Page 69 - WTP Vol. IX #6

by and stopped farther down in front of a monument to the national poet where skateboarders congre- gate. Only the photographer would have kept doing what he was doing to begin with.
Such a scenario wouldn’t have to move all the way to “and they lived happily ever after” as no one today believes in such scenarios, but it could have reached a somewhat satisfactory ending. Or if that were a novel, it could have had a final chapter titled “Ten Years Later” which would provide a further devel- oped ending of the ending. Then there would be
little doubt as to what happened with the heroines, though the two women aren’t exactly heroines or even dramatis personae. What drama was there after all? But such endings, even with “later” in the title, only pretend to look back from some point in the fu- ture. In reality they talk about something that hasn’t happened yet as if too impatient to wait and see. Un- fortunately, the above situation doesn’t call for such
a solidly novelistic ending. What’s more, only two months—and not ten years—have passed since the encounter at the café, and now the two months later has become—is now—the now.
~
It’s the last week of October. The weather has noth- ing autumnal about it as if the summer which came so late this year has decided to meet its quota against all principles of fair distribution of months among the four seasons. Magda’s cell begins to chime Edith Piaf’s “Je ne regrette rien,” the words Magda would love to believe in. The bright sunlight keeps her from seeing the caller’s name. She puts the phone to her ear and at once recognizes Guus’s voice with his funny accent. “I’m almost there,” she says. “You’ll see me in a minute.”
They met about a month ago at the university club. Guus came to the city for the Erasmus program. They’ve seen each other a lot, always in a group with others, until last Friday when Guus asked Magda out. She chose the same café where last August she waited for Eryk. Eryk belongs to the past, he’s passé, though Magda knows it’s not enough to erase bad memories. To be completely deleted, they have to be replaced by good ones.
She leaves the shade of the arcade and turns right. Now she sees the café garden as if on a platter. Only two tables are taken, one by Guus. He’s sitting in a wicker chair against the wall. He stretched out his legs and even from a distance Magda sees the enormous
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"Such a scenario wouldn’t have to
move all the way to 'and they lived happily ever after' as no one today believes in such scenarios, but it could have reached a somewhat satisfactory ending."
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