Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

Mircea Cartarescu

I crossed the waste ground until I got in front of the door. Beyond the black bars the glass was broken. The square windows as well. A cold wind, smelling of wall debris came from inside. A piece of paper with “For sale” written in ball pen was stuck next to the door. Underneath there was a phone number and “Ask for Mikola”. I went around the housewhiletheduskbecame denser. Behind it there was another street entirely, with grey apartment buildings, as if the tree of streets in the neighbourhood had produced those fruit of Creole exuberance and sadness only in Maica Domnului. There had been another entrance once on the blind wall at the back of the house, but it was now

closed with bricks. At that moment, in front of that blind entrance, I saw myself living there my entire life, because if every house is the image of the one inhabiting it, no matter how deformed and deceitful, then I knew that there, in that tesseract of ash, I had found my most flawless self-portrait. I was already imagining myself in the narrow room of the tower, looking at the sky through the round window, while the horizon was getting dirty yellow and the first stars were coming out in this lamp oil shade. As soon as I got home that evening I talked to my folks about buying the house. My mother knew Maica Domnului verywell, street of hookers and knifers. Shouts and reproaches began: “Is

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