Atlantida<\/em> for the thousandth time.\u2019<\/p>\nOne too many years had passed since I had dreamed about that enchanting and fantastic story, so I replied with apparent indifference: \u2018I like people with bizarre names. I, for example, have a very common name.\u2019<\/p>\n
Antineea suddenly got up, the azure-blue sky had been covered for a few minutes with ashen cloud. She ripped a corner of cardboard from her drawing pad and scribbled something on it.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s all right. You can call me on a day it won\u2019t rain!\u2019<\/p>\n
She left without so much as a backward glance.\u00a0 A gust blew hard and soon drops of cold rain began pattering loudly on the leaves.<\/p>\n
That evening in the editorial office we had gathered to talk about lustration. Liviu wanted to send articles and letters to every important publication in Europe. The others had a different opinion, so I told them: \u2018I met a girl today. She has a rare name and paints clouds!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Very good\u2019, Teodor said.\u00a0 \u2018Janine wasn\u2019t right for you!\u2019<\/p>\n
I had to admit he was right. Janine was a dancer and she had gone to Italy to earn more money.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
The heavy rainfall lasted three days and three nights. Filled with hope, I would watch the sky, but from the low ceiling of clouds, the rain kept pouring relentlessly. I could have called her, but I was prevented from doing so by an unfathomable superstition. (I usually do not believe in signs, horoscopes or other superficial stupidities meant to fill the papers). I waited for the first morning of clear skies and darted to the phone.<\/p>\n
A soft, sleepy voice answered. It was only half past eight. Her response made it brutally apparent that I had called her too early in the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018If you don\u2019t mind, I don\u2019t feel like talking right now, I\u2019ve slept only a few hours. I\u2019ve been painting all night.\u00a0 If you want, you can come to the workshop, even if it rains!\u2019<\/p>\n
I wrote down the address and began to rummage feverishly through my collections in search of a gift. I am an avid collector and overt the years, I have gathered all types of things that have caught my eye \u2013 rocks; wave-smoothed stones; conches; hunks of wood, which vaguely resembled animals; pipes; daggers bearing the patina of time, and ancestral ceramics. From the drawer containing conches, I took out a rare piece. It was a nautilus carapace in pearly auburn, with purple freckles sprinkled along the inside.<\/p>\n
Although I usually don\u2019t pay much attention to my appearance, I shaved carefully.\u00a0 My bony, sunburnt face, wreathed in deep wrinkles looks more serene when it\u2019s not overrun with the dark hairs of my beard.\u00a0 Somewhere behind me, an invisible Janine giggled maliciously. \u2018You look five years younger when your face is freshly shaved.\u00a0 Who’s the lucky lady?\u2019<\/p>\n
I sent the thought of Janine far away, to a stage in a night club somewhere and put on an ochre-coloured suede suit jacket, a matching coloured shirt and a pair of light-coloured linen trousers. Although there were several hours before our date, I went out to hang about the streets neighbouring her place, like a predator becoming familiar with the hunting ground before the attack. Antineea\u2019s workshop was located under a protruding fragment of the Vauban-style fortification that used to surround the town centre. There was a narrow one-floor building buried between a massive buttress and a large arcade that housed a second-hand bookshop. The moment the bells of the gothic cathedral struck five, I confidently knocked on the broad, sun and rain weathered oak door. From the grey clouds, bulging over the moss-greened, tile roofs, small, heavy, cold drops of rain began to fall.<\/p>\n
I waited impatiently four or five minutes.\u00a0 The little lily-of-the-valley bouquet I was holding was starting to wilt.\u00a0 Nobody came to open the door. I knocked a few more times, more assertively, but, alas, in vain. Disappointed, just as I was getting ready to leave, the door opened and Antineea\u2019s figure, dressed in dirty, grey overalls, appeared between the door panels. She was holding a bundle of wide paint brushes.\u00a0 A bluish streak, delicate as the trace of a wing, dabbed her cheek.<\/p>\n
I followed her through a dark corridor and climbed a few crooked steps, their stone edges rounded by the many people who had trod them, until we arrived in a high-ceiling hall, with unplastered brick walls.\u00a0 The hall was almost completely devoid of furniture. A diffuse, greenish light filtered through the narrow windows which resembled crenels. My gaze was drawn to a large, four or five metre-long canvas mounted on the wall which depicted a sky furrowed by dark clouds above arid ground.\u00a0 This had been sketched in a gloomy russet colour, using narrow strokes.<\/p>\n
