Things happen, be it happiness, arguments, poverty, and most of the time there's nothing that can be done apart from swallowing hard.

A fine example: every morning he faced up to a job that wasn't paying.

0 and assurances and he was behind on bills, borrowing money having used up his savings long ago.

There was not a chance of sending the kids to university.

Only if over night they turned into geniuses and were awarded

foreign grants.

Another example: the chances of this happening was 0 because his kids were not Mozarts or Da Vincis but were, instead, assholes, stealing from his pockets

(if they found a coin or note in the house they assumed it was theirs)

to buy alcohol and cigarettes.

Oh yes, being modern and democratic means doing nothing with your life.

Therefore, the kids had to be forgotten about immediately.

Being a furniture salesman was about as rewarding for the soul as imagining having his tongue bit into by a pit bull.

And he would prefer that to being trapped in a room with colleagues he could not understand.

Many times he found himself wondering whether they were actually speaking the same language.

More recently, however, he had ceased caring and looking to understand. To hell with them! To hell with this country and this miserable life!

For a salesman, Tiberiu wasn't friendly.

He simply couldn't pretend.

He tried to be friendly with the intelligent connoisseur who knew the value of quality, wood, craftsmanship, hand carved rather than machine processed, but towards most, who brushed artifacts with their eyes like hardened criminals would, he had no enthusiasm.

Cretins!

By midday he had had enough of everything and of himself.

He couldn't breathe as his body was suffocating him.

The daylight, which would soon fade to black, was a cruel reminder that out there nature and other free creatures had a reach

far exceeding his own.

The stray dog, for example, the one casually taking a dump outside the window, is free to walk wherever he (or she) pleases, do and discover as much of the world as he (or she) wants.

And the stray dog is not held back by shackles and manacles and prisons and delusions created by mankind's superior brain.

The luck of the stray dog, not seeing and not appreciating civilization!

Damn the stray!

A customer would walk in, an animal of a man, looking to fill up his villa.

We have this dresser handmade in Florence...and what about these classical chairs? Look at those beautiful, carved legs.

The customer, sporting an unusually large, round head with a short haircut that would look wrong on anyone, would simple stare and then say:

"From Italy? Who, then, handmade it?"

These are the people who can say what they like, can behave

how they feel.

The rest of us choke on our spit.

Tiberiu could not answer.

"I'm only playing! Only joking with you! But listen...call me when you come across anything...worthwhile..." he would say and bounce out the shop as he would bounce out of most shops on Boulevard Dorobantilor where Tiberiu worked.

Because the day felt unrelenting when he got home all he wanted to do was smoke.

His insides were complaining and his eyes were wired open due having drunk large mugs of black coffee.

And all he wanted to do was smoke and not say a word.

And while he was smoking one of the children, one of the boys, the younger, would come and take his cigarette pack away.

Then his wife would switch on the cooker and the air would become unbearable - boiler-like.

So he would step out on the balcony but when he looked at the gypsies, the groups of young ones and yapping dogs, he didn't see anything as if looking straight through them.

At gaps.

He kept staring until the call for dinner.

Dinnertime was different now.

A limited affair.

Mihaela would be there and sometimes his middle child.

Never the youngest one and never the daughter.

But the food, the food was to be thrown back and forgotten about.

It was what it was.

Beans or fried potatoes or mamaliga and goat's cheese.

It was beans with bits of meat that could pass

untouched through the teeth.

If only there was enough to catch onto and dig his teeth into and spend a fair while chewing!

He would ask his son about school and his son would shrug and say

very little.

They had forgotten how to speak these young ones.

Or maybe they just didn't want to speak to him.

Maybe they were afraid of him, or of his age, or ashamed of his presence. So they didn't feel it necessary to exercise their vocal chords.

His son knew everything, of course, and, at the same time,

next to nothing.

He could tell you the latest PC specifications but knew nothing of world geography or history.

He had no idea why his parents were like they were.

Not enough ambition!

Not enough risk taking!

Content doing small-time work!

So you lost your job - so what?

Happens to most people, doesn't it?

After the meal his son would go to his computer and his wife would find something to do, like rearranging the kitchen so he could not find

what he wanted.

Tiberiu would go and watch TV for a few hours.

He watched the news, the weather forecast, a film if it was on, if not then some sort of documentary on Discovery Channel.

Nobody came into the living room.

At half past ten Mihaela would go to sleep because she was that bit stronger and that bit better regimented than he was.

He didn't want to sleep and he didn't want to stay awake either.

He didn't want to be there thinking and he didn't really want to watch TV or turn it off and face it.

He didn't want to listen to the neighbors or wait for his daughter to come home at gone one reeking drunk and desperate to find the toilet.

He didn't need the lights on or off.

He wanted an in-between.

Why was there no in-between?

On the second shelf of the bookcase, near the window, crushing the book next to it, was the Collected Works of Mihai Eminescu .

Nobody had read this giant of a book in decades.

He slipped a note in there.

It wasn't much but that's what he could allow for.

*

"You're going to come - and you will stay for lunch and dinner-"

he said while pulling on his sleeve.

His youngest turned to give him that look and twist his arm away.

"Don't know. What's the point?"

"The point is...the point is..."

What is the fucking point, anyway?

Mihaela was not the most confident of cooks so her mama would come to help and reassure her.

They sat in the kitchen squeezing pig meat into open bladders, something he found pleasurable as he liked to see the formation of a product.

In fact, he'd love to have studied carpentry so he could create with his hands.

What use were hands if they did nothing but hang limply by his side?

