thirst for blood

The double encounter

The journey took nearly twenty one hours. Fifteen hours on the plane I spent on trying to ignore the constant cough of an old man who sat next to me, and his endless cry for a cigar. His clothes stunk of tobacco, and if not for the fact that they looked rather decent it could be suspected they had not ever experienced a ride in the washing machine's tub. When the man spoke, his mouth moved in an unsavoury way, spitting on the chair in front, between sentences.
Only after the stewardess announced the plane was about to land, did he ask me about my destination. That I could not leave without an answer, as the question was directed towards me and I had been taught better than to disrespect older people.

"Feratuvia, sir."

"Ah, Feratuvia! I didn't know anyone had heard of this place!"

His face lit up; and I had met with the oddest glare, somewhat cautionary, somewhat seeking more information. Fortunately for me, all passengers were ordered to fasten their seatbelts and keep still until the plane had landed.
Afraid that I might be questioned further on my journey, I left the aircraft as soon as possible and aimed at the main entrance of the airport. Not until getting inside the building did I realise that I lost Anthony. Everyone had come in, but it was the dean who had vanished. It could not have been worse. I sat on my luggage and waited. And waited. And waited. Romanian taxi drivers greeted the tourists with warm beams, gesturing energetically, grabbing and throwing bags into the trunk as if they weighed nothing, opening and slamming the doors. By the time the lost dean emerged (thankfully) in the main entrance, I had memorised Bun venit în România! — a sentence repeated in my mind almost as many times as where the fuck are you, Anthony? This question had been playing on loop in my head, and when I finally saw the old man, all content and refreshed walking towards me, I almost forgot to control the language and forced myself not to swear.

He had been changing the currency. I checked the time. Forty minutes. Forty. I left it without a comment and called a taxi. Our driver seemed to have a rather poor command in English, so with a little help from my concise dictionary, we managed to somehow communicate. I asked Anthony about our final destination, but he just scoffed at us (whilst I did not mind his lack of manners, I was ashamed to be associated with him in any way), and began to send withering remarks towards the Romanian man. I was about to tell him off, completely done with his impolite behaviour, but then he spoke directly to the driver. I knew this tone, I recognised the words, although I did not understand them. It sounded like a bridge between Italian and Turkish, but different in its unique way, bearing some and no resemblance at once. But it was not the fascinating combination of all, but the sound of it — the oddly familiar tone that brought me back home into my father's office. Why? I could only speculate. The vision changed, though. It had become... more clear. As if hearing Romanian had influenced the memory. All my life I had tried not to fall for any kind of dubiousness. I was not a man prone to imagine the what if, as it was not a good trait for a surgeon. Be certain. Know what you are doing. Never doubt yourself. But ever since the Dean came back, everything seemed different and somehow out of place. The thoughts struck me: what if I was wrong? Maybe it had never been Spanish my father would speak while having Anthony over. Maybe my father would encourage me to learn a language that was not the one he spoke precisely to hide the truth from me.

"Hey, son," the Dean's voice brought me back to the present. My revulsion towards this uncalled for nickname had risen even more, but I bit my tongue and fastened the seat belt. "What do you think about this place?"

It looked like every airport. Big, crowded, multinational. In my mind, I was somewhere else. Far from Anthony, far from the whole mission.

We drove in silence. I did not understand Romanian, and yet I could guess easily that whatever was the Dean's last sentence to the driver, it was nothing pleasant. One could not expect him to act decent, or it might have been just my general apprehension.