\u2018How did you know I like lily-of-the-valley?\u2019 she asked, placing the bouquet in a black ceramics jar.<\/p>\n
\u2018I didn\u2019t know,’ I answered. ‘But \u00a0it is the only flower which suggests the sadness of the rain!\u2019 Curious, I approached \u00a0the canvas . It smelled of oil and turpentine. Vigorous strokes of the brush had left vortices and liquid arabesques in a bluish soft paste.<\/p>\n
\u2018It isn\u2019t ready yet,’ she said….\u2018I still have to add the gloss and to finish the accents, the juxtapositions.\u2019<\/p>\n
I discerned the defensive tone of the artist who doesn\u2019t like people viewing an unfinished work.<\/p>\n
After an awkward silence I asked her:\u2018Do you paint only clouds?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes,\u2019 she said. \u2018At the moment nothing else inspires me.\u2019<\/p>\n
I took out the little carton box with the nautilus carapace.<\/p>\n
\u2018Maybe the sea, the waves, the enigmatic life of the depths,\u2019 she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She cleaned the cobalt blue colour from her fingers on a rag and carefully picked up the pearly case.\u00a0 Closing her eyes she began to caress its delicate curves.<\/p>\n
\u2018Clouds of submarine sand,\u2019 she said, \u2018liquid swirls, gushes of rain, ink storms.\u2019<\/p>\n
The rain rattled and sounded like pellets falling on tiles.\u00a0 The resonance from the unceasing torrent crashing on the old eaves sounded like exotic instruments. She beckoned for me to sit on the only chair in the room, a massive, high-back, etched walnut chair.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sit here,\u2019she said. \u2018Close your eyes\u2026 be patient\u2026I want to show you something!\u2019<\/p>\n
When I was allowed to open my eyes, I found myself in front of a square canvas representing a cerulean snail, the volutes of its shell dotted with such intense and primordial tones, that I felt as if I was looking into the hidden heart of the sky.<\/p>\n
\u2018You see, that\u2019s what I used to paint before I became sensitive to the weather.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s inexplicable,\u2019 I mumbled confoundedly. \u2018Only once in my life have I seen this colour!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Really?!\u2019Antineea exclaimed brimming with curiosity. \u2018Could you tell me where?\u2019<\/p>\n
I cautiously retreated.\u00a0 Despite appearances, I am shy and excessively guarded when it comes to defending my secrets. But she insisted, so I whispered to her.<\/p>\n
\u2018How can I tell you? In a dream, a dream I haven\u2019t had yet!\u2019<\/p>\n
Her face suddenly darkened like a strip of sky covered by storm and she quickly changed the subject. We went on talking insipidly about nonsense without getting so much as a hint as to what had triggered that abrupt mood change.<\/p>\n
I left her workshop with an image of intense blue glimmering in my mind. The rain had ceased as suddenly as it had started. At home, in the dull setting of my world, there was nobody waiting for me, not even a cat. Slowly and purposefully, page by page, I tore up the entire manuscript of the short-story I had begun over a month before.\u00a0 I gathered all the little scraps of paper in a verdigris-copper bowl and set them on fire. At that moment I decided I would write only about what surrounded me: living people, real events, concrete objects and, why not, even clouds. I opened the windows to clear the air of bitter smoke. The dark blue sky was shining brightly, only a few silvery fluffs were floating in the evening sky.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
The following day was Thursday. It is the day Teodor and I meet. We\u2019ve known each other since first grade and, except for a time when he travelled abroad on a scholarship, we have met every Thursday for the past seven years. We have changed the place over the years because I, for one, like different settings. I had arrived at the caf\u00e9 before him and while I waited, I wavered between the desire to tell him about Antineea and the impulse to keep it a secret.<\/p>\n
The minute he sat down, I burst out cheerfully: \u2018I visited Antineea!\u2019<\/p>\n
He looked at me over the thick rims of his glasses, which made him look much older, giving him the air of a bored school teacher \u2013 and asked: \u2018Who\u2019s Antineea? Oh, yes…I remember…the sensitive-to-the-weather nut case you met in the park!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018She\u2019s not a nut case… anyway, no more than I am…she paints clouds!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Perfect!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m ten years older than she is…\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Voil\u00e0! You\u2019re no naive teenager and neither is she a young girl!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Is this all you have to say?\u2019 I replied bitterly.<\/p>\n
