Ruins of Autumn

7• I Don't Like Tattoos.

    "Tell me." Anila sat Brunilda on the sofa in front of her and placed between them the bag with the materials they had bought on their way back home. "What did you talk about when I wasn't there?"

    "He asked me what I study for and what job I have decided to do. If I have decided."

    Brunilda elaborated on the rest of the conversation in silence. If she told Anila his opinion that it was because of her that Anila was an extrovert, she was afraid that her cousin would approve his words and make her responsible for every time she had been forced to think about them to organise activities together because, if it were for Brunilda, they would have stayed locked in the house for the rest of their lives.

    She didn't want to lose her best friend, but if she didn't tell her anything, she was afraid that Blerimi would tell her, and Anila would suspect that Brunilda had negative intentions towards her.

    She took a packet of potato chips from the bag and sat in silence with her head down while being consumed by overthinking and uncertainty about which path to take: to risk it or to leave herself in the hands of fate, whether it wanted to risk her or not?

    "Brunilda, do you like him?"

    Anila's question made her look up to see her cousin's suspiciously bitter gaze on her.

    "No, no," Brunilda said calmly. "You have no reason to doubt." She looked Anila straight in the eye to prove that she wasn't lying. "I don't know why I didn't get positive energy from him."

    "Because you don't know him that well yet. When you know him as well as I do, you will understand how respectful and appreciative he is."

    Brunilda openly expressed the scepticism in her eyes about the existence of such an occurrence.

    "It didn't seem like that at all to me, not even towards you," she said in confusion, that maybe she should have remained silent and not made such accusations against him without concrete evidence.

    "What do you mean?" Anila asked worriedly.

    "It was as if he didn't want to be with you at all, and he was so short of breath, he couldn't wait to run away."

    "Maybe because he was afraid that some bottle would fly to his head?" Her friend asked in a bewildering manner and looked away in disbelief at Brunilda's judgement.

    "This was the feeling I got." Brunilda excused herself with a slight shrug. "I suggest you be careful. You never know in life."

    "There you go. You started again with your negativity." Anila turned angrily towards the TV and was seized by the poison in Brunilda's words.

    "It's the reality," Brunilda argued strictly. "OK, I stand corrected that sometimes I'm too pessimistic, and we should enjoy life but not live carelessly. We need to take some measures to be safe. Since we're not in Heaven."

    "I don't want to talk about it," Anila tried to get up, take the TV remote control, and watch a movie, but Brunilda stopped her by putting her hand on her right arm.

    "We will talk," Brunilda sat her down on the couch. "You can easily give your advice. Why don't you listen to mine?"

    "What advice?" Anila replied, frowning.

    "If you notice that he is not interested in you, leave. Do not justify any kind of action when you know for sure that you're doing it wrong, first. Second, do not sleep with him! He may film you or something. Marriage is safer. Now, someone who has planned to hurt you hurts you whenever he wants; he finds a way, but since you can prevent some stages of depression in life, why traumatise yourself for nothing? Would you want such a misfortune to happen to another girl? No. Then your self deserves no less respect."

    "Very well, philosopher. Since you think you deserve as much respect as anyone else, stand up." Anila was the first to do so.

    "But we were out," Brunilda protested, hopeless that Anila would give up.

    "Let's go out again. To Blloku."

    "To do what? There is nothing interesting," she vented, annoyed.

    "Because you haven't been there with the intention of finding anything interesting. Let's go and have lunch."

    "I gave you that advice for yourself. If I had known that you would take it out of my nose, I wouldn't have spoken at all."

    Anila sighed deeply and took out her phone from the pocket of her light green trousers to read the newly arrived message.

    Brunilda picked up the TV remote control and began to browse through the TV channels to find an interesting movie.

    "Blerta is asking me to go out. She's going to get a tattoo," Anila said as she sat down on the sofa.

    "Which one?"

    "Mino, my friend from university."

    "Doesn't she know that you don't like tattoos at all? Let alone going to a studio, where they're made." Brunilda laughed.

