Sara. Love Me Three Times.

by Anda Cadariu
*translated and adapted from Romanian by the author

Table of Contents:

Foreword
Sara - Prologue
One. Mihai – Up There
Two. Silviu – Down There
Three. Andrei – Midway Here
Sara - Epilogue

2
 People are strange
When you're a stranger.

The Doors

Words live longer than deeds.

Pindar

And the violence

Causes silence.

The Cranberries

3
 For Free

- a short millenial story about money and women, with a happy end (on one hand) and the
foreword to the novel Sara. Love Me Three Times. (on the other hand) -

We are nearing the year 2000. A young woman (she’s 19 years old) writes
a story under the pen name Alexandra Călinescu. She sends it to an online
magazine – a very popular one back in the day; however, at the moment, the
website is no longer updated. The story is recommended to the editorial board by
an established woman writer who’d published there before, but they are not
interested in it. Not long after this refusal, an acquaintance of the 19-year-old
writer – this time an established Knight of the pen – reveals her real name to the
editorial board. Maybe because this is not just any name, the story gets published,
not under her pen name, but under her real one, in the very magazine that had
initially rejected it as not suitable. However, nobody lets her know that the story
is now online. Its aesthetical value hasn’t changed, but now it’s been conveniently
published. For free. The young writer finds out by chance that she’s been
validated, from her friend – Google.

In 2005, the same author writes, this time under her own name, a manifesto
supporting young Romanian writers and she sends it to her friends, asking them
if they had any idea where it could be issued in print. She gets a recommendation
– in writing, no less – to a prestigious journal, whose editorial board decides to
publish it. However – in spite of her intellectual property rights - her manifesto
is chopped, mutilated, rewritten. The young writer buys the upmarket journal from
the news stall in front of the Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest. She
dares to feel vexed. So she writes a very civil e-mail to the editor-in-chief,
requesting an appeal, asking the board to include an errata sheet, or at least for

4
her manifesto to be issued – in its initial, unmutilated version – in the online
edition of the journal. The editor-in-chief’s answer, in brief: No.

So the writer sends her article to another magazine, which publishes it

online, in its initial form. For free.

(Prolepsis: in 2020, the author remembers the incident and reads her still-
available-online manifesto. It’s got the maximum rating from readers.)

2005 is also the year when we can find her working in an NGO, as a PR
Assistant – a job she needs in order to support herself while enrolled in MA
studies. She publishes - for free - a short fiction e-book, which gets reviewed and
promoted by several cultural journals, one of which has a very good reputation –
both locally and nationally. It’s a one-page eulogistic review. Hence, the manager
of the NGO where she works introduces her to the partners: ’This is X.
Supposedly, she’s a writer.’

She is 23 years old.

After a while, she attends a conference in a well-known resort in the

mountains and she makes a good impression on one of her boss’s male
acquaintances, so she gets promoted to the Project Coordinator position. How
professional, don’t you think? She definitely deserved the promotion. Nevermind
that she’d started deserving it a very long time ago.

In 2006, the young writer has graduated from an MA in Cultural

Anthropology and has been awarded the Queen Jadwiga scholarship by the
Jagiellonian University in Cracow for her research project, ‘The Central-
European Postmodern Novel’, refused as a PhD research proposal by the highest-
rated Romanian university.

She’s been a writer and a translator since time immemorial, so she spends
the following years doing these activities in her free time. She has a weekly fiction

5
section. She publishes her stories for free, but she finds it fair, since these were
the terms of the offer from the very start.

In the meantime, several male writers, journalists and ‘very important – and
obviously male - persons’, renowned professionals in the area of arts and culture
approach her via the now-long-gone Yahoo messenger. One of them, quite
famous among the gliteratti, asks her, unprovoked – they have never even been
introduced – if she’s’good in bed’.

The following years, 2007 – 2019, find her in a semi-dead town in the
province, translating plays, taking pictures, traveling – on research scholarships
and for international cultural projects, but also for leisure –, working on and then
defending her PhD thesis, and, last but not least, writing academic papers/studies
and short stories, but also working on interviews and reviews. They usually get
published. Usually for free. But she’s happy she doesn’t have to run about town
to pay taxes.

Her life, a balanced mixture of nature and nurture, goes on.

(Beat: in 2017, an acquaintance of hers, very much into cultural diplomacy,

by the way, connects her of his own accord to a well-known publishing house in
Bucharest. She has just finished the first draft of a novel – actually, it’s a longer
novella – and which [prolepsis] in a few years she’ll be considering to work on
and publish – if under her own name – for free. But it’s still 2017. So she sends it
both to her acquaintance and to his acquaintance, the manager of the above-
mentioned publishing house. Given their initial, manifest and undisputable
enthusiasm when offering her loads of editorial opportunities, she is kind of
surprised by the ‘silent treatment’ that ensues. There is no real dialogue,
diplomatic relations are suspended sine die.)

6
 But something happens in 2019: she coordinates the translation into and
publication in Romanian of the 2018 Pulitzer-winning play. The e-book – a PDF
– is published, of course, for free.

But maybe this is not what’s worth mentioning at this point. Something else
is: the cultural journalists in Romania minimize – i. e. ignore – this editorial event.

In the same year, 2019, the author, who’s not so young anymore, writes two
more e-books that are accepted for publication – unsurprisingly, for free. One of
them is a bilingual edition – the original story is in English. The foreword and
translation into Romanian are authored by two renowned personalities, but they
are women, and the book – a bilingual edition - can be regarded as feminist. No
reaction from cultural journalists – not even a mention of the fact that someone –
anyone – from Romania writes not only in Romanian, but also in English,
approaching in her fiction the subject matter of the best-known work of art in the
world.

The two e-books are also ignored by the board of the only event that
promotes women writers in Romania.

Maybe it’s high time I mentioned that this writer does not belong to any
group, trend, editoral board, professional association etc.

One man – an editor - has been promoting her for years. He doesn’t get paid
for working at his online publishing house – as far as she can tell. He’s doing what
he’s doing pro bono.

At the end of 2019, she’s 38 (that’s weird, a woman who tells her age
without even having been asked. What does she think she is, human?). The time
has come for her to write another novel. In her mother tongue. She sends it to a
renowned publishing house, the headquarters of which are in the same city that
keeps contributing to the country’s immaterial heritage with publishing the

7
mutilating journal that had trampled on her manifesto promoting young Romanian
writers years before.

The above-mentioned publishing house is the epitome of ‘literary industry’

and her novel is rejected with no explanation whatsoever – ‘We are sorry, but the
editorial board has decided not to include your novel among our published books.
Please feel free to contact us if you ever write fiction again.’. The author, whose
novel is about a woman writer who has nothing left in her life except writing,
conveniently regarded, as mentioned above, by the editorial board, as an if… ever
occupation, replies, offering her Summa cum Laude PhD thesis for publication,
but she does not send it along. She realizes that (even though this new proposal is
not nasty at all - on the contrary -, and it does not imply in any way that women
suffer from discrimination nowadays) being a woman writer is a very
uncomfortable position. The dialogue between herself and the publishing house
ends abruptly.

She continues to send e-mails, hoping that maybe another editorial board
will accept her novel for publication. So she contacts another ‘industry’-like
publishing house, but also a small, but highly-rated one. She does not send her
novel, entitled Sara. Love me Three Times. She just writes civil messages, asking,
politely, each person at the other end of the jakobsonian paradigm, a question
regarding a possible interest in her fiction, but she also inquires about the
evaluation procedure. Both publishing houses ignore her. It looks like neither the
writer, nor her novel have any chance in the literary industry. They won’t ’sell’.

The author thinks, however – and she’s not the only one – that this time, -
even if she’d made a habit of underevaluating her fiction – she’s produced a very
well-written book. Moreover, at the end of her novel, besides thanking the people
who helped and encouraged her, she dares to say that it is… for free; to be more
specific, she wishes to donate any material gain it might bring her : *This novel

8
is dedicated to the victims of domestic violence and bullying. Any financial
gain resulting from it shall be redirected to them.’

The year is 2020 AD. It’s the 8th of March.

Recently, a film director who’s most probably foul-played social norms got
awarded in Paris, another one, with openly-homophobic views – in Berlin; a
famous opera singer has just taken back the apologies for sexual harrassment he’d
offered; on the corridor of a quite old university, there’s a wall where one can
admire the portraits of previous and current rectors, but, many as they are, there’s
only one woman’s face among them; in 2017, during a round of cultural-
educational and professional discussions regarding a theatre performance, lect.
univ. dr. YZ is stating that it’s a good performance, however, it’s ’disgustingly
feminist’; in Romania – but not only – publishing houses issue books – and they
do sell – written by successful men, award-winners, no less, who have no problem
with aggressing and harrassing women writers – award-winners or not, does it
matter ? – on Facebook; literary critics find the existance of awards for women
writers revolting, but then invite the recipients to take part in their radio shows; I
don’t know of any statistics relevant for the number of men as opposed to women
that get published – and I’m thinking especially about those women writers who
are nobody’s girfriends, wives, and about those who, besides being ‘nobody’s’,
are also ‘nasty’. Moreover, there ‘s a rumour in town that certain professional
areas require that a woman be a lot better-prepared than a man to get the same job
and maybe she won’t get the same paycheck she would have, had she been a man.

Since the date is the 8th of March, we are probably allowed to take into

consideration – just today, on Women’s Day – the matter of the role, status, and,
last but not least, the chances a woman – as herself and not as somebody’s

9
appendix – stands in professional areas involving intellectual, creative, cultural or
social activities, and, therefore, we can take into consideration, especially today,

on the 8th of March, the relationship between gender, money, power and value.

Returning to the above-mentioned writer, we can find her searching for

statistics and studies online, among which she dares to think one is notable :
https://www.leadershippsychologyinstitute.com/women-the-leadership-
labyrinth-howard-vs-heidi/.

While gathering this data, she dares – again ! – to be ‘multitasking’, and

she checks out the ‘Romanian Literature Now’ website, whose slogan is
‘Everything you need to know about Romanian literature’. And she discovers,
when clicking on the ‘Authors’ button, fifteen men and eight women that fit in
this description: ‘Everything you need to know about Romanian literature’. So,
now that she has accessed this page, she has found out everything she needs to
know about Romanian literature. (Contemporary? Historical? The slogan does not
specify, but the name of the page does – so yes, we are talking about contemporary
Romanian literature, represented by fifteen men and eight women.)

And here we are, at the end of this foreword: the writer, seeing it’s no good
and feeling utterly disgusted by powerplay and status games, sick of
‘mansplaining’ and ‘ignore’, but also having had enough of the fashionable
falo(go)centrist way of thinking (thinking?!), keeps asking herself what would it
have been like if she’d used a male pen name to start with and wouldn’t have
tackled the subject matter of feminity at all, she gives a thought to J. K. Rowling,
who distanced her name intentionally from its feminine ‘traces’ to increase her
chances to get published, she remebers some quotes from Simone de Beauvoir’s
The Second Sex, then she reads again the work of prominent anthropologist
Marcel Mauss, and his views on gift-giving and receiving, and, oh, poor thing,

10
she gets fixated on the idea of ‘potlatch’ and it seems to her (it most certainly just
seems) that the term covers perfectly the idea of ‘gift economy’ in which we are
all wallowing – men, but especially, women – because being a ‘trophy’ of any
kind looks like the only chance to survive as a woman in our society – and this is,
as the above-mentioned website instructs us, everything we need to know, and no
more. Then she remembers a heterosexual – and, therefore, legitimate –
relationship she got over many years ago, which implied being – legitimately, of
course – abused and aggressed – however, this didn’t turn her into a man-hater –
and she sends women – all kinds of mothers, wives, daughters etc., actually all
kinds of appendices – good (and obviously legitimate) thoughts – ‘cause good
thoughts are for free -, wishing them a ‘Happy Anniversary’ on International
Women’s Day.

As for men, they also have an anniversary, the second Sunday in May.
Wondering why there’s no fuss on that date, the writer sends them good thoughts,
as well, but also, to some of them, #thanksfortheflowers.

The writer never celebrates on these ‘special occasions’. Her only

ceremonial weakness is tested on the 10th of December, the International Human

Rights Day.

The novel Sara. Love Me Three Times. is the ‘literary capitalization’, in the
words of a friend, of the feelings you got – or didn’t – after reading the ‘millenial’
story above.

If you (didn’t) like it, please (don’t) read the book.

The novel is a post(post)modern experiment, written by me, Anda Cadariu,

in order to investigate the self-ego conflict undergone both by me, as a writer, and

11
by Sara Ionescu, the main character of the novel, a writer herself. The aesthetical
frame is inspired from the Western literary technique called ‘alternate history’.

Sara. Love Me Three Times. is, among other things, a novel that approaches
subject matters which are rarely discussed with honesty: feminine – but also
human and artistic - desire and loneliness. The main character approaches these
ideas through writing, seen as salvation. The many aspects of loneliness are
viewed as meditation or boredom, fear or remembrance. Sara is, first of all, a
storyteller, but also a mask of of the author Anda Cadariu, who we can find, as a
character, in Sara’s story: the reflexion of a reflexion, similar to the game of
mirrors in one of the mise-en-abîme short stories Sara revisits, either by
recovering them from the literary magazines where they’d been published
previously, or by taking them out of her personal archives, or, even better, by
telling them directly to the reader. The novel is seemingly about three failed love
stories, but only in the end does the reader get to find out what Sara herself really
loves. The reader is invited to immerse him or herself in an ongoing intertextual,
metatextual and self-referential game, the aim of which is for the main character
to find a way out of the isolation she is caught in.

Do I need to say it again?

OK, I will say it again: you can read Sara. Love Me Three Times. for free.

You can find it on Apple Books – for other formats, please contact me via
Facebook.

This novel was written for the victims of bullying and domestic violence, a
dedication you will get to read again, should you reach the end of the book. I am

12
publicly stating that I speak for them – but I’m not doing this in order to place the
spotlight on myself; I’m doing it in order to place it on the fact that these victims
are too quiet in Romania – and I’m aware that this is a tabu talking point in my
country. I am open to people who can direct me towards those who would benefit
from the odd donation I can make.

Should this novel ever get an award – a rather amusing thought ! -, it will
be redirected towards the above-mentioned victims.

Even though it is not a custom in the literary world, I would like to only
recommend Sara. Love Me Three Times. to those readers beyond the age of 16.

#thanksfortheflowers #love #fiction #culture #society

#metoo #thankafeminist

Anda Cadariu, the 8th of March 2020

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 Sara. Love Me Three Times.

- a novel -

Sara - Prologue

I am seated at the round table in the immaculate kitchen of the perfect one-room
apartment I’ve been living in on my own – for too long.
And if the recent years shape the future, I refuse to accept it.
I seek sanctuary, for lack of anything else, in my past.
Just like my entire life, it’s defined by the number three.
I write. Because I feel I don’t have anything left - except writing.

I always listen to music when I write, so I step decisively into my spacious,

whitewashed room. I admire the furniture – a simple table, two white bookcases
and a floating bed – also white – a green couch and a lamp. I return to the kitchen
carrying my Bose speakers, I place them on the dishwasher, and I turn them on.
A song that gives me mixed feelings starts playing. My feelings are the way they
are simply because the voice of the man who, when asked what his vision of
Heaven was, answered This morning. With her. Having coffee., is asking me: Is it
getting better, or do you feel the same?

I don’t answer him.

I open the document by clicking on its boring name, Journal – it’s not really a
journal, they’re just my random daily notes, and I type:

14
My name is Sara Ionescu. I write and publish short stories. I’m 38, I have blue
eyes and I’m 165 cm tall.
And I really, really, really want to write about ’up there’, ’down here’ and
’midway here’, but I’m afraid.

I stop touching the elastic keys because it’s horribly difficult for me to think
about – and to write about – my own ’Holy Trinity’. My mind, my sex, my soul
– and this, my animus, is supported by my heart and, in my grandfather’s words,
by ’the brain in my stomach’.

But I will write. In spite of the fact that it’s horribly difficult. In spite of my fear.
And I know that I will cry, I will laugh, I will feel things. And I also know for
certain that I will be more afraid of this than of anything ever, including the
situations when my physical safety was at stake.

I try to take heart. ("Keep heart, Aneta! Keep heart!" – my grandmother’s last
words to my mother.)

I go back to my daily notes, to warm up:

I am Sara Ionescu, the loneliest person I know – well, I know her to a certain
extent, let’s not ’jump to conclusions’, in my mother’s words.
I don’t know anyone more lonely than me. I don’t know anyone.
If I knew other people, maybe I would realize, not just on a theoretical level, that
I’m not the only one feeling lonely.
And I would feel less lonely. And better.
Someone once told me: ’It doesn’t matter how good you are. Who you know –
that’s what matters.’

15
But I wonder, many years after hearing this remark: ’Why don’t I know anyone?
Maybe because I’m no good.’
What does being good mean nowadays? And what’s the good in being good?
Well, you’re probably less lonely.
You probably get to be loved.

But I am lonely... isolated... alone... (alonealonealone).

Why? Why am I alonealonealone? Maybe because I am a woman writer in a

patriarchal literary culture, or maybe not – maybe because that’s just the way I
am - das ganz andere, a loner wolf (and an alpha one, no less) – oh, sorry, I’m a
loner she-wolf (and an alpha one, no less).

And then, I push the keys on my laptop decisively: Bullshit. Any alpha wolf has
a pack.

I stop myself, once again, from writing in my journal, and I think, with a wry
smile, about how many unfinished stories I have in my laptop. But then I pull
myself out of it. I open a new Word document. I rub the palms of my hands against
each other, to warm them up, I straighten my back and I massage my left shoulder
with my right hand.

And I write.

Another story that will end up unfinished, unpublished, unread! A story that will
keep waiting for its ideal reader forever, like an unfucked - and, especially,
unloved - woman.

16
I delete what I wrote. I’m raging with fury. At myself. I’m berserk. NO! I will
finish this story and that’s final! Final! Word!

I stare into the open document, the empty page is trying to swallow me, but I write
down the title (I always start with the title): Sara. Love Me Three Times.

I’m stuck, again. I contemplate the empty page with my mind, unable to do a thing
about it. But then, slowly, slowly, I stop asking myself what I want to say, how I
will say it and, especially, I stop asking myself ’Why would I say anything at all
anymore? What’s the point?’ and I prepare to let myself go, just like a skier on a
snowy slope.

I will finish this track, I will reach the bottom of the slope, and I know, rationally
(let’s not talk about my emotions right now, OK?) that nothing can stop me - the
she-skier who is one with her skis - from sliding, in my usual self-controlled
manner, on this mountain slope. Nothing – not even an avalanche, which I’m
afraid of, but which – I know, I think – I would survive.

And, all of a sudden, I... feel. The first thing I feel is a deep pain in my heart.
However, unlike before, it’s followed by a wave of colossal warmth that gradually
fills me up.

Sara. Love Me Three Times.

Hm. ’Love’? What do you mean - ’love’? ’Cause everyone’s obsessed with it,
notably Saint Augustine... and even Anda Cadariu!

So, because I am alone (alonealonealone), and, therefore, I have to answer my

own question, I do it – in writing:

17
Serious thing, this shit they call ’love’. And pretty hard to define. Holy people say
it is (from) God, scientists think it’s all about chemistry, there are some
philosophers and essayists who define it first of all as friendship, the wise believe
love meets human needs, the guys in the band called Nazareth say it hurts, Liam
Neeson begs to differ, he says no, love doesn’t hurt, pride and ego and lack of
character – that’s what hurts -, love doesn’t hurt, it heals, it gives one good vibes,
Sandra Brown uses it to make money, the Greeks have noticed the conflict
between eros and thanatos, they also invented agape, so that nobody gets left out,
my wi-fi (and laptop) password is loveisforever, a contemporary French writer
(very annoying, by the way) called it an ’elixir’, Bono is certain that Love is
Blindness, I, Sara Ionescu, have another opinion, I think love is the exact opposite,
and so on - I’m starting to feel dizzy.
I refrain from mentioning chivalry and noble love (what are those, in the third
millenium, when, in Laurie Anderson’s words, Every man for himself, when our
only choices are love-hate relationships, when we have Tinder, divorce and
Academic Singles?).

I look out the window of my immaculate kitchen, I see the reddish sunset, and
underneath it, Ms. Lenuța who lives downstairs. She is helping her grandson to
put his shoes on. Right across from me, on the first-floor balcony of the huge
shared house where I live, Victor, my neighbor who is so much into mountain
climbing, has just taken a seat at a white, wrought-iron table, strategically
concealed by the exotic flowers usually watered with a green sprinkler by his
lover, Laurence (tall, dark and, therefore, very sexy), and starts sipping red wine
from an elegant glass that seems too tall.

18
 *

At the moment, it’s impossible for me to think about platonic love, because I’d
most certainly remember Andrei, my last loser-wannabe-artist crush, who wanted
to keep the cake and eat it, too, and I really don’t want to lose control (all of a
sudden, I hear in my mind – I know exactly why – some very hurtful words: ’I
don’t like people who lack self-control, Sara!’). I don’t want to – I can’t afford to
- lose control, but I can – and want to – think about dialectics.

Dialectics was probably invented to teach us that we can define a concept by

highlighting its opposite. So? What is the opposite of love?

I wonder how many people think that hatred is the opposite of love. (I don’t like
statistics, I find certain sociologists – actually, to be more specific, certain
women-sociologists – horrible; I will reveal soon why; however, I would be
interested in a survey based on this question: How many people think that hatred
is the opposite of love?) Because the opposite of love is not hatred. It’s something
else.

I know the answer to this question (from my mother), but others know it, too: it’s
been given by both common people and celebrities, and it can be even found on
Facebook.

Fear.
Fear is the opposite of love. (I’m going to write this down in my journal, for good
measure, just to be sure I’ll never forget it.)
’Cause that’s what it’s all about: love and fear. Nothing else.

Sara. Love me Three Times. is all about love and fear, as well. Nothing else.

19
 *

I’m staring again at the Word document; it’s white, as white as the snow I’ve
started skiing on; I’m scared shitless, I read the title that I find prosaic right now
(and I tell myself ’Sara, cut this crap that keeps blocking you!’) and then a
crippling fear engulfs me again (obviously): I’m afraid of this white document, of
the words that will fill it, of the thought that most likely, nobody will read it, and
if they will, of what they will think about it, I’m afraid of loneliness, of death, of
myself, of everything that surrounds me.

In spite of this, I decide to stop being afraid.

Easier said than done.
I’m gonna fight fear. But... how? That is the question – it’s been tormenting me
my whole life, even more than brilliant Will’s To be or not to be? (Actually, I
realise all of a sudden, it’s the same question, only the words are different.)

How?! How do I fight fear?

Oh, well. Glad I asked: I’m gonna let it take me over. And I’m gonna play with
it. I’m gonna keep skiing down its slope, purposeful, decisive, knowing I will
reach the ’Finish’ line. Oh, go on, Sara, you are so trained for this!

’Keep heart, Sara!’ – I whisper to myself, and in the empty kitchen, as empty as
the entire apartment, a nest lacking the human touch, I hear and feel, like a zephyr
touching my face, my grandmother’s last words to my mother:
keepheartkeepheartkeepheart!

And I get help from my memory of Mihai, who told me: ’The devil hates God
because God dared.’

20
So I will take the first step: I dare.

And I write.

*
**

My name is Sara Ionescu. I write and publish short stories. I’m 38, I have blue
eyes and I’m 165 cm tall. And now, as I start writing my story (I hear Angus &
Julia Stone whispering from the speakers She smells of daisy/She drives me
crazy), I remember what I was told by one of the participants in a literary circle I
was attending – some wannabe, talentless writer, a lot more frustrated than me
(he was working as a desktop-publisher in this small, dirty, dead and stinking
town, but his dream was to grow a pedestal as a national and international literary
figure).

The chick who was running the literary gathering (yeah, it was a she - no comment
about her, just that everything will become more clear should the reader care to
investigate further; one more hint: it does not compliment her, because I really
didn’t learn anything from her – I should have probably realized I wouldn’t from
the very beginning, starting with the very moment when I asked her if she liked
Anda Cadariu’s fiction, and she didn’t say a thing, she pretended not to have heard
the question – I wonder why, since Anda Cadariu is a writer who should be talked
about in every literary circle – so, this chick told us to do the most idiotic excercise
possible: to choose someone among the participants in her state-of-the-art literary
circle and use that person as a character in a story, and ’Oh, I nearly forgot: the
character has to die in the end!’, but we should not disclose whom we have chosen,

21
’because the idea is for the other participants to guess who exactly you have
written about’.

The desktop-publisher was the first to read.

I remember every single detail of how, after he finished reading, I did not get up
from the cheap, cardboard-like, half-broken chair which was hindering my left
buttock with its aluminum bolts and hurting my vertebrae with its uncomfortable
back, and, as if that hadn’t been enough, it was making me feel as if I were living
in communism again (nevermind that I’d recently watched some documentaries
about those days); so: I remember every detail of how I did not make the slightest
move, not even when the dearleader of the literary circle straightened her back
complacently, took off her glasses and asked:

"Is it Sara? Is Sara the one you wrote about?"

No. I did not stand up. I stayed there, stuck to that chair, waiting for the guillotine
to fall.

I did not react at all. No. I did not leave the room. I did not slam the door behind
me. I did not defend myself in any way, I was just happy that Andrei had gone
out to the copy shop to print some stuff and, therefore, I’d managed to avoid his
taking part in one of the most humiliating situations in my life.

My mouth is dry. Angus & Julia Stone make way for Prince, whose song, Purple
Rain, is so kitsch that it’s on the verge of genius. I try to swallow. I adjust the
cushion I’m sitting on. I turn up the volume of the speakers.

22
And I write.

So? What did the desktop-publisher imagine? He wrote my name was Andreea
(well, he hit a chord with that one, maybe it was obvious that I was head over
heels with Andrei) and that I was on a diet (what an idiot – as if I had ever been
on a diet, as if I didn’t adore Jennifer Lawrence, who said in an interview ’I never
diet. I just work out.’, and whom, even though she is one of the most beautiful
women alive, the great, white, privileged men in the production team of a
blockbuster were going to replace because they thought she was too fat!), and he
also wrote that I lived in a perfect one-room apartment with a floating bed (well,
he got that one right, but it wasn’t by accident; it was because, as I realized later,
a former class mate of mine had gossiped about it with the wannabe writer – he
was quite intelligent, this mate of mine, but he was obviously a spineless jerk,
even though he was listening to all kinds of music, including Therion and Oriental
music – which had brought about my admiration for his open mind. I’d thought
of him as of a friend, so he was welcome at my place for coffee any time, and
once he even told me ’I was so jealous of Mihai back in the day!’). What else did
the desktop-publisher write about me? Oh, yeah, he wrote that ’mom’ and ’dad’
were important to me, they were people I was close to – he got this intel from the
same mate of mine who’d been ’jealous of Mihai’, I know it for sure because
once, during a board games session with him and his girlfriend, I complained that
my folks were suffocating me. He also wrote that I die (me, Andreea, the character
invented by Mr. Wannabe for his wannabe story) crushed under the balcony of
the apartment above while having coffee on my own balcony on a gorgeous
summer morning. (As if my apartment weren’t located in the attic of a house, in

23
the shared front yard of which, at the moment, Ms. Lenuța is yelling at her
grandson, as if the Swiss-made windows of my room had a balcony in front!)

So, no. After having heard his story, I did not stand up. I did not get up from my
chair. I did not make a scene. I did not leave and slam the door behind me.

Instead, I asked the wannabe – me, the naive girl (gullible, as I was labeled on
another ’flattering’ public occasion, by a great American director, nominated for
OBIE, but to no avail – he did not get it), as I was sporting a relaxed smile:

’Have you ever been to my place? I... don’t really think so. So how did you know
I have a floating bed?’

Wannabe gazed at me with his bovine eyes – not that that was unusual for him; it
was his everyday gaze – and answered:

’Well, I thought that, since you’re not exactly the skinny type, you’d bought – in
my story, of course – a floating bed so that you could get some physical exercise
when you climb the stair.’

Then, there was silence for a moment – just for a split second. I laughed and
replied: ’Oh. I understand.’ And the attention point shifted to the following victim
of the bullying gracefully orchestrated by the generous woman writer, very ugly,
by the way, but more anorexic than a gazelle, who had conjured this ’meeting’-
as Grotowski defined the essence of theatre – in a rehearsal room of the building
where my father works.

I did not attend the next ’meetings’.

I spent my time at home, writing.

24
 *

Accompanied by Spoon as I hear their song, Hot Thoughts, in my speakers, I copy

and paste this excerpt from the document entitled Sara. Love Me Three Times. to
my boring Journal. I need to record this memory there, too. Maybe just there. I’ll
think about it.

I’m analyzing my ’Holy Trinity’ with more and more zest. I have no idea which
document I’m writing in anymore: Journal or Sara. Love Me Three Times.

And I write.

I think – as I always have – I have a general’s brain –’up there’.

I also think that, like all writers, I, Sara Ionescu, 38 years old, blue eyes, 165 cm
tall, have a homemaker’s soul - ’midway here’, in my heart area.
And I also think that ’down there’ is the thing that makes the world go round, that
thing we all think about and about which most of us keep quiet.

It’s easy for anyone to talk about ’up there’ and ’midway here’, (well, it seems
easy), so I sit at the kitchen table of my immaculate one-room apartment and I
write exactly what I think, in Anda Cadariu’s style, ’cause she’s my favorite
writer. I think she’d also start with ’down there’. This thought makes me take
heart and I decide to start there, as well.

25
And I write.

There’s only one kind of doctor who can see you both on the outside and on the
inside.
He sees your face when you enter his office. Your expression. Your eyes, your
nose, your mouth.
Then, he invites you to lie on the medical bed.
And he says ’Aaaaaaahhhhh!’ when you part your legs.
You ask him, very scared: ’Do I have a problem?’
He gives you a perfunctory answer, but he assures you there’s no problem at all,
and after you leave his office, your wallet 350 lei lighter, you suddenly realise
(gullible) that it was a reaction denoting admiration.

I stop writing. More or less by chance, my playlist, which is always on shuffle,

has reached Temptation by Diana Krall. I look up beyond the screen of my laptop
and think about all the men who were or could have been – once, more than once
or regularly – ’down there’.

And I write.
*

No man, ever, says ’Aaaaaaahhhhh’ when you part your legs. They have this
reaction at the end, not in the beginning.

26
 *

I stop writing. "Temptation, I can't resist", the speakers keep repeating. I

remember my mother and her many words, which still cut me like a scalpel, I
smile, I look around the kitchen, I look at the fridge, at the magnetic recipients for
spice, bought, in the most bourgeois spirit possible, from IKEA, I look out the
window, at the petunias on on the windowsill, I see it’s almost dark outside, Victor
is no longer on the balcony, Ms. Lenuța is taking a walk with her grandson in our
shared front yard, wearing her flowery-patterened coat and hair rollers. I light a
cigarette.

And I write.

In the office of that kind of doctor, the ’down there’ professional, I’m in one of
the life situations when I am very, very scared. However, the echography is
perfect - ’We’re good, Mrs. Ionescu (’I’m not Mrs. Ionescu – maybe Miss
Ionescu! – I tell him in my mind), beautiful, clean uterus, healthy ovaries!’. Then,
the horrifying (for a few weeks at least) name ’Papa Nicolau’ starts sounding
sweet after I get the result: Normal.

Taking a break from writing.

It’s hard for me to warm up, to get myself together, to turn the tap of my thoughts
on, but NO, I won’t complain any longer, I ask for help and I get it from Santana’s
Samba Pa Ti, I stand up for a moment, I yawn and relax, while holding myself
and dancing blues with an imaginary partner, I remember that moment that felt

27
like a gift from Beth Hart, Joe Bonamassa and, especially, Andrei, and I go
decisively to one of the kitchen cupboards, ’cause I’m about to stare into the
computer screen for a very long time and I need an orange-and-cinnamon-
flavoured Lipton tea.

I’d invite Anda Cadariu for a cuppa, but I don’t know her personally. Maybe, one
day, who knows...

I take the water boiler out of the cupboard with its cheap glass doors – it’s brown,
renewed and inherited from the previous owners of the apartment. A very nice
carpenter fixed it on the wall; afterwards, he told me: ’This apartment is big
enough for two people!’

I pick up the tea bag – wrapped in thin, silky paper, I almost rip it off from the
metal box on the fridge, my favourite box that contained, once upon a time, butter
cookies (and my high-fidelity – but in my mother’s opinion, too small – ears recall
Mihai’s voice and his favorite way of cuddling me verbally: ’Sara, my butter
cookie...’).

I place the tea bag in the tall, white cup I got as a gift from a former friend of
mine, and, by accident, before I let go, I tear it. A few rooibos grains float into the
cup.

I remember, again, not willingly, the cheap, cardboard-like, half-broken chair in

the rehearsal room, the smell of communism I’d felt in that ’state-of-the-art’
literary circle, and I look at my reflexion in the cupboard door. It’s staring back
at me, with its eyes – one bigger and one smaller.

28
Ed Sheeran (heart of a homemaker, like mine) is singing I Don't Care in my
speakers.
I leave the tea to infuse and I return to my laptop. This time, I want to talk about
’up there’.
And I write.

’Hello, Mrs. Ionescu (not Mrs. Ionescu – maybe Miss Ionescu!), I got your results.
You have some problems. Something’s missing. I really don’t believe – honestly
– that you are... how should I put it... ’nuts’. You just need to stop drinking coffee
for a while. Also, no alcohol. Definitely no smoking. Please eat fish and take a
lecithin-based supplement. It’s just that you’re stressed out. If you keep having
problems, please come back and I’ll prescribe some meds. Have a good day!’

And now, patiently – unfortunately, patience was never one of my assets – while
I’m waiting for the tea to get cooler, I’ll make some notes on ’midway here’.

And I write.

‘Doctor, I have a heartache.’

’I know ma’am (Miss!), we all do.’
’I’m not joking. I feel pain. In my heart and in my stomach.’
’Let’s see... checking blood pressure... yeah... something’s wrong with your heart.
And probably with your stomach, too. You know what they say: ”The starting

29
point of loving someone is a full stomach – if they are decent cooks.” Well, it’s
true – I can vouch for that! And, yeah, the heart also kind of matters when talking
about love...’
’I know, Doctor. I know.’

I take my first sip of tea. And I start liking the writing process, I start enjoying
this skiing mountain track, I even manage to admire the landscape, I feel to an
increasing extent that the skis are a part of me (’Way to go, Sara! Now do you
believe you can do it?’) and, taking into account the yellow flags mapping the
slope, I keep dancing on the wavy, snowy track.

And I write.

30
 One. Mihai – Up There

I’m in the eleventh grade. It’s the summer holiday, and the sun is shining
oppresively above me. I’m walking, thinking about my long, amber-coloured,
thick hair, which is lying now on the floor at the hair stylist’s.

When I made the appointment, I was imagining a ’Cleopatra’-style haircut, or

maybe a tad shorter one – but not too short. However, my mother was with me
and so were her subversive remarks (’Listen, lady, haven’t your hormones gone
wild when you were a teenager? Why can’t you understand she wants the shortest
hairstyle one can get?!’). By the way, my mother (dr. Aneta Ionescu, a surgeon
with a double specialization) is used to getting what she wants no matter what, so
here I am, ready to perspire less this summer, with my head floating among the
clouds due to the decrease in gravity I feel as a consequence of the mutilation of
my only jewel.

’Now you can put on a lot more eye make-up! – my mother says, very pleased,
stopping by a shopfront.

I don’t even know how I feel. I’m afraid to go near the shopfront, I would see my
reflexion and I don’t want to, not after looking at myself in the mirror at the hair
stylist’s. First of all, I’m afraid because now it’s a lot more obvious, thanks to the
haircut, that one of my eyes is bigger than the other – at least that’s how it seems
to me, as I’m very aware of the hypermetropia that took so long to heal.

I wish I were alone now, I wish my mother were there for me when I want her to,
not when she wants to, but she turns to face the street again: ’No interesting
shoes.’ – and we head home.

31
We’re home. She rewards me for the courage to be unlike other people, oh well,
other women, meaning – for the haircut that is the proof of my rebellion (haha,
good one, because the real rebellion would have been proven by a ’Cleopatra’ or
something similar, against her wish) by baking an apple cake – I know it would
have been easier for her to make some pancakes, but she seems to try so hard to
convince me that I did the right thing with this short haircut.

As the cake is being prepared, I lock myself in the bathroom, to put on ’a lot more
make-up’ than I used to.

I come out. She looks at me and seems satisfied. We chit-chat while the cake is
being baked, then my father comes in. Yesterday, just like Electra, I saw him
walking towards me on the sidewalk – he was like thirty (three again!) meters
away – and I thought he was a good-looking rock music fan, perfect for je, moi,
me, who’d just arrived in this dead, shitty, stinking town, and then, I even told my
folks this story, and we even made fun, together, of ’Sara, this sucker’ (gullible):
’Ahhhh, Virgos, they’re so unlike Libras or Gemini, they’re much more... virgin-
like!’, so I laughed a lot harder than them, even though ’up there’ I knew it was
unfair, ’down there’ I was wet with anger, and ’midway here’ I was hurting.

My father eats some cake as well, he kisses the perfect wife, perfect mother,
perfect woman, perfect doctor next to him – and then, back to work.

’I’m going out, too!’ – I say out loud, thinking that maybe it’s gonna be a problem
if I get home five minutes after nine. I’ll be yelled at... or maybe, who knows, I
can be one hour late and nobody will even notice.

32
’Enjoy the celebration!’ – my mother says, laughing. (I don’t really understand
what celebrating has to do with anything, then I remember it’s the 15th of August,
I’m a bit confused, simply because my folks were never the religious kind, but...
who knows?) I smile, to let her know I got the idea. My mother asks me:

’You’re gonna buy drinks in honor of your new haircut, right? Who are you going
out with?’
’Maria.’
’OK, see you tonight!”

I close the door behind me and I suddenly feel, apparently without any reason,
’midway here’, that something will happen today. Something good, something
I’ve been waiting for. I’m gonna meet someone, I won’t be one of the few losers
in my class who don’t have a boyfriend.

The feeling goes away as quickly as it came and I get swallowed again by my
anxiety patterns.

Maria is waiting for me in front of Romarta store, conveniently located on the

ground floor of her block of flats – not mine – ’after all, it’s on the way
downtown!’.

We kiss each other on the cheek, but only after she yells in a fake voice: ’Oh, my,
your haircut looks goooooooooood!’
I wish her a ’Happy name day!’, in my deep voice (which makes people think I’m
my mother when they call on the landline), I realize it’s at least as fake as hers,
and then, we start walking.

33
We chat about this and that on our way to Jazz – we’ve decided that’s where we
are going today, ’because the least we can do is dance, for fuck’s sake, or else I’m
gonna go bananas in this shitty town!’

I always liked dancing; however, once we arrive at the place where it’s done, I
don’t feel like showing my recently-mutilated hairstyle on the square dance floor
just to check out other ’old hippies’ like myself, looking for my better half.

