PUIU SPIRU-unul dintre cei mai valoroși oameni din județul Tulcea

Tuturor celor carora le place “La Chilia-n port” si nu stiu cine a scris-o

,,Ion Mareş" Vulcana - Băi's Blog


Lucian Blaga a scris cândva, cu deplin temei, că Veșnicia s-a născut la țară, adică la sat. O mărturie în acest sens o aduce și viața poetului-muzician Puiu Spiru. A văzut lumina zilei la Lunvavița, județul Tulcea, la 1 ianuarie 1925 și a încetat din viață la 23 august 2010. Părinții săi, oameni înstăriți, boieri de viță grecească, erau proprietarii celor mai importante clădiri din comună (localuri confiscate de comuniști și folosite mai târziu ca localuri pentru Școlă, C.a p. și Cooperația de consum). A urmat școala primară în comuna natală, Liceul la „Vasile Alecsandri” din Galați, îndreptându-se apoi spre Conservatorul din București, întrucât era pasionat de muzică și pictură. Din păcate, după 1947, noul regim i-a trimis părinții la Canal, iar el a fost exmatriculat de la Conservator și trimis la muncă zilnică și silnică la construirea hidrocentralei de la Bicaz. A făcut cunoștință și cu închisorile comuniste pentru…

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Invitație la Bookfest și interviu cu autoarea Marina Costa

Am plăcerea să vă prezint interviul realizat de site-ul Bibliocărți referitor la cărțile pe care le-am publicat până în prezent.

De asemenea, vă invit la Bookfest, pe 2 iunie 2018, între orele 16-18, la Cafeneaua Literară Julius Meinl, pentru prezentarea romanului “Prietenii dreptății”!

Invitatie Bookfest

(Pe lângă romanul meu și alte romane, se va lansa volumul colectiv de proză scurtă Amprente pe cerul înstelat, în care am și eu un text – tot istoric, desigur…)

O nouă recenzie la “Pribegii mărilor”

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Mulțumesc doamnei Ioana Stana de la Centrul Cultural StanArt pentru recenzia de mai jos!

Pribegii Mărilor, romanul istoric de debut al scriitoarei Marina Costa (Lelia Elena Vasilescu), este scris într-o manieră specifică poveștilor lui Wilhelm Hauff, îmbinând armonios șirul evenimentelor, cu acuratețea și logica specifică unui bărbat și cu verticalitatea, sensibilitatea și atenția descriptivă detaliată, caracteristică unei femei.
Cititorii pasionați de romane istorice, vor avea surpriza să descopere unicitatea modului de abordare a subiectului, tot așa cum tinerii vor experimenta în final, dorința de a-și completa cunoștințele privitoare la acea perioadă, cu meticulozitatea și atenția de care autoarea a dat dovadă, pentru a-și permite, cu ajutorul imaginației, să continue povestea, în limita posibilelor eventualități.

În romanul Pribegii Mărilor, relatarea evenimentelor nu este dată de un personaj, martor imparțial al unor evenimente istorice, sau ale unei epoci, cum ne-am obișnuit citind romanele istorice ale Anyei Seton, sau Philippei Gregory, unde avem ocazia citind faptele, atent redate și din diferite unghiuri să ne formăm propriile păreri, după cum nu regăsim victima unei situații, sau a unei perioade istorice, care se află în căutarea unei forme de reintegrare în societate, urmărită fiind de fantomele trecutului, ca-n romanele lui Nelson DeMille.

În romanul Pribegii Mărilor, evenimentele ne sunt transmise simplu, aparent la puțin timp după momentul producerii lor, ca în final să înțelegem că retrăim emoțiile unei povești, ajunse la noi, întocmai ca un mesaj aruncat într-o sticlă în valuri, sau prin respectul acordat istoriei, de către primul om care găsește un jurnal al unor timpuri demult apuse.