He listened to them talking and they had a lot to talk about, not having seen each other for a good day or so.

His mother in law was an older version of his wife.

The same wicked grin.

The eyes of coal and hellfire.

They also shared a determination he couldn't understand.

They appeared to believe in the words they spoke.

When he wasn't listening he delighted in seeing the meat crushed into shape.

He turned the handle as she talked about her colleagues and the winter holidays they would soon be having.

When are we going on holiday?

When are we flying off to Rome or Paris?

Ahh...Paris.

Never.

He couldn't remember the last holiday they'd had in 85 when they went to Sinaia and skied for the first and only time.

The older version talked about her friends and her brother who was half crazy with dementia and who tried drinking out of the toilet bowl.

Why not? Why not?

And then she asked him about work and how business was going and he said:

"The business is going to shit."

She nodded in response like it was only natural that business would go to shit and then she started a rant on the children, a subject that

she excelled at.

Why don't you discipline them?

When tata winced we ducked our heads!

And Mihaela got some fine beatings too...

for spitting on a girl at school,

for throwing up her dinner,

for not turning up at the dentist's,

for cheating on her boyfriend with another friend,

reasons that gave life to her personal story and made her feel that her early history had substance and vibrancy while the present was a dying disappointment.

Will they end up on the streets?

How can they work an honest job when they can't be bothered to get up in the morning?

How can they learn when they don't want to study, they don't feel like it, and the teachers are unqualified anyway because all the good ones leave! Yes and even if they finish university they won't find a job.

Good kids doing all sorts.

Poor kids.

Living in a crazy world.

All this and more she said while also scooping out the marrow core and slicing up carrots and dicing up cucumber...

He woke up earlier than usual.

Slightly agitated.

And, for a moment, sad.

She had awoken already.

Then, he looked in every room and they were empty.

He made sure they were empty before going to the bathroom where he shaved and put on aftershave and then walked round again tidying up what he thought stood out.

When she came back she found him, as usual, at the kitchen table, drinking his coffee, sipping philosophically, smoking his cigarettes.

"How was church?"

"Good."

Mihaela turned round to go and, then, she stepped out and he meant to ask her if she wanted a drink.

Only Tiberiu didn't.

They began arriving and he was at the door shaking hands.

Kissing cheeks.

Smooth cheeks.

Perfumed cheeks.

Bearded cheeks.

He helped take off their coats and lay them on the hooks.

He showed them where to leave their shoes and he told them not to worry about the dirt from the mud and snow.

Mihaela led them to the table.

Others would come late, if at all.

His place was near the far end.

Next to him a friend of the family had made himself comfortable and began immediately his commentary.

"You're looking good."

"Ah..."

"You are. You've put on weight."

"From sitting too much. And waiting."

"Sitting eh? I'd like to sit once in a while too but I can't, I can't, my stomach won't let me," he said, laughing.

He worked on his own vinery.

The EU were promising funds but he hadn't smelt the Euros yet.

The promises, though, helped lift his legs and arms and bend his back when necessary.

"I can't even touch the stuff these days."

"Oh yeah?

"It's the liver you know? I don't want any more things popping inside."

He'd had two heart attacks and suffered from bladder problems.

"It's a worry..."

"It's a curse.

My father drank all his life.

No problem.

Nothing bothered him."

"How did he die?"

"He's not dead. We just don't talk,"

and he guffawed so loud the cutlery shook,

or maybe that was from his shaky knees bumping the table.

"But I don't need to worry about that today, do I? Do I, baby?"

he asked his wife who tried hard not to hear him.

"Do I darling baby honey?"

"Do you what?" she snapped back.

"You hear the tone of that woman?

You hear how she talks to her loving, highly sensitive husband?"

"Well..."

"Fuck it. Noroc!"

he spat out and poured himself two fingers of vodka then drank it down like medicine for the soul.

"Noroc," Tiberiu said, following suit and feeling better for it.

"How's life in Bucharest?" he asked his cousin in front.

She worked as a dentist, doing well financially.

She was divorced.

Three times.

"Wonderful! Money grows on trees like it's supposed to."

"Our trees are the same. Only we can't see the cash because of the snow."

"Oh but when that snow melts away...New Year new possibilities..."

"Not as long as I'm alive."

"Hey! You never know!"

"Noroc!"

That's what we're ever dependent on.

Luck.

It went quiet, almost, as Mihaela brought in the sausages and they had first servings of the salata de boeuf .

It was reasonably silent until one or two of them starting praising the food.

"I like it," said one of them.

"Has a bit of spice. What is that? Mustard? And this,"

continued she,

"is perfect."

"Yes," confirmed her husband.

A woman close-by nodded in approval.

On the other side, in the far corner, Tiberiu paused and watched them.

Eating.

Talking.

He saw how they tasted the various kinds of sausages, the home-made and the store bought.

They pinched their bread and sucked on it with the juices helping to cement the taste.

The salad seemed to be especially popular as most were having seconds. He thought nothing.

Then somebody switched on the music and the tune crackling out of the computer speakers was old, melancholy and romantic.

After the first course he lit up.

His friend had brought a couple of bottles of red wine and he placed these proudly on the table and proceeded to fill up peoples' glasses.

"I told you," he said after their first sip, "not as good as last year's."

But the roast was as good.

It was tastier.

Fuller.

Mihaela had used a special, secret recipe and dripping fat lingered on the tongue while the taste buds shivered.

Maybe, he thought while his heart beat with unbelievable pride, they need more bread to go with this.