I left the cinema in a daze; with Nonora at my side. Radu had got lost in the first few rows. For three hours I ran my hand over Nonora’s flesh. I wanted to prove to her that a library did not kill the assurance of the act of vice. She writhed, trembled passionately. I divined her astonishment: ‘Me, really me?’ The question also implied a rebuke aimed at me; I did not want to respond, consumed with tension as I was. Nonora could be nothing but delighted by the discovery. She pretended to whisper to me, with her head bowed, and bit my arm. This must be a good sign, I thought.
We parted gazing into each other’s eyes, hers ablaze, mine frowning. The next day Nonora returned to the attic. She rediscovered her armchair next to the tiled stove. She opened the little window to let in the spring. She laughed, with her dark hair and the dark rings under her eyes. She was too hot, and her knees too tempting, and the reservations in my soul willed themselves forgotten. My arms broke her body, my lips made their way down her shoulders and onto her breasts. Nonora trembled, without resisting. At a sound from the street, she gave a start.
‘What if somebody comes?’
‘Today is Good Friday. Nobody’s thinking about me.’
‘Lock the door, just in case.’
I had not expected her to keep her wits about her. When I came back from the door, she had unfastened her shoulder straps. This encouraged me, even though I knew how far Nonora would go.
‘Mind that you don’t get too excited.’
I kissed and kissed her. Her breasts were naked with delight, brown and warm. Her legs incited daring caresses. Nonora closed her eyes and bit her lips. I told her that I knew what she wanted. Nonora told me to be quiet. She demanded I behave myself, that I not get needlessly worked up.
‘You’re going to try something insane.’
I reminded her that I was a friend whose word she need not doubt. Nonora trembled, hot air whistled from her nostrils. A spasm caused her body to arch, to writhe. Her breasts turned to ice; I nuzzled them with my cheeks and lips. They trembled, meekly, provocatively. I delayed, tortured, my eyes blinded by the heat of her belly. I prolonged the anticipation even further, with fevered muscles, with turbid light beneath my closed eyelids. Nonora’s body was so close to me now, and more restless with desire. Hot, lingering kisses slithered over her thighs.
That evening, after Nonora left, I looked at myself in the mirror: My eyes sparkled grey from within dark circles, my face was pale, my hair damp. My head felt heavy, my limbs weary. I was shivering. I was not at peace, and I could find no serenity.
Nonora came nearly every day, closing the door behind her. She came at times when no one would venture to visit me. And the game would begin all over again, with the same fierceness, the same perverse innocence of a body that you will never subdue no matter how hard you pummel it. And then we would part, she serene, I in torment.
I had not spent any time with Nişka, nor did I wish to spend time with her ever again. I found out that her parents had lived in Bessarabia, then in Craiova, and then in Brașov. They had resolved not to meddle in the life and aspirations of their only daughter. A consumptive second cousin, while still alive, had given her a house, which Nişka had rented to a family friend. She had enough money to leave, but she was waiting to find her companion. She wanted to choose.
Bibi was now even better friends with her. She confessed to me, on a street corner, that Nişka was either adored or hated by girls, that she either irritated boys or made them fall in love with her. Bibi praised her with great enthusiasm. She spoke to me about the novels Nişka had read, about her exams, and about the degree she was now studying for. I gathered that Bibi adored her. I interrupted her.
‘Why do you exaggerate all of Nişka’s qualities? Do you think that, maybe I too will end up falling in love with her?’
‘You never know’, smiled Bibi.
Why was my soul awakened as if touched by an unseen hand? At that moment I felt old resolutions gain new determination, annealed by the years, by autumn, and by solitude. Visions of a marshy wilderness at dusk darkened my sight, visions in which I drifted in a boat with silent companions, with my eyes on the sky and my thoughts on the water. I remembered the smell of rocks under the stars, alone with the mountains, watching the sunrise from behind the junipers. I had got lost, grown wild, and all the unconfessed beginnings, disappointments, dead ends had rained down on a soul overwhelmed among other souls, among delights and disappointments. And they now awoke within me afresh, at the mention of the girl with the smile.
As much as Nonora allowed, I worked. I came to realise that I did not consider her caresses an irresistible temptation, but rather as something I commanded to happen, for the sake of an unfathomable disquiet. You might say that Nonora was no more than a body called upon to quench the desires of my soul. But she did not quench them; and they spread throughout me, constantly forcing me to remember my decisions in more difficult times.