He took a long sip from his cup of Mocha and let out a sigh:<\/p>\n
\u2018Don\u2019t get upset with me, old chum! You know I care about you.\u00a0 What the hell, I don\u2019t want to see you suffer.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I won\u2019t suffer.\u2019 I answered him angrily. \u2018I have no reason to!\u2019<\/p>\n
I was dying to be asked more questions in order to reveal more and more, but he started to talk about his obsession with an online publishing house, publishing novels.<\/p>\n
I listened to him absent-mindedly, trying to follow his story. Outside, the weather had turned cloudy, the black and blue rains had gathered in the sky and, without realizing it, Antineea came to mind.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t have an umbrella with me.\u00a0 When I left home, it had been sunny.\u00a0 When I arrived home, I was soaking wet.<\/p>\n
While I changed clothes, a courier rang the door. He had a huge parcel for me. I eagerly ripped the wrapper and the magnificent blue colour of Antineea\u2019s snail rose from underneath it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
We started to see each other more often. The summer season began with rainy weather and Antineea was spending a lot of time in her workshop painting her cloud-filled dreams. Despite the weather, we\u2019d walk on the streets full of puddles, and kept up a cheerful banter. I accompanied her on a half-day trip to the mountains.\u00a0 She wanted to make a sketch of the enigmatic Undulus Asperatus, where violently-coloured chaotic vapours shaped as vortices abruptly formed between two atmospheric fields. Whenever I had time on my hands, I would go to her and see her chimerical landscapes and every time I had the surprise of discovering something new.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, watching her for hours on end as she ardently spread an abysmal sky on the canvas, a sky fallen between the lilac-crimson backs of two rows of alto cumulus, I said like a worried parent:<\/p>\n
\u2018Have you eaten today? Come on, it’ll soon be nightfall. Let\u2019s go get a pizza!\u2019<\/p>\n
She threw her brushes in the turpentine jar and said, sighing:<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re right, Andrei, I\u2019m hungry, but here is the thing: I never eat in restaurants. I cannot stand being watched by strangers while eating! On top of everything, I have this excruciating headache, I can feel the rain clouds gathering above!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Very well…\u2019 I said. \u2018Then I invite you to my place where I will make you a memorable dinner!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t see you as a kitchen guy, wearing an apron and stirring something in a pot!\u2019 She smiled endearingly, and cleaned \u00a0her hands on a piece of rag.<\/p>\n
\u2018That means you haven\u2019t tasted my secret pasta primavera<\/em> recipe!’<\/p>\nShe took off her paint-stained overalls, put on her jeans and the chequered shirt and we went to buy the ingredients for that evening\u2019s dinner.<\/p>\n
I was as nervous as a teenage boy bringing his girlfriend home to show off his collection of vinyl records when his parents aren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Quickly I got to work.\u00a0 She, with a glass of Pinot Noir in hand, leaned against a corner of the table and watched me.\u00a0 Her eyes blazed with curiosity. I am not the best chef, but when I do want to cook something good, I have all the passion of an authentic food connoisseur. While I was setting the table, she confessed:<\/p>\n
\u2018This is the first time a man cooks for me!\u2019<\/p>\n
I poured her some more wine and answered jokingly:<\/p>\n
\u2018Taste first and then we\u2019ll see…\u2019<\/p>\n
She slowly got closer, gazing at me with the same attention she gave to her canvases while splashing those violent strokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018No…I mean it, Andrei. Nobody has ever given me such attention.\u2019<\/p>\n
Whatever I could have said in those moments would have been stupid. She passed her hand over my unshaven face, gently tracing the imperfections of my skin, every deep wrinkle of my cheek and then she drew me towards her whispering:<\/p>\n
\u2018I am dizzy, but it\u2019s not because of the wine, and I wish to repay you because you are good, kind and annoyingly present in my life.\u2019<\/p>\n
Her lips bore the crude aroma of red currants. I took her in my arms, her thin body was as light as a blanket of clouds and I carried her to the darkness of my bedroom. The plates of spaghetti and green sauce remained untouched in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
We made love with the fierceness of a summer storm and, long after midnight, when she had fallen asleep and was breathing like a child, I went out on the terrace and lit a cigarette. The sky had cleared and its dark velvet was embroidered with millions of golden stars.
