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cover, an unseen device was clocking up her absence, recording, as though on an interior screen that was waiting to light up at the first request, moment by moment, the time that he had passed without her: twenty-three days, eight hours, twenty-six minutes ...
    He saw again her blond hair, her too-bright eyes, her expressive hands – and then that serious smile, which sometimes used to interrupt him in unexpected agitation, the smile too heavy for her small eyes, which expanded when she made an effort to pay attention, as though she might have fallen silent on hearing another voice, which had been covered by the words she had spoken until then.

    ... He crossed the street towards Icoanei Park and failed to recognize, in the small park in winter, the image of the gardens where had so often spent the day. Everything was foreign: the snowy
paths, the dark trees, naked in their wooden motionlessness, the sparse park benches, the electric lights that burned pointlessly, as though someone had forgotten to turn them off when leaving.
    Somewhere near the left-hand gate must be the bench on which, on an October morning in 1932, he had waited for Ann with a sketchbook in his hand, having come to make some sketches of trees for a publicity project he was working on at the time. He didn’t have the courage to look for that bench and, given how much the park had changed, he might not have found it.
    He looked at his watch and realized that it was less late than he had imagined: ten minutes to two. At this time Ann might be at their usual bar on Bulevardul Basarab. She was always going out these days, so why would she have remained at home tonight?
    This night can’t pass without Ann , Paul said to himself. The thought that he could meet her, if he wished, thrilled him.
    He sees the bar on Basarab, the metallic reflections on its walls, the white lights, the circular dance floor like an illuminated island. Ann must be there, among a group of friends, at their usual table. He walks up to her and, looking her in the eyes, says: “Ann, I’m turning thirty tonight. I didn’t even realize it; I remembered it just now by chance and I’ve come so we can clink a glass together. You know how superstitious I am.”
    Smiling, she looks at him. “I was waiting for you, Paul. I knew you would come. This night can’t pass without you.”
    It was hallucinatory to see this: he felt the warmth of her words, their heat against his cheek. Everything was so present, so close: her black dress, the small silver brooch over her left breast, the silk handbag radiant on the table, the glass of whisky that she gave him with a nervous gesture, as though she wished that there was nothing to separate him from her.
    ... He came to with a shudder of panic. How much time had he wasted dreaming? He didn’t dare to look at his watch. He glanced around him and couldn’t figure out where he was. He was no longer in Icoanei Park, the street was unknown to him, the houses alien. Beyond those buildings that he didn’t know was a weak blue halo: that lights of Bulevardul Brătianu. He chose to go in that direction, forcing himself to think about nothing. At the first corner
he found a taxi stand. The driver was asleep, the frozen engine started with difficulty – and how far, how unbearably far away, was the bar on Bulevardul Basarab!
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    He hopped out of the car, flinging the door shut and shouted as he passed the doorman: “Pay him, please.”
    â€œAre there a lot people here?” he asked the coat-check girl as he took off his overcoat, not daring to state more clearly the only question whose answer interested him.
    Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around with an outsized shudder of fright. ( I should control myself , he thought.) It was another of the bar’s regulars, a lawyer for an oil company.
    â€œAbout time I found you, buddy. I’ve been phoning you all day.