Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

Ioana Pârvulescu

a strange look: ‘You’re not in your right mind! You’re lunatic. You escabed from the madhouse, didn’t you? I read in the newsbaber that they make you swallow quicksilver, so that your beard and your moustache fall out. You fell to fighting, like our Lahovary on Filibescu Street, tried to kill each other in a duel, with swords and bistols! The devil take me if I can understand what’s wrong with such beople!’ For a time he trampled the snow with the toe of his boot, without taking his eyes off me: ‘I’m taking you to the Bolice. Let them deal with you. Even though I’ve seen that there aren’t too many cobbers around the blace at the weekend, we’ll find one to lock you in a cell sure enough.’

Then he tried to heave the young man into the sleigh. He struggled with the body for a while and in the end yelled at me, releasing a whiteplume fromhismouth, as if he were smoking: ‘Why don’t you helb me? I can’t lift him by myself!’ I grasped the blond young man by the shoulders, as instructed by Petre. He was heavy. Petre looked at me scornfully. We laid him on a plaid rug, on top of the logs. Petre tidied him up, as if he were arranging goods for display, put his hat on his head, rummaged in the inside pocket of his coat, whence he removed a deer-skin wallet, which he immediately concealed in his own pocket. All of a sudden I realized what had been niggling me ever since Petre said he intended to take me to the Police.

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