“Tell me if you want to see/ A world outside your window/ A world outside your window isn’t free/ And tell me if you want to catch that feeling of redemption/ That feeling of redemption doesn’t do much for me.”
– Tanita Tikaram –
Cecilia stood in front of the mirror with her green eyes wide open. Conscious of her breath, she inhaled and exhaled, as she did in her yoga class.
“Can you press the cappuccino button for me?”
Her voice seemed to vanish in the big house, but a reply followed quickly. “Oh, like I am not getting ready for work as well?” His voice made her want to cleanse herself – of his voice, the situation, or him.
“But you are downstairs, right next to the machine. Please.”
He paused for a few seconds. “I’m not anymore. Walking upstairs.”
“Oh, damn, you started walking when I asked you to press the button.”
She passed him in the hallway and he gave her a smirk. Two seconds after that, she pressed the round silver button on the cappuccino machine. In two more minutes, she stepped on the gas pedal. Life was good again.
*******************************
Airports held a special place in Cecilia’s heart – the life, hope, happiness, and sadness they brought. Her final destination’s airport was smaller than the one she left behind, but what she truly left behind was a big ball of nothing. She smiled at the thought of being away from that colossal void and took a deep breath, observing the impatient crowd at the carousel. The luggage arrived late, giving her time to ponder the lives of couples with excessive baggage. They almost stepped on each other as they grabbed the luggage, yelling at their spouses or kids. She spoke very little Romanian, but their body language was enough. They had a lot of luggage, a lot of words and even more gestures. She thought about how her friends back home concealed a troubled marriage. No public yelling, just silent bickering.
Her luggage arrived late and she had the time to imagine a few of those couples’ lives as she watched them. It brought other images as well. Her friends back home had a marriage on the rocks, but nobody knew. There was no yelling, not in public at least. the constant yelling reminded her of her own marriage. There is a certain dignity in the lack of yelling. There is not much happiness, but bickering has to be way more acceptable than yelling. She shook her head left and right, like her old dog used to do, letting go, as she grabbed her luggage. None of the men tried to help her as she struggled to lift the big blue suitcase. She did not think much of it right away, but she remembered it while in the cab on the way to the hotel. The cab driver knew only a few English words and she found him to be quite skilled in the way he used them. He helped her with the luggage and then yelled something at the bellboy. Cecilia smiled, wondering if yelling was simple yelling or the only way they knew how to communicate.
Cecilia shook her head, reminiscent of her old dog, letting go as she grabbed her suitcase. None of the men tried to help her as she struggled to lift the big blue suitcase. She did not think much of it right away, but she remembered it in the cab on the way to the hotel. The cab driver, with his limited English, helped her put the suitcase in the car, but then yelled at the bellboy once they arrived at the hotel. She wondered whether yelling was mere communication or the only language they knew.
“Welcome to the Intercontinental Hotel Bucharest!” The city outside sparkled with lights and contrasts. Old-world buildings stood next to new glass buildings in a kitschy, mesmerizing way.
Checked into her room, she changed while turning on the TV. Despite her modest knowledge of Romanian, the news seemed incomprehensible. Gunshots and tanks? The location of a protest on TV looked like it was the boulevard right down below her. She heard gunshots; she saw tanks and people offering flowers to the soldiers. That was not the image she had of this city. Cecilia sat down on the bed, petrified to look outside. With the phone in her hand like a magical weapon, she opened the curtains. All she could hear was the city noise. All she could see was the bright light coming from the boulevard, no tanks and no sign of a protest. Confused, yet relieved, she left the room right away and found herself on the sidewalk.
“It’s midnight on a workday, and people are still out. There must be something about this city that I don’t quite understand,” she texted her girlfriend. She looked around with intense and almost painful joy. The street lights were bright and she welcomed the unexpected, but beautiful light. Downtown, amidst the constant car and wind noise, in a city with 2 million people, feeling trapped in an allegory was a surprising feeling.
Near a subway station, she entered an underground passage, following a group of young people. The light accompanied her, drowning their words. Emerging onto a cobblestone street, she discovered terraces and people. Without consulting reviews or social media, it just felt right to sit at one of the tables. Nearby, a tall man and a young woman talked in English.
“Did I fuck up your feng shui?”
The girl had a nervous, but loud laugh:
“You are the one who is fucked up.”
“Excused me then that I am fucked up and I fucked up your feng shui.”
The man put his cigarette down, and got up to leave. The girl looked puzzled and a little embarrassed.
“Sit down, please!”
He grabbed his backpack and started walking away. Cecilia noticed his beautiful, large hands effortlessly moving through the air. The girl ran after him.
