The City of White Skins
Doina Ruști
His death hit me hard, and I was never able to let him go. Even though I’d seen him dead, then buried right before my eyes, the truth was, he’d never really left me. I grew up measuring myself against him, counting the years, thinking, One day, I'll be as old as Tavică was. Just a few more years, and I’ll be where he was. I never stopped to imagine how he might have grown older. Instead, he remained forever frozen at that ideal age, freed from high school and about to start medical school. I kept talking to him, seeking his advice. Back in college, it was trendy to hold séances, and I’d summon Tavică. In a way, it was like staging a performance, stepping into the maze of storytelling. Tavică played the character and the second voice. He’d become so popular that even students from other dorms would come to ask him questions. My room was in the far corner of the building, right at the very edge, and this corner was where Tavică would always appear. I’d spoken of him so often that details of his life began to spread on their own. My dorm room was a revolving door of visitors, and after drinks and discussions about the latest literary trends, the conversation always circled back to Tavică and summoning the dead. All it took was a touch of the coin—one of those old ones tucked away in the storage shed, among all the other things waiting to be discarded—and that coin, with King Michael on one side, would start moving across the paper, picking out the letters.
I had a photo of Tavică on the wall, worn from being passed around so much because anyone who summoned him felt the need to look at him and burn his face into their mind. One day, the photo vanished, leaving behind nothing but the tape and my invisible connection to it, since it was one of his last photos, death already hovering just above his brows. I had made him into a character, probably my first character, whose existence no one ever doubted. But he was also a dream of freedom, a symbol of the world that had been lost, swallowed up by communism.
I carried Tavică with me everywhere. I still remember one fall day during high school. I was 17 and had made up my mind to break away from Comoșteni and my family. The first thing I did was take all my photos from home. I had an album filled with detailed notes, a sort of guide to all the important photographs, starting from the Canine Schoolteacher and even further back, from Mițulica’s father, the grocer, to her vineyard-owning grandparents and Gică’s Macedonians scattered across the Balkans, all the way to recent photos of me in front of the high school, in a public garden, at the library, at the Palace, and on a train.
I was renting in an outlying neighborhood, in a grim house that was, by far, the worst I’d ever lived in. But it didn’t cost much, and I was in full-on saving mode. My goal was to build up enough funds so that by my senior year, I could move somewhere better and adequately prepare for college, a thought that haunted me every day. The woman I rented from was a drunk, something I discovered gradually as we got to know each other. I’d met her at the University, right by the entrance, where people posted rental ads for students. She was coming out of the building, dressed smartly and smiling, and didn’t seem like a professor or secretary but more like someone who worked in an office. She saw me reading the rental postings and offered me a room at a very low price. Back then, I didn’t know that cheap usually meant a scam. I went to see the place, then felt too embarrassed to turn down her offer. It was a small, damp room, the kind that put a real strain on your lungs. Later on, I learned that she was a cleaning lady—one of those dumb yet persistent phrases in the terminology of the socialist system. The moment she got home, she’d start drinking and squabbling with some imaginary character, perhaps her own Tavică. She’d throw her things around and howl like a beaten dog. I admit I was observing her and even wrote a story where she hanged herself. I lived there for two months, and we parted ways on a bone-chilling rainy day. I was walking back from school, clutching a large umbrella I’d brought with me from the storage shed in Comoșteni. It had been pouring all morning.
I spotted my belongings from afar: a few blouses, a blanket, and my trusted white throw, which went everywhere with me. Nearby, piles of waterlogged books sat ruined. Then, amid the torrent of rainwater flowing down the street, I saw my album lying open, stuck in a clump of mud, and a couple of photos floating or sinking in the murky water. I salvaged what I could. A few were still in decent shape, but most were beyond saving and looked like pieces of oilcloth coated in muck. One photo showed a headless Tavică, the frame including only parts of his polished shoes and the edge of some steps. Meanwhile, I was nowhere to be found; my face had been washed away by the autumn rain, along with my identity and history. It was the first great tragedy of my life, which made Tavică’s death, by then a distant memory, seem like nothing.
I gathered some of my things, and then the intoxicated woman I’d been watching with a writer's detached arrogance stepped into the doorway with a knife. I realized arguing was pointless: my savings were gone, and she was genuinely outraged that I had so much money stashed in a book. Once I started college, I ran into her often. She mopped the hallways, pretending not to recognize me, and I’d picture a carousel of all my family photos spinning above her head.
