There are moments when everything is decided — for you, nothing. Moments after which you may go on to have a full life, perhaps even a rich one, but never the life you might have had.
If such a thing can even be said. Still, you realize, fulfilled or unfulfilled: it was meant to be otherwise, but clearly it wasn’t, since it never happened at all.
You can wake up late in life holding this little amber bubble in your hand, the one you’re trapped inside, struggling. It rolls around inside your skull and shows you that, ever since then, you’ve been a small prisoner. That the one who lived afterwards, in many respects, was only a phantom — a Mort Kinder, a kind of inner dead‑child phantom, a spectral double.
And yet, on the surface, life flowed on. There, in the Young Pens camp, in the copper woods of Agafton, 1994 — in some respects a paradise, only with expulsion or non‑admittance woven into it.
I arrived there miraculously, nominated by Professor Ilieș — but not as a writer, rather as a school journalist. Of course, Ilieș knew, or bet, that I wrote; after all, what else was I writing in the school paper? I mean, I wasn’t coming through the pipeline of those literature clubs, those cenacles, whatever they were, in the wake of inspectorates and the former Pioneer Houses, now the House of Students or something like that.
I arrived after finishing the twelfth grade, just in time to see the legendary Tudor Opriș — the sweet old man in short pants, later accused of minor pedophilias (though honestly, I think Boerescu & co. simply envied him for his paternal access to girls, which is why they slipped venomous notes into Luceafărul). He used precious neologisms, claimed he had been Călinescu’s assistant, wrote successful popular biology books, and once I even caught him sighing that he had loved an actress enormously… “a whore,” he specified.
And then there was Chris Simion, sixteen, with two books already published, Cioranian in tone (a baker woman had sponsored her, Opriș remarked, a patroness). Back then she had something of an explorer, almost Alexandra David‑Neel; we exchanged a few words, probably about Paul Brunton — hence the impression. Or Gianina Cărbunariu, a slender sixteen‑year‑old who was about to present The Wall, in her precocious staging (note bene: written by her, not merely staged). And one evening they brought in Gherguț, introduced as a current student and a former great alumnus of these camps.
What stuck with me was a character who resembled Sifft — though it wasn’t Sifft (I didn’t even know Sifft back then) — but he had that same haircut. He once asked to borrow my razor, impressing me with the fact that he had come from Botoșani carrying books from antiquarian shops. I don’t recall any great writers emerging from that camp; there were two boys, more critical, very agitated — one Constantinescu, apparently a disciple of Opriș, and another who, in an evening discussion in a room animated by Opriș (who then uttered the term pitiac — from Pythia, the ancient oracle — which gave me a thrill, and from then on you’ll hear me using plenty of words ending in ‑iac), proclaimed: “What we need is Iorghism! Iorghism!” Terms were flying everywhere.
Ah, and the nihilist figure of Flandorfer, the death‑metallist he would later become. He read us essays that began: “Man is filth, the world is collapsed, decayed, we are all worms!” followed by Berdyaevian digressions. The man was in that mood, and a frail, Bacovian little teacher seemed to be his mentor in gloomy literature and philosophy.
I was the misan, the ascetic and the tantric all at once; of course, my sources were harder to guess back then.
I had even quit the preparatory course before the baccalaureate, but I was in a deeply neurotic phase. I had vowed — no seminal fall whatsoever; the autumn admission exam was coming, and like the great boxers, I conditioned success on total abstinence.
And yet, if you look at it, I could say that feminine figures drifted through our little cabin. We were four boys, but I was the dean, and the camp had caught me in my zodiacal month of power; I was almost a sage, an expert in tantra, a point of equilibrium in the world.
And so, in the flow of the camp, Lavinia from Bacău actually fell in love with me, poor thing, and came to tidy our room. Flory from Constanța, tough and sexy — forgive me — represented the girl from the people who will go through everything, as one does. She came to me for counsel on sentimental matters; she had hooked up with a guy in the camp with a leonine mane but a puckered mouth — I had nicknamed him “the old woman.” Lucky bastard, I thought. But Flory insisted on telling me: “You know, I’ve been bitten recently — I mean, I had a disappointment — so now… I’m going to sting others. Like this old woman here.” We understood each other well; at the end she wrote something in my journal and signed it. And I swear that one afternoon I imagined making love to Flory, torrid, in the copper woods. She was good, Flory — a decent girl from the people, pure health. I was her confessor of circumstance.
Lavinia, who had clung to me during a bus trip, kept me updated on certain morals: “You know, we don’t have a shower in our room, but Mr. Opriș said I can go to his place anytime to shower, but I won’t, because then he waits with the towel to dry me when I come out. Or was it a bathrobe?” That’s how you learn about life — from girls. I felt sorry for her; she was humane and kind. She even called some time after the camp, but if I’m honest, my heart was elsewhere; I couldn’t do anything for her.
