back into the woman she was…
“Where I went, they were all…” she said in a low voice. “But what about you, here? What have you been up to, girl… Have you had fun?”
Rovena nodded. “Yes, Zara, a lot… And now I have fallen in love.”
The woman stared at her for so long that Rovena thought she had not heard her.
“I’ve fallen in
“It’s the same thing,” the woman said, in the same soft voice.
Rovena felt that they were getting close to her secret. During one of their sleepless nights, Besfort had talked about the millions of years when love had only been lust.
Apparently this was why the way she talked was so mysteriously attractive. The gypsy was carrying her back to her own distant era.
Covered in confusion, and under the woman’s now haggard gaze, Rovena took off her pullover, stiffly, as if carrying out a ritual. Then she lowered her underwear, showing the woman her pubic hair. Poker-straight, as if waiting for a jury to pronounce her guilt or innocence, she stood there a long time.
Walking home as dusk fell, it seemed to her that she had undressed for reasons that were as inevitable as they were inexplicable. She had done it naturally, as if obeying a mystical instruction: show your allegiance!
Obscurely, she struggled to understand something that still eluded her grasp. It apparently had to do with the female’s different outlook, which had descended from the world of the gypsies, that epoch millions of years ago, as Besfort had put it, and which the
Reaching home, her feet carried her to the sofa. She wearily calculated the days until Besfort’s return.
Meeting him was different from how she had imagined it. He seemed distracted, gloomy, as if he had brought with him the cloud cover of the continent.
A vague fear stalked her. This man who she liked to think had brought her freedom might unthinkingly take it from her again.
You’re dangerous, she thought, as she whispered into his ear tender words about missing him, about her visit to the gypsy woman’s house and of course her coffee with the man she now called the “bi-diplomat”. Some good had come out of that cup of coffee. She had heard about an Austrian scholarship to go to Graz, and the “bi” had said she could apply.
“It would be easier for us to meet in hotels in Europe, wouldn’t it, where you might have things to do, and I could come… aren’t you pleased?”
“Of course I’m pleased. Who said I wasn’t?”
“You don’t look pleased.”
“Perhaps because while you were talking I was thinking… sort of… about how girls today think nothing of going to bed with someone for a visa or a scholarship…”
She broke off, lost for words. He touched her cheeks, as if tears lay on them.
“How beautiful your eyes are when you have things on your mind.”
“Really?” she said, not thinking.
“I was asking you seriously,” he went on. “Shall we do it?”
Oh God, she thought. “I don’t think so,” she blurted out.
He did not take his eyes off her, and she added, “I don’t know…”
Tenderly, he kissed her hair.
“You were going to say something, Besfort, weren’t you?”
He nodded. “But I don’t know if we should always say everything we think of.”
“Why not?” said Rovena. “Perhaps it’s not a good idea generally, but we are, kind of… in love…”
He laughed out loud. “A moment ago, when you were so honest, I thought of how honesty makes a woman look beautiful. But sometimes, unfortunately, an unfaithful woman can look just as beautiful.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t scowl. I wanted to say that treachery generally makes someone look ugly. That expression, the evil eye, has some truth behind it. But an unfaithful woman can look wonderfully attractive. We’re in love, aren’t we? You said yourself that everything is different… in love.”
His voice was carefree, unlike an hour before, but still dangerous, she said to herself. He behaves like someone not afraid of going to the edge. Why is it he feels safe and I don’t? The thought made her irritable. She wanted to ask, in annoyance: “What makes you feel so secure? Why do you think I belong to you?”
She knew that she didn’t dare ask. She lived in fear and he did not, that was the difference between them, and as long as this did not change she would feel defeated.
She murmured softly as he stroked her chest, and he asked her to tell him again what the gypsy had said.
“I can see you like to make fun of her.”
“Not at all,” he retorted. “If anybody treats the gypsies and the Roma with respect at last, it is us at the Council of Europe.”
As if frightened of silence, she went on talking as she combed her hair at the mirror. He stood by the door, studying her now familiar movements.
Putting on her lipstick, she turned her head to say something, her tone suddenly altered, about her fiance. Her internship in Austria would inevitably take her away from him and they would separate.
She looked at him closely to see what he was thinking. He was careful to say nothing, but took two steps towards her and kissed her on the neck. “We’ll be happy together,” she whispered.
Later, she regretted saying this. He should have been the one to say it. As always, she rushed in too fast.
What did she need all this for, she groaned to herself. She thought she had left qualms of this sort behind, but they were still there, especially during the last moments of every meeting: things that shouldn’t have happened so abruptly, things there was no time to put right. He put it down to anxiety before they parted. She could not work out whether it was better to say as little as possible to avoid misunderstanding, or the opposite, to gabble nervously to fill up the frightening void. She now knew that just before they said goodbye there would come a fatal moment that would decide what shape her suffering would take until they met again.
All these misgivings belonged to the past, but they still insistently fired their darts from a distance. She wanted to say to them: “All right, I’ve remembered you now. Leave me in peace.”
She arrived in Graz in midwinter, soaked by the rain that poured from the February clouds. The fog banks watched her like hyenas. The house where Lasgush Poradeci had lived was gone. She had thought that Graz would make an impression on her, at least as strong as that left by Besfort Y. But the opposite happened. Her breasts grew smoother.
His phone call rescued her from the barren winter. He was not far away. He would expect her at the hotel on Saturday. She should take a taxi from the station and not worry about the expense.
They spent two nights together, and she repeated endlessly, “How happy I am with you.” Then she travelled back to winter and the tedium of her hall of residence.
She stood motionless for a moment, holding the shower head above her hair. The water splashed either scalding or icy and gave her no pleasure. It was the first time a shower had failed to calm her. Then she understood why: the shower head reminded her of the telephone.
That was where the friction usually started. The first and most serious incident had been in spring. Everything had changed in Graz. For the first time, she hankered after liberty. She grew irritated for no reason. She thought that Besfort stood in her way.
These were her first cross words on the phone. “You’re preventing me from living.”
“What?” he replied coolly. “I’m getting in your way?”
“Precisely. You said that you tried to phone me twice yesterday evening.”
“So what?” he said.
She heard the unconcern in his voice, but instead of kicking herself for her blunder, she cried, “You’re holding me hostage.”
“Aha,” he said.