Maria is upset by my lack of cooperation, but she gets over it pretty quickly, she
goes inside Jazz and lets herself go as Cobain’s voice keeps urging us to come as
we are, it’s just that I’ll probably never come with a real sex partner, so I trickle
down towards the adjacent beer garden, I take a seat and look at the boats on the
artificial lake.

The people in our pack start arriving; only us, teenagers, dance before eight in the
evening, and, sometimes, random old jerks looking for Deep Purple (the owner
plays that kind of music sometimes – even I hear now, coming out of the speakers,
one of their songs, April – and I feel a pang at the thought it’s the month when
Silviu was born), Pink Floyd, Queen, Dire Straits (they play anything in Jazz
except jazz), so, yeah, jerks looking for those things and also release, or just
looking for fun, but especially, looking for young-at-heart, naive girls with
enticing figures - and not too old, ’cause they get challenging.

I see my class mates through the dusty window that separates the garden from the
bar – which is stacked with bottles - and from the gray perimeter where they
arranged some tables that give me the feeling of living in communism again (but
I hadn’t identified it by name yet, because I hadn’t watched documentaries about
it at the time), so, yeah, the exact same feeling I was going to experience so acutely

34
at the above-mentioned literary meeting, right before the end of the Andrei story.
Before the end of the story.

The ’teenagers’ on the dance floor seem to be having fun. Maria is showing off
her long, naturally blonde hair. I see Cristi, our class mate who usually sits in the
third desk, in the row near the wall. He’s the last one to arrive on the dance floor,
panting after having run here. He takes out a bottle from inside his coat (I bet it’s
rum and he’s nicked it from his dad – ’He’s gonna kill you if he finds out!’ – I
tell him in my mind, but I stop, the hair I left on the floor at the hair stylist’s is
ghost-hurting me, so I have more important things to sort out than Cristi’s
relationship with his father – and, as our pack see the bottle, they cry out happily
– Maria looks like she has a hard-on.

They dart to the bar, buying Coca-Cola (‘for the Liberation of Cuba‘- I tell
myself).

I turn my back on them. Now I’m facing the boats on the lake again, prepared to
intoxicate myself with idylic images of the way I looked before the haircut, and I
suddenly see this guy strolling on the chippy and nicked alley. It’s Mihai, my
school mate in the Biology-Chemistry department, the weirdo, as the boys in the
History department keep calling him, the arrogant gits. A nickname I have never
endorsed, but then again, I’ve never tried to make them stop calling him names,
either. Even though I would have liked to.

’The brain in my stomach’ suddenly comes alive and I feel... weird. But I exercise
my self-control (’I don’t like people who lack self-control, Sara! – I hear my
mother and the words she told me last night, when I arrived home five minutes
late, in her abrupt, quarrel-seeking voice, the voice she uses when something is
not convenient for her, usually because things did not go her way) and I pretend

35
to feel relaxed, I’m relaxed, I’m sooooo relaxed that I light a More cigarette –
they’re slim, mint-flavored, and I bought them with my own savings, the money
my folks – and the state – gave me - the allowance teenagers get.

Mihai is getting closer, wearing his earphones. He’s wearing his dark blue, flared
corduroy trousers – the ones he also wears in school – , the outfit that won him
the weirdo nickname – and a Pink Floyd T-shirt. He’s wearing mountain boots,
even though it’s hot outside.

He’s getting closer – slowly, but surely. We never said more than ’Hello – Hello’,
but now he’s taking his earphones off, stares at me and then approaches me
directly.

‘You got a haircut!‘

‘Stating the obvious. ‘ – I answer him while blowing out smoke – through my
nose, my mouth, and even – I imagine – through my ears - that mark the limits of
my carefully made-up face.
‘It looks good on you! ‘
‘Thank you!‘ – I tell him, in the tone of surprise.
Then, to move over the big, awkward silence:
‘How have you been lately?‘ – and I feel awful for saying that ’lately’ word,
‘cause using it doesn’t make sense, since it implies we’re more than
acquaintances, school mates, and, therefore, that we’ve spoken before and, also,
that we both acknowledge this relationship – which none of us ever did.

He feels I’m a little insecure and makes his move:

‘Isn't it obvious? I’m fine. Talking to you.’

At least he didn’t hear that out-of-place ‘lately’, or at least he didn’t mind it.

36
Maybe I am, after all, a rebel, or just a teenager with mood swings, ’crises’, as my
mother calls them, a teenager whose hormones have (obviously) gone wild, so I
tell Mihai, surprising even myself, the good child, with her top-of-the-class face:

’Oh, sit down, for fuck’s sake!’

He starts laughing and pulls a chair next to me, which comforts my anxious
stomach. It even gives me a good mood and I feel I’m capable of having a
conversation. Then, he says:

‘Thanks, Sara.’

I never liked being called by my name for no reason, and I’m against appellatives,
so I make a face, but I come back to normal pretty quickly, thinking maybe he did
it for good reason, maybe he wanted to let me know he knows my name. So (’I
don’t like people who lack self-control, Sara!’) I answer him and I also call him
by his name, aiming, for the first time in my life - keeping the emotional distance
- for an effect:

’You’re welcome, Mihai!’

And thus, I break the ice. I find out that he lives with his grandparents, that his
mother and father live in another city, in the mountains, where his mother works
in constructions and his father has a car-reparing workshop, I also find out he
breeds nutria and that it’s very possible for that black shit in his belly button
(Thank God, he doesn’t show it to me!) to be a tick he got from them.

37
I start feeling even more acutely the moldy smell exhuded by his clothes, which
sometimes got to me when I passed by him and his class mates at school. I never
knew where it was coming from. Now I know.

What I don’t know, however, is that the following day I will accompany him to
the hospital to get that tick out, I don’t know that his grandma (I love you, Mrs.
Roza!) only uses handmade soap to wash clothes, and, therefore, I will tell him –
which would make my folks feel desperate – that he could use our washing
machine, and another thing I don’t know is that in a few months he would give
me (surprise!) a gift – a lemon perfume just like the one my mother did not get
for me five years ago (’You’re too young to wear perfume!’) – she bought it for
herself, but I was not allowed to try it on (’What if you break the bottle, like you
did when you were six, with my best perfume?’), and I also don’t know that I’m
gonna buy him, a bit later, from the money I’d get at my high school graduation
party, some (surprise!) decent trousers, I don’t know yet that we’re gonna have
sex, nor do I know that we’re gonna go out on a memorable night at the end of
which we will have drunk too much wine and then I’ll arrive home quite tipsy,
and there’ll be trouble because of this, or that I’ll often seek sanctuary at his place
to stay away from my folks’ quarrels, or that we will break up because of the
distance (I will get into college in a different city, much BIGGER), and that this
break up will be final because of Silviu - ’the dark-dickhead’, or that Mihai will
yell in front of my wide window with a lime tree in front of it ’WHY, Sara?
WHY?!’ (’Because you were NOT there when I needed you!’, I answer him now,
as the orange-and-cinnamon flavored tea fills my stomach and Björk is yelling
from the speakers It's Oh So Quiet), I dont’t know yet that he will later try to have
a relationship with a Geography student, Sidonia, and I also don’t know that it
won’t work out for them in the end, or that today, when I’m writing these words
as I sip the too-hot tea compulsively, he will be living in another country, having
a new profession, working, like me, in Social Protection, or that he will have two

38
children – two girls (and I hear my father, trying to pay me a compliment which
is, in fact, self-lionizing: ’Real men have girls!’) – and I also don’t know that he
will be not only married, but also very unhappy (I know, because he wrote to me
about several things, including that he got drunk on Christmas night and broke the
toilet seat with his fists.)

If I had known all of the above at the time, I would have gone inside, to dance
with Maria.
*

But I’m not dancing. I am in the garden, with Mihai. It’s a beautiful, warm
summer evening. We are talking about music, films, books. He doesn’t feel like
dancing, either. He takes a longing look at my cigarette and takes a pipe out of his
backpack.

I stare, thinking it kind of suits him, we relax even more. We can hear the people
in Jazz singing along All you need is love, love is all you need, the vibe inside
seems good, and that’s exactly why it seems odd to me that Maria, with her
gorgeous long hair, has decided to join us and sits down, univited.

I change my attitude – I distance myself from the good (too good) feeling that I
like the guy.
We start laughing, telling jokes, until Mihai, fed up (s) with jokes, which are – we
all agree – the death of conversation, says:

’I’d like to tell you a super-funny true story."

We nod in agreement, Maria with her long hair, me – with my impotent short
haircut.

39
’Well, this friend of mine, Alexandru, lives in a real house. Maybe you guys know
him (he’s already included Maria in the conversation, which I really am not
comfortable with – I realize as I decode the signals ’the brain in my stomach’ is
sending me), he’s a year younger, studying English and French, like you.
’Oooooh, I know him!’ – I react, happy that I happen to know someone, too. He’s
that tall, thin, blond guy, who’s almost always wearing black? Demian?’
’Yeah, that’s him, but his name’s not Demian...’. Mihai is waiting for my answer,
but at least he’s staring at me, not Maria.
’I know, I know, I know, but I read, right after a book by Anda Cadariu, a novel
by Hermann Hesse, and Alex is just like that guy from Hesse’s book, he’s...’
’Aaaaahhh, I get it! Nice book, my favourite by Hesse! And Anda Cadariu’s not
a bad writer at all, either! You got good taste, man!’ – and he winks at me.

Something melts in my stomach, something like a dark chocolate lava cake

smelling of mold.

’Yeah. So, Alex, or Demian, lives in a house with his folks, both of them doctors,
in the residential area. And, one day, he says to himself: ”Why don’t I go on a trip
with my boys - in the country, to my grandma’s village, where we can walk the
fields to see what we find? ”’

Both Maria and I are listening with great interest, nodding to signal our presence
of mind. I light another cigarette, thinking with delight that, even though it’s the
15th of August, he didn’t wish Maria a happy name day.

’So? What do you think they found? Some hemp. Wild. Weed, no less, gals. But
Alex, who’s cunning, pulled up some plants, roots and all, went back home and,
since his folks were at work, he started digging in the garden, next to the roses.

40
Now, what I haven’t told you is that his parents are really strict. They’re watching
him constantly, he’s really hen-pecked.
Well, finally, his mother gets home and sees him digging in the garden. And she
gets going: ”Aaaaaaa, my roses, what are doing?! I was planning to plant some
tulips next to those, you dumb ass! Alex! Alex!”
Alex turns around, looking jolly (he was high, obviously), runs to her and kisses
her. His mother, mollified, hugs him and asks him: ”Anyway, what are you
planting there?” And the stupid shit answers: ”Awww, mom, it’s just some
cannabis!”
When he realizes what he said, he almost shits himself.
But his mother starts laughing like crazy and tells him: ”This was a good one,
Alex, finally! A very good one! Go wash your hands so we can have lunch!”
And that’s how it’s done. That’s how sheer dumb luck works.
What I mean, girls, is that I’m very good friends with Alex and...’

Now I look at his pipe from a different perspective. I laugh, I point at my cigarette
and tell him I do tobacco only. Maria, on the other hand, looks a bit preoccupied.

’Aha’, she says, ’I’ll remember this, thanks!’ And she gets up to hit the dance
floor again.
’I gotta go home in a minute!’, I yell after her.
’Great!’, she yells back from under her blonde hair, using those perfect lips I envy
her for.
I start feeling down, I put out my cigarette and get ready to say good bye to Mihai,
when, ’out of the blue’:
’I’ll walk home with you’.
’Say whaaaaaaaat?!’
’Only if you want to, I don’t mean to...’
’Yes!’

41
If I had known, back then, that Maria would insist, after a while, that Mihai get
her some plants (of a certain kind) from Alex and that, after having smoked them
at a party, even though she would be perfectly aware that I have been Mihai’s
girlfriend for over a year, she would hit on him, and he would be more than OK
with that, and then, he would give me some perfunctory excuse involving too
much wine, that I would try to forgive him for kissing her in the bathroom – but
would never be able to – if I had known that after this, I would never talk to Maria
again, I wouldn’t have let him take me home that night.

Those wankers in the band called Passenger start their lament in the black
speakers on my left, and I lose faith in what I’m writing again, I feel scared, it’s
gonna be crappy fiction, lame and pathetic just like what these guys are singing,
Only know you love her when you let her go keeps reverberating in my kitchen,
so I stop writing and turn up the sound, I don’t give a fuck about the neighbors
(’Hi – Hi’) or about the tea getting cold, or about Ms. Lenuța’s grandson, who’s
probably asleep already, ’cause it’s really dark outside, and I don’t give a fuck
that my window’s open, and I don’t give a fuck about anything at all.
After I let the kinky voice and the bass guitar entertain me, I return to writing.
And I write.

A year and a month later.

I have an almost ’Cleopatra’, hairstyle, it’s no longer short. Mihai likes me more
and more, my folks like Mihai more and more, I like Mihai less and less.

42
He’s brilliant as a friend, our brains are connected as if they were a yin-yang
ornament, but sex is not – in the least - OK.

And I think, resentfully, while I light a cigarette and stare at the fridge, that it
could have been, it could have been a lot more than OK, even with Mihai’s
specific smell, and no, I don’t mean the moldy smell in his clothes, I mean his
skin, that was sending out unjustly strong olfactory waves, just like burnt rubber,
it could have been wonderful if our parents had brought us up differently, if I
hadn’t developed – as I realized yesterday, while reading a psychology study
online – an avoidant-anxious attachment and him – a disorganized one, and,
moreover, if he had been not only a good friend, but also a good boyfriend. Lucy
Dacus is playing Addictions in my speakers.
And I write.

I’m on my way to my entrance examination at the university, in a different, BIG

city, alone in the packed tram, I hear in my head my mother’s shrill voice, cutting
like a scalpel (’Humans need to do some things alone, Sara! You are going alone
to the examination!’), and I keep hearing alonealonealone, I think about how
much I hate my father because he is a weak man and he only does what my mother
says, I hate him because when my mother insisted, HE was the one who convinced
Mihai (who’s already a part of the family) not to come with me, I’m late, I’ll fail
the exam without having even been there, I give the tram ticket I’d bought at a
dirty, yellow kiosk to a crone standing in the pile of living flesh holding on to the
bars, I ask her to validate it because I can’t, it’s too crowded, the crone validates
it, she gives it back, I still have two stops to go, that’s what Mona, that actress-

43
friend my father has, said - to get off at the last stop before the train station, my
mother doesn’t know Mona, my mother only knows other doctors and Biology,
Chemistry and Math teachers, maybe that’s why she loves Mihai so much,
because he tried for Medicine, in our stinking shitty town, no less, she loves him
even though he failed his exam, would she love me if I failed my exam and stayed
home for a year?, the tram has reached (my) penultimate stop, two ticket collectors
get on it, they come straight to me.

The gates of the Faculty of Letters are closing in ten minutes, I won’t get there in
time. ’This ticket is not good, Miss!’ ’I’m not the one who validated it!’, I say,
looking around desperately, but the crone is nowhere to be found, the ticket
collectors make me get off at the next stop with them, it was my stop, anyway, I
argue, but to no avail, time is passing, I give them all my money, no matter, I’ll
hitch hike back home, I start running, I leave the tram stop behind, I cross the
street illegally, running over the tram lines, over the nicked and chipped asphalt –
and I remember how Mihai was walking towards me, that night I went with Maria
to Jazz – I’m running in the midst of car horn sounds and exhaust gas smell, the
tram goes dingdong, I can hardly see because of the car emissions and because of
the perspiration dropping from my forhead into my eyes, I enter the front yard of
the faculty and I can hear the gate being slammed behind me and someone turning
the key in the lock, I arrive, soaked (yes, my short hair has grown longer, yes, I
am more beautiful, very, if I believe Mihai, but now I’m all wet and red in the
face as if I had couperose) and deadbeat – tired and shocked -, I take a seat in the
examination hall, and go, Sara, go, write about the dialects and subdialects of the
Romanian language, about diphtongs and triphtongs, dashes and commas, and
then, after a short break, deal with ’The leitmotif of the stranger in Romanian and
world fiction’, have a coffee alonealonealone in the petty café next to the gray,
imposing building of the Faculty of Letters and then hitch hike back home.

44
I don’t say a thing to Mihai about the ticket controllers, I’ve set him on ignore
mode, it’s time we broke up. Because of the entrance exam (alonealonealone),
because of Maria, of Iulia (his ex, whose memory still gives him pangs of grief),
of Diana (A little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Jessica by my side), because
of smell, taste, hearing, seeing and touching.

And not just because of that.

I’m gonna miss his grandmother more than I miss him.

So, accompanied by Janis Joplin’s voice, who’s singing about pieces of heart, I’m
thinking now, while sitting in my immaculate kitchen, attached to my luxury
prison cell, where I have all the comfort I need and where I live alonealonealone,
so, yeah, I’m thinking about his grandmother.

His grandmother, Roza, who used to bake walnuts in honey for us, his
grandmother, who, after many years, will tell him ’None of your girlfriends was
more femme fatale than Sara!" (I love you, Ms. Roza, even now! – and I start to
understand why my password is loveisforever), his grandmother, who used to
walk Otto, the family German Shepherd (about whom Mihai said was gay) every
time I went to their place so that we had time to talk; his grandmother, who, when
Mihai came back recently, three (I count in my mind, yeah, precisely three!)
months ago, to his home town, from the Wild West where he’d settled and asked
me out for a beer (I sip my tea, while listening to a Spanish guitar accompanying
Maria Dolores Pradera who’s singing La Flor de la Canela – an ex-actress, it’s
obvious if one pays attention to the way she pronounces the words and pauses at
the right moment), so, yeah, when I had that beer three months ago with Mihai,

45
that old and tired Mihai, Mrs. Roza was still alive; his grandmother who, when I
used to spend the night in their freshly-painted-and-restored house on Hawk’s
Street, would make the bed for me in the smallest room with no comment, none
whatsoever; his grandmother, who, after the first night Mihai spent at my place
(my folks were in the mountains) called my mother and told her, in an angry and
bossy voice: ’Mihai didn’t come home last night!’, to which my mother (who had
grown fond of him, mold smell and all) replied: ’Oh, my God! Does Sara know?’,
his grandmother, who was hoping I’d give her two blue-eyed grandchildren,
looking like me, and whom I’ve disappointed terribly, but who, nevertheless,
forgave me, his grandmother, Roza, the backslider (she’d lived through three
marriages – the first and the last one with the same man), who’d shown me how
to peel garlic without getting my fingers sticky; his grandmother, who I’ll
remember my whole life. She’s the one I’m thinking about now, when Train is
whispering Mississippi in my speakers.

Yeah. I’m gonna miss Mihai’s grandmother more than I’ll miss him – I tell myself
as I arrive home, after my first hitch hike ever, as I pass through the hallway,
looking anywhere but at the light green telephone that lies still on the trunk where
my mother keeps the iron, the bed sheets and the towels.

On the third day of ignore, Mihai calls the landline (343 813), - only very rich
people have mobile phones at the moment – and it just happens that I’m the one
who picks up the phone, he says he has something for me, then he places the
speaker (a big, black brick, attached to the pick-up he ’inherited’ from his mother,
the speaker that’s usually placed in the lower shelf of the book case in his room,
which has drawings on its walls) on the scraped blue receiver, and I hear Cher’s
electromagnetized voice: Do you believe in life after love?.

46
I accept to meet him around eight o’clock in front of Ketty, the most lively bar in
town – it looks as if it’s taken out of Arizona Dream -, we go for a walk, a beggar
appears out of nowhere , Mihai is wearing a shirt over his Led Zeppelin T-shirt,
he takes it off and gives it to the beggar, I don’t take my hand out of his, actually,
I hold it even harder, he takes me to Zebra, the only music shop in this town that
looks like a cake with towers but it’s full of shitty, dead, stinky people, and the
owner, Edi, a big, nice and red-haired guy, takes out from under the counter a
square, thin package, tied with a red ribbon, he shakes Mihai’s hand – now free
from my grip – and winks at him.

Mihai hugs him, then we walk towards the Fortress, he’s pulling me after him, we
climb our wall – our favourite ruin -, the place where one can get the best view of
the town, illuminated like a stage on which something really might happen (it’s
just that I know only too well that we live in a theatre performance of the kind
Peter Brook says not to make, meaning shitty and stinky-dead), Mihai places his
hand on my back, takes the package out of his backpack, he says ’For you!’, I
open it, greedy and impatient.

As I tear the wrapping paper, he whispers: ’Never forget this moment!’, and I
promise him I won’t. From under the red ribbon, which is still hanging on to the
CD, along with pieces of wrapping paper, which I’d torn apart with force, I can
see some words showing up: Pink Floyd - The Final Cut.

I hug him, I tell him I’m gonna weave a blouse from mineral water for him (he
likes silly jokes and he drinks mineral water straight from the bottle, which annoys
my folks terribly), he laughs, then:

’I have a thing I haven’t told you yet. The Tic-Tac story.’

47
’Aaa, the History teacher?’
’Yeeeeeeeaaaaahhhh.’
’Well, let’s hear it!’
’It happened a while ago and the whole class laughed at me, that’s why I haven’t
told you anything.’
’Oh, go on, speak already!’
’Well, I hadn’t studied anything the night before – even though I knew she would
grade us -, because, if you remember, we went for a bike ride and then I took you
home and we sat on the roof, drinking beer.’
’I remember. I remember everything!’

He smiles.

’OK. So, the next day, she started asking me questions about the lesson,
obviously.’
’Obviously.’
’So she aims at me, ”out of the blue”: ”Olaru!”’
'”Yes, teacher!”’
’”When did the First World War start? Come on, hurry up, let’s not wait for the
grass to grow!”’
So I reply, pretty lost:
”’Oh, buddy, look here...”’ – while staring into her eyes.
’You do realise, Sara, that my class mates start laughing, all at once; noise, yells,
the teacher bangs her pen in the class book, then, because it’s not working, she
starts making creaky noises with the chalk on the blackboard.
She finally makes my class mates settle down. She takes a good look at me and
says:
’”Sit down, you jerk. You get a B.”’

48
I laugh and I remember how proud Mihai was of me (my folks marked it as
inessential) when I told him the story about Sturza – the Math teacher, stern, but
extraordinary:

I’m sitting in the classroom, next to the blonde Maria, my friend and competitor
for the Second Prize (we can’t do better, ’cause we’re cutting school heavily).

We are about to start our three (pfff!) Math classes: Algebra, Geometry and
Trigonometry. On that day, a particularly fucked up day, when my class mates
laughed at me first thing in the morning because I went to school with my coat
tattered (nobody had time to mend it, not even me, with so much homework), the
teacher comes up with an idea (she really was a brilliant woman!) and decides to
experiment with us. At the beginning of each class, she says, while writing on the
blackboard:

’If there’s anyone who wants an A in the class book, they should come out here
and solve the problem!’
I raise my hand in Algebra. My class mates start laughing.
I go to the board, in front of the class, I solve the problem.
’Back to your seat, you have an A!’
I raise my hand in Geometry. My class mates are whispering.
I go to the board, staring straight ahead. I solve the problem.
’Back to your seat, Ionescu! You have an A!’
I raise my hand in the last class – Trigonometry. Everyone says at once: ’Oh,
come on! Really?!’
I go to the board, my head held high. I solve the problem.
’Well done, Sara! You have an A!’

Maria didn’t speak to me for three (oh, well...) days.

49
On our longest break, after Math, my father comes to bring me the sandwich I
forgot at home. My high school is on his way to work, it’s on the avenue covered
in the canopy of old trees (which is very thick and you get the impression that
someone is playing classical guitar under it), on the avenue full of my memories
and also of green benches, carefully dyed in green, on the very avenue that leads
to the Faculty of Medicine, the same avenue at the top of which there’s this bar,
the famous Infect, where we spend our time when we cut school, and this avenue
is connected by some yellow-brick stairs to the theatre where my father has been
working as an actor for years.

He pops his head in my classroom (it’s covered in chestnut-colored hair), showing

his long, oval face, on which two emerald-green eyes are glinting – they’re just
like my grandmother’s.
Corina, Andrea’s desk mate – Andrea, the tall, sexy girl who all kinds of guys
from the neighboring high school are looking for all the time – so, Corina sees
him and cuts to the chase:

’Andrea is out! I’ve no idea where she is, check out the bathroom, maybe she’s in
there, smoking!’

My father is not intimidated by this al all, he smiles his perfect smile and answers
her:

’Actually, I’m looking for Sara!’

The half of my class mates who haven’t gone out for the break go numb. As if it
weren’t enough that I’m the best in the Romanian class, and now, recently, I’ve
also achieved this status in Math, look at this gorgeous guy looking for me (’this

50
good-looking rock music fan, perfect for je, moi, me’ – I’m hearing now in my
mind, as I’m writing and as Bono is declaring in my speakers that he still hasn't
found what he's looking for), this tall, terribly attractive guy, who, in the general
opinion of the class, is too good for me, the common girl sitting in the third desk
from the middle row.

I return from Infect, I see the sandwich my father left on my desk, and I also see
that three quarters of the girls in my class are clinging to, sitting on or leaning
against my desk – except for Maria.

’Sara, darling!’ – Andrea says. She’s just come back from the bathroom where
she probably smoked the usual red Marlboro cigarette stolen from Bogdan, the
high school playboy. And she smiles at me.

This kind of scares me, Andrea hasn’t spoken to me since the beginning of the
school year.

’Yeeeeesssss?’ – I answer, holding my liquor and hanging my tattered coat on the

wall. I head to my desk and sit down. I take the sandwich and quickly put it in my
backpack.
Andrea crosses her arms, covering her breasts with them.
’Who’s the guy who brought you the sandwich? Brother? Cousin? Friend?’
’Mmmmmmm!’ – my cheeks turn pink. ’I’m not telling you. It’s a secret!’ – and
I wink at her (with my left eye, smaller than my right, but just as blue.)
They all start crying, yelling and laughing: ’He’s your boyfriend!’
I start laughing, even though the Electra-amazone-rocker-hunter thing hasn’t
completely healed yet. I let the girls stew for a while, then I say in a matter-of-
fact voice: ’My father.’

51
They start screaming even louder, put their arms around me, pull at my clothes,
until Andrea says:
’Don’t you need a step mother?’
I’m on the verge of telling her I already have one, with whom I had a serious fight
the night before, but I refrain from saying that.
I laugh along, then I answer on a very serious tone: ’No.’

The Logics teacher comes in, ignoring the noise in the classroom, he goes to the
blackboard and draws some Venn-Euler diagrams, and then, because we aren’t
calming down, he turns around and shouts at the top of his lungs:
’Back to your seats, you whores!’
Corina, whose spontaneity I’ve always admired – an admiration that made up for
how much I despised her low intellectual level -, gets off my desk, sits down on
the windowsill, opens a bag of chips noisily and says out loud, from behind the
rasta strands covering her face: ’Look, old man, we’re still on break! And you
can call your mother a whore!’

After daydreaming for five minutes, I return to the present moment, in the Fortress
where Mihai has just given me the last gift in our relationship, the Final Cut CD,
I look at him and see him looking at me, as I am leaning against the wall, freshly
come out of the river of recent memories, it’s really dark and I turn to look at the
town that’s glimmering brighter and brighter, it’s dizzying and appetizing, giving
me the illusion that other peple are doing so much better than us – having dinner
in their opulent houses, playing with their kids, or watching TV (an object that
has missed, is missing and will probably always miss from my home), then Mihai
puts his arms around my shoulders and we just sit like this, quietly, for a while.

52
I take him by the hand and I tell him: ’I wouldn’t give you up, not even for a bag
of gold.’
In a few days, my father receives a phone call from Mona. I got into college. On
a scholarship.
*

I take a sip of tea, I caress the round table, Norah Jones is singing about sunrises
in my speakers - The prettiest thing I ever did see – and I remember the last sunrise
I watched with Mihai, at the seaside, on the morning that followed the day I will
never forget, just like I’ll never forget his grandmother, or Otto, or him, the day
when he taught me how to swim, the day when, for a few hours, the planets called
’up there’, ’down here’ and ’midway here’ were perfectly aligned, because Mihai
was supporting me, and the water was supporting me, and he gave me courage (’I
know you can do it, Sara! Trust me! And yourself! You can do it!’). And I did it
(Ed Sheeran starts singing Dive, obviously), it’s just that the following night I
slept alone (alonealonealone) in the silvery double tent, because Mihai preferred
to get drunk with some local girl, then got bitten by some dogs prawling around
the fish shop and the chick took him to the hospital, while I was sitting there,
wondering what the fuck had happened to him, then I slept a swooning sleep, from
which I woke up, anxious and very worried about him, just to find the same empty
place beside me, so I consequently unzipped the tent, looked through the
penetrating darkness, checking whether he was back, thinking maybe he was
sleeping outside, but no, no trace of the tall-khaki-eyed-long-haired-Mihai, so I
settled for listening to the groans coming from the neighboring tent (the two
people inhabiting it seemed to be fucking successfully), and for crouching on the
cold sand, looking at the sky that was starting to become brighter.
And, finally, here he comes, surrounded with glory, after a long time, seconds,
minutes, hours that trickled slowly, like molten led, invading me, invading even

53
’the brain in my stomach’. Here he comes, stumbling on the beach, drunk, alone
and wearing a bandage.
He reached the tent at the same moment when the sun started rising from the sea.

I take another sip of my tea and my mind flies to the New Year’s Eve we
celebrated that year – and I think about it not because ’You need to go to the
mountains, too, after going to the seaside!’ – as my grandfather used to say when
he wouldn’t lecture me about ’the brain in my stomach’, but because I can hear in
my speakers the song Your Fire by Parov Stelar and my synapses are bringing up
the memory of the logs burning in the simple fireplace, with an iron door, the
fireplace around which we gathered that night when we were about to enter the
year 2000, (and of course the guys from Pulp start filling my kitchen with the
sounds of the song Disco 2000, simply because... serendipity), that night on which
Mihai and I had our own room in the small, but smartly-built cottage, where we
were having a party with some ex-school mates; Mihai had just failed his entrance
exam in Medicine, while I was a junior student at the Faculty of Letters, harrassed
by Silviu, whom I had managed, just then, just that winter, to put on hold – that
night when I first opened up to someone, because, before we went to sleep, I
accepted to let Mihai, my first reader (and you never forget your first love!) see
what I’d been writing, that night on which, in front of the fire that was the only
source of light in the room, I showed him my poems:

Rabbits, The Way I Want Them

He leaves, but forgets his hat.

He returns and finds a top hat instead.
He stays, because he doesn’t want to be

54
 Greeted
by
a
hat with a rabbit in it
next time.

’Where I come from’ – he says,

while arranging
his shoes with their snake-skinned
shoelaces -
’rabbits are usually carried in pockets...’

A Moment in the Life of a Flower (and its) Power

I once saw
A flower forgotten
On a stone.

I left it there, obviously.

(Why would I take it?!)
And I passed it by,
Casually and apparently carelessly.

A lizard followed me,

Caressed its blue fringe
And asked me:

Hey, rabbit, why

Didn’t you take
The flower

55
 From the stone?

The rabbit – that would be me –

Asked the animal in a firm voice
To keep its fringe away
From other people’s private lives and flowers.
Then, the flower started speaking
And said,
No trace of sadness in its voice:

’Please go away!
I have decided to stay!’

Therefore,
She remained
What she’d always been:
A flower forgotten
On a stone.

Something Like This

I sometimes feel overcome

By the urge to write poetry.
It’s too nasty for common people.
And as I’m one of them,
I really can’t hope for something like this.

Something.
Like this.

56
 It’s much too strange to ever be
Taken as such – no one can see.
And since I am no one but me,
It’s easy to see: it just can’t be.
You can’t miss
Something.
Like this.

It really really could be bliss

To simply read something
Like this.
Something.
Like this.

I remember how he got up silently from where he was sitting in front of the
fireplace, how I felt very scared that he’d burn my poems, how I chased that
thought away, because Mihai would have never done that, not even if he’d hated
them, how I was waiting, frozen with fear, for him to say something, how he
remained quiet, until I couldn’t take it anymore, so I went to him and made puppy
eyes, how he started laughing, hugged me, made me sit down on the bed, then
became very serious all of a sudden and told me: ’My dear Sara, you’re so much
better than Anda Cadariu!’

When we went to sleep, we were hugging.

57
The next day, we took a walk through the forest, dressed in thick clothes and
wearing warm boots, me – without gloves, him – insisting that I wear his, while I
answered to his repetead requests by telling him that I’m wearing, as he well
knows, a T-shirt on which there’s an inscription: ’I’m a big boy!’
We chased one another until we reached a small, friendly glade, where we rested
under a tree and made snow angels, me – with my frozen hands, him – weeping
from the cold air, until I wiped the tears away, and until we stopped and stared at
the tree’s canopy.

’Sara...’
’Yes?’
’Do you see what I see?!’

He got up and pointed: two brown gloves were hanging from the nearest tree
branch; they were checked and they were very very cute, tied to one another with
a string. Mihai made the most amazed face he had ever made (he had a genius
’amazed’ face, I loved to provoke him just to see his expression), he reached out,
took them from the branch and looked at me:

’Try them on!’

They fitted me perfectly.

’Serendipity!’ – Mihai said, and we hugged.

58
I stop, the kitchen is enclosing me, it feels heavy, I look at the Italian-made,
colored tiles on the floor, and I realise that something’s happened on the skiing
track I’ve started gliding on. I feel the danger of an avalanche, something’s not
OK, maybe my skiing gear’s not OK, or I’m gonna lose an ice ax.
And I start feeling afraid. Again.

Because I realize I’ve written the entire excerpt above in the Past Tense. I get
stuck. I can’t even hear the song being whispered in the speakers. My fear turns
into sheer panic: this is my last memory of me and Mihai, before Ileana, Georgia
and, last but not least, Sidonia. I’m considering editing the excerpt, rewriting it in
the Present Tense, the same as the other parts.
But no. I realise it’s not a good idea. It’s good. It’s very good. So I take a relieved
breath.
No. It stays in the Past Tense. Because all these things are in the past. And that’s
where they should stay – in the past.
So I give my laptop a loving look.
And I write:

Mihai,
We matched perfectly ’up there’. You have a
remarkable spirit, you’ve got a sense of humour, and
on top of it all, you are really nice.
Maybe too nice. Maybe with too many... people.
We could have stayed best friends. But you weren’t
there for me when I needed you most.
I would have overcome this, too, hadn’t it been for
those... ’other... people’. This - I could not
overcome.
Maybe we’ll meet again someday, ’up there’.

59
Sara

The kitchen feels very cold. I stand up and turn the heating on. When I push the
button, the lovely guys from Foo Fighters start singing that they've waited here
for me everlong. I try to revive myself, stretch in front of the mirror (I wish my
waist were as thin and my breasts as firm when I put my arms down, too!), I jog
on the spot a little, I wink at myself (with my bigger eye), I encourage myself, I
send myself a kiss, it doesn’t help at all, but I go back to writing.
Writing helps. It always does.
I know this from the second volume of the bestselling book by Anda Cadariu, her
Journal.
And I write.

60
 Two. Silviu – Down There

I write. I write, in spite of all the obstacles, I keep writing, trying really hard to
bring even Mihai back to the present, although I know, now, just as I knew it then,
that this present no longer belongs to him.

We’re celebrating my success in having been accepted at the university in the BIG
city (My grandfather, on the phone: ’Wow, Sara, on a scholarship! Well, actually,
I’m not surprised, it’s normal for you!’). Tonight it’s just me, my mother, my
father and Mihai, in our apartment, in the living adjoined by the kitchen paved
with tiles that resemble wooden decking, flanked by lacquered cupboards, bought
in the eighties. We’re sitting at the round table behind which the bluish-yellow
flames of the cooker are burning playfully.
My folks are super-proud of me now, proud that I studied two foreign languages
in high school and that after I’d passed my graduation exam with flying colors
(even though it was problematic, ’cause I didn’t want to take it this year – ’I went
to school when I was six, mom! I can’t do it at the moment, it’s too difficult for
me now!’, to which my mother replies by taking out of her bag a a khaki jumper,
patched on the shoulders and at the elbows, and she gives it to me. My eyes go
wide with joy, but then, I hear her voice – it’s not really kind, it’s rather
threatening: ’Oh, yes, Sara, you will take your graduation exam! I got you a
patched jumper for this. It’s made especially for people who break their arms
working!’), so, yeah, I got through my graduation exam with very good grades
(the biggest grade in our high school in the English exam, actually), and now I’m
gonna go study at the BIG university in another city, so that I become smarter,
even more educated, even better.

Mihai looks at me with a combination of love (hm, what a strange word!),

admiration and respect, he sips from his Leffe, I’m having a Corona, and my folks

61
– a Carlsberg each. We say Cheers!, we’re all happy, I’m anticipating the freedom
that will protect me from their shouting and yelling (my father, to my mother,
when I got home after my entrance exam at the university, around midnight: ’How
could you let her go alone and here, look at her, return alone, hitch hiking?
How?!’), I’m also happy for myself, but more for them, especially because now
they seem relieved, as if they needed a confirmation that they will be able to stay
just as preoccupied with their own persons, because I can handle things alone
(alonealonealone), Mihai seems, in this moment, when I’m watching him, very
much in love with me and a bit tipsy, we say Cheers! again and we start eating
my favourite food – kind of proletarian, but that’s my favourite food, can’t change
it – steak with fries and pickles.

However, I’m not the only one who passed the exam. Silviu got in, too. He, unlike
me, has to pay for his studies – small grades. He’s coming to the BIG city later,
that’s how I explain to myself the fact that I don’t see him attending classes in our
first month, which I remember as peaceful: a beautiful October, colored just like
Botticelli’s Venus.

I stop writing, it’s syncopated, yeah, I’ve turned on my thought tap, but, after the
rusty memory of the anorexic gazelle and the wannabe writer came out, after I put
Mihai in words, too, I see that these guys are trying to stop the flow again, as if
the Great Plumber were working on the pipes in my attic, nope, not OK, maybe if
I return to the image of myself skiing I can keep writing, I light a cigarette, I hear
the sentimental voice of the singer from Cigarettes after Sex (Watching the video
that you sent me... you know that I'm obsessed with your body), I take a mouthful

62
of orange and cinnamon tea, I make myself more comfortable at the table in the
immaculate kitchen of my perfect one-room apartment, where I live alone
(alonealonealone), I want to, I really want to keep skiing on the snowy slope of
my memory lane, marked with flags, I remember that I know, moreover, I feel (!)
that I can complete this route, I take off my watch, it’s a simple, black watch, a
no-name make, which hinders me, after a while, from writing.

I smile wryly – it was also a watch that started the Silviu story, ’down there’, in
the ex-basement-current-pub, which had an arched roof and large, opulent tables.

