It was his birthday. He had received in the morning a letter covered with colored stamps and scriptures in Cyrillic. At last she wrote to him, after months of silence!
Since she had left the University of Vienna to return to Russia, he had not seen her, and their exchanges had been rare.
As he had explained, it was too difficult to try and keep a connection while being so far apart. She had gone away with a single promise, not to forget the beautiful speaker whom he was, nor he the unbelievable pure girl that she was.
He stood for a moment looking at the envelope without opening it. All these words she had written with her compact writing style, using a blue pen, words he could not even read! As often, the idea that she was too different from him crept up in his mind, but it was at the same time what attracted him, the unknown, the difference, the promise of new horizons, so he tore the envelope open.
A birthday card with a message in Russian that he could not read, and inside, a picture of them taken the day before his departure in front of the Stefansdom in downtown Vienna. How long ago it felt. On the next page she had noted a few lines from a song by Lily Allen:
Dreams, dreams
Of when we had just started things
Dreams of you and me / It seems, it seems / that I can't shake those memories / I wonder if you feel the same way too...
He remained on his bed for a long time , his eyes fixed on the patterns of the blue and green wallpaper that adorned the walls of his room, listening to the great clock in the drawing room which ticked away the quarters of hour, half-hours, and hours.
When he would be rich, one day, he would go to Moscow to ask for her hand. He couldn't say much to her family since he did not speak Russian, but his smile would do the trick and their marriage would definitely be exhilarating, like the beginning of an extraordinary adventure!
They would leave after their wedding to the south of Russia, to the land of Uzbekistan where she was born, in a carriage drawn by horses, a bit like in Tolstoy's novels, or riding two thoroughbreds across the river and sometimes stopping to rest their animals between the birches, at the edge of a stream.
"Max!"Said his grandfather, opening the door brutally, interrupting his dream. "Come eat, if you want us to be on time for the game. We'll take your Senegalese friend. Did you speak to him, at least?"
For Max's birthday, he wanted to show his grandson a Chistera championship game, the Basque Pelota, which was played at the sports hall of St Jean de Luz.
"What's this letter you received this morning?", he asked abruptly as they drove toward the students' house in Bayonne to take Babakar.
"It's a greeting card from a girl. She's in Russia."
"A Russian! ...Don't tell me you're interested in her!"
Max laughed without answering.
"You should rather pick someone from here, Max, I advise you! As I told your mother when she brought us your father, and they talked about marriage! I told her at the time: marriage is not a game. If you want it to last and start a family, you have to put all the chances on your side by taking someone who resembles you, who has the same language, the same culture, the same religion. I told her that the best thing is to take someone who lives on the same street, if possible. And I tell you the same thing to you now! If I were you, I'd take a girl from here. This Marion, she seems to like you, right? "
Max smiled, eluding the question.
"She did not listen to your advice, my mom, did she?" And you see, their marriage held and is by far the best relationship I've seen!
YOU ARE READING
A cappella
General FictionMax, a 20 year old who's lived his whole life abroad, decides to go back to his home country and rediscover his roots. On his identity journey, he forms new relationships, that push him to reconsider his very nature. Will they be able to tame the...
