“The Thinker and the Lover,” Henriette mused as her eyes glided over the movie poster. “Interesting. ‘Inspired by the novel Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse.’” She turned to Ela and Pamfil. “Have you read this book?”

“No,” they both said in unison.

“So does this mean the thinker doesn’t love, and the lover doesn’t think?” Henriette quipped, heartily amused at the notion.

“We’ll see,” Pamfil said. “I imagine it’s probably about personality dominants than a clear-cut dichotomy. I read somewhere that the ‘lover’ is an artist, so he clearly thinks a bit,” he added with a smile.

Some two hours later they were outside again, walking down Dacia Boulevard to Romana Square.

“So how did you like it?” Pamfil asked.

“I liked that the artist was also a wanderer. Many artists are wanderers at heart,” Henriette said.

“I felt sad for the scholar,” Pamfil said. “He helped Goldmund find his path in life but he couldn’t help himself. He died unfulfilled, unloved.”

Henriette shook her head in disbelief at Pamfil’s way of showing his soft side. “But Goldmund loved him,” she countered, even-tempered, keeping her gaze ahead.

“But are they separate people or just separate ideas?” Ela put in.

“What do you mean?” Henriette asked, turning to her friend.

“Maybe Narcissus and Goldmund are facets of the same personality, complementary aspects of one’s psyche rather than opposite characters,” Ela said. “Forces that struggle to express themselves, seeking fulfillment of the mind and the senses.”

“Mediated by the mysterious soul, perhaps,” Henriette interjected with a smile.

“Perhaps.” Ela took in the amber light around her, in the sky and on the beautiful late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century villas of French and Neo-Romanian eclecticism.

Henriette looked at Ela looking at the city at sunset.

“My place?” Pamfil asked. “You could humor me and play some piano,” he added, turning to Henriette. “You and Ela.”

Poets, Artists, Lovers: A Novel is now available on Amazon. Here it is!

“Hey! Glad you could make it!” exclaimed Henriette, enveloping her younger friend Ela in a hug and wafts of sea breeze fragrance before giving her the customary kiss on both cheeks.

Ela readjusted her glasses, amused at how exuberant Henriette still was at thirty-four.

“Should we go in?” Henriette prompted, opening the door with a flourish.

Ela stepped gingerly into the exhibition space. “Beautiful place,” she remarked, noting how the sunbeams streaming through the large glass wall glinted off the rough, irregular surfaces of bronze-cast works.

“Coffee, tea?” Henriette asked as Ela removed her scarf and trench coat.

“Tea. But I want to look at the sculptures first.”

“See if you can spot mine,” Henriette called after her.

A few moments later the bell on the door tinkled, and Pamfil, a tall, dark-eyed man with a mop of wavy black hair entered the gallery, his eyes on Henriette.

“Hello, Ettie,” he said with a smile, taking a cursory look around the gallery. Ela was by now at the other end of the room, engrossed in a sculpture depicting a hybrid between the torso of a woman and the trunk of a tree.

“Hello, Phil,” Henriette returned nonchalantly.

“How are you doing?” Pamfil asked.

“Came to see the show with a friend of mine,” Henriette responded. She grabbed a tea mug and headed with Pamfil in tow to where Ela was photographing a work displaying a heart squeezed under a tall stack of books.

“Reminds me of Har,” Ela said, taking the mug from Henriette. “He’s spending more time with books than with people.”

“He does,” Pamfil interjected carelessly, throwing the remark in Henriette’s direction.

Henriette gave him a sly smile.

“You know Haralambie?” Ela asked, turning to the new visitor with curiosity.

“Heard this and that about him,” Pamfil responded, his words slipping out slowly, carefully as he appraised Ela’s soft chestnut eyes and thick eyebrows, her dark ringlets of hair, and her petite body, inviting in a flattering dress and waist-length cardigan. His eyes lingered a moment too long on her breasts.

“Sorry, where are my manners?” Henriette blurted. “Ela, this my friend Pamfil. Pamfil, this is Ela, my very good friend.”

The two guests shook hands, their faces lit up by smiles.

Henriette looked around the room, pretending to ponder the exhibition. Her gaze returned to the heart sculpture. “So you recognized one of my pieces,” she said to Ela, while the latter sipped her hot, minty brew. “Here’s another,” she went on, pointing her guests to a Janus-faced flattened head kissing a woman on each side.

Pamfil spent a moment taking in the work. “Cute. You must have really enjoyed shrinking this guy’s brain,” he teased.

“Is that revenge on someone from your past?” Ela asked.

Henriette bypassed her friends’ last remarks. “How’s your tea, Ela?”

“Great.”

“Girls, I have to bow out,” Pamfil said. “It was nice seeing you, Ettie.”

Henriette couldn’t restrain a smirk.

Pamfil put out a hand to Ela. “Nice meeting you, Ela.”

When it was time for them, too, to leave, Ela turned to her friend. “That guy, Pamfil . . .” she started. “He’s rather handsome.”

“He is,” Henriette affirmed.

“How do you know him?” Ela asked.

“We met at a party.”

“Do you like him?”

“He’s okay,” Henriette responded, a little disconcerted.

“I’d like to meet him again,” Ela said.

Poets, Artists, Lovers: A Novel is now available on Amazon. Here it is!

Poets, Artists, Lovers: A Novel is now available on Amazon. Here’s an excerpt.

“Why are you always leaving your things in the middle of the floor?” Haralambie asked. His girlfriend didn’t respond, so he stepped out of the kitchen to seek her.

He had left her in the living room, writing up an artist’s statement for a recent batch of sculptures. Now he found her there stretching in her chair, her long fingers woven through her flowing, wavy red hair. She gave him a rueful look and then settled back to get on with her work at the computer.

“Henriette, this is not just your studio. I live here too,” Haralambie said with a sigh. He crouched to gather her latest clay pieces, her sculpting utensils and plastic sheets, and took them to the balcony. Henriette helped, but halfheartedly. Her mind was on the blurb she was drafting that morning. She said as much to Haralambie, but her focus had already shifted, so when he returned to the kitchen to finish his coffee and smoke another cigarette, she put on a sixties rock ballad. Soon she was swaying gently to and fro, swinging her arms around gracefully, and twirling her hands up in the air—until she noticed Haralambie leaning against the doorframe.

“Is that what it’s like at those parties of yours?” he asked.

“No, but that’s how I like it sometimes,” she responded provocatively, a wicked smile on her lips.

Haralambie walked over to her, cupped her face in his hands, and planted a kiss on her lips. “You’re not sixteen anymore, Henriette, and you know it.”

To read more, here’s the book on Amazon!