Montevarchi, Arezzo Nov 15, 2020 (Issuewire.com) - My book, Broken Hearts on Boulevard Unirii, revealing adult adventure tale, Broken Hearts on Boulevard Unirii, is inspired by real events and shows the true unpredictability of lives and relationships put to the test.
Childhood friends Elia, Giorgio, Claudio, and Fabrizio have met in their favorite café in the center of the ancient city of Arezzo, in Tuscany, for forty years. One day, they decide to go to Bucharest with other old acquaintances to visit their mutual friend Angelo. When they arrive, Angelo has a surprise waiting for them–but little do they know that this visit will change their lives forever. Cracks begin to appear in their marriages, as well as in the wonderful friendships they’ve enjoyed for so long, and it all begins with this first trip . . . which won’t be their last.
Fragment of the book:
My plane landed at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport on time, at five o'clock in the afternoon. I walked through the automatic doors to the arrivals hall and immediately noticed Oana jumping up and down, waving her hands over the heads of those waiting for family and friends.
At first, she looked a bit embarrassed, but she quickly recovered and came up to me and hugged me tightly. She pressed a kiss on my cheek; I returned the kiss on her cheek. When I tried to kiss her on her other cheek she pressed a short kiss on my lips.
"Is that all the luggage you have?" she asked when she noticed that all that I was pulling was a small trolley.
"Yes," I answered."I have some clothes in the apartment where I will be staying. What I have in here is the clothing I needed for the few days that I was traveling on business."
We took a taxi to the city, and as usual, the driver drove very recklessly. I asked Oana to tell the driver to kindly slow down.
We were sitting in silence in the back seat of the taxi when she suddenly placed her hand on my knee. I took hold of her hand and she smiled at me shyly.
"So we’re going to Bulgaria in August?" she asked in order to break the silence.
"Yes, we are and I am really glad that you have decided to come along," I answered.
"Where are you staying in Bucharest?" she asked.
"Strada Mihai Voda," I responded. "Do you know where that is?"
"Of course, that is on the pedestrian shopping street," she answered.
"That is precisely where my apartment is," I told her.
"Wow, that is great!" she commented.
The taxi driver tried to get as close as possible to the building. I asked Oana to tell him to stop right where he was then, a short distance from the flat.
We stopped in a store near the building and I bought a bottle of mineral water to take to the apartment. I asked her if she would like to come up with me.
Sounding relieved, she said, "I thought you would never ask."
We went upstairs. As we opened the door, the foul odor of cigarette smoke that had permeated the heavy curtains and the wall-to-wall carpeting hit us.
"You have to throw out the carpet and curtains," Oana said. "The smell is unbearable."
I opened the kitchen window and a cold wind blew in. The apartment was freezing as the heating was off. After a while, I closed the window and turned the heating on.
"It’s going to take several hours for the apartment to warm up," Oana said.
We sat on the bed in our coats drinking hot tea, we moved closer trying to get warm. Oana took off her coat and crawled under the woolen blanket I had bought. I followed her and also crawled under the blanket. Since it was a single bed we were forced to snuggle up tightly. We naturally began to kiss and hug and I was able to feel the warmth of her body under her clothes, which she quickly removed.
"This way we are surely going to be warm," she whispered into my ear.
When I woke up the next morning the apartment was nice and warm. Oana was no longer in the apartment as she apparently had left early for work. After taking a shower and going back to the room to get dressed, I noticed there was a text message on my mobile phone.
"I can still taste your kisses…." it read.
I smiled and immediately replied, "What? You haven’t brushed your teeth?"
I went down to a café for a cup of coffee and then took a taxi to Dorina's office. As she greeted me politely and very officially, I felt that there was now a distance between us.
"Here is the list of all my expenses, "Dorina said."I believe I sent it to you by e-mail."
"How much do I owe you?" I asked.
"Nearly two thousand dollars, for the materials I received from the supplier. I was forced to pay the workers five hundred dollars, also from my own money because they sat in my office and refused to leave until they got paid," Dorina explained.
I paid her the money I owed and asked her for the receipts for the materials. She made copies of everything and handed them to me.
We then went together to the apartment that was being renovated. The difference was quite noticeable. The floor tiles she had chosen were really beautiful. She's got good taste, I thought to myself.
I decided that at this point it wouldn’t be beneficial to give compliments. I have learned from experience that compliments can often cause the recipient to take it too easy and think they are indispensable. In the end, I succumbed, and let the words "great work" slip from my mouth.