I hear a song by Philip Glass in my speakers, Heroes, inspired by David Bowie,

no lyrics, just instrumental, serene music, which creates an atmosphere that’s the
complete opposite of the one in the days I’m about to recall, it’s a song an
acquaintance of mine thought I’d like – an ex-actor, currently working in a bank,
who obviously knows my father – it’s a song that helps me overcome my fear –
this time, the fear of feeling foolish – and I teleport myself in a dettached manner
to the crucial moment I would have avoided if I could, but which has a bright
counterpart, the present moment, the one in which the survivor is writing.
And I write.
*

It’s the end of October. I don’t know this yet, but I’m gonna spend my afternoon
in this mostly-for-students bar, underground, where I’m going to have a tea (not
orange and cinnamon, but a simple chamomile tea). I’ve got a cold, but I can’t
stay at the student house anymore, it’s depressing, even though Delia, my room
mate, is in a good mood today. My top-of-the-class-student face is the way it is
for a reason – I’ve started studying on my first month at the university (’Delia,
I’m never going back to that town, full of shitty, dead people!’), so I put the notes
from the lectures at the university and a book by Anda Cadariu in my backpack,

63
I’m headed for a bar, I don’t know which bar yet, any bar, I’m getting dressed,
I’m wearing my bootcut jeans and put some make-up on, but not before I get
dressed in my favourite blouse, simple, with no patterns, made of grey kashmir, I
look at myself in the mirror, the smaller eye and the bigger one are both smiling
at me, I decide I’m looking good, with my hair longer and longer, with my breasts
appropriately appetizing, with my waist getting thinner and thinner, ’Bye, Delia,
see you later, thanks for the Sibiu salami, I’ll pay you back when I get the
scholarship money!’, and I head downtown.

The city feels fresh, it’s filled mostly with young people, someone wrote with a
spray on a wall something that will become the most famous grafitti of the student
community: "Romanians, conquer U.S.A.! The U.S.A, Romanian land!", I walk
quickly past it, I hope I’ll keep getting along with Delia, we started on the right
track, she’s in Computer Studies, her parents are Math teachers, both of them, I
was also good in Math, we have things we can talk about, I tell her of some books
she might like, but, above all, my first impression of her was that she was nice. I
hope this doesn’t change.

Mihai is just a memory now (and I think about the Sports teacher, who’d watch
us walking in the high school yard and who would come to us, pull Mihai’s long,
chestnut-colored hair, try to make himself taller just to look in his kind, khaki
eyes, after which he’d hold his hand in a friendly way, while asking me: ’Taking
walks with this rascal again?’, and I remember how we played basketball on April
1st, just me and Mihai, how my knee troubled me and I collapsed on the ground,
how he started laughing, thinking I was trying to trick him, until I started
screaming with pain – as for crying, I’ve hardly ever shed tears - and how he
came, then, running, white in the face, to help me up), but it’s a nice memory, all
my memories of him are nice and I hate myself for trying to forgive myself and
him and for not really being able to do that.

64
 *

I’m having chamomile tea in the pub – it’s stinking of stale cigarette smoke. I’m
trying to study for Academic Research Methodology, taught by an old professor
who nobody listens to, except for the students sitting in the front row.

I can hardly focus, so I teleport myself involuntarily to my last class, right in the
moment when I heard a voice at the back of the room, where all the boys were
seated: ’My, it sure smells like menstruation!’. It was a strong, annoying voice,
which I would later find out belonged to Silviu, newly arrived in the BIG city,
coming from a considerable distance, three (no more, no less than three!) hundred
kilometers away, from the poor, uncivilised South.

I wasn’t listening to the professor, either, I was reading Toni Morrison, feeling
happy I had met Lili, who was in the first row of the amphitheater that was kind
of empty. She was writing everything the old guy at the desk was saying. I would
copy her notes later, no need to pay attention.

I turned around, disgusted, to see who the jackass obsessed with menstruation
was, preparing to give him one of Mihai’s lines, Mihai, the peacemaker (’War is
menstruation envy!’), but I didn’t see anyone grinning or acting suspiciously.
They were all pretending to write.

I was having my menstruation, as a coincidence (I take a sip of Lipton tea, in the

kitchen that’s getting warmer, the taste of oranges and cinnamon makes me feel
good, but I remember, speaking of menstruation, the great literary critic David
Mateescu, who was invited on that TV show about writers I watched with Silviu,
after we moved in together – but this hasn’t happened yet – who declared, live,
that women writers produce more obscene books ’because they have

65
menstruation!’) so, feeling extremely targeted, I bent under the old bench,
pretending my pen fell on the floor, but then I got up, relaxed, because I didn’t
feel any strange smell.

And here I am, sitting, with my photocopied notes under my nose, at the table in
the pub, listening to Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and this kind of stuff, I’m sitting
right under the speaker and I can’t make anything of these notes which seem well-
structured, actually, but the words start looking hazy because of the music,
because of my cold and tiredness.

I’m trying very hard to remember what it says there about apud, see and confer,
about how you should write a footnote, how to properly organize a bibliography,
but I can’t do it because Mihai keeps coming to my mind (suddenly, after Steven
Tyler’s asked me Tell me how it feels to be/The one who turns the knife inside of
me, the guys in Jethro Tull start Wond'ring Aloud in my immaculate kitchen),
Mihai, who can’t accept under any circumstance that it’s time we broke up, I
understand him, it’s difficult for me, too, he keeps coming to see me, looking for
me, he takes me out for walks in the park, ha, aren’t I a lucky girl, my first
boyfriend is really in love with me!

The pub is almost empty, I’m going back to my chamomile tea. A guy with smoky
glasses and dressed in black jeans passes by. He’s skinny and his legs are U-
shaped, he looks like a robot in his leather jacket with a silvery zipper.

I wallow in my notes and blow my nose.

I hear a voice: ’Do you mind if I sit down?’

I take a look – it’s the skinny guy with U-shaped legs. He went about the pub and
came back.

66
’No.’, I tell him, going back to my tea and to the notes under my running nose.

If I had known then what would follow, I would have run like hell. If I had known
that his father would call me to talk about his son’s sex life, if I had known that
the black-clad ’romantic figure’ was wearing some shitty underwear under those
almost stretch jeans, if it had crossed my mind, in that moment, that his mother
would send him holy water in sealed bottles to save him from his inner demons,
or that she would call me on my mobile phone, while I was peeing in the toilet at
the theatre where my father works, to tell me that there’s a pair of lace underwear
for me in the package she sent Silviu, if I had known then (’Sara, I’m gonna punch
you!’) that Mr. Do-you-mind-if-I-sit-down would hit me repeatedly, that he’d
cheat on me all the time (’Sex doesn’t matter to me, it’s a sport!), briefly, if I had
known that this robotic person woud cause me the biggest, deepest, most harmful
Harm (’Silviu, why are you harming me?’ ’Because I can!’) that anyone would
ever cause me, if I had known how huge his inner dirt was, how ugly his soul was
and how addicted to ’down there’ I would become because of him, if I had known
that his smell would obsess me, that he would try to dominate me in the classical
narcissist-empath binome, that, because of him, I would learn even better to
consolidate my weltanschauung, generated by the learned helplesness my folks
had fed me my whole life (’NO, Sara, we won’t let you take driving lessons! We
mean well! And that’s the end of the conversation!’), if I had known then I would
need seven years to get rid of him and seven more to heal, I wouldn’t have asked
him – after taking a break from looking at my school notes that really made no
sense anymore – with the honest thought of going back to my student house:
’Do you know what time it is?’
*

67
I stop writing and take a look at the round table and at my black, simple watch. I
push it behind the screen of my laptop, so as not to see it anymore. Nina Simone
is singing in the speakers, interpellating a Sinnerman. I clench my teeth.
And I write.

The skinny, U-legged guy smiles at me ironically, looks under the sleeve of his
leather jacket and asnwers:

’It’s six o’clock sharp. Someone loves you!’

I’m extremely annoyed by that smile that’s accusing me I’m trying to hook up
with him, so I get up to leave, but:

’Are you a student here?’

’Yeah.’, I answer, while getting my notes from the table scratched with drawings
of dicks, pussies and hearts.
’Me too.’
I can’t help myself:
’Really? Where?’
’Faculty of Letters.’
Pause.
’Me too.’
’What year?’
’First year.’
’Me too! What department?’
’Romanian and World Fiction.’
’Me too!’

68
 *

I remember now, as I sip tea in the perfect kitchen of my perfect one-room

apartment in the perfect-because-dead town, among the lyrics sung by The
Fratellis, which I’m listening to while writing this (A girl like you's just
irresistable) a subtitle in a Pascal Bruckner book.

I’ve never forgotten the question: ’You a pterodactyle? Me also a pterodactyle!’

I don’t know whether it was The Temptation of Innocence or... No. It was Le
Nouveau Désordre Amoureux.

Obviously – I tell myself, and I think lovingly about Mihai, then I close the laptop,
I need a break.

I go to my room, look at my white floating bed (’Well, I thought that, since you’re
not exactly the skinny type, you’d bought – in my story, of course – a floating bed
so that you could get some physical exercise when climbing the stair.’ ), at the
white book shelf, bought from IKEA, filled with books in Romanian (my eyes are
set on Joseph and His Brothers and I think, for a split second, about Andrei), and
in English (most of them from Book Depository, they haven’t been translated yet
into Romanian), I look at the round, vividly-colored carpet, ordered online, at the
green sofa I sometimes lie down on in the afternoon, at the plants (including a
yucca and a coffee tree) that need to be watered soon, I remember the winter I
moved in and organized my home, with my parents’ and Andrei’s help, I hear
Katie Melua’s suave voice in the kitchen – she’s singing I'm going to find a happy
place, so I go back, I sit down, I stare ahead, then I stare into the darkness outside,
I give the screensaver a virtual kick, I type loveisforever when my laptop asks for
the password, I go on Facebook, I read positive thoughts and encouragements for

69
people who prefer self-help to therapy – such as the one telling me not to stop
dreaming just because I had a nightmare – it was on the Word Porn Facebook
page, I guess.
I take a sip of tea.

And I write.

We introduce ourselves (Sara - Silviu, ’SS, just like the Nazis!’, he says, amused,
I freak out, but he has a charm that makes me understand now, as I’m writing this,
how Hitler ascended to power – and I hear from my speakers how Antony & the
Johnsons point out that From the corpses flowers grow), then, after I finish my
tea and him – his beer, we each go back to our student house (his is on Happiness
St., which you can access through an alleyway stinking of piss and excrements),
we see each other in school, he ignores me especially when I’d like him not to,
Mihai pays me the occasional visit – he usually hitch hikes -, I feel disgusted by
his strategy: his jealousy makes him try to combat Silviu by apparently making
friends with him, we go out, the three of us, Mihai has started smelling of mold
again, I feel bad about ’my-ex-boyfriend-current-friend’, but on a weekend when
Silviu’s room mate is away, ’the dark-dickhead’ asks me over to play some CD
with new music for me, alternative rock, he knows I like it, and even though his
favourite band is My Dying Bride (and I remember that summer when I went to
the neighboring country to attend that music festival, I went alonealonealone
because it was one of those summers on which Silviu left me alonealonealone
and My Dying Bride were on, too, it’s just that I didn’t go there, I went to listen
to Compay Segundo instead, and I met those Italian guys who were making fun
of Slayer, whose concert was about to start, and Ahmed Mörtzi, the Medicine
student from Egypt, who bought me a sangria and whose favourite book was not

70
A Thousand and One Nights, but Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), Silviu got the
new R.E.M. LP, especially for me, we listen, I like the song Leave, E-Bow the
Letter isn’t bad at all, either, we have sex, I tell him once is enough for me, I’ve
just broken up with someone, he groans: ’Shit, I’m gonna fall back to jerking off
again!’, I don’t get it, I’ve never heard anyone talking in this manner. He insists,
and so it begins. So it begins.

’I love you.’, he says, then, like a good handler of the carrot and stick technique,
he takes it back, leading me on to want more and more.

After a few weeks (and I hear Mihai, screaming under the lime tree: ’WHY, Sara,
WHY?!’), on a particularly warm November evening, we are walking, Silviu and
I, hand in hand, passing by the statue of Mihai Viteazul on his horse, the statue
dominating the square that smells of freedom, even if it’s populated with benches
dyed in a nationalistic style, Silviu buys some candy for me, and as I’m eating
one, he says: ’Tongue in your cheek?’ and starts laughing, I don’t understand why
he’s laughing, I don’t understand his language, his attitude, his actions. I meditate
on my folks’ quarrels and fights, and I tell myself: ’Thank God I left that dead,
stinky town!’, but he interrupts my thoughts: ’You see, Sara, I wouldn’t want to
become dependent on you, and you shouldn’t do that with me, either!’, so I get
stuck, with a sticky candy in my hand, he reassures me that he loves me, and
something melts in my stomach, something like a rotten apple pie full of old
cinnamon and out-of-date nutmeg, covered in vanilla ice cream tasting like
washing powder.

71
At the university, the classes are long, difficult, and I’m really interested in them,
even in the Generative Grammar taught by ’Kitty’, as my school mates call her,
an Associate Professor with black-blue hair and a mean face, it’s just that I can
hardly attend those classes, because of Silviu. I write on the new laptop I got from
my folks – poems, short stories I don’t have the courage to publish (the first story
I wrote in my student years is called Letters to the Girl Living Across) – and I stop
writing, I save the document Sara. Love Me Three Times. and I open

Letters to the Girl Living Across

Hello,

I’m 21 and I live right across from you.

You said hi yesterday, when we met in the
hallway. I like you, you’ve got a certain
aura. You’re like a plush toy forgotten
in a corner by some spoiled child. I’m
interested in you because I’ve noticed
you’re sad and worried, but you don’t let
this get to you. I like the fact that
you’re well-dressed, you take care of
your looks, you use pastel lipstick and I
really like the way you apply make-up.
Someone once told me make-up is silly,
but I like women who know how to emphasize
their beauty. They’re more lively,
they’re like swing music played on wind
instruments, they’re stormy and
impossible to ignore.

72
I’ve noticed you have a flower. I saw you
when you brought it home, in its pot. I
saw when you put it on the windowsill.

I watched you through the eye in my door.

I know you live alone. You took off for
work and locked your door twice. Usually,
you lock it only once. What happened? What
are you afraid of? Maybe it’s the guy who
came by yesterday and left a note in your
door. I think that’s who you’re afraid
of.

Maybe one day we’ll stop and chat on the

hallway. After a while, you’ll give me
your spare key and I’ll water the flower
on your windowsill when you’re away.
Maybe we’ll become friends. Maybe not...
Anyway, I think of you as of my friend.
Because I like you.

You left for work yesterday and I came

out of my apartment, I looked around, then
I looked through the eye in your door. I
want to know what your one-room apartment
looks like. Unfortunately for me, the eye
in your door was covered. Then, I checked
your mail box. I know you don’t lock it,
simply because there’s no lock on it. I

73
only found the gas and electricity bills
inside. This disappointed me, I was
hoping for a postcard, or a new note, left
more discretely, not in your door, but in
your mail box, by the guy I’m suspecting
you’re afraid of. I don’t like him. I
don’t like it that he’s leaving messages
in your door. He could call you on the
phone, right? I, for one, if I had your
number, would call you every day and take
you out for coffee, lunch or dinner.

Why do you live alone? Women who live

alone are always in danger. People gather
together, they help one another, it’s not
like they all use each other for selfish
ends. There are good people in the world,
too – have you forgotten this? And not
only people.

I, for instance, have Oskar. He’s a

terrier. He likes you, too.

When I come home from the store, I always

look up at your window. I think the flower
is in good hands. It’s getting enough
light. If you ever need me to see to it,
please let me know. But you don’t seem to
be the talkative type.

74
Your body, however, speaks volumes. I saw
that yesterday you were wearing high
heels. I like this. I like it that you’re
not giving up. A woman has to know how to
fight.

I didn’t see your face in the morning,

when you left. I’m sure you were wearing
carefully-applied make-up. Your face is
very expressive and I like how you
emphasize it. Did you still have circles
under your eyes? Did you sleep well last
night? Did the note that guy left in your
door trouble you? Can I help?

I always watch you when you go out. I saw

you in the market, alone, carrying
transparent bags through which I could
notice vegetables, takeaway food and
cleaning products. Why do you buy
takeaway? Don’t you like cooking? Or
maybe you don’t like to cook just for
yourself? You could ask me to dinner, you
know... Or we could cook together.

I’ve been watching you for a long time. I

like the fact that you’re graceful, quiet
and strong. I couldn’t cope with life
without Oskar, but you, a woman alone in
a big, dirty city... I admire you.

75
You seem to be a nice person, so I’d like
to tell you that you should use your
discernment to protect yourself from
villains. I could help, because Oskar
taught me how to growl.

I stopped writing for a while and looked

down the hallway. There’s a note in your
door again. Is it from that guy? Is he
harassing you? Is he tormenting you? I’d
like to help. I’ve got an hour left before
I go to work. I think I’ll take that note
from your door and read it. I can’t help
it. I’d like to take care of you.

Oskar doesn’t approve of my going out the

door. He’s giving me reproachful looks.
He knows I’m not allowed to interfere with
anyone’s privacy without permission. I
wonder – if I asked you what’s the matter
with you, would you tell me? Of course
not. But I’d really like to help.

I’m taking Oskar out for a walk and when

I get back, I’ll continue writing this
letter to you. Maybe I’ll tell you about
Oskar, maybe about myself...

76
I’m back. I won’t tell you about Oskar.
Or myself. I took the note from your door.
I haven’t read it yet. However, I
understand something: you’re a girl alone
and you get desperate from time to time.
But you’re holding on. I can only suspect
that you were some awful person’s victim.
That’s what I read in your eyes when I
first saw you. And I first saw you at the
theatre. I didn’t approach you, even
though I would have liked to. I think it
was some musical and I had gone to see it
with friends. As for you… you were there
alone ! You looked just as good as you do
today. I liked you as soon as I saw you.
You were looking around, clinging to the
umbrella that was protecting you from the
autumn rain. You were waiting for
someone. That someone never came. He told
you he’d be there, but he never came. I
saw this in the sadness of your gait as
you were walking towards the plush-
chaired theatre hall. What I liked the
most was the fact that you decided to
attend the performance, even though you
were alone. Some people only go to the
theatre to socialize, they don’t really
care about the performance. But you’re
different. It was in that moment that I

77
decided to get closer to you. I already
know enough, I know, for example, that I
can’t help it and I’ll keep reading the
notes in your door.

You know, I’m afraid of that guy, too! I

think he’s maleficent, just as I think
you’re really bright. I don’t have any
rational basis for this, but if I ever
leave this long, unstamped letter in your
mail box and you decide to answer it,
please confirm or invalidate what I
suspect about that guy. I might reach my
own conclusion sooner – I’m about to read
the note – I’ve run out of patience.

Oskar finished eating and he’s sleeping

beside me. Now I’m sitting down on the
red couch I bought from a second hand shop
and I’m having coffee. The funny thing is
that, even though things don’t seem that
way, I’m not obsessed with you. I’d just
like to be your friend. I’d like to take
care of you. To help. You are a bright
being, but I can also sense that this
light coming from you is doubled by a huge
trauma that can only provoke me.

I take the note, open it and read: ’Adina,

I love you. Florin.’ I see. Is that why

78
there’s a flower in your window, ’cause
his name is Florin?

Maybe not. Maybe you feel lonely and you

don’t have the courage to get a dog and
there’s no room inside you for friends.
But no human is an island. I’m here. I
see you.

I’ll put the note back in your door. It’s

not OK to interfere like this with the
lives of your loved ones. And because you
are one of them, I’m gonna have faith in
you. Now, let me ask you some questions:
If Florin loves you, why doesn’t he call
you? Why does he leave notes in your door?
If he loves you, why doesn’t he help you
carry the bags filled with food that you
buy in the market? Why doesn’t he water
your flower when you’re away?

The note is there, waiting for you, like

a scorpion that promises it will help you
cross the river. I hope you don’t believe
it.

Even though I like you a lot, I can’t

interfere brutally with your problems. I
can just notice, encourage you from
backstage, read notes to find out more,

79
and wait. I’m waiting for the moment when
you’re going to say to me: ’Hi. How are
you?’ At the moment, we’re in the ’Hi! –
Hello!’ phase. I can’t take the first
step, because I’d scare you. So I’m
writing you letters that I may never drop
in your mail box. I’m writing them for
you, but also for myself.

Let me tell you another thing I’ve noticed

and have been studying: your fear. I live
with it night and day. I feel it, as if
it were mine. I don’t really know what
happened to you, but I know it’s connected
to the notes in your door. I wonder why
you are their victim. Why don’t you keep
fighting? I know that actually you do keep
fighting, it’s just that you don’t know
how to fight this. Who sent you to war
unarmed?

I dreamt about you last night. You told

me lots of things about yourself. I
listened and told you some things about
myself, too. That’s what friends do, they
tell each other things.

I’ve decided to write you a letter every

day, until you’re gonna say to me: ’Hi.
How are you?’

80
But I’m done for today, I’ll stop here.
Signed: your friend.

Hello,

You came home late yesterday. You were

tired and your legs were most certainly
hurting. Thank God we’ve got an elevator.
I liked it that you walked barefoot down
the hallway. You were holding your shoes
in your left hand, while looking for your
keys in your bag with your right hand.
Then, you saw the note in your door. You
froze on the spot, snatched it, read it
and leaned your head against the wall.
Your shoulders were shaking. I felt like
yelling: ’Why are you crying? It’s not
worth it!’ But you got over it very
quickly. You found your key and you went
in. I hope you didn’t forget to water your
flower, I hope you didn’t forget to eat
something and brush your teeth after.

You took off hurriedly today. You were

scared again. This time, you were horror-
struck by the thought you might be late

81
for work. I’ll bet. And I think I’m gonna
win this bet, because I read the signs
well. Your face was topsy-turvy, your
hair was a mess and you were wearing low
heels. But you were still yourself, I
still loved you, you hadn’t changed a bit
on the inside, you were still strong.

I wish I knew your fear and pain. What is

that Florin guy doing to you? What are
you letting him do to you? Or, should I
ask, what can’t you stop him from doing
to you? I’ve never seen his face. I only
saw his back. He had military-like
shoulders and he was emanating blackness.
He was wearing a short, black leather
jacket and corduroy trousers, also black.
I didn’t like him, I felt endangered
myself. Thank God for Oskar, who sat next
to me and licked my hand.

I think I’ll start watching Florin, as

well. Because you can’t go through what
he’s doing to you on your own. I know I’ll
put myself in danger, I feel it, but for
you – I’ll do it. I’m a passive person,
the voyeur type, but I can take action
when needed.

82
I won’t see you today when you return
home: I’m going out tonight.

Now I’m off for a drink with a colleague

of mine.
Signed: your friend.
∞

Hello,

Have you taken off this morning? I haven’t

seen you. Are you still at home? I’ve
noticed the flower is no longer on your
windowsill. Could this be a sign of a
decision you made concerning Florin?

I could knock on your door, asking for

sugar, salt, oil or something. After all,
I live right across from you. But I don’t
want pretexts. I want you to come to me.
I see you in my mind’s eye and I worry.
Has something happened to you? Why didn’t
you go to work today? Or maybe... you
didn’t come home last night. Did you
manage to make friends with someone? Did
you sleep over at your parents’ place?
Did you leave town? DID YOU MOVE?!

No, I don’t think you did. I’m here, here

for you.

83
I haven’t seen any note in your door.

I can’t write anymore, I’m too worried

about you. I’ll be waiting.

∞
Hello,

You’re back! Oh, God, what a relief! I

guess you were out of town, because you
were carrying a big suitcase in one hand
and the flower in your other hand! I’m
happy you’re both fine. You were in a good
mood and I really insist to thank you for
smiling at me.

I wonder... where were you? In the

mountains? At the seaside? And what did
you do there?

I’m fine, I missed you, but I’ve been

spending a lot of time with you, even
though you don’t know it. I go out, then
I come back home to Oskar and I look for
you with my inner eye. I like to think
I’m watching over you.

I’ll keep doing this all day today.

84
Signed: your friend.

∞
Hello,

As soon as you returned, so did Florin.

He left another note in your door. I don’t
know why he keeps doing this. I don’t know
why you let him. This time, I didn’t look
at what he wrote. I can’t allow myself to
do this. I can only guess: ’I love you,
where are you?’ Or: ’I hate you because
you’re not giving in to me.’ Or: ’I love
you and I hate you and I don’t care about
you.’ Or: ’I cheated on you.’ Or: ’I’ve
never cheated on you because we were never
a couple.’ Or: ’I’m an emotional
blackmailer, a fishy fellow, I’m gonna
keep causing you problems. Call me. Look
for me. Be at home.’ Or: ’You’re
plasticine in my hands. Don’t fight it.’
Or: ’I give out darkness. You give out
light. Opposites attract. Don’t fight
it.’ Or : ’Have I frightened you ? I’m so
happy I’ve done that !’

I can’t take it anymore. Oskar is giving

me ugly looks, but I go out the door and
snatch the note. I open it and read,

85
stupefied : ’Who is the person living
across from you ?’

I freeze. I look around the hallway. I

don’t see anyone. How does Florin know I
know? Has he seen me? Has he felt me?
I put the note back in your door. I go
back to my apartment, across from yours.
Oskar is wagging his tail.

Please take care of yourself.

Hello,

I saw that the flower in your window has

started losing its leaves. Why are you
neglecting it? Maybe you don’t want to
take care of it anymore, maybe you can’t
do it anymore...

It’s still morning. I woke up sooner than

usual today. I’m having coffee with you
again, writing to you while waiting for
you to go to work. I’m waiting for the
sound of the key in your lock. Please,
please lock your door only once today!
Stop being afraid! Now I’m the one who’s
afraid. How does Florin know about me?

86
Have I given myself away one way or
another? Has he at least revealed to you
the fact that I exist? Are you aware that
I’m here and that I deserve more than just
’Hello.’?

I don’t think I can follow Florin. Now

that he knows I exist, I have to protect
myself, too. Or maybe that’s exactly why
I should follow him? I’ll think about it,
but I’ll think of you first of all. How
are you feeling today? What are you going
to do? What mood are you in? How will you
dress? Will you take a long or a short
shower this morning? Will you water the
flower before you leave, will you trim
its leaves, will you put some fertilizer
in its pot? Or are you going to do all of
these when you get back? I hope I’ll be
seeing you both when you leave and when
you get back. My schedule is free today.

Aha! I heard the key in your lock! Oh,

no! – twice, again. You turn around and
stare at my door. You seem curious and
harassed and afraid and curious and
harassed and afraid and curious and
harassed again. I’m not the one you should
be afraid of, Adina!

87
You are particularly fragile today. It’s
raining outside, so you’re wearing your
baby-blue mackintosh. It looks good on
you. You’re leaning your left arm against
the wall, you’re arranging your hairdo
and your long earrings, also blue, are
flowing around your white neck. Your skin
is very light-colored – don’t you ever
get tanned? Well, I, for one, like it like
this. You’re wearing low heels again.
You’re in a hurry. Maybe if your sense of
duty weren’t so well-developed, you’d be
more relaxed. But no – that’s just the
way you are. I never said you were perfect
– thank God you’re not, or you’d be
boring.

Oskar is pushing me with his nose. He

wants me to take him out for a walk. I’m
going to avoid you today. Maybe you’ll
miss me if you don’t see me every day.
So... Oskar, please wait for a while!

OK, you’ve left. I’ll wait for five more

minutes and we’re going out, yes, good
doggie, we’ll go out in a momennt ! I have
to remember to check on your flower. How
is it doing ? I wonder…

88
I’m back. The flower is a gonner. I don’t
like this. I don’t like this at all.
You’re annoying me: why on earth did you
get it, if you don’t know how to take care
of it? Or maybe it was a gift... from
Florin? I feel a huge jealousy if it’s
from him. And I feel mean feelings towards
it: yes, let it die if it’s from him! Let
it whither! You should throw it out the
window! Let it disappear!

A few minutes have passed. I’ve calmed

down. That poor flower, it has no fault...

I’m leaving.

I’m back. It’s evening. There’s no note

in your door.

I look through the eye in my door, because

I hear footsteps down the hallway. It’s
Florin. He’s staring at my door. He keeps
staring. My heart is beating against my
ribs at an insane pace. He turns around
and leaves.

I’ll never follow him. I feel sorry for

you, but I can’t do it. I feel angry at
my own helplesness. But you’re on your

89
own. I can’t get you through this. I’m
crying. Maybe you’re crying, too,
somwehere, on your way home. You’ll be
here in no time. You won’t even know he
dropped by. Nor will you know that I’ll
be watching. I’m waiting.
Oskar is sleeping on the doorstep. I hear
the key. You’re back ! You don’t look at
my door, like you did this morning. You’re
ignoring me. Maybe it’s for the best.

Good night!
Signed: your friend.

Hello,

I’ve got a plan. You’ll see.

For now, I’ll be waiting for you to leave

home.

It’s been 10 minutes since you left. I

took a long, good look at you through the
eye in my door. You were looking good.
You had a confident appearance. You were
well-dressed, as usual, and your make-up
was gorgeous! I was happy to see that.

90
I’m taking Oskar out for a walk in a few
minutes.

I’m back. The flower is gone – I looked

at your window and didn’t see it. Did you
throw it away? Did you get rid of it? Did
it die of its own accord? Maybe you didn’t
take care of it properly. It’s not your
fault. We often buy or get flowers that
can’t grow in our environment.
Maybe my plan works...

I’m going out, but I’ll be back in the

evening. I’ll be here, waiting for you to
return. I’ll be watching you, as usual,
through the eye in my door, very scared,
wondering how you’re feeling.

Bye now.
Signed: your friend.

Hello!

I’m following through with my plan. It’s

six o’clock in the morning. I’ve made some
coffee and gave Oskar a bone to chew on.
Now I’m waiting impatiently for you to go

91
out the door. And step right into my plan.
Let’s see: is it going to work?

Oh! The joy! It’s been a while since you

left, but it’s obvious that my plan
worked: last night, I’ve left a potted
flower on the rug in front of your door.
A bit to the side, so that you don’t
stumble over it accidentally in the
morning. And I watched you going out the
door at sunrise. And it was amazing!

You opened the door. Today you’re wearing

a T-shirt with an owl on it and a pair of
baggy trousers. You’re also wearing
sandals. Well, of course you are, it’s
summer! And they aren’t just any sandals!
Made of brown leather, low-heeled, kind
of hippie but also elegant. You seemed
eager to start a new day and you looked
less worried for a change. And then...
you saw the flower.

I’ll never forget how you looked at it,

then you looked around, and how you took
two steps down the corridor afterwards.
You turned around, took it and inspected
it with great care. You put your bag on
the tile floor, near the rug, and you
looked straight at my door. I was also

92
looking at you, through the eye. Looking
at you looking at my door. You couldn’t
see me, but I could see you. My heart was
beating very hard. And then... you did
it! A small nod and a smile, aimed
straight at the eye in my door. You turned
around, took the flower inside, then you
came out again, picked up your bag from
the floor and locked your door. Not twice,
but once.

I felt a long-forgotten relief. You were

happy you got the flower, you smiled. That
means you’re not so afraid anymore.

I like making this kind of plans. I’ll

keep up the good work in that department.
I’m so happy you accepted the flower. Will
you take good care of it? Please do!

Two joyful, peaceful hours have passed.

Then, I heard a noise on the hallway. I
looked out through the eye in my door. I
got very scared. Someone was staring at
me in a very threatening manner. Florin.
He waited for a while. He made for the
door latch, then looked as if he were
about to knock. I would have pretended

93
I’m not at home, I would have ignored the
knock, but I was really afraid that Oskar
would give me away. So I thought with all
my might that what Florin was about to do
was wrong, I sent him telepathic messages
not to knock on my door, I begged him to
leave. Believe me, Adina, he stood there
for an hour. And so did I – stuck to the
eye in my door. He patrolled, stirred
about. He also checked your door. But he
didn’t leave. Then, Oskar finally came by
and started to growl. However, my door is
iron-clad, so I really don’t think he
heard anything. The thing is, just as
Oskar growled, Florin took out from his
leather jacket... a note. He left it in
my door and then I saw his shoulders
getting away, down the hallway. I felt
relieved but also afraid – again. Why did
he leave that note in my door? What has
he got to tell me? Nothing good, that’s
for sure, but I have to be brave. I waited
for a very long time before opening the
door. I took the note and... put it in
your door. Then I took Oskar for a walk.
When I got back, the note was just as I’d
left it. I felt so ashamed of even
thinking about doing what I did: leaving
it in your door. I took it back, entered
my apartment, put in on my coffee table

94
and encouraged myself again. But it
didn’t work. So I took Oskar to the
bathroom, washed him, went back and sat
down.

I’ve been sitting here for half an hour,

staring at the note. I really don’t like
what happened. I don’t like Florin and I
don’t like it that he’s leaving notes in
my door. He used to leave them in your
door. This shit is a lot more dangerous
than I’d expected it to be. All kinds of
thoughts started crossing my mind. I’m
ashamed to admit this to you, Adina, but
I thought about dumping you. I thought
about moving house. About getting out of
this weird story.

But Oskar begged to differ. Believe it or

not, he climbed on the sofa, he wiped his
fur on it, he shook off the last drops,
then he took the note in his muzzle and...
brought it to me. He barked at me and put
it down on the orange carpet, next to my
slippers. You don’t believe me, do you? I
couldn’t believe it, either, even though
I saw it. But this dog is a lot smarter
than he seems! I picked up the note. My
hand was shaking, because I really don’t

95
like Florin, he’s black and dangerous.
’Be brave!’ – I told myself. ’Be brave!’

I opened the note, intending to read it.

It was blank.

Now I’m sitting at my desk, facing the

front door, writing to you and waiting
for you to come home. I wonder how you’re
feeling. Are you OK? Are you tired? Would
you like a glass of wine? I hope you’re
not in the market again, ’cause I won’t
be there to help you with your bags. And
even if I were there, I wouldn’t offer my
help. It’s you who has to take the first
step.

I’m going out to the store.

I’m back. I feel much better, because I

looked up at your window and saw the
flower. It’s much more beautiful than the
other one. You put it in the same place,
as if you’d covered an old wound with a
new bandage. It’s looking good. And it’ll
look even better tomorrow.

96
Aha, you’re back! I heard you humming down
the hallway ! I see you’re in a very good
mood. This makes me happy. You went in,
your hair waving behind you as you were
arranging the bag on your shoulder. I like
this. I like it when you feel good.

Good night.
Signed: your friend.

Hello!

It’s been three weeks since I’ve been

working on not thinking about you. I
haven’t written to you because I’ve been
trying really hard to ignore you, even
though I could never do this. Today I’ve
realized how much I’ve missed you and I’m
writing to apologize. I haven’t even
checked on the flower...

I saw you this morning when you left.

Wearing high heels again, wearing a frown
again. You’re worried again.

I ran after you. You were already inside

a taxi. You gave me a perfunctory
greeting, nodding. I froze and then

97
quickly swerved towards the shop, as if
the fact that I’d been running had nothing
to do with you.

When I got back, I looked at the flower

in the window. I felt hugely grateful:
its leaves had grown, there were flower
buds among them and it seemed freshly
watered.

I climbed the stairs feeling relieved.

But before that, I checked your mail box.
Nothing. Not even a bill.

Now I’m sitting in my home, watching Oskar

as he’s sleeping.

I’m waiting for you to come back in the

evening, hoping you’re OK.

I went to see a movie this afternoon. Big

shock: I saw Florin. I recognized his
military shoulders and his clothes.
Always the same clothes. I also saw his
face for the first time. Nothing special.
He was with a woman, a redhead, and they
were really enjoying themselves. I wonder
who the chick is. And if he’s with her,

98
what does he want from you? I wonder: did
he prawl around the hallway during these
three weeks I spent closing my senses and
refusing to watch over you? Is he still
torturing you? Is he still harassing you?
How about me? Has he forgotten about me?
Or is he just waiting for the right moment
to annihilate us?

The truth is I don’t understand Florin at

all. And I don’t want to. I think it’s
better this way.

I’ve returned home from the movies, I

checked on the flower again. It’s doing
great, the buds will blossom soon. I can’t
wait!

Oskar was so happy to see me! He wagged

his tail, he jumped on me and brought me
his leash. I got the message and told him
I’d take him for a walk. I went out on
the hallway. I locked the door. Only once,
because I was relaxed. When I turned
around, I bumped into... Florin. I was
horror-struck, because he was staring at
me and it was as if he knew I’d been
watching over you and that he can’t hurt
you as much as he’d like to - because of
me. I nodded ’Hello!’ and wanted to pass

99
him by, but he didn’t let me. I tried
again, but he blocked me. He grasped my
arm. I was about to scream, to defend
myself, to shout for help, when, all of a
sudden, Oskar bit his leg! He froze on
the spot for a few seconds, then he left,
limping. Strange. Very strange. I waited
for a while, trying to catch my breath,
not really knowing – then, or now – why
this Florin guy frightens me so, and I
waited for him to go away. I heard the
sound of the elevator, I heard the main
door opening and slowly went down the
stairs, Oskar at my side.

After the walk, I checked on the flower

in your window again and felt relieved.

Now I’m waiting for you to come home.

Signed : your friend.

‘Hi! How are you ?’

I can hardly stop myself from crying with

happiness ! You asked me this yesterday,
for the first time ever. And it’s been

100
quite a while since I’ve been watching
over you…

I went out around 12 o’clock, as you well

know. I’d seen you on the previous evening
as you got home, but also in the morning,
when you left for work.
You seemed OK. Still harassed, but OK.
Yeah, so, around 12, when I was getting
ready to buy some cookies for my coffee,
you came back home! I was surprised,
because you’re not at home usually around
12. But I smiled at you and said my usual
’Hi!’. And then, the unexpected wonder
happened: you asked me... how I was doing.

’I’m doing fine.’ – I replied.

’I know it, I feel it.’ – you told me.

Oskar was wagging his tail, so you patted

him. He licked your hand and fawned on
you.

I know my invitation for coffee was kind

of out of the blue, but I’d been waiting
for too long. And I couldn’t believe it
when you said yes! I guess I shouldn’t
have asked you about Florin, but it turned
out to be beneficial. When you told me
he’d settled abroad a few weeks ago, I

101
was overcome with joy, but pretended to
be overtaken by the urge to get some more
sugar for our coffee.
It’s good to have friends, right?

I’m going to the store to get some milk.

As you know, because I told you yesterday,
I can’t have coffee without milk.
∞

And guess what I saw! I look up at your

window by default when I return home. So
I did it again and I saw... it bloomed!
It’s beautiful, and I bet it smells
amazing! I’ll tell you about it tonight.
I’ll cook dinner for you. I’ll buy some
wine, too.

I promise I’ll look after the flower with

you, please promise you’ll look after
Oskar with me and let’s open the door!

For me, you were the girl living across.

I would always watch you through the eye
in my door. Now I don’t want to watch you
like this anymore, I want to open the door
and go in and out whenever I feel like
it.

102
I was thinking about all this while
climbing the stairs back home. I entered
the hallway. I was in a hurry, but a
neighbor stopped me:

’Miss, your door is just like the one

across your apartment. But I never see
the person living there, so I’ll ask you:
where did you get doors like these, made
of mirror glass?’
I told him that what he’s looking for is
very hard to find, he thanked me,
disappointed but polite, and he left.

I took my spare key out of my bag and was

about to unlock the door. The flower
needed water, Oskar needed his walk. But
I stopped. Because I realized, all of a
sudden, what Florin saw in our doors:
mirrors, reflexions of reflexions,
labyrinth-like mirrors, looking into one
another - and that was nothing but an
obstacle for him. Florin was seeing
himself in the mirror of our doors and it
pained him deeply – this reckoning. I
don’t feel the slightest compassion for
him. I’m happy I’ve got you now. I’m happy
he left. I’m happy that starting today, I
can watch over you through my open door.
Straight from the mirror.

