EIGHT: THE TRIP TO THE MONASTERY

On the morning of Palm Sunday, the Constanța train left us at the monastery station. We were under the spell of spring. I had become friends again with Nonora, and Bibi was giggling at Radu’s whispered asides. Gaidaroff had fallen in love with Măriuca over the winter. A red-lipped, dark-eyed blonde, Măriuca had fallen for him too.

In the same train carriage, some other students were also on their way to the monastery. Oh, how they laughed and laughed. Among them, at an open window, I glimpsed the face of a girl. I gave a start. No one noticed, not even Nonora, who assured me that this spring would be fatal for me, and would end with me falling in love with her eyes, her hair, her breasts. We alighted in a noisy train station, with the chairman leading the way. We were not sure of our numbers, which made us glad; maybe there were a great many of us. We set off down the path that skirted the lake. The forest was in full bud. Among the trees there were flowering bushes, carpets of dry leaves and patches of tall grass.

The group of students came with us. Constantly and with painful clarity, I kept hearing the laughter of the girl from the window. Why was my heart pounding? I was tormented by the thought that maybe I had met her before, one summer in the mountains, long ago. But nothing came to me. And yet, her nostalgic green eyes, her violet eyeshadow, her eyebrows arched as if in astonishment were familiar to me. I did not know why, but when I looked at her, old sorrows, memories of a lonely holiday, and the melancholy of painful adolescence swept over me. Her laugh continued, clear, irritating, and full. Perhaps I was the only one bothered by it. It annoyed me because a girl’s laughter was always for the benefit of someone else.

We piously stepped inside the church, making the sign of the cross. It was cold and dim in the candlelight. Through the windows could be seen the branches of cherry trees in bloom. And the girl with the green eyes kept whispering, stifling her laughter.

For a moment, all was silent inside the church. The others had left, tiptoeing out. The girl may have gone too. There was now silence. Turning around, I saw her gazing at the faint light coming through the window. Her lips showed a sad smile. Her oval face was pallid and at rest. Her eyes had filled with tears, or perhaps not, perhaps it only seemed that way to me. Her eyes looked so different beneath that web of sadness.

I pretended not to notice. And I was happy, delighted at the thought that she had remained behind in the church, alone. I knew that she was not a believer and that she was not praying. I sensed the sadness that enveloped her, because in that place there were shadows, darkness, the past, while outside there was sunshine, and the sounds of life; but perhaps she did not want to hear them. Who knows why there were tears in her eyes? Perhaps she was in love or perhaps she was waiting for something; and the passing years were beginning to squander her hopes. Who knows why she was gazing at the window dimming the sunlight? Perhaps she recollected something; or perhaps she sensed the pain of a life that demands it be lived to its fullest but at the same time allows only fleeting pleasures.

The others called for me. When I walked past her, her eyes were merry, without any tears. In the courtyard of the monastery there was too much light, and the boys were too noisy, and the girls laughed and laughed.

With Nonora, I visited the crypt packed with coffins. Yellowed bones, lustrous or putrid, dull, and old funeral wreaths with metallic foliage. Nonora was not sad.

‘These skulls have taught me that I should take care of my complexion now, while I’m still young.’

We both laughed. She gave me an encouraging look and then, without understanding why, I kissed her. Nonora’s lips overpowered my mouth like a suction cup. Her hair got in the way of my hand. I shook her free from the curls and again pressed her lips with my mouth. Her eyes beamed and she breathed with fiery nostrils.

‘Look, you’ve wiped off all my rouge.’

How happy I was that Nonora’s reproach, by reminding me of how many strangers had kissed her, allowed me to feel sadness.

In the courtyard, I heard the green-eyed girl’s laughter again. Five boys were standing around her, and she recited lines of poetry to them: Codreanu, Minulescu, Iosif, Coșbuc, Arghezi. I was surprised, and confused. To the fifth, she beautifully and enigmatically recited a few banally earnest lines.

‘Any guesses?’

‘Victor Eftimiu?’

‘Get out of here, you don’t know anything! Here’s another.’

‘Philippide, Demostene Botez?’

‘Wrong!’

Why were they unable to guess that it was a young poet, one who had fallen in love with her, and composed his poems while contemplating her eyes?

‘What do you want? Eminescu or Topîrceanu?’

‘Give us his ballad about the village priest.’

She stopped after a few verses, smiling melancholically.

‘Choose something else, but this time about love.’

Nonora called over to me.

‘You! Fetch the plum brandy.’

In the forest, we had our picnic on a white tablecloth spread over the grass and leaves. The chairman uncorked bottles of old wine, and rejoiced over the rebirth of the club. The two ‘Florențas’ made coffee. Gaidaroff went hunting for crocuses with Măriuca. Radu walked down the path next to Nonora, smoking and whispering.

And then something happened, something I would never have expected in my wildest dreams. The girl with the green eyes came running. Her short curls shaded her face. When she brushed them aside, wearily, a few locks remained giving her a wild but delicate aspect.

Smiling, she approached ‘Florența’.

