Before the dawn

She had liked watching the star-dotted sky as a child. The different luminosity - from faint greyish white to sparkling bluish light - and the different density - from barely discernible in what looked like a hazy cobweb to the neat shapes translated into wagons, maids, arrows or whatnot. She had also asked all possible questions to her father: why stars were sometimes sparkling, why some were small and others big, what was beneath the earth if that was what was above, how long it would take to get to one of those dots and what light-years meant. She confessed to him that she wanted to busy herself with stars and planets for the rest of her life - she was, with 11, past the stage when she had wanted to become an actress, ballerina, bus driver or, as everyone around her seemed to be making much of, a communist party member. Her father told her that if so, she would have to study mathematics at university, and be very good at it. Then perhaps she could do one further year to specialise in astronomy and hope to get a job with the astronomical observatory. She set herself the goal and went on about it with no sidethoughts on the way. It was a handsome goal too, not everyone declared they were going to become an astronomer, and not everyone was going to study mathematics. Kids and parents were very much obsessed with a few trendy faculties, like medicine, law, or engineering. She was different mathematics had something clever, stylish and pure about itself. For four years she took extra private lessons in maths, which brought her to the point where she felt reasonably secure at it. In those four years she had distanced herself from her father and his books so she had come to resent what she called academic idealism and intellectualism and found that studying mathematics, therefore being anchored in science, would make her different. If she still couldn't help finding language or literature easy to do well, she quickly dismissed that resemblance to her father as purely genetical but immaterial for her future life. She pronounced herself against 'reading all day' and escaping in a world of plots, characters of literary trends, and despised the subjective nature of such inclinations, which was making performance, talent or outcomes so hard to measure in the 'real world'. In the domain of science, her talents would be objectively, therefore undeniably, acknowledged. She was a good high-school student in one of the best classes. Their maths teacher was a ridiculously short guy, dark-haired and with a dark thick moustache crossing his face and matching his dark penetrating eyes. He was not just ridiculously short, but also sometimes ridiculously passionate, or maybe contaminatingly so? He got quickly mad when kids failed some easy maths problem, as if their failure was an insult to the beautiful but remote galaxy called Mathematics. He would be silent for a few seconds, then out of the blue he would swirl around and chuck the piece of chalk against -1-

the blackboard, or hit the nearest desk with his palm in sheer frustration, his eyes drilling holes in whoever dared to glance back. They would all freeze. Then came the worst - his words. 'This was a maths and science school the last time I checked, not a vocational school for losers!' 'Vocational school' was a tough denomination. Vocational schools meant the kids with the most vicious tongues and the most violent behaviour, with dirty classrooms and long hours spent in the gloomy basement workshops busying themselves with hammers, files, nails or screw vices. And of course no eligibility for university. Your life was over. You didn't need to worry about matching up the pieces of your future - it was all nailed down. During the first two years of high-school, leading to the 10th-grade exams, her performance in maths was mixed. Sometimes the solution stood at the end of a red path. Other times however it hid behind tangled bushes; she trudged forward inch by inch only to get hopelessly stuck at a point where she could see nothing ahead. When the solution was presented in front of the class, she realized she had trudged past the junction where she should have taken another path but hadn't seen it. The failure to see it annoyed her again and again. It was not the self-reproach that she had missed an obvious and trivial solution, rather the dissatisfaction finding that her orientation senses were not sharp enough; that where others found the resources to march ahead as across a flat plain, open to the sight and to the searches of the mind, she inevitably ended up in that dim tangle of bushes that left her no way out. She knew that, for all that, she was good at it. She was good at maths and she was clever. But then such repeated midway failures were continually gnawing at this awareness, cornering it and demanding a definition of what exactly she was good at, or what exactly her 'being good at it' meant. She would have liked to see her capability confirmed and matched by palpable, measurable results, and instead what she produced was demonstrations left hanging and a bunch of average marks. It felt like she was still far from breaking through. The maths teacher, whom she had made the mistake of telling she wanted to study mathematics at university, was all eyes on her. He teased those who were worth teasing and had a somehow curious tolerance for the others, which of course stemmed from his having no interest whatsoever in their performance, nor in themselves personally. With her the teasing tended to be bitter and - she sometimes found - unfair. The tests he administered were tough and even when nobody in the class had found the right solutions and got good marks, he seemed to single her out for his bitterness. Not always publicly and not always ruthlessly. But the amount of worry he showed as to her performance sometimes puzzled her and other times angered her. 'Why doesn't he get off my back?' she would tell herself. -2-

Once she was solving a problem at the blackboard and got stuck, with him standing next to her, and he half whispered 'what's the matter with you recently?', his eyes no longer sarcastic, but terribly dark. She got tears in her eyes and an overwhelming feeling of being on the verge of breaking down. If anything was the matter with her, it was the perpetual blind alleys of her searches and his perpetual hammering her with reproaches, sarcasm or dissatisfaction. Whatever she did failed to come up to his standard, it seemed. To his standard for her, that is. If she liked a guy who happened to be in a poorer class, she 'had no scale of values'. If she didn't know the answer to a problem, 'something was wrong with her', she collected 'mediocre' marks or was 'indulging herself'. But what was she supposed to do, for as far as she knew she did every home assignment he assigned them to do and had no teenage private life to interfere - like parties, dates and the rest. 'Mediocrity' would have meant that there were others much better than her, whereas the tests he administered produced no medal winners. Why was she, of all, 'mediocre'? Mediocrity was secretly one of her biggest fears as to her future life. Whatever she was going to do, it simply had to be better than that. She had to do something that would confirm her again and again and place her above partiality and safe from subjective judgment - that was why she despised human arts, wasn't it? And now came this obnoxious teacher - whom she otherwise couldn't help loving - and reinforced only her failures, making her performance look mediocre. One day she attended a parents meeting with some of their teachers and he said a few words about each of the kids. When he got to her, he looked her straight in the eyes, as only he was capable of, and said, 'Whoever can carry a grain of sand shall carry a grain of sand; whoever can carry a mountain shall carry a mountain'. She had a short 'wow' privately - his by now familiar ability to handle words, ideas, parallelisms and contrasts proved so powerful again - but the next second she felt baffled and disappointed. Why had he said precisely that to her? Why, instead of telling her what was good in her performance, had he chosen to say something a) enigmatic, b) impersonal, c) seeming to imply that she was not carrying her mountain and therefore she was taking it easy, and d) still very, or too, personal. As if what he had to say to her was not just a reproach for unsatisfactory results, but also a reproach to her as a person. The 10th grade exams were nearing every month. With these exams you either passed or you flew off to some 'vocational school' and then to the horrible socialist working sites. There was no accommodating in the next best category of classes according to your exam score. That is why the pressure was so high. Only about thirty per cent of them would make it to the senior years. She -3-

started getting weary of the pressure of doing the sometimes huge home assignments, of experiencing the failures to reach the end of the demonstrations and of facing the teacher's sarcasm. She got home from school looking forward to the one hour or so that she hoped she would be still getting at the end of the day, after homework, only for herself. That hour was the air she needed to breathe. It was just that it was free from pressure, free from having to prove something, time for herself doing 'things that she liked' - reading, listening to Lennon and wishing she'd been born to be a teenager in the 60s, or clandestinely listening to the BBC and repeating words after the announcers in an as British accent as possible. She had taken up that hobby about Englishness since her great passion for the Beatles and Lennon and she would decipher their texts and jokes and also try hard to imitate their intonation or accents. She often daydreamt of being an English girl in the 60s, meeting Paul, John, George and Ringo and being the pals that she didn't have in her real life, and then falling in love with Paul - later replaced by John with his cleverness and his special intellectualism. She started thinking much of anything that was British, from football to green lawns and to BBC English. Her English teacher at school soon noticed her interest and gave her more materials to read, then asked her if she was willing to go to school contests. Of course she was, it was all piece of cake and part of her daydream. She was successful too, and with no effort at all, since all the preparation for such contests was done after the tiring home study tasks for physics, chemistry, biology or maths... in her 'time for herself', that is. At school during the breaks a colleague would always ask her about what she had lately read about England, if she had seen the British film the night before, and how was this or that word pronounced correctly in English, adding he wanted to find out these things directly from 'experts' - she was the 'expert'... She would laugh at his ceremonious manner but feel flattered nonetheless. Then one day, in their usual chattering, he asked her - or asserted, 'You're going to study languages, aren't you' She said 'of course not, I'm going to study mathematics, but how did you come across this idea?' 'Well, obviously you're so good at English, I thought it would be piece of cake to you!' She stood gaping for a second, then reassured him she had different plans, dismissed him but went on chewing it. She chewed it for days, until she realized he was right. The only opposition to the idea came from her old rejection of her father's world. She still didn't want to be one of 'them'. But this career held more chances for her to do something above mediocrity than mathematics, and the spell it exerted on her made any effort in the language direction feel like an exciting occupation within the 'time for herself' and not a chore to be discarded in relief at the end of the day. In this profession she -4-

was sure to get the highest scores and appreciation that would acknowledge her abilities, despite the maybe somewhat subjective, non-scientific nature of the domain. The coming months were spent in the exultation of certainty. Now she had the answer to her dilemmas, the resolution of her doubts and the liberation from her ordeal. Of course, she still had to cope with the maths teacher's furious retaliation, but in time it abated with the awareness that he had lost her. She for one was left with her first great victory in finding her way out of the tangled bushes.

