I wouldn’t have dared, though I retain a dram of affection for him since high school, without really knowing why.

A bony, hard, scowling fellow, with a mighty handshake, the eyes of a vulture, a virile ugliness that is almost a form of beauty.

‘Hey, look, the sun is shining …’

We wandered about together, through various neighbourhoods, finding it odd not to come across our old familiar Danube. He told me what was going on at Blidaru’s course, which he too discovered some time ago.

We talked a lot, about a thousand things, about books, memories, women. We stopped at a bakery, past the end of the bridge, to buy sesame pretzels. We ate in the street though people looked at us.

‘You know, Pârlea, we could be friends, if we weren’t divided by so much nonsense.’

‘No. You’re wrong. The pair of us can’t be friends. Not now or ever. Don’t you get the smell of the land off me?’

There was something absurd and terrible in his eyes.

Don’t you get the smell of the land off me? Yes, indeed I get it. And I envy you for it.

I have an immense longing for simplicity and unawareness. If I could rediscover some strong, simple feelings from somewhere centuries back – hunger, thirst, cold – if I could overcome two thousand years of Talmudism and melancholy, and recover – supposing one of my race has ever had it – the clear joy of life …

But happiness, for me, is a strange, tumultuous feeling, composed of endless evasions, always in danger of collapse.

I was happy three days ago. Today I’m depressed. What happened? Nothing. An inner crutch slipped. Some poorly suppressed memory rose to the surface.

At twenty years of age, healthy and without any personal handicaps, I feel that I have been destined to be divided in ten parts and negated in each of them.

No, we’re not an easy-going people. I am so ill at ease in my own company: how badly another person must feel being with me. We’re impulsive. We’re more than we can deal with. And on top of that, we’re impure.

We: meaning me. Ianchelevici Şapsă. Marcel Winder.

He smells of the land, lucky man.

I regret that, in this internal conflict, I retain some sympathy for myself. I’m sorry I catch myself loving my destiny. I’d like to hate myself, without excuses or forgiveness. I’d like to be an anti-Semite for five minutes. To feel an enemy in myself who must be vanquished.

*

The girl from a week ago came. I didn’t invite her in.

‘Didn’t you ask me to come?’

‘Yes. And now I’m asking you to leave.’

Something tells me that we are unable to live any of life’s moments fully. Not one of them. That we eternally stand at a remove from what is happening. A little above or a little below things, but never at their heart. That we don’t experience feelings or events fully, and then we drag these unresolved matters after ourselves. That we have never been complete villains or complete angels.