I watched the cigarette smoke swirl and twist, forming lively curls around my fingers. My mind, in turn, was swirling, rising and falling, imagining all sorts of possible scenarios.
I had found her. Only at that moment did I realize how much I had been searching for her. I had been searching for her for years without even realizing it, and now she was found.
But what next? How were things going to unfold? What was I supposed to do?
“You really are suffering, aren’t you?” Alfredo’s voice came from somewhere, very far away.
I started and looked up at him.
“What did you say?”
“I said if you haven’t touched the beer in front of you, it means you’re suffering like hell!” he replied, looking at me attentively.
I briefly told him what was on my mind. I had no one else to tell.
To tell my mother? Out of the question. To tell my father? Ha, ha! He would laugh at me with his mouth wide open.
“Tiberiu, your trust honors me,” my friend said, smiling. “What are you planning to do next?”
“I have no idea!” I shrugged. “That’s exactly what I was just thinking about. It’s a total fog in my head. What would you do?”
Alfredo sprinkled a few grains of salt on the rim of his beer mug, took a calm sip, then looked at me with pity.
“When you love someone,” he lectured me gently, “you have to tell them. Tell them how you feel.”
“Are you crazy?” I jumped, scared. “No way! Just thinking about it… uh. I don’t know. The simple idea of talking to her freezes me. I’m scared!”
“I know,” he smiled. “But you have to use this!” he added, leaning across the table. He touched my forehead with his finger.
I moved my head away, annoyed by his friendly but totally misplaced gesture.
“I prefer to endure and stay silent, Alfredo. At least for a while. After that… we’ll see.”
He looked at me, and the message in his eyes was as clear as it could be.
“Don’t keep this inside, Tiberiu. You have to act. Do something! Unconfessed love is the heaviest burden a soul can carry. It becomes poison. It can cripple you. It drains your strength, keeps you from eating, it destroys you. Go to her, confess your love, and get rid of this burden once and for all.”
“That’s nonsense from your romance books,” I snorted irritably. “Reality is different. I’m not living in a damned book, Alfredo! I can’t just go up to her like an idiot and say, ‘Hey, I love you!'”
“Of course not. She’d think you’re out of your mind if you did that. Instead, you can go up to her to greet her. Just go up to her and say, ‘Hi!'”
Alfredo finished his beer and signaled the waiter to bring him another. Mine was still on the table, almost untouched.
“You can do it, and you must do it,” he concluded curtly.
I sighed. It was clear to me that not even my friend, my only friend, understood me.
“Do you always do that, Alfredo?” I asked him sadly. “Do you always confess your love?”
“Yes,” he said, looking me in the eye.
“And does it work out every time?”
“No. Sometimes I get slapped. But I always talk to the people I’m interested in and tell them what’s on my mind. Well, not always. There’s one exception to that rule.”
“What would that be?”
“You don’t go and confess your love if the person you love is already happy with someone else. It’s a crime to disturb the happiness of someone who has already found their soulmate. Better to go into the forest, dig a hole, stick your head in it, and scream out all your pain, all your sorrow!”
“Why?”
“Just because! You should always leave happy people alone.”
His words made me think a bit.
“I don’t think she has someone else,” I muttered. “It’s impossible.”
“Why impossible? You told me she’s a wonderful girl. She probably has someone.”
Alfredo’s theory unsettled me. What if my Irina already had someone else?
“She definitely doesn’t,” I said, my heart burning. “Damn you! You like putting ideas like that in my head?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said, grinning like a sadist. “Go to her, man, greet her, talk to her. The rest will follow. One plus one equals two.”
***
A week and a day had passed, but I still hadn’t gathered enough courage to greet Irina.
Instead, I started following her like the miserable worm that I was.
One evening when she was leaving work, I followed her at a prudent distance. I got on the tram she boarded, but in a different car. Then I got off at the same stop as her.
The story repeated itself.
Same story, different tram.
I was managing. I told myself that if life slapped me in the face and I didn’t end up becoming a lawyer, I could certainly make a decent career as a private detective. You know… nighttime surveillance, tailing unfaithful wives, taking photos from trees. Crap like that.
I had the knack for it.
That evening, I came home mad with happiness. I had found out where Irina lived. I knew the block, the floor. As for the apartment number, I wasn’t too sure, but what did that matter?
So, I got home, sprawled on the bed, and started daydreaming. My gaze wandered around the room, but all I could see were fragments of it.
Then, my eyes stopped on the corner of a magazine I had hidden under a dresser.
“God, I need to get rid of these damned magazines!” I said to myself. “From now on, I’m going to have a girlfriend, and I don’t need this trash anymore!”
It was a fashion magazine from my mother’s collection. I had stolen it from her. There’s no point in asking me why.
“Why?” Eva asked suspiciously.
“Hmm! I have to confess that back then I used to masturbate quite often. I would steal fashion magazines, look at the models like a cat looks at cream, pick out a cute girl from the pictures, and invite her like a gentleman to the bathroom with me.”
“The bathroom? How romantic!”
“Yeah! What could I do? I never had any privacy in my room. Anyone could walk in at any time. In fact, my mother did walk in on me once while I was killing my children under the blanket. It’s a very unpleasant memory.”
“I believe you!”
“My mother asked me to stop lying in bed all day and told me to get up and clean my room. That was the first and last time I yelled at her and told her to leave me alone.”
I had to. I had no choice. How could I have gotten out of bed when I was stark naked?
So, in the future, I chose a different place for my experiments. The bathroom was the only room in the house with a lock.
Being twenty years old and never having touched a woman is a guaranteed way to build up a lot of tension, and that was a very simple way to keep my sexual impulses under control.
Eva looks sullenly at the foot resting in my lap. In the course of the conversation, I’ve almost finished. I only have a bit more work to do on the nail of the little toe, and then I’ll move on to the right foot.
I look at my work and realize I have the makings of a pedicurist. After I leave this island, I should consider this career. Who knows…
“I find what you’re telling me horrible,” she sighs, “but who am I to judge you?”
“Hey, listen!” I get irritated. “Are you really not using your head, Eva? Do you really not understand?”
“What?”
“That if bachelors and all the young men whose hormones are raging didn’t masturbate at least once a week, the world would be a terribly unsafe place for women. The statistics on rape would skyrocket. The number of nervous wrecks would become astronomical. You women should be grateful to us men for masturbating.”
“That’s the dumbest theory I’ve ever heard in my life!” she murmurs, confused.
“Sure, if we’re talking about a married man, then yes, I agree, it’s sad. But for a young man with raging hormones, masturbation is a necessity. What’s so condemnable about it? When you said it was horrible, was it the woman in you or the Catholic in you speaking?”
“Both,” Eva said.
I look at her with pity. I had really thought she was smart.
“See how naive you are? Your Catholic priests aren’t allowed to touch women. They’re not allowed to marry.”
“So?”
“So… nothing. When you get out of here and go to church to thank God, look closely at your Catholic priest and ask yourself why he’s so calm and happy.”
Eva suddenly pushes me with her foot, and I fall back.
“Stop it, you pig!” she screams.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll stop. But next time, when the priest gives you the Holy Communion, think about my riddle.”
Eva grabs her head with her hands.
“All men are disgusting!” she yells furiously.
“Exactly, I agree. That’s exactly how I feel. I hate men!”
Eva turns and leaves without a word.
“Where are you going?” I ask, surprised. “Hey! Don’t you want me to finish your other foot?”
“You disgusting pervert!” she snarls. “Don’t you dare touch my feet again!”
I whistle in resignation. There goes my pedicurist career.
Too bad!
I was really promising!
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