“I don’t know why, but I had to start it somewhere.”
– Pulp –
He was leaning against the wall smoking. One leg was bent with his foot pressed against the wall, as if he wanted to make himself smaller or invisible, pushing his body into the wall. He held the cigarette like a pen, writing imaginary verses in the cold air. She passed by with her sun-kissed skin, taking big bites of a large chocolate bar and walking with even bigger steps. He thought right away that she was walking like she was being followed, but that was not what he said to her.
“What’s sweet is not always good for you, not for your soul nor your waistline,” he commented.
The girl stopped and took a big bite right in front of him. ‘Ah, I just don’t know what’s bad for me anymore. But really, you have something against chocolate? You know the saying, which rhymes in Romanian: “A peasant does not know what chocolate is, keeps the wrapping and throws away the bar.” Enough said.’
He threw away his cigarette and followed her. “I’m Jimmy, the one who apparently just inspired you to recite those verses. What’s your name?”
The girl continued walking quickly, but smiled. “They say that the Romanian is born a poet. Sorry for indirectly calling you a peasant. I am a professor at the university in this building. Do you go to school here, Jimmy?”
“Not really, I work across the street and I was on a cigarette break. I did not realize this was a university building.”
Jimmy glanced down at his calloused hands, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. “And no, I’m definitely not a peasant, even though I like to get my hands dirty working on my bike. I wash them, you know!” The girl raised one eyebrow with a hint of amusement. “You ride a bike…so then I have to say, I’m a bit surprised to find you loitering around university buildings on cigarette breaks.”
“Hey, a guy’s gotta get his nicotine fix when he can, right?”
“An athlete? A cyclist who fixes his bike, which probably means that he is riding a lot, smokes?”
Jimmy smiled. “Oh, the very rich English language where one word means two different things. I meant a motorcycle.”
“Thanks for clearing that up. I had a very different image in my head.” She went inside and he just stood there awkwardly, without his cigarette, feeling somehow exposed not because he was so insecure about holding the cigarette, but because he didn’t want her to leave.
***************************************
Jimmy loved his job and he knew he could have done many things thanks to his imagination, writing skills and sense of humor. He chose a less glamorous path in advertising, which brought him to Bucharest to train the staff of a new branch. Leaving behind his last unsuccessful personal relationship and a mother who constantly asked her adult children for money, Jimmy did not take off to start fresh, but to see bew people and places, trying to decide if there really was no place like home.
Bucharest became his first friend, and the city continued to guide him whenever he felt down or just tired. It gave him ideas and inspired him to simply open a window when he didn’t want to go out on some nights. Renting an apartment in the Old Town, an open window there was the equivalent of a “breath of fresh air” or, in city terms, “a breath of fast life and bright lights.”
Bucharest became his first friend and the city continued to guide him every time he felt down or just felt tired. It gave him ideas and inspired him to simply open a window if he did not want to go out on some nights. He was renting an apartment in the Old Town and an open window there was the equivalent of a “breath of fresh air” or, in city terms, “a breath of fast life and bright lights.” He went out almost every night, but not the same way he went out in the States during his party years. He mostly sat around at a restaurant talking to people. Conversations here were intense and most people certainly read a lot, which made for captivating yet often heated discussions. There was also that Latin temperament mixed with a strong Balcanic influence that kept him interested in those conversations, even when the people were the same. It was almost like a new story was being written every night, even though he was living those stories and did not find the strength to write them down yet. Chapter by chapter, story by story, he became part of the big-city downtown life that he has never experienced before.
The evening when he arrived in Bucharest, his new coworkers took him out. Not a well-traveled guy outside of the U.S. Jimmy was still trying to figure things out between the culture shock and his jetlag. When they got in one of his coworkers’ car to go to the North side of the town where the restaurants were apparently more posh, he noticed that all women sat in the back while one man drove and the other one sat in the passenger seat. He immediately noticed, but did not comment. At the restaurant, they sat him at the “men’s side of the table” and he wondered if the setup was done that way on purpose for him since women did not seem to want to speak English or it was truly how segregated things were in this country. One of his colleagues went to the “girls’ side” and looked like he was trying to convince them to talk to him. He almost felt guilty for stressing people out because of the language barrier, but one of the girls got up and walked towards them with a thin, long cigarette in her hand, somehow not matching her tall, yet voluptuous body. She sat down next to him.
“Are you wondering if it’s normal for men and women to sit separately here?”
“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”
The girl laughed. “Are you quoting Morticia to impress me?”
Jimmy blushed. “I wasn’t going to take credit for it. It just came to me. But yes, I noticed that in the car and then here.”
The girl looked at him a bit surprised. “Hmmm, yeah, I did not think about the car. But I saw how this table looks and I wondered. I always just assumed that we sat in the back of the car so we girls talked to each other and it never bothered me. But, yes, it’s always one man driving and one in the passenger seat. Man, the patriarchy in this country is very much alive.”