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Part 1
It was her birthday again, but she was hoping that it would be different that year. Maybe also because she was turning eighteen now, and that was an age worth remembering. The past anniversaries, whenever she recalled them, seemed to her long, tiring soul gymnastics. It had been a real problem all those years to work out who she could invite or to be sure that those she had invited would really show up. As if it wasn't a party, but god knows what boring natural science club.

The thing was, she didn't have many friends to invite and so she had to resort to the 'chic circles', that is, the groups who often met up at parties. It looked a bit like if you wanted to call some friends for a few tapes of music, you had to hire the fashionable friends too. The result was always the same: her true friends, a few, would sit apart, quietly looking on the whole night, while the others went on about their business, which generally had not much to do with the host.

This year, it's true, she had found close friends to call and she hadn't had to persuade anyone to come. She had been like anyone her age, who on their anniversary called friends to have fun together. But the fears lingered on. It had always given her insomnias and headaches to organise a party. That was because among that group of hired friends of the past years she had never managed to be a good host, she felt all the time like everything was going wrong because of herself. She had the same fear now, and was thinking of the guests coming as of the gunshot signalling the start of a race.

And they all did come, seeming to say that every one of them wanted to be with her on that day. First Ovidius, who brought the music. O my god, can it be true that music would be plenty this year? The boy started to set the equipment in place, carefully considering the best audio effect, while she was looking on feeling happy and a bit proud: there, now she really had awesome stuff!

Then came the others. Only Daniel wasn't there yet, as well as the mysterious 'somebody' who was supposed to come with Ada.

She kept going from one room to the other, between those who were dancing and those who were chatting, trying to spot whatever was wrong. She didn't find anything wrong, but she kept searching hectically, like a watchman checking and doublechecking his ground before external inspection, for she did fear Daniel's arrival. She had long considered whether to invite him too, she knew he didn't have anything in common with the others, not so much in terms of nature but as an inhabitant of -6-

this planet - he didn't know any of them and they couldn't find common subjects to talk about either - but she had still invited him, because she hadn't been able to think of this night without Daniel. This didn't take away her fear, though, of what he would say, and most of all, of what he would not say. Last year, for example, because he didn't like the atmosphere, he had started reading some magazines with excessive attention. And to her that had been more than enough. Daniel didn't need to talk, when he didn't like something all it took to notice this was simply being around.

She popped into the room where they were sitting and talking. There was some political joke being said about Ceausescu, the beloved President, she fringed instinctively and switched off, not listening, only looking around to make sure things were ok. They weren't dancing, they weren't eating or drinking, so there had to be something wrong... No. Restrained amusement, but for Ovidius' loud laughter, as the joke came to an end, so people were fine here in this room, even if there was no dance, no eating, no drinking. What mattered was that no one complained or looked like they were bored.

There were a few common fears about a party. One, that the tape recorder wouldn't work - and there were several ways it could fail, like knotting up the tape, not starting or starting with a pitiful squeal, or simply sounding like an empty bucket, which her small Grundig, a present from her father a few years before, always did when the volume button forced its capacity beyond its limits.

Related to this was of course the fear about the music. You simply had to have Modern Talking, or CC Catch, or Bad Boys Blue, the disco hits of last summer. Some of the songs were already one year old in the West, but you had to take into account the time they took to land in Romania, to be borrowed and copied over and over again on the tenth or fiftieth AGFA tape. What mattered about the music was that it had to be what was played at the parties of the season, sometimes of the year. Her own tapes with John Lennon and Beatles, recorded in a more than rough manner from the weekly radio broadcasts of the 'Music of the Youth' show, together with chunks of the presenter's words at the beginning or end, one song louder, the other fainter, or the tapes professionally recorded by a connection of her father in the National Radio Station with Abba, Hot Chocolate, Jackson 5 or Bee Gees were not really the thing.

From music came everything. Once the tape recorder started bellowing, or the music slid towards silly 'old mamma' trends, the atmosphere lost any sexy quality and the folks sort of dropped on chairs or sofa like dead leaves getting ready for long-term hibernation. Funny comments were also

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made, to make things still worse. Of course everyone laughed, including the host, but the fact was that the spell was gone.

One other thing that could work against spontaneously chic parties was that the guests might all dance in a circle, in a voluntary decision to 'save the party'. That is, everyone resolved to contribute to the good mood and stood up in a sort of 'let's dance' comradely enthusiasm, (people did dance at parties, didn't they) and came together in the middle of the room, which often meant just half a step away from its borders, so tripping against chair legs or bumping into cupboards was another common misfortune. But the silliest thing was to be dancing in that neatly designed pattern, where you had nothing else to do in fact than watching the others and as a reflection watching yourself, while pretending you are moving to the inspiration of the music. The real parties, either experienced in real life, or seen in the few American films on TV, brought people to dance spontaneously, in a chaotic tumble across the room, elbow to elbow, back to back, casual, swirling and inventing crazy movements as they went.

The reverse of this was that people might not be dancing at all, but sitting passive wherever they could, and small clubs of two or three would at best be formed, where school was discussed. But even for this less fortunate possibility there was something that could still make things worse, and that was the seating and the whole room. One of her ever-present fears was that dust under the furniture might be visible, that some crack in the walls or door panels might look ugly, and that the awkward, stiff design of her living or bedroom might be obvious to the others too. She saw it all dusty, grey, uncomfortable, cold, unwelcoming and worn off. It wasn't the house for a party, everything was simply functional and nothing more. The other living rooms where she had been, with other people, had a comfy air and some even a fine velvety touch, coming from the colours of the furnishings.

Her own living room consisted of 2 massive cupboards, dark brown, with wood carving 'by hand', as her mother said, but taking up one and a half walls, an equally large and dark brown book case with old-fashioned glass windows, a large, massive table sprawling from one wall up to the middle of the room, surrounded by high-backed, upholstered dining chairs; on one side was a simulation of a couch, that is, her old childhood bedcouch, slim and upholstered in light blue. Actually, she would have preferred the couch to be fat and the other furniture slim, but as it was, if sitting on the bedcouch one had the feeling that the rest of the furniture could crush one underneath.

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The doors and window panels were cracked and grey, no matter how minutely she would wipe and brush them before any event. The walls and ceiling, once blank white, were now blank grey, here and there paint coming off, and the high corners tended to still produce till then invisible spider webs, but visible right when the guests were there and the celebration on. There was also the cold in the bathroom, kitchen, or hall, where there was hardly any heating, it being an old house, so that the whole environment inspired anything but spontaneous fun.

There were other, smaller fears, like the snacks and worse than all, the drinks, were all too soon gone, but that was not so terrible, if the mood of the crowd was up. Of course, that too had a reverse, which is that the guys might, from so much good mood, get drunk, and that was the sign that they were enjoying your party, but the outcomes were a dirty and continually busy bathroom, or dirty jokes replacing the political ones, and painfully 'dirty dancing' budding out with some willing young lady of the gang.

But overall, after the several attempts to give a real party in the past, it now seemed she had found the right solutions. Ovidius, an absolute god of audio equipment and the latest music in the Western charts, had made sure she and her guests had nothing to complain on these points. The living room was impressively filled with huge loudspeakers, cables and a 'bad' black hi-fi system. The music resounded from the floor, from under the furniture, from every corner of the room, surrounding you with its basses. The snacks and drinks had been carefully planned and procured over the past few weeks, with moderation on alcohol, which was anyway not going to be in excessive demand with her friends. The milieu of guests also seemed to have worked out this year, with that one exception of the worries on Daniel, but otherwise things looked like they were on the right track.

In her feverish patrolling, out of impatience and tension, she even opened the entrance door to make sure Daniel was not waiting there to be let in. She opened her eyes wide, for in front of the door someone was indeed waiting, but it wasn't Daniel. "Good evening! Mrs. Alexe?" asked the young man. "Good evening, yes!" she answered automatically and instantly realized it must be Ada's partner. She bid him to come in and then left him at the wardrobe asking fleetingly "I guess you want me to call Ada, right?"

She didn't wait for the answer. When, after a while, she saw the stranger (she recalled he had introduced himself as Matthew) talking to Ada in the hall, she felt giddy. Such a lousy host she was,

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she had left these two on their own and hadn't taken care of them. "Why are you standing here, in the hall, do go in, either to this room or to that one", she bid them as naturally and kindly as she could. She was relieved to hear him say "No, that's ok, in there I can't meet the others, but here it's quieter and I meet them one at a time, as they come out."

So it wasn't her poor hosting skills, but their wish. His answer made her happy, especially as it was funny too: watching for people as they come out and then catch them and shake hands with them! "What should it be?" she asked him, as he had arrived later. "Nothing for me, I'm fine, thank you so much!" "But you can't just stand here with nothing to eat or drink!" "O yes, that's perfectly fine, you know, I was ill and I'm on a diet." "And what can you have?" She listed everything there was in the house and at last he answered: "OK, if you insist and if it's not too much trouble, some bread and butter."

A few minutes later she was back with a full plate and handed it over to him. She stayed on with the two of them, wondering why she was doing that, since the real celebration, which she had so much looked forward to, was in the living room, but she had stopped here instead, not knowing why, fumbling for a pretext in her mind: it wasn't nice to leave her guests unattended! Of course, that was it...