103
 I took the flower away from the
windowsill, I put the leash on Oskar and
now I’m standing. I place the flower in
front of the door. I look in your door, I
look in my door.

It’s raining outside, so I’m wearing my

baby-blue mackintosh. It looks good on
me. I’m leaning my left arm against the
wall, I’m arranging my hairdo and my long
earrings, also blue, are flowing around
my white neck. My skin is very light-
colored – don’t I ever get tanned? Well,
I, for one, like it like this. I’m wearing
low heels again. I’m in a hurry. Maybe if
my sense of duty weren’t so well-
developed, I’d be more relaxed. But no –
that’s just the way I am. I never said I
was perfect – thank God I’m not, or I’d
be boring.

I close the document, get up from the table, I’m feeling numb. How would you
feel if I told you I loved you? my speakers are asking me. I step on the Italian tiles,
keep the rhythm, two, three, four steps, give myself a hug, I dance a little, take a
sip from my cup of tea and I peel an orange from my fruit basket, the smell fills
the kitchen, I don’t eat the orange, I lift my arms above my head, I straighten my
shoulders and sit down again, purposefully.
And I write.
*

104
After my classes, I take the odd walk in parks, I take myself, alone, out for coffee,
I take the tram sometimes, dingdong, staying on until it reaches the car shed, just
so that I can watch the city from the window of the moving vehicle. It’s a bit more
peaceful now, I even got used to my (communist) student house room, I’m starting
to find my rhythm.
I write in my journal, I also write the odd poem:

Pentri mice jostăţel

Pentri mice jostăţel,

Am badung o cambarea,
Şi stratoma plostăţea
Nici je hamba vatmarel.

In să plice sub umbriţ

Albo sore şind corect
No şiţ altă idoliţ,
Aină actung Ector, Brect.

Titi albo blosiţon,

Alti credo comteron
OKii stroco buţurel:
Pentri mice, jostăţel!?

I have no idea that the Spargan language has already been invented and therefore,
this poem makes me just a kind of Monsieur Jourdain.
Anda Cadariu has published another book. I buy it when I get my scholarship (it’s
the first thing I do) and I read it greedily.

105
I feel pangs of pain all the time ’midway here’. The pace of my heartaches has
increased, with no apparent reason, and ’the brain in my stomach’ has gone
completely bonkers, I hear Silviu talking to his mother on the phone (’I’m fine,
mom, mind your own business, the girls are feeding me!’), I take a look at Delia’s
food shelf and feel another pang of pain, marking the absence of the Sibiu salami,
which hasn’t been eaten by me - or her -, then, one night, the ’dark-dickhead’
slaps me and covers my mouth with his hand when I ask him to stop. The next
day, after apologizing, he tells me he’s headed for the drugstore to buy loads of
pills, enough for his suicide mission, since he’s going to kill himself, he gives me
a threatening look and gets out of my student house room, slamming the door
behind him and leaving me enough time and space to finally get some sleep, since
I’m too exhausted to go to my classes.

Three (three!) days later. Someone knocks on my door, I open it, it’s Silviu, he
takes me in his arms, I try to get away.

’I took the pills, I slept for sixteen hours, but I didn’t die.’

I believe him, I believe what he’s telling me (I’m more gullible than ever) and I’m
engulfed by pity. I’ll feel pity for him more and more often (but also fear,
especially fear!) and I don’t know, just as I didn’t know then, or now (as I’m
writing, in my warm and beautifully-furnished kitchen, as I listen to my playlist
that’s set on shuffle mode, now, when I’m rid of this cheap catharsis, as the same
R.E.M. are playing, so many years after, Half the World Away in my speakers),
how can someone take advantage of someone else’s pity in this manner.

’Got food?’ – Silviu says, and he doesn’t wait for an answer, he just goes to the
shelf where Delia and I keep bread, cheese, salami.

106
He helps himself to our food.

I don’t know why, just then, I hear, ’up there’, my mother’s words, the words she
threw at me after a patient had died on her operating table. I was fourteen, I was
in my room, reading a book by Yukio Mishima that had offered me sanctuary
after I’d found it in a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I was completely
immersed in it, but she needed comfort, so she came to my room, interrupted me
and hugged me, she was crying, tears and snot started flowing from me, as well,
she asked me why I was crying and I answered: ’Because I am alone.’ She
caressed my cheek and told me: ’But Sara, you’ll be alone your entire life!’

And I hear: alonealonealonealone, as Silviu is gobbling on a tuna can he stole

from Delia. I take a seat, helpless, on the bed, and I watch him.

He sees my laptop (a Toshiba brick) that’s set on my desk, and he asks me,
showing off his perfect (but-covered-in-food) teeth:

’Will ya read to me what you’ve been writing?’

I unplug my laptop, take it in my arms, open it and read:

A Random Love

Computer, undress me. Go to Carrefour.

Buy three pancakes :
chocolate, vanilla and minced meat.
Write my last will and testament,
combine my secretions with

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 your circuits and MS-DOS.
Love me. Reset.
Take me out for dinner.
Call me.
Computer, undress me, dress me.
Open the curtains,
So I can take a good look at you.
I want to listen to
music.
Calculate my diopter.
Computer, fries, please.
Now shut up.

Computer, rain.

’Aha. It’s OK.’ – he says, munching on a piece of the bread I’d bought with the
little scholarship money I had left. ’Another!’

My stomach hurts, but I read another one:

Prayer

Dear God, please, give me a notebook

Where I can write down all my mistakes.
I want it small, yellow and it must have a spiral-
thread.
I want it to have a hundred pages,
And I need the name of the multinational company that
made it
Inscribed on its back.

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 (You’ll find the right company, I’m sure of it.)
Please let its color not be in a violent shade
- You know too darn well that would disgust me.
No lined – or checkered – pages, please.
When you gift me with it,
Please feel at ease.
(Also, I’ll need a Rotring pen.
And a cover for the notebook.)
Because, after I get it,
I’m coming up to see You.
I’ll respectfully take my hat off,
I’ll dare to pluck a feather from my wing
And to gracefully pour out some ink.
You know very well, dear God,
What it is I’m going to ask for.

’You know’, Silviu says, oil dripping down his chin, ’I have a dream: reach God,
take ahold of his beard and ask him: Why, you bastard, why?’

I smile, while my stomach is giving me increasingly hurtful pangs. Meanwhile,

he’s filling his own stomach and then says: ’Any fiction?’
’Well, yeah, I’m working on something, but it’s not ready yet, I’ve got to polish
it a little.’

’Nevermind that! Go!’

So I ’go’:

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 The Bed

He’s missing a tooth, right in the corner

of his smile. Charming. But one can’t see
his smile at night. One can’t see anything
at night.
I’m waiting for the morning, so we can
have breakfast together. Omelette and
bread will fill the place where his tooth
should have been. He’s going to ask me to
give him a tooth pick. I’m waiting.
We haven’t known each other for long. I
told him I’d quit smoking when he quits
whoring around. So I have the occasional
smoke, maybe not as often as before.
He’s sleeping. He isn’t snoring. I’m
lying face up, next to him. The bed sheets
are white, with gray and pink flowers.
I’m holding his hand. He’s mumbling
something in his sleep. I smile. I smile
at him. I don’t have any missing teeth,
but it doesn’t matter, one can’t see that
at night, either.
I like the darkness. Now, in this moment.
As I’m lying here, face up, beside the
first guy I’m sleeping next to after three
years.
I used to have insomnia. Now, I’m just
waiting for the morning. I could sleep,
but I don’t want to. We didn’t have sex.

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Not today. I mean – no. Not sex. I mean –
love. We didn’t make love. I hate this
word: sex. Maybe some people can have sex
of their own accord. I was never able to
have sex – just to make love. That is –
when I could. When I couldn’t make love,
yeah – I had sex. It’s horrible. I don’t
feel any emotion. While I’m having sex, I
think about what I have to do the
following day, about food, about my best
friend, about what the girls in our group
are going to talk about when we meet,
about my accounting books. And I look at
my body and at the guy’s body with utmost
disgust, since I’m convinced that this is
just another social convention, that I’m
having sex because I have to, because my
endorphine level must go up. No. No sex.
Or love. Not today.
I prefer to hold his hand. He has large,
warm hands. I don’t know him very well.
But I know him well enough.
I’m waiting for the morning. Breakfast is
important to me, because then I can see
the missing tooth in the corner of his
smile. Charming. It’s more important than
the black, wet night I’m experiencing
now, imagining that he’s perfect. I don’t
want him to be perfect. I can hardly wait
for the morning, so that I can see the

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corner of his smile! And his untrimmed
beard! His extra body weight! These large
hands, which I’m now holding between
mine!
Those – they were the first thing I
noticed. Then I noticed his face, eyes,
and only after... only after did I see
his smile with the missing tooth.

’It’ll cost you 1700 lei.’ – he says.

’...’
Pause. An inquiring look. Then:
’Is it too expensive? You can pay in
installments.’
He seems offended. Hurt.
’No, no, it’s OK, I’ll pay the whole
amount." – I answer him, abashed.
’If I got it right, it has to be white,
painted with gray and pink flowers.’
’Yes, I have some bedsheets I’d like it
to match. They’re my favorite. Sorry, it
probably doesn’t matter...’
’What about the mattress? Should I buy
it?’
’Yes, please. It should be appropriate
for both summer and winter.’
’All right.’
’Thank you.’

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And off he goes. He takes his carpenter’s
tools and off he goes.

I’m alone, standing in the house where I

live alone, alone for three years, since
my sister left the country. I go to the
kitchen. Make some coffee. While thinking
about my ex-lovers. Each one - more
perfect than the other. One of them had
tooth implants. Another one would hit the
gym twice a day. The third would only buy
clothes from Tom Tailor. I think I got
fed up with this shit. Not that I meant
to. I preferred to live alone, have the
occasional crush or fling, then go no
contact. It usually happened at their
place. Or in the homes of acquaintances,
at parties. Embarrassing and disgusting.
But necessary. Just like the accounting I
do on a daily basis, at the company I’ve
been working for – it’s been three years
now.
I’m happy I can afford to live alone.
Back in the day, my biggest problem was
insomnia. Why couldn’t I sleep? Maybe...
it was something about my endorphines.
Maybe I didn’t have enough... sex. No, it
wasn’t this. Maybe it was the bed. It’s

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all about the bed. The bed was broken. I
needed another one.
’Let me get a carpenter.’ – I told myself.
A green-eyed carpenter, with large hands
and a missing tooth in the corner of his
smile.

’Can I try the bed, Mircea?’

’Of course.’
’Mmmm. It kind of creaks.’
’It’s beechwood.’
’Beautifully painted.’
’I did my best...’
’Please sit.’
’No… it’s not my bed.’
’That’s beside the point.’
’But I’m too heavy. I’m 180 cm tall and
I’ve got a few extra pounds.’
’This bed is no good if we can’t sleep in
it together.’
’All right.’
’Now lie down.’
’But…’
’I’m going to lie down next to you. And
then, we’ll have coffee.’

114
Gradually, slowly, step by step, we
started sleeping in the bed. Every night,
from around 11 o’clock until 8 in the
morning.
I don’t know his phone number. I don’t
know his surname. I don’t know what he’s
up to during the day.
But I know he comes here, around 8 in the
evening. We have dinner. We talk. We don’t
get attached to one another. We don’t go
into personal details. And we
occasionally make... love. In my bed,
built by him. Where he also sleeps as of
recent arrangements.
I know his name is Mircea. He knows my
name is Ioana. He doesn’t know my surname,
I haven’t disclosed it to him, and I don’t
have a name tag on my door. As for Dragoș,
the guy who told me he was a good
carpenter – I asked him not to disclose
my surname. I did ask him, however, what
Mircea’s surname was. He told me Mircea’d
asked him not to disclose it.

What I love the most are the hugs. It’s

one of my secrets: I always loved to be
hugged. More than any other kind of

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contact with the opposite sex. Mircea’s
arms are strong. They make me forget how
ridiculous a relationship between an
accountant and a carpenter is. When I’m
in his arms, I get lost in myself. Not in
him. He’s just the prop.
We never said we loved each other. I don’t
even know if we do, conventionally
speaking, contractually speaking,
normally speaking. Something is up,
however, because if he decided to leave,
it would cause me harm. But none of us
takes responsibility like we used to,
with other people.

My bed is the most beautiful bed in the

world. It’s tall and it matches my
favorite satin bed sheets perfectly.
They’re both white, painted with gray and
pink flowers. It’s important to me that I
repeat this. Because that’s exactly what
I wanted. And that’s exactly what I got.
But this is not the reason why it’s the
most beautiful bed in the world. It’s
because Mircea made it. It’s because he
sleeps in it next to me. And I don’t get
insomnia anymore.

116
 ∞

I went to the second-hand furniture store

yesterday. I saw a lot of beds. I didn’t
like any of them. Actually, I was looking
for a nightstand. Gradually, by looking
and finding, I’ll refurbish my house. My
sister took all the furniture with her
when she left. Maybe Mircea can help with
the older furnishings. I’ll ask him. I’d
call him, but, like I said, I don’t have
his number. Maybe it’s better that way.
I couldn’t switch to a different
carpenter. This would kill Mircea. At
least that I know about him for certain.

Our first fight. He refused to fix the

round kitchen table I bought yesterday.
He told me he wasn’t fixing anything in
this house. Ever again. The bed is enough
for him. The rest is on me to handle – he
says. I threatened him with another
carpenter. He shrugged.

The only place where he feels free is the

bed. My white bed, painted with gray and

117
pink flowers. It’s as if he put something
essential to him in there, beside talent
and work. Since he’s become my sleep mate,
I feel free myself. Maybe if we found out
each other’s surnames, we’d start feeling
pressured. I, for one, would most
certainly start imagining what it would
be like being called by his surname. I
always do that, with all the guys. So it’s
for the better – not knowing his. But it’s
starting to torment me – not knowing. I
was very agitated last night. When I woke
up, my pillow was on the floor, Mircea
was in the shower. I got out of bed and
the bed creaked.
∞

I started having insomnia again. I feel

Mircea is getting colder in our
relationship. He’s always late when he
comes to dinner. His appetite has
decreased. He’s grumpy and we haven’t
made love in two weeks. He tried to have
sex with me and I nearly cried. Something
is wrong.
∞

This morning, while we were having

breakfast, omelette and bread filled the
place where his tooth should have been.

118
After two months of sleeping in the same
bed, he clears his throat:

’Ioana, I have to tell you something...’

’What?! You’re ill! What happened?!’
’No, no, it’s something else...’
I feel so relieved:
’Then it’s nothing serious.’
’Oh, yeah, it’s very serious.’
I cock an overplucked eyebrow resting
above one of my exophtalmic brown eyes. I
think about my breasts, not as firm as
they used to be, about the extra beauty
spots on my back, about my unusual face.
I know he’s leaving me. I light a
cigarette. He used to get annoyed when I
smoked. That meant that, just as I hadn’t
quit smoking, he hadn’t quit whoring
around.
This time, however, he’s looking at the
floor. He’s not annoyed at all. He nods.
’Ioana…’
’Oh, go on, say it!’ – I grind my teeth
while blowing out cigarette smoke.
’Someone commissioned a bed.’
I start laughing. Relief.
’So..?’
’So I won’t be able to come over to sleep
next to you again. Ever.’

119
 He gives me a perfunctory smile. He puts
his large hands on the table. He closes
his eyes. He stands up.
And as I accompany him on his way out, I
notice for the first time how graceless,
oaflike and disgusting he is. His hands –
like shovels. His eyes – small and mean.
And a horrible smile. With a missing tooth
– right in the corner. Barbaric. How come
I haven’t noticed until now how ugly he
is?
I lock the door. I light another
cigarette. I head straight to the phone.
I push a few buttons. I call the second-
hand furniture store. I smile and speak
in the tone I only use for celebrations:
’Hello, my name is Ioana Popescu. I have
a bed for sale.’

Silence. Then, Silviu: ’You write just like that cow, Anda Cadariu. You should
change your style, or you’ll be mocked by everyone!’

I don’t answer him. Instead, I think about that night when Mihai gave me Anda
Cadariu’s Journal as a present, simply because he wanted to make me jump in his
arms and kiss him all over his face, which he sure managed to accomplish. After,
we listened to Smokie and their song, Needles and Pins, and I do feel needles and
pins on a daily basis, ever since this Silviu shit started.

Another pang of pain, but I seek sanctuary in the memory of that night: Mihai and

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I are in my room, I’m caressing, smelling and browsing through Anda Cadariu’s
Journal as he throws his backpack in a corner, then takes out a CD from its outer
pocket - covered in badges and stickers - and gently introduces it in the CD player
my father decided to give to me as sign of reconciliation after the scene involving
my desk. (My desk is right in front of my window, I often sit on it with my legs
on the windowsill, listening to Frank Zappa in my headphones, until one day, the
desk, thin as a keyhole saw and increasingly burdened with novels and school
books, breaks under my round bottom – I feel fatter than ever – and my folks
don’t have enough money to get me a new desk, so my father yells at me: ’You
and your intellectual pursuits!’ and he goes out the door, slamming it behind him.
Then, to confirm that we’ve made up, he moves the CD player from our living to
my room, he puts it on the floor, next to my old beige-and-blue wardrobe that’s
getting too small for my needs.)

Mihai pushes Play, the lime tree in front of my window has blossomed and it
gives off a strong, pleasant smell, the wind is blowing, pistils, petals and sepals
fly in through the open window, they’re spinning, propeller-like, and then fall on
the floor.
*

As Talk Talk are singing in my immaculate kitchen Happiness is Easy, I stop

writing, scared and extremely annoyed that I’m talking about Mihai in the present
tense again.
But I suddenly realize why I’m doing this.
It’s because that night, when I read to Silviu what I’d been writing, Mihai and the
thought of him were my only shelter.
Back to writing.
And I write.
*

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I look at Silviu as he’s gobbling quietly and I hear Mihai’s words: ’Sara, don’t let
the desk story hurt you! You’re not fat, you’re just stupid!’ We both start laughing
and then he asks me: ’If God is that genius playing chess with God, then who the
fuck is the devil?’ – to which I involuntarily make the ’amazed face’ in which
Mihai is the expert, not me, I’m open-mouthed and giddy as if I’d been run over
by three (yes, three!) trucks at once, Mihai challenges me to guess his favourite
Smokie song, I do - bull’s eye! - , it’s If You Think You Know How to Love Me, I
start wondering if he’s still nostalgic about his ex, but he hugs me and asks me
Do you?, I give him a big big big hug and it lasts until we hear the key in the front
door so we have to stop hugging, we go out of the room, I tell him ’A lonely ant
was walking in an Indian file.’, it’s his favorite silly joke, so we greet my folks
with laughing faces, their arms are full of shopping bags and their faces are bright,
my father sends us decisively back to my room, he says he’s going to peel some
potatoes for soup, my mom tells us we’re having fish and vegetables, she offers
us some tea – not orange and cinnamon, but blueberry – she can see we’ve got
something going and spares us from helping her with dinner, I remember Cristi
(who I’ll never forget, him or his bottle of rum that night, in Jazz) and his favorite
line, a line he sometimes says to the Romanian teacher, who keeps threatening to
flunk him, a line I’ve adopted with my arms open: ’Peace and friendship!’. I say
it to my parents, we all laugh, then Mihai and I go back to Smokie and hugging.

Silviu finishes his gobbling and cleans the (communist) student house desk on
which I keep the laptop where I write my thoughts, on which I eat, the desk on
which I’ve put the white speakers with their gray on-off button and orange light –
I got them from my father, who also gave me a CD with Bach’s violin concertos
-, the desk on which I put my elbows and rest my head with its longer and longer

122
hair while daydreaming.

He throws the leftovers in the garbage bin under the petty sink near the door. He’s
coming towards me. I cringe. He tries to kiss me. I avoid him.

’I know your type, Sara! I know women like you!’ – and he goes out the door,
slamming it behind him.

I take a deep breath, I’m shaking, but I think ’Screw this!’, I’m happy he left, I
really hope he never returns. Ever. I lie down, I hear the door opening, I feel very
afraid, but it’s only Delia, I apologize for the tuna can, I’ll buy her another one
tomorrow, it’s my turn to buy bread anyway.

The following morning, since I managed to get enough sleep to go to the

university, I head downtown, with my bacpack on my shoulder, walking down
the street that connects the University Library to the Students’ Palace. It’s a sunny
day, I feel OK, I’m curious what we’re going to study today in Literary Theory. I
have a Ian McEwan book in my backpack, as well, and I suddenly remember what
Lili told me about a student in the English-French department, a chick who saw
her reading a book by Houellebecq while waiting on the corridor for the World
Literature class to start and asked her: ’Oh, God! You’re reading something that’s
not required in our bibliography?’

I’ve almost reached the University Library, an imposing building, its shade of
yellow looking just like urine. I know, however, that it contains the most valuable
treasures of the world, I’m thinking about the main hall, with its green lamps,
where I started reading Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco,
Mimesis by Erich Auerbach, and I’m also thinking about how I stumbled upon
Firea, our oldest teacher, who could barely walk down the corridors, as he was

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fucking a redhead PhD student in his faculty office, how, wanting to ask him when
the deadline for our essay on inter-war Romanian literature was, I knocked and
entered, only to see his trousers lying on his desk, their leather belt with its tail
held high, and then I saw a black dress thrown carelessly on the tiled stove at the
right of the door, and then I saw them, fucking, and how I froze on the spot, and
how the teacher said in an extremely strong voice: ’Sorry!’

I’m headed, slowly but surely, towards the faculty and towards the hall on the first
floor, where Silviu would sit, until today (I hope it’s until today, but I also get
pangs of pain in my stomach) next to me in Literary Theory and, during class,
he’d scribble arrow-crossed hearts on the paper where I was writing what the
professor was saying: ’A fiction book is like a cabbage or like an onion: it has
layers and...’
And... I couldn’t pay attention anymore, because Silviu would nudge me under
the desk, or caress my knee, or write, in a relaxed manner, with BIG characters,
on the almost blank paper in front of him, ’SS’ in a heart.

I also remember the day on which he whispered to me, during class, that ’I only
fall in love with beautiful and smart girls!’ and, when I started to signal him
desperately to shut up, he kept going: ’And if it’s not convenient for me, I never
approach anyone!’

I pass by the University Library, the street is almost empty, and then – I see them.
Two old people. Her – with her face half-burnt. Him – wearing a hat, a knitted
vest – probably handmade by her, I tell myself – and with a cane in his hand. He’s
chasing her, yelling, she’s yelling back, I get dangerously close to them, I feel a
strong smell of vodka, I shudder, I start feeling pangs of pain in my heart and
stomach, I look around, nobody’s there. The two old people are walking away
from me, the old boy catches up with the crone, he pulls her dirty bandanna off

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her gray, wreathed hair, he puts his cane down, takes her by the arm, then he puts
his arm round her shoulders, they keep walking together towards the Students’
Palace, where I’ve come from, they start laughing and singing Kalinka.

I get to the university, I go up to the first floor, I sit down next to Lili, it’s a class
all the students in our year are attending, I see Silviu, with a very short haircut,
shorter than the one I was given in high school, he’s sitting very far away from
me, on my left, in the same row, next to Matei, the room is filled with the
humming of students waiting for the class to start, but I still hear the conversation:

’No longer sitting next to Sara?’

’No. Not interested in her anymore.’

I cover my face with McEwan’s book, Lili points out something in front of me,
it’s a ray of light reflecting in the blackboard that’s hardly ever used by our
teachers, I nod my approval, I saw, Lili, I saw, I look around, I’m surprised by the
fact that fewer people than usual are attending Ion Surdu’s class and I bury my
face again in the blue book which I feel is my only sanctuary.
At last – ooops!, it’s not Surdu! – she enters. Who’s this bright, unostentatious
woman, wearing beautiful clothes, who’s looking at us through her golden-
rimmed glasses? I take an inquiring look at Lili, she says ’Sara, what’s wrong
with you, why don’t you ever check the notice board? We’re doing the practical
part first today, Surdu is on an evaluating committee and this is his assistant, Ana
Mărculescu.’
*

I hear Gene Kelly Singin' in the Rain in my kitchen. It’s very dark outside,
especially because the neighbors are cutting back on electricity. The light on my
cooker hood has been on for a while. I take a cigarette out of the pack.

125
And I write.
*

I’m preparing for the practical part of the class. I thought I’d be daydreaming as
usual, but if they’ve decided to switch, well, I’ll pay attention. The teacher
Mărculescu asked us to read Remember, by Mateiu Caragiale, as my school mates
had informed me, and I managed – I feel a wave of pride engulfing me – not only
to read it, in spite of the ’dark-dickhead’s’ assaults and lack of sleep, but also to
write a literary analysis, not that anyone’d asked for it, but I fell in love with
Remember and I felt the need to write down my thoughts. It’s just that I’m still
young and I have a very well-educated intellectual background and a horrible
emotional one, so I’m completely put off when Lili gives me away and the teacher
asks me to read my analysis. My mother’s voice sounds in my head (’Sara, the
opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is fear!’) and I try to keepheart.
Silviu is all ears, this harms me, but I’ve gotten used to his malignant presence.

I take a sip of tea, I get up and move my round bottom in the kitchen, dancing on
Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice and, acknowledging that I’m 38 years old (but
still, not Mrs., maybe Miss), I recall my last journey with Lufthansa. I was
returning from Valetta, where I’d spent, alone (alonealoneal...), a week visiting
stony beaches and heavenly lagunas, sleeping and writing in a windowless hotel
room they didn’t want to change for me, so I (gullible) didn’t insist, I preferred to
endure the torment, which won’t happen again, and I remember the exotic airport
where I had a huge Starbucks coffee (I think about Herman Melville and I smile)
before climbing, pretty depressed (because alonealonealone) inside the almost
full airplane, but I remember especially how, before we landed and before taking
off my earbuds (I was listening to a Brit Pop playlist), the cutest and nicest and

126
also seeming-to-be-a-good-person steward smiled and winked at me with his left
eye – as big and as blue as his right – and I felt just like that Christopher Walken
guy in the Weapon of Choice video, who’s dancing even on the walls and ceiling.
Coldplay start playing Everything's Not Lost.
I sit down.
And I write.
*

Ana Mărculescu is waiting for me to get my essay from the bag embroidered with
Scandinavian patterns. My hands are shaking, but she doesn’t have to wait long.
I give Silviu a defying look – he’s on my left – (and I don’t know why, just then,
in a flash, I visualize the small statue lying on my mother’s desk at the hospital,
surrounded by prescriptions, stethoscopes and scalpels, it’s a miniature of a
famous sculpture, she got this small statue as a gift from Kostas, a Greek
neurologist she met at a conference, it’s quality pottery, it’s graceful, made by
some random artist, it was bought from the temple in Delphi especially for dr.
Aneta Ionescu and it’s called Thinking Woman), I take a deep breath and I stand
up, my school mates turn to face me, they seem interested.

I finish reading (I’ve read every single word, except for the signature and the date
- Sara Ionescu, April the 8th, 2001) and I’m getting myself together for the
feedback from my school mates. Ana Mărculescu is leading the discussion. She’s
asking very intelligent questions, her comments are to the point, and I like her
more and more.

It’s Silviu’s turn to share his opinion on my essay. He’s very critical of it
(obviously), he’s making mean comments, reproaching that I haven’t summarized
the story, to which Ana Mărculescu replies that each student was supposed to read
Mateiu Caragiale’s book. Silviu unzips his leather jacket, sits up in his chair, looks

127
up so that everyone can see his square chin and he says:

’All due respect to my class mate, but I think she should have worked more on
the essay. And this work should have been more focused on the contents.’

Ana Mărculescu looks at him over her golden-rimmed glasses and replies:

’You’re a bit sybil-like today, Mr. Petre. Or maybe just affected by the sunny
weather?’ Silviu freezes on the spot, his mouth shut. Ana Mărculescu asks the
next student to share his thoughts. All my other school mates give positive
feedback to the essay.

At the end of the class, I fight my fear, again, and I go to the teacher’s desk. I
thank the professor (’Lecturer!’ – she corrects me) for everything.

If I had known then that Ana Mărculescu was going to supervise my graduation
paper, which is, obviously, about Anda Cadariu’s fiction (I didn’t analyze it from
a critical viewpoint, however, because I’ve always taken refuge in her world,
where I feel more and more ’at home’ with every book she publishes, so what I
really did was to summarize her fiction rather than classify it, or to sort her books
according to -isms, or to coldly deconstruct them), if I had known then I’d become
friends with the teacher (’Let’s drop this hierarchy! You may call me Ana.'), or
that she’d also take Lily under her wing, especially when ’Kitty’ gave her a hard
time, that I’d go out for coffee with her, and therefore, not alone, that I’d be
welcome anytime in her university office, filled with books, that she’d
congratulate me on my ability to memorize the shit they were teaching us, and
also on my perseverance (’What are you saying there? Epenthesis and
epanodiptosis? Who traumatized you? Oh, you had your Dialectology exam!’), if
I’d known that she would be the first person to advise me to be kinder to myself

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and to forgive myself, that, even though she would scold me after a very long
time, calling me ’vulnerable’ and ’hard to please’, that she’d compare me to the
Prodigal Son without knowing even a shred of my life story, and that, therefore,
I’d forgive her instantly for these harsh and wrong words, that she’d support me
in publishing my short stories – in the university journal and not only there -, that
I’d be a guest in her home and that I’d bring her tea specialities and roses, if I’d
known all this back then, I wouldn’t have changed anything I did after I met her:
I circled the date in my calendar, kept my essay on Remember in my Toshiba
brick, then I moved it to a CD, then to an external hard drive, and I even wrote, in
my scrapbook, what the time was when I first saw her (12.05). I celebrated then,
as I’m celebrating now, the moment I first met an extraordinary person, who stood
by me.

Yes, it was an April day (the cruelest month, I hear in my mind, ’cause it’s the
month when Silviu was born.)

I leave the faculty building with my head held a bit higher. But still crippled with
anxiety.
*

Two weeks go by. I miss Mihai, I even miss Silviu (? – but I didn’t know then
that there’s a name to this, and it’s called Stockholm Syndrome), I go out with Lili,
we’re in the same pub that holds the horrible memory of how the skinny U-legged
dickhead picked me up, after he’d made it look - with his ironic smile - like I was
the one who picked him up, Lili and I dance, we drink beer, we dance, we drink
beer.

Silviu shows up, he’s with Matei, we say our hellos coldly, and I don’t know how,
I wake up in the morning in his room, with a horrible ache ’up there’ and ’down

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there’. I don’t feel a thing ’midway here’.

And so on and so forth. Until two years go by. Silviu has taken a year’s break
from university and went back to the town where he fucking came from, ’cause
his parents are no longer able to pay for his studies, they need to pay their rent.
Meanwhile, my ’down there’ has started growling for his ’down there’, even
though I can’t forget – not even now, as I’m writing - the thought of how a school
mate asked him to accompany her (so that she doesn’t go alone - alonealonealone)
on a shopping spree and how I asked him what they bought and how he answered
’a bra’, but I didn’t reply to that, because my ’down there’ had made the ’brain in
my stomach’ go numb, the heartaches - I was already used to those -, and my
mother, my father and Mihai – who would reach out to me on the occasional
phone call - were taking care of my ’up there’.

I try to keep crawling, I pay Lili the random visit, I keep busy with Gérard Genette,
Gilbert Durand and Roger Caillois, but my ’down there’ keeps growling like
crazy, so I get on a bus going to a faraway, isolated town in the poor, uncivilized
South. Before doing that, I call Silviu, who doesn’t seem too happy about my idea
to pay him a visit, but in the end he says OK.

I get on the bus, all the seats are taken, but the driver takes out a crate from the
trunk and says: ’Miss, you either take this ride on the crate, or you take the next
bus!’
It’s just that ’the next bus’ is leaving the following day, so I ’take the ride on the
crate’, and that’s how I spend my time as we cover three hundred kilometers, then
I trickle down in the abject bus station where I’m greeted by several workers
drinking something red, by a blind beggar and by two stray dogs gnarling at me.

No trace of Silviu, even though he said he’d wait for me.

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I take my Escalade backpack and exit the bus station. I head to the patched street,
thinking about finding a phone booth. I walk more and more resolutely, I need to
find a street sign, this town that’s looking like a shithole, at least for now, probably
has some urban-looking areas, as well. I feel the first pang of pain regarding my
thoughts about my home town, which is so much more beautiful compared to this
horror.
Silviu’s head pops from behind a door inscribed with the words ’Convenience
Store’ written in yellow characters (’I waited to see what you’d do if you didn’t
see me!’).
I stop, stab him with a very mean look, but he comes by and gives me a kiss. We
go back, I’d started walking in the wrong direction, his parents’ flat is on the
outskirts, ’closer to the Monument!’, Silviu says, as if I could possibly have any
idea what he’s talking about, he takes my hand in his, then lets my wet palm
connected to my very tired arm drop, he wipes his hand on his black shorts that
look (too) good on him and he starts walking faster, leaving me to drag behind.
I try to keep up the pace, I’m walking more slowly than him, but I’m trying;
however, since I’m dizzy from the tiring bus ride, I get tripped by a boulder and
fall down, sprawled on the hot sidewalk.
I scream. He turns around, gives me a good, long look and starts laughing. And
he keeps laughing. Out loud. He’s laughing himself in convulsions. He’s just
standing there, laughing. He makes no move to help me up.
I get up on my own, my synapses return to Mihai’s white and worried face on that
day, when he was running to help me up after playing basketball on April 1st, I’m
about to keep following Silviu, but I stop.
I stand there for a few seconds, he’s looking at me, no longer laughing. His eyes
have become slits.
I turn my back on him and start walking back to the bus station.
I hear him. He’s running after me. He’s heaving. He’s yelling:

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’Sara! Sara! Are you insane? What the fuck are you doing?’

He takes ahold of my arm. I try to break free. I can’t do it. If there weren’t people
around, I know it for sure that he’d hit me. I tell him:

’I’m going to the seaside.’

’You ain’t going nowhere!’
’Yes, I am.’
’No. We’re going to my place.’

And he drags me behind him.

I survive for a night and a day in the small, clogged, dirty apartment where his
parents live. As for them – they’re more common than the common cold. I don’t
know how, but I manage to convince him that we have to go away – so we take a
trip, not to the seaside, but in the mountains. Maybe because he likes the
mountains. He sharks some money from his mother and we take the first train. He
seems lively and a lot more talkative than usual:

’We’re gonna go, we’re gonna climb, we’ll take a track I know, I’ve done it
before, with Cornel!’

I would have preferred to stay for a while at a cottage in the village, so that I could
get some sleep, but I don’t say anything. We climb, we climb, we keep climbing,
we reach a wooden house where the lodging is not expensive, I insist we don’t
sleep in the common room, I finally convince him, probably because I’m paying,
and we return the next day, following a mucky path down the mountain (’I know
a different track, I went down that one with my ex!’), and we start making our

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way through some very thick and dark shrubbery.
Halfway down, we start yelling (’Hurry up, you stupid cow!’ ’Leave me alone,
you jerk!), so he turns his back on me and gallops ahead, until he’s out of sight.
I’m alone (alonealonealone) in the mountains, I don’t have a compass, I don’t
have any water, it’s almost night and it’s getting cold.
I follow him, but, after a rounding in the path, it forks. I freeze on the spot. How
do I get out of the woods?
I think about my grandpa and about ’the brain in the stomach’ he’d been telling
me about my entire life, I try to activate it and I reach the mountain feet.
I head to the railway station. No trace of Silviu. I take a fast train smelling of
metal and lard, but at least it’s going straight to the BIG city.
I don’t even think about ever calling Silviu.

But he does. He keeps doing it. I don’t pick up. Ever. I get a letter, full of tasteless
endearing pet names aimed at me.

I go out with Raul, who plays soprano sax. It’s just that, after a while and after
three beers, he says to me: ’Nice tits!’ and I feel like pouring the sour cherry
Cappy on his head – which I don’t, because ’I don’t like people who lack self-
control, Sara!’. I do manage, however, to get up, I even say good bye to him
(gullible) and I leave.

To my folks’ desperation – not to mention my own – Silviu pays me a surprise

visit. I’m at my student house, but I’d planned to spend a Sunday in my
hometown, so the ’dark-dickhead’ pretends to accompany me to the railway
station, ’cause he cares so much about me, he gets on the train, too (’I want to
make sure you find a good seat!’) and gets stuck – apparently by accident (I’m
just as gullible as ever) – with me on the train,

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 (Gura Arieșului hc
Chețani hc
Luduș
Bogata hc
Cuci Hm
Iernut
Cipău Hm
Ogra
Sânpaul hc
Chirileu hc
Vidrasău hc
Gral. Nicolae Dăscălescu)

the train goes choo, chug and chuff, the wheels are creaking occasionally (and I
remember Maria’s mathematical joke about the area of the wheel, which is
’piarsquare’ and why do the train wheels creak, it’s not because of ’pi’ or ’ar’, it’s
all about the square), and I have no clue whatsoever, as I’m watching the fir trees
dancing in the rain as they pass by speedily in front of my eyes – one smaller and
one bigger -, as I’m trying to forget that Silviu is seated next to me on the torn and
scribbled bench and also trying to ignore the pressure I feel in my heart, that Mihai
has suddenly, after so much time, gotten the idea (after finding out from my father
that I’m spending the weekend in my hometown) to wait for me in the train
station, just like that, ’out of the blue’, with a rose in his hand, the train stops, I
see Mihai from behind the abject, rainbow-hued window of the carriage, I beg
Silviu not to come down with me until I talk to Mihai (’He has the right to know
I didn’t come alone!’), Silviu says OK, so I get off the train, I head towards Mihai,
who’s smiling, the flower in his hand, I’m thinking maybe he got it from Alex’s
garden, where it had been planted next to the cannabis, I run to meet him, he
opens his arms, then, all of a sudden, he goes white in the face and lets his arms

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drop, I don’t get it, I turn to look back, Silviu is walking, purposefully, in his
military-looking leather jacket, towards us.

I reach Mihai, I take him in my arms, he’s stiff, I whisper: ’I want this guy to suck
my dick!’, he doesn’t say a thing to me, he doesn’t move, I stop hugging him,
Silviu is standing next to us now, we’re just standing, the three of us, our heads
bowed, just for a moment, then I turn to Silviu and start screaming: ’You are going
to sleep in the railway station, understood?! And you’re taking the first train back
in the morning!’. I hear, as if through a dream, his reply, ending in ’hysterical’, I
turn my back on him, I try to take Mihai by his hand, but he says: ’Na, na, na,
Sara, calm down!’, he gives me the rose, I take it, feeling giddy, feeling like this
shit can’t be real, then he shakes Silviu’s hand and says, laughing: ’You can sleep
at my place, brother!’