\nThe fact that we had become lovers didn\u2019t change our relationship one bit. Antinea remained as unpredictable as a tropical cyclone. She\u2019d come and go. \u00a0Sometimes I wouldn\u2019t hear from her for an entire day and I knew I couldn\u2019t phone her because when she began a new painting, she wouldn\u2019t hear or see anyone.<\/p>\n
One Sunday afternoon, after I had spent the whole weekend alone, I worriedly knocked at her door. Fifteen minutes later she opened the door, her face was flushed with fury and when I followed her into the hall where she painted, I saw the remains of a barely sketched painting on the floor. I picked up a ragged strip with fresh traces of paint on it and cynically remarked:<\/p>\n
\u2018Pity! The canvas must have cost a fortune!\u2019<\/p>\n
She threw the knife she was clenching:<\/p>\n
\u2018What do you care, you cannot understand, you\u2019re not weather-sensitive!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018No, I am not.\u2019 I admitted. \u2018But have you ever thought I might catch it?\u2019<\/p>\n
From that moment on, we decided she\u2019d show me every painting before scraping or destroying it. In return, I promised to learn everything I could about cloud formations, hailstone, lightning or tornadoes.<\/p>\n
I had begun to meet my friends less frequently.\u00a0 Only the Thursday evenings with Teodor persisted and, at Antineea\u2019s suggestion, as I had nothing better to do, I began to write the myth of Atlantis.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
Before the exhibition, I saw every painting Antineea had created. I had the honour of\u00a0 following her work;\u00a0 in that peaceful workshop, I watched her draw her strokes or use the knife on the wet canvas, to depict cohorts of cumulonimbus, thronging in clusters of towers, crenels, colonnades, dragons, centaurs, griffons and vapour-winged chimaeras invading the sky. I witnessed lightning come to life from the impact between an anvil-cloud and a heavy cumulus shaped as a hammer; I will never forget the moment she descended the improvised scaffold and I gave her my arm in support.\u00a0 I felt an inexplicable discharge of energy.<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re as charged as a Leyden jar!\u2019 I told her.
\n\u2018Leave me alone!\u2019 she snapped at me furiously. \u2018Don\u2019t you see I cannot depict the essence? This is bullshit!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0She was wrong; her paintings were unique, unparalleled.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t admire them and then go have a beer with friends or watch a game on TV.<\/p>\n
Late into the night, held in my arms and sobbing, she asked me:<\/p>\n
\u2018Do you think I should exhibit them?\u2019
\nThe exhibition passed unnoticed.\u00a0 Few people showed up to admire the twelve huge paintings of fantastic clouds hanging by the rails. I don\u2019t believe she wanted it to be a huge success, she dreaded fame, but she couldn\u2019t prevent Liviu from publishing an article full of praise in his gazette. She invited only her friends and a few people in the art world; but, in the evening, after everybody had left and we were alone in the middle of the unleashed storm on the canvases, she hugged me and said:<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m so happy I listened to you. No more rains! I will seek only clear horizons!\u2019<\/p>\n
That would have been the moment to tell her how much I loved her, that I would set out to look for the third pole of the Earth only to name it after her, but the coward in me kept silent because of a stupid superstition. I was afraid that once her inner storms came to an end, she would no longer need me. In all my life I have told only one girl I loved her. We were high-school students.\u00a0 She disappeared during a mountain climb, and after that tragic accident I wasn\u2019t capable of expressing anything of my soul\u2019s meteorology. I felt I had missed the chance of keeping her with me.\u00a0 But that is how my life unfolds, between complicated things and amazingly simple events, because, sometimes, a few honest words can speak more than volumes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
Autumn was coming to an end. Antineea hadn\u2019t painted anything since the exhibition.\u00a0 She would hack around among empty chassis, hardened brushes and dry paint tubes, leaf through old files of sketches or daub childish rough sketches. The imminence of rains didn\u2019t stir her imagination any more.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t put her visions on canvas in a fury.\u00a0 She wandered absently around the workshop, indifferent to the performance of the clouds and the succession of the seasons.<\/p>\n
After New Year\u2019s Eve, which we celebrated together with the depressing sleet beating against the windows in sharp smacks, she told me:<\/p>\n
