Nicolita and his investigating team felt a cold shiver down their backs and hurried to Elena’s flat.
“I can’t wait to see the woman who could make one do such a horrible thing,” said Nicolita while they were in the car.
“I wonder how such a woman could be recognized in the street,” replied a younger investigator.
“We’re making a big mistake if we think only of the body, of the physical pleasure,” said the prosecutor. “The hot lips, the breasts’ aroma, the skin, soft and smooth like rose petals, all the spoiling.… That’s quite a lot. But the heart.…”
“That may be quite a lot, but we live in a world of speed,” insisted the young man. “Such a suicide is throwing us back into the last century, the perfect time for boarding-school novels.”
“If only we could get there in time,” the prosecutor cut it short worriedly.
They were ready to break the door of the flat but first they rang the bell several times. At long last a woman stupid with sleep, dressed in a typical housewife dressing gown, opened the door. The investigators looked at her in bewilderment.
“Are you Elena?” asked the prosecutor expecting a negative answer.
“Yes. What’s the matter?” answered the woman, her voice still sleepy.
The prosecutor would have liked to ask why she wasn’t dead. Instead he gazed at her and said:
“Your neighbor, Grigore, committed suicide today, at the iron and steel works. He left a letter in which he said you were going to do the same. Have you by any chance taken poison?”
“No. I’ve just woken up. I sent the children out to play and went to bed. I was very tired.”
Nicolita started to breathe heavily.
“Do you happen to know the real reason why your neighbor took his life? He wrote you had the same intention.…”
“Me? Never. He did keep mumbling something about committing suicide and all that stuff, he was kind of romantic, you know, like you see in soap operas. I just pretended I believed him. Was he really that stupid?… I’m sorry, I’m expecting my husband to come from the sea.… I’ll tell him what my neighbor did, they were good friends. That’s love! Poor him, may God forgive him!”
Her voice was loaded with compassionate inflections.
BRIDES’ CURSE
The wedding was going well, the party was flawless. Good food, music catering for all the guests’ tastes, a vivid atmosphere, a time worth remembering by the bride and groom. Victor, the groom, radiated happiness through all his pores—he wouldn’t have felt otherwise even if a car had run him over. He was simply floating. Mirela, the bride, looked like a fairy queen but kept her wits about her.
“Our journey together is starting well, our guests are having great fun,” the groom whispered into the bride’s ear while a waiter was serving them.
“I wonder if it’s a new beginning or the same old journey,” she replied.
“It’s the first real change in our lives. We’re married!… God, what a dream come true! Just wait and see what will happen next!” he said ecstatically.
“I do hope it won’t be the hardest of all times,” she snapped at him, her words bashing him on the head. “I’m joking, you silly little boy,” she laughed seeing his puzzled face, and tenderly put one arm around his neck and gave him a quick kiss.
Seeing the scene and without hearing the dialogue, the guests around them clapped their hands. It was a good omen.
Thin, slightly bow-legged, with a sharp face, merry hazel eyes, brown hair, and a little over three foot tall, Victor’s appearance didn’t impress anyone, on the contrary he sometimes looked as if a stronger wind might blow him away. Mirela, almost as tall as he was, with a wasp’s waist, slightly green eyes, her hair cut in a fringe, her chest embellished with breasts one could see only in erotic dreams, seemed an exercise in happiness to every man. At their wedding, however, everyone saw them as the perfect match.
They had first met at the Personnel Department of the big company that had just employed them. He was a mechanical engineer and had got a job at the rolling mill. She was an economist and was going to work for the Computation Centre. After getting their employment papers, they had both said to themselves they wouldn’t make a career there, a place in which one could hardly breathe.
That had been the beginning of a long journey, though. They had been lucky to find a job just a month after graduation. On that morning they had had their first coffee together, in a squalid bar in the workers’ neighborhood. He had been a little sarcastic while she had barely kept her anger underfoot. He had shown off, pointing out he was to get up at 5:30 and take the tram at 6:30 to get to work on time, while she had almost burst into tears although she was to be at work an hour later.
“Well, you can’t have a holiday every other day,” he had tried to sound carefree and laughed affectedly.
“Not that every holiday is a success,” she gave as good as she got, laughing in the same way. “But the good of it will sooner or later get to us too.”
For their wedding they had chosen a restaurant lying about ten miles from the town, where people came to enjoy the green surroundings. There were three restaurants in that forest but this one was the most popular. It was always full—they had been very lucky to get it only one week before the event. Victor had been very keen on having a very special wedding, in the bosom of nature, despite the unpleasant surprises the weather might have in store for them.
“Our hearts need both the sun and the rain. They need the melancholy of the mist-enveloped sights,” he had said and she had agreed with him.
As an engineer, Victor hadn’t made a great impression in his first working year. On the night shift he played poker with his colleagues, on the morning shift he often took a nap. He slept in a loft, above a warehouse, where he might get suffocated at any time, the place being narrow and stuffy. He went in and out on all fours but got used to it like fish to water. The chief engineer looked for him desperately.
“Where’s Victor, the bloody loafer? I can feel his presence, I think he’s sleeping somewhere around here, but where?” his boss wondered, not realizing Victor was just a few feet above him, in that lousy loft.
Everyone knew where Victor slept but not the boss, the latter’s search for him becoming notorious. Later on, during a serious breakdown, Victor worked for thirty-six hours nonstop—consequently, his public image improved overnight and his boss stopped calling him “the bloody loafer” and started using the word “engineer” whenever he referred to him.
On the other hand, Mirela had shown from the very first day that she was good, capable, and willing to become an important economist. Ambitious, tenacious, and fashionable, she drew everyone’s attention, married men’s included. There followed a time of harassment, sometimes mild, sometimes aggressive, which she resisted cleverly. Her superiors took her on business trips hoping she would fall a prey to them in one room or another of a luxury hotel, as it sometimes happened to her female colleagues. In spite of that, no one could swear she had taken a false step. Instead, the young economist who, little by little, was getting important, fell in love with a