At the conservatoire everyone looked at me with endless contempt. They would make fun of me, saying a dry joke behind my back about a crow with its wing stuck between the strings of the violin. Supposedly, Strauss had to be played not cawed. I slammed and locked the door of my soul so I could never hear them again. Then I sprinkled sonatas over the wounds until they turned into scars. Three decades must have passed since then and several hundred concerts on the great stages of the world. And yet, even now, the gypsy's eyes tear up when he listens to Strauss's music score.
Elena Fermuș
The students look at each other with an intrigued expression. How cold-blooded. But the professor does not start without it. Music is my life, he says, then he unveils the bodies of the two. Once it was theirs too. The name of the first one is Gilda, a business woman. She played with money. The other one was Mara, a miserable one. She begged in the train station. He dissects them both with perfect calm. At the end, he flutters two hearts in front of the students. Which one belongs to Gilda? No one knows. It will be the same in the medical office, my dears. This was the first lesson. There is no rich, nor poor man. Only patient. Same music for everyone.
Monica Bologa
I get off at the subway station, I go to my favorite place, I take my guitar out of the case and I start playing. People gather around me and listen to me. An exchange of energies which does me so much good. I do not know who I am anymore, I am just music. When the show is over, I collect the money from the hat then, at the subway exit, I offer them to a kid who is playing a violin. I know who you are, he tells me. After I get in the limo waiting for me in the parking lot, I remove my fake beard. Tomorrow I will be playing on the biggest stage in the world.
(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.