Naturalețea cu care autoarea trece de la proză la vers și invers, aducând astfel în context poemele și cântecele acelor vremuri, probabil că nu ar trebui să surprindă pe nimeni, câtă vreme, încă din perioada gimnaziului, dovedea nu numai interes pentru istorie și limbi străine, dar și pentru poezie și proză, remarcându-se deseori în cadrul cenaclului „Pasiuni” al liceului de Filologie-Istorie Iulia Hașdeu.

Totuși lejeritatea cu care o face se apropie mai degrabă de arta dramaturgică, de siguranța unui scenarist, decât de a unui romancier, pregătit și interesat doar de evenimentele erei respective.

Sunt sigură că acest roman va rămâne întipărit în memoria cititorilor, într-un mod în care doar poveștile copilăriei o mai pot face, venind de această dată și cu o frumoasă descriere a unei epoci, nu foarte des amintită în zilele noastre, cel puțin nu în atâtea detalii și privită din acest unghi.

Încă mă întreb dacă o continuare ar păstra farmecul încă viu, sau modul în care se termină oferă fiecăruia șansa să-și creeze singur propriile variante, ale unei povești, ce pare că abia acum începe.

Acest sentiment suntem obișnuiți să ni-l asumăm nu neapărat după citirea unui roman istoric, dar cu siguranță în finalul operelor lui Edgar Allen Poe, sau Mircea Eliade.

Sunt convinsă că tinerii noștri, vor regăsi pasiunea de a citi, iar setea de cunoaștere le va fi transmisă doar prin astfel de manifestări scriitoricești, precum sunt convinsă că acest mod de abordare al romanului istoric va fi primit cum se cuvine de către cititorii români.

Ioana Stana


An interview which never happened

I just noticed that an interview I have filled in some months ago never got to be published by the one who had requested it. Most likely, because I am not an English language writer. But I am posting it here, since it has been written and sent, therefore it exists, for those who want to learn more about me and my novels…

  1. What sort of career did you have before becoming a writer?

I am an economist. I have a PhD in World Economics (the dissertation being, in 1996, about the European transport policy). I have worked for a whole career in EU Affairs/ EU projects management. I have published several professional papers and 2 handbooks in the past (1999-2015). Actually, in 1999, I published the first project management handbook ever in Romanian. The others, at Uni and at postgraduate courses, were starting with 2000.

 2. Was there a triggering event that prompted you to begin writing?

I have been writing for a lifetime. I don’t think there was any special event triggering it, just discovering that I can play with words and create worlds, not only with toys. I remember a story in first grade about a witch who flew over a man and turned him into a rabbit. And my first attempt at a novel was Western, in sixth grade, lasting 2 notebooks of 100 pages, handwritten loosely.

  1. Do you now write full time or part time?

I can’t say that I am writing full time. Can anyone, when there are enough things to do in the household? Or rather in the two households I am managing, since I am also taking care of my mother, who is 89.

Five of the novels I have written in high school and Uni had a literary value, so much later I transcribed them on computer, correcting, completing/ re-writing them and hoping that some day they might be published.

The Wanderers of the Seas“, my debut novel, published in June 2016, had been written, in a thinner version, in my first year of Uni, in 1987. It got transcribed on the computer in 2002, and corrected, then it got some completions in 2009. The first 12 chapters of the first volume of “Lives in Turmoil“, my second novel, published in March 2017, were written in 1984, in the summer holidays between the tenth and eleventh grade. “Rightness’ Friends“, published in April 2018, was written, in a thinner version, in my last year of highschool. That got transcribed in 2007 on computer, completed and re-written. In 2017, it just underwent some editing and condensing for publishing.

I had the opportunity to meet an interested publisher in late 2015, at a literary presentation. We talked, exchanged e-mails, and I sent him “The Wanderers of the Seas”, which was the shortest among these three best ones, to tell me if it was any good. There had been a few months until he succeeded to read it, and he was enthusiastic about it. This is how I got to be published, and at the official launching of the book I was sitting like a bride, the happiest possible…

  1. What parts of the writing career do you enjoy the most/the least?

I like both researching and writing.

I don’t enjoy so much the marketing part, especially because what I am reading online is mostly valid for the English language books market and not valid for my country’s books market.