“It was a joke, but you should have not embarrassed me in front of my friends, and now this …”
The man stopped to light a cigarette, ignoring the girl, and then resumed walking. The girl kept talking, not yelling, but trying to make a point. Too far away, Cecilia couldn’t hear anymore. She went back to the table and paid, only to leave minutes after with tears in her eyes. Cecilia sense the girl’s pain somehow, enough to lose her appetite. She got up and started walking towards the hotel.
Jet lag took its toll. At a nearby kiosk, they were selling warm pretzels on a string, with salt and that perfect brown color. She bought a few and sat down on the steps in front of the hotel. The pretzels were warm, the air too, with a hint of cigarette smell that did not bother her.
“The entire Romanian nation seems to be raised on those pretzels.”
It was the man from the terrace. He was smoking.
“Oh, are they? I was hoping for sophisticated cuisine. I heard good things.”
He stood up.
“Hey, you’re a fellow American. What kind of good things? As in everything-that-is-good-makes-you-gain-weight-and-maybe-it’s-a-sin kind of thing?”
She smiled. “Are we still talking about Romanian food here?”
“Ha, ha, who knows, this city is hard to understand. It’s friendly and always alive, but it brings up your own hidden drama and mixes it with its own problems.”
“Hidden drama? I assume you are not a therapist.”
“No, I’m not.”
He threw his cigarette into the trash and glanced at her briefly. “Have a good night, OK?”
“Oh, sure, I am jet-lagged, so yeah, sure.” Her mention of jet lag seemed like a subtle invitation for further conversation.
“You’ll get over it. We all do.”
“Are we still talking about jet lag?”
He did not answer and started walking towards the hotel.
*****************************
“I can’t remember the joy. And if I can’t remember the joy, it might as well have never happened.”
The only link from across the ocean that she kept while on the trip was her weekly call with her girlfriend, Leila.
“With my history of joyless years, I figured I’d recognized joy when it smacked me. Last night, I heard a scream inside of me when this guy left in the middle of our conversation, but I stood there and did not move. Inside, my many mini clones chased him, but I stayed put. Emblematic of my entire life – either I absorb whatever comes, proving over and over that I am strong enough to handle it, or maybe I am as lazy as my mother told me I was.”
“Or you are afraid you are going to be rejected or humiliated in some way.”
“Yeah, that, too, although, how many men rejected me, really?”
Leila laughed. “None that I remember, girl.”
“Wait, you know what, how about I call you from the lobby so you can see this place versus my room?”
She quickly threw on flats and a skirt, taking cues from the city’s vibe. Holding up her phone, she showed her girlfriend around. “This place is like no other city I have been to; it screams home somehow and I have not even left downtown yet.”
“Your roots are calling, I guess,” Leila commented.
“Yes, and I will meet a cousin tomorrow. I want to hear about my family, of course, but I want to discover the city on my own as well. Hey, I will take off now and will send pics later.”
She was standing in front of the hotel with the phone still in her hand when a car honked.
“Hey, your cab is here.” She turned around and there he was.
“I did not order one, because I don’t get in cars with strangers,” she replied, trying to be both funny and sarcastic. However, the moment she uttered those words, her entire body quivered with the fear that he might be put off by her comment.
“Fair, I guess, and I am parking my car anyway.” He got out of the car and the valet grabbed the keys. He held only a water bottle, in time for her to think how American that was. People did not drink a lot of water in Europe. She felt she had to say something or the conversation could have ended abruptly again.
“Must be crazy driving a car in this city.”
“Crazy, crazy, many things or people don’t deserve that label. I would say more like uncomfortable at times, but doable.”
He looked very tall as he was standing there with his water bottle. She felt his words slapping her somehow every time he talked. She definitely wasn’t empowered by what he was saying, but she liked that he was listening to what she was saying. The imaginary slapping was not putting her down, but waking her up.
Standing with his water bottle, he appeared very tall. His words seemed to land with a subtle impact each time he spoke, not exactly uplifting her, yet there was something intriguing about the way he paid attention to her words. Rather than diminishing her, the imaginary slapping sensation she felt every time he replied served as a peculiar awakening.
“I’m going to drop off some stuff in my room and what do you think, do you want to take a walk after?”
She nodded, “We could do that.” He disappeared inside the hotel, catching her attention with his peculiar walk, with oddly deliberate and unhurried steps, almost as if he were awaiting a red carpet.
She lingered outside the hotel and eventually found herself in a wingback chair inside. People watching was entertaining, but waiting wasn’t her favorite game. It was getting dark and the city had an almost serene feel, with shimmering lights and people moving like pawns on a chessboard. He wasn’t going to come. She started walking away, occasionally glancing back. Her map application was a good guide, but she could have done more research before the trip. Her decision to travel was more spontaneous than she thought she was capable of and now she was not prepared. The more she walked, the more she could hear her steps on the cobblestone streets becoming the loneliest steps in the world.