Ada kept quiet, Matthew instead kept talking unrestrained, although he didn't know anybody. She caught the beginning of a joke with an elf that he was telling, but she had to stand up and go to the living room. She couldn't sit still. In the living room, however, the others were drinking, dancing and eating, you couldn't hear anything from the loud music, so she got back to the bedroom, where she had managed to bring Matthew and a few others. He was telling about a practical joke that his colleagues had made to a female colleague, she laughed and then invited them to join the party in the living. She was more successful this time, since Matthew stood up, behind him the bedroom remained empty and she could turn off the light and close the door.

She turned the light on in the living instead, found some room and got some air for the nonsmokers (she had no way of objecting on this point, Matthew wasn't eating, drinking, or dancing, but he was smoking a lot), and everything felt better instantly. Great, as a matter of fact, as everyone was close friends with her, and, to her amazement, things were going just fine, she seemed to be what is

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commonly understood by a good host, helping them to do what they wanted, in the most natural manner. She could feel she was at the centre of all this celebration, as everyone wanted to talk to her, even for a few seconds, all their good mood seemed to be addressed to her.

Suddenly she saw Matthew drawing near and refused to think of some invitation to dance, for fear her premature satisfaction might drive this possibility away. She pretended she couldn't see him and that she was looking somewhere else, so as to get the chance of experiencing the nice surprise when he should address her. And he did address her, and they did start to dance.

Matthew was now very close. She heard herself talking about her relief seeing the party was nice, and about her feeling no longer clumsy and awkward as in the past. He gave out a complimenting exclamation, but she interrupted him, assuring him she was happy she was no longer so silly as to fail to have fun. Then she confessed she had been anxious that nobody would be satisfied and she was at the same time wondering to herself why she was talking to him about this, but his way of bending to her, listening, prompted her to keep on talking about things that only concerned herself.

Then the song was over, he kissed her hand and she felt self-assured again. A few other minor things happened before Matthew asked her to dance again. She noticed now that he was a bit of an oldfashioned guy, by the formal way he had taken her hand and asked her smilingly if she would dance. She also noticed that Matthew was pretty tall and his shoulder drew her cheek nearer and nearer. She told him at one point that her birthday had actually been on the Thursday before, and felt he was startled, but he let her finish.

"My birthday was also last Thursday!" he said after she was silent and seemed she had said everything she had to say.

'At least he wouldn't forget about my birthday', she smiled a bit bitterly to herself. 'Do you remember when you kept asking me why I was so keen to buy cookies for the next day, you asked what it was the next day and I answered just think, and you kept guessing wrong?' Probably by contrast, she suddenly found Matthew very gentle and warm. Too soon afterwards Ada and Matthew were standing in the hall, ready to go. She tried to persuade Ada to stay longer, until the end, but suddenly she thought this persuasion might have a transparent reason, and then she turned to him and challenged him: - 11 -

"And you? Don't you have anything to say in this?" "I do", he said gently, stroking Ada's hair, "but it's Ada's decision".

Yes, he was Ada's cousin, although she couldn't remember where she had heard this, anyway she was sure, and for a second she envied Ada for having someone like Matthew around all the time. She finally gave up and the two got ready to go. Ada went out first and Matthew turned around in the doorway:

"I hope we see each other again" he said smiling, then he reached out his hands, she put hers into his like a goodbye between old friends, and he kissed them both, like a goodbye in a medieval ballad.

_________________________________________________________

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed that I had lost you in a town and couldn't find you again. It was a big town, with many people. I got off a tram, or a train, and you were nowhere. I stopped on the platform to let the crowd throng away, so I could find you among them. But the people walked by and you were still nowhere to see. I then realized suddenly that there were two platforms, on both sides of the train - or tram - and I seemed to see with the eyes of my mind the passengers scurrying away on the other platform, and the train leaving the station and this way barring my sight, making it impossible for me to spot you. I then headed in the direction where we were supposed to be going, but a few steps later it felt like I was on the other side of the town. I was looking for you among the passersby, among car drivers, anywhere on the street and I still remember I was wondering desperately how I was going to find you at last.

She was walking on the street and all of a sudden a thought popped up, like a stranger in her way: Today Matthew could call! She wasn't familiar with this thought, had no idea where it had sprung from, but she had suddenly come across it and across the vague feeling that she might have been waiting for that day, when Matthew might call, considering that no one his type would call the next day after yesterday, especially as 'yesterday' was a busy day with a sleepless night. He would think today you sleep, tomorrow is actually the first day that counts since you have met him, the second day is a day to wait, and the third day the event takes place. Well, today was the third day, and she

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had exactly that puzzling feeling, that she had already considered all this, when in fact she only now remembered about Matthew. Her confusion, however, only lasted a fleeting second before her attention was drawn somewhere else.

And still, when she got home, the telephone rang and she heard Matthew's voice.

"I hope I'm not imposing" he said and she felt giddy: what nonsense, to be imposing! " I just called to thank you for the party, it was lovely." (So she had been right counting the third day as the first when someone could pick up on things happened on a Saturday night!) "How are you?" "I'm fine, doing schoolwork, going here and there and doing lots of stuff." "And Daniel? How is he?"

It came back to her in a flash, like in a hangover, that she had also talked about Daniel in that uncontrolled confession and it was obvious she had gone too far.

"Daniel?! Let's not talk about Daniel anymore." Then she corrected herself, not to make it sound like she was giving herself up so easily. So she added: "At least let's not talk about him." "But keep him alive in our minds?" he answered slightly teased.

She was delighted that he had got the hint. She laughed and said nothing, to let him believe what he wanted.

"If you are not too busy, could we meet again?" "Sure!" Then she corrected herself again. "Sure, anything is possible, it's a small world!" "And would you mind if I called you again?" "Of course not!" and she felt in control. "Good", he said with some satisfaction in his voice. "OK, then I'll be looking forward to your call." "I'm glad you'll be looking forward, Adriana!" he said very close in the receiver. "Goodbye!"

She was a bit puzzled. Why had he asked her if he could see her again? It sounded absurd. She had thought they would simply meet again. That he would call her without asking so politely 'may I?'

She smiled slightly confused and went to the kitchen.

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Why are you smiling? I'd forgotten not everyone is like you. You found it much easier to come straight to me to meet me and found it a matter of course to settle in with me without hesitation. It was Thursday, the first of August. A real beginning. 'Hi, I'm Daniel'. I was supposed to figure out what it all meant from this. Then you got straight to the point.

'What are you doing tonight?' 'I see you're forgetting to ask me the one essential thing', I said. 'What?' 'If I'm alone'. You frowned a bit. 'Why, you've got a boyfriend, something?'

I laughed. What an idea!

'No, I'm with an aunt.' 'And she won't let you?' 'I don't know that, I haven't asked her. But we're together and I have no idea how I can go out by myself.' 'Lock her in the bath.' 'You don't know her' (and here I thought of my aunt's athletic body, her thirty years of age next to the word 'aunt' and the picture of what you were suggesting). 'Anyway, the bathroom door can only be locked from inside'. 'That's OK, you'll work something out!' you told me, and left me to work something out.

I turned my head towards the sea. Something was telling me I wouldn't go. I was very calm and now I think I wasn't considering going out with you because it was completely out of pattern. It would have been quite a different thing for me. And then I realized that in fact that was what I had been wanting, to feel the same as the others my age. I said to myself that I was always afraid of complications, but otherwise I was crying for them.

You were very friendly but not flirting, you were natural but not superior, you were yourself and most important of all, you were there. With you everything was normal, but not trivial. Maybe I'm being

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partial believing your manner was natural and yet strange precisely through its naturalness.

We danced in a disco, and that was the first time for me. I was sixteen and you told me later you'd thought I was older. The first Modern Talking hit was just out, the disco was on the sea shore, o, everything seemed right. At the end you asked my number, and to me it was pointless to give it to you, you asked me why and I didn't know what to answer. I wasn't going further in my mind than that night, it only seemed normal to me that the next day I was back to my own life, and I didnt' even feel sorry about it. In the end I did tell you the number, but without any expectation that anything might come out of it.

I found you again the next day - or better, you found me. For a second I wasn't sure it was you. But you stopped, told me you'd been looking for me on the beach and then asked us - me and my aunt - if we were coming back in the afternoon. My aunt replied promptly yes, told you where exactly, in what area of the beach we could be found, as if it wasn't the first time she was talking to you. Then we said goodbye, not before I could see in your eyes a glimmer of the past night, as if to assure me it had all been real.

I could faintly hear you laying your towels and things next to me. I didn't raise my head, because I wanted you to wake me up. I had been watching, a few days before, a young couple on the beach and had intensely ached about my own loneliness. Now I was like so many others and it was great.

When it was dusk and you said let's go, at first I wanted to stay on, but then I realized it would all be empty without you, that I had to follow you everywhere. I was walking barefooted on the street, you holding my hand, and music from a nearby bar could be heard - a fresh hit going 'I wanna know what love is, I know you can show me'.

And now somebody was asking her if he can see her again... Someone called Matthew and who is a classmate's cousin. Slowly she could call back his face. She remembered first his big, gentle, dark eyes, then the neat features, the dark hair and by who knows what association, his smart suit and white shirt. A bit of a smart classical Englishman look.