  1. What parts of your former career do you miss/not miss?

I had a fulfilling carreer, so I don’t miss it. I feel I did my duty contributing to the European integration of my country, in the specific fields I have worked for. And I brought it projects amounting to over one billion EUR in 23 years in this field, I have contributed to negotiating several international transport agreements…

  1. Do you have any regrets?

I regret a little not having had the opportunity to publish sooner. Also I regret being known more outside my country, ie by people who can’t read my novels, than inside. I would have wished to know book review bloggers from my country too, and get my books reviewed by them. I would have wished that electronic books were a thing in my country too (they aren’t much), and that I had the technical knowledge to upload my books somewhere online too.

  1. What advice would you offer other second career writers?

To keep writing, because if they like writing their stories, someone would surely like reading them. And not to be discouraged because they haven’t been a prodigy child, published at 15, nor because there are writers who make greater sales or more readers or more book copies. Everyone does as much as they can. Keep writing, because otherwise there will be nothing to be read… (And keep improving yourself by reading everything about creative writing you can find, while adapting them to your style. Because nobody can write YOUR story, only slightly different ones…)

8. What are the ‘magic ingredients’ that make historical fiction unforgettable and irresistible?

A proper description of the setting, based on strong research, compelling characters and an inciting narrative trip. Learning lots of things when you close the book and wanting to research more about that time – be it a folk dance (or a court dance) on youtube, a mentioned poet’s writings or a historical event on wikipedia.

I don’t believe in keeping the speaking and vocabulary of those times, despite the fact that some readers and writers swear by it. (I don’t believe in blatant anachronisms either, though. But there has to be a middle way). If we are writing today, we can’t keep the language of Shakespeare and have people understand our writing, even if it happens in the Tudors’ era.

What if it happens in Antiquity? They were speaking Latin or Ancient Greek, or Egyptian (which was not the Arabic now Egyptians are speaking), and our novel was written in French/ English/ Italian – whatever the writer’s mother tongue. So you’d better give us the athmosphere, instead of the way of speaking/ vocabulary of those times, in order to be read with interest. Yes, some specific words are to be given and explained – if in Ancient Rome, you can’t avoid mentioning the thermae, vespasianes, praetori. But you aren’t writing in Latin, neither in the phrase structures of that time. And if you add translating a book from the writer’s mother tongue to the reader’s (English-written books are translated in all countries, from Japan to Russia and Argentina), then the problem of the vocabulary adds to my point.

I was asked if, writing about Americans and Italians, but in Romanian, some expressions I used do exist in those languages. I replied that in those languages there is slang with a similar meaning, even if different in wording, and that for the Romanian readers, we have to relate to Romanian slang, because this gives the idea that the words were colloquial and not the most official ones. And that if we translate word by word, instead of the ultimate meaning, the results are strange and contrived, far from what we wanted to show.

9. In your opinion, what do the best historical fiction writers do to ‘get it right’?

Researching and filtering the information through the eyes of both the writer and the characters. Immersing the reader into the century and the setting of their choice. Not giving too many opportunities for … suspension of disbelief/ rule of cool, even if these are so fashionable now.

 10. Are historical novels inherently different from contemporary novels, and if so, in what ways?

They describe different times, when people had different mindsets, and they have to be reflected as such. Not as many feminists and social rights fighters (accepted by most people around, instead of being shunned as dangerous, rare oddities) as the most recent novels show. They have to be understood in the light of their times, not in ours. Just be thankful that after the time travel through the book, to exciting adventures and different centuries’ mindsets, you return to your current, hot tap water and washing machine…

 11. Do you see any particular trends in historical fiction?

American Civil War, Tudors and Victorian era in English language writings. Renaissance and World Wars in French language writings. Actually the two World Wars are very in fashion in any language. An opening which I salute to the Far East’s history (mainly Japan and China but also others).

