia sees things does the same. At first, her observations seem naive, but she is more observant than anyone gives her credit for.
Astronaut! finds pockets of warmth and humour in a cold setting and a troubling time in Romania’s history. It’s an absurd story set in a world of rationing, propaganda and repression on one hand, and bizarre news flashes about a man-eating bear on the other. Its dry, satirical and dark tone highlights the absurdities of totalitarianism while balancing the narrative with a police procedural.
Also check out the excellent HBO Romania television series Spy/Master.
Wildfire
Print/Kindle/iBook
£8.49
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
