Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

The Phanariot Manuscript

nobodies who gave colour to the Colţea mahala with taklits, fezzes and scarves of a brilliant green. On that quiet morning, Doicescu was turning 27 and his main gift which Manda Doicescu had carefully placed within reach while he was still sleeping could be found in a silver case. One of the great joys inherited from the earliest Doicescus was to buy extremely rare things. Cigarette boxes, big mechanical dolls or fruit that nobody had heard of. Everything unusual made his soul tingle. His newest acquisition was a gas lamp in the shape of a naked man with a big nose and a small yellowhat, andadick thesize of a normal finger that had written on it in golden letters Ami Argand . Therefore, he

expected the object in the case to completely surprise him. The previous evening, the postman had brought a chest from Braşov with his bottles of Frontignac and some silk gloves. But the silver case surely hadn’t been there. He heard some light steps to his right and Doicescu reached out without even looking to the woman who had brought his hookah. After his first smoke he opened the case. A lock of hair lay on a bed of velvet. In the Bucharest as sung by Selim, in that Bucharest on which the Greeks of Fener had placed their bets, pleasures of the hair took precedent. Included in this, small extensions were sought after accompanied by luxurious hair pins and

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