She heard then his voice in her mind, with a tonality that seemed all the time to be stroking or soothing, and his way of uttering the words as if he was toying with them. He pronounced them quickly and with slightly rounded edges, as when you make a sphere out of a cube. His words were - 15 -

like balls or better snow or sand balls that he was playing with. He also seemed to have an imperfect 'r', but she wasn't sure about it now. She said to herself that Matthew looked or sounded like a kid when he was talking. Maybe that was one of the things that made him so pleasant. And maybe that also accounted for the impression of gentleness that you got of him from the first moment. Matthew was always available, listening and gentle, always afraid as it were not to hurt you. There was so much concern in his gestures not to be the cause of any harm or inconvenience, that the whole story looked a bit like one with a knight and a princess.

And made to play the role of the princess, everything that she had ignored became continually present. That was how she could account for what she had told Matthew about Daniel, which, in brief, seemed to convey one and the same message: a very sad memory. When in fact it hadn't been like that, her relationship with Daniel hadn't been so unhappy, or at least it hadn't felt like this to her in the past. Of course, Daniel had made her cry on many occasions with his direct, ruthless style. But he could also make things up, so that back then, as well as later, she didn't remember the rough part, but the fun and the crazy times they had sometimes had.

But if Daniel had all the time made her forget the rough part, Matthew made her now remember only this, simply because, from among normal people as she had been with Daniel, she was now an important person, especially when Matthew listened, bending to her. She didn't like this phoniness and decided to put an end to it. It hadn't come home to her yet that this feeling in Matthew's presence was generated by Matthew himself, who, warm and considerate, promised protection and understanding. Which is what she was looking for. __________________________________________________________

They met a few days later, in the winter-swept park that spread out before her street. It was Matthew, of course, who had got there first and was waiting. She recognized him before she could properly see him. It was so funny to be waited for by this tall young boy, in a waisted overcoat in the classical English style. I never saw you from the beginning, it was only after I looked all around the place that I spotted your eyes as if telling me teasingly 'I'm waiting to see when you finally notice me', and at once I revised my clothes and posture mentally, to make sure everything was all right.

Now she was sure from the first moment when she was in Matthew's full sight that everything was all right. He kissed her hand and she felt a bit embarrassed. A princess, of course, but she was embarrassed to be a princess on the street and dressed like a motorbiker. It would have taken a - 16 -

street with carriages and bowl hats to suit Matthew's style, not that street with buses, trucks and hurrying people.

"Forgive me if I imposed. On the phone you said you had just come back home, I didn't mean to inconvenience you."

She remembered he had once again apologized on the phone, half an hour before, and she smiled amused by this creature called Matthew.

"You didn't inconvenience me, I told you! Stop apologizing so much!" "I apologize so much because I don't want to upset anybody. I just thought maybe you were tired."

So she had to deny any inconvenience once again and she did so, telling herself that tired or not, she couldn't have refused him.

They started strolling along the deserted alleys, ignoring the biting February wind and the grey of the dead bushes and lawns. He asked her at one point:

"Did you see the film last night?"

She strained her memory. She remembered the feeling at the end of the film, that everything had been pretentious nonsense.

"Yes", she said. "And did you like it?" "Mmm... so so." "I liked it very much. It was the only film that I have liked in the past year or so." "Well, I don't know, I didn't think much of it. It seemed to me it made no sense. There was practically nothing happening, nothing but philosophic crap. As soon as I thought I had caught something, I told myself 'Aha, that must be the idea, that's where it's going'. And then I caught another point and I made new suppositions and I kept doing so up to the end of it, when I couldn't believe that was it.' "You see, Adriana, the film was actually an embroidery of motifs on the theme of loneliness. You've seen that the priest, the main character, was actually a solitary man, that's why he had become a missionary in that wild region; the young woman, the nympho, was also in fact lonely, as well as the

- 17 -

painter and her old man, the innkeeper, all of them were lonely people. Even the maniac governess suffered from loneliness. Then, every one of them finds inside themselves their way of coping with it, some drug, anything but to forget about their solitude. Burton finds this strange occupation. He's a priest and yet at the beginning of the film, you saw him?, he's holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand. And he's anything but religious. The nymphoman walks on glass splinters when he kicks her out and then dances with those natives. Her governess is a hardened puritan and a dictator. The painter wanders around the seas and the wide world with the old man, who makes and recites poems. The innkeeper is a widow and her servants, the latino guys, are nothing but palleatives, you understand? Everyone finds a way to hide away from loneliness. To fill it with something else. To find a distraction. All of them are lonely, are brought together by chance, but every one of them drifts further on their way. That is what the film means to say."

She was quiet for a moment. It was all too well said for her to know what to answer. But she still didn't like the film.

"Yes, but you see, I would have liked it better as a play or better still as a book, how should I put it... not that the film is supposed to be light, but it has to be more direct, more accessible. Don't think I'm a fan of action films or commercial films in general. But films should be simpler than theater, I'm not sure you understand what I mean..."

She was trying hard to find the right way to put it into words, but she couldn't and so Matthew might think she hadn't understood the film and that she liked Sylvester Stallone films. If he had fancied that one so much, and had grasped its meaning so well, he must be a very smart and deep guy, so she would have felt awkward to give such an impression of herself. It's true, she hadn't worked out alone some of the things Matthew had said interpreting the film, but that didn't mean...

The topic was slowly changed. He asked her several times if she wasn't cold, or if she wasn't tired. No, she wasn't cold and she wasn't tired. She didn't feel so fragile at all, as he treated her, on the contrary. They had stopped on the bridge over the lake and started talking about the Saturday night.

"You were wonderful on Saturday", he said. "You really impressed me, you were so warm and kind! Remember when you insisted that I should eat something, that was like, well, a sort of taking care of me, or when we all sang happy birthday to you, you called Ovidius next to you, and then me too, the third one who has celebrated birthday recently... That was very, very nice of you, I felt kind of taken

- 18 -

aback.."

He had probably felt like her half an hour before, when he had kissed her hand in the street.

"But - I know - I talk a lot, that's one of my faults. You, however, are very quiet."

Yes, she had also noticed that, that she was pretty quiet. But if he had been talking, she could but listen. True, she hadn't reacted to what he was saying. She kept quiet and listened, like a device set on taking everything in.

"Tell me something about yourself. On Saturday you talked to me as a friend." "Yeah, that made me wonder too and I felt a bit sorry about that later."

What was she saying? She didn't remember feeling sorry for a second. She tried to redress.

"I told myself you may be so gentle, but for sure that isn't all about you."

Everything she said sounded phony and it was phony. She'd never thought that and she wondered why, of the thousands of possible word combinations she had selected precisely that one. And talking like that she had come over again as the no-nonsense person. Like she wasn't to be fooled with appearances... Wherever did all this come from?

Matthew was puzzled at her words and said again that he wanted to hurt no one. He wasn't toying with the words any longer, and he was so earnest it was impossible to distrust him.

They went on walking. She remembered it had been his birthday too and didn't know how old he was. He was twenty-two and very warily she asked what he was studying. Warily, because she wasn't used to asking questions, but to letting things clarify themselves instead. He answered undisturbed and the same second her mind flew away. You, Daniel, remember your eleventh grade and your god-forsaken little town? She laughed inwardly.

Matthew offered her his arm saying:

"May I?", and after she had taken it, he added "You will have noticed that I have been discreet so

- 19 -

far." She agreed laughing and at the same time You were eating a muffin with one hand and with the other you grabbed my hand. You would have found it strange not to. We'd just met half an hour ago, but - so what?

Matthew was just telling her about some friends who had asked him to a party next Saturday and he was starting to formulate an invitation to her. He would be very glad if she could join him, it won't be anything big, but for sure it'll be nice. Then, as they had stopped to say goodbye, he said:

"Keep up the good work at school, though I can see you do that already. And think about me too, just a little, one second a day. Not more, because you've got a lot to read. Will you promise me that second?"

She did and she stayed with the same smile on her face all the way home. And going in, she was still smiling.

'Where are you from?' 'From Bucharest,' I said with some satisfaction. 'You?' 'Me? ...From Sighet.' 'Where?' 'Sighet'. 'Where's that?... Never mind.' I added, afraid of some painful explanation. Later I looked that place up. It was a little grey town on the edge of the map. 'And what grade are you?' I went on to show I'm friendly. You paused a little. 'Eleventh'. I laughed again. 'You need some time to think, eh? You're starting, or have finished the eleventh? 'Finished.' 'What a pity! We would have been the same year!' Actually I had no idea why I was asking those questions and trying so hard to make such silly small talk, somehow I could feel you were just giving fake answers, that you were not from Sighet and that you were not eleventh grade either, but this didn't halt me.

- 20 -

You didn't like questions... You didn't like being interrogated and especially on such conventional points, like your age, what you do, or what your parents do. Anyway, when I asked you what your parents did - o yes, I made that mistake too! - you answered in the same fashion:

'My mother's a textile worker, my father's a foreman.'

That sounded so much like in the communist propaganda about the working class that I burst out laughing and then I checked myself, for fear you might have been serious and I might be offending you with my laughter. I felt terribly thrown off balance. It was only a year later that I was 'entitled' to know what your parents did, when you told me without me asking you, of course, because I never asked you any questions again. The thing about the little town and the eleventh grade was sooner cleared up, when you asked my phone number that night. It was my turn then to have a little room for teasing you.

'Why should I give you my number?, I'm in Bucharest, you in Sighet.. What's the point? 'Come on, maybe I come to visit you...' 'Sure, a six-hour stay in the main railway station changing trains...' 'And what if I'm not really from Sighet?' 'Mmm, so you're a fake, aren't you?' 'Yeah, I'm not from Sighet. I'm from Bucharest too.'