They both accompany me home. On our way, they tell jokes, they’re having fun,
as if this were funny, everything, the situation, the jokes, life, I feel more alone
than ever, we are in front of my block of flats now, my folks see us from the
window, I get a BIG screaming session when I get home, in the small apartment
with its tiled, freshly-washed kitchen floor, my father yells: youareawhoresara,
my mother doesn’t say anything, but I can see her smiling out of the corner of her
mouth, (and I keep hearing her scalpel-like line, ancient, but it hasn’t healed yet:
’If the child is bad and bites, one needs to take action!’), I go to my room where,
in front of the window, next to the wardrobe, but not on the floor anymore, since
it’s on the nightstand now, I see the grin of the CD player my mother has moved
without telling me (’You left home, so I have every right to clean up!’) and I close
the door behind me quietly, very, very quietly. The next day, I go to the railway
station first thing in the morning and I don’t say a thing to anyone.

I only go back to my parents’ place after three (three!) months.

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 *

Röyksopp are now playing A Higher Place in my speakers, I take a deep breath,
the kitchen is spotless, very clean, so I keepheartkeepheartkeepheart, I drink some
more tea, I thank God for words, I look at the clock on my beige cooker, it’s
twelve o’clock sharp, someone loves me.
And I write.
*

Silviu, succesfully resettled ’at his mommy’s’, starts coming by once every eight
weeks. He sleeps at my school mates’ student house, the boys feel sorry for me, I
can tell by the way they look at me with their bovine eyes, I feel like a rag doll (’I
don’t like people who lack self-control, Sara!’ – and this time it really hits me,
because this time I really understand what my mother means when she’s yelling
these words in my brain), I go to the editorial office of our university journal in
my spare time, I write, I show them, they read.

After they read, they tell me, coldly, ’We’re publishing this – if we do – in our
next issue!’ and nobody lets me know whether they’ve published ’this’ or not, so
I go hunting for the journal and find out that yes, they did publish ’this’, so, feeling
relieved that my parents will finally see that I’m starting to find my place, I take
the important journal home, I take it myself, in person, I hitch hike, I’m taking
this trip home just to show them the proof I’m not an embarassment to our family,
I’ve published my first story, it’s called The Virgos’ Revenge, it’s about star signs,
it’s a story in which Gemini and Libra are an embarrassment (it’s my worst story,
I tell myself, keeping my eyes on the fridge and listening to Chocolate Jesus, so I
don’t want to remember it, I think I’ve erased it from my laptop), my parents give

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the story a surprised look, her – a Gemini, him – a Libra, silence, then, suddenly,
they start talking about my father’s professional life at the theatre (’I can’t stand
this dirty life anymore, Aneta, they all want to screw you behind your back!’) and
about my mother’s patients (’It was a particularly difficult one, an open-heart
surgery!’), so the next morning I go back to the BIG city, where the shitty people
are still stinky and dead, but at least it’s BIG.

After a while, I get a visit from Cristi, I remember, as I always do when I see him,
the moment he had with his rum bottle back then, in Jazz, I feel the urge to ask
him if his father ever found out he stole it from him, but I refrain from asking this,
because it would be totally out of line and he wouldn’t understand why I’m asking
such a thing.

He tells me, among other things, that Mihai, the freshly-rejected-Medicine-

candidate, gave up on trying again (I hear Weird Al Yankovic singing Like a
Surgeon in my speakers, and I drink some more tea), I feel worried, I hope Mihai’s
not depressed, my heart cringes when I think about him, about Otto, about Ms.
Roza, I accompany Cristi to the student house exit and I remain there, standing in
front of the orange phone in our lined hallway.

The orange phone is eating my coins like a child who’s crazy about candy. My
mother picks up. I pressure her and I find out that Mihai has been taken under my
father’s wing – they kept in touch, no, that’s a misnomer, they’re on really friendly
terms – and he’s started taking lessons in theatre.

He’s attending workshops and performances and he gets to meet new people
(’Mihai is doing great, Sara, he’s back on track, he’s starting to get acquainted to
the arts!’), he’s started reading plays (’He’s emptied our book shelves!’) and he’s

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really socially active (’He went out with the ”kids” from the workshop last
night!’).

I finish talking to my mother on the phone and I realize all of a sudden that Mihai
is doing all these things in my theatre, in the theatre where I grew up, in the place
where I first saw a stage (the magical stage I fell in love with in spite of my folks’
fears – when I asked them ’What if I want to study Acting, like dad?’, they both
burst out – one of them in tears and the other one - laughing, exactly like the two
masks representing theatre itself), and I know it for sure that Mihai wants to
replace me in my father’s heart, I’m telepathically screaming in his face, I’m
swearing at him as I’m wandering through the streets of the BIG city with
Akutagawa’s Rashomon in my backpack, hoping that Silviu, who just got here by
train, is still sleeping in my room at the student house, so yeah, I’m hoping and
praying that I’m safe for now, that he’s not following me, that he’s going to leave
me alone, that he’ll stop harassing me – I look behind me, the street is empty, I
can only see two young people kissing under a tree, she’s holding a bread in her
hand, but then, a drunk, dirty and ragged man passes by and abuses them: ’Hey,
buster, get her some salami to go with that bread!’
I get back to the student house and cut Mihai out of all my photos, which I keep
hidden behind my book shelf, so that nobody sees them.

Then, I find out from my mother – again -, that my father (’who is, as you well
know, Sara, a very highly-regarded actor – after all, who hasn’t heard about Nicky
Ionescu?’) tells Mihai to not try for Acting (’Directing is a better option for you,
with your qualities!’) and, after watching him closely in workshops and
discussions, he sends him for pre-exemination classes, in the BIG city, hoping

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he’d get into the Faculty of Theatre, the building of which I pass by on a daily
basis, on my way to the gray and depressing building of the Faculty of Letters.

Which Mihai actually does. He gets in successfully, as he relates (’Well done, Mr.
Olaru, you were brilliant in Improvisation!’) to my father on the phone, during a
very long conversation, while my mother is peeling carrots, parsley roots and
celery, and I’m helping her.
Mihai hardly ever talks to me anymore, he’s ’lost his interest in her.’
So he’s coming, yeah, he’s coming, now, when it’s too late, all packed up, to the
BIG city full of students, and I am certain he’s also saying to himself, just as I did,
’I’m never going back to that town, full of shitty, dead people!’, he’s coming
without Otto, I’m so sorry about that, but I guess he left someone to keep Ms.
Roza company, so that she isn’t completely alonealonealeone, he’s moving to the
student house directly opposite from mine, the building looks like a rotten tooth
implanted in the concrete - just like in a parodontosis-stricken gum -, I see this
building from the window of my room and it’s not long before I start seeing him,
as well, from that same window, as he’s taking walks with Sidonia, more and
more often, Sidonia, who’s a tall, thin brunette (and therefore, very sexy), and
who’s wearing quite often a green coat that he also wears sometimes, I watch
them going downtown, together, on the paved hill filled with pubs and stores,
that’s also filled with noise and with the pleasant smell of coffee and with moving
backpacks and coloured bags that are rolling, daily, either downwards, toward the
Library, or upwards, in the direction of the Students’ Palace.

I don’t miss Mihai. I miss myself.

*

From my ’big, black and terrifying’ speakers, my dear, dear speakers (I remember
how happy I was when I bought them with the money I earned for working on the

139
hardest project I had ever done at the association), I can hear I Was Born to Love
You playing. I look out the window. It’s getting darker and darker. The sky is
cloudy now.
And I write.

Cherry on top, after Mihai’s relationship with Theatre becomes official, I feel
even more alone, so I start answering Silviu’s phone calls, Silviu, who’s reaching
out to me, feeling jolly-good at his mommy’s, the woman who keeps the family
phone in the low-class hallway paved with dark-brown tiles, yeah, I still
remember their horrible apartment, which is three hundred kilometers away, we
start writing to each other, just as I used to do with Mihai, I even write to Alex-
Demian, with whom I keep in touch for literary and musical reasons (Pink Floyd,
Bruce Springsteen and, later, Tomcats in Tokyo, Grimes, Natalie Merchant,
Fatboy Slim, Moby), for reasons linked to imagination, for reasons justified by
Borges, Neruda and Amos Oz – but not only them, because, as I find out with
delight, on the occasion of a short visit to my home town, when he asks me out
for coffee, at the same bar, that Ketty-which-seems-taken-out-of-Arizona-Dream,
he also loves Anda Cadariu’s fiction, and in his humble opinion, she’s getting
better and more confident with each book. So – yeah, we have a lot to talk about.
Therefore, we write letters as often as we can.

I even send him, once, as a post-scriptum, one of my poems, written on the very
day he took the entrance exam to the Faculty of History in my home town (and he
passed it!):

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 BOREDOM

I’m bored by me
I’m bored by you
I’m bored by him

I’m bored by us
I’m bored by you
I’m bored by me.

He’s amazed, and he writes back: ’Were you high when you wrote this?’

I’m laughing as I store the letter next to the others, which are piled up in a huge
colored envelope I sometimes browse through in the evenings.

I like doing this, and I like writing with ink on paper, I like it that I can keep the
letters, I like smelling them, and I do it quite often.

Mihai’s letters smell of mold, Silviu’s letters smell of sex, and Alex’s – of weed.
My parents, mollified by the heightened frequency of my visits, get my first
mobile phone for me – a very posh one – a Sagem. And I think, again, when I get
it, about words: ’love’, ’vampirism’, ’profit’, ’buying’.

Silviu calls me on my new phone, raising the amount on his low-class family
phone bill to such a boarish extent that he can only come see me after sixteen
weeks.

Meanwhile, I keep writing fiction and poetry, but I also write letters, I write letters
I never send, but still, I keep them in my colored envelope:

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Dear mother,

I’m sitting in my student house room, with

the laptop I got from you and father on
the desk, but I’m writing to you on paper,
while you are probabbly looking after
your patients, or cooking, or reading
(that would be nice!) Anda Cadariu’s
book, the one I gave you as a birthday
present. I hope this time you like what
and how she writes.

Yes, you did tell me a while ago, when

our relationship was tense, that you
don’t like her books because she’s an
idealist: you don’t believe unconditional
love exists, not even parents’ love for
their children is unconditional. You told
me other stuff, as well: that some things
between you and me can never be repaired
– you said this quite recently -, that I
would have to fight very hard for you to
let me go – that was just before I went
to university -, but you also told me you
loved me very, very much, that I am a very
valuable human being, that I have a
brilliant mind, that I am very precious.
When I asked you why I am precious, you
told me it’s because you love me.

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This love... it does make us, humans, to
torment one another, to maim one another,
to start wars – and all this – in its
name!

You also told me that you did not bring

me up – life did. That it’s the same for
all children. For all parents. I’ll stick
to what I wrote in my journal when you
said these things to me – I believe the
truth is lying, anxiously, somewhere in
between.

I remember when I was a child and you used

to read stories to me and I asked you
whether the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood
was bad. You told me he wasn’t bad, he
was hungry. Then, I asked you why you
screamed in father’s face – is he bad?
You said no, it’s just complicated.

I was five years old.

I don’t like it that every time we gather

together round the antique table in our
living, you and father are talking about
your stuff, I don’t exist, and you... keep
bragging. You’re always bragging. I think
it’s a sign of insecurity, of

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frustration. You’ve been traumatized. You
did tell me that grandpa, leaving his
’brain in the stomach’ stories aside, was
not really nice to you as a child.
Well, I understand. I know exactly how
that feels.

You, of all the wise people, were the

first to tell me that the opposite of love
is not hatred, but fear.
Well, I’d like you to know that sometimes
I’m very afraid of you.

I know you have your problems, I know you

were always afraid that people would
think you’re not a good mother, or they’d
say you’re a common woman, or a bad
doctor, incapable, incompetent.
I understand this.
And I’m trying to understand what you’re
going through – and what you’ve been
through.

You also said, recently, that maybe I

would have been better off with a kinder
mother. Maybe. I don’t know what it would
have been like.

You are not the perfect mother, you are

not the perefect woman, you are not the

144
perfect human. I’m not perfect, either.
Like you said – the more qualities one
has, the more flaws.

I remember, now, as I’m writing this

letter, aborted-because-I’m-never-
sending-it, that, when I was a child, I
got a big envelope (quite similar to the
one I’m going to keep this letter in) as
a present from Gabi, your teenage friend.
It was a very beautiful envelope and I...
was just a child. You really needed it,
you had nothing to keep your
prescriptions in at the hospital, but it
was my ’toy’. You snatched it from me. We
fought. You had no right to take it, it
was mine.
Where’s that envelope now? Was it worth
it – taking it from me?

I don’t know how to think about this first

step in our relationship: you love me and
want to get close to me, by having what I
have? Or you think I’m ’outperforming’
you and you just can’t take it? You love
me and envy me at the same time? Why, as
soon as I take a step, you follow?

I think I was a good child, pretty

accommodating. But I remember when you

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shrieked and yelled because I lied to you.
You screamed at me to never ever dare lie
to you again. ’I mean well!’ – you told
me. And I believed you. You are, after
all, my mother.

Is this the reason why I’m so gullible?

Is it the way I was brought up? Or was it
just a contributing factor?

You are one of the most important persons

in my life. I wouldn’t want to lose you,
but I would love a change in our
relationship. An improvement. I’m trying
to forgive you and I love you.
Can we start from this?

It’s not your fault.

It’s the fear. That’s where the fault is.
We are both afraid.
Maybe we shall overcome this, too.
Maybe love can overcome fear.

Thank you for so many things, thank you

for bringing me up, for taking care of
me, and for still doing that – as best
you can.
We are similar, mother, but we are
different persons.

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 You heal people with a scalpel, I, on the
other hand – do it with words.

You have my love and my constant attempts

to forgive you, I really am trying to
understand what you’ve been through and
what you are going through.
Both in your family and in your career.
I hate you. And I thank you.

Sara

Then, even though I am so tired I can hardly breathe, I take another piece of paper
and I write:

Dear father,

I still remember your words – even today!

They are the only words I don’t believe
in – and you don’t, either! You said these
words to me while taking me to school one
morning:

’I want to have the top position. And only

evil ones get there. Evil and heartless.’

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It’s the only thing hindering my
affection for you. But you are not a
’heartless’ person.

I’m sorry I got to the point of feeling

disgusted by theatre. It’s because of
you. I know too many inside stories. It
was – and still is – a part of my life.

Thank you for loving me, I know it for

sure that you do, even though you love
the stage a lot more than you love me.
(But I understand you... I would love the
stage, too, if you had let me try, back
then.)

I know things about mother’s career – I

know them from her stories about blood
and scalpels and EKG and bandages. But
you? You pulled me after you in your
world, ever since I saw the first
performance in my life (a Chekhov play)
and you were in it. You were a figurant
crossing the stage in military clothes.
As for the most recent one? You were
playing the part of a lover boy called
Valentino – you worked on that one with a
contemporary Italian playwright and with
a ’young director’, very promising, who’d

148
just graduated. Once again,
congratulations on the part! Well played!

I didn’t make it – my ’onstage career’

wasn’t meant to be. But things were
different before: actors who don’t even
say hello to me today would hold me in
their arms and speak to me kindly, I was
’at home’ in the theatre, among the
blinding lights and feeling the smell of
different perfume brands the women in the
audience were wearing, enjoying the sight
of the red plush seats in the auditorium.

And this I’ll never forget: you were the

one who first took me onstage, after a
rehearsal. You were still wearing your
clown costume, you were smelling of dust
and perspiration, and yeah, I fell in love
with the stage but, just like all my love
stories, this one also ended with the
taste of distance and disappointment in
my mouth. I’m starting to feel it again
now, as I’m writing to you.

You haven’t always disappointed me,

however. You were there, next to me, as
best you could, both you and mother,
during the hard times, and I know you will
stand by me – till death do us part.

149
 I’m thinking of you – and mother. I hope
the rate of your fights decreases.
Careful with the actresses, please,
and... take care of mother.

With love and a certain disinterest,

Sara

I finish writing, I take the letters in my hand, the second one shorter (because of
my feeling tired), I read them again, and then I smell them.
They don’t smell like sex, or mold, or weed.
They don’t smell.
I put them back in the envelope and I lie on my bed, with my ear phones on.

I take another moutful of tea, the speakers are emitting a Coldplay song, and the
lyrics are one of the most important questions that have always been on my mind:
We never change, do we?
I eat a piece of chocolate, I stand up and open the fridge, I have to cook something
tomorrow, I’ve run out of butter. I have to buy some, but for now, I sit back down
again.
And I write.

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If I had known, back then, that Silviu would completely and definitively sink in
the scale, that he’d become a porn film star in the neighboring country, that he’d
leave me forever in a few years (not that he hadn’t been doing it every summer,
only to come back, begging, in the autumn) and that, as if this weren’t enough,
he’d also steal the envelope containing my letters, I wouldn’t have ever written
them.

I would’ve stuck to the phone and to the newly-invented e-mail, which I was
checking occasionally in ramshackle and badly-lit Internet cafés.

If I had known that Silviu, Silviu-who’d-taken-a-break-from-the-university, for-

whom-keeping-the-distance-from-me-was-easy-peasy, would also take the
entrance examination at Theatre Directing, when I’d tell him Mihai got in (’If he
can do it, so can I!’), I would have kept my mouth, this thin-lipped big mouth,
shut forever on that matter.

If I had forseen the extent to which our connection with abnormally huge ups and
downs would degenerate, and if the Sara I am now had been there, in that cretin,
crazy and sick situation, maybe I would have tried harder, more often and more
decisively, not to handle it alonealonealone, but to cling to someone, anyone, who
would protect me on their first try, ’cause nobody could do it on the second or
third.

Not even me.

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It’s nighttime. The city is droning, I’m walking through it as invisible as ever,
nobody sees me, nobody is strong enough to protect me, so I’m getting ready to
wait for Silviu at the railway station, he’s on the midnight train, because those
sixteen weeks have passed – not to mention that we’ve managed to fight even so,
talking on the phone – he’s not sleeping at my school mates’ student house
anymore, he’s staying at Mihai’s (at Mihai’s!), now they are about to become
school mates at the Theatre Faculty, Mihai cooks cheese omelette for Silviu, Siviu
complains that there’s too little cheese, I’m so embarrassed that I don’t know
where to hide, they accept two more short stories of mine for publication in the
university journal, a cute one about love, idealist and artificially-sweetened
(which I don’t like, so I store it in a dark corner of my laptop) and another one,
which I don’t bother to show to my folks:

A Person of No Importance
(50 pence)

I’m the lady with the weighing scale.

I set camp in front of ’Arta’ cinema every
day. Scale and all. 50 pence for everyone.
And I’ve been doing this for years. Every
single morning.
Children come by, sometimes, taking
photos. That’s all right with me, but I
often feel like charging them – 50 pence
a photo. Especially on the days when I
don’t have customers. Awwww, wouldn’t I
be rich now if I had asked for 50 pence
per photo...
Nuțu says to me yesterday: ’Mom, my
imeil is full of photos with you!’ I

152
wonder what this ’imeil’ thing is.
Aaahhh, something about computers. I’m no
good in that department. I’m only good
with scales. Me and Justice. She also has
scales – I saw photos of her when I was
in school.
I love weighing. I’ve never been good
at anything else. I’ve been doing it since
I was a child. My mom: ’Come, little one,
200 grams of flour for the cake, quickly,
quickly, the butter is hot in the frying
pan!’ Or: ’100 grams of sugar for the
pancakes, quickly, or the milk goes
sour!’ Or: ’Bread-crumbs – 150 grams for
the schnitzels! Quickly, or the oil
starts smelling!’ And so on, every single
day. Ever since I was a child, the scale
has been my best friend.
When I turned 14 or 15, I started
weighing myself, too, not only sugar,
flour or bread-crumbs. With or without my
clothes on. With my shoes, without my
shoes. With my coat, whithout my coat. It
was my hobby. My poor mom, God rest her
soul, she got really scared. ’What’s the
matter with this girl, spending the whole
day in the bathroom, on the scale?’ She
even took me to see a doctor. The medicine
man – ah, maybe she’s a maniac. So I
didn’t get on the weighing scale for a

153
while, it was forbidden. But I didn’t know
what to do with myself, so I started
eating. And I kept eating. I’d eat and
eat all the pancakes my mother put on my
plate, and then ask for more, and I’d eat
cake, and schnitzel – my, whenever she
cooked schnitzel with pickles, I would
celebrate! Those were the good days. But
the trouble was – I’d eat my head off,
I’d eat all the time, so boys wouldn’t
even look at me, ’cause I was so fat. So
I started spending time on the weighing
scale again, just to check how fat I was.
My poor mom – she let me be.
It was no good that I’d give the
weighing scale mean looks, ’cause it said
I got fatter as days went by. It was no
good that I’d get dressed in my lightest
clothes – the weighing scale kept saying
I was getting fatter and fatter. It was
no good that I’d weigh myself undressed
more and more often – the enemy kept
watching, it never went away : 65-68-70
kilos. And so on, until I reached 95.
It was then that my mom passed away
and I started to go hungry. Then, yeah,
precisely when I reached 95 kilos.
Strange thing is, I never lost weight. I
kept weighing myself, every single day, I
quit school, I didn’t eat ’cause there

154
was nothing to eat, but I’ve never lost
weight. It’s been the same ever since I
was 14-15. I have no idea why, but I
haven’t lost one gram. Not one. And no
boy, or man, ever looked at me ever.
Oh, right. One did. No, actually, he
didn’t, ’cause it was dark. I was down an
alleyway on the outskirts of the town. I
dunno what I was doing there. And, just
like that, out of the blue, this guy, I
don’t even know what he looked like, jumps
on me and says: ’Mum’s the word, or I’ll
stab ya!’
After nine months, Nuțu was born. I
was very upset at first, I cried, I didn’t
want the child, but when I gave birth to
him, I melted, ’cause he had nobody in
the world but me, and I’d never do the
dirty on a child.
I used to hold him while weighing
myself. The happiest day of my life was
when the weighing scale showed 100.
That’s how I found out Nuțu weighed 5
kilos. Why, I wasn’t good in Math, but I
know this much, that 100-95 is 5. I can
read numbers, I know what they mean.
’Cause the weighing scale shows me
numbers. Mathematical operations – hm,
not so good with those. Addition and
substraction – yeah, I can handle.

155
 But I don’t add. I count. I count my
customers, and I have around 10 customers
a day. Lately – less than 10. Thank God
for Nuțu, who’s got a job now and he
brings home food sometimes. But naaaah,
it’s not lack of food I’m afraid of. I’ve
become used to that since my mom passed
away. I think I haven’t lost weight at
all because I’m a camel. I even have a
hump, ’cause I’ve been sitting near the
weighing scale for so long.
As for my accomplishments, I feel
very accomplished: a job downtown, in
front of the cinema. Nuțu used his
connections in the Mayor’s Office and
they let me have the spot at a low price.
Papers and all. It’s legal! ’See,
Jeanette’, I tell myself sometimes, ’how
lucky you are to have this boy?’
I gotta go to work soon. I’ve put the
weighing scale in a vinyl plastic
backpack. I carry this backpack every
day. It’s not so good – living far from
downtown. But the bus gets me there in no
time. It gets the weighing scale there,
and the chair I sit on, and it also gets
my 95 kilos there. And people know me by
sight: fat, black and carrying my scale.
I’m the lady with the weighing scale.

156
 ∞

Now I’m sitting in front of the

cinema. It’s cold today and nobody’s
coming. I mean, yeah, they are, loads of
people are coming and going, but nobody’s
interested in getting on my weighing
scale. Well, what do they care? I’m trying
to do good to them, ’cause I know how
important it is to know your weight – it
really helps to know yourself better, to
find out who you are. Take me, for
instance – that’s how I found out I’m
black and fat. I saw it in the mirror that
I’m black, but if the weighing scale
hadn’t been right in front of the mirror,
I wouldn’t have found out. Oh, well,
people don’t really care. They go to
McDonald’s, to the movies, to the mall.
They don’t come here, on my weighing
scale. Well, actually, sometimes they do,
I have to admit. Many school children come
by.
Awwwww, school... Why, when I was in
school... God Almighty, no, I wouldn’t
want to go back there. They were mocking
me. Especially Dudu and Johnny. Saying I
was black and fat. Saying my clothes were
ugly. Saying I was no good in Math. No, I
wouldn’t go back there. My school mates

157
beat me up sometimes. Some teachers
flunked me. So I quit school. I’m better
off here, in front of the ’Arta’ cinema.
I never went in, though. Never had enough
money. Ah, no matter, once, on a good day,
I’ll buy a ticket with the change I’m
earning.
It’s gonna be the first movie in my
life. I never went to the movies. Not even
when I was in school. They used to take
our class to the movies, but my mom would
say I ain’t goin’, ’cause we’re poor. I
would have liked to see a movie.
Oh, look, a lass is coming! Hey,
lassie, get up on my weighing scale,
you’re so thin and beautiful! C’m on, it’s
on me! Say what? You wanna give me a
fiver? Naaaah, it’s just 50 pence, but
really, now, it’s on me this time, it’s
for free! Wha’? Your mom won’t let you?
Then toodle-oo!
Check out that fat man! He’s fatter
than I am! He really should get on my
scale. But not for free. Check out his
suit! He’s in the Parliament, I’ll bet!
This guy – I’ll overcharge him. Naaaaah,
no 50 pence this time. If he doesn’t give
a fiver or more, he ain’t getting on my
weighing scale. Dirty shitty thieving
fuckers!

158
 And that old woman? Why isn’t she
coming here? Well, yeah, when you’re that
old, it probably don’t matter what you
weigh, anyway.
I once weighed 100 grams, you know?
And then 200. When I was in my mother’s
belly. I had a mother and she kept me in
her warm belly. But now I’m cold as shit.
Sitting here, in front of the cinema. No
customers...

I woke up earlier today. And came to

work earlier, too.
I’ve only just set up my weighing
scale, when I get
The first customer: a young man. I
don’t speak to them often. They pay, get
on the weighing scale, they say thank you
– or not – and then they leave. But this
one – he looked at me and talked to me.
’Ma’am’, he says – pffff, that’s a good
one, haha, ’ma’am!’ – ’you are the city
brand! I’ve known you since I was five
years old! It’s my first time on your
weighing scale. But I’ll come again, mark
my words!’

159
 That felt good, I’ll admit. I was
just asking myself what ’brand’ means,
when, like a storm, there goes
The second customer: a cop. He didn’t
say a thing, but he did give me a mean
look. He got on my weighing scale, threw
the money in my can, as if he’d thrown it
to the pigs, and off he went. Then he came
back and asked for my papers, wanted to
check if my work was legal. I showed him
my papers and he left. Then, I just sat
there for a while. I was freezing. I
nearly fell asleep. But then I was awoken
by
The third customer: a mother with two
children. She didn’t get on my scale, she
gave me some money and let the children
get weighed. Those rascals, they jumped
on my scale (oh, my poor scale!) like
crazy, so I had to start yelling. I was
so scared, I didn’t know – did they break
it or not? and I was too afraid to get on
it myself, so I waited, breathlessly, for
The fourth customer: A lady in a fur
coat. Oh, my, it must have kept her so
warm and cosy! That poor animal! The lady
was fat, and my weighing scale told her
as much, my weighing scale always tells
the truth, so the lady went off grunting
and grumbling and she forgot to pay me.

160
 I sometimes look at the clock in the
tower. It’s eight in the evening now. I
stayed here for two hours more than usual.
And I only got a few customers. Didn’t
even make a fiver.
I’m gonna go home now. But I’ll buy
some bread first. Nuțu’s probably hungry,
and he ain’t got the time to get food
today, he’s working long hours. I’ll go
to the cornershop, bread’s cheap there.
I’ll pack my weighing scales. Then – wait
for the seventeen. Ride it for twelve
stops. And then, finally, buy that bread.

Today I used a dictionary for the

first time in ten years. But I didn’t find
the word ’brand’ there. I asked Nuțu about
it, before he went to the building yard.
He says ’country brand’ means the image
of the country – he heard it on the radio.
So that young man yesterday said I’m the
image of our town?! Why, I don’t mean to
brag, but it’s the truth! I really AM the
image of the town. Everybody knows me!
It’s a small town, after all! But nobody
really knows me. Not for real. Nobody
knows my joy, my pain, my thoughts. But

161
do I know theirs? Do I really know them?
Yeah. Oh, well, same thing, by sight
rather than not. I know everyone that
passes by the cinema. Those high-heeled
girls and those stretch-trousered boys,
the ladies with their important husbands
and their children, younger or older, who
they keep dragging behind them, Gigi, the
McDonald’s doorman, Sandu, Nuțu’s friend
who works at the bakery on ’Arta’ Street.
These people, yeah, I know. I know them
all. Other people – I only know by sight.
Some of them say hello sometimes. Those
naughty kids selling stolen flowers, or
Little Lion, the guy who steals them,
these people, yeah. They say hello. ’How
are you doing, Ms. Jeanette? Keeping up?
Aren’t you cold?’ Oh, yeah, actually, I’m
freezing. But what can I do... if I’m the
town ’brand’, ’Duty calls, Jeanette!’ - I
tell myself every single day. So, I sit
next to my weighing scale and I weigh
people.
Maybe I’m crazy, because sometimes I
get the impression that I’m weighing the
whole town. Piece by piece, person by
person. Those who are willing – they get
on my weighing scale. Those who aren’t
willing - they get weighed by my eyes. I
know them all. They all know me. But we

162
aren’t really acquainted. Who will miss
me, when I’m gone? Maybe Nuțu, maybe not
even him. I know! My weighing scale. My
scale is the only one that’ll miss me. It
helped me earn a tenner today! A tenner!!!
This means that tonight I’m gonna see the
first movie in my life! At the cinema, no
less, like a lady! I’m hanging on for a
little while, then I’m gonna buy a ticket.
Whewwww, can’t wait to tell Nuțu all about
it! Wheeewwww... ewww... ewww...

Reprint from The Truth and the Word

newspaper, the 23rd of November, 2001:

Jeanette Dujoală, known in town as ’the

lady with the weighing scale’, passed
away yesterday, the 22nd of November,
2001, on the coldest day of the year, in
front of ’Arta’ cinema. Her only son, Dan
(Nuțu) Dujoală, an unskilled worker, has
stated he would sue the Mayor’s Office
for not offering his mother the adequate
working conditions.
He also declared for The Truth... that
his mother, Jeanette, used to earn very
little money. The city mayor, Ion Duțu,
whom we have asked how he would like to

163
 comment on Dujoală’s accusations, has
stated: ’I really don’t care about the
namby-pamby of an unschooled idiot!’ The
mayor also holds the opinion that
Jeanette Dujoală was a person of no
importance for our town.
Jeanette Dujoală has weighed the
inhabitants of our town for decades,
starting in 1984. Her weighing scales, a
Singer brand, accompanied her today on
her very last trip. She was also
accompanied by a large number of
townspeople, carrying flowers and
candles. The administration of the ’Arta’
cinema is dedicating the evening movie to
Jeanette Dujoală. The price of a ticket
for this special event is 50 pence.

Editor-in-chief:
Sara Ionescu

I celebrate alone (alonealonealone) the publication of my stories with a

shaworma, I can’t afford to get anything else, I talk a lot on the phone to my folks,
my father also has a mobile phone, he was the first in our family to get one, it’s
an Alcatel, my parents are worried that I won’t make it through university, I really
don’t understand why, I think I’m doing great, my grades are really high, but, so
as not to have trouble with them, I visit my home town more and more often, I
take walks down the old alleyways, revisit my primary school, my secondary

164
school, my high shool, I sleep when I can, I try to forget, then I go back to the
BIG city, but on one of the weekends when Delia is away I feel like I’m on the
verge of dying, that’s how alone I feel, so I go to my home town again. My father,
who hates Silviu – which makes my decision to stay with him even more
strenuous, because Silviu is the only one who seems strong enough to threaten the
perfect balance in my perfect family, where I’m perfectly capable to take out the
garbage, to peel potatoes for soup, to clean up the-piss-of-the-dog-they-got-after-
I-left-for-university, so I-can’t-enjoy-his-company-because-it-belongs-only-to-
them-not-to-me-at-all, where I’m perfectly capable to give a massage to my
mother, whose flesh makes me sick to the stomach, where I’m perfectly tolerated,
where I’m perfectly prepared to accept the way I’m treated, and I’m perfectly apt
to accept suggestions as to how short my hair should be, how (not) to look, how
(not) to live my life, how NOT to ever get married, how NOT to ever have kids -
, so, my father finds out the ’dark-dickhead’ got into Theatre Directing – and he
screams at me, he goes bonkers:
’What does this blockhead want? He thinks he’s a theatre director?! This jerk?!
This shithead?! You’d beter not bring him by ever again, Sara, or I’ll smash his
face! Who does this fucker think he is?!’

My mother is quiet.

I start to feel even more that I need a cushion between my parents and myself.
And I think about my grandpa, who, after I had a screaming session with my
mother (’Sara, you have to pass this exam, you are not allowed to fail it under any
circumstances!’ ’Mother, please, understand, I’m attending a double-
specialization university, I’m also taking optional classes, I write and publish, get
off my back!’ ’NO! It’s a must!’), pays my parents a visit and, as my mother turns
her back on him, so that she doesn’t see him in his stained coat, with his gray hair
going yellow and with his unkempt fingernails, dirty from working in the garden,

165
he takes my hand in his right hand and tells me ’Sara, when you can’t do it
anymore, put that cross down, my dear!

The best life advice anyone ever shared with me.

The following day, after my father’s reprimand concerning the ’dark-dickhead’, I

hitch hike back (two extremely nice old people take me on; they stop so they can
buy me a juice and tell me: ’Please don’t get upset with us, but we’d really like to
ask you something!’ ’Sure, no problem!’ ’We know it’s none of our business,
but... do your parents know you left home? How old are you?’ ’Haha, don’t haha
worry, I’m at the hahaha university, that’s where I’m going, hehe!’), so, yeah, I
get back to the BIGger city, to the room where I live with Delia, who’s seldom
there, ’cause she spends a lot of time at her boyfriend’s, that room that gives me,
more than ever, that feeling, a feeling I can name now, it’s called communism, I
go back to the letter I wrote to my father, I shred it to pieces, I tear it apart to
very, very, very small pieces and I throw it in the garbage under the sink (Silviu
broke the sink in a violent spree and the administration of the student house
reproachfully replaced it the next day), that white-gray sink where I feel like
throwing up my life, back to the university journal that publishes what ’this’ one
writes, back to the Sibiu salami (’I’d like it in thin slices, please, if possible!’),
back to sex and violence with Silviu, back to Mihai, where I sometimes seek
sanctuary after Silviu goes berserk (’Sara ran away from home again, have you
seen her?’), back to my friends’ and school mates’ gazes, drooling with pity for
me.

And back to classes, when I can.

And back to writing, probably the only thing keeping me alive.

166
Silviu – who insisted that we move in together after a horrible fight (’dark-
dickhead’ against ’ferocious peacemaker’) with Mihai, a fight that got so bad that
Sidonia almost called 911, - helps me paint the room we’ve rented, contributes
with some money his parents sent him, he also pays a share of the Mountain Bike
I ride more often than he does, he breaks a few vegetable-stew jars I got from my
parents (’Sara, you stupid bitch, cook something for a change, or you won’t know
what hit you!’), then, on the following morning, he brings me breakfast in bed, on
a tray in the middle of which there’s a vase with an aggresively red rose springing
from it, he pours, ’by mistake’ (gullible), the water in the vase on my laptop, I try
to make money to get another one, thank God I’ve put all my stories and my
journal on a CD, and he suddenly stops harassing me as I go down the street, he
sets me on ignore mode and he always goes out without me, just with his new
school mates. He seldom asks me to join them, and when we accidentally meet
someone (I press the keys, smile and think about Andrei), someone I don’t know,
he doesn’t introduce me, he behaves, all of a sudden, as if we were in a hurry, he
lets go of my hand, I take refuge at Laura and Sebi’s place, they’re two of my
school mates in their senior year, we have wine, beer or tea and we watch movies
or talk about harmless stuff – we gossip about people at the university, we talk
about books we’ve read, about new music.

When I return, defeated, to the room I share with Silviu, we fuck passionately, me
– like a junkie, him – like a sportsman training in his favorite sport.

He sometimes tells me bedtime stories, that’s really nice of him (but I know, now,
as I’m writing this, that it’s just a phase in the carrot and stick technique), he
leaves notes for me in the morning, if I’m still asleep when he leaves: ’Good
morning, angel! I bought toilet paper! (But I wonder what angels do with toilet
paper!) :)’

167
I keep visiting my parents from time to time, I eavesdrop on their conversations,
my grandpa comes over:
’Aneta, I don’t like what’s going on with Sara and Silviu!"
’At least she’s not alone, father.’
*

Now my speakers are enchanting me with Arctic Monkeys’ No. 1 Party Anthem,
yeah - I remember and I smile -, I first heard this song at a party, I used to attend
those, occasionally – in the beginning with Silviu’s school mates from Theatre,
then – only with my school mates.

The parties at Matei’s place – he was my school mate and Silviu’s friend – were
long and happened frequently, probably because he lived alone – his mother was
abroad, his dad had moved to a village – and he had a dog that looked like Mihai’s
Otto, it was a German Shepherd I got along with very well. I take a sip from my
tea and start feeling bad because I don’t remember his name, even though I patted
his head loads of times.
It’s just that Matei tormented the animal by keeping him in such a small
apartment. He didn’t have the habit to clean up, either, and I remember how I used
to fall asleep, next to Silviu, after those parties, in the smell of smoke and alcohol,
on his extendable couch, and then, take the first tram home – dingdong!

I stop and I realise, as ’the brain in my stomach’ gives me a nudge, that I’ve been
writing in the Past Tense again.
I’m so happy about that!
It means this, too, has passed.

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It’s very dark outside. Katie Melua is singing If you were a sailboat, I would sail
you to the shore.
And I write.

I almost don’t feel the pangs of pain anymore, ’the brain in my stomach’ is long
dead, so is my grandpa (I cried then, at his penurious funeral, I cried for the first
time in years), I got a job at an art gallery and, after finishing my undergraduate
studies, the memory of which is very hazy at the moment, I’ve enrolled in
Literature and Society, an MA course I love like crazy, but it’s about to end.

I work in the daytime and, at night, I write my thesis about The Perception of Time
in Children’s Literature, I still have some writing to do, I discover, during my
research, how violent fairy tales really are, I smile.

I write. And I write. And I write. I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow, so I’m a
bit pressured, it’s a nice May evening and it’s quiet (I can only hear in my speakers
the whisper of someone singing Jolene, I'm beggin' of you, please, don't take my
man), Silviu is attending a performance with his (now) ex-school mates from
Theatre Directing, my mother finally paid me a visit and left some money on the
table, Silviu made a soup especially for me (after I told him how a guy working
in a multinational company hit on me, which most certainly made him look at me
differently, with more interest) and told me he’d be back home around midnight.

But it’s already three in the morning (three, obviously!), and I still have a lot to
write until I finish my thesis.
I can’t finish working, because I have no idea what’s wrong with Silviu.
I called him sixteen times, sent him four messages.

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Nothing.

