I'm an avid coffee drinker. It's the first on my list wherever I go. I thought he felt the same way, why else would he have invited me to join him at the coffee shop. Right? That's why I let him order, without telling him what I wanted. And he asked for two teas. Just like that. I felt like pouring them over his head. Did he think I was sick? Hold on, he might just pull some Oscillococcinum out of his bag any second now, I said to myself, and I started sipping from the hot tea. Which is why my glasses fogged up. I could already picture him in a white robe. And was that... camphor I smelled?
Patricia Cosma
The first Christmas away from my parents finds me in front of my neighbours' door, to spend my Christmas Eve with their group to learn some local traditions of my new country. I'm invited in and I walk straight to the living room, where the people have already started drinking or sharing presents. Een kopje thee? Ja, I answer using about the only word I know in their language. She hand me a cup of hot water, she pulls the chamomile tea bag out of her own cup and puts it into mine. She dips it thrice, then hands it over.
Sonia Ungureanu
We behaved like relatives, although uncle Victor had been adopted, and on the second day of Christmas they would take on a chariot ride to their place, all bundled up and wrapped in a tattered wool blanket so we wouldn't freeze. Let's make the children a tisane, shall we? aunt Iula decided and pulled out tin box out of the cupboard with lace lined shelves, fastened with pins. English and Turks drink tea, she said, and as the honey melted in the fine porcelain cups, I was daydreaming, mesmerized by the scent of mint and costmary flooding the room.
(Translated by Diana Gabriela Radu / 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.