I also see the trend of seeing history with modern eyes, instead of with the eyes then. And then it becomes something it was not – just a nice contemporary story in pretty costumes, with modern decisions and modern mindsets, and this new political correctness which… in my opinion, isn’t fairer than what was before, just more confusing, and alienating the contemporary reader from the historical mindset and motivations.

12. What aspects about the past do you specifically try to highlight in your novels?

I am writing the story of those who are too commoner to be mentioned in chronicles, but who are forging their silent path among historical events and participating persons who are mentioned in the chronicles. I am trying to immerse the readers in the setting, and critics had said that I write “cinematographically”. I am focusing on traditions (for birth, wedding, death, sworn brothers, etc), mindsets, folklore and public festivals, religious beliefs and superstitions, as well as on the main historical events of the time as viewed through the characters’ lens and biases.

13. What research sources and techniques do you use to ensure that conflict, plot, setting, dialogue, and characters are true to the time period?

I am from a small European country and I write historical fiction happening in several countries/ eras. I have used for research all kind of books, old maps, old descriptions (journals, letters, etc) and manuals, youtube movies, google maps, forums… Any possibility of research available, I use it! Many people hadn’t thought, when I told them, that youtube can be good for seeing places where I have never been, local festivals/ traditions, music, dances, sea battles from movies, duels, bullfights, various documentaries.

Millieu, Intrigue, Character, Event (MICE)

Today I want to give you an overview of something that I find useful when figuring out where to start and stop a story and how to keep it on track.

It’s called the MICE Quotient and I learned about it from Mary Robinette Kowal, though it was invented by Orson Scott Card.

The letters stand for:

M – Milieu
I – Intrigue/Idea
C – Character
E – Event

Each letter tells you what type of story you’re telling.

Milieu story

This is largely a story about place. Usually your character arrives in a new place at the start, and most of their struggle is about them neogitating that place, learning about it, trying to escape it. The story ends when they leave that place or they fit it.

EXAMPLES: The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Ever After.

Intrigue/Idea Story

A question is posed at the beginning of the story. The story ends when the mystery is solved or the question is satisfactorily answered.

EXAMPLES: Sherlock Holmes, Arrival/The Story Of Your Life

Character Story

A character starts off with an internal conflict and, by the end of the story they have changed it, or rejected the idea of change, or at least understood where the problem lies.

EXAMPLES: Die Hard (Seriously, John McClane has issues at the start of that movie!), The King’s Speech.

Event Story

External forces change the world at the start and drive the struggle in the middle of the story. At the end of the story the status quo has been restored or a new normal has been established.

EXAMPLES: The Hunger Games, The Parent Trap, disaster movies!

The infographic is here. It helps more, with the visual component.

I also thank Julie Duffy from Stories a day, because she helped me discover it, together with the fact that most of my novels are actually millieu stories, with a dash of character too. I used to call them “group stories“, trying to explain that I am writing more characters’ story, not only one or two’s, but this has been a revelation I am sharing with you all. Maybe it helps someone else as well.

Negotiations under water


The schooner anchored not far from them was in danger, and several sailors had fallen into the sea. Marina, who was able to swim, jumped, together with a few others from her ship, to save them. She caught one of the sailors and after a while, the one she was towing didn’t struggle anymore. She was relieved to notice this, as she had started to get tired fighting with him. But suddenly both her one and the other’s ceased holding on their rescuers and tried to reach quickly the side of the boat… all at the same time. Couldn’t any of them use their common sense judgment?

The boat, as expected, was in danger of capsizing now, thing noticed by the two rowers. They looked one at the other for one moment, almost like reading each other’s mind in their glances, then it seemed they agreed instantly upon the best thing to do in such a situation. Each of them approached the sailor who was the closest to him and threw a good punch, knocking him out in order to save the boat from getting turned upside down. The unlucky boxing bags let the boat go and went, unconscious, to the bottom of the sea, while another man gave a hand to one of the sailors, helping him to get into the boat suddenly relieved of its additional load. The one who had gripped the fender was also helped to get inside.

“Now I’d really need Gorgona’s help!” Marina thought. “Or at least if I knew the secrets of sponge fishers!”

