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Doina RuSti
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that Bozăria must be
avoided. It and Bucharest’s
elderly women were the
two dangers. Moreover, he
had also heard the story of a
valet eaten alive by Bozăria.
And before the valet lay the
bridge,thecityandMustafa’s
shop where is believed to be
the beginning, although no
beginning can be discerned.
Until the day of the meeting
in the bakery there remain
lots more to be said and
all are about her eyes like
two otters coming out
from under the snow. He
first saw her in the yard of
the Metropolitan church,
where he had was taken
by surprise on the very day
he had entered the city
where he would dream like
a madman. And how he had
dreamed!
2. He had first heard of
Bucharest in his friend’s
shop, Mustafa’s, and just
by listening to its music he
felt it like a feather duster
passing over his teeth.
Inexplicably, all through the
day he couldn’t get it out of
his head. Aword is like a little
worm, made to multiply
relentlessly. It goes into the
labyrinth of the ear, map
in tote, inattentive to any
interruptions or alliances
and, in this case, it stopped
only in the thalamus, in
a dark place, the kind of
place said to be haunted by
ghosts. But Ioanis did not
know this perverse side of
words. He was 16 and he
had spent all these years
at the edge of the Căţol
neighbourhood,
among
baskets of fish, first next
to his mother’s stand, then