Who else came, who else passed by… This time only on the veranda, a sophisticated girl, a Romanian Olympiad prize‑winner, younger, maybe tenth grade, from Craiova. She told us she had a pact with her father: he allowed her to smoke one month a year, and when she grew up… Her father was clearly important; I was stunned by this meticulous programming of life stages, suspicious to psychoanalysis.
So, in a softer form, you could say — my room was Pitu’s apartment with ten women, back when he played for FCM Bacău.
But she — the one who mattered — was elsewhere. And although she lived in the cabin right next to ours, she never came to us, and we never spoke.
On the first day, we played foot‑tennis with some boys, and a fairy came and watched us. I was shirtless. I felt her gaze, truly, but I kept playing, a bit arrogant — of course, I was the best.
There was also a curly‑haired guy, older, who one evening came to me and said: “Look, I mostly walk around drunk; I’m a math student, I came with this theatre troupe because my girlfriend plays in it.” He had been impressed by an aphorism in my notebook — something that began and continued with… “and we are clowns even within ourselves.” Probably from there I got the idea that the girl was his girlfriend, though I never saw them together. Anyway, it was a high‑school theatre troupe from Piatra Neamț, and they were going to perform The Wall, staged by the precocious Gianina — Opriș had warned us. And that group from the bigger villa, with an upper floor, from where Pink Floyd, Dead Can Dance, My Dying Bride echoed in the mornings — they had come to perform.
I had already glanced at her — exactly what she needed to be: a head somewhat aerodynamic, like a little dolphin; she could have been a countess at the French court, that kind of fascinating beauty, with a natural intellectual touch, just enough. But I had already placed her, unconsciously, into the neurotic category of the inaccessible — not even thinking of exchanging two words. And there was another detail: I had seen her smoke. And in our misa world, someone who smoked or still ate meat was fallen, unelevated (I had once heard guru Cunescu say: “Could you kiss a girl who smokes or doesn’t do vamana?” — tied to the harsh purification techniques taught back then).
Days passed in their flow. One day I walked alone through the copper woods — they truly had a special color — until I met an old woman carrying sticks on her back. “Where are you wandering, boy? Watch out so the wolves don’t eat you!” She said it had happened before, though maybe she just wanted to amuse herself. Or maybe it was Saint Friday — that’s possible too.
Then came the evening of The Wall, where she had the main role, and she seemed utterly transfigured. It shattered me.
And one day Tony Flandorfer, the bearded nihilist — he had a rocker’s chin and beard — came with a message. “Hey,” he said, “Diana, that girl, says they’re staying only until Thursday, and she doesn’t care anymore, and that you should meet her at ten tonight on that bench under the shelter — she’ll be waiting there to talk.” Are you crazy! How beautiful, how beautifully she thought — she saw the days slipping away and about to be lost entirely. But can you argue with a madman? I, indignant, rejected it. I rationalized: she smokes. I even told Tony, “I don’t meet sick people!” — sick because she smoked? On the other hand, I thought: wait, isn’t she the math student’s girlfriend? The guy had complimented me, was friendly; we had fraternized. Cheap rationalizations. The truth is, I think I passed by — yes, she was there, sitting, smoking, waiting — but I didn’t stop. I rationalized under the umbrella of the ephemeral: “What could this be? Two days and she leaves, then the camp ends.” Typical neurotic cowardice, tantric blindness — I can’t explain it otherwise. I refused exactly what I desired.
Ah… I had forgotten Tonia. I don’t know how she appeared — maybe she introduced herself. Tonia was special, with grey eyes, a strange wolf. Cerebral, with her own thing. Twisted stories — either she was playing interesting, or… She spoke terribly softly; at one point, during that excursion, she whispered and I no longer understood anything. Either she was experimenting, and instead of shouting “Speak normally, damn it!” I let her weave mysteries. She was a little witch, truly making herself intriguing.
I remember she had a complex — not being as beautiful as she wished. “I’d like you to tell me: I like your legs, not that I’m intelligent.” Ha! Little witch. She said she came from a large family, and she made us believe we’d go visit her in Vatra Dornei. Her seduction operation worked; we found ourselves, on the evening of the Miss contest, going to cheer for Tonia! We even beat on a plastic bottle, shouted her name — our whole cabin. Meanwhile, the World Cup final was being played, and we didn’t care. But what business did we have with Tonia? She had bewitched us for her interests. So what? Didn’t she deserve it?
We were in paradise, but didn’t know what to do.
And after a day… they vanished. The troupe. Dissolved. I remember only some images of nuns’ cells, or the idea that they were somewhere around.
In vain I wrote Tony a desperate letter at home: “Hey, don’t you know the girl’s full name? Can’t you find her address?” Tony was a damned Suceava nihilist. I didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t send one.
To tantra with you, you bastards!
(After the TV outburst, off‑camera, after losing qualification for the ’86 World Cup: “To Bistrița with you, you bastards!” — the national team’s training camp, courtesy of Tata Jean.)
Here the bastard being me.
In vain I pound the amber globe with my fists. I’m trapped inside, and no one will open it. This is, it seems, my Rosebud.
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