I felt I had regained a little bit of face. But when you showed me your undergraduate student ID, I got totally confused. I saw your name next to a strange picture - a Daniel wearing glasses and looking a good few years older than the guy standing in front of me. It felt like when you've been long suspecting something though never really considered it, and all of a sudden that thing is thrust upon you. That's why my first reaction was stupid:

'You wear glasses?' Youd finished the third year of the Technical School and were 23 years old. I'd never, with my sixteen years, met anyone in that age category.

And the 'moment of truth' made a great difference. Till then I hadn't bothered about those details like age, home town etc, but now that I knew them, I couldn't ignore them any further. So you weren't a boy my age, typically taking it easy in the school years, but an adult guy, in the fourth year of study and all of a sudden I felt not small, but worried. What I hadn't so far experienced, I was

- 21 -

getting now full in my face: the awareness of what I was saying and doing. I couldn't say I was less happy from that moment, one kind of spell was replaced for another.

The change was on both sides. You lost your teenage air too and showed more confidence. Of course, you didn't mean and didn't do anything to intimidate me, but I was intimidated nevertheless. __________________________________________________________

On the way there he told her about the hosts, and pretty soon she found herself seated next to Matthew, in a room that was made up of a few unfamiliar and a bit awkward faces, cigarette smoke and music. She then watched herself and Matthew and laughed inwardly thinking that they were sitting each on a chair, next to each other, as in school.

Matthew brought her all kinds of snacks on a plate. He had crammed there everything he could so she could have plenty of choice. He would have brought her anything in that room, anything that would have pleased her and that would have brought back from her depths the enthusiasm he had seen at her birthday party. But she was quiet and seemed to be thinking about something.

'A penny for your thought', he said smiling and his warm smile made her feel a bit uneasy. What could she actually answer? What was she thinking about? Nothing, of course, she was just looking around, getting used to the place, to the atmosphere, to the faces. But it doesn't sound credible when you say you are thinking about nothing! She wished she could find something to make things sound more natural. She was searching for an answer, but she could find nothing, she didn't know what she was thinking about and what she should answer Matthew. And he was the one who talked again, putting an end to the moment. She was startled: just like in a contest the thinking time was over and she had lost the chance of making him understand.

'You know', Matthew said, 'it's always good not to keep your thoughts only for yourself. If you can, you should tell others too. Not anyone, of course, but if you have a friend by your side, tell them what's on your mind. And I'm your friend, aren't I?'

She smiled slightly saddened. Why did he believe she wouldn't tell him what she was thinking about, or that she was hiding from him? The situation was a bit funny as there was nothing on her mind, yet she could see herself in his eyes as both melancholy and mysterious, almost stubborn in her - 22 -

mystery. But this funny thing wasn't amusing her, rather made her uneasy, so she tried to find a way of clarifying things and, instead of finding it, the whole matter was making her truly melancholy and concerned. It was as if the more Matthew saw her lost in thoughts, the deeper she really sank.

'Anyone has their ups and downs in life. I've had mine too, but you see, you must find a way of letting it out so you can overcome them. Or you must force yourself not to think about it anymore and forget. Sure, not to wipe everything off with a sponge, because it's nonsense to believe you can do it and even more of a nonsense to delude yourself you've succeeded. But you must forget in the sense that you have to become immune in time. And you will see you have gained something, either experience or something else after each trial.'

He had stopped talking and seemed to be waiting for her to answer. But she was trying hard to find what to say. She herself could see that she was supposed to say something and she wondered what. What can you say in response to such general statements, especially when they do not concern you? As if you should respond to a theorem. And even if she did find something to say, it would be phony, because by answering she would confirm that that was what was on her mind. She could have answered Matthew with some cliches, like yes, he was right, but in reality it's hard until you become immune. Or that it doesn't always help to talk to a friend. Or that there are moments after which you can't be the same as before. It's just that Matthew, talking generalities, had actually meant her, while she, answering , would have said those things as simple logical objections to a given general statement. Why should he be deluded that they were talking about the same thing?

In the meantime, though, something had sneaked into her mind, without growing into a definite thought. With his gentle voice he had unawares aroused in her the feeling that she had long been waiting for that gentleness. And apart from this, there was a shadow in his eyes and in his voice that was unexpectedly saddening her and that she was only noticing now.

'Everyone has their ghosts' he said and she thought of the Daniel she had left home, 'but you've got to have the courage to live without them'.

Even in perfect health, if someone tends to us as if we were ailing, we will end up feeling like that. And if someone gives up their seat on the bus to us, sitting down we will feel tired. She couldn't help feeling thankful to Matthew for the tenderness that she felt she had long missed and she was as if she had been running towards him as towards the only free seat on a crowded bus. Sitting down she

- 23 -

really felt tired, so tired!... So that tears started trickling down her cheeks and, if asked, she couldn't have said what kind of tears they were: long withheld tension, tiredness, or thankfulness. Through the tears she could see the earnest look in his eyes set on her, his hand stroking her cheek and her hair; then the collar of his white shirt and she could smell his eau de cologne impregnated in his dark red sweater. Chris Norman was just singing about his midnight lady and Matthew grabbed the opportunity to change the subject and the mood. Outside everything was quiet and the moon seemed to be freezing the snow under their feet even crispier. When they stopped walking the crunching sound stopped too. 'I've made a mistake', he whispered. 'I should have abducted you and taken you to my place. Now it's too late.' She almost cried 'Why is it too late?' 'I've got a flat empty like a hangar... I'd have you seated on the armchair and play music. Maybe another time. I wish so much I could put my head on your lap... I need so much warmth!' She stroked his long bony cheek and noticed that her palm matched his cheek (just like his shoulder her head, in fact...). She wished she could hold his head to her breast, forgetting that until just now it was him that had promised protection and now the roles had been reversed. Matthew kissed her. Then he said, 'I'll go now', and that sadness in his voice came over plaintively again. She went into her house giddy after the words said that night and Matthew's wailing voice. Stop chuckling there! I know, you were different... Things were straight but now that I think of it, maybe just as complicated. The first time when I said no you said you'd try again, but never force me. And I said no every single time. Why? Well, at first out of fear, then for god knows what circumstantial reason. Remember when we talked about it and you asked me why I wouldn't make love with you. I tried to explain then how afraid I was that you could hurt me and that my life would become impossible if I got too close to you. 'OK,' you said, 'but don't you realize the whole situation would change?' 'Maybe, but you wouldn't.'

- 24 -

You gazed at me. 'And you'd rather make boys cry for you, wouldn't you.' 'Have you cried for me, Daniel?' I laughed. 'Well, not really, but something like that.' Suddenly I was overcome with the thought you might be serious. 'Let me know when you're serious.' 'I'm very serious.' I was quiet for a moment, then I smiled: 'That's OK, Daniel, you're one of those who always get over things.' 'You think so? My mum says the same. But you're both wrong.' I tried, you know, to think my refusal over but I never got very far, because at one point I couldn't go further so I turned round and came back. I was sure that you'd try again and again, I'd refuse again and again and one day it would become critical and we'd both understand it makes no sense to keep swinging like that any further. I didn't want us to get there. Then I thought maybe one day I would 'surrender' to you. And then I felt a yet bigger fear and tried to run away from you to make this impossible to happen. There was the next question too, is it really unconceivable that I should be yours (I couldn't even in my mind call it 'make love' or 'have sex' or anything like that)? But this question inevitably got a brutal No for an answer. The little that I could analyse about it made me think I would feel guilty, suspecting that everyone knew it. I had a paralysing fear of what I, or the others, would have thought of myself. In my world sex was for grown-ups and with sixteen I still felt like a kid. My life was school and the weekly outings downtown for a pizza or ice-cream with my best friend, books, daydreaming of scripts where I was the heroine and other silly or just simple things like that. Boys meant smiles, words, kisses. Taking the leap to the grown-up world was not only huge to me at that time, but also had some sort of moral meaning; it was something I 'wasn't supposed to do as a good girl' and going against that meant doing the wrong thing.

- 25 -

Then, I was simply afraid of the consequences for our relationship. I knew your easy-going style and your lifestyle was pretty different from mine, so I couldn't picture your attachment to me in the same way as mine to you. You were a sort of well-off kid, with multiple possibilities of forgetting what I probably wouldn't have forgotten for a long time. That is what I was thinking at that time. Today I only still agree with one thing. I didn't need physical love by all means, so there was no point doing it. When you make up your mind to it, you've got to want it and feel you're ready for it, then nothing else matters. I obviously wasn't ready. __________________________________________________________

They talked on the phone every day, but not for long. Matthew didn't have a telephone in his flat, he'd just moved in, so he called her from a public phone on the street or in the underground. Besides, they were still just strangers who wanted to get to know each other, they didn't have yet the means to sustain a few moments on the telephone without saying a word, on the sole support of a past and of a present that were both shared and private. Their conversation relied only on the concrete facts they had to tell each other, which were pretty soon through: he would ask her how she was, she would answer 'fine', he would insist 'what were you doing?', she would answer, then Matthew would tell her where he was, on his way home or in front of the block of flats, he would also tell her he missed her, she would reply 'so do I' (which sounded to her much too unnatural, as it had been prompted by his statement and not a statement in its own right). She told him this too one day and he wondered,

'Why does it sound to you artificial?' and, under the pressure of what his exclamation implied, that is, that maybe it sounded artificial to her because she didn't actually mean it when she said it, she kept quiet, confused, uneasy, too embarrassed by his suspicion to be able to explain herself.

