"I was like a brother to you, you pig,
I brought you flowers when you got married,
I was a witness at your divorce, and then you . . ."
That's all I hear, because the cook turns the music up,
but I do see the tears in the other man's eyes,
as he leans across the table and kisses the hands of the man with the necktie,
as he nods to acknowledge that yes, it's settled, he's a pig.

Then he bows his head and all of a sudden it's as if he's in a faraway city,
seated at a yellow, dusty terrace, gazing at the sky,
and he's at a loss about how to conclude a letter to his benefactor,
so he writes: "With love and eternal gratitude, Grigore."

It's as if the devil has entered the man with the necktie.
He grasps the other man by the nose and yanks his face up:
"Let's have a look at your shitty little eyes," he says.
Then he grips him by one ear and shakes him until his cap flies off,
he pours brandy over his bald patch and wipes it with a crumpled napkin,
and he shakes him by the ear again
and he rips a button off his coat, he puts it in his glass
and he makes the bald man gulp it down like an aspirin.
"Leave the wretch alone, mister engineer!" shouts the barman,
but it's as if the devil has entered the man with the necktie:
"Butt out of it, you, he's my friend, baldy here, and I'll do with him whatever I like!"
He grabs baldy by the ears and gives him another shake.
Then he gives him a smacking kiss on the mouth,
then he takes a step back,
as if to admire him,
and he punches him in the nose with all his might.
Smack! goes baldy's head on the cement floor.
"You'll be the death of him," says the barman, "you'll be the death of him, look
how the blood is gushing from his nose!"

All of a sudden, baldy has been in a sanatorium for three weeks, he's sitting on a balcony,
swaddled in camel-hair blankets, gazing at the snowy mountains,
he lights a "Maria Mancini" cigarette and muses:
"We ought always to dress in black,
to have reserved, formal relations with other people,
to honour life and death, yes, yes, life and death
and progress!"

It's as if the devil has entered the man with the necktie:
with one swipe he knocks the ashtray, vodka bottle and glasses off the table,
he whips a razor from his pocket and in a shrill voice cries:
"I am the reincarnation of Hegel and the Petreuș Brothers,*
all rolled into one! Don't you mess with me!"
"Hegel, Hegel, Petreuș, yes, yes!
Hegel, Hegel, Petreuș!"
mumbles the old man at my table,
from beneath his felt hat,
and he envelops me in his sea-blue gaze,
and he raises his beer mug and smashes it over my head.
"Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!" I hear, from under the table.

Here, under the table, there is peace. You can rise like the sun,
gloriously above the day.
"Here, under the table, this is our house," says my sister, "I pick out
the pillow with red flowers for myself, the pillow with blue flowers for you,
in this corner I lay out the stove, the pans and the plates,
by the stove I set my dolls, my teddy bear and my frocks,
in your corner you lay out the woodpile, the axe,
the cowshed, the pitchfork, the hay and grandpa's cart,
here, by the table leg, you place the chest with the hammer, the tongs and the nails.
On the blanket, by the spot where we say the window is,
we pin up a little icon of the Virgin Mary.
Now you come out from under the table.
I'd said I was very tired and I was cooking a meal.
You come home drunk from the pub.
The dog doesn't bark at you because it knows you like a bad shilling.
You go inside the house.
You spit on the floor.
You curse beautiful curses.
You toss your lit ‘Mărăşeşti' cigarette in the pot of chicken soup.
I say to you: ‘You drunkard, you bastard, aren't you ashamed
for the children to see you and hear the filth that comes out of your mouth,
and you stink like a pig. You must have pissed yourself again!'
Now you make like you're going to slap me,
but you change your mind.
You fill a cup of water from the bucket and drain it in one gulp.
Fully clothed you throw yourself on the pillow with blue flowers
and start snoring dreadfully.
‘O Lord, what did I do to wrong Thee?' I say
and I take my wee children by the hand, the girl doll and
the boy doll, and we go to spend the night at mother's.
Now it's morning. You come looking for us.
‘Daddy's here!'
the children shout, or rather the dolls, whose voices I'm doing,
you kneel down in front of all the dolls,
you beg forgiveness and say you'll never do it again.
I caress your bald patch,
we take the wee children by the hand,
you take the girl doll by the hand,
I take the boy doll by the hand,
and we go home.
Two weeks later we play the game again.
I'm not going to play this time,
‘One, two, three, four,
I'm not playing any more!'
because you're cursing and spitting and snoring
like you were a real drunkard,
and I going to tell on you to mammy!"

Now there's no one sitting on the chairs,
for the chairs are flying every which way,
and sweet bottles and glasses as delicate as a young girl's thigh
are flying in long flocks, cheeping, and plopping like fishes,
and groans and thuds and sighs can be heard, as if
a god and a goddess were making love in faraway gardens.
And they're all dancing upon the shards, in pairs and in groups,
and in the middle, mister engineer and the barman, wearing only one shoe, are kissing. And the barman says: "You've got a hard punch!" And
the engineer says: "But you, too, wallop with boundless proficiency!
Let me buy a round!"
And the dance ceases.

Now they no longer recognise each other,
because all of a sudden they are much younger
and, besides that, the town where they're drinking is so insignificant
that it's been inscribed on the map of another country by mistake,
a country which, in its turn, is so insignificant
that the cartographers have inscribed it on the map of a different continent
where they found an empty spot by a river's thread,
a little way away from the surrounding countries.

"Psst, psst!" Under the next table
baldy is wiping the clotted blood from his face with his sleeve.
"Psst, psst!" and he smiles happily and gives me a wink.
Once with his left eye.
Once with his right eye.

Translation: 2011, Alistair Ian Blyth