A LEGEND

Once upon a time…there lived in the sweet borough of Iasi an elf.
The legend says that elves were immortal a long time ago. Because they were too curious, God took their eternal life and sent them on Earth. They were given seven lives to live, they were embodied as men and they had to pass several challenges. At the end of the seventh life elves start remembering things from their childhood. Then fate brings along another elf, as the last of the challenge, namely love.
They were promised that once they pass the last challenge, they would be given back the priceless gemstone they so much longed for: immortality.

He was a taxi driver. He could hardly remember how it must have been for him before becoming a driver. It was as if that particular car was predestined for him. He had bought it with money saved long time before, he had made terrible sacrifices to propose to her (this is how he used to think many times, moreover, he would call her loud: my wife. And he then caressed the windshield gently, as if wondering: how come you don’t believe she is a living being?)
When he spoke about his car a large smile flooded his face, just like then, when his new passengers, coming from foreign lands, as far away as the Land of Watches and of Banks, asked him curiously how old he was and whether he was married.
He had to speak in French, he did it quite easily, even if he had learned the language all by himself, mostly orally, because he couldn’t write more than two – three words. But when there was talking to be done, he would get lost in conversation and could hardly notice whether he was using English or French, so that he found himself many times caught in the middle of a very interesting discussion wondering: I had no idea I knew so many words…
Definitely, he was in an excellent mood today. The morning had been warm and clear and he got up easily, unlike other days; hardly had he heard the alarm clock when he open his eyes, without any effort. The first thing he saw was the sun up in the sky, tugging friendly at the sleeves of his pajamas, since it was already seven and he had work to do… He had forgot the blinds open on both sides of the window and that terribly annoyed him during bad mornings, the sun rushing down onto his eyelids in the sweet morning slumber… But today, no trace of anger.
He didn’t know whom he was supposed to pick up from the station, but he was sure everything would go right. And so it did.
There were two passengers: a woman and a man, both kind and cute, especially the woman. The idea made him smile…
He would have liked to be in that man’s shoes. What a beautiful woman…
He examined her cautiously, not too daring, as he was supposed to mind his own business… He was doing his job. He had to drive them around many spots of Moldavia, for several days, to visit monasteries, museums and so on.
The first sight was Voronet, the small green-colored monastery. People thought it was blue, as there already exists a hue of blue called “Voronet”, but it seemed plain green to him. However, a green like he had never seen before all his life.
The woman lifted her plaits with her hands to tie them carelessly on top of her head. How fascinating it is to watch a woman tying up her hair! All moves seem so familiar, she gets hold of it and twists it in a manner only she herself knows, not very gently, as he would have done it, almost fearful, but with a commanding gesture, without too much effort.
Then there was the smell. Not that of perfume or shampoo (that could be met only with older ladies, with stiff hair, garnished with all sorts of mousses and hair sprays) but a smell coming rather from the inside, which reminded him of his sister, who used to ask him to knit her hair in plaits. He would pick up three plaits, make them equal and knit them carefully like the string from a whip (his grandfather taught him how to knit a whip, to make noise in Christmas Eve).
A smell of warmth, if warmth could possibly smell, not any kind of warmth, but that of a body dear to you, a body that you miss, one you would like to stay near to at all times, never to leave it…
And there was another hue… a breeze like that of a young, green cane, or like rosin. He boasted and he was happy he had such a sharp smell. He could perceive thousands of hues like those. He could transform them into colors and make a picture with them.
He would have drawn the portrait of the woman he had watched for a quarter of an hour in the mirror of the car. He wondered what hue he would have used to paint her hair. Maybe the smell of acacia with blossoming flowers.
And for her cheeks – the smell of a newly born, he had seen one in the morning, his mother carried him in her arms, covered in clothes like a golden lump. The woman with the child was waiting on the platform of the station, maybe for her husband or a parent anxious to see the newly born grandson…
As for the lips…he felt anger. He couldn’t “see” the smell of her lips, because they were covered in red. However, they looked great on her, he could borrow a smell of fresh lipstick.
Suddenly he was caught looking in the mirror, like a thief watching his future pray. He started, turning all red. He was lucky to have a darker complexion, otherwise one could have noticed… Maybe she did. He felt his face on fire, even his earlobes. He immediately changed the shift gear, even if it was not necessary. It wasn’t necessary at all, he had completely forgot to press the connecting gear…Oh God, how embarrassing! He was in the middle of a crossroads and he hardly squeezed between two cars that started to honk at him. Sweat appeared on his forehead. It’s all over…
