Mihail Sebastian - The Accident (html)/Accident.html

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Biblioasis International Translation Series General Editor: Stephen Henighan

I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuciski (Poland) Translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba

Good Morning Comrades by Ondjaki (Angola)Translated by Stephen Henighan

Kahn & Engelmann by Hans Eichner (Austria-Canada) Translated by Jean M. Snook

Dance With Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador) Translated by Lee Paula Springer

Black Alley by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)Translated by Dawn M. Cornelio

The Accident by Mihail Sebastian (Romania)Translated by Stephen Henighan

ISHE DIDNT KNOW HOW MUCH TIME had passed. A few seconds? A few long minutes?She felt nothing. Around her she heard voices, footsteps, people calling out, but all muted and grey, like a sort of auditory paste, from which occasionally a tram-bell or a shout shook loose with unexpected clarity, only to fade away again into the suffocated commotion.Theyll say its an accident, she thought very calmly, almost with indifference.The thought made her feel neither alarmed nor hurried. She had a very vague impression that she must be stretched out next to the sidewalk with her head in the snow. But she didnt try to move.A stupid, senseless question passed through her mind: What time is it?She strained to listen to the tick-tock of her wristwatch, but couldnt hear it. It must have been smashed. Then, in an effort to concentrate, as though immersed in herself, she observed that in fact she heard nothing of her own being; not her pulse, not her heart, not her breath.Im ..., she reflected. Im like a clock. And it seemed to her that she was smiling, although she couldnt feel her lips, for whose outline she searched in vain somewhere in that familiar yet vanished space that was her unfeeling body.She remembered suddenly the moment of the fall, so suddenly that she had the impression that she was falling again, and she heard again the brief noise, like that of a shattered spring, that she had heard then.She hadnt dwelt on it at the time, but now it returned with an absurd precision: the dry sound of a tearing ligament, of a snapping bow. In truth it seemed to her that somewhere in the intimacy of this body that she no longer felt, something had been ripped out of its natural place.She tried to review her being, with a brisk inward glance, in order to identify, as though on an X-ray screen, the exact spot of the dislocation.The collar bone? The aorta? The kneecap?For each word, it seemed to her that she had to find a response in her inert body, which she listened to again, forcing herself to explore it with her hearing down to its most remote fibres.All right, somethings broken. But what?Voices rose and fell on the street around her in noisy outbreaks that suddenly became distant. They reached her as though passing through mist or steam.All at once she overcame the penetrating cold and at the same time she felt her right knee naked against the snow, as though it alone in all her body had awoken her from a powerful anaesthetic. So far away, yet how intensely she felt it! She concentrated her thoughts on this sensation for a moment. This single sensitive point felt extremely strange to her, detached from her swoon like a little island of life.Then, like a wave of blood, the cold rose above her knees and spread like a fine net through her calf, calling back to life new regions of her flesh. The snow was fluffy, soothing, and it had the softness of chilled bedclothes. She plunged her leg with caution straight into that snow and felt its utter nakedness, her stocking having fallen to her ankle.In that moment, the tearing sensation of a few seconds earlier flashed through her again. Her mind, which had hesitated until now, located the exact point of the torn piece of her anatomy: her garter. Having broken loose, its metallic spring pressed up against her calf like a small round signet.I must be half-naked, she thought without panic. She had barely lifted her head when the voices grew clearer, as though the mist had suddenly dispersed.Criminals! an old man shouted. He blustered, suffocated by the violence of his anger, at a tram driver, who stood in dazed silence. You dont look in front of you, you dont look around you, you dont give a hoot about your passengers, about women or children ...The tram driver gestured, trying to explain.Well, if shes getting off ...So what if shes getting off? Doesnt she have the right?She doesnt have the right because this isnt a stop, somebody else said, in a tone of indifference.From the ground, she tried to see the person who had spoken, but in the darkness she could only make out an expression lacking in curiosity.Of course its not a stop, the driver repeated, mildly encouraged.The elderly gentleman, indignant, refused to back down.Its a damned shame it isnt. It should be. We pay for this service. You know they take our money, but they dont lend a hand to build new stops. Criminals, bandits ... Youve got rich on the money from our pockets.She became aware of a smile that fluttered in the dark and, without raising her head far enough to receive this smile full in the face, was certain that it belonged to the indifferent voice of a moment earlier.... Yes, thats how they get us, we deserve it, were dumb and we dont respond ...He was stupid, certainly, but she realized that, sprawled there in the snow, she wasnt listening to the strident voice of the outraged old man, but rather to the other mans distant silences.... Yes, gentlemen, we fail to respond. Lets call a police officer and well send you off to see a judge, you lawbreaker ...Finally she heard again the other mans voice, that slightly deaf, slightly lazy voice. He was probably speaking to the tram driver.Hit the road, lad. Get back into your tram and hit the road.Sure, let him hit the road and leave her there dead in the snow.Everyone gazed in her direction. In the heat of the argument she had been forgotten, but now she once again became the central character in the drama.She felt ridiculous, sprawled out as she was who knew how long shed been there? in the middle of the street amid a group of curious bystanders. She would have liked to get up, but she knew she couldnt do it alone.She glanced around in a circle, seeking a familiar figure among those grey faces, and stopped at the man whose lazy voice had caught her attention. She recognized him by his uncaring gaze, which bore a strong resemblance to his voice.Rather than having a fight, why dont you help me get up?The man didnt look at all surprised. Without haste, he took a step towards her, paused, kneeled, placed his hand beneath her right arm and lifted her firmly, if without great deftness.She was unable to suppress a small cry of pain when, reaching a standing position, she was left with her full weight on her right leg.Does it hurt?I dont know. Ill see later.What should she do now? The circle of curious bystanders tightened around her. Her hat slipped onto the nape of her neck, her right stocking had slid down her leg, her overcoat was covered with snow, her gloves were soaked ...She felt that getting up had been a mistake: she had been more comfortable lying in the snow. For a moment she was tempted to tumble back down on the spot, a thought that made her smile and recover her calm. Ive got to escape from this, she said to herself, confronting the groups curiosity with courage.She returned to the man at her side, who also seemed rather embarrassed by the spectacle.Would you like to take a few steps with me? The suggestion seemed to bore him. She hastened to calm him. Just a few, as far as the car.She didnt wait for his reply. She took his arm and set out alongside him, treading with care in order not to reawaken the pain of a few moments earlier.Neither a car nor a taxi could be seen. The young gentleman made no effort to conceal his boredom. He remained stubbornly silent, distracted.She would have been happy to leave him and continue on her way alone, but she didnt trust her right leg. Twice she tried to tread with her full weight, and the pain sliced into her ankle like a blade.Hes been badly brought up, but I need him. She took his arm more firmly, as though she wished to show him that she wasnt going to allow herself to be intimidated by his bad upbringing and that she wasnt giving up.She walked a little behind him, not daring to tell him to take shorter steps. She was able to scowl at him in profile without his noticing. A drab guy, with undefinable features, young-looking, although not of any precise age; his hair looked blond, although it wasnt of any clearly defined colour. Maybe Ive seen him before somewhere.Was he tall? Short? She wouldnt have known what to say. He looked tall in that loose, grey overcoat with large pockets into which he had thrust his hands with a self-assured air.He remained silent, in the silence of a long journey, reserved, enduring, expressionless.Its as if he were alone. As if I werent here by his side. As if he had forgotten that I was by his side. What if he really has forgotten? What if he wakes up and finds us arm-in-arm and asks me what Im doing here, hanging onto his arm?She decided to break the silence.I dont know how it happened. I slipped, you see, on the step of the tram. I was trying to get off.While the tram was moving?Hearing his voice surprised her. She thought he hadnt heard her, that he wasnt going to respond. Her surprise made her animated.Yes, while the tram was moving. I always get off when the trams moving. Otherwise it doesnt work. I live near here, on Bulevardul Dacia, and the number 16 tram only stops on Donici or on Vasile Lascr. Its too far away. Thats why I get off at the turn, where the tram goes onto Orientul. Not just me. Everybody who lives around here does it. And nothing ever happens. Except for today ... I dont know how it happened.They were passing beneath the pulsing of a streetlight. In the light, his face again looked distracted.What an unpleasant guy! Even so, she summoned the courage to stop.Dont be troubled by what Im about to ask you. I want you to pull up my stocking. Im completely frozen.She bent over, realizing only now that she was bleeding: her right knee was red, but lower down, towards her ankle, where the scrape was deeper, frozen blood plastered the stockings fabric to the wound.Is it serious?I dont know. For the time being its not hurting. I should go to the pharmacy. Will you come with me?He didnt reply, but he took her arm and asked with his eyes: Which way?Its not far. Look, over there on the other sidewalk.They crossed the street. From afar she found it difficult to recognize herself in the reflection in the pharmacys windows next to this man, who looked even stranger in the distant image on the glass. As she approached, she smiled with compassion at her own face. How pathetic I look, poor me! She took off her hat with a brisk motion and stood with it in her hand, dismayed.I cant go into that shop. The pharmacist knows me, hell ask, Ill have to explain ... Will you ...?He accepted unenthusiastically, frowning with his brows.What do you need?A little iodine and ... I dont know, a little oxygenated water.She was about to open her handbag to give him the money, but, without waiting, he pushed open the door of the pharmacy and went inside.From outside, she watched him through the pane of the display window: how he entered, how he took off his hat, how he said good evening, how he approached the pharmacist in his white lab jacket. She found it odd to watch him opening his mouth and uttering words that she couldnt hear. What a peculiar voice he had! A little muffled, a little quashed, and yet with a rough tone. The pharmacist was pouring the tincture of iodine into a bottle.Why was he taking so long? It must be as hot as a greenhouse inside. The metal scales were still. The heavy liquids, as though drowsy, slept on the shelves in solemn crystal flasks.The pharmacist was asking him something and he was replying with plenty of enthusiasm. He was more talkative inside in the heat than he had been out here in the cold. And if she were to leave him? If she walked away now, without waiting for him? How astonished he would be at not finding her here, but what a feeling of relief he would have, the saucy devil!Her knee started to hurt. To sting more than to hurt. She thought again of the lovely warmth on the other side of the display window and closed her eyes. She felt as though she were slipping into a kind of slumber ...Did I take too long?It was his voice. That uncertain voice, which didnt stress his words and gave her the impression that he was walking at her side without paying attention to her.She didnt reply and didnt open her eyes.Are you feeling ill?Im not ill. But Id like to get home. Im freezing.You said it wasnt far ...Dont worry, it isnt. Another twenty paces and youre free.She didnt expect even a polite denial from him. She took his arm, determined not to say anything more to him; she was impatient to be left alone. She forced herself to take ever longer strides, although her right leg was still hurting.For the first time since that stupid accident had happened, she felt like she wanted to cry.She finally stopped in front of a multiple-storey building, leaned against the glass front door and extended her hand ...This is it. You can go now. Thank you.He squeezed her hand for a second without holding it, then touched a finger to his hat, sketching a vague half-wave.She wanted to tell him: Youre the most unpleasant man in the world. But she was too tired to tell him anything. She left him there in front of the building, and went into the bright foyer, where an enervating wave of heat received her.... She was alone in the elevator. She pressed the button for the top floor, the sixth, then fell onto the bench with a relieved sigh. She promised herself she would cry with all her heart once she got to her apartment. She felt that nothing could be better for her: a good cry followed by a steaming hot bath.Somewhere between two floors the elevator stopped with a brusque shudder. At first she thought she had arrived, but she realized that in fact she was suspended in the air.This is the day for accidents. She tried to make a joke in her mind. She pressed for a long time on the alarm button.She remembered that last summer the old lady from the third floor had spent a whole morning locked in the elevator between two floors. The thought terrified her. She pressed again, with a long, nervous, harsh start of panic, on the red button. In the deep silence, everything was motionless; somewhere far away, as weak as a call from another world, the alarm bell rang without anyone responding to it.She could no longer hold back her tears. She looked at herself in the elevators rectangular mirror and felt pity for the state she was in: dishevelled, ragged, dirty, frozen. The hot tears welled from her eyes, and she received them with a sudden pleasure, as if she had drawn near to a warm hearth.From below someone, probably the porter, shouted: Hey, third-floor door. Who opened the third-floor door?The third-floor door was closed: the elevator set off noiselessly on its way. She would have liked not to stop again, to travel like that forever, and to be able to cry peacefully to the slow, silent movements of the elevator.On the top floor the young gentleman in the grey overcoat was waiting for her. She looked at him in astonishment, unable to understand what was going on.You?Me. I forgot to give you the iodine tincture and the oxygenated water.Indeed, he pulled two bottles out of his pocket enveloped in the pharmacys multicoloured paper.And how did you get up here?By the stairs.Six floors?Six.What an odd guy! she thought, watching him for a moment, intrigued again by his lack of expression. Now, too, he had that far-away, unquestioning gaze, which she had first seen when she had raised her head from the snow.She remembered that she had been crying. Embarrassed, she lowered her eyes; but it was too late: he had noticed.You were crying?No ... Well, yes. A little. But its not important! Its never important when I cry ...She took the key out of her handbag.Do you want to come in for a moment?He responded by lifting his shoulders.Does that mean Yes, or does that mean No?I dont know what it means. Its a habitual gesture. Lets say Yes.So come in.Next to the door was a small, metal plate: Nora Munteanu. He asked the question with his eyes and she confirmed: Thats me.