Very often the telephones didn't work right and she could only hear him faintly, which added to the strain of understanding his funny, kiddish way of pronouncing the words. The difficulty to understand him made her tense, talk very little, and that got him to insist with questions about anything new she had to tell him, sometimes even with a vague complaint that she wouldn't find anything to tell him, and then she started searching feverishly for something to say, some story to tell, no matter if impersonal or private, but in vain. That is why such conversations usually left her with a rather bitter taste, like any failed attempt, and with the anticipation of the weekend, when

- 26 -

they would meet face to face. They would look forward to these weekend dates, hoping that face to face they might be more natural and closer to each other than on the phone.

They would always go to his place. The way there had seemed to her long and complicated, but she remembered that his block of flats was on the edge of that part of the town. From his living-room window you could see no other window, only very far in the distance another district in a totally different part of the town, but between here and that place there was the field, bare, idle, like a huge plateau spreading out from under Matthew's door. When she was there for the first time, she had looked at the field and Matthew had exclaimed with excitement,

'I love it here! We're in the last block of flats, on the last floor, in the last flat! It's going to be so beautiful here in spring, when these bushes are going to be green!' He had then shown her the flat, which indeed looked like a hangar, large and empty, as his parents hadn't moved in yet. Matthew explained that the building had just been finished and had no heating yet, so he was living there alone, alone in the last block of flats, on the last floor and in the last apartment. It was only the living room that was more or less furnished, or so at least she remembered, his study room had an armchair, the desk, a miniature TV set, the magnetic tape recorder and some ashtrays. In his bedroom there was just a bed and then large cardboard boxes, brushes, newspapers, cloths littering the whole apartment. She had left her overcoat on a chair and on stepping forward she had heard her footsteps on the bare floor.

He kept asking her if she was cold, adding that he'd got used to it, and his questions prevented her from being cold, even though the cold early March air was rolling in from every corner. She'd smile and answer she was fine and keep on quiet, cringing to herself with the cold and the silence of that place. To fill this silence of the place and maybe hers too, Matthew had played music.

Someone had started then to talk about the flags of impossible pasts, which were now lying in chains and in rags; about derelict sidings where poppies entwined and where cattle trucks were waiting for the next time; someone had asked then do you remember me and the voice had sounded highpitched and lost; then She had appeared on the threshold, with the ghost of a smile haunting her face like a cheap hotel sign and someone had stepped forward boldly and said I was just a kid then, now I'm only a man, and then someone else asked whispering why Jesus was crucified, someone should tell him straight and open if it was for himself or for another or if he'd watched too much TV, and then went on to ask what have we done, should we shout, should we scream, what happened to

- 27 -

the postwar dream? What have we done, what have you done to our world? And then another voice remembered when he was young and shining like the sun and now his eyes are like black holes in the sky, shine on crazy diamond! He was caught between the bullets of the childhood and of the stars, like a target, like a stranger, like a legend, shine on, crazy diamond, delirious, ghost-seeker, prisoner, shine on! Then she could hear the faint voice of someone behind a wall, wailing again and again hey you out there, feeling cold, feeling lonelier and older all the time, but screaming on hey you don't give up without a fight! and he wailed won't you help me carry my weight? But the wall was thick and cold and the guy behind it despaired hey you don't tell me there's no hope, together we stand, divided we fall!

Then there was an ocean of sounds and nobody was saying anything, the sounds were just flowing amid asteroids gone mad with the secret of the void, amid giants that could barely carry their desertedness. And in this flow, the sounds picked up the song of each sphere, songs of loneliness, for though the endless space is full of shapes of all kinds, numberless and infinitely replicated, between them there flow rivers of loneliness. Now and then they will collide, they feel for an instant, on their one-way journey, each other's taste, crust and only little of their kern, then they drift further apart, never to find each other again in this vast ocean of bodies and this infinite of probabilities.

And in an empty flat on the edge of the field she was receiving these codes coming from nowhere, that is, from every atom surrounding her that was casting helplessly, desperately its message to the universe, as in an empty bottle in the sea.

She suddenly heard Matthew's repeated questions.

'What are you thinking about, Adriana, please tell me, what are you thinking about?'

She gazed at him slightly intrigued by the new and unexpected feeling that Matthew and his begging eyes were far far away, right on the other bank of a river of solitude, she even seemed to hear her own and his tunes, their encoded messages melting into that sad song, and could see herself and Matthew as two worlds in the ocean of solitary worlds.

She stared at him without giving an answer while the music flowed on, and what could she possibly answer, for she herself couldn't understand what was going on and she wished too she could tear

- 28 -

herself away and from his arms point to him 'look Matthew, that creature has terrified me', but the music dripped on, endless, keeping her locked within its sounds.

She suddenly realised she could hear Matthew, hear his words and see his eyes, closer and closer, although she could still discern the music in the background. She could see then that Matthew seemed to be like her, captive, she could hear him saying sad things and she wondered what they had to do with the two of them, what underlying connection there was between those things and Matthew, she then saw him trying hard to smile and pursing his lips in resignation and then she wished her own smile could be full and true, only to make him smile truly too. Usually they would change the subject then to a factual one that was easier to deal with, he would then look almost cheerful, like a kid that is trying to come to terms with what he has if he can't have more, which was making her ache, she wished again she could work wonders and he would watch her amazed as she was turning that box into a wardrobe and that newspaper into a carpet, and those cardboard boxes into a warm stove, and the cloths into curtains, filling his life in a second with one wave of the hand and one word. O god, she would say to herself, what was she supposed to do and say for this Matthew? What was the word and how was she supposed to wave her hand?

He walked through the flat singing a familiar kids' song, she couldn't remember what exactly it was, but she could hear his voice echoed by the walls of the flat and the words, improvised by Matthew, for all the gaiety of his joke, made her still sadder: 'nobody cares about me, nobody cares about me, nobody cares about me...', Matthew would sing again and again. Then he came to her with a piece of cake and told her 'here, if you won't have it I'll sing again nobody cares about me' and then she would have the cake, even if she didn't like it, only to stop him from singing again.

She would come to herself only back home, sometimes a few days later and it was only then that she would have been able to say something to him. Not being with him, she would try to write. She would do her best to peer into herself and articulate something, but the result sounded phony, beside the true meaning that she failed to capture. She had once said, quoting her favourite writer, that writing helped her think. Everything would settle down more meaningful on the paper, everything became clearer and could be explained better. It was just that now the doors wouldn't open and she would go on peeping through the keyhole in an attempt to see something. The pen would put to paper only stereotypes that had no connection with the truth within her. She would end up talking about herself in useless generalities that failed to bring her closer to Matthew nor to her own unknowns. She would think hard about how different Daniel had been from Matthew, but

- 29 -

then what was the big deal about this difference? The question would gush out from between her unconvincing and too elaborate lines.

Our ego made us both pretty suspicious. It seemed to me time and time again that you would have me see that you were better by all means - or that I was not as good as you. You treated me very often like a child and when I did say something childish you looked at me in some kind of reproach, as if I'd embarrassed you in public. I realized that I sounded immature, that you were comparing me often to my disadvantage. That's why I'd get still angrier when we had a fight, mostly angry with myself for letting all that happen. Once you tried to explain to me why sometimes you were so hard to be with.

'Every day when I get to work I feel like flipping the papers from everyone's desks and making all sorts of crazy things. Then little by little I get into the routine, the continual hassle bugs me and I get home grumpy and tired.' I was listening almost piously for that human side of you, with your intimate reflexes and patterns, with your ebbs and flows. 'And all of this doesn't sound like much. If in a few years' time someone asks me if they should do evening studies I'll tell them yes, go ahead, because these things are easily forgotten. I'll tell them yes, it's hard, but it's not impossible and you do make some money by working at the same time. But right now it's a bit tough and whoever I'd tell this they wouldn't understand. Because no matter how much someone knows about you and no matter how good their intentions are, they can only understand you up to, say, forty percent.' 'OK, Daniel,' I said, ' that forty-percent-understandable I do understand, you're tired and busy and grumpy. But you settle things with everyone the same, no matter who they are!' 'That's right. Isn't it normal to keep things straight?' What could I reply?! Everything was logical and correct, but I was proud of a few illogical and incorrect things I had done for you. I believed that when you care about someone you take account of more than just being straight. She stopped reminiscing. Why was she indulging herself in these memories? Why would she still want to cry on Matthew's shoulder over how much Daniel had hurt her? Why, since the problem

