"Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine/ et nos amours faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne?" We were alone. Or, rather, I pretended not to notice the other women all wearing lots of make up and too vulgar for my taste. "Je m'appelle Marika..." she told me, smiling. I didn't say a word. She had brown hair, with soft locks falling down to her shoulders. She was slender, beautiful. I felt ill at ease. Marika kept smiling. "I don't have too much time" I managed to articulate. I must get back to the others..." I took a few steps, turned around: she hadn't moved: "This evening, perhaps?" I said quickly. "Around 9 o'clock?"
Marika laughed: "Isn't it more correct in French to say twenty-one hundred hours?" She was right. I said so and then left quickly without looking back.


I arrived late, of course, to the reading. A seat was still free near Vasile. I pretended not to see it, taking instead a seat in the last row next to a Macedonian who looked at me curiously. I asked him in English whether the debates had been going on again for a long time. He laughed and said yes. The poets were about to read some of their work, he added. I couldn't concentrate on listening to the poems. I thought of... I closed my eyes for a moment. My Macedonian neighbor poked me, bringing me back to reality: "Hey, it's your turn!" How did he know my name? That's right, I'd forgotten we were all wearing badges with our name and nationality. I had just been called.

Unsure of myself, I moved towards the platform... I approached the microphone... I would have liked so much for her to be there in the room...