dinner.
“How about having dinner in the market?” he rang her up the next day.
“In the market?” she was confused, thinking she was talking to a lunatic.
“There’s a market close to Piazza San Marco in Venice.”
“Dear me,” she said swallowing hard.
Titi wanted a romantic love affair, that’s all. Nina wanted to see Venice. Both of them were full of passion, and yet Nina defied imagination. In their ardent moments, the woman kept screaming so, if they hadn’t been in a foreign hotel, the man would have been ashamed to make love to her for the second time. He was thirty-two and hadn’t yet met a woman who lost control of herself in bed—he thought maybe he had finally met his match. The ten-year gap between them didn’t matter. Back home, they got married within two weeks.
“I didn’t realize what was happening or if I was doing the right thing. There was something strange going on that I needed badly,” he told her later on.
“I just pulled you together, you were such a scatterbrain and scatterpenis. I made you settle down in your own house,” she replied, feeling the need to patronize him.
“Don’t say you didn’t let me take a wrong turn.”
“No, I showed you the right path.”
Within a year, they built themselves a five-bedroom house. People were already grumbling: with so much oil he was measuring, he couldn’t help anointing his fingers, otherwise where did all that money come from? Soon Titi decided to surprise everyone by quitting his job and starting his own business.
“Ten years working for the state with all that oil on the desk is more than enough! I’ve proved my competence and self-control, from now on I’m going to be my own boss!” he said to his wife.
“I trust you know what you’re doing,” she replied.
In the fourth year of their marriage Nina gave birth to Doina. After that there was a new rule in the house: they were to celebrate in style all their birthdays and name days, and the party of all parties was to be on Constantin and Elena’s day, for Titi was just a diminutive—his real name was Constantin.
Three years later they had their second child, a girl called Petrica. They had two daughters, a three-year-old and a three-month-old, when they were making preparations for the forthcoming Constantin and Elena’s day.
While throughout the year they kept an eye on every penny they earned, for that special day things went out of their hand. Nina, an ingenious cook, came up with dishes that astonished everyone. It was an oversized feast, to deafening music, in a crazy atmosphere, with a sea of people putting all their heart into it.
For years Titi had enjoyed making love almost every night, Nina’s reactions keeping him excited throughout the next day, but ever since he had started running his own business they met in their bedroom only at the weekend.
They had too many and too great plans for the future. They wanted to provide their daughters with a large dowry, to buy each of them a big house; they also wanted to move into a luxurious mansion. To them profit came first. Money attracted money. Now Titi was considering giving up even the traditional party on his name day.
“You’re working so hard as if you had a whole regiment to feed. Why don’t you forget at least once a year all about work and plans? Let’s party until we drop!” said Nina.
“To have the feeling we haven’t changed a bit, right?”
“No, to feel the taste of life. Didn’t you say you ate all three oranges at one shot?”
That year the party was as formidable as ever even if the name day person was not at home. Titi had left for Constanta at dawn, he had an important business meeting there and hadn’t come back yet. Under no circumstances would he give up solving a problem which promised a very large profit.
The feat had caught so much fire that no one remembered Titi was not there. As usual, the guests were ecstatic. The only person that smiled and had fun with discretion was Nina.
“This time I won’t forgive him,” she said to one of her friends. “I’ll kill him. Does he have to work on his name day too?”
It was past ten. Her husband’s cell kept quiet. He was probably in a no-signal area. Nothing like that had ever happened in their seven years of marriage. Someone broke a glass and immediately came up to her to apologize.
“Don’t worry about such a thing,” said Nina. “Look here,” she added and broke a glass herself.
The guests clapped their hands. Overexcited, Nina shouted:
“Let’s break the glasses! I’ll buy new ones, who cares, Titi’s making a lot of money. Damn it!”
Madness erupted, the guests set their instincts free, while Nina had to go upstairs and take care of her younger daughter who had been awakened by the noise and now gave her to understand she was hungry.
“Come on, sweet little thing, stop crying, Daddy’s gone to make you a mountain of a dowry. Don’t you see how late he is? Come, darling, come home!” the woman murmured while feeding the baby.
After the clock struck eleven, Nina stopped giving any explanation about her husband’s absence. And started to drink. At one time those present thought she was the celebrated one. Not that she wasn’t acting as if she were.
A few minutes before midnight, while the most expensive bottles of champagne were being opened, they heard the gate ring and the wolf dog barking furiously.
“Thank God, Titi’s back! I’m going to pour all the champagne on his head to break him of doing business on his very name day. I’ll bring him to reason,” Nina promised the guests and went out to open the gate.
Outside there was a police officer. He saluted her politely and asked her if she was Titi’s wife.
“Your husband had an accident on Harsova Bridge.”
“Is he dead?” she asked calmly and in cold-blood, puzzling the policeman.
“Yes. A boy who had stolen the car keys from his father went out for a ride and crashed into your husband’s car. I’m sorry.…”
Nina left the policeman outside their house, slammed the gate shut and joined the guests with a charming smile on her face.
“Titi is no longer coming tonight,” she said. “He urged us to have as much fun as we can in honour of him.”
All the guests applauded frantically. Nina went up to the children’s room and looked at her daughters who were fast asleep.
“My God, you’re so young,” she whispered and shivered.
She went back to the party and dizzily joined the chain of people who were getting out of the house singing “Happy name day to you!”
* * * *
Fifteen years later, Nina was a wicked, sullen woman, with a bloated face and living in relative poverty, again keeping an eye on every penny she earned. She had moved into a two-bedroom