I suspected that a crisis was coming to a head, but I did not want to acknowledge it. I did not want to think about Nişka. She had too much of what I had thought about for all those years. But now, the strange stirrings in my soul, which arose only when I was alone, and which would immediately have vanished when Nişka was near, could be nothing but a hindrance to me. I wanted her as a girlfriend, but I was afraid. Not for my own sake; I was incapable of falling in love with her. I was afraid that the springtime, our tête-à-têtes in the park, the moonrises, and the austerity of the sentiment in which I had thitherto lived, would endlessly prompt questions, desires, nostalgias, which it would take me great time and effort to dispel.
I did not know whether he did or not, but what if Radu loved Nonora? I would be breaking up a friendship, without even the solace of knowing that it was broken up because of love. I felt awkward when Radu looked at me. I felt guilty, not because I was seeing Nonora, but because I was seeing her without wanting her and without feeling my erstwhile lust for her dark burning flesh.
One day, when Radu smoked heavily and was largely silent, I noticed his sad, downcast eyes. I laughed, realizing that he was in love. I had to laugh. Ever since high school, Radu had fallen in love with the sisters of all of his friends, with Petre’s English teacher, with the three ‘stars’, with an actress. In Brasov, he fell for the nostalgic eyes in cabarets. In autumn he fell in love again, without revealing her name.
‘How many times have you fallen in love now?’ I probed.
‘I don’t know; I just love.’
He spoke this secret with an impudicity that made me blush. I believed that certain words should be uttered neither to a close friend nor even to oneself.
‘Are you in love with Nonora?’
‘No. I was in love with her this winter. But I was wrong; she’s perverse and capricious.’
And I thought: if my friend condemns caprice.
‘Viorica!’
I laughed and congratulated him. Nişka’s friend was petite, delicate, with large, clear eyes, bright, and a white forehead framed by hair bunched at the nape of her neck. I met her in the library, in front of a collection of philological journals, next to Bibi, who was dreaming about Andrei. She nearly turned red when she introduced herself to me. In the daylight filtering through the cold windowpanes, she appeared to me as the most natural and authentic virgin. She had warm, pointy shoulders, white arms, and gentle gestures. Her eyes and brows smiled. Her lips always listening.
And Radu was in love with her.
‘Are you going to tell her?’
‘No.’
‘Then?’
‘I’m waiting for it to pass, Isn’t it true that it will pass?’
‘I know from Heraclitus that everything passes. But how did you fall in love? When did you meet her?’
‘Bibi introduced her to me. That night I dreamed about her, even though I was drunk. The next day I thought about her. “It’s very simple”, I said to myself; “I love her!” When I sang her name to a sad melody, it made me sad. I know; this is love.’
I joined Radu in thinking about love and I was happy that I had never sung a name to a sad melody, only spoken them. Seeing that I was resigned to listen to him telling me about love, Radu asked the question that had been tempting him for years.
‘Have you ever been in love?’
In response, he received my usual inscrutable mask.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then you will be happy.’
‘I know’, I lied, with a sad smile.
Radu noticed that smile.
‘Forgive me, you’re going to think that I’m stupid for saying this, but I don’t understand you; for nine years, ever since I’ve known you, you’ve loved only one girl, with an intensity that frightens even me. Aren’t you tired after nine years? How have you not grown bored waiting for her?’
I laughed heartily at my friend’s joke. He confessed that he had suspected a secret love from the very beginning, perhaps an affair from my adolescence. But I had never given away a name, or a memory. And yet, my whole being told him that I was in love.
My face maintained the same mask. If my friend had set a trap for me, I had eluded it. He would never know the truth. Why should he know?
One afternoon, in May, Nonora forwent unfastening her shoulder clasps. We set off down the boulevard, heading for the park. I spoke to her in an unrestrained flood. Nonora listened with moist lips.
At the corner of a street with an empty pavement, Nişka saw us crossing. She took a long look at us, and smiled.
Why was I so pained by the encounter? Why was it that I had nothing else to say to Nonora, who was overjoyed at Nişka having seen us? I was so downcast. Devastated. It was as if some hope of mine had shattered, some yearning unknown to anyone; not even to myself.
Nonora went on and on. I listened, walking at her side along the path. Later, she kissed me behind an empty bandstand. I accepted the kiss with wild passion, biting her lips. Nonora swooned. I wanted to laugh, I wanted to kiss her. So I kissed her, and kissed her.
Leaving the park, I was overcome by remorse: I had to run after Nişka to tell her. Surprised by my thoughts, I asked myself: should I tell her not to believe?
This was all just sentimental capriciousness, I told myself. And by commanding it to go away, it went away.
I told Nonora that my exams were coming up. She understood, because she gave me a mocking look.
After which we did not meet again.