On that rainy day, I gathered the remainder of my belongings into two bags and set out through the city to find a new place to stay. I didn’t know where to go and had no plan whatsoever. At some point, I also lost my umbrella, which would later appear in my dreams, another weight on my conscience. The rain had softened to a light drizzle, only a few stray drops still sliding off leaves. I found myself lost in a forest of apartment buildings, rows of gray boxes with shut windows.
I slumped down, leaning against the wall of a building. I had no clue where I was or how to escape the gray forest. Yet, I wasn’t worried; just as I was nodding off, someone touched my shoulder. For a split second, I was sure it was Tavică. I didn’t turn around, nor did I move. The day was breaking, and the hand on my shoulder grew insistent. It belonged to a woman leaning out from a window. She wanted to know what I was doing there and why I was sitting on the ground. At first, I didn’t see her clearly, then I turned to face her and froze: her eyes were like Tavică’s, incapable of deception or hatred. She also had a dark complexion, which gave her a southern look seldom seen in that city of white faces. We slipped into conversation naturally, as if we were family. I couldn’t tell her she reminded me of Tavică, but I already trusted her without realizing it; her familiar gaze became a source of reassurance. I briefly told her what had happened, stressing that my grandmother would arrive soon. I sincerely wished for that, even though I knew I’d write to her the next day, and the letter would take three or four days to arrive, and then she’d immediately send me a telegram and some money to the school address, which would take another day or two. Judging by how she looked at me, it was clear that this woman who resembled Tavică knew all the ins and outs of this kind of situation.
“I’ve got a spare bed,” she told me. “But it’s here in the kitchen.” She asked for 150 lei a month, which sounded perfect to me. “And one more thing,” Tavică continued, his spirit shining through the woman banding out the window. “I’m Gypsy, sweetie. If that’s alright with you, great. If not—scram!” I was at a loss for words, and she added, “The bed’s right by the window. You can see the whole view from here.” I glanced over at the sea of buildings, and we burst out laughing, our chortles echoing with a sense of home. I spent the rest of the term in that ground-floor kitchen. When I returned to Comoșteni, I smelled of food, and my books carried the same aroma. I remember buying new ones to replace a part of them. But I had made some savings. My independence wasn’t cheap; it never had been.
I never said anything about the photos to my folks and didn’t dare take any more from my family’s spare copies. And that was a mistake. When they passed away, a stranger’s hand carelessly threw away whatever had remained, and it felt as though I had to start completely over, my history gone. But why would I need photos when they live on in my heart?
Whenever I think about memories, I see the photo where Tavică’s head is missing, erased, perhaps out for a stroll, and not dissolved by the rain. I picture him floating among the apartment buildings, only to settle onto the figure of a woman in a kitchen on the edge of a socialist-era neighborhood.
Even now, I haven’t truly let go of Tavică. Maybe it wasn’t just our five years together that bonded us so strongly. What happened afterward had an even deeper impact.
On the day we parted, when the stretcher made of tree-of-heaven wood had reached our gate and the violins were playing in the gazebo, the rest of the village was bustling as usual, with lunch preparations in full swing. I’d clambered onto the gate, so I got a good look at him lying on the stretcher, his eyes closed. I’d never seen a dead person before, and my understanding of death was still rather vague. A few people were shouting, and silence had fallen over the gazebo. Gică was the first to get there, and he stood paralyzed by the gate, followed by Mițulica, who came screaming. Someone had told her, or maybe she’d heard people talking or just had a feeling.
I’ll never forget that hot day in May when Tavică lay stretched out on a table before the steps, with Mițulica wailing beside him. I don’t remember what each and every one of us did or how things unfolded, but certain scenes stand out in my memory. Cornel was crying next to a fig tree, half-hidden by its leaves. I remember Gică looking sorrowful but not shedding any tears. I hear Mițulica’s horrifying screams and see her collapsing by the gate and later speaking to Tavică’s spirit, which I’d started seeing drifting by the steps and wandering through the rooms, particularly the library, where thereafter he remained so that whenever I picked up a book, it would open to the very page where he lingered.
