There’s nothing left to say. A silent sorrow has nested within me and won’t leave me be. I’m utterly bitter.
The skewer pierces through the fish’s flesh from head to tail. I stick the stick in the sand, near the fire, close enough to receive the warmth, but not so close as to burn the fish.
I do the same with the second one. And the third.
By my calculations, today must be the 5th or 6th of February.
“What are you doing there?” I ask Eva. “Having a little snack before the fish?”
On the other side of the fire, Eva sits on the sand, nibbling her fingernails. She doesn’t even glance at me. Ever since that story about the ship, she’s been so quiet it scares me. She continues nibbling her left index fingernail, then moves to the middle finger.
And so on.
Finally, she thoughtfully examines her toenails. It makes me curious. If she manages to reach those too, she must be wonderfully flexible.
“It’s impossible that no one saw us!” she suddenly says. “Even if they were asleep, there had to be someone walking on the deck. Someone could have glanced through a porthole, right? That would have been enough.”
Oh, fuck my life! It reminds me again. What have I done wrong, Lord?
“Eva…”
“I’m sure someone was on duty on the deck,” she insists stubbornly. “Someone saw us. Tomorrow or the day after, we’ll get help.”
I’d bet my hand that she doesn’t believe what she’s saying either.
“We have to get off this cursed island,” the girl groans, then starts crying softly.
I try to pat her on the shoulder, but she mercilessly hits my hand away, then collapses on the sand, shaking with sobs. Minutes pass. Just as abruptly as it began, the crying stops.
Eva starts nibbling her fingernails again and thoughtfully examines her toenails.
***
I’m a man, so I’m clever.
The afternoon finds me giving Eva a pedicure. And for that, I don’t need nail clippers or a nail file, just a bit of wit.
In the signal fire ash, I found a steel hinge. I recognized it immediately; it was the hinge from the empty ammunition crate.
I rubbed that hinge against a stone until I got a sharp edge, a kind of razor with which you could even cut a hair.
“Relax your foot a bit more,” I say annoyed to the girl. “Why do you keep fidgeting so much? Do you have restless leg syndrome? Do you want to get cut?”
Eva’s small foot rests obediently in my lap. I continue with her pedicure. Or rather, a kind of pedicure.
“I’m getting bored,” she moans. “Will it take much longer?”
Ten minutes later, she asks me:
“What happened after you got into Law School? Tell me.”
I hold her small heel in the cup of my hand and, looking intently at the sole, I reply:
“Nothing noteworthy. I was 19 and a half years old and a fresh student. Although I had lost a year of my life working on the country’s construction sites, I had now caught the school train again. For the first time in my life, I felt my dad was proud of me. No one in our family had gone further than high school.
So, I was kind of a pioneer in the family, a brave trailblazer.
My dad’s satisfaction flattered me, but also obligated me. Maybe that was why I became a bit more serious. I didn’t skip classes; I attended lectures and seminars daily. That new environment was much different from high school, and certainly, the youngsters there were not like those I met in the army.
However, I didn’t try to make friends with anyone. I was a kind of urban hermit. I focused on my studies and nothing else.
I met Alfredo, who was now a third-year student, during a smoke break in the faculty courtyard.
“Hey, freshman,” he said cheerfully, shaking my hand as if he hadn’t seen me in ten years of gulag.
“Hi!” I replied, looking around shyly. I could swear that all my classmates already knew his unique sexual orientation, and I could also swear that, seeing me with Alfredo, they would all think I was gay.
He immediately understood and asked me amusedly:
“What? Do you think I’ll jump on you?”
“Ah… no. That’s not it.”
“Let’s get something straight: I can go for a beer with you without putting my hand on your leg. Relax, Tiberiu. We can be friends, we can hang out, have a drink, or talk about girls if you want, just like all friends do. Don’t be so uptight!”
“So can I drop my soap now?” I asked grinning.
He looked at me for a while and said, puckering his bottom lip:
“You know, sometimes I tend to agree with you when you say men are disgusting. Yes, sir, you can drop your… soap. Uh, I have classes. I have to go. See you later.”
But Alfredo wasn’t a grumpy guy, and a few days later, we became real friends.
It was the first time I had made friends with someone. In other words, Alfredo was the only man I didn’t feel the need to punch. Even though the other way around, I felt safe with him.
Things had worked out perfectly. I was a student, I had a friend, I spent very little time at home. And there were also the girls. Classmates.
I’m not saying I wasn’t interested in girls, quite the opposite. It was impossible to ignore them in that university environment. The way they sat in the benches, the way they tossed their hair over their shoulders, the way they opened their folders and sucked on their pens.
I had eyes to see and ears to hear.
But could I imagine myself with any of those elegant and sophisticated students? It was beyond belief.
I knew very well who I was. I saw myself. My clothes, although always washed and clean, were shabby. My pockets were constantly empty.
Stop it! What do you want, Eva? Do you want to tell me it doesn’t matter? Forget it!
When you’re young and living among young people, it matters a hell of a lot.
The few pennies I scraped together from my parents went on textbooks and other essentials for a student. Oh, I had very few pennies. If I had to go to college in another city, if I had to pay for food and lodging, I would never have become a student.
The others threw big parties in the dorms. They partied until the police came for them.