She had admired always the sailors of the Greek Islands who went for sponges and corals, to the depth of the sea. She could swim, but she wasn’t an expert in diving and swimming under water… and there were two of them to be caught quickly!

Her thoughts were focused on a prayer while she was looking for bubbles to indicate where those men could have sunk. She finally saw some bubbles and dove in that direction, catching a mass of curly hair, then she pushed back to the surface with her prey. The boat was, of course, still close, so once that stupid sailor caught, they took hold of him and she took a deep breath, diving again… not too sure if there were really bubbles what she had seen this time.

Marina was diving deeper than the first time, searching for the man she couldn’t find. The water made a sort of a semi – opaque curtain, unlike in the gulfs of the Aegean where she had tried, for fun, diving together with her brother, many years ago. She wasn’t sure what to do next, how and where to look for him, if what she had seen weren’t his bubbles… “God, if it is Your will… please let me find him!” she prayed.

God? No, somebody else she would have to pray for the sailor’s life… because she was bewildered to see a beautiful girl, with a lily-white face having the features so well known around Thessaloniki, waiting there for her, in a blue-green attire… and with a golden comb in one hand. Was it for good or for bad that she was seeing Gorgona, so far away from her native seas?

Diamandis had told them he had caught a glimpse of her after a storm, while she was sitting on a rock of the many scattered around Monemvassia, and that he hurried to answer to her question before she asked it. It was, no doubt, the wisest thing to do, as their ship had been spared then. Now Marina was going to do the same:

“Hail, my queen!” she thought, carefully choosing her words. “Your brother is ruling happily for much more years than I can count, sending you greetings!”

It was exactly what Gorgona wanted to hear, but she didn’t expect to hear somehow the mermaid’s answer.

“And your brother is happy in my arms. Little Dora is my lady-in-waiting. You are doing well where I sent you. Have you told my story to these foreign sailors?”

Marina was strangely happy to hear these. At least the ones she had lost were far from any regret and pain now. Maybe it was better for a family of sailors to be at Gorgona’s court than in that Paradise with milk and honey and angels. She answered immediately:

“Yes, my queen, I did, and they liked it. They have other mermaids in their legends. My queen, please give me this sailor’s life, if it is upon Your will to spare him like you did with me…”

“It might be, but what are you willing to offer me in exchange?”

It was a fair question; only… what could she offer to the mighty queen of the sea who had everything?

“You have already my life. You have marked me as your own six years ago, in the shipwreck. I am yours to serve! What else can I give you?”

“Your tears?” came the unexpected answer.

“I am not allowed to cry. I am supposed to be a tough sailor boy,” Marina protested, without understanding.

Gorgona laughed:

“You aren’t opening your mouth either… and still we are holding a conversation. I want your tears, the ones you will cry for a lost love, exactly like the tears I had shed some time ago!”

“You have them… and anything you want from me!” she said earnestly, thinking that any sacrifice was worth for saving a life.

Besides, what could the mermaid really want? Her tears for a lost love? Will she really fall in love some day, and will it be like in the knights’ stories the girls at the monastery were telling far from the nuns’ ears, a broken heart’s tears? Well, a broken heart might be a fair price… for somebody else’s life! And in some stories or songs… even a broken heart healed after a while.

“Well, we’ll see what else I might want from you in the future – because, indeed, you are mine to serve… and you’ll do it well from the deck of a vessel, for many years to come. I have a plan for you!” Gorgona said.

This was nothing new to Marina, who had always believed that it was a reason why only she had been chosen to live after that shipwreck. And the reassurance that she will be a sailor for many years, was more than she could wish to hear. It meant her dream would become true some day.

“Thank you very much, my queen, I’ll try to be worth of your favours!”

The mermaid motioned her to come closer. When she did, Marina received a strange embrace… Hers? Then she felt in her arms the texture of a sailor’s clothes. She had been granted her request! As she reached the bottom of the sea, with a firm push she hurried to rise back at the surface, still holding well that sailor. They would survive. Both of them! And now she had more than the confirmation she was seeking about her destiny… she had Gorgona’s blessing.