The water was boiling. She had thrown a handful of lavender into the pot, and the apartment was full of warm, aromatic vapours.Can you smell it over there?What?The lavender.Its lavender? Yes, I can smell it.His voice, even more muffled than usual, came from the adjoining room, through the door that Nora had left ajar in order to be able to speak to him while she ran her bath.Youre not bored?No.Are you comfortable?Yes.In fact, she had sat him down in an arm chair and set a pile of illustrated magazines in front of him. Like at the dentist, he observed meekly, occupying his assigned place.Yes, just like at the dentist. Ill ask you to behave yourself until Ive finished. Then we can talk.The bath was soporifically good. Nora closed her eyes, overcome by the heat that she felt suffusing in a sweet torpor through her entire body. Deep inside her, fine blood vessels, which she thought that the cold had frozen shut, began to open.Nora felt an access of companionship for this body of hers, well-known, familiar and reliable. It felt like a rediscovered old acquaintance and she caressed it with comradely sympathy. Her hand lingered on her breast, as on a round cheek. She would have liked to fall asleep ...In the adjoining room she heard a chair move.Did you want something?No. I was looking at the photograph on your desk. Who is it?Me.In that costume?Its a ski costume. I was at Predeal. Do you like it?He didnt reply. Maybe he hadnt heard the question, which she had asked in an offhand tone, her voice dropping. She heard him turning a page: he must be reading.Nora thought about him and realized with surprise that she had forgotten him. She knew he was in the next room, sunken in her armchair, on the other side of the door she had left ajar, yet she was unable to remember what his face looked like. His features melted into uncertainty under a vague smile, as though under a diffused light.On the other hand, she remembered clearly the tie he was wearing, a green tie of rough wool, with tiny oblique parallel seams ...Its a nice tie, but he doesnt know how to tie it. The knots crooked. Ill have to teach him how to knot a tie like a normal person.In the next room, the telephone rang loudly.What should I do? her quiet guest asked from the sofa.Nothing. Let it ring.The ringing continued, ever longer, ever harsher. Nora smiled with fatigue. Only one person would let the phone ring that long.Be a good boy and answer.He lifted the receiver, said, Hello, then, after a pause, replaced it.What happened?I dont know. Nobody answered. And somebody hung up without a word.It must be Grig.Grig?Yes, a friend. He must have been surprised to hear a mans voice here. He probably thought hed got a wrong number.Noras supposition seemed to be correct because the phone rang again.Dont be offended. Please answer it. Tell him that Im in the bath and that he should call me in five minutes.She held her breath and listened with her ear cocked towards the next room so that she could also catch the voice coming from the receiver. She heard it vibrating metallically, as far away as though it came from a minuscule gramophone record.Hello. Is that 2-65-80? Are you sure its not a wrong number?No, sir. Its not a wrong number.Then whos speaking? the little metallic voice asked.Miss Nora asks that you ...Im not interested in what Miss Nora asks. I want to know whos speaking.Sir, Miss Nora is in the bath and she asks you ...I dont want to know where Miss Nora is. I want to know who you are, buddy.A moments silence followed, then a brief noise, cut off as the receiver dropped into the cradle somewhere far away, breaking the connection.Now what ...? he asked Nora, with a calmness that suggested that the strange conversation hadnt bothered him.Nothing. Go back to your spot in the armchair and wait for me. Ill be there in a second.Nora came in dressed in a white bathrobe that was a little too big for her.She made straight for his armchair, switched on the small, shaded lamp on the the nearby sofa and slid it close to him, abruptly illumining his face.Whats up?Nothing. I want to see you. Imagine that, Id forgotten what you looked like. The whole time I was in the bath I was racking my brains trying to remember.She scrutinized him with great seriousness while he calmly put up with her scrutiny.Have you finished?Yes, for the time being. Your face isnt strongly defined. Difficult to remember.He lifted his shoulders. She recognized the gesture.I dont like that lifting of your shoulders.He didnt reply, while she watched him at greater length, tracing his vaguely outlined features, in which she discerned a blend of fatigue and boyishness.Youre a murky kind of guy. I bet you came out of the fog.On the sofa were the two bottles purchased at the pharmacy. Nora took them and went to the side of the night table in order to dress her wounds, as she called them, exaggerating to make a joke.She pulled aside the bathrobe with a considered modesty and unveiled her right leg up to the knee, only as far as was necessary to put on the bandages. Properly speaking, she wasnt wounded. They were more like scratches, although very bad ones, since even after her steaming hot bath they were still bleeding slightly.He followed the operation from the armchair, waiting as if to hear her cry when she pressed the iodine-soaked swab against her bleeding ankle. But her gestures had the polite, objective quality of those of a nurse bending over an unfamiliar patient. Her black hair fell over her forehead in a gesture absent of flirtatiousness.She continued for some time to run the cotton swab over her ankle, then over her knee, completely absorbed in what she was doing. Finally she interrupted her movements as though she had just remembered a forgotten matter of business. You werent bothered by that phone call just now?No.Just as well. Im ... Im used to it.She took up again her delicate operation, cleaning with oxygenated water then with the iodine tincture a small cut she had not noticed until now.Yes, Im used to it. To that and to other things. Look, Grig ... Youd have to meet him.Isnt he coming here this evening?He was supposed to ... But now he wont be coming. Not this evening and not many other evenings ...Im sorry, believe me.Im not. I swear Im not.Do you love him?Nora sensed an ironic undertone in his question. She was convinced that he was smiling just as he had smiled on the street, amid that group of bystanders in which he alone had been indifferent.She raised her head quickly, in order to surprise him, and was astonished on looking at him to see that she had been wrong. He wasnt smiling.No, I dont love him. I dont think I love him. He comes here ... to this apartment ... He comes, he leaves, he phones me, he gets angry, he makes up ... Thats him. I think youd find him amusing.Why?Im not sure. It seems like hes the exact opposite of you.And how do you know that?For lots of reasons. Your voice. Your tie. She got up and came towards him. Yes, your tie. His is always perfectly tied. Yours is crooked. You dont know how to tie it. Will you let me?She sat down on the low back of the armchair and undid the knot of his tie with fluid, measured movements. He didnt resist. He waited dutifully for her to finish. The aroma of lavender passed through her porous bathrobe, bearing a wave of heat in which she felt something like a distant beating of her blood, the fine throbbing of her pulse.When she had finished knotting the tie, Nora stepped away from him and observed him to see how he looked.No, it doesnt work. Its perfect, but it doesnt look right on you. Its too perfect for you.And, with that worry, she was compelled to ruin the too-perfect knot in his tie in order to restore his negligent air.He was ready to leave. He put on his hat. My God, how tall he looks in that hat! He was preparing to bid her good evening.Are you really going?Its late.You havent even introduced yourself.Do you need to see my identity papers?Theres no harm in our looking at them.He searched with a serious expression in the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out an I.D. card, which he held out to her.Nora looked it over for a moment, as though she wished to verify the photograph, the personal information, the signature. Then she looked at him in sudden surprise.You were born on December 18th?Yes.December 18th? Youre sure? Without waiting for his reply, she turned her head towards the calendar on the wall. You did realize that today is your birthday? You realized that youre turning ... She stopped, opened again the I.D. card in her hand, read his birthdate ... You knew that you were turning thirty today? Exactly today?He didnt look surprised. He looked far more amused by her open stupefaction. She insisted. Tell me, you did know?He lifted his shoulders; again, his indifferent lifting of his shoulders. No.Nora tried not to believe him.Its not true. Isnt that right its not true? And isnt somebody waiting for you somewhere this evening? Your wife, your girlfriend. Someone who knows ...She came to a halt. There was something in his hazy, settled silence that made her suddenly certain that she would not be able to wrest a reply from him.He took a step towards the door. Nora seized his arm. Dont leave yet.On a bookshelf, in a glass vase, were three carnations with long stalks. She took a carnation and offered it to him without smiling, almost with gravity.For your birthday. Then, with unexpected enthusiasm, she pressed even closer to him. Stay here. As you can see, its bright, its warm. We can call the porter and send him to the grocery store. Were going to make a big dinner and clink our glasses. Thatll bring us luck.You think so? he said, distracted.Im sure.A boyish sparkle lighted up his eyes. I accept. But youve got to let me go down to the shop.Thats not possible.Why not?Because you wont come back.Of course I will.... And she had no more time to refute him because he had opened the door and disappeared down the stairs in a tempestuous rush.Nora remained on the threshold, listening to his steps fading away.