I can also clearly remember the moment we entered the cemetery. The coffin placed in front of the church. The priest, grim and irritating, standing before the door. Tavică wasn’t allowed to enter the church because he’d died without having a candle lit for him. He’d drowned. I don’t think he would’ve wanted one anyway. Visibly rattled, the priest stood transfixed in his vestments, staring right at me, while I watched from the other side of the coffin, lowering, giving him my best death stare. I remember struggling to stand upright, feet apart, fists clenched. But the priest didn’t move an inch either. Then my mind shifts to the following years, the first six, which only strengthened my bond with Tavică. Mițulica had fallen into a mystical fervor, and no one dared snap her out of it. “We have no choice,” she’d say. “We have to send him light and water.” And I could almost see Tavică waiting in line in the afterlife at the post office of the dead to receive small packages tied up with string, slivers of light escaping from them.
I first read his name on the marble cross and was astounded by how pompous it sounded, especially in gold lettering, like a book title. His full name was Ioan Paul Octavian Stănculescu. It looked like a long, dormant snake waiting for its end. To this day, it’s beyond me why they’d given him such a useless and pretentious name. Gică didn’t say a word; he seemed cut off from reality and indifferent. As the years passed, I began to suspect he wasn’t even his father. Tavică had been conceived during the war. I imagined Mițulica in various scenarios: caught up in impossible affairs, falling in love, getting raped, and even selling herself. Then there was the priest, who also had a son called Octavian. That, of course, didn’t mean much, but my dislike for him kept me on guard. The first time I spoke with the priest, I was seven. Mițulica took my hand and led me to the gate, from where the priest took me with him. I can’t remember his name anymore. In any case, being as somber as he was, he didn’t need one. We spent some time in a cramped room that smelled of church. He spoke slowly, without enthusiasm, and had the face of someone who’d never smiled. He explained what confession was and how important it was to tell him about my mistakes. The whole thing felt fake, from his voice to the concept of confessing. “I’ve got nothing to say. I haven’t done anything wrong,” I told him, quite pleased with myself. He was obviously irritated. I had to return after doing 100 prostrations no later than a week. As soon as I got home, I made it clear to everyone, but especially to Mițulica, that I didn’t like the guy and had no intention of ever confessing. Gică seemed content. Unsurprisingly, he never went to church or had any dealings with the priest, which reinforced my suspicion of a connection between Mițulica and the somber guy. Years later, when I finally confronted her, the conversation turned out terrible for me. Whatever the case, Tavică was Cornel's brother, and Cornel was my father, and all three of us shared an insatiable need for freedom.
One afternoon in that first year without Tavică, when everyone in the house was asleep, I buried Clara. I wanted him to have company and know I was thinking of him.
Tavică's death was Mițulica's main topic of conversation for many years. She’d go into the yard, seeming cheerful, only to suddenly freeze in place for a second or two before the wailing began. She’d cry for an hour just because a particular memory of him still lived on in that spot, whether it was a fragment of conversation or a word clinging to the walls, especially those of the storage shed, from whose roof he’d often threatened to jump to his death. I’d recall many events from my early years, and it amazed me how the same memories, so crystal clear in my mind, took on a different form when retold by Mițulica. Of course, he hadn’t really intended to jump off the roof; it was merely his way of seeking attention. He was quite the character. She alone was to blame for not letting him go to Frații Buzești, where he’d have been with his brother, who would’ve looked after him. I‘d begun to see my father in a different light, short and bald, with his foppish hats or that worn-out cap, hovering around Tavică like a satrap, making sure nothing happened to him. And while she reshaped reality as she pleased, I meandered through the village, where the facts seemed much clearer. Tavică had swum across the Jiu many times until some stonecutters tried to pull him out by force, as they noticed he was exhausted and wouldn’t hold out much longer. “But you know how crazy he was,” one of the stonecutters recounted, drawing on his cigarette. “No offense, miss,” he said to me, “But he was a bit nuts. Everyone knew that about Tavică! Say the wrong thing, and he’d go for your throat.” Nevertheless, the man had warned him not to cross the river again, and others had called out to him, too, from their boats. They were stonecutters who were on the water from dawn till dusk and knew the dangers of the Jiu, where the water ran deep, or where the whirlpools lay in wait, too strong for even the best swimmers. And Tavică was, after all, just a kid. He passed by the large vortex again, perhaps for the twentieth time that day, and never resurfaced. Either the water swept him away and dragged him into its churning depths, or he had a seizure. They didn’t see him again until two kilometers downstream, and shortly after, he was brought home, lifeless, on a litter made of tree-of-heaven branches while his soul went on to travel to who knows where in the Danube's waters and beyond.
