Fragrance (novel) [28]
Pr. Dr. Dorin Octavian Picioruș
Fragrance
(novel)
*
I know when I’m being lied to in front of my face, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be polite to thieves. Judges are attentive to both the lies of lawyers and those in question. The petitioner has his own interest, the lawyer has his own pocket to fill, the judge wants to close the case. The dust in the courtroom, the smells, the expectations have nothing to do with the truth, but with the cumbersome routine of the files. Instead of synthetic discussions, there are cumbersome discourses of evidentiary legislation. You need to have dictionaries with you, corpuses of laws, you need to know the tricks, to learn the cunning theater of pleadings. For, Your Honor, the above-named woman went on vacation with her child, but she forgot to notify her husband, as long as the child is in their custody, not just hers. But, if she took Alexandra with her, she also took her husband’s card and she did it dust. Because she didn’t just stop at food and a holiday menage, but bought clothes, perfumes, cosmetics, technology, jewelry…Her reason? Revenge on the husband!…For she considered the fact that there is an adventure in the middle. She accuses my client, Mr. Anghel Curticeanu, of a relationship, which in fact does not exist, with a 28-year-old woman, a PhD student in Medicine. For this assumption, the accused spent the amount of 300.000 lei in only 5 days of vacation. And yet, the judge insists, is there no relationship between the two? No, of course not!, said Lawyer Luminița Apoloniade, dressed that day in the pleading gown, as usual, but with an imperial red on her lips. But the judge, being the lawyer’s lover, knows that yes, there is a relationship, and one that has been going on for some time, but he can’t say this in public. Because what they say at home is one thing, but in public you have to follow customs.
And he asks, she pretends not to know, the trial goes on, after all the wife has the same money as you, her husband, and if she likes to spend, why did you take her as your wife? Can’t you see that she’s crazy to tie, Your Honor?! A responsible woman doesn’t spend that much money from a fire. But, Mr. Anghel, she is your wife! If she needs love or attention or medical support, you must decide for her or, better yet, in agreement with her. The marriage is not a detention cell, but a school of coexistence. We learn to live in two, plus our children, and to be responsible. And yes, I give you justice, that responsibility is the number 1 principle of living together, but the responsibility requires that there be no lies, omissions, or falsifications of the marital relationship.
It took 6 months for Anghel to admit that he was having an affair with the medical student, a blonde full of adventures, and that was when the blonde dumped him. He suffered another credit card liquidation before leaving. The romanian patron, who quickly makes money from dubious conjunctions, also quickly loses it. Sometimes at casinos, sometimes on women, sometimes on drugs. Because the reinvestments are frail. The State’s watchful eyes see or breathe too, so the patron does his job for a while. When he falls, he’s gone. Everyone forgets him, everyone kicks him, it becomes satire. The blonde, because she doesn’t invest, but only nibbles, passes her exams with a Professor who has fantasies. She doesn’t specialize in heavy surgery, because that’s where you need a head, but in putting teeth in. They make tons of money putting teeth in and putting silicone in. And if you want to eat your money, you get good assistants, to whom you throw as much as you need, no more, and they do all the work for you.
The novel starts off easy, it goes wherever you want, to the blonde’s grandmother, to her aunt from Târgoviște, a friend of hers was the son of a famous footballer, one evening she met an irish billionaire at a hotel, who knew 6 foreign languages, but also knew how to cover his tracks. You stop at the door of their room, or you move on with the description. Do you know everything or do you pretend not to know what’s going on? Is she everyone’s mistress or no one’s? The omniscience belongs to God, but false novelists assume that they are omniscient. And this is because they confuse the intrigue in their head with the endless depths of people. And if a personage does what he does and says what he says, these are not random, but they come out of the depths of people. Because they can do and say unexpected things.