The long awaited portion of fresh air came just in time, and the boat was nearby.

All rescued sailors aboard the boat, Marina could gather her strength to follow them. She was tired, but happy. The rain on her face helped her to overcome the tiredness and become again her usual self still while on the boat. The satisfaction of having saved two lives superseded everything else. Well, almost everything. And the other happiness she was hiding deep in her soul made her forget the rain, the pain in her tired muscles. When she finally succeeded to get inside, she heard that there was another man missing. Strangely, but these news didn’t surprise her.

“He wasn’t here around”, she said with a small, epuised voice, “otherwise I would have found him when I dove. He might have gone down somewhere else.”

The ones who wanted to look for the missing guy might try, but she had the feeling that they wouldn’t find him. Not even the body!

“How was he like, the missing one?” she asked the sailor who was closest to her.

Before hearing his answer, she suspected what this will be: the officer was a handsome young man, exactly how Gorgona liked to choose her devoted guards. This was the reason why she had accepted to grant her the second sailor’s life: she had already taken her tribute, a young officer.

Marina returned to her ship with a large smile on her face. The officers had ordered to have blankets and tea ready for the brave rescuers.

“Thank you very much for allowing me to go with them, Sir! That was really my call!” she told briefly the first lieutenant.

Seeing him around gave her a new idea – something she wanted to know since her underwater adventure. She approached him and asked with an apologetic smile:

“Sir, do you happen to know how deep was the water where we had to dive? I mean I reached the bottom… finally… but it seemed… strange.”

Actually, something else seemed really strange to her, but she couldn’t say it: “how was it possible to meet Gorgona so far away from her native Aegean or Ionian waters? And so close to the harbour!”

“You dived to the sea floor?” the first lieutenant was surprised. “From memory I’d say around 30 feet or thereabout. Have you felt lack of air? This might be the strangeness you are telling about.”

Nobody would ever learn about the negotiation under water. It was her secret – and even if she was foolish enough to say anything, who would believe that she received the mermaid’s blessing?


Români și Aromâni la Societatea Culturală Aromână București

A fost o duminica minunata!

Pe canapeaua Catiei

Dintotdeauna muzica și dansul tradițional aromân, grație măiestriei de conținut și sunet, au realizat o anume sublimare a realității în sufletul frământat al aromânului. Mai mult, l-au purificat și, într-o măsură subtilă, l-au rafinat. Altminteri, cum să stea drept aromânul în fața zbuciumatei sale istorii, conservându-și rădăcinile și suflul dătător de viață, dacă nu prin muzică și dans tradițional rostite în graiul matern?

Duminică, 29 Aprilie, la Societatea Culturală Aromână din București a avut loc un nou dialog român-aromân între Carpați și Pind: Împreună de Sfântul Gheoarghe/ Deadun Ayiu Yioryi cu tema Andreilu- Al Bagav și Câmpulung Muscel. Un eveniment organizat de Asociația Multiculturală “Nicu Hagi”Câmpulung Muscel, coordonată de familia Emil și Mihaela Hagi despre care, de câte ori am prilejul, îmi face plăcere să scriu.

În vremurile sărăcite de viziune și conținut pe care le trăim, o româncă musceleană și un aromân originar din Veria (Grecia) reușesc…

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Fragment din “Echipajul”


…Înfloriseră sălciile pe cheiul Dunării, făcând-o mai ademenitoare ca oricând. Alături de Leftheris şi de prietenii lui, am văzut desfăşurându-se sub ochii noştri uimiţi minunăţia sărbătorilor greceşti ale primăverii, cărora le-am trăit farmecul exotic de Armindeni şi de Sânziene.

