Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Dana Grigorcea

across the pavement. The noise of the street swells into a monotonous wave, washing over me in my little refuge between the kiosks hawking newspapers and coffee. I know this street so well! As a child, I took bus 368 from here to school. I probably haven’t been back since then, but now I miss the street vendors with their trinkets displayed on large loops of wire. I wonder why I’ve begun visiting my old haunts: is it because I’ve fallen in love, or because I’ve unexpectedly been put on leave? Whatever the reason, I have to admit and accept that the floodgates of my orderly reality might well come crashing down. I got a hint of this possibility a few Sundays ago, when I spotted a little gypsy boy at St. Elefterie Church: he was wearing an ironed, eighties- era school uniform, and had scraped the communist emblem off the belt buckle. Now I see him dressed in rags, running between cars lined up at the traffic light, panhandling. There’s a flabby cat with striped red fur over his shoulder. It’s either dead or just a toy. “Would you like another coffee? You look a bit pale.” So I drink the third coffee the kind woman brings me from the kiosk café, and I’m a bit surprised to see her tip yet another shot of brandy into her own cup, openly, as if it were simple syrup. When my expensive tights needed darning, I’d ball them up and wrap them in newspaper, venture over to Sweetie’s, and knock on her window. I did this countless

292