November 2024

The Oranges

[Born Communist – a self-discovery journal excerpt]

by Alice Ceacareanu

It was late November. Words like “holiday” or “Christmas” were illegal, so people greeted each other by whispering tips like, “They will bring oranges in the blocks!” and then many rushed there. I was about six or seven and knew oranges only grew during winter under a warm blanket of snow. They were also hard to come by because “they” only brought a few at a time. Families would proudly display one orange during the winter season, more as a decoration, much like the winter tree. I do not remember a single family I knew as a child that had more than 4 or 5 oranges in any given winter season. Oranges were rare fruits and the information about which store would get them and when, circulated in select groups only. Some traded what they heard in their neighbor’s home against the Party in exchange for the date and approximate time of the oranges delivery.

People would form waiting lines at stores’ back and front doors. Few knew exactly where to go, most had to gamble bringing family members and scattering them in various waiting lines as placeholders. I was such a placeholder. That day, for many hours, I had to make sure not to lose my spot. About two miles away from home with no money to buy oranges, I just looked around, taking in the chatter of the line packed tightly to keep us all warm. It wrapped around the block using the wall as a wind shelter allowing me a very close inquiry into its weathered crumbling grey. Once on the front of the block, I could peek inside through the store’s glass windows and, on the spot, I decided I should make the most of my opportunity and learn how to sell oranges. So, I paid close attention. The store did not seem to want the crowd inside. Oranges were sold at the front door on a small table with just enough room for a mechanical scale and a bag of oranges. To read that scale, one had to understand metric units. Its white and upside-down triangular display had big bold numbers with several unlabeled lines in between. Now and then, if a buyer asked for more than four oranges, the seller added a one kilogram weight to the opposite arm, and calculating the price got more complicated in those cases. I remember noticing that people expected to pay more than they owed. Nobody had the guts or energy to call the seller out for cheating. There was an unspoken agreement that having to sell for that many hours without a bathroom break justified misreading the scale, even intentionally. Stealing from us was reasonable, and we had to suck it up.

Under the scale was scrap paper and a pencil with unintelligible scribbles, some of them pierced through, covering most of the surface in every direction. The seller would keep arranging the rolling oranges on the scale’s arm to catch the moment when the buyer looked at the oranges and not at the scale. It was right then that the seller would call the weight. They would then look up to an invisible point pretending to sharply compute in mind something the buyer couldn’t, wouldn’t, or simply didn’t want to pay. Under the endorphins of finally “making it at the scale”, one would not say a word. Saying anything would get them kicked out of the line by those eager to pay the “cheating difference” and get an orange or two. They knew they could be shamed for being ungrateful and even beaten because it wasn’t oranges they were buying, it was prohibited holiday joy and all others were willing to pay for that joy whatever asked.

With my forehead glued to the window and my breath condensing rhythmically under my dripping nose, I kept watching how a buyer had to pay quickly to move the line forward and the quickest way to pay was to give the highest bill they had. My brief learning experience made me think that was the worst move as the seller would then loudly complain about how the buyer could not have exact money and how it would require the seller to calculate the change and search for small bills and coins they did not have. It was a replay of another cheating opportunity for the seller who intentionally gave away the small change sooner to create change scarcity and force the round-up on the buyers. People would easily renounce the difference rather than leave without oranges. There was an even more dangerous game to that though. The seller would solicit extra smaller bills and coins promising to give them back larger bills. If the total was 85 and the buyer handed 100, the seller would quickly say they did not have 15 and solicit a 10 to give back a 25 bill instead. That would seem fair, but if the buyer was tired and confused, the seller would ask for 15 to give them 25 and the loss soon escalated. It was a rip-off from all angles. I watched this happening for at least four out of the roughly ten hours I was there. Yet, not knowing whether I’d get to buy oranges or not, most of that time I simply enjoyed taking in as much orange fragrance as I could get.

I was two or three spots away from the scale and worried that I might have to leave without oranges when they called the last box from the back. I saw their shiny and wrinkled peels peeking from wrappers right under my eyes. The lady ahead of me only had money for two oranges because they were bigger. If my grandmother made it at once, I knew for sure there was no way the seller could cheat us as I figured out all his tactics by then. He looked at me knowing that and asked me: “Are you alone?” “She’s with me”, I heard my grandmother’s voice from the side. There were three more oranges and people in the line started to scatter disappointed. Few stayed hoping we wouldn’t have money for all three oranges or we would upset the seller and they could get the oranges instead. I looked at my grandmother thinking: “I’ve been here alone for hours, I am spotless clean, and I can ensure he won’t cheat us. Don’t you dare tell me you don’t have the money!” She looked at me and laughed winking at the seller: “Are you deserving of all three oranges?” she asked. I was dumbfounded. “She is! She is!” I heard the seller right when I was just about to start crying my eyes out. He didn’t cheat, but I felt meaningless and no longer wanted oranges.