    Anila looked at the time on her phone, and the message was still unanswered by her. Since she was free that afternoon, she decided to accept the invitation.

    "I'm leaving," she stood up and went to the bedroom to change. "What are you going to do?" She approached the door minutes later to put on the white sneakers, which she decided to combine with white champagne jeans and a dark red blouse.

    "I'll see," Brunilda said, focused on the television.

    Anila guessed that she was going to stay at home and felt exhausted before starting to talk, to advise her to go out and enjoy life as much as she could. She wasn't always going to have to tell her what to do with her life. Brunilda had to figure it out for herself: was she living the best life possible, or was she wasting the whole summer by only staying at home?

    "OK. I won't be late," Anila promised rather as a passing expression and got out.

••••
    She met Blerta in front of the Bank of Albania, and they went to the studio, where the blonde girl with soft blue eyes was going to get the tattoo done. Inside the studio, they found a boy nearly sixteen years old, dressed in black sports clothes, placing several boxes on the white shelf at the head of the studio.

    "How are you doing, Mateo?" The client opened the conversation with the young man and shook his hand.

    "Good," he also greeted Anila.

    "Where's the boss?" Blerta asked.

    "He'll be here in a minute. I talked to him on the phone."

    Anila studied the studio with an observant eye, the forest-coloured walls surrounding it, the white floor with a black dragon in the centre, a beige sofa at the other end of the room opposite the chair where the customers sat to get the tattoos done, and a glass work table on it to her left, on which were some used A4 papers.

    She went closer to look at the drawings, which managed to get a smile from the amazed woman at their beauty: a red butterfly with several incomplete pink rose petals along the bottom of its left wing, the letters J and A joined together, and a mauve-tinged purple orchid.

    "Are these for tattoos too?" she asked Mateo, who was putting the remaining box on the shelf.

    "Yes."

    "Have you drawn them?"

    "Sidoreli."

    "The tattooist?" Anila guessed.

    Mateo nodded silently, and she thought at first that the person in question was a newcomer to the studio.

    He had opened the door somewhat frantically, and upon entering the studio, he had looked bitterly at Anila next to his works as a sign of rigorous rebuke as to why she had approached the work table without his permission.

    She stared unconsciously into the rough jade with a hint of light green in his eyes, and the tattooist broke the eye contact between them by turning to Blerta.

    "How are you, Blerta?"

    "Good, how are you?" She accepted his outstretched hand.

    "Fine."

    "I'm done," Mateo approached the artist. "Will I help with anything else?"

    "No," Sidoreli replied to him. "You can go."

    "OK," Mateo closed the door behind him, leaving only the three of them in the studio.

    "Did you come for that tattoo, or have you changed your mind?" Sidoreli asked Blerta, and while they were talking, Anila took the opportunity to survey the tattoo artist in detail; his slightly cropped hazel hair got top marks, as did his seemingly well-maintained physique and the outfit of choice for the day, a pale green T-shirt, grey jeans, and white sneakers. The talking in a calm voice, the unaffected tone of authority in every word he uttered, along with the look and the energy of safety he gave, convinced Anila that she had finally found the right person.

    He was a perfect match for Brunilda, who preferred her comfort zone. Sidoreli seemed to have exactly such characteristics as well. Now it only remained to find out if he was dating someone, and Anila would immediately tell Brunilda about him.

    She couldn't wait to go home. The excitement for the near future made her eager for Blerta to get that tattoo done as soon as possible. She had taken the right decision by agreeing to go to his studio.

    "She's with me," Blerta explained about Anila, and Sidoreli turned his head to meet her friendly smile and kind look.

    "You can sit on that sofa and wait if you want," the tattooist said formally, and he continued his work without waiting for her answer.

    Anila laughed at his dismissive behaviour towards her, sat on the sofa with her legs crossed and her elbow resting on the side rest, and looked out the entrance of the studio.

    She stared at an Instagram account stamped on the glass wall next to the outer door and a phone number below it. She immediately took her phone out of her pocket to note them for Brunilda, but then thought of giving up when she met his quick, understanding gaze of what she had wanted to do as the tattoo artist put on his black work gloves.

