The presiding judge uttered a few words, which were inaudible at the back of the courtroom, and wrote something in the register. The court clerk called another case, while Paul bundled up his books and papers and, with an unhurried motion, slid them into his briefcase.
Nora was going to let him leave the courtroom, she was going to remain here a little longer to be sure of not running into him, and then she, too, was going to leave. A guy you slept with one night by chance and who, after that, you never saw again. The horrible thoughts, which appalled her, and which she nevertheless tried to think with out caring, went around in her head.
“Are you staying here?”
He was wearing a black-patterned red tie with a badly tied knot. It was first thing Nora noticed. Why doesn’t this man know how to tie his tie?
Paul took her arm and led her to the door. She followed him without looking at him. How nice it was there next to the window. How did he spot me? Why did he come in my direction? She was afraid of him; she would have liked to be alone, she would have liked with all her heart to be alone.
“… Honourable gentlemen, an incorrectly introduced motion cannot replace…” From the doorway, Nora heard a few words spoken by a man at the bar, who was waving a file, but the end of the sentence was lost, since in that moment they left the building through a narrow corridor that was more brightly lit than the courtroom.
“An incorrectly introduced motion… an incorrectly introduced motion,” she repeated mechanically, trying to prolong her thoughts in order to postpone the explanation that was approaching.
How long this man is able to remain silent, Nora thought on the street, walking beside Paul. Nothing on his blank face displayed the slightest curiosity or pleasure or worry. She had been afraid that her presence would anger him. Not even that so much, no, not so much. It’s as if I wasn’t here.
Dusk was falling, the snow had stopped, but it was very cold.
“You shouldn’t think I came to look for you.” All of a sudden she started to speak. “I pass by here in front of the courthouse every afternoon. I have a few hours of French in a private school in the neighbourhood. Maybe I didn’t tell you I’m a teacher. We haven’t had time — ”
She stopped in mid-sentence, surprised by her own words. She hadn’t had time to tell him the most basic things about herself — maybe, if her name hadn’t been engraved on the metal plate next to her apartment door, he wouldn’t have remembered that, either — but in a matter of hours she had become his lover. How stupid you are, Nora! She would have liked to fall silent, but now that she had begun to speak and had interrupted herself suddenly, without any reason, remaining silent felt more difficult than before.
“Please forgive me for looking through your papers on the desk. I flipped through your agenda and I saw that you had to be in court this afternoon. At first I didn’t understand what was written there. Your writing is a mess, but I’m used to all sorts of handwriting… I told you I’m a teacher… I tried to imagine what C.C. II meant. It had to be Commercial Court, Section Two. I didn’t think I’d be able to come. Nor could I have done so. I’m usually in class on Tuesday afternoons from three to five. Today I’m taking a vacation… I started to go home, and, I don’t know how, passing in front of the courthouse, I told myself that I could go in… You don’t know how lost I got wandering through all sorts of rooms and corridors. I didn’t think you’d see me. I would have liked you not to see me…”
They had stopped for a few moments in front of the window of a flower shop on Senate Square. Nora was talking and realized that he wasn’t listening. What could he be looking at with such intensity? In the window there were several sprigs of white lilac, as white as the newly fallen snow. Very tender and very droopy, the sprigs were slender, green, bent beneath the weight of their white bouquets. Paul’s gaze had settled there with its usual air of absence, but with the beginnings of a misty smile, which came with difficulty, from far away.
If I leave now, I don’t think he’ll even notice that I’m not beside him any more, Nora thought. And it might even be the wisest thing she could do. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t hurt, but she was aware that this man was a stranger to her and that nothing could wrest him from his silence. Whatever I say, whatever I do, that stare is not going to change.
She moved slowly away, attentive to her movements, as though she had just awoken from a deep sleep, and crossed the tramline in the direction of the Senate Bridge.
“Nora!”
He called her name for the first time. He was beside her, holding her arm, and looked her straight in the eyes with a gaze that saw her at last.
“Nora, please forgive me. I’m a fool, I don’t have any manners.”
“No, Paul. You’re neither foolish nor lacking in manners. Maybe you’re unhappy.”
He lifted his shoulders. (If he gave me the time, Nora thought, I’d make him get rid of that habit.)
“Let’s not talk about unhappiness. It’s a word I don’t like. And I don’t think I am. More like weary… yes… very weary…”
He continued to hold her arm with his heavy hand, with his clenched fingers, in a grip that was overly emphatic but in which she found — at last! — a flicker of intimacy. They were walking up from the quai, along the December Dâmboviţa River, which the twilight, the cold, the winter all made look a little less dirty. The evening’s first streetlights came on, and their shadows on the water were whitish in the light of this uncertain hour.
“You could easily hate me, Nora. People like me don’t have the right to get mixed up in accidents in the street. I shouldn’t have been the one to pick you up out of the snow yesterday evening.”
“People like you… Why are you talking about things that make me afraid? I’m bewildered, you know. What kind of person are you?”
“A person who last night you were able to believe might commit suicide. Isn’t that enough?”
They had crossed the Schitu Măgureanu Bridge: passersby were few, the street was empty.
And why was he silent now? He was capable of silences that seemed as though they would never end. How far away was he? How could she call him back? Only his hand, as heavy as ever, retained its grip on her right arm. But just when she believed that all was lost, his voice returned, its flat, even tone no louder than before, as closed off as the silence from which it broke free.
“I have nothing to say to anyone and I have nothing to learn from anyone. Do you understand, Nora? Do you understand why I wanted to run away last night? This morning I still didn’t think it was too late to run away. And now, look — even now, there’s still time. Why did you come to look for me? You could have just forgotten that we ever met. You could have wiped yesterday out of your memory.”
“And last night?” Nora asked, mainly for herself.
“Yes, and last night. We’re both mature enough not to regard that kind of random occurrence as a tragedy. I don’t want to offend you, believe me, but I’d rather offend you than deceive you. You need some friendship, some intimacy. You’re making a mistake in asking that of me. I have nothing to give anyone.”
He was still looking straight in front of him, without turning his head in her direction for even an instant. His lips were still twisted in an expression of vague bitterness.