if he brings it to you, don't go after him. I don't like his look. That's what I told you, child, but you didn't listen. That he's your lover, that he's industrious, that he'll hold you like a king's daughter. He held you, yes, but not in his hands, but in his fists. Especially when he came home from all around the place. And when he suspected you were hanging out with one or the other. And when he'd kick you out, you'd walk down the alley like a freak. What will become of your children now that they've sent him to jail and you're lying on this flower bed.
Cecilia Fofiu
On Supermoon nights he rattles the ring of keys through the cemetery and unlocks the graves more than a hundred years old, bidding the enemies to rise for an hour, no more, to shake the dust from their yellow stumps, to pick up some of the grass he has mowed for them to freshen their beds, and then to return each to his own quiet for another century. Evdochia looks for the wheel and spots him. Just as handsome. Long has she waited for this night, and, crestfallen, she wades into the pit with him, grinning-violet at that skinny Zoia.
Radu Gramatovici
Gicu,why don't you love me anymore? How can I not love you, my dear? You promised me we'd go to Dubai. If I promised you, we'll go. How is that everyone went, only we didn't? The man stands up in a huff and brings two fingers together in a grasping gesture. Look, he said. Between his fingers, tiny as they were, he could see the moon. He brought his fingers in the same position close to her hand until he touched her palm. The moon is the same in Dubai, he told her. You're a romantic, Gicu, she smiled at him and continued in her thought: you idiot.
(Translated by Andreea Cristina Moise / 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.