She looked restlessly at the clock on her desk: twenty minutes had gone past. He may not come back.An immense silence filled the entire building. From somewhere on a distant floor came the feeble sound of a song on a gramophone or on the radio:

Goodnight, Mimy,And sweet dreamsGoodnight, MimyAnd deep sleep ...Nora thought about that Mimy, who no doubt had been sleeping for a long time as a result of the songs persuasion.She would have liked to sleep, too. It seemed wrong to have taken off that soft bathrobe in which she had felt so warmly embraced. In this evening dress she had the uncomfortable impression of being a visitor in her own apartment. But she had seen that he took with complete seriousness the dinner for which she was preparing, and she thought with pleasure that when he returned he would find a stunning woman ... Stunning. She repeated the word in her head and smiled with slight fatigue.A dull hum cut through the silence of the building. Someone was coming up in the elevator.Acquainted with the buildings most intimate secrets, Noras ear followed the sound as it would have followed the rise of mercury in an oversized thermometer.First floor, second floor ...As it approached, the hum of the elevator vibrated like the lower chords of a piano, prolonged by the pressure of the pedals. Would it stop on the third floor ...? No, it had continued upward.At each floor there was a brief thunk, like a pulse beating harder.Nora closed her eyes. She felt the rising of the elevator inside her, as though a secret driving-belt had taken over her blood and nerves.Fourth ... Fifth ... Had it stopped?It seemed as though, within the silence that had existed until now, a new, deeper zone of silence had opened.Had it stopped?Yes. It had stopped. The interior lattice work, made of wood, clattered back with a meshing shudder, the door opened and closed mechanically, the hum of the elevators chords fell away, dwindled ...Its pointless to wait for him. Hes not coming back.Nora got up from the armchair and approached the mirror. She observed herself for a long time. How absurd you are, my dear girl. How absurd you are! she said to herself in a loud voice.She felt pity for her black dress, her bare arms, for those two carnations that she could see in the mirror trembling in the glass vase, too heavy for their slender stalks as though they, too, were tired from waiting.She lifted the telephone receiver and kept it in her hand for a while, without a thought. Then she put it back, not knowing why she had picked it up.No, hes not coming back.She leaned against the wall and looked at her apartment, pausing for a long time over each item, astonished that these objects were at the same time so familiar and so strange.She glimpsed his I.D. card lying on the desk. She took it in her hand, realizing only now that it was a passport. She hadnt seen these new passports, with their long outer covers. She opened it.Stature: medium. Hair: brown. Eyebrows: brown. Eyes: green. Nose: regular. Mouth: regular. Beard: shaven ...The last word made her tremble. In her bathroom, on the little metal shelf over the sink, was Grigs shaving kit. I should hide it, she told herself, thinking that the other man, when he returned, might go into the bathroom and find such an indiscreet object there. But after the first step she thought again ... What good was there in hiding it since he wasnt coming back...She recited again the identifying signs from the passport page. She would have liked to rediscover in each word the features of that uncertain curve of cheek, which was sinking again into the haze from which it had broken free for only a moment.Hair, brown ... Mouth ... regular ... What bored bureaucrat had lifted his eyes for a second from among his papers and observed him tentatively in order to write under the pertinent rubric the colour of his eyes, the line of his forehead, the shape of his lips? ... Shed had him here, in her apartment, in broad daylight, under the full glow of a lamp, and she still wouldnt have been able to say anything for certain about his face with its indefinite lines.Mouth: regular... Nora closed her eyes and forced herself to remember that mouth, about which the passport said with indifference that it was regular, as though it werent possible to hide an infinity of lines behind that single word. She would have liked to be able to walk her forefinger over his lips and surprise in the slight gap between them that uncertain smile that spilled a thin, weary light over his whole face.It seemed to her that the passport in her hand contained an unsolved mystery, and that the bureaucratic formulas, official seals and identifying signs made up a life that waited to be understood. She felt alone, horribly alone, in the apartment with all the lights on, holding in her hand a photograph, a name, a few personal details, beneath which she would have been delighted to hear the beating of a heart, a voice.She was tempted to hold up the little booklet with the white cover to her ear and listen, as though in a conch shell, to the whispering of an unknown life.The pages reserved for visas were full of sundry seals and stamps. Nora read the last row: Visa sous le no. 1464 la Legation de Belgique Bucarest pour permettre au titulaire ...Two smaller, rectangular stamps at the bottom of the pages attested to his border crossings, outbound and returning: Hegenrath, 23 juillet 1934. Contrle des passagers. And later: Hegenrath, 12 aot.Where was I between July 23 and August 12? Nora wondered. She saw herself again on the beach at Agigea, under blazing sunlight, thirty days of safety while Grig played cards at the Casino in Eforie by day and they danced in the taproom at night. Some days, when the sea was calm, she could hear the jazz music in her tent in Agigea ... At the same time, someone was crossing the border at Hegenrath on a July night, maybe on his way to Brussels, maybe on his way to a small provincial town, maybe alone, maybe with a woman, someone who five months later had picked her up out of the snow on a Bucharest street and looked her in the eyes with an indifferent lift of his shoulders ...She wished she could relive those days, July 23 to August 12, not in her tent at Agigea, but rather somewhere unseen, in the shadow of this unknown man. She would have liked to know what had happened during those nineteen days and see the small train station at the border by night, the customs officers manner, the stamp printing with red ink on paper the day that would not return ...Hegenrath, 23 juillet. To Nora the words felt mysterious, impenetrable.She plunged into the armchair, disheartened.She should have undressed, gone to bed and slept.But she felt that she would be unable to get to her feet, take off her dress and turn down her bed. She would have preferred to remain still and sleep as she was, as she might be in the waiting room of a train station. Hegenrath station ...The bell rang suddenly and loudly. For a second Nora didnt realize what was happening. She let it ring for a long time, as though she wished to fill the whole apartment with the sound of its call. Then she headed for the door, forcing herself not to make any assumptions. She opened the door without emotion. He was on the threshold, loaded down with shopping bags.