You couldn’t talk to Mițulica about any of this. To her, Tavică’s death was a punishment, brought on by a cursed wingbeat, and a never-ending series of “what ifs” would’ve kept him alive until now. One evening, she grabbed me by the hand and took me to the Ghosts’ room, where, not long before, Tavică had slit his wrists with a sour cherry liqueur bottle I’d given him. In this room, they laid out critical plans and whispered secrets and mysteries while the eerie light from the mill crept through the tulle curtains. “I need you,” Mițulica said in a hushed voice, and her eyes, which you could scoop out and drink mixed into a cup of milk, told me without any doubt that I was her last hope.
That night, I got into bed around eleven, waiting with my ears pricked. I was almost seven and knew plenty about life, keeping a secret, and, most importantly, what a pair of eyes was really trying to tell you. The moment I sensed her at the door, I was already on my feet. I slipped on my sandals, grabbed the green jacket, the one I never went anywhere without, and followed her out into the yard, then into the street. A dark silhouette was visible in the distance. Mițulica signaled me to stay silent, but I already knew; she had explained what I had to do. We came closer, and the giant pressed a finger to his lips. In the effervescent light of the night, it seemed to me that he was smiling. It was Mitină, Tavică’s hooligan friend. Mițulica carried a leather bag that brushed against her ankles. Mitină, tall and lithe, walked at the front of the group. Mițulica trailed behind him, dragging her bag, and I brought up the rear. I knew I wasn’t supposed to turn around, although I thought that somewhere nearby, maybe just a couple of steps behind, Tavică was also with us. And for years, I never stopped believing it.
The trip felt endless until the last of the houses disappeared. We stepped into the total darkness of the cemetery. The grass was getting into my sandals, and I could hear the stones crunch beneath our feet. We stopped, and I knew the meeting was beginning, which filled me with a sense of joy. Tavică’s grave was covered with concrete, jasmine tobacco blooming all around it. Mitină took out a knife while Mițulica rummaged through the bag. A hen was clucking faintly. They cut its throat. I knew what would happen next and waited silently for the blood to drain. It was a black hen I had raised from a chick. I knew its whole life; I could even recognize its eggs and distinguish its clucking from the rest. At that age, I’d seen many birds slaughtered and plenty of blood spilled, so I could picture the surface of the grave getting stained. Then, the figures turned towards me; it was my turn. I had to say three or four words that were etched in my mind forever, words I could never utter again or tell to anyone. They belonged to that night alone and were meant to open the gates of happiness only for Tavică and me.
I don’t remember the walk back, but we remained just as silent as on the way there.
The problem was that Cornel was waiting for us in the parlor when we returned.
Even though he’d moved into the new house and had no way of knowing about our little adventure, even though it was long past midnight, he was there, sitting in a chair. A smoldering cigarette rested on a crystal ashtray, which, misshapen as it was, made me think of a bowl someone had stepped on. He was waiting quietly, one hand cupping his cheek, glasses perched on his nose. Overhead, a few oil lamps flickered in the chandelier, which would end up in the storage shed in a few weeks, left to gather dust. I took a small piece of it with me and have kept it to this day. But on that endless night, when the black hen had died on a grave, the chandelier cast a soft light, and I imagined Cornel climbing onto a chair and lighting two or three oil lamps so he could see us clearly as we walked in, our faces those of murderers, two beings who had taken part in an ancient ritual.
For some years, I tried to picture Cornel as a child, a witness to a history before my time. He struggled to break free from the upbringing he’d received at home and distance himself from Mițulica’s teachings, but it was hard because her words would catch up with you no matter where you hid, like missiles locked onto their target. Muc also played a part in this, often making pointed remarks about Cornel’s bourgeois life before she came along. And for some reason, whenever she mentioned it, my mind would conjure up the sofa slumbering on the balcony, the one we’d move to the yard during summer, placing it by the pathway leading from the steps to the gazebo. It wasn’t anything luxurious, but I can’t imagine Comoșteni without it. When I think of my family, my childhood, or the abandoned mill across the road, the first thing that comes to mind is that sofa. It was a wide, spacious bench painted green, made from thin, expertly polished slats. To some extent, it resembled the benches you’d find in parks but also possessed the aura of an antique, crafted by a gentle hand, a quality I’d later recognize in all interwar furniture. I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable, but I could always tell when an object was related to this piece. Longer and more worn than park benches, nestled between white bookcases when it sat on the balcony, the sofa became a threshold between the pathway and the rest of the garden in the summertime. Hollyhocks stood tall behind it, and a fragile little table lay asleep in front of it, one of the many dotting the yard—intricate weaves of rose and brier branches. That rickety table gave the sofa a certain nobility, transforming it into a divan of delights, made all the more inviting by the piles of small cushions in old silk cases, whose colors, bathed by the light and muted by the passage of time, matched those in our house. A carelessly tossed white throw often hung over the sofa, half on the ground, and nestled to one side, I can see myself reading, knees tucked up to my chin.
