Free Trouble in Transylvania by Barbara Wilson

inserted ourselves back into the tiny car.
    “Witches!” said Jack, perking right up.
    “Yes. The Calvinists were strong here, but the Hungarian state was Catholic. There were many struggles during the Counter-Reformation. Many trials, not against the village wise men, but against the midwives and the boszorkány, the women whose beliefs went back to pagan times.”
    “You see,” said Jack. “I knew this was an area with a lot of energy. The witches were directly connected with the Great Goddess cultures.”
    “I don’t know if you can really call them witches,” I objected. “Most of them were peasant women accused of killing their neighbor’s cow. They were caught up in a general hysteria of hatred directed towards women.”
    “Towards women’s sexuality,” said Jack. “Most of the crimes they were accused of had to do with sex. In the old Goddess religions women’s sexuality was celebrated, but the Catholic church condemned all pleasure in sexuality, and said it came from the Devil.”
    “I hate to remind you,” I said, “but when I took First Communion in the fifties, that was still the general gist of church teaching.”
    “They also accused the women of giving contraceptive aid and performing abortions,” said Eva. “The authorities did not like that the midwives had knowledge of healing and herbs.”
    “I’m telling you,” said Jack, “it’s a sex thing. Men hate and fear women’s sexuality. They use women for sex and then they blame them. The bedrock of male authority is the control of women’s bodies.”
    “You don’t need to convince me,” I said. “I had my revelation thirty years ago when my sister Maureen got pregnant and had to get married.”
    The Stygian crossing took longer than we expected. There were visas to buy and Eva’s car was inspected thoroughly—for contraband, unfortunately, not for engine trouble. Eva didn’t make it any easier with her haughty attitude towards the Romanian guards, and it was not until after eleven that we were back on the road. I offered to drive and Eva got into the back seat and said she’d try to sleep a little.
    “Let’s play a game,” said Jack to me.
    Jack and I, when we’d traveled together and had needed to pass long stretches of time in as lively a manner as possible, had had a number of games. Some of the geographical ones were easy—to recite all the countries in South America and their major cities—and some were more difficult: “If you were traveling from Gambia to Bolivia, which way would you go and how?” or “Say you had to get from Bergen, Norway, to Bombay. Which railways would you use and how long would it take you?” One of our favorite amusements, however, was to name a country and then ask, “If you were going to Brazil and could only take ten things with you, what would they be?”
    Since there were no size or weight limits, we usually started out with quite fantastic objects, for instance an airplane or a gorgeous Portuguese-speaking guide or a portable schoolhouse. Once I’d said, “The British Museum library,” and we’d had a quarrel about whether that included the books. But gradually we’d reduce the number of things we could take with us. “If you could only take five things,” and “If you could only take two things.”
    By the time we were down to the essentials I usually opted for either a Swiss Army knife or a large supply of insect repellent, while Jack almost always chose ear plugs or a foam pad. “Because if I don’t get my sleep, I really can’t cope.”
    “Say you’re going to Romania,” said Jack. “What’s on your ten list?”
    “A good French bistro, a vegetable shop, a petrol station …” I ended up with: “and a garlic necklace of course.”
    “Just in case…”
    We drove through Romania’s Western Marches and passed through Cluj. Like all the Transylvanian cities it had three names. It was once Klausenburg, founded by Germans from Saxony seven hundred years ago. The