They organized parties, birthdays, danced until they lost their minds, got high until they forgot their names, raced their cars on the boulevards at night, went to prostitutes and got laid, that is – in short – they lived their lives.
For me, the greatest adventure was to drink a bottle of wine with Alfredo on a terrace and discuss the latest book we had read. And even that wasn’t much of an adventure, because we never left without paying. Most of the time, Alfredo paid. Actually, scratch that. Alfredo always paid.
My friend was always alone. His parents had moved to Canada. He even had a Canadian visa. Being alone, he probably tried to chase away his boredom by seeking my company.
And I enjoyed his company too.
Alfredo was frighteningly ambitious. He studied like a maniac. All his grades were top-notch. He had a phenomenal memory. But it wasn’t just that. That guy seemed determined to succeed at any cost in life, and that got me thinking because sometimes I didn’t know who was superior to whom, and that annoyed me.
Then I remembered he was just a queer, and I was relieved to understand that he couldn’t be superior to me.
“What the hell are you still doing here if you have a Canadian visa?” I asked him, surprised.
“Maybe you won’t believe me,” he replied, scratching his head, “but I don’t like unfinished things. If I started this college, I have to finish it.”
“Fine, but studying Law here won’t be useful for you in Canada! Over there, they use Anglo-Saxon law with juries and judgments based on precedents. Here, we learn and use Roman law, that is, Latin law. The laws here and the Canadian laws are like chalk and cheese. Don’t fool yourself; you’ll just end up another unemployed graduate.”
Alfredo smiled at me and answered kindly, as you would to a dim-witted child who pesters you with his “knowledge”:
“Tiberiu, colleges don’t teach you anything. Not these ones, not the ones overseas. The only notable thing someone learns in college is where to look for information when they need it.”
“Ah, is that all?”
“And it teaches you to be always curious and eager for new things, to have an open mind. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time. Anyway, over the years, we forget almost everything we learn in college.”
Alfredo’s strange theory didn’t discourage me from continuing my monotonous student life. From home to classes and from classes back home!
Sometimes, I stopped by the university library or the city library. I loved reading about Law, but not only about Law. I read everything. I even read romance novels.
New worlds opened before my eyes.
I spent very little time at home.
So passed my first year of college, and to my parents’ pride, I passed all my exams, and not just anyhow, but with good grades.
The following vacation was terribly boring. For the most part, I stayed in the attic, reading a lot, smoking the cheapest tobacco, making coffee from grounds reused two or three times, and trying to write poetry. I don’t remember the poems very well, but I remember perfectly the taste of stale grounds.
At the beginning of my second year of college, something wonderful happened. It was a warm September afternoon, and I was heading home on the tram.
I’ll never forget the date, it was September 29th.
I was looking out the tram window, and as we passed by a bread factory, I saw HER.
She stood by a window, looking out.
Oh, my God, she was a white angel smiling at the window, towards the street. A girl flushed from the heat of the bread ovens. She waved her hand.
“What the hell are you staring at her for?” a mocking voice from the depths of my mind spoke. I jerked, then shook my head and woke up. It wasn’t a dream. The girl was still at the window.
Surely, she was one of the workers there, one of those unknown girls who kneaded and baked the bread that I, you, and others like us ate every day.
The image was so pure and delicate that it remained on my retina for minutes, imprinted forever in my mind.
I saw HER that evening when I went to bed. SHE was on the ceiling of my room, beyond my closed eyelids.
How could I sleep?
She wasn’t just a girl. A girl couldn’t awaken in me… that. God had shown me an angel and, He Himself, told me not to stare at what I couldn’t have.
“Is there anything more beautiful and pure in this world than a woman making bread?” I whispered eventually, as I drifted into sleep.
***
The next day, I didn’t go to classes, but I stood guard across the street from the bread factory. I smoked cigarette after cigarette, standing, leaning against a pole. Time froze, and I became one with the pole.
It seemed like hours passed so slowly, especially since I didn’t even have a watch.
Suddenly, I recognized her and jerked. My angel appeared out of nowhere and entered the factory gate.
I closed my eyes and imagined myself flying after her. I saw everything from above. That’s how it must be when a truck runs you over on the pedestrian crossing. The soul rises from the dust, looks down at that wretched body, then goes and follows what it holds dear.
I wished the truck would run me over. To come, hit the pole I was leaning on, and give me the chance to leave, to fly in pursuit of her.
My knees failed me, and I sank soft as a rag onto the curb.
“Look at that one, what a stupid face he has!” a voice was heard somewhere to my right, followed by laughter and giggles.
I didn’t even bother to look in that direction. My state sanctified everything. I loved everything. I loved that factory with its smoke-blackened walls. I loved the street full of dust and the empty bags thrown on the ground. I loved… I even loved those who laughed at me.
I got up from the curb, shook my pants, and left that street as if I had left a brother behind. Slowly, I came back to life and started to think.
I didn’t know if SHE worked eight hours or twelve, so I came back after eight hours and after twelve.
She worked twelve-hour shifts.
“Goodbye, Irina!” one of her colleagues called out.
Her name was an enchanted melody that caressed my ears. I was drunk. Dazed. My soul shrank and hid in my heart.
It sat there, in my chest, quietly with its snout on its paws and mute with amazement.
And it watched.
And it thought.
“So the name of my future girlfriend is Irina,” I said happily to myself. “What a wonderful name!”
It was Irina.
My Irina!
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