The cork flew with a resounding bang, and the champagne overflowed the neck of the bottle while Nora looked up to follow the projectiles trajectory.A direct hit! he shouted victoriously.Overhead on the ceiling, a coin-shaped white spot marked the point of impact.Two more hits like that and the landlord will evict me for causing serious damage, Nora joked, not without a certain anxiety.Two more hits, you say? No, my dear friend. A hundred and one. Yes, a hundred and one sound blows. Like at Epiphany, like on January 24.1And, putting aside the empty bottle like a discarded weapon, he took another bottle in his hands. This time the detonation was even louder. They looked at each other in surprise, no longer smiling. On the bookshelf, the two carnations shook, awoken from their slumber. The detonation seemed to radiate through the whole sleeping building from floor to floor.A hit!On the ceiling, a new white mark had appeared, a very short distance from the first one.A dead-eye marksman! What ease! What precision!There was a gleam in his eye that Nora saw igniting for the first time. She almost didnt recognize the silent man who had left her apartment half an hour earlier. Where was his heavy silence, where was that tired, indifferent smile? He was speaking now with a nervous animation that seemed strange in him.The champagne was bubbling in their glasses. Nora raised hers with a certain gravity. To your birthday. To your turning thirty.She noticed that her voice was trembling. She was ashamed of this childish emotion. He replied casually, joking: To you. To the number 16 tram. To this evenings accident.How many glasses had they drunk? She had been counting up to the fifth one, but after that she had lost track.It was probably late. The radio (who had turned it on? when had it been turned on?) was tuned to the British national anthem. Thats the end of our programming from Droitwich.Nora was making efforts to keep her eyes wide open, but she saw the objects in the room through a curtain of smoke.Overhead on the ceiling, the marks from the direct hits looked too numerous to count.Across from her, sometimes very close, sometimes immeasurably far away, as though seen through the lens of a field glass, was he. He was speaking, but although Nora heard each word distinctly, she wasnt understanding anything that he was saying. As always, he was speaking in that suppressed, extinguished voice, with sudden outbreaks of brightness, which vanished in that tone of indifference ...A hit! How strange that brief, triumphant cry sounded in his nonchalant tones. A hit! What had been hit? Hit where? Right in the heart, yes, yes, she had really said the heart.Nora let her head fall into her hands. She wished she could stop the disorderly succession of thoughts that were passing through her mind, she wished she could stop the pounding in her temples.Lets be reasonable, my dear girl, lets not lose our head. This gentleman ... whats his name ...? You see, youve forgotten his name ... Anyway, whatever his name is, its time for him to leave. Its late and he should leave ... Unless ... Unless you want him to stay. Do you want him to stay? Tell me, you can tell me ... But weve only known each other for a few hours ... Do you want him to stay?He had got up from his place and come alongside her. She felt his breath on her back, very close. Abruptly, Nora stood up.Wait for me. Ill be right back.She went into the bathroom, avoiding turning on the light out of a fear of surprising in the mirror the crumpled face that came from sleeplessness and wine, a troubled expression that she had been familiar with for a long time now from her rare all-night parties. She turned on the faucet and let cold water run over her cheeks, her eyes. A moment later, she dared to turn on the light; incredulously, she rediscovered her composed, everyday gaze. She looked at herself for a while, wondering what she should do. It would be so easy to go back into the room, tell him that it was late and she was tired and ask him to leave! If only shed had the courage to say the same thing, in a former time, on a night like this, to Grig ... That shaving kit would no longer be here and a number of other things would be different than the way they were!She took off her dress with slow, sluggish movements, uncertain until the final moment whether or not she was going to complete the gesture. She stood naked, with her bare feet on the cement floor; the stoney coldness spread through her whole being with a soothing calm. Against the white faience glaze of the walls, brilliant beneath the heat of the lamps, her body looked pallid and sad. She stared at herself with a shake of her head. My poor Nora, how strange you are! A wave of tenderness, and the confusing taste of unshed tears, enveloped her at the thought of her strangeness.What was the use of resisting? She was going to walk out of here, she was going to turn out the lights, she was going to get into bed and wait for him to undress, she was going to kiss him first, on the lips, and she was going to find out everything about his bitter smile. Maybe he, too ... yes, he, too, probably had a few things he wanted to forget ...She put on the white bathrobe and looked at herself again in the mirror since she didnt want to avoid her own gaze.She stopped on the threshold, unable to grasp what was happening. There was no one in the apartment. She stared fixedly at the empty armchair, the cigarette that burned abandoned in the ashtray, the overturned glasses. The door of the entrance hall was half open. She went through it, walked out into the corridor and listened incuriously for a moment. It seemed to her that from below, from the first floor, she heard steps going down.She returned to the apartment and looked again with a kind of stupid attention at each object, as she if she could have asked them questions, as if she could have expected them to reply.She opened the window. Below, in the street, on the opposite sidewalk, a gentleman in a grey overcoat was vanishing with long strides, his hands thrust in his pockets. Nora remembered the name she had read in the passport. She shouted without realizing what she was doing.Paul! Paul!Afterwards she stood at the open window, her arms limp at her sides.

IIPAUL HEARD THE SHOUT, but didnt turn his head. The voice fell from above, frozen and accentless. The whole street was stock-still with silence. It must be very late. In all of Bulevardul Dacia, a single lighted window: her window. He felt it in his back, between his shoulder blades, like a glare. He didnt stop until he had turned the corner, when he felt that the eye of that light could no longer reach him.He suddenly felt unburdened. Free and on my own ...How far he was from the apartment he had fled! He had drunk a lot, he had talked endlessly, wishing keenly to be young and merry, but it had taken no more than being left alone for a few moments for all of his animation to collapse. He hadnt felt the slightest curiosity about the body of the young woman who was undressing in the next room. He had got up from his seat, grabbed his hat and overcoat, and had left, leaving the door open out of a fear of being heard. He had gone down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, then three. Free and on my own ...

... He came to his senses stumbling along the sidewalk, right at the edge, with tiny steps, one after the other. His boots sank deep into the snow, leaving clearly delineated prints. When he got to the next street light, he stopped to look around him: under the glow of the lamps, his footprints made a line into the distance, as though drawn on a limitless white page. Then he set off again, with the same careful steps as before.A taxi passed alongside him, slowing down in invitation to this late-night passerby. Paul met the drivers intrigued, possibly slightly ironic gaze and shuddered at being caught in his stupid game. He crossed the street to the opposite sidewalk, accelerating his pace as though he had suddenly remembered that he was in a race about which he had forgotten.And now?He was embarrassed at the thought of resuming his interrupted game since he had the impression that neither the driver nor he had surprised each other just now. He deliberately walked close to the houses, where the snow was packed down and his steps left no footprints.He was passing in front of a long fence made of whitewashed wooden planks. Odd or even? He decided on odd and started to count ...One, two, three, four ...He stopped occasionally since some of the planks were split in two and he didnt want to count them twice. He didnt like to cheat his own superstitions.The light of the lamps fell from behind him, unfurling his shadow far out over the snow. By now he had decided not to let himself be intimidated and to continue at any price the game he had started.Fifteen, sixteen ...A car came up fast alongside him. Either a private car or an occupied taxi, Paul thought, without interrupting his counting.Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty ...He stopped in front of the plank he had reached, measured it from top to bottom, as though it were a person and murmured a few times: thirty, thirty.Thirty years! There it was, it was pointless to flee from the only thought that followed him; it was pointless to try to forget it with idiotic little games. From now on he was going to have to look it in the face and accept it: he was thirty years old.He leaned with his back against the fence and closed his eyes. He would have liked to stay that way, empty of thoughts, empty of memories, in that beneficent numbness. He saw himself as he might have done from the opposite sidewalk, alone on the deserted street, leaning against someone elses gate in that night in which he had turned thirty years old, thirty years that he didnt know what to do with.But, rising from somewhere within his being, he felt a mild haze, a distant taste of sadness, the flavour of cinders. He knew well that memories foolishly quelled, pointlessly repressed imaginings, lay concealed beyond the indifference that he now felt crumbling inside him. Thus, as on misty mornings in the mountains, he waited for the vanished yet present landscape to appear. Beyond that mournful image of his beloved, he glimpsed her name, which he had banished from his mind in vain: Anna.He repeated the name a few times in a throaty voice, separating those two syllables as though he had dismantled the components of a tiny mechanism in order to find its hidden mainspring.How many days had passed since he had seen her? Someone replied for him: Twenty-three days. Paul felt a horror-stricken shudder at the mechanical precision of his response. The last few days had been extremely calm. He hadnt thought about her, he had worked in peace; he thought he had forgotten her. Even so, it seemed that, under cover, an unseen device was clocking up her absence, recording, as though on an interior screen that was waiting to light up at the first request, moment by moment, the time that he had passed without her: twenty-three days, eight hours, twenty-six minutes ...He saw again her blond hair, her too-bright eyes, her expressive hands and then that serious smile, which sometimes used to interrupt him in unexpected agitation, the smile too heavy for her small eyes, which expanded when she made an effort to pay attention, as though she might have fallen silent on hearing another voice, which had been covered by the words she had spoken until then.