I fall asleep. I hear the key in the door, he comes in, swaying, I have no idea where
he’s been, I don’t know who the bitch is and I don’t give a fuck, for that matter,
but I know what he’s done and, for the first time in my life (’I don’t like people
who lack self-control, Sara!’), I go berserk and start screaming.

And I get punched.

’Down there’ is all I have left, and now he’s endangering even ’this’ – who knows,
seeing how drunk he is and knowing what a dickhead he is, whether he’s used a
condom or not when he fucked that bitch, whoever she is.

I take another sip of tea and think it’s a really small world - as The Beatles confirm
that Bright are the stars that shine/Dark is the sky – because I accidentally found
out, while talking over coffee to Loredana, a colleague of mine at the association
– I’d asked her over, to my perfect one-room apartment, where I live alone
(alonealonealone) -, that on that night when I almost lost it and nearly missed the
deadline for my thesis, Silviu had been with some bitch, and that bitch wasn’t just
any bitch, it was the anorexic gazelle who would lead after many years the literary
circle where I’d get humiliated by the loser wannabe writer, that she would have
liked a relationship with Silviu, but he had other plans, that she got her revenge
by hooking up with his best friend, my ex-school mate, Matei, whom she
ruthlessly dumped after Silviu legged it from the BIG city, that she knew about
me then, but also recently, when I attended her famous literary circle (aha!), and
that she still hates me (oh, well...).

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Meanwhile, Jun Miyake has started weaving in my speakers Alviverde, I’m happy
that I’m alone now (yes, alone!) because I can write, I can do whatever I want in
my home, so I go to my room, I take a book by Roberto Bolaño from the shelf,
I’ve bought it recently, on one of the city breaks I go on more and more often to
the BIG city where I used to live as a student, I climb the stair to my double,
floating bed (...’to get some physical execise’) where I sleep alone and I leave
the book on my pillow.

It’s very late at night.

I go back to the kitchen and turn up the volume on my speakers, then I hum along
Nada Surf: I'm on the outside of love, always under or above.

Of course Silviu and I make up not long after the bitch episode (I’ve stopped
running away from home a long time ago), of course the following day I meet the
deadline and hand in my thesis at the secretarial office of the university, it was
coordinated by my favorite teacher, the one who thanked me for the first essay I
wrote in the first semester of my MA (’Sara, I really loved your writing style!’),
that kind and coherent teacher, who used to tell us about how people used to
measure time in the Middle Ages as if he’d known them personally – merchants,
knights, kings -, the teacher, in whose class on symbolism I hit bull’s eye again,
but its effects on my self-esteem wore off too quickly (’The student who tells me
why King Arthur and his knights are sitting at a round table is exempt from the
exam, they get an A now.’ ’Well, I’m not sure, but I think that, because it’s round,
he implied they were his equals!’), the teacher, who had no idea how hard it had
been for me to write that essay (like Chuck Palahniuk, who used to write under
parked trucks, in sewers, anywhere, under any circumstances), he had no idea how

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I was writing, just like Palahniuk, on a daily basis, amidst Silviu’s swear words
and malitious comments, and how I’d fix my inner eye on the statue called
Thinking Woman that was long gone now, cause the nurse had accidentally broken
it and it no longer stood on my mother’s desk at the hospital. Yeah. The Teacher.
The masculine correspondent to my first saviour, Ana Mărculescu.

I take another sip from my tea, Tracy Chapman is singing Here in subcity life is
hard, I click on the folder name Archive, I find my essay, it’s about humans and
mirrors, but I don’t open it, I don’t want to read it, I take a look out the window,
I see the moon coming out of the clouds, it’s almost full, I get up, I walk through
the kitchen, I go to the hallway, I pass by my mirror but I ignore it, I go to the
bathroom, I come back, shake the numbness out of my limbs, especially my hands.
I sit back down, decisively. I take a lock of hair between my fingers, I dyed it,
recently, in a Scandinavian blond shade, I play with it, I look listlessly at the water
recipient, I need to fill it up again, then I stare at the screen of my laptop, Sara
Ionescu looks back at me from the screen, she’s 38, 165 cm tall, she clenches her
teeth, so do I.
And I write.

Of course I hand in my thesis, written in blood, printed with tears and its binding
made of sinew, not imagining – not even for a second – how frustrated I would
be, in a future smelling of orange and cinnamon, that my essays and theory
writings hadn’t been published yet, of course I smile at the mean and disgusting
secretary looking at me as if I were spit, of course I do this because I’m relieved
that I’ve finished studying the relationship between time, childhood and fairy

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tales, of course I go downtown for a walk, alone, of course everything seems to
be just like it used to.
We are back to ’normal’.

Mihai is with Sidonia, they’ve been together for years, he’s just a memory for me
now, a nice memory, I’m pleased when we meet by chance at the theatre, I’m
pleased, but every time me meet, a scar gets activated in me, a small scar, a very
small one, the smallest one, my oldest scar, it’s M-shaped (M, from Maria), it’s
marking the place where I used to feel pangs a long time ago.

I hardly feel anything anymore ’midway here’.

Just, maybe, ’down there’.

When Silviu is in the mood for it.

A few weeks after the night with the thesis, I travel for my new job, I started
working at a well-known association and I have to attend a conference on arts and
society. I’m staying for three (obviously) days, Silviu reassures me he’d be
waiting for me with the shopping done, with some soup, he says he’ll clean the
house, I feel a pang of pain (Oh! So I’m still alive!) at the revolted thought – or
maybe it’s just a mood swing, a ’crisis’(No, mother, it’s not a ’crisis’, it’s a normal
reaction to what’s happening to me!) – a thought I almost share out loud: ’When
the fuck have I become so domesticated?’, I attend the conference, I arrive home
after two hours spent on a train and half an hour spent on a taxi, I find a good bye
note on the fridge, (’You were my only steady thing, but love isn’t real, only
interest, manipulation and chemistry are.’) , it’s written on lined, yellow paper
and it’s stuck to the fridge with the fir-tree-shaped magnet I’d brought back from

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my previous job assignment, the house is empty, the kitchen smells of alcohol,
there’s no soup and the room hasn’t been cleaned.

I try to clean up and sort out my life. Then, but also now, when all this is over.
I take another sip from my tea.
And I write.

After a few days of ’The number you are trying to reach is no longer available.’,
I realize Silviu stole my colored envelope, letters and all.
I keepheartkeepheartkeepheart – it’s difficult, it takes time and tears – and I call
my mother. I tell her Silviu has left me, this time for good, my mother says, cold
as a scalpel: ’A good riddance of bad rubbish!’, I feel my father gloating next to
her, I feel bad because I am alone (alonealonealone) and a victim of this vampire
and exhausted and all used up and, therefore, all I can do is crawl on the alleys
and streets of the BIG city with my ear phones on.

After a few days of shock, I enter the withdrawal phase. My drug’s left me.

One night, I get a message from Silviu: ’The wasps have become bees/Without
you.’

In a few weeks, I start feeling pain and pangs ’midway here’constantly.

I’m truly numb ’down there’.

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My ’up there’ is just empy space.

Whenever I go to my hometown, I lie down on the bed in the smallest room (my
parents took mine for themselves, they set up their bedroom there), I stare at the
ceiling and, whenever I go out to the toilet or to the kitchen, I bump into my father
on the hallway, I bump into my mother everywhere, the dog is gone.

My relationship with my parents is getting worse and worse, they give me pitiful
and distant looks.

I can’t stand Sibiu salami any longer.

Five months go by. I’m too gullible and I have too little energy left to even think
about a new boyfriend.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m taking a walk, muffled in my warmest clothes,
through the BIG city. I see a guy carrying a backpack. He’s walking in the
direction of the railway station. ’Of course he’s headed that way!’, I tell myself.
’He’s going to the mountains with his friends! He’s not spending New Year’s Eve
alonealonealone!’

And I also tell myself: ’He’s looking good!’

But I stop, remembering the ’virgin-like Virgo’ moment in my adolescence, when
I thought my father was ’this rock music fan, perfect for je, moi, me’.

I take a more focused look. It’s Silviu. (’Obviously!’ – I tell myself, and I think
about Mihai, but also about the breaks in high school when we used to practice

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our English for Miss Liz’s classes; she would always wait for us with a smile on
her face, ready to dispense advice on how to improve our ’language level’: books,
movies, music – especially music.)

And, just like in a dream, I return to my immaculate kitchen, I take another sip of
tea and I listen to Massive Attack playing Paradise Circus.
And I write.
*

It’s just the two of us, Silviu and I, there’s no one else in sight.

We’re getting close, slowly but surely, both wearing ear phones.
I pause the Rolling Stones song I’m listening to.

He doesn’t do a thing.

I keep walking, and when I pass him by, I say: ’Happy New Year!’

And I smile.

He answers, singing: ’Alooooone, soooooo alooooone!’

And he starts laughing.

Another sip of tea. And I write.

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Silviu,
I have nothing to say to you.
Sara

177
 Three. Andrei – Midway Here

A few years go by. Many years. Too many.

I resettle, resigned, in the small town looking like a cake with towers – the town
where I was born. And where the shitheads are fewer just-because-they-
emigrated. (’Come home, Sara, you won’t make it there alone -
alonealonealone!")
So, yeah, I move back to my home town, but I’m no longer living with my parents,
I’m renting a one-room apartment downtown. Its furniture was probably made in
the ’90s. The couch is brown and very uncomfortable.
I’ve graduated from my MA studies – it’s been a while. I have a new job – it’s
not easy work, but it’s work – at the best association in town, the newest one,
actually, doing socially-oriented projects. I have a very good laptop now, and also
three (yeah, three!) external hard drives, I’ve replaced Winamp with Spotify and
I’m using two cloud storage websites.

I get a very short haircut of my own accord.

When my mother sees me, she makes a face, she gives me a high five and she
says:

’Now you can...’

’... put on a lot more eye make-up!’

Pause.

’I know, mother, you don’t like people who lack self-control. Believe me – I gave
this haircut a good thought before having it.’

We hug.

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In the meantime, Anda Cadariu has published another book, I can hardly wait to
get to the book store, after paying my folks a short visit – they moved out, they
no longer live in that apartment full of memories that are paved, themselves, with
tiles-that-resemble-wooden-decking, memories that smell of the-now-dead-
dog’s-piss.
Ever since that Sagem, I’ve ’gobbled down’ two Nokia mobile phones, an Alcatel
and a Samsung, but now I’ve got an iPhone I can also use to get on Facebook,
Twitter and Goodreads.

I travel a lot; my job requires it – like I said, our association is socially-oriented

and we need to do research -, my colleagues are nice people – even Loredana,
who is a bit weird (and I remember, as I get engulfed by a wave of shame, how I
didn’t like it that our school mates used to call Mihai the weirdo, and how I never
did anything to stop them) – but the nicest of them all is Iolanda, with whom I go
out for coffee sometimes and who is capable of having a conversation about
cultural journals – she’s one of the few people in this shitty town who read them
-, about European projects – we’re applying for those like crazy -, and about music
– we have similar tastes in that area.
We don’t gossip – except on the odd occasion.

Romantically speaking – nothing for me. And I do mean nothing. There was this
one-night-stand with Paul, a Geography graduate (and I remember Sidonia, I
nearly asked him if he knew her).
It happens at a birthday party where I get drunk for the first time in years and the
bile starts flowing out of me, I explode and tell my story aggressively, the people
there seem shocked and unhinged, then, extremely drunk and very
alonealonealone, I hit on Radu, the owner of the busiest pub downtown,
strategically opened near the block of flats where I’m currently living, Radu,

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who’s tall, dark and thin, and, therefore, no matter how cliché it may sound, very
sexy, Radu tells me he’s got a girlfriend, it’s been a week now (I didn’t know, but
what I do know for sure is that he actually doesn’t like me, ’cause if he did,
nothing would stop him from hooking up with me, or anyone for that matter, at
least that’s what I heard about him), so Paul-the-Geography-graduate (who
answers my question ’Who could possibly ever like me?’ by saying ’Me! I like
you!’) will do for now, at least for a night, but I’m sick and tired of being alone
so I insist, it ends in a nasty way, with him having another one-night stand (he
sends me a message that he’s ’repeated the thing’ with someone else), I bury my
head in Facebook and idealist motivational quotes (The only one who should see
your naked body is the one who sees your naked soul), then I bury my head in tea,
chocolate and Pink Floyd (Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless?),
I read the occasional Science-Fiction novel, the occasional fantasy book,
sometimes I even read German philosophy (All good things come from strength
and all bad things come from weakness.), but that’s not unexpected, since I’m
checking, beside all the literary magazines ever invented, the website Philosophy
Matters, I write stories occasionally, but I don’t really feel inspired, I start feeling
more and more useless.

On a sunny weekend morning, after a Saturday night I’d spent in bed with Netflix
and books, I open my laptop thinking of going on Goodreads (I’ve just finished
re-reading Dubliners and I want to post this), so I randomly open Facebook as
well, and I notice I’ve got a new friend request from someone called Silviu. I
check again, I’m not sure I really saw what I thought I saw.

Silviu Petre. Yeah, I really saw what I thought I did.

I almost choke on my coffee.

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I start feeling some traces of pain in my heart and stomach.
After (how many?) years.

I click accept.

It’s a fake account, it’s obvious to me it’s not his ’official’ one (not so gullible
anymore), but we sometimes chat on mess. He reacts to my selfies, maybe because
I’ve obviously lost some weight since he used to chase me down the streets back
in the day.

I take up the phone, I call Lili to talk to her about this historical event, she starts
screaming, threatens to get on the first bus headed here (she lives in the BIG city,
family, kids, apartment), she says she’s coming over to give me a cold shower, I
tell her I am really alonealonealone, she yells I’m gonna be even more alone if I
don’t unfriend Silviu at once, because she’ll stop being my friend, I send her a
kiss via my phone and thank her, I tell her I’ll do it, I’ll unfriend Silviu, but I’m
not actually ready to do that yet, I keep him for a few months, I’m waiting for the
summer. We chat sometimes on mess, only when he starts a conversation – I never
do -, and he doesn’t do it often (’Sara, let’s keep it at a slow pace!’ – I remember
how he used to pull this shit on me every time he wanted to fuck other people), I
sometimes poke him via mess, but I keep my self-control, I’m waiting for the right
moment, in spite of the anger and revulsion I feel every time he approaches me
online, and, finally, on the 14th of July, on the very day our connection (’cause it
was not a relationship, it was anything but) ended, I write him a message saying
summer is here and I have to leave and that, unlike him, I won’t come back
begging this autumn – or any other autumn, for that matter -, he replies he’s very
’busy’ at the moment and that, anyway, spring is his favourite season, but I feel I
kicked his ass this time and I block him. Forever.

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 *

Because loveisforever, I tell myself, and I stand up, I walk through the kitchen, I
relax my muscles, jog a bit on the spot and get ready to keep skiing on the snowy
slope I’m on.
I hear in my speakers Famous Blue Raincoat, sung by Angela McCluskey (Are
you living for nothing, hope you're keeping some kind of record), and I take
another sip from my cup – there’s not much tea left.
Daylight is coming, shyly, like a dream, engulfing the part of the planet where
Sara Ionescu (38 years old, 165 cm tall, blue eyes) lives, suffering from the disease
of the century – loneliness. My kitchen is warm, the round table welcomes my
tired head that needs to rest on my arm, I breathe in, I breathe out, I’m overtaken
by fear again, so I lift my head and I swear.
And I write.

I try to go out more often, to stop staying home alonealonealone with my books,
I manage with great difficulty to act like nothing ever happened, not to me, at
least, that I’m OK, that I’m interested in where my colleagues from work get
manicures and haircuts, I keep going out with friends and acquaintances – most
of them married with children -, I go out with them even though I always feel out
of line because I am a woman alone and, therefore, I feel the social pressure a lot
more than other women, and, one night, I meet, at a party, Andrei, Ioana’s brother
– she’s a colleague of mine at the association I’ve been working with for three
(yes, exactly three!) months on a project supporting the victims of domestic
violence.

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Pretty likable, this Andrei (’Andrei Popovici, pleased to meet you!’), but the first
problem comes up as soon as he finds out my name is Sara Ionescu: he knows my
parents – to be more specific, he’s on very god terms with my father, he speaks to
me very highly of him, he’s never heard about me, he doesn’t know I’m a writer,
nor does he know I have sworn to never ever write theatre, especially because of
my father, nor does he know about my failed love story with the stage, failed
because my parents didn’t let me study Acting, he has no idea that I can’t stand
that world any longer, the theatre, where everything is just appearance, where
people hide behind artificial and perfunctory physical contact and emotion.

I find out that it was my father who advised him (’Another one!’, I tell myself) to
study Theatre, but in a different city.

Ah, so that’s why I didn’t know he existed, because he studied in a ’different

city’?

Or maybe I didn’t know about him because he never played any notable part in
any notable theatre performance?

(I’ll bet he’s an actor, he sure seems the type.)

He tells me he graduated from university when I did.

’I’ve graduated from Theatre Directing’, he tells me, in a very quibbling style –
and I feel horrified – I almost start shaking with disgust.

So this is ’the young hopeful’ my father has just started working with for a new
performance. This is that Popovici guy the ’maestro’ has been spending all his
days with, and when he isn’t doing that, he keeps eulogizing him at home, until

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my mother can’t take it anymore and asks him: ’Nicky, darling, are you in love?’,
so this is the future ’great’ director to whom the famous actor Nicky Ionescu got
so attached (and I think, with a wry smile, about my anxious-avoidant
attachment).

’The young hopeful’ asks me if I’d like a drink, but Cristi’s famous line pops in
my mind (and I see him, I can still see him back then, in Jazz, as he’s showing off
his bottle of rum): ’Peace and friendship!’
I nearly throw these words in ’Andrei-Popovici-pleased-to-meet-you’’s face, but
I refrain from doing that. I keep my self-control. (Yes, mother!)

I never ever want anything to do with directors, especially ’young hopefuls’, no,
absolutely not, never ever, they are very dangerous to me, moreover, they all think
the sun shines out of their behind, I smile politely at my new acquaintance, I
apologize and I head towards Petru, the IT manager at our association, who is the
flirtatious type (obviously), he’s also a Philosophy graduate, and, therefore, high-
spirited enough for me to like talking to him.

Petru pours some whisky in a glass for me, he’s in the mood for gossip, so he’s
trying to villify the ’new playboy’ - and he nods towards Andrei, I’m amusing
myself remorselessly at this, because, first of all, I tell myself in a decisive
manner, no matter how good-looking he is (which – and I give him a good,
analytical look from head to toe – I don’t think is the case, yeah, he’s OK, but
nothing special, I can do so much better than that), he really is not my type, and I
feel no guilt whatsoever as I’m making fun of Andrei with Petru, and I don’t feel
guilty at all for another reason – it’s because, as I’m facing him, I see him looking
in my direction, a bit perplexed, and then, he starts hovering around Alina, a
Sociology graduate (aha, I don’t like sociologists, especially women-sociologists
because of her, especially because I’m going to catch her in the act of hitting on

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Andrei, right under Daniel’s teary eyes – that would be her actor-boyfriend),
Alina, who does our surveys at the association, Alina, who always brings them in
a long time after the deadline, and who is so common, so uninteresting and so
forgettable that I always have to ask myself twice when she says hello who the
fuck is this expresionless Barbie, with her hair looking like the fur of a wet rat,
wearing a whore-like black lace blouse.

Petru has some kind of girlfriend, this chick, Mihaela, they’ve been together for
eight years and I could never understand why he hasn’t asked the ’diva’ to marry
him already, for God’s sake. Maybe because she’s an actress (’Actresses are
whores!’, I hear my father’s defensive tone of voice – as he said these words on
that day when I was in the eighth grade, I got a C in History and pretended to be
asleep because I was too scared to tell my parents about it – but I heard him yelling
these words in my mother’s face and I think that, after saying this memorable line
in-their-life’s-theatre-performance, he at least kissed-if-not-more-than-that his
perfect wife, because I didn’t hear any sound for a very long time) so, yeah, simply
because Mihaela is an actress, Petru is probably very afraid that the still-in-
training-diva is going to dump him, that she’s gonna make a cuckold out of him
if they legitimize their (still-unwritten) social contract, he’s afraid she’s going to
humiliate him even more than – maybe, I tell myself – she already does in their
private life.

’Miha is coming soon, with a school mate from Theatre!’ – Petru tells me, as if
having read my mind.

’Ah, great!’ – I reply, with a lack of enthusiasm that surprises even myself, I know
Petru likes me, it’s mutual, we would have probably made a nice couple, if the
planets had been aligned differently, our friendship would have surely turned into

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something else, but he is with ’Miha’ and I have never ever interfered with a
relationship (gullible).

So I take another sip of whisky, I ask Petru for some advice concerning my blog,
where I post the occasional story which I’m straining to write, even though I feel
uninspired, but I do write, that is – when I’m not at work and when I’m not
dreaming about a book with my name on it (I often imagine how Anda Cadariu
feels whenever one of her books gets published), Petru gives me the advice I asked
for and he also recommends that I quit this blogging shit and get

’...a real website, Sara, you have so much more visibility, it looks a lot more
professional, you could do a White Hat, I’ll help with the coding part...’

I hear Sidney Bechet playing Petite fleur, this languishing song is louder than
Petru’s voice (I can also hear it now, in the kitchen, flowing from my speakers, as
I take another sip of tea), I look at Andrei and imagine he’s asking me to dance
with him. I shake this thought off, no, no, I can’t let this happen, I have to chase
the thought away, I’m not allowed to imagine something like this, even though –
or maybe especially because – imagination is more important than knowledge, as
the crazy, shock-headed physicist showing his tongue teaches us.

My eyes gaze listlessly at the legs that have just entered the room – Mihaela’s and
her school mate’s - all four of them (two long ones and the other two - rather short,
because her school mate is really small, like a child) enclosed in gauze-like
stockings and sealed in black leather boots.

’Miha’ and her school mate exchange kisses with Andrei, who gives both of them
enthusiastic hugs. I watch them attentively. Something’s not kosher with Andrei
and Petru’s chick. ’These two have something fishy going on!’, I tell myself, and

186
I shrug. The little one (I find out later her name is Cecilia) is staring longingly at
Andrei.
Yeah, Andrei looks OK. Even if he’s not my type (I tell myself, again, decisively).
It’s just that he is. Although he’s not tall, dark and thin. He’s colored just as I am,
he has chestnut hair, blue eyes, but, unlike me, he doesn’t have breasts, he’s
wearing a beard, mountain boots, glasses and stylish clothes (I bet he also likes
alternative rock music), he is friendly, but not out-of-line-friendly (’What do his
parents do for a living?’ – I hear my folks’ voices in my mind).

’I bet he’s the perfect director!’ – I tell myself, and I shudder again, like a wild
rabbit caught on the road in the headlights of some random car. I start asking
myself what Andrei thinks about Thom Yorke – I force myself to stop asking
these malignant questions – and I shudder again.

It’s like a curse – both my ex-boyfriends are theatre directors, they both got there
because of me, at least this guy didn’t know me when my father ’recruited’ him,
so he studied Theatre for himself, not for me, I take a good look at him, no, no, I
shouldn’t do that, (’Stop looking, Sara!’ – I tell myself, again), I’m getting ready
to leave the party, it’s not good for me to hang around these people working in
the theatre, but they’re everywhere, and my father, with his acting career and with
his ’modest star’ uppishness, is quite enough for me, and falling in love is bad for
me, that’s when the pangs of pain I get ’midway here’ increase their rate, so the
best thing I can do is leave, I say good bye to Petru, we hug, I tiptoe past Andrei,
I hear him telling Cecilia ’Oh, sorry, I was talking to Miha and simply forgot you
were here, too!’, I shudder again, Cecilia is staring at the floor and whispers
something about directors and ’only long-legged actresses’, which makes me stop
in my tracks, against my will, struck with admiration for her. I shake the little
one’s hand and introduce myself. She (’Cecilia! Delighted to meet you!’) starts
talking to me, I’m open to conversation, we are gradually retreating to a more

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private area, to get to know each other better. I feel someone is giving my back a
piercing look and I turn around. It’s Petru, he’s staring at me reproachfully.
If I had known, back then, how this little and delicate Cecilia would hurt me
(’Actresses are whores!’), but I’d be hurt because of friendship, not love (’One
and the same thing!’ – I tell myself as I sip from my tea), if I had known how I’d
fight my future-’brother’-best-friend, Andrei, trying to convince him to give her
some of his attention, and that I’d lose this fight, if I had known, back then, that
the one I would have liked him to pay attention to would be me, if I had known
he’d scream in my face, drunk, ’Women who write are whores!’, simply because
– even though he was hiding it extremely well – he couldn’t take my one-night-
stand-therapy anymore, even though the rate of my attempts to find a boyfriend
would decrease dramatically, if I had known that after he cut ties with me forever
and ever he’d give up on theatre directing and start making movies (more
uninteresting, more bland and more pitiful than the way that woman-sociologist
looked) and that he’d become a notorious alcoholic, if I had known he’d get on a
Blabla Car ride, tipsy and alone, heading to some dump in the North, and then,
without me, but very sober and very much together with Mihaela, he’d settle down
in some random Western country, if I’d known how depressed Petru would
become after being ruthlessly dumped (’Actresses are...!’) by his girlfriend, whom
he was about to (finally!) ask to marry him, if I had known I’d end up living
alonealonealone at 38, in a perfect one-room apartment in my dead home town
(still looking like a cake, towers and all), due to events (recent ones, but not only)
the roots of which could be found in my childhood and teenage years, among
other places, I would have never attended the party where I met Andrei, I
would’ve stayed in bed that night, reading Anda Cadariu, ’cause I had thankfully
managed to buy her most recent novel and I loved its style, it was helping me
dream at night.

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But that wasn’t meant to be. Other parties and get-togethers follow. Many, many
others.

I stop writing, I’m in my empty home, and I wonder how long it’s been since I
attended a party, I ask myself how have I managed to become so isolated (by the
way, I wonder how the saleswoman at the cornershop has been doing lately), I
think about my parents and about our relationship, which I’ve repaired as best I
could, I think about Mihai, about Silviu, about Andrei, I even think about Maria,
but most of all, I think about my parents (’Sara, we know better than you!’, ’Sara,
there are no pure forms, all you can get is a love-hate relationship!’, ’Sara, you’re
wrong!’), my beautiful and smart and generous and irresponsible parents, who
have always stood by me.
And I write.
*

It’s a pleasant October evening and I’m attending another party, this time my
father’s throwing it, it’s his birthday party, it’s a rather big party, with lots of
people, all kinds, of different ages and careers (many theatre professionals and
doctors, however, ’cause that’s our town’s main profile), we’re in the hallway of
the theatre that would host, in a few years, the proverbial literary circle with the
anorexic gazelle and the wannabe writer.
But that hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve become good friends with Cecilia, my hair is long again, I’m playing with it,
Cecilia and I are seated in our corner, and I remember that night when I first met
her and discovered that she also (obviously) knows and respects, no, rather adores
my father. (’Oh, you are the daughter of the GREAT Nicky Ionescu!’)

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Cecilia is slandering Mihaela, who is attending this party, as well (’Why does she
just have to show off her legs everywhere?!’), but I’m not thinking about either
of these two girls, I’m thinking about my father, because it’s his birthday, after
all, and I start wondering if there’s anyone who doesn’t know him, ’cause
everyone seems to know him, and I’m happy my mother knows him, too (I check
her out, she looks great in her long, green dress made of cotton, she’s chatting
with Lupu, the doctor who operated on my father’s hernia), I’m thinking about
my parents, about both of them, I’ve heard the story of how they first met (’You
a pterodactyle? Me also a pterodactyle!’) a thousand times, but I’m not bored yet,
I still like them, in spite of everything that’s happened between us, and I like it
that they’ve met, I like it especially now, when my mother has stoped being
hysterical, like she used to be when I was a child and a teenager (I remember, with
the usual pang from ’the brain in my stomach’ how I tore apart their favourite
photo – they were in the mountains, on the veranda of a wooden cottage, that
photo in which they seemed so happy that I couldn’t help wondering how can two
people who supposedly love each other scream at one another that way), on the
contrary, now, dr. Aneta Ionescu is the nicest mother in the world and she’s
always there for me when I need her (Is she medicated and I’m not aware of it?)

I hear Rufus Wainwright singing his cover of Across the Universe in my speakers.
The lyrics (Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup) remind me
of a French choreographer (looking just like my neighbor, Victor) who told me,
after reading one of my stories: ’Sara, never ever quit writing, you are so good
with words!’

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I send him a virtual kiss and yeah, then I go back to words, my refuge, my home,
my sanctuary (’Writing helps! – I hear Anda Cadariu’s Journal chirping in my
brain) and I keep skiing down the slope. I’ll finish the track soon.
And I write.
*

As my father is greeting his guests, Cecilia is mumbling, depressed, that she’ll

end up working in a puppet theatre, even though she doesn’t want to, I see Andrei,
as if through a haze (it’s because I’m sunk in thought, I tell myself) as he’s heading
our way, we’ve been friends for a long time now, our behavior is polite and
controlled, we’re playing each other, among affable smiles, kisses on cheeks and
flirts with other people (me – especially in bars, ’cause it’s the only context I have,
and him – especially with actresses, for whom context doesn’t really matter), and
this flirting has tested my limits until I decided that NO, him and I are NOT an
option, now he stops, because Mihaela’s approached him, but he gets rid of her
quickly and he keeps heading toward us, I start feeling pangs ’midway here’ and
I become very stiff, because the time has come to grasp the nettle, to put my foot
down, to steel myself and face the danger, I decide to keep my self-control (Yes,
mother, I know!), to keep in mind the fact that ’Actresses are...’ (Yes, father, I
know!) and that Andrei is in that world, in the theatre, and that I have every reason
to be scared shitless by theatre directors (Yes, Mihai, yes, Silviu! I know!)

So I look at him coming towards me and I welcome him ’midway here’. And
that’s all I can do, because I need to protect myself as best I can, and this hurts,
but it’s necessary, because lately he’s been sending me too many mixed signals
and I really really don’t need that.
*

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And, as I sip from the almost empty cup, I remember that day when we took a trip
together, in my father’s car, a black Ford, we went to the village where my
grandpa used to live, that grandpa who told me about ’the brain in the stomach’
and while traveling we listened to Stereophonics, Alice in Chains, The Doors,
Tschaikovski, Elbow and Bártok, I remember how I was watching, from the right-
side window, the fields that had a golden shade, then we stopped, got out of the
car and walked for a while, then Andrei drove me home and thanked me for
keeping him company, as if I’d been a whore or a pet, which made me feel that I
might as well wag my tail like a dog or wear red underwear like a cheap woman,
but answered him instead ’No trouble at all! I’m the one who should thank you!’,
and how he replied with the same line he’d started saying to me several months
ago and which was really confusing me because-Alina-because-Mihaela-because-
not-me: ’Always!’

I’m no longer watching Cecilia. I’m looking at him, as he’s coming, he’s coming,
he’s getting closer and he’s looking at me directly, resolutely.

’Hello, brother from another mother!’ – I tell him, making this attacking-
defending move for the safety of my slightly tipsy person.

I only said this to my father, during the good times, when, after years of having
suddenly healed my Electra complex, the climax of which was the scene with the
good-looking rock music fan, perfect for je, moi, me, and after having gradually
healed the wounds caused by my mother’s screams or criticism, I managed to
move, in spite of what Mihai said to Silviu (’You can sleep at my place, brother!’)
to the next phase: my parents, my brother and sister. Because if I hadn’t done this,
I would have run away.

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But Andrei is not my brother. He is not. And he never will be.

He smiles and takes away the glass of rosé I’m holding. He’s ignoring Cecilia.
He reminds me of Mihai in many ways – attitude, temperament, it’s just that he
doesn’t smell of mold, he smells of Hugo Boss, and he reminds me of Mihai
because the ice has been broken again, just like it happened back then with Mihai,
it’s something else now, however, but most of all he reminds me of Mihai because,
on the inside, he’s also a kind of hippie-weirdo.

’Hello, sister who thinks like a mister!’ - he replies, and he makes me stand up,
gives me a hug, and then, right on time, I'll Take Care of You by Hart &
Bonamassa starts playing, so we dance.

Something melts in my stomach, something like a burnt quiche, with old coconut
filling and with rotten pineapple pieces on top.

That dance is the moment I’m thinking about now, when I’m writing, it’s the
perfect moment, with the perfect guy, in the perfect place, in the perfect world,
with all the planets perfectly aligned. I stop writing and take another sip from my
tea. And I look for and listen to I'll Take Care of You on purpose, it fills my
kitchen, my ears, my general’s brain and homemaker’s soul.
And I write.
*

After Hart & Bonamassa’s song, a U2 tune starts playing, so I break loose from
Andrei’s hug and we get off the dance floor.

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We go back to Cecilia, she gives us a grumpy look, now Mihaela and Petru are
on the dance floor, Petru has just turned up, holding on to a bottle of Jameson for
my father, who shook his hand and hugged him, I sit down next to Cecilia, who’s
still frowning, Andrei squeezes his way between us, we welcome him like two
hens protecting a chicken, Cecilia gives me a teary look, it suddenly hits me how
I’ve hurt her by being the one Andrei danced with and not her, and I tell myself
again, NO, him and I are NOT an option, so I go looking for some one-night-
stand-casual-sex-with-no-complications therapy in the pub downtown, cursing
my life and the pain I feel ’midway here’, a pain I’ll probably also feel ’down
there’, as well, in the morning, after another failed attempt on the snowy slope
I’m skiing on, looking for love.

I take another mouthful of tea and I stop to listen to Eilen Jewell, who’s confessing
in my speakers: I'll never love like I did before, so don't call my name no more...
I stand up, go in the hallway, leave the kitchen door open behind me, it smells of
cigarette smoke in there, but this, too, shall pass, it’s very late and I feel like going
to sleep.
But no. I go back to the kitchen.
And I write.
*

Not long after the wannabe brother-sister relationship between Andrei and myself
has been established, he gets a car of his own, a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle,
it’s really nice and I name it Wolfie, thinking about the artist I admire most,
Mozart, and about Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, the only play Andrei says he’ll never
ever direct, although, in my opinion, it’s extraordinary, brilliant, genius, and on
top of it all, it’s my favorite by Shaffer and I would love to see it performed, even

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in this half-dead town, but I don’t know – not even today – why not only does
Andrei refuse to direct it, he actually seems to deeply hate it, so I settle, as usual,
for a refusal, I start asking myself questions about this hatred of his (I wonder
what it really looks like, hidden so well under the civilised mask of indifference),
I get the inevitable thought that the ’young hopeful’ doesn’t want anything to do
with this play because he feels exactly like Salieri when it comes to me (?!), and
maybe when it comes to my father, as well, about whom (as I find out by
eavesdropping about town) he kind of spreads rumours, just as Cecilia has been
doing when it comes to me lately, I smile a wry smile and I see, in my mind’s eye,
Salieri’s face when he declares war to God and to one of His incarnations, Mozart,
I tell myself that maybe Andrei actually hates both me and my family, he hates us
more than we could possibly imagine, I tell myself that he’s probably just using
us and my father’s social position to get out of ruck, that he doesn’t feel any kind
of friendship when it comes to me, it’s just convenience, I tell myself that
probably nobody – not even him – is actually aware of this, and I tell him, in my
mind, that I forgive him, invoking the same Salieri, the patron saint of
mediocrities, but then I hear Andrei in my mind, as he’s telling me, in Salieri’s
voice, that he is going to ruin my life.
I shudder, I chase these thoughts away, I forget them, it’s better like this, and I
wait for him. He’s coming by my place again today, after taking a trip – one of
the first with the new car – on which he’s accompanied by another ’young
hopeful’, a Brazilian girl who’s a theatre director, too, and whom my father has
invited to work on a performance about the Holocaust. Andrei is taking her out
for lunch at the most famous isolated restaurant, it’s in a faraway village spread
on a few hills, this restaurant has its own fishery, where you can catch your own
food-to-be, I imagine the intelligent and witty conversation the two artists are
having, I’m dying that they didn’t invite me, too, they just let me feel, as usual,
like a woman alone, a 38-year-old woman who can’t find her place anywhere, not
even in the presentation booklet of the theatre performance about the Holocaust,

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which I offered to write (gullible), knowing that I’m darn good at writing, but my
kind offer was met with the usual well-mannered refusal, id est a lie, which I
euphemistically called then, in my mind, a ’pretext’, because Andrei told me
someone had already written it, which, as I was to find out from my father, was
not true.
I was sure they wouldn’t ask me to join them on the trip, so, two days before that,
I went, not willingly, but rather unwillingly (and I tell myself that yeah, if we
think about etymology, the word ’unwillingly’ is related to the word ’will’, as in
’willpower’, it’s just that it has a negative prefix), so, yeah, I unwillingly went on
another city break to the BIG city where I spent my student years, prepared to
return home in the middle of their trip, so that I wouldn’t feel as set aside and
despised as Andrei usually makes me feel.

And now I feel like laughing out loud, because from the speakers I’ve set next to
the water recipient, the red toaster I bought recently and the best semi-automatic
coffee machine I could afford, Asaf Avidan is telling me that One day we'll be old
and think of all the stories that we could have told.

