26 292
Doina RuSti
26
even from the first bars.
The city in the song was like
the hidden whisper in the
linden flower. Between its
walls all suffering melted
away, erased from the Book
of Destiny or from other
books copied after that. And
the city, that city of light
hearts, was none other than
Bucharest.
Then the rumours began
to spread, supported by
the hissed whispers of the
Greeks of Fener, the only
one who had travelled the
roads beyond the Danube,
where the Wallachian city
lay. For instance, everyone
knew that, as soon as you
cross the bridge, which is
also the only entrance to the
city, you realise that your
whole life up to that point
wasn’t worth two cents. On
the streets paved with oak
wood, steam swirls around
from the silver stoups in
which elixirs, perfumes and
ointments boil all the time,
for the city doesn’t live off
the labour of the earth, nor
off its numerous shops, but
off a continuously renewed
aroma, off that warm breath
which invades all the pores
and makes any newcomer
forget everything they’d
lived before as if they were
instantly transformed into
an Emir with sapphire eyes,
into a Nabob with carriages
andpalaces, intoaGovernor,
a Polkovnik or at least into a
scribe of the lordly suite.
But there were also many
who spoke of the people
walking in streets, bemused,
drunk with love or stuffed
with the sweets that they
dreamed of, tortured by
their own desires, eating