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. “Tradition? What is your name, by the way? I’m Jimmy. I don’t remember seeing you at work, but I got introduced to way too many people today..”
“Geez, you would have remembered me. If not for anything else, for the fact that I am the only girl that is taller than most men there. I stand out in many ways, but, at first sight, my height is how people remember me. I’m Andrea. I am giving you just my first name, ha, ha, ‘don’t they know you’re supposed to have a last name? It’s like they’re an entire generation of cocktail waitresses.’ Something like that.”
“They?”
She did not answer, but extended her hand to shake his and he noticed her short, yet beautifully shaped nails and a ring with a small black stone. He smiled thinking that after all those years hanging out with his sisters, he learned something: he noticed that there was no wedding band.
“We’re old school here. The girl always reaches first to shake the man’s hand.”
Jimmy shook her hand. “Yeah, right, like in a Jane Austen novel. I always wondered who should do it, but I assumed there wasn’t a special rule for this.”
“Well, in a business setting, they say to wait for your superior to make the first move when it comes to hand shaking. Are you my superior?”
Jimmy laughed. “I certainly don’t feel superior, just a dumb American who doesn’t understand the language here – nor any other language – and, as a consultant, nobody really reports to me. I am just a hippie freelancer.”
It was her turn to laugh now. She had a squeaky, contagious laugh and he was surprised by that incongruous laugh coming out of this tall, athletic girl.
“Nothing wrong with that, Jimmy. By the way, when I talked about cocktail waitresses who only give their first names earlier, I wasn’t trying to insult their profession. I was quoting Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, since you started the conversation by quoting Morticia. But I hope we will find out each other’s last names at work. Now I have to go back to the girls and tell them what they missed.”
She pushed her chair, stood up – very tall and quite statuesque, he thought again – and moved back to the “girls’ side” of the table. He heard them laugh as she sat down next to them, with her squeaky laugh coming his way like happy waves of the Black Sea.
At that point, he was awake for so many hours that he did not even feel tired anymore, but he knew that the jet lag was going to hit him at some point, so he got up and said that he was going back to his place. He waved Goodbye and, suddenly, he felt sorry that he was leaving, but all of his life he found it hard to stay and was best at leaving. So he did what he was good at, but this time at a much smaller scale; he left.
He loved not hearing his steps on the asphalt. He loved the ongoing noise of the cars that covered everything in a tempo that he was not familiar with, but loved to get acquainted with as he got to know the city more. His apartment was in a tall building behind the history museum. There was a dark alley that led to the building door, although every other street was inundated in light. The building door was locked, so he reached in his pocket looking for the key when he saw a young girl sitting on the sidewalk. She had the face in her hands and just sat there like a statue, in her dark clothes blending in the dark. He hesitated, not knowing what to do nor to say, but good-hearted Jimmy wanted to make sure she was OK and tapped her lightly on her shoulder. Her shoulder was really hard and bony, and he backed off a little, instinctively. She did not move right away and Jimmy thought that he had frightened her. He realized that speaking in English was not necessarily the right move, but not speaking at all was not an option for small-town Jimmy who truly just wanted to make sure she was not hurt.
“Hello?”
The girl took her hands off her face, but did not move her face. She put her hands on the ground and lifted herself up a few inches of the floor, in a yogic move, with all the weight on her arms, but with the head down, the way he found her. Then she spoke:
“I’m hurt, but you can’t see it. Is that what you want to know? In your eyes, I am well.”
Her English was impeccable. Her big blue eyes brightened the dark alley and he suddenly felt a knot in his stomach, like in school when he was taking a test.
“Wait, you are hurt? I honestly thought maybe you were not feeling well, it’s the party area of the town, and maybe you had a few drinks. Can I help?”
The girl laughed and it sounded almost like bells; he could hear the laugh a few seconds after she stopped laughing, bouncing off the walls of the building.
“Not feeling well is an everyday feeling for me, if I may say so. I’m forever in a dark alley like this but I don’t often get interrupted by a kind man to be honest. I thought you did not see me.”
Jimmy smiled: “I see you. Are you waiting for somebody?”
The girl stood up. She was much shorter than he thought she was, but a bit older. Maybe in her 30s and not in her 20s like he initially thought. Her long brown hair was incredibly shiny and she was wearing a white shirt with a small flower embroidery in the area around her belly button.
“I have been waiting for a while, but the wait is a long game for me and it’s one that I learned to accept. Are you a neighbor?”
“It’s actually my first night here, but I will be here for a while. Just trying to find my key to go to my apartment. The building door is locked.”
The girls walked to the door and pushed it. “It’s never locked for me.”
Jimmy stood there confused since he was pretty sure he tried opening it, but maybe he did not push the right way, he thought.
“Do you live here as well?”