    Anila froze, embarrassed for creating the impression that she was obsessed with him, she was beginning to stalk him directly, and she immediately turned off the phone, but even for doing so, she instantly regretted it. Now Sidoreli was going to think that she had truly achieved exactly the goal that he had guessed, and she would embarrass herself even more.

    What should she do? Pretend to be busy by talking with someone on the phone? Maybe he would think that she had been looking for someone's number to talk to and not that she had wanted to record his number and Instagram account.

    Overthinking exhausted her. Perhaps the tattooist had not assumed any of her suspicions, and Anila had wondered in vain.

    "Was it you, Ania, that said that you were going to do a phoenix tattoo on your leg, or Romina?" Blerta asked.

    "Romina," Anila replied about their university friend.

    "I remember being you."

    "No, it was her," Anila insisted. "I don't like tattoos." She deliberately highlighted that information about herself for Sidoreli and lowered her head on her phone in disdain at his judgmental look.

    Blerta remained speechless, feeling awkward with her words, and said nothing more.

    Anila could hardly hold back her laughter from the created scene. When she followed her friend out of the studio, she turned to him, sitting behind the desk.

    "Shall I close the door?" she asked with the same seemingly arrogant look she had when she had said that she didn't like tattoos.

    "Yes," he replied with a judging look at her behaviour, and she laughed openly with irony before leaving to imply that she didn't care at all if he didn't like her.

    "Why did you say that?" Blerta asked irreproachably.

    "No reason," Anila shrugged carelessly.

    She didn't think she should tell her that it would be in her favour if he recalled what Anila had said about the tattoos, so that he would remember it when she introduced her cousin to him, and it would be easier for Brunilda to impress him. She would win his friendship and get his respect easily then, even though she hadn't created the impression that she deserved it.

    "Do you know him?"

    "Yeah, he is my brother's best friend."

    Anila was stunned by that answer.

    "Blerta, do you read books?" she asked out of the blue.

    "What books?"

    "Novels, mysteries, romance..."

    Maybe Blerta was interested in dating him, like in some book she had read about a girl and her brother's best friend.

    She would feel a little sad because she had thought of the tattoo artist dating Brunilda.

    "No, Ania. Where do I have time for fiction?" Blerta ignored her with a light movement of her hand. "I can barely handle real life, let alone novels with four hundred pages."

    Anila laughed in relief.

    "Do you know if he's dating anyone? I'm asking for a friend."

    Now it was Blerta's turn to laugh.

    "You know that this argument doesn't drink water anymore, right? The fact that you're asking for a friend."

    "No, I'm serious," Anila answered with such a tone of voice.

    "As far as I know, no. He isn't dating. His name is Sidorel Nura. He is twenty-four years old, lives alone here in Tirana, and his family is in the capital city as well. The boy we first met at his studio was his brother, Mateo."

    "How many family members does he have?"

    "Two parents, four brothers, and one sister."

    "There are five boys and a girl?" Anila opened her eyes in shock. "Which child is the girl?

    "The sixth."

    "Wow! Are they fanatics?"

    "As far as I have noticed about Sidoreli, no. I'm not aware that well of the others."

    "Which child is he?"

    "The second. Leonardi's the first one, married, and has a daughter. After Sidoreli are the twins, Gabrieli and Emanueli, then Mateo and Alketa. They are four years apart from each other, except for the twins. They were all born in May, just for information, the children and the two parents; and... it's a coincidence, that's what I call it, the fact that for five generations in a row, all the men in the family were married at the age of twenty-four with their own will. Sidoreli turned twenty-four years old this year, on May 4th, and they are now waiting for him to tell them the date when he will get married. The deadline is May 4th next year to continue the tradition."

    "Seriously?" Anila laughed. "Well, maybe he continues the tradition," she rubbed her hands from the emotions created by imagining the tattooist and her best friend married together.

    She imagined how much she would laugh with Sidoreli too when they met again under other circumstances, and she would tell him the goals that she had had for him and Brunilda that would have been realised by then.