De Armindeni, o şalupă a Santierului Naval, închiriată de tatăl lui Theodoros, ne-a plimbat pe ostroavele Dunării. Ca niciodată până acum, printre “palicarii” care ne invitaseră se aflau şi fete: surorile lui Theodoros, Hrisanthi şi Asteriţa, Hariklia, sora cea mică a lui Fotis, Antigoni, sora lui Ermis şi a lui Sotiris, Rinula şi încă vreo două ale căror nume nu le-am reţinut. Asteriţa, cu vreun an mai mare decât Lemoni, se împrieteni cu ea imediat, iar Hariklia îmi sări mie în braţe, spre bucuria fratelui ei, care, eliberat de griji, discuta ceva cu Virgil:

– Trebuie să căutam flori pentru maides. De aceea au venit toate fetele, îi explică el. Nu ştiu ce-a fost în mintea mamei de mi-a dat-o şi pe asta mică pe cap. I-am spus că e prea mică să ne poată ajuta!

– Ce sunt maides? întrebă Virgil mirat.

– Cununile de mai. Vei contribui şi tu la ele, nu-ţi fă griji!

Pe ostrov, sarcinile au fost împărţite rapid: băieţii şi fetele mici trebuiau să culeagă flori, iar noi, cele mari, trebuia să împletim cununi din “materia primă” pe care ne-o aduceau ei. Mi-ar fi plăcut şi mie să culeg flori, însă a trebuit să mă mulţumesc să împart cu Narcisa şi Mihaela rolul care mi se repartizase. Hrisanthi ne oferi câte un mosor cu aţă, iar Antigoni ne arătă cât de mari să le facem. Acasă urmau să fie completate cu flori de grădină şi cu nelipsita căpăţână de usturoi, care aduce noroc.

Când se întoarsera toţi culegătorii, iar cununile începuseră să-şi întrevadă forma finală, am aflat de existenţa unui mic complot: un picnic! Toţi băieţii aduseseră, în secret, câte ceva: Theodoros pâine, Odiseos brânză, Mihalis portocale, Fotis măsline, Sotiris adusese suc, iar Leftheris, o sticluță cu retsina. Un adevărat ospăţ ca-n Arhipelag! Am mâncat cu toţii cu plăcere, fiecare a sorbit, simbolic, câte o înghiţitură mică de retsina, ca să ne ajungă tuturor, după care “palicarii” noştri au fost rugaţi să-şi scoată instrumentele.

S-a cântat şi s-a dansat, cu sau fără instrumente, fiindcă “virtuozii” protestau, la rândul lor, exprimându-şi dorinţa să danseze. Una dintre melodii m-a impresionat în mod deosebit. Până atunci stăteam pe margine, furând paşii din ochi. Nu-mi dau seama cum de m-am prins în dans, cu riscul de a mă împiedica sau de a-i încurca pe ceilalţi. Vraja cântecului mă cuprinsese. Am strigat din toţi plămânii, împreună cu ceilalţi, încurajându-l pe Manolis, care “trăgea hora” cu tot felul de figuri măiestre.

La un moment dat, băieţii i-au făcut o şotie Antigoniei: au înconjurat-o într-o horă veselă, cântându-i o numărătoare pentru copii, acum adaptată pe loc:

“Aromă de cuişoare şi lămâi,

            Spune, Antigoni, cine te-a sărutat?

            – Pe mine? Nimeni, niciodată!

            …Decât… moş Mihalis!”

Pe Narcisa şi pe mine ne-a pufnit râsul, ştiind că în original era amintit un “moş Nikolis”. Mihalis se făcuse roşu ca racul, văzându-se nu atât moş, cât erou de cântec, şi încă pentru o fată mai mare decât el cu vreo doi-trei ani.

Ne-am întors veseli în strada Plevnei, unde Rinula a meşterit ce trebuia la trei dintre coroniţe, punându-le usturoi, liliac şi stânjenei. Ni le-a oferit, învăţându-ne ce să facem cu ele:

– Una pentru Mihaela, una pentru Narcisa, şi una pentru voi toţi, că staţi în aceeaşi casă, după câte am înţeles. O puneţi într-un cui în faţa casei, ori pe verandă, în balcon, undeva. Să o lăsaţi acolo să se usuce, până de Sânziene, când o să fie sărbătoare şi mai mare. Nu cumva s-o aruncaţi înainte!