... He crossed the street towards Icoanei Park and failed to recognize, in the small park in winter, the image of the gardens where had so often spent the day. Everything was foreign: the snowy paths, the dark trees, naked in their wooden motionlessness, the sparse park benches, the electric lights that burned pointlessly, as though someone had forgotten to turn them off when leaving.Somewhere near the left-hand gate must be the bench on which, on an October morning in 1932, he had waited for Ann with a sketchbook in his hand, having come to make some sketches of trees for a publicity project he was working on at the time. He didnt have the courage to look for that bench and, given how much the park had changed, he might not have found it.He looked at his watch and realized that it was less late than he had imagined: ten minutes to two. At this time Ann might be at their usual bar on Bulevardul Basarab. She was always going out these days, so why would she have remained at home tonight?This night cant pass without Ann, Paul said to himself. The thought that he could meet her, if he wished, thrilled him.He sees the bar on Basarab, the metallic reflections on its walls, the white lights, the circular dance floor like an illuminated island. Ann must be there, among a group of friends, at their usual table. He walks up to her and, looking her in the eyes, says: Ann, Im turning thirty tonight. I didnt even realize it; I remembered it just now by chance and Ive come so we can clink a glass together. You know how superstitious I am.Smiling, she looks at him. I was waiting for you, Paul. I knew you would come. This night cant pass without you.It was hallucinatory to see this: he felt the warmth of her words, their heat against his cheek. Everything was so present, so close: her black dress, the small silver brooch over her left breast, the silk handbag radiant on the table, the glass of whisky that she gave him with a nervous gesture, as though she wished that there was nothing to separate him from her.... He came to with a shudder of panic. How much time had he wasted dreaming? He didnt dare to look at his watch. He glanced around him and couldnt figure out where he was. He was no longer in Icoanei Park, the street was unknown to him, the houses alien. Beyond those buildings that he didnt know was a weak blue halo: that lights of Bulevardul Brtianu. He chose to go in that direction, forcing himself to think about nothing. At the first corner he found a taxi stand. The driver was asleep, the frozen engine started with difficulty and how far, how unbearably far away, was the bar on Bulevardul Basarab!

He hopped out of the car, flinging the door shut and shouted as he passed the doorman: Pay him, please.Are there a lot people here? he asked the coat-check girl as he took off his overcoat, not daring to state more clearly the only question whose answer interested him.Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around with an outsized shudder of fright. (I should control myself, he thought.) It was another of the bars regulars, a lawyer for an oil company.About time I found you, buddy. Ive been phoning you all day. Whats happening with our hearing tomorrow?What hearing? Paul asked absent-mindedly, trying to look past the mans shoulders, towards the interior of the bar, as the curtains at the end of the hall opened.What do you mean, what hearing? You know what Im talking about. Commerce hearing number two, with the Steaua Romn refinery. Dont you know? Number 3623 slash 929. You want to go to trial tomorrow? I say we adjourn. Its pointless now, just before Christmas. Maybe sometime after the holidays, whenever youre available. Hey! What do you say?Paul gave a vague reply, as he hadnt been listening and didnt know what the man was talking about. Leave it, well see tomorrow... Excuse me, please, Im in a hurry, Im looking for someone ...Who are you looking for? Theres nobody in there. I was bored stiff. You should come with me to Zissus place.2Paul walked away from him, almost without saying goodbye. Nobody, nobody. He repeated the word mechanically, without understanding it. He parted the curtains with a brisk motion. Far away, very far away, it seemed, in the opposite corner of the bar, at a distance that struck him as enormous, impassable, their usual table was empty.He walked towards it with a mechanical step and forced himself to look fixedly in the direction of that same point with his eyes wide open, as though he wished to retain the image on his retina and prevent himself from transmitting the horrible news towards other centres of pain.Everything occurred without accident. He dropped, exhausted, into his seat with the air of a man who was worn out yet still controlling his movements.The piano-player gave him a wave of recognition. Havent seen you around here much lately.He replied with a lift of his shoulders, a vague, tired motion that replied to something else, something completely different.The bar was dimly lit, like a sleeping car at night. He always rediscovered here the atmosphere of a journey, a departure. The city seemed to drift away, losing itself. Ann had drawn up the decoration plans out of friendship for the owner, formerly the manager at the Colonnade Hotel. With childlike enthusiasm she had sketched each detail, so absorbed she was in every new discovery!It has to be superb, my dear Paul. Superb, you understand? And look here her pencil stopped on the page, indicating a given point this will be our table, yours and mine.What farcical trick of his memory had reminded him of her forgotten words precisely at this moment, as though the point of her pencil had signalled, months in advance, the exact spot where on a future night, on this very night, he would have to wait for the shadow that no longer came?And what if, even so, she came even now?Paul rejected this hope, which he knew to be false. He didnt want to harbour new vain hopes. Yet the alluring thought persisted: Its not impossible that she still might come.No, it wasnt impossible, he had to recognize that. So many times before, towards morning, when the lights were being turned out, when the jazz music was yawning into silence, when the metal instruments were returning to their cloth bags and only the piano continued to play for the dancers who were washing off their makeup and the coat-check girls or a client who had delayed his departure, so many times, opening the curtains at the end of the hall, pale, wide-awake, dazzling, with her decisive step and her morning smile, Ann had come in.Paul raised his head, as though to call out to this apparition. But the curtains at the opposite end of the room were motionless; with their heavy folds, their reddish old-copper tone, they separated one world from another.Even so, he couldnt tear his gaze away from that point where, from one moment to the next, she might appear. He had the feeling that a nub of pain had moved over there, like a second soul released from within him and dispatched to watch and wait for her.Sometimes the curtains moved, a hand appeared. Then Paul, seemingly unable to bear a new level of tension, felt an abrupt tremolo of awareness that permitted him to observe without crying out, with a resigned stupefaction, as the curtains opened to let a dancer, a coat-check girl or a flower-girl pass. Even harder to bear was when a hand appeared for an instant then withdrew without opening the curtains and without allowing him to see who precisely was behind it, since then nobody would be able to convince Paul that Ann wasnt there, that she had not come as far as the threshold of the bar only so that at the last minute (because it was too late or because there werent very many people) she could have second thoughts and leave. He would have liked to run after her, catch up to her just as she was going out the door and be able to say to her: Stay! But he saw himself returning alone between the lines of dancers, between the tables full of clients intrigued by his comings and goings. He didnt feel in any condition to put up with indiscreet looks, so many hinting gestures, so many whispers ...A waiter was turning out the shaded lamps at the tables that had remained empty. From the next table, the piano-player, who was talking with one of the establishments dancers, turned towards Paul. Drink sales are pathetic. Its a bad sign. Theyre starting to save money on the lighting.Only in the middle of the room had the dance floor remained illuminated, like a silver planet sailing through the white space of the cigarette smoke.The owner approached Pauls table and asked to sit down next to him. It was the hour for confessions, as the bar personnel and the regular clients fell into informal conversation.I dont know what else I can do, the owner moaned. I think Im going to have to sell up. Its just not working any more. Three whole nights with one whisky and two lemon squashes. Im not superstitious, but since Miss Ann stopped coming here things have got worse and worse. You dont know whats got into her? Why she might be angry? I wanted to ask her tonight, but ...She was here?Yes. Around one oclock.Alone?I think she was alone. Unless someone was waiting for her in the car. She didnt even want to come in. Arent you staying, Miss Ann? No, Im looking for someone. And she left.Paul looked at the man in front of him without seeing him, heard him without understanding what he was saying.Ann came here to look for me. The thought was of a simplicity that did not admit a reply. She was here and she looked for me.No, in fact, she had been unable to let midnight pass without meeting him. She had looked for him at home, she had called him at the office, she had come here ... And while she had been running after him all over town in order to put an end to this stupid separation, while she had been racing to bring him her welcome-back kiss, her reconciliation kiss, he had allowed himself to get dragged into that stupid street accident.Paul paid for his glass of whisky, which only now he realized he had not drunk. He consoled the owner: Dont worry, itll work out. Bars like this are like women: you never know where they come from or why they leave you. He tossed a wave at the piano-player, skirted the dance floor with an indolent stride, with the lazy gestures that suit so well the client of a bar at the approach of daybreak. No one was going to read the glowing impatience, the unseen light, on his pale face ...He stopped in front of the telephone and looked with feeling at the black funnel in which a moment from now Anns voice would vibrate, her voice aroused from sleep, troubled at first, then made lucid by surprise.His hand shuddered as he rotated the phones disk to compose her number, that number he had sworn to forbid himself from dialling, and which, nonetheless, he had mimed hundreds of times on imaginary disks, mechanically, while standing at the window, working at the office or leaning over his files. The telephone rang several times without a reply. Probably a wrong number, Paul thought. It wasnt surprising, given his state of impatience.He took up the operation from the beginning again, dialling the number digit by digit, slowly, carefully, like a beginner, with the attentive care recommended by the instructions on the wall of the telephone booth. The ring repeated its regular call and, as though a light had come on at the other end of the line, Paul saw with closed eyes the telephone close to Anns bed and the familiar surrounding objects: the small silver elephant, the ashtray of burnt wood (Guyannese teak, he thought, pointlessly remembering the woods name), the portrait of Ingrid on the wall, the red armchair, the carpet the entire apartment in which the ring sounded without meaning or response.Is it broken? the wardrobe girl, who was waiting to hand him his overcoat, asked on seeing him standing for such a long time with the receiver in his hand without speaking.No, its not broken. Shes not home, he replied, without knowing why, without noticing to whom he was speaking.He tried to lift his shoulders, but couldnt manage it. Not even his oldest gestures came to his aid.The taxi went down Griviei Street towards the city. In front of the Gra de Nord, Paul motioned for the driver to stop. Do you know if any trains leave at this time?The driver turned his head towards his strange passenger.Why?I asked if any trains were leaving.At this time, no. The first trains at 5:40 AM. The slow train to Timioara.Paul saw himself collapsed in a compartment in a third-class carriage, rocking to the noise of the wheels, dizzy, travelling aimlessly all day and all night, then another day, then another night, getting off at some nameless station in the middle of the countryside, filthy, black with soot, wrecked by sleeplessness, lying down on the frozen earth to sleep and to forget.The driver set off again, without asking for directions. He was used to picking up passengers whom he found alone on street corners at night, hesitating between hailing a taxi and putting a bullet in their heads. Paul didnt even notice that they had headed off again. Turning his head, he caught sight, as if through a screen of shadow, of the building housing the National Theatre through the window where a moment earlier the Gra de Nord building had been visible.The taxi raced down Calea Regal, but when they reached Bulevardul Brtianu it was the drivers turn to stop, not knowing in which direction to take him.Should I take you home?What home?How do I know? Maybe somebodys waiting for you.Paul shuddered. Maybe somebodys waiting. It seemed he had already heard these same words tonight. Its someone who knows, its someone whos waiting.The thought was ridiculous, and Paul felt he really didnt have the energy to deal with it any more. In the ashes of his resignation, there was no place for this new expectation, this new useless hope. He would have liked to stop it short somewhere beyond awareness, in the dark room of memory, but the dazzling word, having been uttered, had developed into an image swifter and more vivid than his desire to forget: Upstairs, in my room, Ann is waiting.He was ashamed of believing this, yet he couldnt do otherwise. He told the driver the address, slowly, in an embarrassed whisper and even so, with what impatience! The taxi flew down the deserted boulevard towards a miracle that with each passing second became more plausible, more heated, more convincing. Ann was at his place and was waiting for him.So many times, yes, so many times, although he had broken up with her only a few times before, he had found her sleeping in his bed, in one of his pairs of pyjamas that were too long for her, in which she looked as lost as a child. So many times he had found her in his study reading a novel selected at random from among his books, or, when it wasnt a novel, a book on commercial law, a legal journal, in which she was completely immersed. He remembered, he couldnt prevent himself from remembering, that forgotten November evening in 1932 when, after he had stayed at home for two days to study the files for a trial, she had rung his doorbell at night. She had appeared on the threshold with a small overnight bag, in which she had a nightshirt, her toothbrush, a pair of stockings: Ive come to sleep at your place. Theyre repairing the tramline on my street and the noise is deafening. You dont mind, do you?

