36 The objective.

Mugur was a teenager who became the center of a police state manhunt.

The surveillance files associated with Mugur’s case were titled “THE STUDENT” and “PANOUL.” The “objective” was Mugur.

The transcripts of bugged phone conversations between his mother and her sister reveal the simultaneity of terror and absurdity in a totalitarian state.

[I track the frequency of certain words across Carmen Bugan’s books. There is a book behind this one. There is always another book waiting inside the book one is writing.]

The source was the informer or collaborator surveilling the objective. Official informers provided regular information, usually in writing, and had a false name, often used to sign end Angajament, or Engagement contract. The collaborator was more of a casual informer, often someone who was trying to buy themselves out of a problem. Each of these persons collaborated creatively in the authorship of the literary genre known as the surveillance file.