‘Can I get some coffee too? You must know how tired I am.’

She smiled so beautifully as she confessed how tired she was.

‘I know you from school’, she said to Bibi. ‘And I know your name – we have a mutual friend, Viorica.’

Now Bibi remembered her.

‘If you think you know my name’, she added raising her eyebrows peremptorily, ‘please don’t say it.’

The boys jumped in with ironic observations. But the girl with the green eyes fired back as quickly as they came, laughing and winking. The chairman was enjoying himself. ‘Florența’ served her a cup of black coffee.

‘Thank you, miss. The gentleman next to you looks Persian; perhaps he’s even sentimental and amorous. In any case, beware.’

The ‘Persian’, a law student, gave a flattered laugh.

‘I’m sorry miss, I don’t understand.’

‘And you of course, are consistent with your many remunerative characteristics.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘With you young man, the discussion is over.’

The ‘Persian’ merely shrugged at the cozonac the chairman had brought. The others were irritated by the casual and caustic language of the nameless girl. I tried in vain to imagine her in the church.

Predictably, they began to read the coffee grounds. The girl with green eyes wanted to learn what her future held, with disarming impatience.

‘Do tell! Oh, is that all? Please, tell me something more.’ she demanded, cajoled, commanded, wheedled. She was not much satisfied with any of the predictions. And then finally, it was my turn.

‘Are you a friend of Bibi’s? Do you know how to read fortunes?’

‘Only palm reading’, I lied, essaying a smile like a chiromancer’s.

‘Well then, what are you waiting for?’

She held out her hand. But how could I repeat what I had found out from her own words and her glances at everybody else?

‘It would be better for us not to proceed. I do not wish to betray your true character in public’, I said, attempting an honourable retreat.

She was incensed. She took my hand and led me away. Amused, the others commented on my terror-stricken gait. We found a log by the lake. The thought that I might look ridiculous gave me confidence. I spoke plainly, informally, and without blushing. I drew her hand close to mine, looked pensively at the lines of which I understood so little, and composed a portrait for her.

I knew her so well, felt so close to her, saw her so clearly. She listened attentively, with increasing interest. I went on and on. The soul of the girl with the green eyes – which I willed to be capricious and restless, weak but vast, wracked with aspirations, but paralysed by the mediocrity of her accomplishments – I limned more and more accurately, employing stark contrasts, light and shade, thoughts even she concealed from herself.

Everything I had learned from Freud, skilfully interjected, revolted her.

‘And just where did you come up with that?’

I was at a loss, having finished reading the lines of her palm, so I moved on to her face. There I understood her even more profoundly, but what I divined was closer to the truth. At intervals, her face twitched, and the twinkle in her green eyes faded. When I finished, she did not know what to say. She smiled, awkwardly.

‘From now on I’ll have to avoid you! I wonder if you can even see into my dreams.’

We sat on the log until evening. I talked, talked openly and profusely about books, about dreams, about sex, about regrets, about triumphs undisclosed to anyone else. The girl listened. From time to time, embarrassed at my forthrightness and the profusion of my vocabulary, I asked:

‘Am I making you uncomfortable’

‘No.’

She stated this, without another word.

A change had come over her. She did not interrupt me, she did not joke, and she did not engage in wordplay like she had with the others. I divined everything that was going on in the soul of that naive sentimentalist who wore a mask of vivacity, and what I divined encouraged me. I talked, and talked. Occasionally, I saw her eyes stray over the lake, over the forest, far away.

And she still did not want to tell me her name; a misguided caprice, I thought.

‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t like it’, she demurred.

I remember how evening fell, how the others left for the station, after calling out to us through the forest. I had so much to tell her that I had not shared with Nonora, or Bibi. I asked about her friends.

‘They’re a just a bunch of silly girls. I prefer your friends, I’ve heard about them through a friend.’

It was time for us to go, and yet she leaned against the trunk and asked me questions requiring long responses, and she talked, and talked.

As we set off for the station, the stars began to appear. We took the path that went around the lake, emerged from the forest, and came to the road. The night was cloudless and cold. I asked her if she was cold.

‘No.’

I noticed that she looked nowhere but at me, that she was afraid to let her eyes stray from me, to look at the fields or the road. I wondered if she was afraid of the dark.

‘Are you afraid?’

‘Yes, very much so. I’m always afraid of the dark in the countryside, but if you’re not afraid.’

‘Me? No.’

A light breeze wafted the scent of damp grass, flowers, earth. We stopped every now and then to rest at the side of the road. Our hands were silver in the moonlight. She recited hundreds of lines of verse about the moon. I told her about the disorders of those who expose their craniums to moonlight. She was terrified.

‘I’m scared, I’m really scared.’

At the station, we found out that the last passenger train bound for the city had passed through a quarter of an hour earlier. For a moment her green eyes pulsed with terror, and then she laughed.

‘It’s an adventure, really. What should we do now?’

I told her my idea: we would follow the road back and take the shortest route, which cuts across the tracks. The city could not be more than twelve kilometres away.

‘How many hours away?’

‘Three.’