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now seemed to be not Daniel's ruthlessness, but what she could possibly build between herself and Matthew? And in fact everything between her and Daniel had after all only little been about hostilities and fights, but on the contrary, an unhoped-for harmony of temperaments. Why was she now faking even the past, which means after all the highest certainty and clarity possible? She tried hard to recall precisely one of those moments of harmony with Daniel, so she could retrieve that past, but there came no story, only a warm feeling. She saw herself waiting for him in a bus station on a dark late-autumn night when he was coming out from his school, and then he'd show up with his cap on and his familiar bouncing gait. Or his penetrating look at her smiling, even if from behind his glasses, or his seducing kisses and his firm touch. They would eat a takeaway pizza on a bench in a park and then kiss and kiss and... soon it was time to go, when can they meet again. Once he had kissed her hand and put it to his cheek with simple tenderness. She suddenly remembered the lonely and disconsolate Matthew, the Matthew whose life was a long row of days and nights. The Matthew that would force himself to smile and whose forced smile made her terribly sad. This Matthew had told her while holding her in his arms that he had once believed in a true love, but not now. She then started to cry and he kept asking her why are you crying Adriana, and she found in astonishment and despair that she had nothing to answer. Apparently there was no reason for her to cry, it was him that might have shed a tear on his graves, but she had cringed at the realization that she couldn't fill his life, couldn't work any wonders for him simply because he didn't believe in wonders any longer and most of all didn't believe in her. It was anyway sad to hear of someone who was living his life so dryly, every such piece of news would insinuate doubts about her own dreams, but it was all the more disheartening to know that person was the one who claimed to be by your side. She could only articulate, 'It's all so sad', but that was too little. Too little to answer his questions and too little of what she was actually thinking. Unsuspectedly there was another reason for her crying. Matthew had seen in her the robust, nononsense person and this was making her want to show him that she had her own inner life, her own need for support. This phony princess she was, was annoying her. She wanted to be a woman. 'Will you be mine, Adriana?' you asked. 'So you get bored of me?', I teased you. - 31 -

You laughed, as if you'd expected it. 'That is all up to you'. 'And what should I do so you don't get bored of me?' 'This'. And you kissed me. Lovely answer. Not so satisfying though. Remember when you told me very earnestly that I was supposed to trust you because you had given me all your trust and it was my turn too, otherwise we couldn't go further? I smiled to myself then. You were amazing, claiming my trust so directly and categorically as if trust was a matter of decision. Of course I trusted you and loved you that second for your straight transactional style. She had tried being with Matthew what she had been with Daniel. The malleable person, ready to compromise and let go, but it was nonsense, since Matthew wasn't trying to shape her according to his will. On the contrary, he kept asking her what she wanted to do, if this or that was possible or if she allowed him this or that. She had no will to bend to. What she found as an alternative was to be the lovely fragile creature, the playful girl indulging herself and claiming indulgence, but one day he said 'O no, it's me I want to be the kid!' So she had nothing else at hand. Matthew had settled her in the only role she could play - the warm understanding motherly creature, but she found that to be an unimaginative role, which allowed her no side developments, no sparks. However, she would have taken that role too if only she had been aware of it. If in the first days Matthew had found sadness in her eyes when there was none, had dug out her sensitivity when she had thought it in perfect health, now instead her sensitivity was running amok but he was expecting her to master the whole ship and had subtly changed his own role. They had started their story as knight and princess, and now he wanted to rewrite it claiming her ailing heart and handing over his helmet instead.

__________________________________________________________ - 32 -

So it wasn't long before she woke up one morning with the belief that she and Matthew should say goodbye. She could see no other way. They seemed to be locked in a tight and empty box and apparently there was no way to communicate to the outside world, to that ordinary reality that was so revigorating precisely by its ordinariness. She had been running along the walls of the box, like a captive animal, failing to find a way out and what she could only do now was tear down the wall and break free she was craving for air.

For all the trifling fights we had every time we met, we were and stayed together. At the end, when we said goodbye in a bus stop, we were best friends and lovers again. One day, sick of our continual bickering I got so angry that I decided to put an end to our friendship. I couldn't see any reason why I should go on being offended, because you have to admit that from our fights it was me that always came out ruffled.

When we met again the next day, you were quite different. Tender, lively, gentle. We went for a swim on that September day and there was nobody else around. You laughed, played with me, stroked me, hugged me. And I loved it. It was your crazy and at once gentle playfulness that I enjoyed most. So of course I couldn't resist you. I responded the same way, while wondering what kind of coincidence it was that you should be so sweet precisely when I had made up my mind to split up with you. I quickly decided to put it off for next time and funnily enjoyed everything without further thoughts about it.

Two days later we were walking on one of the most beautiful streets in Bucharest. You were again warm, relaxed. I was waiting for the right moment to bring it all up. The problem had been to find a new reason to break up. My anger with you was gone, but I had procured another reason: I couldn't become your lover.

I started in a very wide circle, but pretty soon I decided to cut it short. Your arm on my shoulders and your head bending to mine were giving me courage.

'Look, Daniel, now you're taking me to the bus station and then we both go about our own business.' 'What do you mean?' 'I mean we should put an end here.' 'To what?' 'To our relationship.'

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You stopped, we'd got to the bus station and you were looking at me worried. 'Why?' 'Because I can't give you what you want.'

I was avoiding your eyes, but when I finally looked up to you, you were stupefied and almost scared. 'Do you realize what nonsense you're saying? You'd rather do one stupid thing instead of another?'

You were almost angry now, or at least very uneasy, in a way I'd never seen you before.

'And why can't you give me what I want, as you say?' 'Well... it would be too much.' 'Too much for what?'

It was all too quick and I hadn't expected to be questioned. My own reasoning didn't go very far in that direction.

'I can't do such a thing!' 'You can't do SUCH A THING??? What is it, is it killing someone?' 'Oh stop this, it would all change, first of all with me and I don't want that.'

'What would change?'

I breathed in and sighed with a sort of resentment at all those questions.

'Well, for one thing I'd get too attached to you. And I don't know, I just say, it's going to change everything and I'm scared of that.'

The bus had come and we both got on. You whispered through the teeth once again 'you're talking nonsense there', then gradually you came back to yourself. But you were holding my arm in a firm grip for all that. After a few minutes, you talked again, smiling and self-control back:

'Have you been thinking a lot about it?' 'Yes, a lot.'

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'It's bad to be thinking so much - and on your own. Next time maybe we can think about it together.'

When you got off you said quickly 'Bye, talk to you tomorrow, OK?'

I looked at you surprised but you seemed to say 'forget the nonsense!' I told myself o no, I hope he's not going to stop me from doing nonsense! And the next second I thought it was better like that, as I couldn't stand final goodbyes and that way we'd said goodbye as if we'd meet again. I decided I'd stay away from the phone because if I did answer it I knew I couldn't resist you.

The next day I tried not to be home for the whole day, so I couldn't hear and answer the phone, but I was worrying about what I was going to do the following days. I couldn't go on like that. And of course the next day I couldn't stay away. You got me on the phone. When I heard your voice, I knew it wasn't going to end well. With the regular gaiety you told me

'I called you yesterday, but you weren't home.' 'Yes,' I said in a white voice, 'because I've decided something, remember?' 'So you stick with it?' 'Yes.' 'Well done, now you've managed to ruin my day.'

I was silent, as if standing reproved, almost apologizing. You were incredible with your reproaches for me ruining your day with such stuff. We set a date for the next day and I decided I'd let things go their own course.

When we met, you did everything to annoy or just tease me. You made exactly the kind of jokes you knew got on my nerves, kept interrupting me with silly questions, made ironical remarks about me or the people on the street, until I burst out exasperated:

'What's the matter with you for god's sake?'

You stopped and grabbed my hand in the air and told me with satisfaction:

'I want to get on your nerves, you hear me, I want to get on your nerves!'

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You clutched my hand so hard that I almost cried. You hushed me ironically.

'What's the matter, here in public, mmmmm, shame on you!'

I was fascinated that moment and for one second I felt I wanted to go the whole way with you.

Towards the end, as we were heading for the bus stop, you got back to that warm and affectionate Daniel. We were standing face to face and I had to make up my mind if we were supposed to go on together or not and I simply couldn't find the strength to. You kept gazing at me waiting and then you took my head in your hands and told me smiling:

'You think I want you to be mine and then give you up? I don't do it now, when you refuse me, and I'll do it afterwards?'

Then the bus came, I got on hearing you say 'I'll call you tomorrow, OK?'

Six months later I tried again. Nothing had changed as to our physical relationship: we were still very much attracted to each other, and as soon as we touched each other we both felt we were going wild, but 'it' hadn't happened. I delighted in your kisses and in your firm hugs or your warm but determined strokes, but as soon as I felt your body getting tense I'd switch off and things were irrepairably shortcircuited.

And of course our regular fights kept coming up as usual. You forgot about my birthday, and when I did invite you to my excuse for a party, you sat sullen reading magazines, waiting otherwise patiently for the 'event' to be concluded. It was your way of saying you were getting bored and had nothing in common with my childhood friends, who were chattering merrily about school, parents, neighbours... I winced at your coldness and felt once again that I wasn't as important to you as you were to me. Was I wrong, I wonder?...

When we met the next time, I told you I wanted to split up with you. You answered jokingly.

'I can't let you do this, Adriana!' 'Why?' I asked startled.

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'I just can't. I can't let you do this because of a stupid thing I did, forgetting about your birthday.'

I sighed in relief. You thought that was the only reason. How could you think that?

'But it's not just that, Daniel!' 'What else is it then?'

I told you we were too different.

'Good', you said smiling. 'You've got a reason, but I don't. You have to give me one too!'

I was in danger again. I searched desperately for a reason and as soon as I found one, I chucked it out.

'I don't want to be yours.' 'So what?' 'I won't see you again!' 'Big deal!' 'But we won't see each other again and won't talk even on the phone!' 'Are you going to have your mum say you're not home?' 'Yes!' I lied, because I knew I couldn't do that.