He stopped the taxi in front of his building, paid the driver and waited for him to leave. He gave himself a few more minutes of hope. Nothing was yet decided, nothing was lost. As long as he remained there in front of the door, his destiny was frozen in place. It was still possible that Ann was upstairs.He looked up at his third-floor window, as though mulling this over, and trembled: there was a light in the window.He counted the floors again, he counted the windows the second one from the right and wondered whether he wasnt fooling himself or dreaming. He kept his eyes locked on that eye of light that was awaiting him at the end of this terrible night. So its true. So shes really there.He felt his eternal fatigue, as though all the pressure he had been under until now had burst in a single instant. For a moment the absurd impulse to leave, to remain alone, ran through his mind. Ann was upstairs, and this fact brought him an unexpected peace that answered all his questions as in a dream. He shook off thoughts of renunciation and set off madly up the stairs with the sudden, desperate need to see her, to hold her in his arms. Ann! Ann! Ann! Her name rushed ahead of him like a shout.He found the door open and pushed it with his shoulder. On a hook in the entrance hall hung a cloth coat he didnt recognize.He stopped in the doorway of his study and took in the room with a single glance. In the study was a young woman with a book open before her. Its not Ann, he whispered to himself, feeling dizzy.Only then did he recognize Nora.

IIITHEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER IN SILENCE FOR A FEW MOMENTS. What are you looking for here?Nora stood up, leaning towards him, seemingly ready to come to his aid.As though he needed to examine the strange situation more closely, he repeated the question. Youre here, at this time of night?She didnt recognize his voice. It was too guttural, too coarse. She didnt recognize anything in his uncertain face.How hes changed! Nora thought. Where was the smile that had protected him so well, like a vizor, yesterday evening? Now his features looked devastated. What disaster had overtaken him, what had befallen him in the hours since their parting, to make him arrive here in this lamentable state?She waved in the direction of the armchair next to the desk. Dont you want to sit down?Hey, you know youve got guts! Paul exclaimed. I find you at my place at four in the morning and what for? So that you can offer me a seat?She didnt reply. She continued to regard him with the same surprised look, trying to decipher what had happened from that devastated face. She remained with her hand extended in the unfinished gesture with which she had offered him the chair.Please leave, he said. He crossed to the other side of the study and gripped her arm. Please leave now. Dont make me do things Ill be ashamed of tomorrow. Just leave. Im tired. I have to be alone.But as her silence went on and she continued to look at him with the same expression, which asked no questions, he changed his tone. With an effort at warmth, a voice that he would have liked to be warm and which succeeded only in being muted, he pleaded with her slowly, as if choking: I know I owe you an explanation. Ive behaved sickeningly with you. You have the right to ask questions. I have the obligation to reply. But not now. I beg you, not now. I just cant talk. Well meet another time, any time you like, tomorrow if you want, but now leave.Nora moved away from his side. All right, Im leaving. But not right away. I promise you that five minutes from now I wont be here. But listen to me for the next five minutes. With your eyes on the clock.With a loyal gesture she loosened the watch from her wrist and set it on the desk between them. She raised her glance to look at him. Im afraid you may do something stupid ... Thats why I came.He kept his eyes fixed on the small watch, following the movement of the second hand around the dial and waiting as if nothing mattered to him but the passing of those five minutes.Im afraid youll kill yourself.Why? he asked, with a slight shudder, and without looking up.I dont know why. Your gaze that doesnt take anything in. Your crushed smile. Your way of lifting your shoulders. And finally you flee ... since ... you fled. Also, when you leave your apartment you dont even check that youve closed the door. If you only knew what fear you left behind you ...She stopped for an instant. She had uttered the final words in a murmur, as though speaking to herself. But she returned immediately to her usual clarity of speech.At the beginning I didnt know what was happening. I watched you from my window as you ran away, and everything struck me as ridiculous, like a stupid joke. I think I shouted at you, but I dont remember. Nor do I remember how long I stood there at the window. Above all, Id like to think that I wasnt hurt. Im thirty-two years old and I have a few memories. Enough for an event like that not to be a disaster ... But I felt as though your departure was a step towards death. Four years ago a girlfriend of mine committed suicide. She had your smile. Details like that are a little ridiculous before the event, but theyre unbearable afterwards ... I made up my mind to look for you, to find you. I told myself I couldnt leave you alone on a night like this ... I found your address in the telephone book, I came over here almost breathless, and I found the door locked. I decided to go back down to the street and wait downstairs until I saw you return. I dont know where I got the idea to look under the doormat: thats where I put the key in the morning when I go out, so that the cleaning lady can find it when she comes to mop and dust. In that at least were similar. I opened the door, I entered, I waited for you. Id made up my mind to wait as long as it took.She stopped speaking again and looked at the clock.Ive still got two minutes. Too little for the rest of what I wanted to say. Even so, Id like to say one more thing to you. You should know that if I came here, if I committed the lunacy of coming here, it wasnt only for you. It was also a little bit for me.She seemed about to say more. She stopped, hesitated, but finally, with a decisive gesture, she picked up her watch from the table and put it back on her left wrist.Thats all. Now Ill leave you.She approached him, extended her hand, but in that moment she glimpsed last nights flower in the buttonhole of his shirt, that pathetic flower, now faded and shrivelled. She removed it with infinite care, with an endless series of precautions, afraid of breaking its overly long stem, and looked around for a vase. But there was only one, too big for a single flower. Better a glass, she said, and went into the bathroom in search of water, but the cold water was like ice and the hot water tap didnt work. (What a mess this apartment is! How obvious it is that he lives alone!) She opened a door which gave onto an office, where she found a bottle of drinking water. She returned to the other room, poured the water, then put the flower in the glass. She placed the glass on a small table next to his bed, kneeling and balancing the glass carefully between her palms, as if to infuse the flowers pallor with the warmth of her hands.She stood up and headed towards the entrance hall.On the threshold she found Paul, his arms spread wide as though to block her passage. He looked as though he wanted to say something to her but was at a loss and didnt know how.Thank you for coming. Now ... If it werent too late, Id ask you to stay.As if that too late referred to the time and not to what had occurred until now, she looked at her watch. In fact, it is very late. Ten past four. Even so, if you want, we could wait for daybreak together. It wont be long.There was a calendar on the desk. She tore off the sheets for days that had passed and read from the coming days page: December 19th. Sunrise: 7:41 AM.We have two hours and thirty-nine minutes left. The torn sheets from the days that were over remained in her hand. She offered them to him, smiling. You see? Its over. It was hard, but its over. Then, with unaccustomed gravity: I dont think youll ever forget me. Ill always be the woman you met the night you turned thirty.

