After I moved from my nice apartment in Burnaby, I put my furniture into a storage facility and moved in with my daughter into a house on Capitol Hill. It was on the border or Burnaby, overlooking Burrard inlet.
I had a small room in which I lived a very short time. During this time I had my nose operation, in which an Iranian Doctor straightened out my nose partition, to enable me to breathe better. Also, he took cartilage from my ear and implanted it into the "floppy" nostrils. But he made a mistake, or so I thought, and put all the cartilage into one nostril, my left one, and there is up to now a bump to be felt and the nose is not quite even.
It took about one week to heal and it was not a good time. One day I arranged to see the specialist by phone, and when I went outside in a hurry, I thought, oh maybe I catch the bus on the other side, and I went an unusual route to the bus stop. When I came around the corner of the street where my daughter lived, whom do you think I saw, heading straight towards me? Monica Ceausescu!
As soon as she saw me, she bent over and started to open her boot laces and then tied them again. After that the other foot. Then she opened the first boot again and retied it, then repeated the second boot. I was standing there watching her and could not figure it out what she was doing. After she started on the third round, I passed her and went to my appointment. Then I saw her straightening her back and walk on the meridian of the boulevard in the deep grass, down the hill, passing my daughter's house.
Much later I learned, that in STASI (East German CIA) communications this means "Abort plan in favour of the security of the organization".
When I came home, in the evening, I made soup for the family. We ate it and became sick. I took some time to check the house thoroughly and found, that all my possessions - that were not many, since everything was in storage - had been sprayed with pesticide. The window was manipulated and I saw that Monica's people had been inside the house. I told my daughter about it. She told me not to worry, I was safe now.
The next day I threw up the breakfast and I knew that I had to do something. I checked the fridge thoroughly and found the milk tasted strange and everything in the fridge had been treated. Also the salt had a fine powdery residue, that it did not have before. The tomatoes did not look right and were extremely soft, the fruit had small pricks and juice was running out of them. The cutting board looked stained when I had left it clean. The oven had a strange smell. I knew the Romanians had been in there and poisoned everything, the whole kitchen, the cutlery, the dishes, the pots, the toothpaste, the sofa cushions.
When my daughter came home at night and I told her about it, she said nothing and proceeded to make dinner with the contaminated things. Luckily I had replaced the salt. She said I imagine things, but she did not use the tomatoes, and they went bad and were discarded later in the week. I did not dare eating dinner.
After one week, I saw a strange note on a lamp post one street down. It read:
Friends and Neighbours!
Nice couple from East Europe
40/35 years old, working,
is looking to rent 2 bedroom apartment
or basement on ...... (my daughter's street).
Please call this number.....
The way it was worded, I could see the Romanian accent. I just thought of how they had moved to Burnaby, right opposite me, within a month. I told it to my daughter. I urged her to have the salt analyzed. Or some clothing or bed linen.
The next morning she told me she had arranged with one person, who worked also in the lab at the hospital, to analyze some of my stuff. She told me to choose one thing that I want analyzed, and she would drive me there. I chose a pillow case and said ok.
We walked into some building near Royal Columbian Hospital, and the Receptionist Nurse asked my daughter my name and my date of birth. I said that I can speak for myself, and that I just want to talk to the guy in the lab. The nurse continued to talk above my head to my daughter, and then she called someone to make an intake, and I knew this was not good, and I turned and started walking out. She cried stop, you can't walk out of here, you are certified. I had no idea what certified meant, but kept walking and called back to her "try to stop me".
At the door I began to run, and ran around the house in a different direction, and hid myself between some tractor trailers, then later went back to where my daughter's car was parked. There came my daughter.
She asked me why I was running away, and I said "Did you not see that they wanted to keep me there? They think I am a mental patient" Then I said "Let's go home now." And she said "ok".
When we were driving, I told her we have to go into the other direction and she said :"Oh there is a huge congestion, we just turn later that way".
We came nearer the place I ran from, and when my daughter used her blinker to make a right turn into the parking lot, I told her to stop the car right now to let me off.
She said: "ok, but not here". I said: "right here or I jump off the driving car". She did not stop but had to slow down because of the on ramp. I opened the door and jumped off, and started running. When I was at a safe distance, with a sobbing voice I called back to her "traitor child".
I could not believe she did that to me. My world was shattered. I felt like going to Patullo Bridge and jumping down. Then again Patullo was never my first choice to jump from. Slowly I stopped crying and calmed down. I walked the streets, knowing that I was homeless. I did not know what to do. I had nothing but my handbag and the clothes on my back. In the evening, after much walking, I found a phone booth and called my friend, and told him I have to come see him. He said:"ok, come".
I went by skytrain and bus to see him, and stayed the night. I did not tell him I was going to stay another night. Slowly, slowly he started asking me what happened and I told him the story. "It's ok", he said "that was not nice of her, don't talk to her anymore, you can stay here for a while".
This is how I ended up in my friend's apartment on the 3rd floor of a hirise building in the West End of Vancouver.
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