Tell me, Dinu, were there women? If I tell you. Both God and Saint Peter had blond hair, like gold. We're doomed to hell. If the devil isn't a woman too, muttered Dinu. Come on, pour another glass, have you gone dazed? How long did you say you were dead, there, in that hospital? asked Toader. A few months. And they sent you back to suffer again, I see. Plus, to make me suffer too. From now on, when I look at Safta, I'll see God. The way she feeds the ducks, the chickens, how she sits and wipes her hands on that apron as big as a haystack. Pass the bottle here.
Gheorghiță Mircea
Goguță knew two women in his life. Just two. His mother was the first, a single mother, too alone. She raised him with love and much care, almost exaggerated care. When Goguță fell down the stairs, left with a broken leg and jaw, she took care of him for years. Goguță stumbled year after year. One day, his mother died, having mixed up some medications. Goguță recovered and got married. She was the second woman in his life. He loved her and took care of her, especially after she stumbled and fell down the same stairs.
Florina Hegedus
I had taken on the square shape of the life I was living. I was already used to being a man of the ladies, who never makes a conquest. I was amazed when Eva, beautiful Eva, started visiting me. We slept embraced, she would wake me with kisses. I was happy. I was, until she told me I was a tangled bush through which she couldn't taste my flesh and blood and drink my thoughts. I didn't understand her passionate greed that would have stripped me of my own self. Eva committed suicide. Now she cooks for me, irons my shirts, and we talk square until we fall asleep.
(Translated by Claudia Garofina Greculeac / 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.