Just a Monumental Summer: Girl on the train (26 page)

Then it hit me. Seeing her mother speaking with obvious love and affection for her daughter made me realize why Dana was the way she was. How could she not be sweet? I instantly liked her mother, and regretted never having time for Dana. We could have been friends; she would have been good for me. I was ashamed again. It seemed my soul was trapped somewhere in a never-ending purgatory, the only emotion allowed that of shame.

Dana brought the hot tea to the table and we each had a mug. I explained that came to pick up my stuff and that I didn’t think I’d be able to find a taxi.

“My poor child, who do you think is coming here to the end of the world?” her mother said gently, her voice full of compassion.

It’s funny. I never thought Costinesti, the place where I had felt such love and happiness, would be considered the end of the world.

“You are lucky it’s not raining. When it rains for more than a day we have floods, my child. Terrible floods. I used to love the rain; it felt like the earth was breathing. I remember when a rain was a rain, when I was a child rain was refreshing and enjoyable. Now, everything goes to pot. Nothing is at it used to be. Something bad is coming.”

Dana started to laugh and tried to excuse her mother. “Mom, stop complaining. The hard times of today will be the good old times of tomorrow.” She leaned toward me and murmured conspiratorially, “She thinks the end of the world is coming.”

I remembered Alexandru’s words. She was right in a way. The end of the world is coming. The end of the communist era was close. Ceausescu’s days were numbered.

As we finished the tea, Dana offered to drive me to get my stuff. Dana’s mother cleared the dishes and went to the other room to let the dogs out.

“Dana, I never have a chance to apologize.”

“For what?” she asked.

“I never went with you to see your statues.”

She laughed. “It’s ok. I’m too passionate. If I love something, I’m obsessed with it. I force people into it.”

“No, it’s not. We spent a summer together, and we could have been friends. We weren’t and, I’m sorry.”

Do your choices become a matter of the people you’re surrounded by? If I had let Dana into my life, with her innocence, with her unconditional love for everything around her, would my choices have been different? But then I remembered how Alin tried to keep my darkness away, and he still failed. Probably not. We are responsible for our choices, after all. You remain who you are. And nothing can influence your choices.

Dana answered me: “Mona, look. We’ll go and get your stuff, and we stop by the statues. And we can take it from there. Ok?”

Out of the blue, I was crying on her shoulder. Her mother rushed over to me, rubbing my back as Dana hugged me. “Poor little girl. Whatever it is, it will get better. It may never go away, but you learn to live with it.”

I tried to stop crying, scrubbing my face with my hands “Thank you for being here. I apologize. Suddenly it all came together.”

Before we left, her mother hugged me warmly and gave me a gift. “They are walnuts. From our own trees. Those trees have been here since Dana was born. Take them for your parents.”

I left her home, already longing for it.

After I recovered my stuff, we drove around the resort. The same breeze, the same waves. No bonfires on the beach, no smell of sunscreen. The resort was deserted.

“It’s so depressing. I can’t believe a couple of months earlier it was full of life and joy.”

“Yes, nobody wants to live here year round. This place only comes alive three months a year. The summer is only a twinkle. Let’s go and see the statues.”

We parked the car and covered our heads with scarves to protect us from the wind. Her statues were half-buried in the sand, neglected and forgotten. We walked across the park, and it felt like I was walking through a cemetery. I suggested we walk by the Obelisk. She smiled.

When we arrived there, I thought I would cry again, but I didn’t. The stage in front of the radio station was deserted. I remembered Alin’s interview, and a smile curved my lips. And suddenly there it was, the huge shadow of the Obelisk projected on the sand. I raised my head and looked at the statue.

Dana put her arm in mine, craning her neck as she looked up with me. “You know Mona, around twenty thousand people gather here every day, the place is called the Obelisk, but nobody looks at the statue itself? Isn’t it beautiful?”

The statue was consisting of six parts assembled together. They looked like two circles cut in half, twisted on the other direction, and put back together to leave the circle open. I was trying to make sense of it.

“It is beautiful. It reminds me of a harvest. A bountiful harvest. A tribute to reaping what we sow, I guess.”

“Interesting.” Dana reflected, nodding her head. “In fact, what the artist wanted to represent is a ship mast with sails billowing into the wind. It has a height of over fifteen meters, weighs two hundred tons.”

“I knew it. I was wrong,” I admitted, shrugging and smiling.

“Art is whatever you want to see it,” Dana explained me. “Maybe we are too brainwashed by all the communist propaganda, and we can’t see the obvious anymore.”

She was right. The statue was in front of me, and I finally saw the obvious; its magnificence.

“The statue… it’s simply impressive.”

“It is a monumental piece, isn’t it?” Dana murmured.

All of a sudden, serenity took me. I was grateful to Dana for bringing me there. That moment was my last piece of the puzzle; I could almost hear it clicking into place, and no longer felt the jagged pieces cutting my heart. In that single moment it made sense. I didn’t need to find a reason for my summer. There was no purpose for life, and there was no reason for love. It was not about how it all ended, who made a mistake, or who got hurt. It was about the journey itself through what we call life. My whole life was ahead of me. A life full of obstacles and struggle. I was offered a magic moment in time that I could hold on to. An insane summer. And I decided at that moment that I would choose to remember it as the summer of my only real love.

I was offered a gift. A beautiful summer with beautiful people. A moment in time to hang on to, for the dark times were about to come. The summer of 1989 was my rock. A reminder I could lose myself, that I could make friendships for life. A simple wink in time that would always be there to remind me that life can amaze.

There are moments in life you will always search for in hidden corners of your mind. You will always commemorate them. Simple moments which don’t have to be important. I will always remember my summer, not because it had a message, not because it was important, but simply just because it was there.

I looked at Dana. She was admiring the statue as she were seeing it for the first time. I looked at the statue, the presence of continuity. A memory of my youth; a foreshadowing of my upcoming maturity. I looked at the sky, and I finally felt free. I smiled.

“Dana, will you see Alin next summer?” I asked her peacefully.

She looked down. ”Yes.”

I nodded as lots of secret thoughts were there into my mind, only for me and Alin.

“Tell him he was right. It wasn’t a monumental love, but it was a monumental summer.”