Transylvania

For 40 years, NATO kept the peace in Europe without firing a single shot in anger. Following the end of the Cold War, this happy state of affairs has come to an ironic end. Since February, 1994, NATO planes have attacked ground targets in Bosnia on average every 60 days. They are at it again now--not, it seems, with any strategic purpose in mind. More because, as at Waco, the authorities have simply lost patience.

A long-stifled argument over the ethnic identity of Transylvania, the vast "land beyond the forest" that has changed nationality three times this century, has erupted into an ominous war of words between Hungary and Romania. Although the conflict so far has been limited to official name-calling and a diplomatic standoff, it is fanning a brush fire of nationalism that could lead to more violence in Hungarian communities that have resisted Romanian assimilation for 70 years.

In a crowded storefront office pungent with the scents of cheap tobacco and unwashed clothes, Istvan and Agnes Magda shuffle dejectedly through a worn sheaf of index cards hawking the hardest of work for the lowest of wages. The ethnic Hungarian couple has fled Romania less than six weeks before their first child is due, leaving behind their families, good jobs, a two-room house and the Transylvanian homeland that was the only life they have ever known.

Hungary's ambassador in Bucharest, Pal Szuts, met with Romanian Prime Minister Petre Roman and disputed a Romanian statement accusing Budapest of inciting ethnic clashes that killed several people in Romania's Transylvania province last week, a Hungarian diplomat said. An official Romanian statement said Roman had urged Hungary "not to complicate the situation through declarations that give Romanians in Transylvania the feeling that they are endangered."

When it comes to Halloween (or any excuse for a party), you can count on Tony Hermann at Newport Beach's Bouzy Rouge to get into the spirit. "Transylvania beckons all yuppie vampires to the Bouzy Rouge next Tuesday night," he declares, claiming he's busy brewing up bat-wing bisque, werewolf tongues and meringue of black widow web. Actually he'll serve a shortened version of his regular menu. But there will be fortunetellers and a gypsy violinist.

Something must have been very wrong with Count Dracula. Why else would a landed nobleman living in a country blessed with richly satisfying cooking have developed a taste for human blood? Worse yet, he made a laughingstock of his Transylvanian homeland. Transylvania (since World War I a part of Romania) is no laughing matter at Hortobagy (hor-toe-bazh) Hungarian restaurant in Studio City. Transylvanian goulash and Transylvanian flekken are prominent on this venerable restaurant's menu.

The Bachelors Ball in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton was, well, sort of unbelievable, and that may have been why, almost without exception, post-ball chat was rating it a 10--one of the best Bachelors balls in years. This was the 84th anniversary fancy dress affair. Members of the prominent organization of young men host the annual party, they say, to pay back social obligations incurred during the year.

Dracula has taken his knocks in recent years. The old bloodsucker has had to endure some pretty silly movies, from "Love at First Bite" (with George Hamilton as a campy cavalier of a count) to an unpardonable array of lousy teen-ager films hooked to the vampire legend. The stage has had its share of Transylvania foolishness too. The Broadway version, with Frank Langella as sort of a batty Lothario, may not have been a strict satire, but it was close.