Iulian Ciocan – Auntie Frosea

By 1989, glasnost and perestroika were familiar concepts to the Soviet citizenry. For some, it indicated transparency and openness as Gorbachev's government sought to integrate at least parts of the superpower's economy, culture and politics with the rest of the world. But for others, Gorbachev was an “American spy”, a harbinger of Soviet doom, a man who would be responsible for the dissolution of an Empire and the destruction of all that the people knew. For others, such as Auntie Frosea in Moldovan author Iulian Ciocan's short story (trans. Alistair Ian Blyth), the loosening of borders comes down to one primary matter – the introduction of foreign soap operas.

"it's starting!" Every passerby was rushing home. Soon the streets were deserted, as at the dead of night. Something out of the ordinary was in the air...With a feeling of foreboding, Auntie Frosea climbed the stairs, her eyes bulging. The handles of her huge, over-laden shopping bags cut into her calloused palms. She shoved open the front door of her apartment with her shoulder and, drenched in sweat, burst into the tenebrous hallway, where shoes, sandals, and boots of varying ages all lay in a heap. Sprawled in an armchair, her husband was goggling at the television screen. On hearing the noise in the hallway, the man yelled, annoyed: “What kept you, woman? Isaura's started!” Auntie Frosea winced: she had missed some precious moments in the never-ending drama of Isaura the Slave Girl! All of a sudden she felt real resentment toward her husband, a malice such as she had never experienced in all their long marriage. She looked at the man with muted hatred.

Isaura the Slave Girl becomes an obsession for Auntie Frosea. She lives vicariously through the characters, loving who they love and hating the dastardly villains of the television programme. She becomes enamoured with the exoticism of this Brazilian soap, entranced by the colours and sounds of this faraway land. Auntie Frosea takes some time to realise that part of what she so dearly loves about the television show is that, unlike her own city, Isaura the Slave Girl is colourful where her home and surrounds are gray and drab.

The attraction of soap operas as an escape from the drudgery of one's life has long been known and capitalised upon by its creators. Australian soaps become popular in Australia when they hew to its broad middle class base – elitism, wealth, and poverty are generally frowned upon and thus, don't exist in our soaps. In England, however, where Australian soaps are very popular, they are enjoyed because our sun, beaches, tans and relaxed nature is a positive juxtaposition when compared with the dullness of English weather. Similarly, for us Australians, the brash, arrogant, ostentatious and flashy lives of Americans are, for whatever reason, appealing, and thus the draw and lure of soaps and sitcoms set in Los Angeles and New York remain strong. We like to ourselves in our television shows, but we like to see others more. The grass is greener, at least when it comes to trash television. Through Auntie Frosea we witness the growing obsession of the townsfolk for the television show:

Auntie Frosea kept thinking all day about the choices Isaura was going to have to make. While trying to guess the intentions of the unhappy slave girl, she forgot all about making supper. Then, when she remembered and started bustling about the kitchen, her mind wandered and she burned the steaks. Tired and hungry, her husband got home shortly before Episode Fifteen was about to start – an episode that promised to be enlightening in many respects. He quickly went to the kitchen, saw the charred meat in the pan, and started screaming his lungs out: “Where's my goddamn dinner, you stupid bitch?”

Ciocan's characters are in love with the exoticism of Isaura the Slave Girl for two reasons. The first, for all concerned, is the exuberance and colour of Latin America. It's different to the Moldovan landscape and thus appealing. The second is more personal to Auntie Frosea. She sees, in these wild, raucous characters, people utterly unlike herself, compelling individuals with difficult problems who, for whatever reason, are unable to solve their problems and unable to provide themselves with a better life. She knows that, were she in the same situation, the problems would be resolved readily, and that she could live happily ever after. When one of the main male protagonists is killed on the television show, Auntie Frosea is distraught because, if she were Isaura, then none of this would have occurred. Her husband has to tell her that the man and the actor are separate, but she refuses to listen.

And why should she? It's easy to solve the problems of others, and easier still to solve the contrived difficulties of characters maneuvering through a plotted narrative. What Auntie Frosea doesn't realise, however, is that her problems are in fact a mirror of Isaura's. Ciocan goes to great lengths to parallel Auntie Frosea with Isaura, though these parallels exist below the trappings of the characters, and are thus missed by Auntie Frosea. Isaura is a slave – I am not! Isaura is unhappy in love – I am not! Isaura has no future, and will fall into traps time and again – I have a future, and I will not fail! Unfortunately, Auntie Frosea will, because the system she inhabits has gone rotten, its lasts flailings holding back the inevitable collapse. Auntie Frosea is a slave, but because her chains are invisible, she forgets they are there.

And so Auntie Frosea was content. When she thought about the lives of Isaura, Maria, and Leticia, and then about the lives of the female characters in the other Latin American soap operas, Auntie Frosea saw the truth: she was outrageously lucky.

This “outrageously lucky” woman is also exceptionally poor, unhappy whenever she is not watching her television show, increasingly estranged from her husband, and devoid of a meaningful future beyond continuing to work until she keels over dead. But she doesn't see these things, and thus they are not true. Her eyes are directed, instead, towards Isaura's problems, which she can see, and to which she has all the time in the world to devote her attention to solving.

Ciocan understands the seduction of exoticism and television, and he knows that people in bad situations will hide these truths from themselves while funnelling their efforts in ultimately fruitless directions. Auntie Frosea has blinded herself to her own situation while actively (and loudly) becoming entangled within that of others. She (and others like her – and there are many such) is worse than the town gossip because at least the gossip's focus is directed toward their community. Auntie Frosea has abdicated her civic responsibility and has become content to “improve” the lives of others while ignoring her own plight. Ciocan's final sentence is a stab in the heart of such complacency and highlights the immense lengths to which a person will fool themselves into believing they are better than others, all because the “others” life is on the television screen and easy to criticise, and theirs is not.

Auntie Frosea by Iulian Ciocan is a short story from the Dalkey Archive Press' anthology, Best European Fiction 2011

See Also

Other stories from the Dalkey Archive Press' anthology, Best European Fiction 2011, include:
---United Kingdom: Welsh: Roberts, Wiliam Owen - The Professionals
---United Kingdom: British: Mantel, Hilary - The Heart Fails Without Warning
---Turkish: Üldes, Ersan - Professional Behaviour
---Swiss: Stefan, Verena - Doe a Deer
---Spanish: Catalan: Ibarz, Mercé - Nela and the Virgins
---Spanish: Castilian: Vila-Matas, Enrique - Far From Here
---Slovenian: Jančar, Drago - The Prophecy
---Serbian: Arsenijević, Vladimir - One Minute: Dumbo's Death
---Russian: Gelasimov, Andre - The Evil Eye
---Romanian: Teodorovici, Lucian Dan - Goose Chase
---Portuguese: Tavares, Gonçalo M. - Six Tales
---Polish: Tokarczuk, Olga - The Ugliest Woman in the World
---Norwegian: Grytten, Frode - Hotel by a Railroad
---Netherlands: Uphoff, Manon - Desire
---Montenegrin: Spahić, Ognjen - Raymond is No Longer with Us – Carver is Dead

Index of titles by The Dalkey Archive Press under review

Index of short stories under review

Reviews

David J. Single