That sofa wouldn’t have fit anywhere else but on the pathway or the balcony. It would’ve been completely out of place in the new house, especially in the yard, where the only acceptable way to sit was on blankets, either lying on your stomach or cross-legged, because Muc never missed a chance to praise nature, "The grass is there for you to enjoy!” In contrast, the sofa was like a coat of arms of a world before I was born.
For Muc, moving into the new house was a kind of liberation. Although it had become crowded with old furniture and painted beds, there were now spaces that reflected her taste, marking the break from Mițulica and the green sofa, which in her eyes was nothing more than an ugly, rickety bench you wouldn’t want to sit on. She bought kitchen furniture straight from the store, refusing to even consider the chairs Gică built out of passion but also because they’d forced him to work in a Russian carpentry workshop while in the camp. One day, she brought home a small, locked cupboard, just like a safe, where she kept her valuables, including condoms wrapped in gold-colored foil. A lot about the new life was thrilling, particularly with the arrival of items like a radio and a sewing machine elegantly inscribed with Ileana. I’d started exploring our little world, made friends at school, and found out I enjoyed visiting other people’s homes. It was the 1960s, and most houses in Comoșteni looked similar: a bed with a built-in shelf headboard and under-mattress storage for clothes, sometimes a chaise longue or a kind of bookcase with hinged glass doors, crammed with terracotta trinkets and school notebooks. Some folks had canvas armchairs. For interiors, brown and light green were the popular colors then, while blue was the dominant color for clothing. I learned all this by poking my nose around, going into almost every house.
Compared to them, we were gaudy, different, and cringeworthy. I'd begun taking a variety of objects to the storage shed, intending to leave them there forever; they were things that had seen better days, such as decorative lamps, enormous paintings with thick, ornate frames, and various statuettes, including a one-meter-tall plaster figure. It even had a story. Cornel had brought it home one day, a gift from his workplace. “What is this?!” Mițulica exclaimed. “A reward from my bosses.” Instead of money, they’d given him a statue celebrating socialist victory, something so ridiculous that they placed it on the balcony by the door. Anyone who came over would either salute the plaster statue or leave their hat on its head. They dumped it out there, so I had to move it to the storage shed, where it sat for years. It was a kind of socialist nymph, painted in pastel colors, holding a red scarf and a handful of flowers. Whenever the topic of Stalinism came up, especially once I got to college, my mind would always drift to the statue and Mițulica's laughter, maybe even her voice and words: “Cornel, do you remember when you returned from Craiova with that statue in your arms? I wouldn't have carried it to save my life,” she declared, and he shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? It was a gift from the comrades. Don't be absurd!”
People often asked me to show them the house, and while I felt embarrassed, they were invariably astonished, which only deepened my disdain for our values. Nothing I wore back then was store-bought; it was all sewn by hand by Dobreasca, sometimes by Milica, and occasionally by Irina, the seamstresses of my childhood. Muc was the only one among us who wore clothes bought from the store, but Tavică had been a true proletarian, perpetually in his school uniform, with his badge in plain sight, and his cap fitted tightly on his forehead, like hooligans. He was also the only one to wear sneakers, which Mițulica viewed as a global menace. Tavică had no such hang-ups whatsoever; he’d help himself to money from a purse or a drawer, hop on his bike, and before long, he’d be back with a new pair—blue, with pristine white laces. I never wore sneakers, not even in high school when I had total freedom. In gym class, I wore a pair of ballet flats with silk uppers, a hand-me-downs from some aunt who was worried I might wear sneakers. “What are you wearing for gym class? Here, take these. Alice wore them when she danced at some festival or other.” Of course, I really wanted sneakers. Even more than that, I wanted those trendy black rubber flats, some kind of pumps with a slight heel and a low-cut design. When brand new, they looked like patent leather shoes. But they were forbidden too. “Don’t even think about it,” Mițulica would warn, and Muc would pull a long face, “You’ll regret it if you wear those things. Rheumatism and other diseases will eat you up.” Shoes had to be leather, without exception, even if they were clunky—a habit I struggled to break for a long time.
