I could notice that he was taking glimpses of me. His companions at table listened to him with awe and laughed. They even seemed to be in synch; they did it almost every twelve seconds. It was easy to see that he was so annoyed by the situation as a protagonist as I was as an unintended spectator, and he peeped towards me and I tried to hide behind a neutral smile, staring at the book I was reading, seeking to divert his attention from my blushing face.
Three more peers suddenly burned my cheek as these words sounded:
“Excuse me, are you a local?”
“Eeer… yes”
“Would you mind sitting here with us for a sec?”
“No…”
He offered me a seat by his side. I took my coat and handbag as clumsily as usual and I sat there, trying to place my stuff carefully and not completely succeeding in the effort. He called over the waiter.
“What would you like?”
I can’t remember what I said, but I must have said something since the waiter left for the bar discreetly.
“I guess you’ll find this strange but, you know, I thought it would be a good idea to ask a local for a decent place to have a drink. You know, some place less similar to a operating room
I knew. But I didn’t find unpleasant that coffee shop and its white furniture, in fact I had chosen it to spend two quiet hours before it was time to go, an unfamiliar place where I didn’t have to hide from the chitchat of acquaintances in order to enjoy public solitude.
“Just before I go on, do you have time? Are we disturbing you?” he asked.
“Well, I’m going to the film festival premiere. I don’t have anything to do until then”.
“Sure”, he said, flashing a smile at me, “I’m also due there at that time. OK then?”
His change into the singular brought about a change of attitude towards his companions. He told them to go pay for the drinks and that “they already knew”. This sudden privacy quite surprised me but I thought it reasonable enough to think that I was safe with him.
“Shall we go?”
We stepped out of the coffee shop and started to walk. The place was near the neighbourhood were my gran used to live, and as we were approaching the park, out of a strange impulse, I said:
“Look, I used to play in this park as a little girl”
“Really? How sweet!”
“There used to be a terribly high iron slide, or so it appeared to me; a threat by modern standards. But rather than slide down I liked the overlook.
“So you liked heights?”
“Yep, and look, this is all the height I got” I replied leaning my head back to look into his eyes, ten inches above my sightline. He laughed, and then I so his eyes approaching, and his smile, and the little hairs in this three-day beard until I could anticipate his lips brushing mine, the kiss only prevented by the shout I couldn’t hold:
“No, Brad, please! Think about Angelina and the six kids!”
That’s me, I can’t help being prudish even in my dreams.
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Posting my stories translated was not part of my original plan for this blog but after reading Bernardo Moraes’ I got curious about what it would be like and how they would look. I’m not really a writer, just an amateur, and I enjoy translating literary texts from English but I had never attempted at translating any into English. I didn’t find it as hard as I expected. It crossed my mind that maybe it’s because English has grown to influence my native tongue discourse. The truth is that I read a lot in English, probably more than in any other language I know. AM I BEING BRAINWASHED BY THE LANGUAGE OF THE EMPIRE?
I hope you enjoyed my microstory and please don’t hold back from commenting either on the literary aspects or the language mistakes you may (in all probability) find.