When you finally realized I was very serious, you got angry. You made me reproaches and I didn't let you finish. I hugged you and asked you to be quiet. You stopped and after a while you spoke again, in a sad voice. You switched that night many times from joke to gentle irony and on to anger, then back to sadness. That was how you won me again, with those human, genuine bounces in your spirits.

After that incident, I was determined to take you as you were and love your good side as well as your tough side. Maybe it was only then that I started to really love you.

God, I'm so happy you didn't let me break up with you all those times I tried to! We couldn't otherwise have lived those great moments which followed the crisis. My memory of our love at its best is precisely one of such great moments. I'd leave home - incredibly for a kid like me, barely seventeen - in full darkness, at eight pm, took bus after bus to get to your school, where I'd wait for

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you to come out from classes. Then I'd see you showing up on the dark street, we'd sit on a bench in the central gardens and have the last pizza that we could buy in a takeaway shop. You asked me one of those days:

'Are you happy?'

I answered honestly.

'I don't know what happiness looks like, so I can tell if this is happiness.' 'When do you want us to see it together?' 'Anytime.'

You gave me the certainty I had someone to count on next to me, someone who was real and complete. Maybe it was part of your confidence that I was contaminated with, and some sort of rejoicing at the awareness that 'my Daniel' doesn't complicate things pointlessly, doesn't bother about stupid problems, doesn't twist things and, overall, knows what he's doing.

We were so crazy running along the boulevard, and you were so careful protecting me from cars, bikes or just passersby unexpectedly popping up from round the corner, that I had no time to think about how much I was changing. It was only sometimes that I was looking back with irony.

'My goodness, that day at the seaside!' 'Yeah, you were so ironical, like some Hollywood star!' 'Yeah, poor me, and look how I ended up!' 'You ended up??' 'Only the first episode.' 'Good point!'

Everything was tighter, closer, more exclusively ours, so that the feeling grew in me that we'd last. It wasn't just plans and dreams for the sake of plans and dreams, but the sort of certainty that we would stay together for a long time. And one more thing. I felt that all words are useless, that nothing is real except for you and me.

Then came the blow. My father died and the only one that made me realize it was you. For two days I

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was petrified and couldn't take in what had happened. But even then, whenever I talked to you on the phone I started crying. Maybe because you always made me feel I had you if I needed to lean on someone, so now that you offered me your support and I took it as usual, I'd crumble to the bottom of my heart. My relationship with my father hadn't been rosy in the last years, but now that he was gone I kind of felt me and my mum were left in the cold winter on our own, so you were the next supporting platform I could run to.

And at the same time the terrible trial had fused the strings between us, I felt, because you'd been too far involved in my life for anyone or anything else to be able to separate us.

It suddenly came home to her that she was about to make the same mistake with Matthew. If she'd split up with Daniel when she thought there was no way they could go ahead, they couldn't have experienced what now was to her unforgettable. This breakup now would probably deprive her of who knows what joy.

The feeling of liberation was so powerful, that she got dizzy. She had again the courage to look into the future of this new love and told herself all they needed was patience with each other. To her it was more important to know Matthew existed for her, and not so much his words or what the two of them could talk about.

She was again at a loss for words. But this time what she felt was so clear. It was as if her whole mind had been enlightened, for she knew very well what she was to do and to say to Matthew; she now knew the hand movement and the word that would work wonders. She simply had to be patient with him as when you help a toddler walk and suddenly nothing about him seemed curious any longer. All of a sudden she felt no stranger any longer to the empty and cold flat, the grey field in front of the windows, the voices in Matthew's music, his sad smile and his lips pursing in helplessness and resignation. Yes, nothing paralysed her now because she had stopped dealing with them from outside the wall. Now she was inside.

It was ages till next Saturday, when she was to see Matthew again and open this new chapter! __________________________________________________________ On Saturday they went for another walk in the winter-deserted park, as on their first date. She little suspected what he was going to tell her when he spoke:

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'Adriana, I think it would be better for each of us to go their own way.'

They were sitting on two benches placed face to face. The grey naked bushes were filling the background with still more emptiness. She gaped for a second, her eyes wide in astonishment. Her blood had been running excited through her veins anticipating the great news that she had for him and at once it was halted and froze.

'I beg your pardon?' she could only mumble.

He sighed a bit condescendent and resumed, faintly smiling like a self-controlled bigger brother.

'Adriana, we are not what we need for each other. It's obvious we were wrong when we assumed so.'

She almost shook her head to dismiss the insane message that seemed to be conveyed to her. What, he also knew what she was like? They'd just spent perhaps 10 hours together. Four weekend dates.

'Hold on... what do you mean we're not what we need? what do you need, for example?'

'Well, when we met you were so warm and seemed so strong.. I'm not strong either, I've got my own faults, I'm not claiming to be perfect, you see. That's why I'm saying neither of us is what the other needs.'

She blinked straining her eyes. The bush behind had so many frozen buds and the gloomy clouds could be discerned through the web of branches. What did that mean, he thought she was warm and strong?!... Did he mean she actually wasn't?

Bullshit, she wanted to burst out laughing, but his confident smile and chattering somehow brought a chill along her spine making it plain that he was serious and at once detached. Already gone. He was just giving explanations now for a decision he'd already made.

Hey that's not right, smiling and comforting were supposed to be her duty, and now look, he was paternal and in control, as if their roles had reversed. And it's not fair either, how the hell can he be

- 40 -

so sure who she was and presume to be telling her that too! And especially now that she'd found the key which she was supposed to play to, she simply had to be allowed at least a few words in the new role, but the role was lying idle like an abandoned puppet, strings lying lifeless, and she, shoulders bare, could utter no words from the script. He must trust her that she could handle it, and he must just grant her a short while to come back to herself so she can perform a little.

What he gave her instead was that definite manner of uttering the words, no more toying with them, no kiddish intonation, no uncertainty in his voice, no questions but only answers. When he did give her room to speak it was just room to utter something, as the finality of his decision was shutting out any stage where she could have possibly acted out her role.

The only cues left to her would have been to argue that she was as he had thought her to be at the beginning, and even more; that he was wrong after too short a time spent together; that she had so much to give and was so willing to give it. Nonsense. That wasn't a maths problem where things needed to be proved, but demonstrated, and demonstrations took time and, more importantly, participation of everyone concerned.

So she was left - again - speechless. Words sounded not like pennies for her thoughts, but like coins dropped on bare concrete. Her mind was blank and the muscles of her face paralysed. It took a few days to put it into mental words. The astonishment was turning into mixed frustration, anger, dejection and all the dregs associated with being left hanging. She couldn't even call it a failure, for failures involve battles fought and lost. But she had had no time to act in any way, let alone call it 'fight', no time to be herself. The repressed swing she had been ready to take, in full excitement at discovering how the strings worked, had left a choking sense of absurd behind. And then there was Matthew himself, who had first awakened in her the need for romance, by giving - or seeming he was willing to give - what Daniel hadn't given, then had summoned her to become motherly and now eventually had turned into a cool, knowing stranger. Beyond all the replays of the whole film, there was a bothering thought that kept popping up. Had it really been all in vain?, that is, had it all happened without any purpose, any finality, any good? She had believed, with the little life experience that she could boast, that everything made sense, no matter how painful it might be when experienced. From the fights with Daniel there had come out strong solidarity and attachment. From her dilemmas as to her choice of career, including the dilemmas as to her own abilities, there had come out fresh and well-thought-through certainty. The - 41 -

apparent failures had always taken her somewhere. Apart from that, all the hard experiences she had been through looked in retrospect beautiful. There was beauty in tears shed for John Lennon's death, for her wish that she had been a teenager in the sixties, or for her helplessness in turning back time. Feeling hurt at the end of a love did but reinforce the beauty of the story up till then. What sense did all this make now? She had learned something?...That things can be senseless? That it's not just in nightmares that you can run without advancing an inch? This story had just stirred in her longings that it then denied her, and on top of that it had taken away her peace with herself and with Daniel. His ghost had been a positive presence before, and it was just Matthew, being so wildly different from Daniel, that had cast a cloud on her memories, inducing the feeling she had long been unhappy. The whole affair, with both its struggle and romance, was taking her nowhere. They had been so close in those few hours spent together, in which sad memories and feelings were confessed while the Vangelis or Pink Floyd waves of music were flowing on and on around the empty flat, that now the burnt bridges were leaving her dumbfounded. She would go about her routine as if frozen, unable to take it in that there was no way to Matthew. Little by little she got moments when she realized there was nothing else to do and then she would be overcome with frustration at her helplessness and wished she could do wonders. She was aware too that one wonder wouldn't do just to get back to him - but a second wonder was what it took to keep them together on the longer term. She would see herself next to him in her mind's eyes and realized, against her will, that the two of them were at odds, that he had expected from her different things from what she had been prepared to give and the other way round. She was somehow aware that they had lacked that accord in the small things that made up the big things. But everything was still too present and confusing to be sifted through and grasped. Finding no solution, be it imaginary, she would head for the future. The future brings unexpected turns of events, so she put her hopes in it. She would top the list of admitted freshers at university, to prove him she knew what she wanted and was ready and able to fight for it. And later, after the exams, she would give a party and invite him too, to wave this image of her before his eyes. To say to him through her presence, 'That's what I am'. Even if she and Matthew would never be together, she still needed him to know who she was. She had to find a direction and forge somehow a meaningful ending to their story. As it was, it was a chunk, in want of an epilog that might pull all the strings together harmoniously leading to a conclusion.

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