\u2018Please understand…I have to leave before we hurt each other!\u2019<\/p>\n
Utterly dumbfounded, I looked at her: \u2018What happened? Where do you want to go?\u2019<\/p>\n
The bluish rings around her eyes and the pronounced pallor were ageing her.\u00a0 The cold and humid climate didn\u2019t suit her. Her answer came in a harsh voice:<\/p>\n
\u2018You don\u2019t pay attention at all. \u00a0Three months ago yes, exactly after the exhibition, I talked to you about an eternally clear sky!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018But you will never find it! One that is crystal clear!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Perhaps\u2019 she said with a cold smile, \u2018but I have to try!\u2019<\/p>\n
And once again I missed the chance to reveal my feelings for her, not because of my lack of confidence, but simply because I couldn\u2019t stop her. What could I offer Antineea? My name? The comfort of a warm home? A decrepit old age spent together? I let her go because I loved her too much.<\/p>\n
The first Thursday after she left, I met Teodor as usual. He tore me to pieces with his vitriolic logic: \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re an imbecile! You finally meet the woman you\u2019ve been searching your whole life for and you let her walk away just because you don\u2019t have the guts to tell her you can\u2019t live without her.\u00a0 You undoubtedly deserve your fate! Or you\u2019re just an incurable masochist!\u2019<\/p>\n
I had gotten horribly drunk the night before, I couldn\u2019t even remember how I had managed to get home.\u00a0 Actually I still wasn\u2019t completely sober and I didn\u2019t feel like listening to his advice, so I snapped at him:<\/p>\n
\u2018She\u2019s weather-sensitive! Don\u2019t you get it? She went in search of a cloudless sky…Where? Beats me! Tibet, Shangri-La…how should I know?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He shrugged his shoulders in exasperation and got up from the table to hail a taxi.<\/p>\n
Nothing is more depressing than the memory of the happy times<\/em>… I can\u2019t remember where I read this, but I began to walk around with my eyes cast downward, my gaze avoiding the sky and the clouds.\u00a0 I would avoid not only the street where Antineea\u2019s former workshop lay abandoned, but also the entire neighbourhood. Whenever I saw an oil painting, it triggered terrible pain behind my eyes and at my temples.<\/p>\nFrom the moment I had seen her eagerly packing, I slowly but surely began to dissolve into an ocean of sadness and alcohol, unable to resume my life\u00a0\u00a0 There were days when I\u2019d stare into the mirror and see a stranger.\u00a0 It would take me a few seconds to realize it was me. At night, while I lay in bed, I would hear a mysterious voice whispering into the air: \u2018You aren\u2019t yourself, you are a mere projection of the one bearing your body and name!\u2019<\/p>\n
Worried about my state of mind, Teodor tried several times to get me to see a psychotherapist! I let out a hypocritical laugh and reassured him: \u2018I\u2019m fine, old man…this is just a temporary weather-dependency crisis!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
My salvation came about through a small, but fateful misfortune. One day, before leaving the house, I had accidentally left a window wide open. In the evening, when I returned home, beaten by the spitting, freezing rain, I discovered a puddle covering the entire parquet floor. I quickly grabbed a rag and started to remove the water that was advancing to the corners of the room. Between the wall and the pieces of furniture I had gathered into a wild pile all sort of useless things and carton boxes filled with the remains of my collections. Rummaging through them, I came across the painting Antineea had given me the previous year. I had hurled it there, turned against the wall as I couldn\u2019t bear to look at the dark blue spiral without feeling a harsh pang in my chest.<\/p>\n
I lifted it to put it in a dry spot but, clumsily dropped it and the thin frame let out a raspy crack when it hit the floor. When I bent down to pick the broken strips, I found a glistening gold metal key carefully hidden between the frame and the canvas. I turned it over between my fingers and, suddenly, I remembered I had seen Antineea unlock a wooden box in arabesques and brass studs with it. The next day I ran to the curator of the gallery, which had sold some of her paintings, and with whom she had left the key of the workshop before leaving. I found the mysterious box in the chest where she kept her sketch files. My fingers trembled with emotion, I opened it and inside I found several letters, a bunch of old photos and a dog-eared copy of Beno\u00eet\u2019s Atlantida<\/em>. I could see these items were family mementoes and I thought it would be a shame if they got lost, should the workshop be emptied. In spite of my disappointment in not finding something more telling, I gathered everything to take home with me.\u00a0<\/p>\nI tried to read the few letters, but either the years or the dampness had washed out the ink, and the tiny, chaotic writing was illegible. I didn\u2019t recognize Antineea in any of the pictures in the coffer. She could have been the chubby baby sleeping in the arms of a woman with a melancholic gaze or the ethereal little girl, her hair in two thin plaits, who was smiling at the camera while sitting on a trunk, in a glade next to a tall, dark-haired man.<\/p>\n
