A girl in the classroom has a banana in her lunch. “How did she get it?” he asks himself. He can smell it all the way across the room. Ever since that moment, he dreams of having a banana. He’s never tasted a banana, and he certainly has never tasted freedom.
Cristian is a 17-year-old boy in Bucharest, Romania, and the year is 1989 in Ruta Sepetys’s novel “I Must Betray You.”
The Iron Curtain hangs like a terrible, brooding guard across Eastern Europe. Cristian’s family slogs through life day by day in their tiny apartment, living their seemingly insignificant lives behind the Curtain.
Jobs, housing, food, heat—and even information—are distributed by the “beloved leader,” but there’s never enough. The family is always hungry, always cold, and always living in the shadows so as not to attract attention—until Cristian attracts the attention of the Securitate.
The one thing he needs to avoid is scrutiny, but he’s suddenly caught in the grip of the Securitate Agent “Paddlehands.” Cristian has foreign currency—an American 1-dollar bill. How did they know?
In that pivotal moment, Cristian is catapulted into the life of an informer. He’s been blackmailed into doing dirty work for the Secret Police in order to pay for treatment for his grandfather’s leukemia.
Is it worth the risk to save his Bunu? Is it worth it to betray everyone he knows and do the one thing everyone despises?
A Grandfather’s Influence
Bunu, Cristian’s grandfather, endures his disease with fierce resolve and plenty of jokes. He’s a free thinker and a philosopher. His influence emboldens Cristian’s resolve on the path he’s forced to take.
Bunu inspires Cristian to write and think beyond what’s legal; he encourages Christian to live with a drive for freedom in spite of the secret police, the vast number of informers, and the countless bugs hidden in every apartment in the country.
The web of deceit is woven wider and wider as Cristian navigates his relationships at home, with his friends, and with his new girlfriend, Liliana. The communists use fear and manipulation to control their subjects, and it works.
Cristian begins to doubt and question everything he knows. Who’s following him? Who’s reporting on him? How does Paddlehands know details of his life that he’s never disclosed?
Meanwhile, Christian himself is guilty of informing on the U.S. ambassador’s son, Dan. While spending time with Dan, Cristian begins to learn more and more about the world beyond the Iron Curtain.
Soon, the Curtain begins to fall, first from his own eyes and then throughout the region—Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria. They’re all freed from the chains of communism. What about Romania? Will the time come when Cristian sees a revolution for freedom?
A Novel That’s Hard to Put Down
I teach my children to study things that they might not agree with. It’s a way of helping them draw stronger conclusions for their opinions and to have more informed views. This is especially helpful when studying world history and politics. There seems to be a growing effort to put a polish on communism lately. This is particularly troubling since we’re just a blip on the timeline from the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early ’90s.
“I Must Betray You” is an addicting and thrilling historical fiction that I could hardly put down. It’s a real page-turner from the first chapter to the very end. Sepetys writes in a way that keeps the reader engaged.
The writing makes you feel as though you’re there, experiencing the plight of the Romanian people in real time. I really enjoyed the evolution of Cristian’s character as he faced numerous challenges in his role as an informer, while trying to preserve his integrity and desire for freedom.
What begins perhaps as a juvenile’s hope that he can deceive and work against the secret police turns into the real development of a young man driven by and toward his convictions.
This book is full of sweet moments between friends, mind-boggling intrigue, and unimaginable heartbreak. Sepetys did a phenomenal job researching this era in history and turning it into a story which readers of all ages can learn from and take courage from.
I would highly recommend this book for ages 15 and up. Parents should preview the book if their child is sensitive to scenes of conflict or war. You will be glad to have this book in your library.
‘I Must Betray You’
By Ruta Sepetys
Philomel Books: Feb. 1, 2022
Hardcover, 336 pages
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