Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

Life Begins on Friday

up. I did not ask myself how. I shall think about it when I feel able; for the time being, I am not able. Like never before, I felt the urge to look, to feast my eyes on the spectacle of everyday life. Petre said something to me. I did not hear him, because my eyes, which focused on the details as if through a huge magnifying glass, had replaced all my other senses. Suddenly, one image struck my retina like a hammer. It was a building I seemed to recognize: Bucharest’s National Theatre, on Victory Avenue. In the plaza in front of the building small hansoms covered with tarpaulins stood ina row, andthesnugly dressed coachmen were talking among themselves. Snow-laden trees marked the semi-circle of the plaza. So, I was on Victory Avenue.

I had, in a way, come home and my parents’ house must have been but a few steps away. ‘Good God, where have you brought me?’ I groaned. ‘To the bolice station. I told you!’ came the immediate reply from up on the box. ‘Whether they’ll send you back to the madhouse, that I can’t say, but at least there’ll be beople to take care of you. I couldn’t leave you lying there, like him, who got shot with the bistol.’ Petre’s harsh but not hostile voice brought me back to reality: to the new reality. I plunged back into the unruly city. To the left, on the blank lateral wall of a splendid building, beneath the oddly squashed outline of a roof whose chimneys were smoking, I saw an advertisement in capital

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