Andrei calls me in the very moment when I enter, dead-tired (after traveling by
bus, a bus that hadn’t missed a pothole, not one!) my perfect and empty one-room
apartment and asks me, in a sugary tone of voice, if I’d like him to get a grilled
trout for me, my fridge is empty but I tell him there’s no need, he says he won’t
be staying with ’Anita’ much longer, that they’ll be back soon, so he’ll be on time
for the coffee we said we’d have at my place, we scheduled it a week ago for three
(ha!) o’clock sharp (someone loves me!) today, but after I take a shower and,

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therefore, feel a bit more relaxed, I have to keep waiting, because he’s late and I
don’t get a sign from him, not even a message, for two full hours, I imagine him
sitting in his parked car in front of my gate (the ’new playboy’ isn’t sharing any
posts on Facebook, but he’s using his mess all the time), he finally arrives, I’d
been all on wires and I’m still tense (’Can you please tell me where you are? So
that I know whether to turn the coffee machine on or not yet.’ ’I’ve just stopped
at the traffic lights.’ ’Yeah, well, where, ’cause this town has like thirty!’ ’The
lights near Selgros. We left later than we’d planned, we took a walk through the
fishery.’), he, on the other hand, is happy, acting as if nothing had happened, as if
he didn’t realize what he’s doing to me, as if he didn’t know that playing people
- or their feelings -, which is socially-acceptable by default, especially in the
theatre, makes me blow steam, that’s how much revulsion I feel at the very
thought, so he just shows up, smiling and empty-handed, as if it hadn’t been a
good opportunity for him to bring me a rose as a sign of ’peace and friendship’
but no, he only gives roses to powerful women-directors and actresses, signaling
his ’respect and appreciation’ for them, I’m just a no-name lever, a screwdriver in
a screw-wrench world, perfectly replaceable, perfectly neglectable, perfectly
usable at the right moment, perfectly tolerated, perfectly capable to endure any
pressure, any hint from acquaintances, any insinuation regarding our friendship,
and I particularly mean those from people who give us inferring looks when I’m
in a social context with him and with my father (which seldom happens lately,
because, as I realise with a pang, Andrei has started to avoid these situations as
much as possible, he prefers to keep our contact private), and I’m thinking about
the most recet venomous question: ’When are you getting married?’, to which I
reply, not willingly, ’I prefer a healthy lifestyle.’, and take another sip from my
beer, apparently unaffected by this question, while Andrei is writing a message to
someone on the screen on his phone.
Now he’s entering the kitchen, I try to smile, but I look daggers at him instead.
He pretends not to notice. He throws a critical look in the direction of the lit

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cigarette in the ashtray and he goes to my room, where I sometimes work for the
association and where I sleep every night, he makes small talk through the open
door, probably in the hope that he’ll release the tension in the air, I go after him,
thinking that the Brazilian director, the-wonderfully-creative-Anita, is probably
very fuckable, I ask myself whether this is one of his ’open options’ when it comes
to his sex life, and I suddenly remember my father’s words (’She’s so cool, this
chick. Has an Acting diploma, as well, from São Paolo. As we both know, if
Directing is not your first, but your second faculty... you kind of hit the jackpot!’),
and I remember telling myself, then, a, a, aha, a, so she’s also an actress, aha, well,
ain’t that great (’Actresses are...’), but I swallow my sadness and anger as usual,
then I vomit them and they blossom in the casual and resigned attitude I’ve chosen
regarding the ’something’ between me and Andrei (and I remember now, as I’m
writing this, while taking a sip of tea, as Django Reinhardt’s Minor Swing is
bouncing from my life-saving speakers, the words one of the participants in the
literary circle with the anorexic gazelle and the wannabe writer said to me: 'I’ve
noticed there’s... something between you and Andrei.’)
At last, not thanks to him, but to a memory I have of my mother and I ('Sara, you
are not my equal, please keep that in mind!, to which I manage to reply with an
extremely brave joke from communist times: ’What is capitalism, dear students?
I’ll tell you: man exploiting man! What about communism? Same shit, it’s just
the other way around!’), I smile, thinking that both my mother and I burst out
laughing and then started talking about philosophical stuff over coffee, so, feeding
on this happy memory, I force myself to look Andrei in the eye, I’m a bit more
detached, my face is dissolved by the playful and (no, mother, not infantile - or
childish) open and innocent countenance of friendship, then I ask him if it’s not
too late for coffee, maybe he’d like some orange and cinnamon tea instead.
He replies in a comfortable and relaxed manner that he’ll take the tea, it’s a very
good idea, I go back to the kitchen so that I can slam the water boiler on the
cupboard, I accidentally turn it on without filling it up first, but I realise right on

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time that I don’t hear anything spluttering or brawling or boiling, I fix the situation
with the help of the copper water tap, thinking, as the boiler is being filled, that
I’m sharing with Andrei my favorite tea, the elixir of (my) love (ah, that awfully
annoying French writer...), the essence giving me strength when I write, my
orange and cinnamon tea, I get struck by the thought that I don’t like to eat
oranges, I always turn them to juice, that’s the only way I can enjoy them,
cinnamon, however, that is irresistible to me in any shape, combination and
moment, then I start pretending to be very busy making tea, I’m pretending this
in relation to myself, just to get a grip, I couldn’t stand Andrei’s presence right
now, because I’m afraid that if he walked in the kitchen, I’d burst out in
declarative words, and somewhere, deep down inside, I know, even if I’m not yet
aware of it, I know that what this guy is doing is to simply use me, filling up his
time and pride with stupid Sara (gullible), with naive Sara, who’s there no matter
what, Sara - always second-best, always there to catch you, Sara, who doesn’t see
the shadow-play Andrei is doing, she’s numb to it, she’s just a puppet in the living
world of theatre, she’s just a piece of carved and painted wood which he, just like
a well-trained puppeteer, can manipulate with great dexterity, and I tell myself
that yeah, he’ll manage to direct this performance, he’ll definitely succeed, and
this, in the world of theatre, can only get him accolades, big rounds of applause
and encomiastic reviews.
After a while, he comes in, as if he were at home, which makes me very happy
but also gives me a heartache, and, again, just as if he were at home (I gave him
a spare key, which he accepted with a smile and a thank you meant to reassure
me, on a subliminal level, that of course he is a nice guy who can water my plants
when I escape my cell to take trips alone in or out of the country), he reaches over
to pick up two colored, identical cups from the top shelf of my lacquered kitchen
cupboard, he smiles and heads to the refrigerator, he touches (NO! You DON’T
touch that!) my cookie box (Sara, my butter cookie!) where I keep my precious
rooibos (I’m drinking it now, as I’m writing this while listening to the guys in

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Wilco singing How to Fight Loneliness), he takes out two tea bags, places them
in the cups, he pours the freshly-boiled water over them and asks: ’How about
some music?’
My heartache has become almost unbearable, I’m thinking that yeah, maybe
music could fill the emptiness between the two of us, I nod my approval, the
speakers are in my room now, I tell him I’ll be there soon, he gets the message
and gets out of the kitchen, he leaves the space where I feel most ’at home’, where
I sit down every day in front of my laptop, which is, in my view, any real writer’s
fireplace, real writers gather there nowadays and stay warm and tell stories, I take
my favourite seat, the one I’m in now, too (now, when I’m writing and sipping
the tea that’s gone cold, while Vera Lynn is whispering in my speakers the lyrics
of the song I'll Be Seeing You), I make some excuse in my mind to Andrei that
I’m waiting for the tea to infuse, to get a bit cooler, to become drinkable – just
like a woman has to become lovable for one to consume her with satisfaction -, I
keep waiting, I take a deep breath, clench my teeth, the tea hasn’t become
drinkable yet and nor will I – no matter how hard I try – ever become lovable for
Andrei, so I stand up and go to my room with a steaming cup in each hand.
I find him with the speakers turned on, they’re connected to his Samsung mobile
phone. Eddie Vedder starts yelling something about Society all of a sudden, while
Andrei is too nosy, checking my books, standing in front of the shelf where I keep
my most precious treasure: a book, the book, the unique book, the one and only
book. I got it from Mihai, who never told me where he nicked it from, he just said
it has to be mine. It’s a hand-written religious book, God knows in which century,
and it probably should, if it depended on anyone else but me, be stored in a
museum or in an archive, get restored, then forgotten there, then treated like an
exhibit protected by glass, and yeah, if it depended on anyone else but me, it
wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone, because, even though everyone could see it,
very few people could actually read it.

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Andrei reaches out with his hand, takes the book out of my IKEA book shelf and
opens it. I shudder – that what Andrei makes me do, shudder, by doing shit to me
knowingly, and he’s perfectly aware of what he’s doing, and I know he’s doing it
knowingly, and I know he knows and I wonder if he knows I know - and I think
about the moments when he tells me about apparently random conversations and
facts from his life (’Someone told me a new Almodóvar is on. Maybe I’ll go see
it.’ ’I met someone on my way to the theatre and we stopped for coffee.’ ’Someone
wrote to me about your father’s most recent part.’ ’I asked someone to lend me
Postdramatic Theatre.’) and I’m on the verge of spilling the tea, but I keep my
self-control (Yes, mother!) and save myself from getting burnt, which would have
probably meant I’d be sporting a new scar, not that I don’t have enough of those.

’What’s this?’ Andrei says, holding the book in his hand, as I set the cups of tea
on the desk in front of the Swiss window, flanked by small flowers that are
flowing on the sides of the windowsill.
’It’a a book.’, I reply, evasively, screaming in my mind ’WHY, Mihai, WHY?!’’
’Wow.’, he insists, browsing through it.
I feel like snatching it from him and hiding it in the most secret corner of my
house, but, especially, of my being, and put a lock on it, and write on a note that
I’d stick on the cover: ’Nobody touches this.’ But I don’t do that. I take a moutful
of tea and I don’t say a thing.
’Where did you get it?’
’It was a gift.’
’From whom?’
And I feel now is the right time, that he’s gonna get it, that I’m gonna ’slap’ him
back and shred him to smithereens, that he’ll finally get what he deserves for every
single grain of the mountain of humiliation under which he got me stuck, him,
and the way he kept hiding from me just to fuck his bitches whenever and

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wherever, and then show up with a smile on his face, to see stupid Sara, who
would offer him tea, coffee and soup no matter what.
’I got it from... someone.’, I tell him. Then, in a split-second, without waiting for
him to recover from the effect of this final blow in today’s table tennis match
(which we play, anyway, on a daily basis), I ask him, no trace of remorse:
’So? How is Raluca? I haven’t seen her since you broke up! Still working with
her?’
He’s speechless, while I’m exultant.
He’s trying to get himself together but can’t, so he whispers, wounded – I’ve
almost finished him up:
’I don’t know how she is. She probably moved from town.’
I smile, I take the book out of his hand and I offer him the cup that’s my cup’s
twin, filled with orange and cinnamon tea.

So, now, when, late at night, I take small sips from the same magical liquid, as
Arcade Fire are caressing me from my speakers with No Cars Go, I remember
Raluca and Andrei, just as they were, on-off, and I remember how, on the night I
first met Andrei at that party, I had no idea he was about to break up with a young
theatre director, still in school, but working on many projects beside school, I
remember how the last thing I would have thought of him was that he was so
connected to the feminine side of our artistic community in the town I’d left, but
where I took ground again after having been adrift, like a ship full of holes,
returning, defeated, back to the harbor, because it couldn’t face the stormy sea on
which it had been launched by a captain who’d neglected isolating its belly with
black oil.

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It didn’t even cross my mind, back then, that there was a Raluca in his life,
especially because I had suspected on my first glance that something was not
kosher with him and Mihaela, which turned out to be the exact truth, but I do
remember how I met, later, Miss on-off, not knowing how much she’d get to hate
me, not knowing then, as I don’t know now, what Andrei told her about me, not
knowing about his subsequent escapades to her minuscule rented apartment that I
accidentally (or not) used to rent when I first returned to my gorgeous home town.

If I had known back then that Raluca Popescu was Andrei’s main feminine gender
preoccupation, his future ex and his favorite victim, that we’d go out, the three of
us, to Ketty - Ketty (!!) -, which reminded me to an intolerable extent of the
evenings I used to spend there in my teenage years with Mihai or with Maria -,
that Andrei and Raluca – two newcomers, and I – an aboriginal dragged down by
memories, were, are and will always be from completely different worlds, if I had
known that Raluca-the-anorexic-bimbo would try to destroy my friendship with
my colleagues at the association and that she’d spread nasty rumours about me
not only in my work environment, but also in this artistic community (too small,
anyway) to which I belonged by birth right, but which she’d infiltrated, the
community that had regarded me publicly, for my whole life, as an annex of my
father’s, while, in my private life, I grew up as best I could, between abuse and
neglect, between indulgence and hysteria, between promises of eternal love and
signs of uncontrolled hatred, if I had known that, on that proverbial evening in
Ketty, Andrei would say he’d go get himself a beer and would ask Raluca what
she’d like to drink, ignoring me completely, that I would step in, despite the way
this ignore would make me feel, and ask him to get me a Cuba libre, that he’d
reply, with an unusual warmth directed at me, which Raluca would interpret as
maximum coldness directed at her, ’Great! It’s on me!’, that he’d take her money,
on the other hand, remorselessly, that, when he’d go get our drinks and he’d be
far enough not to hear what Raluca tells me, she’d whisper to me in a very low

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tone of voice ’Be careful!’, that I’d freeze on the spot hearing her, that I wouldn’t
say a thing, as usual, due to my lack of spontaneity and faith in myself, that I’d
behave not as if I’d been threatened and attacked, but as if all this were very
normal, that I’d just keep sitting there, feeling gullible, putting up with her very
proud-but-muddle-headed director’s attitude, if I had known all these things,
maybe I would have kept my relationship with Raluca (and, especially, with
Andrei) on the level of being acquaintances, and I would have never become close
to any of them.

I would have done this all the more so – I tell myself now, as I’m writing, now,
as I’m sitting down at my kitchen table, looking through my window at the sky as
it’s getting brighter and brighter, now, when there’s not much time left until I
finish drinking my tea, writing my story and listening to my playlist (Harry Nilson
is singing Me and My Arrow) – if I had known that, after his ’definitive’ breakup
with Raluca, I’d invite Andrei over for dinner, that he’d bring a bottle of wine
(that was odd!), but no flowers (obviously!), that we’d chit-chat, that I’d find out
he was very good friends with a writer-director-playwright who hates me, that,
feeling shocked that they are friends, I would remember that this writer-director-
playwright, Vasile Pedarski, was a school mate of mine at the university, but he
was flunked, that he was completely in love with Siviu and that the latter would
take my notes from school without telling me and give them to the future literary
star (who, in his sophomore year at the Faculty of Letters, was still misspelling
words) so that he could photocopy them for his failed exams, and that, still feeling
shocked, I would tell Andrei all this, while swallowing the last sip of Cheunet in
my glass with great difficulty, to which he would just smile and change the
subject, then we’d talk about theatre, then he’d give me an intense look while
seated on my favourite seat – he always wanted to take my place, and I let him,

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like the good host that I am - and then, he’d eat the thai rice I’d prepared,
especially for him, after which we’d decide that we should go to the nearest bar
to have a Jägermeister but, moreover, if I’d known that after our pleasant dinner
we’d meet, on our trip-looking-for-Jäger, who else but Raluca, and that she’d
snap at me: ’It’s so strange, seeing you here!’ with the sweetest smile, that I’d
remain speechless again, and then, Andrei, not offering any explanation, any
pretext, any excuse, would tell me 'See you around!', he’d put his arm round
Raluca’s shoulders and leave with her, if I had known all this when I met Andrei
and then Raluca, yes, I would have avoided both of them. Cecilia, too. Mihaela,
too. But especially Andrei.
*

However, I didn’t avoid him. We’re at my place, in my room, he asked me five

minutes ago if Joseph and His Brothers is well-written, then he didn’t say a thing,
and right now, Lhasa de Sela is whispering El Desierto in the speakers because
I’ve connected my iPhone, annoyed by the fact that the music he was playing was
constantly interrupted by the sound of the mess on his phone.
Even though he’s here, with me, even though we’re both listening to music and
drinking tea, even though I hinted that it’s obloquious that he’s chatting online
right now, the beeps keep coming, and he keeps writing and reacting to the words
pulling him to the other end of the electronic communication channel. I don’t say
anything, I wait and then, I finally open the application, there’s no message for
me, so I start scrolling on Facebook, but he takes the last sip of tea and says:
’Someone asked me to meet up in ten minutes. Thank you for the tea.’ And he
stands up, his hair as as chestnut-colored as mine, he’s as blue-eyed as me, he
gives me a perfunctory kiss on my cheek, I lock the door behind him, reassuring
him through my attitude that I couldn’t care less that he’s leaving, but before this,
I tell him I’d see him soon, maybe he’d give me a ride, I need to buy a ladder for
my home, something’s wrong with my curtains.

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He says, again, ’Always’, he’s in a hurry, so I let him go, very civilised and
friendly, swearing like hell in my mind, I’m abusing myself including for the fact
that ’...Sara, you blunderhead, you’re the one making all the plans, all the
proposals, finding every pretext... and look at this shithead, behaving as if he’s
doing you a favor by being in your life! Sara, you’re just a cretin, helpless child,
made of plasticine!’ And I hear, all of a sudden, my mother’s words: ’You have a
heart that’s much too good for your brilliant mind. Thank God you didn’t become
a doctor!’
I stand for a while in front of my door, it’s been a long time since Andrei left, I
think to myself that my mother is very wrong, that I would have been the best
doctor, and also, a wonderful actress, but I realize it’s no good getting angry,
because I could never convince my mother of anything, ever, she always had her
way. As for my father, I don’t even give him a thought. Not one.

I wash the tea cups and go to bed, much earlier than usual.

Three years go by, three (yeah, well...) years that make me feel humiliated,
stomped on, non-existent as a girl for Andrei, but I settle for his friendship, for
his ’company’, for his jokes. He helps me with the odd task sometimes, like a true
brother – something that, as I tell myself on a daily basis, he never was and he
never will be to me – he’s so friendly that, even though he’s a theatre director
ands his status wouldn’t normally allow such actions (that are beneath it), he buys
my plane tickets for me when I attend workshops abroad with my colleagues at
the association, he goes to the copy shop to print the materials I need (for the
association, again), he saves Petru’s job when he’s about to get fired (I wonder if
he’s doing this for me, for Mihaela or for Ioana, his sister, my bestie at the
association, Ioana, who is super-nice and, unfortunately for her, very intelligent),

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he takes both me and Ioana out for coffee, we sometimes meet accidentally
downtown, he gives me his intense look, his body language tells me he likes me,
but maybe I’m wrong, because-Alina-because-Mihaela, so I ask him if he has the
time to drive me to Auchan, he gives me the usual reply, ’Always’, he keeps
playing his music when he comes by, it’s just that the mess has gone quiet, maybe
he’s finally put it on silent mode, for fuck’s sake, he keeps connecting his phone
to my speakers (the same speakers from which now, as I’m writing, Alex Turner’s
voice is whispering to me You look like you've been for breakfast at the heartbreak
hotel) and the song we listen to the most often, beside grunge and industrial rock
music, is When I'm Sixty-Four by The Beatles, Andrei is good at crafting hopes
and expectations and pangs of pain for me, especially because he insists reading
what I write (I’ve published a new playful and sweet story, it’s about him, but I
don’t tell him that, and I still keep the story that makes me feel ashamed in a dark
corner of my laptop), I don’t really want to send him my work, but, after he keeps
asking me for for t-h-r-e-e weeks, I e-mail him some poems I wrote back in high
school and university.

Rules for Life

I believe in:

The angel-winged astronaut.

The bride washing the toilet seat.
The water that flowed from the sink tap
Until it filled the Atlantic Ocean.

The chairs someone used to make a stairway;

You are sitting on the one on top.

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 The girl opening a door
That’s been planted on its own in a wheat field.

The man wearing a suit while

Diving in a river
Surrounded by red helium balloons.

Un chien andalou, Man Ray’s teary eye, Warhol’s

canned soup.
∞

I don’t believe in:

You, who are telling me that even love is politics.

Conclusion

The soul
Is the manner in which the Mind
Has incarnated.
That’s what we love
In ourselves
And others.

Andrei says I’m a lot better at writing than Anda Cadariu, so much better, it’s just
that she is who she is and I don’t have, unfortunately, the contacts she has in the
cultural environment, and he registers me, without telling me about it, for the
literary-circle-and-writing-workshop-combined led by the anorexic gazelle; then,
after I’m accepted as a participant, he sends the gazelle an e-mail that he wants to
attend, as well, to take some photos, since it’s his hobby - he could promote the

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event online (he has a pretty well-known photo blog.)

And now, in the warm kitchen, containing me like a maternal womb, the time has
come to let myself flow with the Nikon memory, as Dire Straits are playing So
Far Away.

It’s Andrei’s birthday. In the morning, I write to him on my mess app (I’ve started
to communicate with him like this, too), sending a totally out-of-line birthday
wish in the form of a short text entitled This day in history, it’s actually a list of
major historical events that took place on this day, and the list ends with the most
important one, his birthday.
He’s going to the BIG city today, with Wolfie, to meet two childhood friends who
live in New Zealand and who, how convenient, are coming to visit on his birthday.
He’ll wait for them at the airport and then (he’s telling me and his sister, in the
bright and Western-looking coffee shop where we are seated at the table near the
window), he’s going to buy a camera, he’s not sure yet whether to get a Nikon or
a Canon, Ioana and I lecture him, we tell him not to be like common people, we
tell him he should be like himself and like us, so he should get a Nikon, he’s
fighting to choose, he’s not sure which option is the best, and I know exactly what
(to be more specific who) he is thinking about, he’s thinking about someone,
Codruța, the official photographer working at the theatre where my father works,
and who nobody can fire, even though she’s a bitch, but, on the other hand, she’s
got a firm foot in the theatre world, she’s on very good terms with all the actors
and she is also a very posh chick, which, I tell myself, in the theatre...

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It’s her that Andrei is thinking about now, while considering that she has a Canon,
I’m wondering, almost laughing, whether she’s on his list of people eligible for
reproduction, he looks at me, raising an eyebrow, I tell him: ’It’s your birthday,
you dope! You can do whatever you want!’, he ignores me, stares into his sister’s
brown eyes, muttering he’s getting a Nikon, even if it’s more expensive, we’re
happy about it - both me and her -, but then he says he doesn’t have enough
money, so, after all, he’ll put it off, I offer to lend him some money, I just got my
salary from the association (and I also know that the project on domestic violence,
killing me on an intellectual level during daytime and on an emotional level at
night is my financial back-up, so I know that I can pay my rent, until he gives it
back, with extra money I’m making because I am brave and I keep fighting the
trauma Silviu left behind and I want to help other women in the situation I had to
face alone) and I do want to help Andrei, because I have and he doesn’t and I care
about him (and I get a flashback of the moment when I asked him to come over
immediately because I have to tell him something – after he broke up with Raluca
-, to tell him I know it’s none of my business and that I shouldn’t interfere, but I
will, nevertheless, because I care about him very much and that is why I really
have to tell him that he’d better pay attention in the future to the personality of his
girlfriend).
Andrei says he doesn’t want my money, Ioana, who likes me and whom I like,
insists, but he says no, no way; she finally pulls him after her out of the coffee
shop where I am left alone to drink my pistachio latte, they return after fifteen
minutes, he accepts my help as if he was the one doing me a favor, and not the
other way around. I tell him I’ll give him the money right away, if he drives me
home so that I can give him, his birthday present, too, along with that money. He
says OK. On the way to my place he tells me he’d make a very good fitness coach,
and I take it like it is: another insult. I’ve gained a bit of weight after Easter, which
I’d spent with my parents, and my mother obviously stuffed me with food as a
compensation, trying to express her affection for me in this manner, the affection

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I lacked as a child, when she was at the beginning of her medical career, but when
I needed her the most and she wasn’t there for me.
But I don’t say a thing to Andrei. I keep my mouth shut, feeling worse and worse,
wondering if maybe I should tell him openly that I can’t refuse my mother, whom
I keep asking not to overfeed me, but it’s no good, she never listens to me (and I
remember that night when, after ’getting punched’ by Silviu, I ran away from the
BIG city back to my hometown, I took a train on that occasion, I didn’t hitch hike,
and I ate compulsively three warm sandwiches made by my mother – they were
made with toast, basil and tomatoes -, I devoured them as she was giving me sad
looks and dispensing advice that I should stop, or my beauty will go to waste, only
to cook for me on the following day, just as compulsively, a huge omelette for
breakfast), or maybe I should ask him, in a more or less subversive manner, ’If I
really am so big and fat, how come you didn’t even notice me yesterday, when I
passed you by on the street? You were in front of the 911 bar, having coffee,
probably waiting for... someone.’
But I keep my mouth shut and reply to myself, in my mind, since I’m so alone,
that he didn’t say hello because he’s ashamed with me. I wish I could put all these
thoughts into words spoken out loud and throw them in his face, just like a
beautiful woman wearing a little black dress and Chanel perfume and high heels
would spill a glass of white wine on the cheap shirt of the dickhead cheating on
her (and I say this to myself as we speedily pass by the building of the library,
artfully painted and covered in glazed red, yellow and orange tiles), and I start
thinking about words, which are, in my opinion, the main coordinates of being
human, and, while Wolfie goes in second gear, I keep thinking about my dear
words, scalpel, bandage and occasionally scalpelbandage, without which I
couldn’t live.
But I don’t say a thing to Andrei. I let him do the talking, and he’s talking about
what a good decision he made when he chose the Nikon, about the technical
features of the DSLR he wants to buy, and I let him talk to me about what kind of

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lens it’s got, about its battery life, and how he would – if he could – also take
photos with the Leica he’d found in his grandmother’s attic, it’s just that it’s a
film camera and he’d need a lot more money to get a studio. Then he throws it in
my face: ’I seldom refuse money!’
We arrive at my place, after stopping by the cash machine at the corner.
I open the drawer of my desk while he helps himself to some water and I take out
a brand new edition of Joseph and his Brothers I’d bought the day before, together
with two other books by Thomas Mann, Royal Highness and Lotte in Weimar,
which are both lying now, the first – on the pillow of my floating bed - and I
remember how Andrei asked me, once, when he used to drop by my place out of
the blue, just like that, of his own accord, to drink my coffee and interrupt me
from writing, so, yeah, how he asked me while giving me that staring, mean gaze
of his, that wanted to say sex would be an option if I hand’t been Nicky Ionescu’s
daughter and we’d met in a bar, drunk and cheerful: ’So? How’s the new bed?
Like it? Is it nice?’ -, and the other book – on my shelf, next to the psychology,
theatre and sociology volumes – I read in one them, I don’t know which one, that
all human actions are political and I got really sad, remembering one of the poems
I’d sent to Andrei (’I don’t believe: In you, who are telling me that even love is
politics’), and I see in my mind (convinced that the reality of polis, of urban
centres, has decayed and it will keep doing so) the title of a book by George
Orwell.
I browse through Joseph and His Brothers, the edition I bought especially for
Andrei, I smell it, I imagine that maybe, one day, I’ll publish a novel that will
maybe smell the same way, I take the money out of my bag and put it between the
pages, I don’t write any birthday wish on the book, I don’t wrap it festively, I
don’t take out the price tag (because I know from Cecilia that it would be a faux
pas, that in spite of what people think, books are the only gifts on which the price
should remain), and I head, decisively and hurriedly, to the kitchen where Andrei

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has taken my seat – as usual – and is waiting for me with a half-empty glass of
water under his nose and his eyes aimed at his phone, which keeps beeping.
’Happy birthday!’, I tell him again and hand him the gift.
He stands up, hugs me, takes the book with the money I put between the pages
and goes out, heading to his car, I don’t tell him ’Take care of yourself!’ because
what I’d really like to tell him is ’Take care of yourself... for me!’, but I also don’t
say a thing because I never ever liked to be told to take care of myself by the
people who pretend to love me and who should have taken care of me themselves,
when they were supposed to, and, therefore, being very sensitive to words, and
especially to these words, I tell Andrei instead of this wish involving care (a word
which can also take a negative connotation, as I well know) Godspeed! and I let
him go, as I sit here waiting for his birthday dinner, where he didn’t invite me, but
which, since my father is paying, includes me by default.
After four hours, he calls to tell me he got the Nikon, he really wants to thank me,
because if it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have had enough money, and I
remember now, as the boys in Travis are singing Look at you now, flowers in the
window (I give myself the gift of a smile and sip from my tea), how I hoped back
then that he’d ask me to model for him (God, Sara, you are so gullible!), and how
he never did, asking Mihaela instead (obviously!).
It’s getting dark outside, I still have no idea what I should wear to dinner, I decide
I won’t wear my black dress, or the high-heeled shoes Andrei thinks are ’nice’,
I’ll wear jeans and boots on his birthday, I get dressed and, before applying make-
up (as unostentatiously as possible, I don’t want him to get the impression I’ve
made an effort for him), I put some lotion on my hands.
I take a look in the mirror and go out the door.
I get to the restaurant, my parents are already there, he’s just called my father
(’See you in five, kisses!’) and he shows up, ’in five’, in a blaze of glory, with the
Nikon hanging from his neck and... the two immigrant friends hanging on an arm
each. They were not ’on the menu’, as it were, I’m surprised he brought them

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without telling us, I see a cloud passing over my father’s face, but he becomes
sunny again quickly, introductions are made (Diana and George), we sit down,
Andrei at the top of the table, me – on his left (that’s what my father decided), the
two friends on his right, my parents a bit further away from him, my mother next
to me, as usual, my father – next to her.
During dinner, Andrei turns his back on me, looks straight at his two friends, and
asks them out loud: ’Would you like to have a drink after this, in the pub where
the actors go?’ They both say yes enthusiastically, I’m checking out the piece of
pickled cabbage on my plate - it’s just lying there, next to half a cordon bleu and
mashed potatoes, he takes no notice of me, he’s already lecturing George on maori
tribes.
After dinner, we are standing in front of the restaurant, everyone is smoking –
well, almost everyone, ’cause my parents wouldn’t touch a cigarette (my mother
is not just any doctor, she’s one of the few who try really hard to keep
Hippocrates’ oath), as for Andrei – he has other vices.
I finish my cigarette and say good bye. He calls after me, in a whiny tone of voice,
’Good night!’, I acknowledge this with a wave of my hand and I turn my back on
him.
I get home. My father calls me:
’Everything OK? Why didn’t you go out with them?’
’I wasn’t invited!’, I answer him, forcing my voice to seem happy. ’Anyway, I’ve
got a lot of reading to do.’
’But Andrei was wondering why you took off so early! He says he invited you, as
well!’
I say good night to my father, and then feel extremely tempted to write Andrei a
message, to ask him if they’re still at the pub, it’s just that the pub ’where the
actors go’ happens to be on my way home and, as I passed it by, I saw, taking a
look inside from the street, how few people were there and how dull the mood
inside was. I tell them, in my mind, ’Have fun!’, and I go to sleep.

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The next day, Andrei gives me a call to tell me how it was, how they had a beer
each and left early, ’cause the people in there were ’too serious’, and then I tell
him: ’My father said you invited me, too, but I didn’t hear that invitation, so I
didn’t come with you.’ ’Well, I meant it for everyone!’, he replies.
The image of his back purposefully turned on me as he’d invited ’everyone’
flashes through my mind and I feel, more than ever, even though I’m not
consciously saying it to myself, that he and I are NOT an option.
’Oh, you didn’t miss anything!’, he keeps going. ’And, anyway, when you left the
way you did, I felt bad, but then I told myself you must be tired!’.
And then, right then, I’m on the verge of telling him: 'You are a jerk.'
We talk on the phone for a while, then, because I can’t stand hearing his voice
any longer, I tell him someone’s calling me and I’ll get back to him.
Which I don’t.
He calls again in one hour:
’I forgot to ask you if you wrote anything new.’
Yeah, I did, I wrote a story, I wrote it for him, but I named the masculine character
Mihai and I published it on the blog which, with Petru’s help, will soon become
a website.
I wish Andrei a good day and promise I’ll send him the link:

Toys and Oranges

1. My parents are super

Fuck this life, ’cause there’s nothing

else left for me to fuck, anyway. Not very
often, I mean, ’cause I haven’t had a

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girlfriend since Cristina fucked off.
No, really, speaking of life, if anyone’d
told me when I was a junior student that
I’d end up living with my parents at 33,
I would have laughed my head off. Soooo
funnny. Me, who was planning to marry...
that. Have a family of my own. Children.

I wanted children of my own ’cause I’ve

always loved my parents. Well, almost
always. As for the university, we wanted
to go, just me and Truța, the best guy in
our school, to study Computer
Programming. But there was no such thing
in our town yet, so my folks said yeah,
sure, go to the capital. That was so
fucking cool of them! Freeeeeeedooooooom!
Then, sure as hell, my momma and poppa
started to come second in my life! I only
thought about calling them when I’d visit
the cash machine to collect what they’d
sent. But I loved them. I did ! When I
thought about them, I fuckin’ did.

The Cristina stuff... well, that was

sumtn’ else. Constantly shitting each
other. We did move in together in Mărăști,
I did stay with her for two years, yeah,
I did, but it wasn’t working. Yelling and
fucking, yelling and fucking. That is –

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when I wasn’t too busy coding websites,
but for little dough, ’cause yeah, it’s
full of IT specialists, duuuuuuhhhhhh !
And yeah, I was working my ass off, man !
No wonder all I could do in the evening
was play Starcraft while having beer and
pretzels !
Cristina… well, when I’d work from home
and she’d see the Java icon on my screen,
she’d say to me : ’Making coffee
again ?’. That – she’d say that on the
good days, when she didn’t yell for a
change. My mother started yelling, too,
after a while, when she found out about
my lifestyle : Java, Cristina and video
games.
So, yeah, my mom calls me on a Saturday,
asking what I’m doing. ’I’m playing
Heroes, ’cause I’ve finished Starcraft,
and I’m sick of Age of Empires already.’
’How about living? Do you ever do any of
that?’, she says and she hangs up on me.
Fuck this shit. It’s all fucked up,
anyway. Cristina’s yells didn’t help. Or
her cussing on that night when she jumped
into a taxi with her luggage an’ all. I
did beg after that, I did lick the floor,
but I got nothing more than on-off. What?
Love? Compassion? Say whaaaaaaa?! Well,
naaaaahhhh, love and compassion – those I

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didn’t deserve. I only deserved to be the
hipster and fancy boy who’d carry those
posh bags for her! And anyway, screw her,
well, yeah, actually, she wouldn’t even
let me do that lately. That’s how it
fuckin’ was, fuck this shit! That’s how
it was!

And then... yeah, baby! Video games and

coding all day long! And, well, I fuckin’
lost all my ’friends’! I did! So... fuck
them! All of them!
And, then, when I was like... about to
die, I remembered... my parents. One day,
I was looking through the photo album I
had, filled only with pictures of me and
Cristina, nah, she didn’t take it with
her when she dumped me, the least she
could do – leave it behind -, and I kept
staring at our photos, and... I bumped
into my parents’ faces. In that photo.

That photo, the one where they’re both

seated on the top of the couch, grinning
happily while looking at the table, where
a huge Russian salad is reigning.

Russian salad used to make Cristina

retch. As for Cristina – she used to make
my mother retch.

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Well, not that my mother was a saint…
really ! I’ll never forget what she did
once, when my father was late for two
hours – one proverbial evening. This
first happened when I was about eight.
And he didn’t call home, the stupid dick.
Think about my mother, waiting for him -
chestnut cake with cream an’ all! Why, no
wonder she put the cake on top of his head
and all over his hair ! As soon as he
walked in on that door.
Sweet story, ha ? Then, she started using
more salty food, like the chicken stew
they’d ordered, or, once, my plate,
filled with fries. I don’t like fries. I
didn’t feel any regret. None whatsoever.
Oh, yeah, and once, when there was nothing
at hand and the stew on the cooker was
not an option, she used our dog’s food.
Canned food, mind you. Those spots stayed
on my father’s T-shirt forever. They used
it to wipe the floors later.

I started seeing shit like this when I

was eight, like I said, and they kept it
up until I turned fourteen. Then, they
just stopped. I couldn’t fucking believe
it. They made peace. I’m sure it was a
consequence of the fact that somebody

219
started making Nokia mobile phones and
they each got one. Yeeeey, thank you,
Nokia! And thank you, Lavazza, ’cause you
saved me, ‘cause at five o’clock in the
afternoon, twice a week, my father would
call my mother – or the other way around
– and they’d go to the bar in Hotel Caro,
where they’d dig on a short espresso, made
by Lavazza.
Cristina... oh, well... she preferred
Jacobs.

But it was such a good thing that my

parents started going out, especially
’cause I was left alone and could play
Warcraft.

Anyway, if I come to think about it, my

folks used to be the shit back in the
day ! I hear they used to sell, they had
glamour, they were top of the world, they
were even on TV… But to me, they still
are the shit ! Of course they are ! ’Cause
with the money they got on my mother’s
most recent painting, they went on a
cruise ! And not just any cruise ! They
went to Japan ! To fucking Japan !
Pffffff… to think that they used to say
that painting’s not worth it, the future
is all about foreign languages and

220
computers ! Hm, now that I remember this,
I find it’s actually true ! I’m in
computers, aren’t I ? But nobody – not
even my folks, when they said that – could
possibly have known that at 33 I’d be
doing web design on contracts, shitty
contracts, man, very shitty, and that I’d
be living with my parents and that I’d
need to download Starcraft III illegally,
’cause who the fuck can afford buying it ?
I, for one, sure as fuck can’t. I really
need to take the guys from The Hub out
for some drinks, or else I’mma run out of
contracts.

Why, the last drink I had downtown was

with my old man, a month ago, but I’m not
ever going out with him again. I swear !
’Cause every time it’s just the two of
us, he starts bitchin’ about, and his
worst line is ’You, Mihai, were a naughty
and nasty child, so that means you were
actually a « naughsty » child !’

As for him – he was never naughty. Or

nasty. Like hell he wasn’t ! According to
him, he was perfect and independent !
Haha, good one ! To think about how much
money my gramps pumped into his painting
classes abroad ! But naaaaaaahhhhhh,

221
daddy was impeccable, and he wouldn’t
admit to having been any other way. But
I’ve heard a different story from gramps.
If it hadn’t been for him, to pay for the
brat’s painting classes, my old man would
never ever in his miserable life have had
a girlfriend. Meaning – my mother. That’s
how they met.
Then, they started attending those
classes together. They even took me with
them once, when I was about ten. It was
somewhere by the sea. And I loved my
father like crazy back then. I only wanted
to go exploring with ’daddy’. My mother
was too busy, busier than him, anyway,
working on her paintings. She chose oil
over acrylics, unlike him, who took the
easy way out, so he had more time to spend
with me than her. As for my mom, she was
nuts with anger and jealousy, ’cause I
favored him over her. What the fuck ?! He
had more time for me than she did, so it
was not my fucking fault !
But my mom… she never gave up. She painted
a bear cub for me. A fuckin’ bear cub!
Really?! I have that painting hidden
somewhere - even now. And she told me the
bear cub had superpowers, and that he’d
fulfill children’s wishes. And she knew
my greatest wish was to chew gum all the

222
time. So, when we got back home, she
nailed the painting to my wall, in this
very room, where I live now. And every
morning, she’d leave a Turbo chewing gum
for me near my bed. From the bear cub,
she used to say. My dad – I can only
imagine him laughing in his sleeve. Not
the way he’s laughing now, for fuck’s
sake, ironically, giving me that look
like nothing I ever do would do, the crazy
dick! Everything I do is fucking wrong,
everything!
Anyway, when I did catch my mom in the
act of taking the chewing gum out of a
drawer, where she’d stashed tons of Turbo
squares she’d bought at the Formica
store… Why, that was a disaster !
’YOU lied to ME ! It’s you ! It was YOU
this whole time ! There is no bear cub !’
I took the painting off my wall, but there
were screams next, so I put it back.
Well, even though I put the painting back,
she didn’t talk to me for three days !
It’s the truth ! Cross my heart and hope
to die !
My father – he was away, at some
exhibition, it was just me and her, so I
couldn’t take it anymore, this fucking
silent treatment, I jumped in her arms
and asked for another Turbo!

223
After this, they never ever took me with
them anywhere. Only if they had no choice.
They used to leave me at my grandparents’.
Well, that was fine with me, but when I
asked my old man once why can’t I go with
them, too, he said it was because I was
« naughsty » and that’s that, the subject
is closed.
I didn’t even touch Turbo chewing gum
after that. I can’t stand it, it’s
horrible, that is the shittiest chewing
gum I’ve ever tried.
To tell the truth, I did buy some with my
own pocket money, later, from that
Formica store, but then I got sick of it.
For good. I switched to oranges. Now I’ve
given up on those, too. Not to mention
that Turbo shit. Nowadays, I only buy
Durex, but I keep those in my backpack,
there’s nothing to fuck around here,
anyway.

