Chapter III can’t really say that I was glad to see him that day, on the 14th of July, when I bumped into him on the Saint-Michel bridge. I was browsing through a stack of old magazines in one of the bookshops by the riverbank, and it was a pleasure I didn’t like to share with anyone.
“Valerie!” (We had known each other for a long time but he still couldn’t bring himself to pronounce my name properly, Ştefan Valeriu sounding like a dubious name to him, while “Valerie” had a more informal, countrified ring to it). Irimia planted himself in front of me, his silence telling me that he wasn’t going to leave at his own accord.
“How are you, Irimie?”
“Well, I’m just looking around.” And he was. He was staring at the water flowing under the bridge with large, unblinking eyes. I took him with m