The girl looked away. “I used to and then it all fell apart. I can tell you about it. Do you want to take a walk? I never walk with anybody but maybe it’s possible to walk with you.”
Jimmy was so jet-lagged at this point that he was not feeling it anymore. The girl was strange, but her English was extraordinary and her eyes were so perfectly blue that Jimmy almost said yes. Almost.
“I have an early start and it’s my first night here. Rain check?”
The girl smiled and sat down on the sidewalk, but instead of her face-in-her-hands position, she looked up at Jimmy.
“Maybe tomorrow, right?” She blinked her eyes a few times only to close them and put her hands on her face again, the same way he found her.
“Yes, but I will be back earlier tomorrow, I suppose. When are you free?”
“Oh, I am free when you are. See you tomorrow, Jimmy.”
With the key in his hand, Jimmy walked towards the building door, still mesmerized by everything that the girl was and wondering if leaving things up in the air was just the perfect ending this encounter needed. The planner in him wanted to know the time and he definitely wanted to understand how she knew his name, but tired, jet-lagged Jimmy opened the door and walked right in. As he went up the stairs, he heard a screechy scream that was soon after followed by cars honking, leaving Jimmy wondering if the girl screamed or the city.
In the morning, Jimmy got out of the building trying to find the city and the girl. The city welcomed him and he forgot about the girl in a few minutes. He headed to the subway craving another city experience and there it was, another work day with people rushing and leaving behind an intoxicating aroma of perfume, cologne and some kind of pastries or bread. He followed the smell to the subway and heard the train approaching. It turned out that he only had one station to work and started wondering why he did not walk. His coworkers did not even give him that option, and he wondered what kind of city people don’t like to walk. Once he got out of the subway station, the city started dancing again in front of his eyes, with cars, voices and colors that he was learning to love. The love for a city is like no other, because it transforms you with every step you take while your steps get bigger and bigger with ambitions as tall as the glass buildings. The more you walk, the more you get to enjoy the kaleidoscope of dreams reflected in thousands of windows. The small-town steps stay small and quiet; they don’t know chaos and they follow a lullaby rhythm, guiding you safely around and around until you fall asleep.
Jimmy waited outside for a few minutes smoking his cigarette.
“You are in the same position I left you yesterday.”
Clara, the girl who apparently taught at the university, passed by quickly smiling.
“Oh, professor, you have a good morning as well! By the way, my cigarette would go well with a coffee. Where is a good place to have one?”
“There is a place right across from the university building around the corner. They serve breakfast, too. It’s a fancier place now than what it used to be when I was a student here.”
Jimmy followed her. “Wait, you went to school here and now you teach here?”
“Yes, I guess I did not make it too far, in a way.” She raised her shoulders and smiled again.
“Listen, do you get any breaks? I would love to pick your brain about this city.”
She stopped. “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? I can see you for lunch. European lunch, you know, we don’t eat at noon and then again at 6 p.m.”
“OK, OK, I get the sarcastic comment. How about 1 p.m. at the place that is fancier than when you were 20?”
“Oh, I am still 20!” She gave him a thumbs up and waved. He waved back and then walked to his building.
**********************
“Our time is limited on this earth and you are right, I should be sorry that I wasted so much of it.”
Clara shook her head left and right, “Not at all. You should be happy that you learned how to count moments. Those moments were definitely not wasted.”
“And your English is really good,” Jimmy answered.
“The English language is my weakness; I do everything I can to hear it and speak it.”
“Oh, damn, so that explains why you agreed to have lunch with me.”
She laughed. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Glad we got this out of the way, but how about this place? You said that it’s been here a while.”
“True. The funny thing is that I went to preschool in the building next door and now I teach here across the street. This one block is literally bringing everything together in my life.”
She paused. “But yes, it used to be a bakery… We called it cofetarie. Sweets and juices, stuff that kids and students like. We also like to smoke and we did it here indoors at the bakery. They allowed us even though we sat here for hours smoking and not consuming too much. Mostly a slice of cake and some Coca Cola, in a glass bottle, you know, the good kind. I was not a coffee drinker back then. Little kids would stop by with their grandmas and they would see the smoke, and walk right out. The waitresses were really kind to us though. We skipped school to sit here and talk to my friends for hours. Talk about wasted time… But again, I remember the moments and that matters now years after.”
Jimmy nodded. “You got those moments right.”
“What kind of moments do you remember, Jimmy?”
“My mom. She created some moments, allright. My mom never worked, yet she liked fine things.”
“Oh, quite a conundrum!”
“Not really. She was driven. My dad knew he had to provide and never questioned it. She knew she had to take care of the house and never complained. Of course, they barely talked to each other, so that made it easy.”
“But maybe that is a blessing in disguise for some relationships. My ex-husband and I talked a lot in the beginning. We shared everything, at least I did. Then we stopped talking and I felt relieved. I slowly realized I did not need to share anything with him anymore and we drifted apart.”
