Tag #129924 - Interview #78421 (Gavril Marcuson)

I used to go to the Golescu School, the School for Boys no.3. Back then, boys and girls went to separate schools – there were schools for boys and schools for girls, and high schools for boys and high schools for girls. Let me tell you a story from my first day of school [in 1919]. My mother dressed me up nicely, put the newly-bought schoolbag on my back, with the language textbook and the arithmetic textbook (we, the kids, all called it arithmetic) in it, and sent me to school. I had been to school on another occasion, long before that, when my grandfather had taken me to register me, but I had forgotten where the place was. [The school was close from home.] So I took Cazarmii St. to get to school, but I didn’t find it. Time was running out, because I had to be there at 8 a.m. I tried another street, and yet another, but the school was nowhere to be found. I was very shy and didn’t have the guts to stop a pedestrian and ask about the location of the Golescu Elementary School no.3. I just stood like a fool by the sidewalk and was about to cry because I didn’t know where the school was. As I was standing there, now knowing what to do, I saw a man approaching – he was a middle-aged gentleman elegantly dressed and I felt confident about him. It had seemed to me that all the other pedestrians were in a hurry, so I hadn’t dared stop them. So I went to him and timidly asked him whether he knew where the Golescu School was. ‘Come with me, I’ll show you’, he said. So he took me by his side and asked me, along the way, what my name was, what my parents did, what grade I was in. And so, he kept asking questions and I kept giving answers until the school appeared before me. Happy to have found it, I rushed to the gate, but the man stopped me and said ‘Let me go in first, because I’m older, and you’ll enter after me’ So he went through the school’s gate into a courtyard that was full of pupils who were playing. They all gather around me and ask me the same question: ‘Hey, are you Mr. Movila’s son?’ ‘No’, I said, ‘I’m not Mr. Movila’s son!’ A pedagogue soon showed up among us and he got us to our classroom and arranged us in the desks. And guess who enterer the classroom after that? The very gentleman whom I had met earlier. He was the master, Mr. Movila! Even more than 80 years later, it feels like yesterday. I remember him, with the class register under his arm. He came in, got to his desk and told us: ‘Children, I will now call out your names in order. When each of you hears his name, stand up and say «Here». Have you understood?’ We all went ‘Yes!’ So he began to read out our names, and every boy stood up and said ‘Here’; suddenly, I heard him say Marcuson Gavril. I stood up and said ‘Here! But, you know, my name is not Gavril!’ ‘What is it then’, he asked me. ‘My name is Gutu [diminutive form of Gavril], this is how they call me at home!’ To which the master replied: ‘They may call you Gutu at home, but, in the official records, your name is Gavril. And we shall call you Marcuson Gavril. Now sit down!’ And then he addressed the entire class: ‘Children, do you know what Marcuson did? He was supposed to get to school, but he was such an idiot that he missed it!’ There was a terrible laughter. They all laughed at me, and I didn’t know what to do. The master told them the story of me standing by the sidewalk, looking desperate because I couldn’t find the school. From that moment on, my classmates nicknamed me ‘Idiot of the class’. Even in 4th grade, they still referred to me as ‘the one who was such an idiot that he missed the school’.

Mr. Movila, the master, was a composer who was renowned at that time. A while ago, I heard some of his songs played on the radio. His name was Juarez Movila – he had a Spanish first name, a revolutionary’s name. He edited a magazine named ‘Curierul Artelor’ [‘The Arts’ Courier’], and the pupils’ parents – at least the well-to-do ones – had to buy subscriptions. Only 3 issues or so were published – we were subscribers too.