43 292
The Phanariot Manuscript
43
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