But when I switched from Turbo to oranges,

yeah, that sure was nice, those were the
days, I mean my folks had stopped fucking
with my brains, the food was exactly where
it was supposed to be, meaning – not on
my old man’s clothes -, and they used to
take me out in the park and they used to
take me to the movies – to Cinema Pitic -

224
, and they even bought a color TV so that
I could watch cartoons.
That’s why I had that thing for Cristina
– oh, my fucking dick ! – it’s just dawned
on me, that’s why I liked her, ’cause I
had oranges when things were going well
between my folks and me ! I’m sure of it !
Oh, fuck.
’Cause you know, the thing with Cristina
was pretty deep shit, you know. I was in
the bus stop, waiting for the nineteen,
and checking out the very good-looking
chick giving away flyers. And then,
whoops !, the good-looking chick comes by
and says it’s some crazy good offer from
Domo. I say no to the flyer. Thing is,
then, she takes an orange out of her bag
and gives me that instead of the flyer. I
start laughing and tell her: ’You need a
fresh, kiddo?’ ’Cristina’, she says. ’My
name is Cristina.’
Yeah, well, I ended up feeling I can’t
stand oranges, either, not ever since we
broke up. Video games and computers.
These – I can never get enough of.
Ever.
Cristina simply couldn’t see it: this is
who I am. She never played video games,
she hardly ever touched anything
electronic. I’m a child. Fuck. I know I’ll

225
never fuckin’ grow up. I know. That’s why
I’m playing computer games. So anyone who
don’t get it should FUCK OFF, for fuck’s
sake!
I told my old man, who keeps bitchin’
about: ’Mihai, this ain’t right, that
ain’t right, the other ain’t right,
nothing ain’t right, Mihai!’, so yeah, I
told him: ’What the fuck do you want? You
want me to blow carbide in holes, like I
used to when I was a kid?’
Oooooh yeeeeah, the carbide scene when I
was a kid... that was somethin’! When my
old man caught me doin’ it, there was huge
trouble! And my poor mom was shouting her
heart out, covering even his screams:
’Your health! Your life! HAVE YOU LOST
YOUR MIND?!’
Then, they forgave me and got me a bike.
Yes, on this one, my parents really were
super. Especially my father, who was
riding it, carrying my mother on his
knees. They were sounding the horn on that
bike like crazy, too, and I remember how
I asked them : ’Whose bike is this ?’ and
they laughed and said : ’Really ! We’re
wondering ourselves whose it is!’
Yep, super ! And then, things got super-
super, ’cause they took me to
Switzerland, they had to attend a wedding

226
or some such stuff, and I think they had
no choice but to take me with them, ’cause
my grandparents were already bye-bye, so
they took me along and I slept so well on
the couch at the restaurant, after
playing Tetris for three hours. The
people there were all stuffing themselves
with fish and chips. Fuckin’ potatoes. I
can’t stand them. Stuffing themselves
with po-ta-toes.
And Russian salad.
Hell, yeah, my folks and their photo with
the salad actually ROCK. But that’s not
the good part. The good part is that they
made a painting – together. They took the
salad photo, put up a new canvas in their
workshop, of course they had a horrible
fight as to what easel they should use,
and that time, my old man won for a
change, and so, they did a painting of
themselves together, looking at the
photo, then painting, looking and then
painting again, and they both signed the
painting. As for me? When I saw it, I told
them it ROCKS. It fucking ROCKS.
The salad was very good, too. I’m thinking
now about how hard my mom tried to get it
done and how I was so scared that even my
dick had shrunk in my underwear, how I
was praying it wouldn’t end up thrown on

227
my old man’s clothes like in the old days.
‘Cause he kept criticizing : that that
ain’t right, that the vegetables aren’t
chopped well enough, that the mayonnaise
will be a failure, that… so on and so
forth.
But they lived. Both him, and the salad.
If you see what I mean.
So, when people asked me back then, but
also when they ask me now how my parents
are doing, I say the same thing I used to
say then : ’My parents are super !’ And I
let them make whatever they want of these
words. Just that : super.
I keep looking at the photos I have of
Cristina and myself. It hurts. It fucking
hurts, man. It’s the two of us in the
mountains, the two of us by the sea, the
two of us in college, the two of us at
the pool, the two of us on a bench in the
park. And then, on the last page of the
photo album – whoooops, that photo of my
parents. The one with the salad. Now,
that’s something, man. That’s fucking
something. To stay in a relationship for
so long… that’s something.
That’s why the thing with Cristina
fucking hurts. It does. It hurts ’cause
we’ll never have children. I keep
thinking about how that child would’ve

228
turned out if the condom had ever broken.
That would have been a hell of a child,
of course, since it would’ve been mine !
Pfffff, obviously ! That’s the way that
child would’ve fucking been ! A hell of a
child ! And that child would’ve gotten to
know all our quirks and oddities. Just as
I did with my folks. And that child
would’ve also seen how I get home late
and Cristina puts the chestnut cake on
the top of my head, all over my hair. But
that, too, would have passed. Of course
that child wouldn’t have always loved us.
When you get into the university, it means
your momma and poppa start to come second
in your life – what the fuck ?! I wasn’t
born yesterday ! But that child – that
child would have kept a photo of me and
Cristina, maybe even one I keep in this
album, for fuck’s sake, and that child
would have looked at that photo just as
I’m looking now at the photo with the
salad, and if people ever asked that child
how we were, that child would have
answered : ’My parents are super.’

Fuck this shit. I’m going back to

Starcraft III.

229
2. My parents suck

It’s been a while since I broke up with

Mihai. I didn’t love him. But… if I give
it a serious thought, who did I ever love,
really ? Before I ask myself that, I
should ask, however : who ever loved me,
really?

My parents – yes. I loved them until I

grew up. Until I realized my mother was a
fat lady – a glutton even when it came to
make-up, and with a body stuck in the
eighties. As for my father – he was a darn
fool, that one. How was I supposed to turn
out ? Well, I did my best.

I met Mihai not long after I moved out

from home. I couldn’t stand living with
my mother any longer. So I got a lowly
job : giving away flyers for that store,
Domo. Mihai was waiting for the bus. He
looked cute. I needed someone. I gave him
an orange. It wasn’t long before we moved
in together.

I had a problem when I broke up with him.

Who to call ? Who ? Who could I ask for
help ? My mother… I called her. I told
her. She screamed through the phone that

230
she couldn’t give me any money for the
gynaecologist, ’cause she needed to buy a
violin. Yeah, well, that’s what she was
like. The kind of person that would hide
in her room, lock herself in and eat somon
fumé while you are bandaging your stomach
in the kitchen with bread and mustard
spread on it. I saw her. I peeped through
the keyhole. And that’s what she was
doing. Eating salmon with broccoli.

My father – he was a fool and a coward. I

didn’t really know him, anyway. My
parents got divorced when I was five. He
left. And he stayed a fool – only in other
countries.

I have one photo of them. Just one :

they’re standing, hugging, they seem to
have been skiing. They look so happy… And
they are beautiful. Both of them. I had
good-looking parents. But on the inside –
rotten, just like me.

My father was some kind of broker. My

mother – she studied the violin. They
didn’t make it. Neither of them made it.
Even though my mother thought of herself
as of some kind of personality. As for my
father, we don’t keep in touch. He

231
remarried. The bimbo was a colleague of
my mother’s at the Philharmonic. She
nicked my father from us as if he’d been
a rose petal blown on a sea breeze. Not
that I really care, but...

Mihai used to talk about Switzerland. I

haven’t traveled much, really, and nor
did I play with other children when I was
young. I did my homework. That’s all I
did. And it was bad. Because my parents
sucked.

I change boyfriends at a high pace. I

don’t feel good with any of them, and
sometimes I even enjoy making some of them
suffer. Mihai was a bit more special. I
knew I could rely on him. Such a guy...
he had an obsession with his parents – I
managed to cut his chords of attachment
to his mother, whom – as he said – I made
retch.

I’m angry. I don’t even want to think

about my parents. They sucked. To be more
specific, my mother sucked. My father – I
never think about him.

I was 25 when I realized my mother was

proud, vain and self-centered. Because

232
that’s when the gynaecologist-and-violin
thing happened. And because, back then, I
had hopes, dreams and standards, I told
her to her face :

’I know what you are. And I never want to

be that.’

She didn’t give me the money for the

abortion. Not that she was against it, or
anything. It’s just that she was the way
she was. So I gave up on Mihai. But I kept
the child.

Men – they’re all the same. They suck. My

father – he sucked big time. I promised
myself when he left us that this is the
first and last time anyone dumps me. And
I kept that promise. On the day he went
away, I knew I’d be the one to leave. Me,
not the guy. Always.

Anyhow, Mihai doesn’t know I was pregnant

when I left him. He doesn’t know we have
a child now. He doesn’t know my mother
pulled some shit and we left the child in
an orphanage. He doesn’t know a thing. At
least I spared him. So he might as well
be grateful.

233
I never want to see my child. He was only
a few weeks old when I left him there.
I’m trying to forget about that child.
Simply because my parents were the way
they were. I tell myself every night
before I go to bed : ’I don’t have any
children. And I never want to.’

My father – he never gave me anything. He

didn’t even pay the legal child support.

My mother – she was a small, brunette

woman. Her ‘nice person’ face could
confuse people. Well, she actually played
people, using that face whenever she
wanted to get under somebody’s skin at
the odd cocktail. Those suckers. They had
no idea who this cute violinist really
was.

As for my father – I remember a tall guy.

Thin. Kind of blond, wearing a beard. Blue
eyes. My mother’s were hazel.

I speak about my mother in the Past Tense

because I haven’t seen her in two years.
And there’s no news from her, either.
Maybe she’s fucking dead, who knows ?

Anyway, she was a nuisance :

234
’Marry Mihai, you’ll never get such a good
catch again…’
’What the fuck do you think I am?
Cinderella waiting for her prince?!’
Back then, I still had a shred of self-
respect.
’Nobody, and I mean nobody talks to me
like that. In that tone of voice.’
’Oh, really ? Try me !’
’Oh, no, you don’t!’
’Then I’m moving out.’

Which I did. Let her live alone, if her

vanity is more important to her than her
own child.

I am very, very angry. And I’ll be angry

till the day I die.

’No matter, this will heal before you get

married !’ – my father used to laugh when
I’d fall and hurt my knees as a child.

I never did get married. And I’m not

planning to. Ever. They’re all the same.

My family life was a complete disaster.

And I didn’t have any friends. Boys – I
can handle, ’cause I’m good-looking.

235
They’re all like ’Cristina this’ and
’Cristina that’. But no. No children. I
don’t have children. And I never will.
And so, nobody will ever pester me about
giving them money for clothes. Money for
shoes. For books, cigarettes, ice-cream.
For anything! Not one fucking thing. And
nobody will ever be able to say about me:
’My mother sucked!’ Ever.

My parents sucked. I don’t want to know a

thing about them. I don’t want to hear
about them. I don’t. I did love them, yes,
yes, like I said, I did love them when I
was a child. After that – they sucked big
time. They almost sent me out begging on
the streets. They. Truly. Sucked.

Mihai… him – I’ve seen him going about

town. Always alone, always with his hair
in a pony tail, always wearing ear phones.
He doesn’t know shit.

My child’s name was Adrian. For me, he

doesn’t exist. And if he does, well, he
doesn’t know me, so he can’t tell anyone
how much I suck. Big time or not.

I bought my first plane ticket yesterday.

I’ve been saving money for a year now. I

236
don’t owe this money to anyone. I earned
it myself.
I have no mother. I have no father. I have
no children.

This sucks.

3. My parents are nowhere to be found

I am here for ten years, in the month of

December. The 12th of December. That is
what they told me.
Ms. Ela sometimes looks after me.
Sometimes she forgets.
I cry a lot in the evening. Now I am going
to school, I am in the fourth grade. I
have good marks, not very good because I
do not know all the time how to do my
homework alone. But Teacher says I am a
smart boy and I learn good.
Yesterday Ingrid threw food at me. I do
not like to fight.
Now I will be adopted, that is what Ms.
Ela said, last week I think. The parents
who will adopt me are very nice. They are
not old. I think they look like my real
parents.
I will live on Daffodil Street, at number
4. This is what Ms. Ela said. My new
mother is Carmen and my new father is

237
Emil. They work. She is a teacher in a
big school and he is a car mechanic.
What is my real father’s name ? And what
does he work ? My mother is waiting for
him with good food at home ? Here the food
is good, but not very much and I am not
fat.
Ilinca said yesterday at lunch : do you
want to be my friend ? I do not want to
be Ilinca’s friend, because Ilinca throws
food at Ingrid and Ingrid throws food at
me and that is why I do not want with
Ilinca because Ingrid hits me because of
her.
I stay alone and do my homework a lot of
the time. I am a little afraid of other
children here, but I am not afraid when I
go to school. We have a good Teacher
there. He name is Sanda Chincișan and she
is beautiful.
I do not understand why my parents are
not here. I did something bad ? I don’t
know, I don’t remember. Here on the table
is the photo with me, the photo that Ms.
Ioana took. I am the smaller boy. I have
glasses. The other child is George, a boy
who is bad with me and with Ingrid. But
he is good with Ilinca.
When we had Creative School, we went to
the puppet theatre. We saw a theatre with

238
many vegetables and the vegetables danced
on the stage. After that, Teacher Sanda
said that it is not ’theatre’, it is a
’performance’, and she took us to the
behind to the stage and we talked to the
actors. There were puppets, too. The
actors showed us also marionettes. Then I
learned this word : marionette. I liked
the theatre.
At school I sit in the desk with Ionuț, a
boy from a village. There his parents
lived, his parents died in an accident.
My parents did not die, right ?!
Ionuț writes very ugly, not like me. Ionuț
is good at Math, but I know better in
Reading and Calligraphy. That is why, I
help Ionuț when we do our homework at
school.
I like to read when I do not do homework.
Ms. Otilia, who is colleague with Ms. Ela,
comes in the afternoon and she reads
stories about rabbits, squirrels, and
children. On one day, she read to us a
story about two children who went in the
forest because their parents did not have
food for them. My parents did not have
food for me ? Here there is not much food.
Now I know to read, too, and I found a
big book, and I read it when I have free
time. Then I write in my blue notebook. I

239
am sorrry when I write with mistake. It
is because of the homework I do not know
to do alone.
This week Carmen and Emil will come here
to take me to Daffodil Street. I repeat
this all the time: Number four, Daffodil
Street. I will say to Carmen and Emil ’my
parents’. But I want to say ’my parents’
to my real parents. But they are nowhere
to be found.
I want to live with my real parents. But
it is not possible. Ms. Otilia told me
about my mother, she said she is
beautiful. She said she does not know my
father. I love you, mother. I love you,
father.
Teacher Sanda says I have imagination.
Because I have big marks at Writing and
Painting. I imagine how my parents have
the faces. And I imagine they are happy
and very beautiful. I imagine my mother
makes a cake with chestnuts, a cake like
I had once, at school, on Luca’s birthday.
My father I think is a mechanic, like
Emil. My mother loves my father and my
father loves my mother. My mother has a
red skirt and my father has blue trousers,
dirty from work. They have a big garden
with flowers, where they have a dog, and
the dog is playing.

240
Ms. Otilia said she knows who is my mother
but my mother does not know who I am and
she does not want to know. But I want to
know ! Here it is not good, maybe when I
go to Carmen and Emil it will be clean
and warm.
I maybe have a brother or a sister ? Here
are two children, Matei and Alice,
brother and sister, who came together to
the orphanage when they were three. They
are twins. Now they have eight years.
Nobody will adopt them, because nobody
wants two children together and Ms.
Otilia said Ms. Manager does not want to
separate them. It is very nice that she
wants them two to stay together.
Before, a girl came here, Alexandra, she
took me with her three days ! She said it
was hard to take me, but she wrote some
papers and Ms. Manager let her take me. I
was with her at the Zoo and circus and
coffee shop. I wanted chestnut cake, but
she did not buy it because she did not
have enough money. I had a normal cake.
Alexandra works with many children at
orphanages, and she says she likes me. I
was with her at the theatre again, where
I saw something with a dwarf. Then she
made a a dog out of a balloon. And she
gave the dog to me !!!

241
Ilinca says she wants to go away, too.
But nobody wants the other children yet.
Nobody asked. Ms. Otilia says I am lucky
with Emil and Carmen. They are very nice.

What I like and what I do not like :

I like: mashed potatoes, mineral water

when they give us, Frutty Fresh juice,
Alexandra, reading and writing, the
balloon dog I have and that is above my
bed now, the story book.

I do not like : to take a bath in cold

water, the dirty bed, Ilinca and Ingrid,
when Ms. Otilia hits me and when I am
alone.

I would not be alone if I had my real

parents. But maybe I will not be alone
when I am a big boy. When I am a big boy,
I want to be an airplane pilot. At school,
Teacher Sanda Chincișan said this is
hard, but I want to fly. Then I will not
be alone, I go far with people. Many
people.

Sometimes, in the evening, I say prayers.

I say prayers for my parents. With Dear

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God, keep them good. And I want my parents
too look for me. And find me.

I saw yesterday a mister with ear phones

and long hair. He had glasses. I saw him
on the street. He was going somehwere
alone. Another mister called after him :
’Mihai !’ I liked him that mister Mihai.
I want long hair like that. But Ms. Otilia
said no. I don’t have ear phones. And I
can’t listen to music, only on the radio.
There is good music on the radio, but not
much. The radio is in our room, the room
of all the children. But we cannot listen
to the radio all the time, and sometimes
when we listen to the radio, there is no
music. We only hear : Orșova, soisant
sans sis santimetr, Calafat, soisant sanc
set santimetr.
I don’t understand anything.

I saw a grown-up girl today and she was

with more girls. She was with long black
hair. She was very beautiful. And tall.
Another girl called at her :

’Cristina, hurry up, we are missing the

bus!’

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I would like a mother just like that girl,
Cristina. But Cristina is not my mother,
I think. Something happened to my mother.
Maybe that mister with headphones was my
father and maybe that girl was my mother.
I will go on the street when I go to
school and I will look if I see them and
if they hold hands. Then, I will run to
them and say : Mother ! Father ! It is
me, your child !

I would like that mister with glasses and

that girl with long black hair to be my
parents. Really. But I know they are not.
Now Carmen and Emil are my parents.

I will go to another school in the autumn.

That is what Carmen said. That I will go
to a better school. But I like Teacher
Sanda Chincișan. Can I maybe take her with
me ?

Today I had a fight with Ingrid. Ingrid

threw mustard on my white T-shirt. I
became very angry and I put a soft-boiled
egg on her head. I burned her ears a
little and Ms. Otilia hit us both and she
said no food tomorrow. Emil and Carmen
will give me much food ?

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I like them. But I want my mother to come.
And my father. To come and get me. Anyway,
I am good now, and I say Dear God, thank
You for Carmen and Emil but please look
after my mother and father, keep them
happy and give them long life and much
food.

One time, I had a fight with Sandu, a boy

at school. He said I am an orphan. He said
my mother and father did not love me and
sent me away from home. He said I am weak
and he said I am stupid. I am not stupid.
I said to Sandu that he is stupid. Sandu
is bad and stupid. And that is why I said
that to him. And that is why I do not
speak to him. Sandu is in the third desk
near the window. He has toy cars and he
is playing with them during school.
Teacher Sanda took the toy cars from him.
She scolded him. And then, I was happy.
Because Sandu is very bad and he is
playing with his beautiful toys in front
of me to hurt me. Sandu has a rich
grandmother who buys toys only for him.
All the children at school have parents
and grandparents. I do not.

Another time I was very upset with

Floricica. She brought to school an

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orange. I like oranges very much and I
like chestnut cake. I said this before,
with the chestnut cake. I did not say
about oranges. My real parents are a
chestnut cake with cream. Carmen and Emil
are two oranges. Floricica did not want
to give me not even a bit of orange. She
did not let me smell it. She went at the
back of the classroom with Luminița and
they ate the orange just the two of them.
Sandu was so jealous. Me too. But I did
not say this to anybody. I did not say
anything and I thought that maybe Carmen
or Emil will buy one orange if I ask them.
They will buy an orange when I go to
Number four, Daffodil Street. Carmen said
there is a store there where she buys oil,
flour, sugar and sometimes chocolate.
Maybe they have oranges there, too. The
store is called Formica. That is what
Carmen said.

Now I know that I am smart, because that

is what Teacher Sanda Chincișan said. But
when I was younger I did not know so many
things. And it hurt. It hurt at my bottom
very much and my legs near my bottom,
because at the orphanage somebody forgot
to change my underwear. And then the
clothes. Because I peed myself. And I had

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a sore. The pee hurts if it is not washed.
Now I can pee at the bathroom and it does
not hurt anymore.

They will keep me here a few more days

and then I go. But before I go I would
like to see Alexandra, because I did not
tell her how beautiful is the dog balloon
she made for me and how I love it. It is
my dog and his name is Miki. I play with
Miki sometimes and I am careful not to
break it.

This morning I woke up early and before I

went to school I read. There is a story I
started last night. But last night I fell
asleep with the book in my arms in our
room the children’s room where we play
and Ms. Otilia scolded me and sent me to
my bed. Today I woke up early and I read
it all. It was that story with a girl who
is very very cold and she dies. But before
that, she wants to get warm with matches.
I think that girl was not very smart. I
was sorry for her. But even I know that
you can’t get warm with matches ! I have
another book with a boy called Tom Savier
and I do not read it – Ms. Otilia reads
it to me. Tom Savier lived with his aunt
Poli. I like him. But his poor friend Hac

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is more interesting. When I am a big boy,
I will read the book with Tom Savier
alone. I can now, but it is too hard for
me. That is what Ms. Otilia said. She
found another book, it is called The
Little Prince. I like the fox.

They do not let us watch TV. I am sorry

because I like cartoons. One time when I
was on the street, I saw in the window of
a shop a TV and there inside it, was a
pink dog with black spots. I told Carmen
about it and I said I want a pink dog with
black spots. Miki is blue and it is just
a balloon. Carmen said pink dogs with
black spots do not exist. Only in cartoons
and she said the dog’s name is Courage
the cowardly dog. I did not understand
why he is called Courage if he is
cowardly. But I want to see that dog again
on TV. Carmen says she will let me watch
TV for half an hour every day after
homework. Now I am sure Carmen is good.

Last week I got a big mark in Writing

class. I am happy because of this because
I thought I did not do well enough.
Teacher Sanda said I made her cry. I did
not understand why she gave me a big mark
if I made her cry. We had to write

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something for homework. I did alone!
Nobody helped me and I made some spelling
mistakes but I got an A+. The biggest mark
in our class. Because Teacher Sanda said:

’Homework. Write an essay about your

parents.’

I wrote. But I wrote I do not know my

parents and I have to imagine about them.
I wrote like this :

’My mother has small and beautiful ears.

From between them it comes out a long
black pony tail. My mother has beautiful
eyes. She likes good food. She loves my
father. My father is very smart. He has
big and beautiful ears. From between them
it also comes out a pony tail but it is
not black it is brown.
I do not know my parents and I have to
imagine about them. My mother loves me
and buys me toy cars like Sandu has. My
father takes me to the Zoo. There are many
animals at the Zoo. I love animals.
My mother and my father hold hands. They
are very happy.
I love my mother and my father.’

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Teacher Sanda Chincișan said it is the
most beautiful homework. I did not
believe that. I liked Luminița’s homework
because there she told the truth. She said
her father beats her if she does not do
her homework and that she only sees her
mother at home only in the evening because
her mother works a lot. She wrote that
her parents are good but she loves her
grandfather Ovidiu Popescu more, he was a
military man and now he lives with them.

Teacher Sanda said it was not beautiful

what Luminița wrote. Luminița got a B
mark.

I think Emil and Carmen can be good

parents. But I must think about my real
parents too. Carmen is not very
beautiful, but she is smart and kind. Emil
is beautiful but he does not talk to me
very much. I am sure that my real mother
is beautiful and kind. And my real father
too. I am bad and ugly because my parents
left me here at the orphanage. But I will
go to Carmen and Emil and then maybe I
will be more beautiful because they will
take care of me.

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It is good at school. At the orphanage it
is not so good but I will go away. I want
to meet my real parents. They do not know
that I will live on Daffodil Street with
Carmen and Emil. They do not know anything
about me. I maybe have to be angry with
them ?

It is my birthday tomorrow : the 12th of

December. Ms. Ela said she does not know
when I was born so my birthday will be
when they brought me here.

Now I will go to do my homework and sleep.

I have to rest because tomorrow is a
beautiful day. It is my birthday. Ms.
Manager of the orphanage will not come to
my birthday tomorrow. But today she gave
me an orange and a toy car and a greeting
card that plays music when you open it.
It is written on the card : ’Happy
birthday, Adrian !’

I wrote below with my pen : ’Thank you !’

I wish for my birthday for my mother and

father to come here. To bring me toys and
oranges. Some chestnut cake would be nice
but it is expensive and I am ashamed to
ask. If my mother and father could come I

251
 would cry : Mother ! Father ! I love
you !

I will wait for them. Maybe they will

come. I don’t know.

I arrange my hair, I can hear the boys from Wings singing in my speakers, I smile,
because the song is called Deliver Your Children, I take a very small sip of tea, I
chase away the numbness in my limbs, I massage my neck and I relax.
And I write.
*

Andrei tells me, after a few days, when he comes by my place (he never asks me
over to his), that the story is really good, but he thinks I should work on it some
more, meanwhile, I’m asking myself what Anda Cadariu would think of it, if she
read it, but Andrei interrupts my thoughts and, saying that I should get ’some fresh
air’, he encourages me, even though I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea, to go
to that awfully-humiliating-literary-circle-where-he-registered-me.
I’ve almost stopped thinking about finding someone (else) to be with, Andrei
doesn’t know anything about Mihai, or (God forbid!) Silviu, but Andrei is not
mine, I should stop hoping, even though I never thought I was ugly - or stupid -,
but I think I have something, something that makes him think I’m totally
unappetizing, maybe the fact that I’m gullible, even though I have talent and
brains – and not only in my stomcah -, or maybe that’s exactly what his problem
is, that I have this mind, this mind my mother keeps praising, my mother, who
keeps ignoring my emotional needs, but deeply respects my intelligence, I seldom
have one-night stands any more, because what’s the point, what good do they do,
no matter how hard I try, they never turn into something else, I start feeling more
and more alone (alonealonealone), I remember again - while cooking, just for me,

252
in this immaculate kitchen, a trout with potatoes in the oven – how I moved in the
middle of winter, a dark, freezing winter, into this perfect one-room apartment,
with its floating bed, with my parents’ and Andrei’s help, Andrei, who was
already a part of the family, and I feel a horrible hatred for him and for his ’good-
guy-who-doesn’t-insist’ mask, disgust for his occasional bimbos, to whom I am
never introduced, but whom I find out about anyway, including from Cecila’s
gossip, Cecilia, who I couldn’t convince him to be nice to in the beginning and
who I’m afraid of now, because he seems to have started being nice to her, Cecilia,
who, after having constantly lashed about Mihaela (using me as a receiver),
becomes friends with her again, after a huge quarrel and a year’s silent treatment,
and she starts to constantly lash about me to her instead, and she finally chooses
her, not me, as her-best-friend-in-the-world, and here we are, at the end, when,
after the famous literary circle, where he missed one of the most embarassing
scenes in my life, caused by the most recent walking-talking-traumas, the
wannabe writer and the anorexic gazelle, but now freshly returned from the copy
shop, Andrei tells me, in front of the theatre, as usual, ’See you around!’

I hug him, still affected by what had happened with wannabe, I give him a very
light, fraternal and casual hug, anything more than that would be out of line, and,
as he’s pushing me away, I get his last thrust at me: ’Sara, to me, you are a very
good friend!’ – so it doesn’t even cross his stupid mind that I’m a girl, or worse,
I look too bad for him to even notice my feminine side, I say these things to him
in my mind, while swallowing the taste of bile in my mouth as usual, then I look
at him as he’s walking away in a hurry, not looking back, I feel a pang of pain in
my heart, but there’s nothing unusual about that anymore, a random thought
comes to my mind – I think about the M-shaped scar in my heart, M, from Maria,
I have no idea yet that it’s become M from Mihaela -, and I keep looking at him
until he turns right, heading to the bus stop.

253
I remain standing there, in front of the theatre where the famous literary circle has
just ended, in front of the light-green building where I first felt fascination – when
I smelled the magic of the stage, in my second grade, when I attended the first
theatre performance in my life – they took our entire class to see it - (in childhood),
then, here, again, trust, when my father started taking me with him to rehearsals
and introducing me to the actors (in my adolescence), and (I swear, in my mind,
at this ’blessed space’), finally, hope, the last to go, hope - I felt it in this very
same place, the theatre, which had been a private space for me, but which had
now become a public one, because it hosts all kinds of events involving wannabe
writers and anorexic gazelles (in my grown-up years).

I light a cigarette as I watch Andrei leaving – I need to tell my father to talk to the
manager, they really should put an ashtray in front of the theatre – and I imagine
that Andrei and I will call each other during the following days, that this cat-and-
mouse game will never end, that I will always bear the pangs of pain I imagine I
got used to, I imagine that, just as he can put my one-night-stands on the back
burner, I can do the same with his own, I imagine we’ll always be together, one
way or another. And I keep imagining.

What I don’t imagine is that it was the last time I’d ever see him, that on the
following day he’d get on the famous Blabla Car ride and he’d leave forever, that
my parents would keep in touch with him even after his immigration – his and
Mihaela’s, his new girlfriend -, that my father would send them money – both to
him and to Mihaela – through Western Union - as often as he’d be able to, that
my mother would have weekly Skype chats with him, that my folks would travel
very often with Wizzair because of him, that they’d go vist the happy couple more

254
and more often, but, most of all, what I don’t imagine is that I will be left
completely alone.

Another sip of tea. I’m listening to Nick Cave, who keeps praying Into my arms,
oh, Lord.
And I write:

Andrei,

You are and you will be, for a while – I’d say
always, but I seriously doubt it – ’midway here’.

Sara

255
 Sara - Epilogue

But this, too, has passed. I’m in my kitchen, seated at the round table, on which I
have several objects: the tall, white cup from which I have taken the last sip of
tea, my laptop, the ashtray and the watch I took off my wrist, so that it wouldn’t
hinder me from writing.

Girl from Ipanema starts playing. A lot better than Nick Cave, I tell myself.

It’s no longer dawn. It’s morning. I look at the sun rising, I remember other
sunrises, not those I spent with Mihai by the sea, but those I watched on the shore
of a lake in the mountains, in my tenth grade, when I used to think that those
people who were playing their guitars together were so much happier than I was,
only to find out, when I finally got accepted in their pack, that they were, actually,
all of them, completely fucked up, together and apart, on different layers, just like
’a fiction book, which is like a cabbage or like an onion: it has layers and...’ .

But no more of that. Now I have something to celebrate.

I uncork the red Chianti (even if it’s already morning, I deserve to celebrate!) that
I’ve saved especially for this moment: I’ve finished writing about ’up there’,
’down there’ and ’midway here’.

As I pour wine in a glass, I hear, as if in a dream, the OBIE-nominated voice:

gullible.

*
And I tell myself:

256
I loved three guys. All three of them – directors. All three of them quit directing.
All three of them lost me, lost themselves, moreover, they lost.

All three of them knew my parents.

None of them really knew Sara.

Cheers!
*

I sip from my wine. I light a cigarette. I see my reflexion in the screen of the
laptop. I see, in this mirrorlike screen, hiding a ton of binary code behind it, Sara
Ionescu, 38, blue eyes, 165 cm tall, staring back at me. She’s a good-looking
woman, maybe even beautiful, with her hair dyed in a Scandinavian shade of
blonde, and on her face, there are two shining eyes, one bigger and one smaller.

I check my agenda.

I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with the doctor who’s a specialist in

’down there’ (routine check).
The following day, in the morning, with the one who’s a specialist in ’up there’
(routine check).
And on the next day, anytime, I have to see the the specialist in ’midway here’
(routine check).

It suddenly crosses my mind that I hadn’t heard anything about that wannabe
writer’s career – before or after the literary circle.
I take another sip of wine.

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And, because I’d like to talk to someone, but there’s no one to talk to anymore, I
pick up my iPhone and call a random number. Let’s see.
Let’s see who answers.
A man? A woman? A child?

’Hello?’
Pause.
’Hi, it’s Sara.’
"Sara who?’ – a sleepy woman’s voice says.
’Sara. Me.’
’Sara who? I don’t know who I’m talking to! This is Anda Cadariu speaking,
please tell me who I’m talking to!’
’It’s me, Sara, and... sorry. Sorry. Wrong number.’
I hang up.
*

I save the number in my phone. Now, that’s something! Of all people! Anda
Cadariu. I’m thunderstruck. ’Down there’, I’ve nearly had an orgasm. ’Midway
here’, I feel warmth instead of pain. As for ’up here’, I know exactly what I have
to do next. I’ll write a message to her phone number this week, I’ll ask for her e-
mail, maybe she’ll share it with me if I tell her I’m a writer, like her, and I’ll write
to her from my heart (keepheartkeepheartkeepheart!) and I’ll send her my novel,
Sara. Love Me Three Times.
Maybe we’ll become friends.
After my shock and amusement wear off (’Dear God, I always knew you exist!’),
I start proofreading my novel.
I go back to the start. I read:

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’My name is Sara Ionescu. I write and publish short stories. I’m 38, I have blue
eyes and I’m 165 cm tall.
And I really, really, really want to write about ’up there’, ’down here’ and
’midway here’, but I’m afraid.’

*
I finish proofreading, I go to the hallway, I look in the mirror, I wink at myself. I
return to the kitchen and I search my laptop for my favourite essay – the one I
love the most, because it’s not really an essay, it’s an open letter (I can hear my
speakers reassuring me that All you need is love and I’m suddenly transported
back to that evening, in Jazz, so I feel warmth everywhere, ’down there’, ’up
there’ and ’midway here’, and I whisper loveisforever). I’ll send this essay soon,
just like that, ’out of the blue’, to the editorial office of the cultural journal I admire
the most, hoping that the people there won’t mind that I’m treating them like a
post office, because the publication of this essay-open-letter would be as if the
editor-in-chief applied a post mark on it and then launch it on a snowy, wavy
skiing track, at the end of which the real addresees are waiting. Its readers.

I look through the essay, entitled The Three Dimensions of Creation in Anda
Cadariu’s Work.
It has three (obviously!) chapters:

1. ’Without music, life would be a mistake’

2. ’The world’s a stage’ and
3. ’In the beginning was the Word’

I finish reading. I tell myself that maybe, if my essay is accepted for publication,
it will also reach Anda Cadariu’s working desk, among other newspapers and
journals. I’m sure she reads cultural journals. And if it’s not accepted for

259
publication, I’m going to send it to her anyway, at some point, if she shares her e-
mail address with me.

And I think, smiling, that loveisforever and that’s why, and for absolutely no other
reason,

1. My speakers are whispering Thinking out Loud,

2. I finally succeeded to get a ticket to the theatre to see An Enemy of the People,
and 3. Anda Cadariu has published another book, so I have to stop by the book
store soon.

I breathe in, I breathe out.

I look around: I have reached the mountain foot, with my skiing gear still on.
I look behind me, taking in the snowy mountain peak from which I’d started skiing
on this wavy slope marked by yellow flags.
I turn around and look ahead.
And I hear, as if in a dream, an ancient whisper: Keep heart!

*
**

When I push the saving keys (Command + S), a song by Robbie Williams starts
playing: Something Beautiful. I dance a bit in my kitchen, alone, then I stop the
music. I look around, at the cupboard, the table, the fridge.

I’d love to go to sleep now, I really would, but I still have something to write.
One more letter. I’m thinking, with a pang of pain, about the stolen colored
envelope where I used to keep my letters.
Anyway, I tell myself, I’ve given up on writing on paper a long time ago.

260
So I open a new Word document.
And I write.

Dear Sara,

I love you.

Sara
*
Even though I have loads of work to do at the association, I’m very happy that all
the routine checks at the doctor’s went great (’You are as healthy as an ox, Ms.
Ionescu!’ ’Miss, doctor! Miss. But you may call me Sara.’)
After waiting with great difficulty for Friday night so that I could go out (I bumped
into Alina, the sociologist, and I obviously didn’t even say hello, I turned my back
on her) to a party at that Ketty-that-still-seems-taken-out-of-Arizona Dream,
where I met new people and where I danced with a tall, dark and therefore very
sexy guy, and after having slept for a very long time the following day in my
white floating bed, the stairs of which I climb, FYI, very easily, and never to get
physical exercise, here I am, opening, on this beautiful Sunday morning, my
laptop, to check my e-mail.

I get the greatest nudge ’the brain in my stomach’ has ever offered me in my
whole life:

Dear Mrs. (or Miss?) Sara Ionescu,

I finally made some time to check my

mailbox, which I found full of e-mail
messages. I apologize that the answer

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you’ve probably been waiting for sooner
has taken so long.

I got your novel, Sara. Love Me Three

Times. and your kind request for my
feedback on it. I’ll do my best to read
it, but I can’t make any promises.

I get lots of e-mails like yours, but I

have little time for them, because I
invest my attention and energy in my
family and in my fiction.

Moreover, as I publicly announced a few

days ago, I haved settled for a while in
the mountains, where I don’t have an
internet connection and I have to drive
to the nearest town to go online in some
coffee shop.

I am in the mountains at the moment

because I’ve been working on a new novel
– and I think you yourself know how much
effort and dedication such a life
adventure requires.

So, I’m out of town. It’s for this, and

not for any other reason, I’m assuring
you, that I am not able to accept your
invitation for a cup of orange and

262
 cinnamon tea, which, by the way, sounds
delightful. However, I will try it for
myself, because we are a family who love
tea and I think we’d love this
combination.

Thank you for your understanding and

patience. Have a wonderful day!

P. S. I’ve opened the document and browsed

through Sara. Love Me Three Times. I hope
I’ll get back to you soon with the
feedback you requested!

Yours truly,

Anda Cadariu

I finish reading the message. It’s warm in the kitchen. I get up from the table and
turn the music on, loud, louder, the loudest (Angus & Julia Stone are singing My
Word for It), I pick up the tea box (’Sara, my butter cookie!’ - to which I reply
’You were not there for me when I needed you the most, so that’s NOT me!’), the
water has started boiling, Victor and Laurențiu are hugging on the balcony, Ms.
Lenuța is watering the roses in the garden, I open a new Word document, and I
realize (suddenly, with a smile and a feeling of freedom in ’the brain in my
stomach’, because ’down there’, ’up there’ and ’midway here’ are perfectly
aligned) that what I’m doing is the right thing to do, that I’m no longer afraid and
that, no matter how happy I am that she gave me a sign, no matter how much I
admire her, no matter how many books she’s published, no matter how beautiful

263
and smart and famous and talented she is, no matter what her feedback on my
novel would be, I couldn’t care less about Anda Cadariu.

And I write.

- THE END -

*This novel is dedicated to the victims of domestic violence and bullying. Any
financial gain resulting from it shall be redirected to them.
**I would like to thank the first readers of this novel, the writer Alina Nelega
and the literary critic Sanda Cordoș, for their inestimable support, for their
advice concerning the writing technique and the contents and, last but not
least, for everything I’ve learned from them. Special thanks: Maria
Manolescu Borșa.

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