Butterflies swarm in the stomach, the time is coming, I shyly go up on stage, my colleague next to me smiles complicitly, I fix my bow tie, one hand grabs the bow, the other one caresses the strings, we start at a sign, the sounds are an enchanted stream, the eyes follow the silver baton, we are a body with a thousand arms, a lady in the front row tears up, the rhythm floods the hall, makes the walls vibrate, crashes against the high dome, applause, smiles, hugs. All these did not exist. There was only a cold winter. When my mother sold the violin.
Ana-Maria Butuza
He had not had any penny in his pocket for two days. His guts were rumbling with so much water and his stomach was sticking to his back as the days passed by, making him curl up like a question mark. On a street corner, an old man was playing a fado on his guitar, an almost forgotten old melody. He joined him, closed his eyes and started humming. At first timidly, until the pain he was singing about met his own in a burst and then his voice grew louder.Surprised or bewitched passers-by stopped by, leaving a penny.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
My mother abandoned me at the city hall door. Perhaps she had a reason. I picked up the violin when I was a few years old, while I was at the orphanage. At eleven years old, I jumped the fence and I never returned. I lived a while in the train station. That's where the gentleman found me. Hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have got to play the violin at such parties. What world, what jewels, what women I was meant to meet. I didn't have anyone close to my heart, because perhaps the one up above or the one from below wanted so. Or from nowhere. Do you want this bone? Don't ever bite me again, cause' you are a tramp too.
(Translated by Irina Vild / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.