One day, about two years after Tavică had passed away, and the numerous pairs of sneakers he’d worn threadbare were gone, a new pair of sneakers came through the gate. We were all sitting on the green bench, surrounded by oleanders and hollyhocks, engrossed in reading when the gate opened, and Gică walked in, wearing a pair of unusual brown sneakers. The color alone made them stand out, and they grabbed everyone's attention, from Predeasca, craning her neck for a better look, to Muc, blushing at this sudden appearance.
He’d gone fishing in Copanița and ran into some Bulgarians, either relatives, friends of relatives, or just random Bulgarians, who sold him a pair of sneakers. He was obviously pleased, so even Mițulica kept quiet.
The new house was small, so it soon became the little house, while the house where I was born was the big house. I was already noticing the world of adults, with its central points of activity and the life on the edges. And on the night the black hen breathed its last, Cornel took my hand and told me it was time to go home.
He had picked out my bed and was delighted with the dark metal headboard decorated with a striking painting: a Spanish woman dancing and a young man playing the guitar, along with flowers, a dog, and the moon. “You put your pillow right here so you can hear the song at night, and if you have a bad dream, the dog will protect you. So don’t be scared!” On the footboard, there was only a waxing crescent moon with flowers spilling from it. He’d bought the bed from Chelăreasă, Florence’s mother, and planned to get a few more things from her the following day. “Artemiza, from now on, you’re not going anywhere without telling me first. It doesn’t matter where, even if it’s just to the gate,” he said. “It would make me very happy to know your whereabouts at all times.” He didn’t scold me about the night in the cemetery and never even mentioned it again. But he was definitely upset, and I suspected he’d argued with Mițulica.
He gifted me a thin sweater, the knitted kind children usually wear. “Look what I got you! Do you like it?” I didn’t, so I told him, sensing his sadness grow with each word I uttered. “All gifts are precious,” he said, and I regretted not liking the sweater. Still, I thought it was only right to be honest; if anything, I was doing him a kindness he didn’t know how to appreciate. What had made him buy me that sweater when I already had the green jacket I never took off? A soft little garment with a generous, rounded collar I could turn up. It was a rich green, the color of an apricot leaf, and had a single large button. I also had a matching ruffled skirt that I didn’t bother to touch. The jacket was my favorite piece; I simply loved the fabric, a thick, soft cotton, pleasant to the touch. Needless to say, it was the work of the legendary Buțescu, crafted from an interwar dress. No one else owned a jacket like mine, which made me feel important. To complete the look, I wore a hat with a bow in the back, just as unusual.
It had gotten cold enough for a coat, but it wasn’t yet time for the fur collar that I only attached when the first frost arrived. Bundled up and strangled by a scarf I hated, I set off with my father to visit the Cellarwoman, Florence's mom, who was also the sister of Gică's mother and a Macedonian from Montenegro. She had been married to the cellarman at the Royal Estates, which is why everyone called her the Cellarwoman. She was on her deathbed and selling her belongings but didn’t want to give them to strangers, preferring to entrust them to family and friends. The Cellarwoman had three children: Florence, a pharmacist; Mioara, a teacher in Bucharest; and a son, a lawyer in Craiova. They were all grown up and had each taken what they considered useful.
The Cellarwoman was sitting in the parlor on a white sofa. The place was incredible, like our storage shed, filled with antiques, but among them were countless bits and pieces that deserved a thorough inspection.
Gică’s aunt was a woman with white hair left unbraided, wearing a white dress and covered with a white throw, just like the one we had. She was related to Gică and yet remarkably different. She was slender, with an air of elegance about her. We exchanged a few words, but she skipped the usual curiosities, not asking my name or age. Instead, she complimented my jacket, thus strengthening my attachment to it.
(excerpt from the novel Ferenike)
Translated into English by Alina Ariton
