28 292
Doina RuSti
28
I. BUCHAREST
1. His best day was that of
the meeting in the bakery.
Many things had happened
in the meantime and he was
now already in the period of
wanting to forget her. It was
the summer of the tunic
from fustian ochre, one of
his beloved coats.
A bakery with a bell had
opened alongside the Red
Inn, where people went
primarily to listen to the
clinking of the door. A smell
of baked bread and sesame
was coming from the open
window. He had only gone
in to look around and had
remained transfixed. Five
people filled in next to the
counter. His lungs made
a long pause. In front of
him, not even at a finger’s
distance, Maiorca breathed
quietly. He could have
touched her, but his blood,
still unrefined by living,
had transformed him into a
boiled crayfish. Time with its
three hundred wings beat in
his eardrums and Maiorca’s
napewas steaming. He could
openly look to her straight
shoulders, her tens of braids
twisted up in rags and her
ears with earrings made of
red thread, on which three
little nacre buttons shivered.
Maiorca saw him only after
filling her basket with bread
rolls. At first, they looked at
each other as two strangers.
Maiorca lowered her lip,
letting out the sigh he had
almost forgotten.
While the baker wrote in
his register, he threw two
coins onto the counter and
confidently grasped the bun