Hippie

36

The food arrived. Karla knew exactly what Paulo was saying, and everything she would tell him when her turn came would be based on his words.

“Let’s eat in silence?” she asked. Once again, Paulo found her behavior unusual—normally she would have pronounced those words with an exclamation point at the end.

Yes, they ate in silence. Gazing at the sky, the full moon, the waters of the Bosphorus glowing beneath its rays, their faces illuminated by candlelight, their hearts bursting at the meeting of two strangers who suddenly enter another dimension together. The more we allow the world in, the more we receive—be it love, be it hate.

But at that moment it was neither one nor the other. Paulo wasn’t seeking any revelations, he didn’t respect any tradition, he’d forgotten what was dictated by sacred texts, logic, philosophy, everything.

He had entered a state of complete emptiness, and this emptiness, through its inherent contradiction, filled everything.

They didn’t ask what they’d been served—they only knew that there were tiny portions spread across many plates. They didn’t have the courage to drink the water, so they ordered soda—safer, though certainly much less interesting.

Paulo ventured the question that was burning him up, the question that could have ruined the night, but he couldn’t control himself any longer.

“You’re completely different. Have you found someone and fallen in love? You don’t need to answer, if you don’t want to.”

“I have found someone and I am in love, though he doesn’t know it.”

“Is that what happened today? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes. When you’re done with your story. Or did you already finish?”

“No, but I need to tell it through to the end, because the story has yet to find its ending.”

“I’d like to hear the rest.”

There was no anger in her response to his question, and he tried concentrating on the food—no man likes to hear these things, especially from the woman with whom he’s dining. He always wants her to be entirely there, focused on the moment, on the candlelight dinner, the moonlight falling over the water and the city.

He began to try each dish—pasta stuffed with meat in the shape of ravioli, rice rolled up in tiny cigars made from grape leaves, yogurt, unleavened bread fresh from the oven, beans, skewers of meat, several sorts of pizza in the shape of boats and stuffed with olives and spices. Their dinner would last an eternity. But, to their surprise, the food soon disappeared from the table—it was too delicious to leave there to grow cold and lose its flavor.

The waiter returned, cleared the plastic plates, and asked whether he could bring the main dish.

“No way! We’re much too full!”

“But we’re already making it, we can’t stop now.”

“We’ll happily pay for it, but please don’t bring anything else or we won’t be able to walk afterward.”

The waiter laughed. They laughed. A strange wind blew in, bringing unexpected things with it, filling everything around them with unfamiliar flavors and colors.

It had nothing to do with the food, the moon, the Bosphorus, or the bridge—but with the day both of them had had.

“Will you tell me the rest?” Karla asked, lighting two cigarettes and handing him one. “I’m dying to tell you about my day and how I found myself.”

By the look of it, she’d found her soul mate. In reality, Paulo no longer had any interest in his own story, but she’d asked him to tell her, and now he’d tell it to the end.