When she heard that Mara was returning home, she composed a very careful letter to Gheorghe Pauker. She was cautious, not knowing who might actually see the letter; there might be a wife – Zoia rather hoped there was – or the letter might be opened by a branch of the Securitate. Some people said the Securitate operated censorship. Zoia had no idea if this was true, but it was very likely that a Politburo official such as Pauker would be subject to surveillance. So she reminded him of their brief acquaintance at the time of the Black House’s closure. She was sure he would remember her, she wrote, they had had such a very interesting conversation about Elena Ceauescu and she had never forgotten what he had said about their leader’s wife. She smiled as she wrote this, knowing that no matter how drunk Pauker had been that night, he was unlikely to have forgotten what he’d said about Elena Ceauescu. Zoia did not spell it out. She merely said his words that night had given her much food for thought.