I leafed through the book which, in my youth, I had read in a heartbeat, though without too much hope of a clue. Utterly bored, I put it on the night-stand and remembered I hadn\u2019t seen Teodor in a month.\u00a0 I had given up all my friends and even our weekly meetings. But it was only Tuesday. I picked up the book and started to read again. When I reached chapter VIII, the dense fog in which I had been wandering for more than six months, cleared up.<\/p>\n
I called my last friend. It was way past midnight. A sleepy, sulky woman\u2019s voice answered the phone. It took a while to convince her to hand the phone to him, but she finally did it.<\/p>\n
\u2018We have to meet at once!\u2019 I cried excitedly into the speaker. \u2018I have something important to tell you!\u2019 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s only Tuesday…no…wait…it\u2019s Wednesday!\u2019 he mumbled.<\/p>\n
\u2018I know, but I cannot wait! I have great news!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018All right…tomorrow morning…but it had better be something big: a new cure for cancer, a UFO has landed on the roof of your terrace, you have discovered Atlantis…otherwise I won\u2019t talk to you!\u2019<\/p>\n
The following day I jumped out of bed, fresh and full of energy, although I hadn\u2019t had a wink of sleep. I was already on my second cup of bitter Mocha when I saw his crooked silhouette heading towards the terrace of the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u2018I’ve ve found her!\u2019 I told him as happy as a clam.<\/p>\n
He slowly sank into the birch armchair and anxiously looked at me from behind his ancient, thick-rimmed glasses:<\/p>\n
\u2018Whom or what have you found?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Antineea, old man!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Really? Where?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018In Sahara… Look, read this page!\u2019 I said handing him Beno\u00eet\u2019s book.<\/p>\n
\u2018Andrei, don\u2019t get upset, but you should really see that psychotherapist…he\u2019s a great guy…he works wonders, especially when it comes to depression!\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t have to! I am happy! Get it? I\u2019m leaving for the\u00a0Ahaggar to meet her!\u2019<\/p>\n
No, he couldn\u2019t get me . Not even him. My oldest childhood friend. I left in search of Antineea and I am positive I will find her, right on the terrace carved in the wall of the Atakora, above the Blad-el-Khouf oasis. There she will be…standing in front of the easel, painting orchards of dates, orange trees, almond trees and pomegranates, green meadows, the foamy fall flowing in the transparent lake, but especially the surreal clear, dark blue sky, arched above Atlantis. I will slowly come near her and ask:<\/p>\n
\u2018May I stay here a few minutes? I won\u2019t be a bother…\u2019<\/p>\n
Without lifting her eyes off the canvas, she will answer:<\/p>\n
\u2018Of course…you\u2019re not bother…there\u2019s plenty of space…and I\u2019m sure it won\u2019t rain…not even today.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Gheorghe Reche\u015fan [Romania] Finalist of the HBO-Tiff 2010 Competition Translation from Romanian by Wendy Stein and Alina-Olimpia Miron, MTTLC student editing by Michael Graeme [UK] pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici \u00a0 Antineea had been weather-sensitive, for more than a year when I met her.\u00a0 I believe that was why she had taken up painting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[704,22],"tags":[304,1151,570,403,54,72,684],"class_list":["post-5941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-29-30","category-short-story","tag-alina-olimpia-miron","tag-egophobia-29-30","tag-gheorghe-rechesan","tag-mttlc","tag-proza-scurta","tag-traducere","tag-wendy-stein"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-1xP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5941"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6329,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941\/revisions\/6329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}