They faced each other in semi-darkness. They had turned out all the lights except for the shaded lamp on the desk. He was in the armchair where she, with an authoritarian voice, had ordered him to sit. She was in the corner next to the sofa, where she had piled up some pillows. Between them was the tea table, the hot, white cups like feeble globes of light.Its cold in this apartment, Nora said, and in a few seconds the water boiled and the apartment filled with the smell of tea, lemon, rum all of which she had found without asking him. She wandered among his belongings with a light, sure hand, as though she was going through them by instinct or from old habit.Paul was listening to her speaking without paying much attention to what she was saying. She spoke calmly, slowly, without raising her voice, almost monotonously. It was a serious voice, excessively serious, without marked alterations, without liveliness, almost inexpressive. How relaxing it was to listen to her. He felt he had known her for a long time and that nothing was hidden between them. Not a single mystery. Not a single question to ask. Nothing to find out.He took her left hand in his and turned it over with the palm facing the light.Do you know how to read palms? Nora asked.No, but I like to look at them.Hers was a simple hand, with a few regularly curved lines like rivers on a map. Paul looked at it for a while, then closed it like a book he had finished reading.Arent you going to tell me what youve found?Theres nothing to find. Its your hand. It suits you. A serious hand. Calm ... And yet ...And yet?Only one thing remains inexplicable: the fact that you came here. Its a little bit of lunacy that I dont know how to interpret.She opened her left hand again under the light. Maybe its all here. Look closely: maybe somewhere theres the crossing of lines that shows our meeting.She spoke these words without even smiling, with making a gesture that would diminish their unexpected seriousness.How strange that you say our meeting. Is this an affair?What?This meeting.An affair, no. A happening. And a big one. Nothing ever happens to me.The hot water was finished. Nora got up from her spot, signalling to him that he was forbidden to move.He heard her wandering around the apartment. How soothing to hear her footsteps! He heard her breathing. It seemed as though she had always been here. He was grateful to her for being in his home. Her presence blocked his thoughts, held his memories at bay.And what a good hand she had. He could rest his weary forehead in it.Her saw her shadow now larger, now smaller, according to her distance from the lamp brushing across the objects in the room. The heavy fabric of the dress she was wearing protected her body like a mantle. Only occasionally, such as when she straightened her shoulders, could he make out her hip or the line of her breasts.She stopped in front of him with the teapot in her hand, leaning over the table, and with close attention poured the boiling water into the cups. He got to his feet and looked at her for a long time. She tolerated his gaze without surprise. A vague whiff of lavender floated between them.

Paul placed his mouth over her lips, which accepted the kiss serenely and without haste. His right hand was on her left breast. The beating of her heart felt strange, unusual.The beating struck him as a distant response to his enormous solitude.

IVNORA WOKE IN THE MORNING surprised not to find Paul beside her. All night her dreams had borne the heaviness of his body, an irritable body, receiving without gratitude caresses that it did not return. She still felt in her left breast the weight of his right hand with its fingers spread. She wouldnt have been surprised, had she pushed aside the covers, to find the marks imprinted on her breast like a tattoo.The sound of water running in the basin came from the bathroom. She called his name, but didnt receive a reply. Could he have left? She jumped out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown that she found on the edge of the bed, shuddering at the chill of the light weave (He could wear a thicker dressing gown in December) and went to look.Nobody was there. He had forgotten to turn off the tap. On the glass shelf beneath the mirror, the shaving brush was covered in soap. What a hurry he was in to get away! she thought with a shake of her head.She turned around and spotted on the desk the piece of paper on which a few words were written, first in red pencil and then in blue pencil he had probably broken the lead in his rush.When you leave, put the key outside under the mat. The cleaning ladys coming at 11 oclock.When you leave ... He had been so certain that she would leave. And not a word about seeing her again, not a word of friendship ...She approached the window and glanced down into the street, trembling at not seeing her usual morning view: the familiar image of Bulevardul Dacia, the majors backyard across the road, the pharmacy on the corner, the taxi stand. From their stillness she knew, as she raised the shutter, almost as if they had spoken to her, that since the night before nothing new had happened in the world.As though the lens of the spyglass through which she took her first morning glance at the world had changed, she now had her first look at other images, which seemed to have been substituted overnight for the old well-known landscape.From where, at a distance to which her eyes werent accustomed, had that small unfamiliar world arisen: the circular square below, the white sign of the corner grocery, the gas station with its two red pumps on the edge of the sidewalk like two immense soda-water bottles, the newspaper stand, the chestnut trees with their slender, frozen branches?Everything was dizzying, in part because of the white gleam of the snow, but above all by virtue of its surprising newness.Leaning against the window, Nora realized that something in her life had truly changed.She thought about how downstairs she would not find the usual porter, who greeted her every morning when she went out to school, nor the letter box, towards which in passing she turned her usual incurious glance. She thought about how she wasnt going to take her usual route, which she followed every day with mechanical steps, to Strada Donici, where she took the number 16 tram in the direction of the school.So many things were starting differently this morning ...