But he looses control of his eyes and they silently move to the mirror again. There she was.
He couldn’t feel anything anymore. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see. He wanted nothing but to stay there forever, in her deep big eyes, posted on her lips smiling childishly. He would have turned into a colorless lipstick to be applied each morning on her soft, maiden-like lips.
By now the picture was almost finished. Two more strokes were needed and it wasn’t difficult at all to choose the hue for those two round color spots. Blue of Voronet, that is green. And the smell of the cinnabar leaf he had read about in a book on chemistry. People say that the cinnabar is red, like the vivacious coral, but no one had ever mentioned about that substance, immortality… He decided suddenly that it would smell like Voronet, out of which the Creator had spilt only two drops, for the eyes of a single woman, for the gate of a single soul, lost in the world so that he, as a simple driver, should look for it his entire life….
This woman so belonged to him… She had always existed, she had been born in every cell of his blood. Against her, an indispensable virus, his leukocytes were helpless, useless…
She asked whether she could open the window to better admire the landscape.
Whether she could? She could have asked for anything in this world, for the moon, for the golden apples, she could have even asked him to leave in the search of the Holy Grail…
He wondered why love is sad.
He was sad.
How far could he go with his desire? Should he hold her in his arms, hide her inside him, seal her in a flower and plant her in an altar? What else did he want? How much? What was his heart longing for? To feel her hot blood running through her veins?
He wondered why love is so selfish.
Why he wanted her only for him. Under the whole sky, in the infinite universe…He would have killed all those who wanted to touch her, as if he had already decided to be chosen…
He wondered why she was silent. Why she was against him. Why she turned her head, now that he had offered himself to her…Why didn’t she recognize him, why he couldn’t find her in the mirror, like a freshly cut lily-of-the-valley?
He wondered why he didn’t die. He would have liked to die; living longer was pointless. He could die that exact moment, when his heart beat like crazy.
They started to ask him about several things, using a language he couldn’t make anything of. Two words reached his ear though, sweet, joyful words that immediately invaded his mind. “My brother”…They were brothers. Brothers. They were brothers. And she belonged to him. Now he could hope again…
Oh God, they were brothers…
She pointed with her finger in the opposite direction. They had passed by the Palace of Culture.
“My brother would like to see the Art Museum, can we stop for a minute at the Palace?”
They were alone. Deep silence. They were standing close to a bench, a statue. From above, Stephen the Great watched them happily.
And he was exhilarating. Her smell was his now, completely.
He didn’t touch her, he didn’t even want to touch her.
A sacrilege was now useless.
They were just staring at each other, like two happy children, with fascination, hurriedly, as if the world and time had returned…
- Let’s talk with our eyes, be silent for a moment… he said, although she hadn’t uttered a word, she was just smiling at him.
They stood like that for several hours. They and the statue, like an alabaster group, they standing in one place of the city that reminded of the great Babylon…
A teardrop ran down her cheeks and she sighed.
And then she fiercely grabbed him in her arms. She had missed him so much that eventually there was no single spot left unoccupied in her chest.
All was so far away, the world, the car and time, which had slowed down almost completely…
There was nobody and nothing else on this world and if there had been I myself would have wiped him with fire…

And in case you wonder what happened to the two eventually, I would not tell you since I don’t know and I don’t want to know…
All I know is that they split because the legend without dream and longing is like a bird without luck.
She returned in her country with watches, banks and dreams and he returned to his old life.
And everything went on like before, like a spring in the mountains with no possibility of return.
But nothing is lost, everything is transformed, just like a wise man would say.
In this world every day a driver drives his car to another eternal land…

He was a driver. He couldn’t remember how life must have been before becoming a driver.
Only that he thought about selling his car. He “divorced” her.
With the money he received he bought a house. A bed, a table and a puppy.
With what left he traveled through the world in search of something he himself didn’t know.
Wherever he went to sleep, he held two dear thoughts: one of the house and one of her and him.
And one morning he wakes up, opens his eyes and sees the sun sipping daringly from him.
He had forgot to pull the blinds the other day and he woke up floating in blue, a clear blue like the green of Voronet…

Because they loved, some of the elves receive their immortality. Too bad that they, in their naivete, cannot realize that, day after day and year after year, they always are in the search of something they had earned long time ago…

Iasi,2004