Do you remember, Ioan, when you saw me at the well and said that you've never seen a more beautiful and gentler girl than me? I laughed and looked at you from under my eyelashes, because a close friend of mine had told me that you were always looking for me and I came to love you too, for you were so dark-haired and thrifty, I loved to look at you, you were the sun in my eyes. You used to unfurl my braids and kiss my forehead till I'd forget my mommy. Remember? We grew up like flowers, the two of us, arm in arm. That's how we were supposed to grow old. We were supposed to. So you promised.
Ina Moldoveanu
Costică, wait until I give you the prayer lists to take to the priest. Lass, you're sending me to the pub for plum brandy and to the priest with the prayer lists? What's the link between the rod and the prefecture?[1] What rod? You're making me sin with my words, and your notes have fallen in the mud. What did you write here, lass? You put mommy's name in the prayer for the dead and she's healthier than you. You pray for Pompi's strength, but don't even mention me. As for Mia, the neighbour, you pray that herhusband's serotonin shall die and she shall have bad luck all her life. Prayer list, huh? See what? I don't have my Gucci lenses and the sun got in my eye. Your mother's sun[2].
[1] Wordplay in Romanian from the expression: "Ce are Sulla cu prefectura" meaning that two things do not match, the homonymy between Sulla, a Roman statesman's name, and "sulă", Romanian slang for "penis", and the paronymy between "sulă" and "pală", another slang with the same meaning.
[2]Romanians add "mă-tii" ("your mother's") after a noun in order to turn it into a curse word.
Julia Sandu
I leaned against the factory wall, the sun dying in the sky. I was waiting for him. The air smelled of dust and stale beer from the bar across the street, where men drowned their paychecks. I lit a cigarette, watching the smoke fade toward evening, wishing I could just as easily disappear. He was late, as always. He got stuck talking to Dorel, who wouldn't shut up, complaining about what life and dreams were like. He walked out, shoulders slumped, face worn, stinking. Tomorrow was going to be the same, but now it was just the two of us and that was enough.
(Translated by Oana-Elena Dragnea / 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.