‘We’ll arrive at one in the morning.’

‘But only on the outskirts. I don’t which district you live in.’

‘No other solutions?’

‘No.’

‘Well, let’s get going.’

In my briefcase, I still had some croissants and cozonac. My companion thought them the best thing she had ever eaten. I did not eat, instead telling her in great detail about Martin Eden.

‘I haven’t read anything’, she despaired.

She was impressed by Martin Eden’s strength. She told me how she could not stand dapper, charming, insipid young men. She revealed her favourites at the university, among the professors and students. I told her about the scandal with my book review in the University Journal and how I was happy that I had been in the right. How then did we get onto the subject of the Sistine Chapel and occultism?

Neither she nor I had a watch. We measured time by the moon and her fatigue.

‘Do you think we have much farther to go?’

I was happy with her reaction when I employed the maxim, ‘A journey at night ends only with the dawn; and when there are two, it is less of a yawn.’

‘I’m starting to feel faint.’

‘If you like, take my arm.’

We walked with the moon at our backs. The night grew colder, the fields ever more redolent.

She was shivering, causing me to slow my steps. Never had I felt less tired.

‘Still not afraid?’

‘No.’

And we walked on, I talked, and I talked, and she listened to me, with the cool breeze ruffling her hair. Behind us shone the moon. And ahead of us stretched a white road, leading toward a city with many lights in the night.

It was after two o’clock when we arrived in front of her house. The weight of her arm had seemed to me blessed. I felt stronger, my muscles invigorated. Her eyelids drooped, her feet dragged.

The city had briefly reinvigorated her. She confessed that when we had crossed that lane at the edge of town, with barking dogs and flickering street lamps, she had been frightened. But on the deserted boulevards, she had proceeded with confidence. But then we had had to climb a cobbled lane, and the effort had wearied her. She had gasped for breath.

In front of her house I asked her:

‘Won’t your parents scold you?’

‘My parents don’t live here. And besides, at my age, I am absolutely liberated.’

I held out my hand, bidding her a ‘good night’. She stopped me.

‘You never guessed my future. Shall I show you my palm again?’

‘No.’

I had remembered all the goals and dreams she had confessed: she would conjoin her life only to that of a superior man, one able to overcome his parents’ will and the prejudices of his time. Such a man would not necessarily be her husband, but perhaps only le compagnon.

I then predicted she would marry a man who would be a stranger to her and to whom she would be a stranger, a provincial life as a schoolmistress with a clerk for a husband, succumbing more and more to mediocrity, with each passing day, forgetting her ambitions and desires, stupefying herself with mindless work, with stuffiness, with lovers, with children.

‘And that is how, young lady, you will be suffocated by life in a dead town, a spiritual wasteland. You will forget beautiful books. In autumn you will become lachrymose or perhaps even cry. Autumn will stir up so many memories. It’s banal, but you will waste your time remembering the excitement of university life and you might even regret giving up your pursuit of originality. Although, there will come a time when you no longer have regrets. Nothing but a vulgar husband and children. You’ll realize that your youth is over once and for all, that you have not seen the world, that you have not crossed the ocean, that you are doomed to nurture the family you agreed to in a moment of weakness or boredom. You will lead the obscure and mediocre life of all those who, like you, once had dreams in their youth. You won’t even have any awareness of defeat. You will forget everything, everything, in a grey and invincible mediocrity.’

Why did it make me so sad to predict her future? And saddened by her fate, why did I sense the reality of the words I spoke to her so intensely?

When I looked at her again, she was crying. She was crying, of that I am sure: the tears ran softly down her cheeks, from her eyes poured the sadness of a dead sea.

She managed to speak, with a smile.

‘You are joking. I will never accept a life like something from a Cezar Petrescu novel.’

‘That’s what they all say and that’s how they all end up. It will be even more difficult for you, because you’ve planned on such a beautiful life and were born with higher sensibilities. That’s all.’

Again her eyes filled with tears. Her eyes made me pity her, but I also felt a savage joy in predicting the inevitability of a mediocre and devastating life for her.

‘To survive, you would need a level of determination and perseverance in the face of self-denial that you will never attain, because you are a woman, and you are sensitive and you are capricious.’

‘I will find a man!’

I smiled. How was I supposed to respond? To have done with it, I made a joke.

‘I bet that in three years’ time you will be married, in the provinces, and that you will not be happy. Let me be clear, resignation is not tantamount to happiness, especially for a certain kind of woman.’

She slowly opened the gate. She was so exhausted because of the walk back from the monastery.

I continued by myself, down deserted, cold streets. A morning breeze was beginning to blow. I felt alone and powerful. With clenched fists and uplifted gaze, I ran. I was happy.

I could not sleep. I climbed out of bed and, before starting my studies, I wrote: ‘Private spring diary; today, Palm Sunday, a new life begins for me.’

But when I asked myself: why? I realised that I was assigning too much meaning to one of many encounters. So I ripped the page out of my notebook.

Morning light lit up the gardens of white stone houses. I may have been the only person then awake. And I was happy.