Fragrance (novel) [62]
Pr. Dr. Dorin Octavian Picioruș
Fragrance
(novel)
*
I often catch people off guard when they change their masks. In those split seconds of instant undressing and dressing. They go from one state to another, from one personality to another, all artificially created, all kept within them as props, because that’s how they saw it being „practiced”. They live in their dreams, in their arrogance, in the situation comic of the urban world. Ghițuleasa, the florist, is jovial when she gives in cards or tells you her dreams. You feel her next to the polenta pot, in her nomadic life, when she tucked the chicken under her skirts and got lost in the crowd from the market. Alas, when she feels in her the professoriality, when she rolls her eyes and tells you about words, about how you should have said it and didn’t, she’s the chicken who wants to be a rooster without changing her sex. She raises her head like a mare, neighs, shudders, sulks, and you must please her. That is woe to your mother, if at the same time she also has the desire to be a female minister, to be a female dictator, when she makes tomato ridges all over the world and everyone has to listen to her. Because then the Ghițuleasa, the hitlerite, divides the world into as many parts as she wants, puts everyone to hard labor, discriminates indiscriminately, executes, beheads, because no one can stand in her way. And this, because her mother is no longer alive, the poor, temperate woman, the one who kept laughing at her that she is like the unworld when she dressed and spoke. That if her mother had lived, Ghița would have stayed where she was, there, in the village, and would never have come to Bucharest. What should she be looking for in the capital, if she’s from Șotânga?! What, there are no more men there?!! There are, but you must look for them! Or, better said, they look for you, if they find you interesting. But if you’re beast, how can they come and whistle at you through the yard?! They also whistle where it’s good and there’s no loss.
Does Ghița exist or not? It’s like asking if certain words are missing from the romanian language. And if I’ve seen her, does that mean I don’t know her? And if I don’t know her, does that mean she doesn’t exist? And how come she doesn’t exist, if I can say so many blunt things about her? A commentator rushes in and tells me: Better said, you make personages out of many people, taking from each one a hand, an ear, a virtue, ten defects. And I, flattered, agree with him. And how can I not agree with him, if I’m the commentator?! That I put my thoughts in their mouths, to make it seem like others have the same opinion as me. And why shouldn’t they, if we are all witnesses to the same realities?
Of course that Ghița exists, she lives on the 3rd floor, she goes to the morning market to grab the best. She looks, she walks around, then she comes back and buys, because you must see the prices first. To do the market means to find the lowest prices. She argues with the man, wants it even cheaper, takes less, but still buys, because she has a shopping plan. Ghița, the planner, is based on ticking. When she buys it, she crosses it off the list. And she comes slowly with what she buys, she comes slowly, like a herd of evening cows, eaten, drunk and tired and all wanting to enter through the same door. And if you open the door for Mrs. Ghița – you can also call her Miss or Lady Ghița, that she won’t mind, even though she’s 70 and – she thanks you like at city, she smiles at you, and you remain impressed by her gesture so well studied, that she could receive a consolation prize for it. And she may even start a very interesting conversation with you, and it really does, depending on how willing you are to listen to her. Because she has various scores with which she lures the younger generation, especially those people who cannot distinguish between the sun and the snow. So, what’s the difference between sun and snow, if sun appears in both words[1]? Why does the syllable nin make from sun something other than the sun? But because Ghița anointed herself with some experience in her 40 years of urbanization, she is content with a little when there is not much. And this little, the opening of the block door, although a banal gesture, can keep her euphoric all day, because a gallant man opened the door for her, while she was leisurely coming back from shopping.
[1] In romanian it makes sense, because it’s about the words soare and ninsoare. And the sun means soare.