She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she might still get to the school in time for the third and fourth hours of class, her French classes with Grade Eight and Grade Four-B.She recalled the passage from Bossuet3 that she had planned to dictate to the girls in Grade Eight before letting them out for the holidays.But, given the predicament in which she found herself, she didnt feel ready to leave. It was out of the question for her to go out into the street after dressing in a hurry, with her girdle sloppily buttoned, her hair insufficiently brushed: tiny details that no one else would have noticed, but which would have heightened her intimate feeling of disorder. As a teacher, the only condition she forced herself to impose on her pupils was a meticulous, almost maniacal, care in their dress. Out of a sort of female solidarity with the girls who stared at her in the classroom, she demanded that they each have a neatly ironed pinafore and a white collar. She told herself that later they would have broken hearts to hide beneath their well-tailored dresses. She feared moral disorder, which began with a run in a stocking worn with indifference.Today more than other days, Nora felt the need to control herself with a disciplined severity.She lifted the receiver and dialled the number of the school. It was still a few minutes before the ten oclock recess so she didnt risk calling the principal. As it happened, the secretary answered. Nora told her that she might arrive at school late (a migraine, a cousin who was ill ...) and asked her to take care of grades Four-B and Eight and ensure that they were quiet. The secretary, however, reminded her that it was Tuesday, that the Christmas holidays began in two days time, that it wasnt certain whether she would have any more courses, and that her absence would make the principal furious. She advised her, at the very least, not to miss her last class.Yes, you may be right. Im going to try to arrive for the fourth hour. Tell the Grade Eight girls to work quietly. Ill go to see them during the last recess to give them their assignments for the holidays.She hung up the phone and stood there, distracted. She was missing school for the first time since the beginning of the year and this increased her feeling of uneasiness, not so much out of a sense of rectitude as because the loss of old habits troubled her. She looked down at the unfamiliar dressing gown she was wearing. It was blue with small white polka dots, sleeves that were too long for her, ragged lapels, and a small pocket over the left breast. At the same time, she saw the Grade Eight class where she was expected: the girls in their black pinafores seating themselves with delicate gestures in front of their books, dictionaries and notebooks with red ruler-straight margins, and casting restless glances in the direction of the door through which they awaited the entrance, from one moment to the next, of Miss French Teacher.It seemed to Nora that she herself was waiting fearfully for this apparition, the young teacher who was meant to enter the classroom in that moment, from whom this Nora who had woken up in a strange mans apartment was impossibly distant. What could she have said to her? How could she have explained it to her?Yesterday at this time ...Yesterday at this time she was a calm young woman who went to the school every morning, ate lunch every day at a cheap diner on Strada Cmpineanu (amid the uncaring faces of civil servants reading the afternoon papers ...), who in the afternoon taught French classes in a private language school and who came home, carrying in her handbag the food for her supper, or, sometimes, a bundle of essays that she enjoyed reading because she recognized each pupils handwriting, their laboured sentences and never-changing spelling mistakes.She felt at home in the apartment on Bulevardul Dacia, in that white sixth-floor room furnished with things she had chosen and bought with the patience of heroic savings. It was true that there was also the money sent by her mother, who was living in Cernui with her second husband, a banker. From time to time her mother sent her listless postcards, or, at Easter or Christmas, small sums of money; but the belongings for which Nora felt more affection were those purchased with her teachers wages, her overtime, her exam-marking fees. Above all, she liked the shaded lamp beneath which she took refuge in the evenings to read, a lamp with a tall stand like a small indoor version of street lamp, which cast a white circle of light and left the rest of the apartment in protective shadow.Only on Thursday evenings did she sometimes go to the Philharmonic orchestra, especially when a famous soloist was playing, or when there was a lot of Beethoven on the program. From her girlhood memories in a family in which at that time children were taught to play the piano, she preserved an optimistic respect for long symphonies in three or five movements. She bought herself a ticket in advance, waiting at Feders music store for the ticket office to open in case the tickets in the third-level stalls, the only ones she dared to buy, somehow sold out not without wondering twice which expenses she would have to cut from the weeks budget in order to cover the money she spent on the concert. And then there were evenings when Grig came with her. They were less and less frequent in recent times, without what was known as a breakup (a word which frightened Nora, like all words which allowed for no return) having intervened between them.He waited for her without impatience, he received her visits, some of them after long absences, without surprise; but between them there were too many shared habits and a sensual accord too long established for her unexpected returns not to please him.Youre like a married lover; youre doomed to be a wife, Grig joked at times, knowing that there was no risk of her taking him seriously. The question had been decided for good between them in the early days of their liaison. One day, cautiously and remarkably vaguely, he asked her if she would like to be a spouse. Nora, looking him in the eyes, gave him the only reply he expected, a simple and irrevocable, No, never.Yet in the mornings when, going out to school, she left him sleeping, she was happy that, glancing back at him from the doorway, she could tell herself: Well, Im not an old maid. This was the only fate that scared her in her life as a single woman. Otherwise days, evenings, nights passed calmly and unchangingly among familiar things. Only occasionally, looking out her sixth-floor window, crying serenely and then hastily wiping away these unexpected tears, did she reprimand herself as she would have reprimanded a pupil: Whats going on, Nora? Arent you ashamed?She told herself that some day something would happen to change all this and set her off on the road to a new life. She didnt know what it would be: a letter, a meeting, some piece of news; but for the time being she was happy to be able to postpone this change for as long as possible and put off these expectations for an uncertain future. She continued her life among familiar things that made her feel protected.A new life! The word had a certain magic.But, if in order to attain that new life it had been necessary only to say a word or extend her hand, it was possible that she would not have done it.

And yet here I am, she said to herself. Here in the apartment of a man she didnt know.The clothes he had been wearing yesterday evening were tossed over a chair, while alongside them, laid out with an exaggerated sense of order, were her things: dress, girdle, shoes. The green tie had fallen onto the carpet. Nora recognized it. It was the only thing she did recognize. Otherwise everything was strange: the desk, the books, the paintings, the small objects, all flung together in a disorder that breathed haste and indifference. Nora stared at them and wondered about them all.She knew so little about the man who, taking off after a night of love, had left behind him seventeen words written on a scrap of paper! And she herself, she realized, had remained a stranger to him. She felt in her being so many words that had not been spoken, so many resistances that had not yielded ...On his desk was a lawyers agenda, a piece of cardboard on which telephone numbers were written and a photograph of a young girl. Nora looked at her for a while. She was blonde and wore a black long-sleeved pullover with an initial high up on the left side like a tiny pocket: an oblique, printed A.

VPAUL HAD TRIED MANY TIMES TO REMEMBER the circumstances in which he had met Anna. He would have liked to be able to relive the exact moment in which someone had put them face to face, asking them, as one usually does: What? You dont know each other? But his memory had not retained this moment, and it was possible that events had not occurred in this way. Anna was lost in the multitude of hazy faces that he had met on the street, in a train, in Sinaia,4 vague formulas that covered with a mist of uncertainty the initial handshake, the first exchange of words.Later, he had learned from a word uttered at random that one day they had vacationed together, very close to each other, without yet knowing one another.Six years ago, when we were in Satu-Lung ...Six years ago? Are you sure?Yes. In 1926. In August.Paul suddenly saw again his whole vacation at Cernatu, those four weeks of solitude spent in the small town in the Braov region, the street corner where, without any transition, Satu-Lung began and where, as though crossing a border, he passed the invisible line between the communities. He saw again the group of young women and men who came down the hill in the morning towards Satu-Lung, disorderly, rowdy, a little threatening, with that feeling of being in a strange town in which nobody knew them and nothing compromised them: they ate pretzels in the middle of the street, shouted at the top of their lungs, raced from one sidewalk to the other, threw stones at the trees at the edge of the road those charming Cernatu apple trees, with their trunks whitewashed halfway up their height and their luscious green leaves.Every day their passage along the promenade, a wooden bridge laid over the sidewalk, erupted in these noises. Scandalized Saxon women5 appeared at their windows, intimidated children halted in front of their doors, young women from good families of the region, who were reading or studying on the park benches, barely dared to lift their heads in the direction of this bunch of lunatics, dishevelled barefoot girls, boys without coats or ties ...The hostility between the civilian population of Cernatu and the group from Satu-Lung was open to the point where Paul, when he went out for his evening walk, if he turned left alongside the city hall, had the feeling of stepping into a conflict zone or an enemy territory. The group had the custom of a tennis hour. Their tennis court became famous in the whole region, as far away as Drste or Noua. White poles, lime rectangles drawn on the earth, the net stretched taut across the centre, the white fence that surrounded the whole court they had made it all, bringing some of the pieces from Braov 6 and improvising others on the spot, to the secret vanity of Satu-Lung, and to the smouldering envy of Cernatu. Paul liked to stop there, in front of the wire fence, and watch the flurry of rackets, the regular knocking of the ball, the white dresses of the female players. One evening a ball lofted too high went over the fence and came to a stop next to him. He picked it up in order to hand it to the young woman player who had come to look for it.Possibly that was you, Ann?Very possibly, my dear. I played more than any of them. I played badly Id only just learned but I played a lot.The thought that he had stared at her so many years earlier, before falling in love with her, before hed even known who she was, the thought that there had once been a moment in which they had looked each other in the eyes, in which they had perhaps spoken he to hand her the lost tennis ball, she to thank him this thought exalted him. How many distances had been traversed between the white-clad tennis player bending towards him for a moment with her racket in hand, on an August evening in 1926, and that familiar, painful Ann!He could still see the municipal train that made the regular run to Satu-Lung, its yellow carriages, its outmoded engine, the disproportionately loud shriek of its whistle in the minuscule stations, a train glistening at night when it got delayed in Braov and he returned home on the last run on the local line ...On a night like that, the train had been stopped before Noua by the group from Satu-Lung, who blocked its path, sitting down on the rails and waving their illuminated flashlights, their white jerseys, their scarves ...The passengers were indignant, the on-board staff, their self-respect wounded (A train stopped like an ordinary wagon!), threatened legal action and fines, everybody was clamouring at once, but they seemed not to hear any of it, or maybe really didnt hear. They were coming from Rnov, one of the more reasonable ones said, they were dead-tired and couldnt miss the last departure. They invaded the carriages without being aware of the scandal they had caused.It was late, the passengers were drowsy, the train was emptying out, with people getting off at Drste, at Turche. The revolt was assuaged ... Beyond Turche nothing was heard but the silence of that August night, occasionally broken by the locomotives whistle. Then they began singing: a romantic song that was in fashion, and was sung by fiddlers in Braov, but which now, at that hour of the night, in their youthful voices, took on an unexpected melancholy.Paul, remembering that moment, would have liked to silence all the instruments with a single gesture, like that of an orchest