“Are you divorced now, Clara?”
“Certainly. It’s been a while.”
Jimmy felt anxious suddenly. “It’s been a while since we have been here too, so I guess I have to get back before they fire me and send me back to ‘Murica.”
They walked back side by side, not hearing their hesitant footsteps on the asphalt while a nervous energy crackled between them as if words were left unspoken or maybe too many were spoken. She looked at him while waiting at the stoplight and felt like a question was lingering in his eyes, unspoken but heavy. They reached a crossroad with their paths diverging. The air felt cooler, carrying the scent of the city and distant rain. He stopped.
“Hey, thanks for showing me the cafe around the corner. Great chatting with you.”
She waved and started walking towards the university and with every step she took, she felt like she wanted to go in the different direction and ask him why he cut their little date short once he heard she was divorced. She knew she was going to overthink this until the next time she saw him and she wished she had his phone number.
On the other side of the road, as he was walking, Jimmy felt quite energized. He chose to walk right into the building and focus on work for a few hours. Then, also by his own choice, he told his coworkers that he was still jetlagged and wanted to go home. The jetlagged part wasn’t a lie, but he was not so sure he wanted to go home. She wished he had Clara’s phone number, but only because she was the person he connected with the most in the short time. Although, as if his thoughts were yelled out loudly, the wind started blowing and as he stepped in the building’s hallway and pressed the button to take the elevator up, he heard a little whisper.
“Hey, up here!”
Jimmy felt a draft and looked behind him to see if somebody came in.
“Hey, you don’t play any instruments, do you?
“Instruments?”
“You don’t have a good ear. The sound is coming from the opposite side. Look up the stairs!”
Then he did. There, perched gracefully upon the steps, was the girl from the previous night. She looked up at him with her deep, soulful eyes.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered. Jimmy felt a shiver of anticipation run down his spine as she took small steps beside him, with her long, shimmering hair cascading down her back in a rich, chestnut wave. The small, intricate flower embroidered near the hem of her pristine white shirt seemed to almost glow with an otherworldly radiance.
When they reached his apartment door, the girl paused, her eyes searching his face with an intensity that made him look for the key with very nervous moves. “May I come in?” she asked, whispering, yet carrying a weight that took his breath away.
Wordlessly, Jimmy nodded and ushered her inside. The door closed the door behind them with a soft click.
The girl reached out, her fingers tracing the walls gently as she moved through the apartment.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she repeated. “I’ve been here before, you know. I’ve lived here before.”
Her words hung in the air, leaving Jimmy with a growing sense of unease. There was something about her presence, the way she seemed to know this place, that unsettled him. He watched her carefully, waiting for her to elaborate, to shed some light on the mystery that surrounded her.
He sat down on the couch. “Is this your apartment? I rented it through an agency, so I don’t know the owner.” She sat next to him and turned to face him, her eyes shining while her voice carried a soothing, lullaby-like quality as she spoke.”You know, there used to be another building here,” she began, her gaze never wavering from his. “I lived here a long time ago. It was such a vibrant place, full of actors, singers, and all sorts of famous people.”
He saw a melancholic smile on her lips as she spoke. “But then…” Her expression shifted, with a shadow of sadness passing over her delicate features. “It all came crashing down. The building collapsed in an earthquake.”
Jimmy felt a chill run down his spine at her words. There was something deeply unsettling about the way she spoke of this tragedy, as if she had witnessed it firsthand. He opened his mouth to ask for more details, but the girl covered it with her hand.
“I lost everything that day,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “My home, my life…” With her eyes, she pleaded with him to understand the weight of her words.
Jimmy sat in silence. He looked her in the eyes, trying to understand the way she spoke of it, with such raw emotion – it was as if she had been there, when the earthquake struck. She grabbed his hand and as he felt the first tremors rumbling through the room, Jimmy felt the girl’s hand grow colder in his. As the shaking intensified, he realized with a sinking feeling that this was no ordinary earthquake – it was the same one that had claimed the girl’s life almost a half a century ago. And as the building shuddered around them, Jimmy understood. He closed his eyes, but held her hand tightly.
When Jimmy opened his eyes again, he found himself alone on his couch. Disoriented, he looked around, realizing he must have fallen asleep. His head rested on his coat, and he was curled up, clutching a pillow in the fetal position.
The morning light filtering in from the boulevard outside suddenly put a smile on Jimmy’s face. “It wasn’t a dream,” he said to himself. “I made a ghost friend.”
Sitting up, Jimmy felt a strange mix of emotions – a lingering sadness for the girl’s tragic fate, but also a strange sense of connection.
Getting ready to start the day, he held onto the memory of her touch and the chill of her hand holding his, as a testament that her story felt real to him, as real as the city did.