The beauty of the apartment was just now becoming apparent, although I had imagined that it could be a real luxury apartment.
I asked Dorina if she would come with me to meet the next-door neighbor, whose apartment was originally part of my apartment before it was divided.
We knocked on the door and a woman of about eighty or ninety years old opened the door.
"May we enter and may I introduce you to your new neighbor," Dorina asked the old lady.
"Where are you from?" the old lady inquired.
"I am Italian from Tuscany," I replied.
"Io parlo molto bene l'Italiano,[1]" she said.
"When I was younger, I was a translator. I also worked for the government as so. Whenever official Italian delegations came to Romania or when Romanians went to Italy. The Romanian Foreign Ministry also used my services."
I expressed my admiration for her.
"Perhaps you can tell me about the previous tenants of the building," I asked, and immediately regretted it, as she launched into a long monologue.
"By now you know that the building is a three-story building, and originally on each floor, there was one apartment. When the war broke out, three families lived in the building,” she said.
“Jacont Michelle, his wife, Flora, and two young daughters, whose names I have forgotten, lived on the ground floor. The girls were beautiful, maybe five or six years old. On the middle floor, a dentist named Alfred Scheinholtz lived. He was of German descent, and he, like the others was Jewish. He wasn’t married but lived with the housekeeper, who apparently was his lover. On the top floor, in your apartment and mine, which too was originally one apartment, the Bercovici family lived. The husband, Silvio, was a railroad engineer, and his wife, Ilona Pinto, was a writer. They had three children. The oldest was a boy of ten, then came a fat little girl, Isidora, who was a year younger, and finally their youngest son who was maybe a year old. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember that he was adorable.
During the war, it was business as usual for Romania as King Carol was not bad for the Jews. That all ended when Romania joined with the Germans against Russia. By May 1942, most Jews in Romania were sent to Transistria, a concentration and extermination camp similar to Auschwitz in Poland.
I vividly remember the day. I was about twenty-six years old when the Iron Guard police of the Fascist Party of Romania rounded up the Jews from their houses. They were lined up in the street and loaded like cattle into waiting trucks. People dressed in their best clothes, thinking they were being taken on an outing, were sent to the extermination camps never to return. The Jacont, Scheinholtz, and Bercovici families were among those taken, never to be heard from again. As a result, the building was left abandoned and neglected."
"How did you obtain your apartment?"I asked.
I suddenly thought how stupid of me to ask such a question. I should have realized that since she was employed by the government, she would receive an apartment in a building that was nationalized and divided among government employees.
At this point, the old woman fell silent, looked at me suspiciously, and asked, "Are you Jewish?"
"No, I am just asking out of curiosity, "I lied.
Now it was her turn to lie when she said, "I bought it from the communist government."
Dorina and I thanked the old lady and said good-bye. We went out into the street and breathed the cool air of Cismigiu. I could not stop thinking about the poor inhabitants of the building who didn’t have the opportunity to leave their property to their children.
Fabrizio let me know that the grand opening celebration of his bar would take place at the weekend, in other words, in three days. I decided to return to Italy the day after the party.
I called Claudio and asked him if he would like to surprise Fabrizio by coming with Elia to the celebration. Initially, Claudio was a bit surprised, but when he regained his composure, he said that he would make every effort to come. He promised to talk to Elia. He then asked me if I had seen Oana since I arrived. I told him that I had, but I didn’t want to get into details about what had transpired between us.
Now that I was alone, I phoned Giorgina and informed her that I was in Bucharest and that I was coming to see her. The documents for the apartment on Boulevard Decebal were awaiting my signature and the keys were already in her possession since payment in full had already been made.
At our meeting, she gave me the deeds from the Land Registry Office for the first two apartments that I had purchased. She told me that the registration for the present apartment would go much quicker because it was free of liens or loans and was registered only in the name of the current owner.
"Excellent," I said.
She then asked me if I was interested in renting out the apartments.
"Of course," I answered."As soon as the renovations are done and I buy some furniture, I want to rent them out."
"Please let me know when you’re ready for that. I know a lot of business people who are looking to rent apartments, but are unable to find something suitable. Hotels are very expensive," she added.
In the taxi on the way to my apartment, I asked the driver to change direction and take me to Fabrizio's bar. When I got to the bar, I found him there alone, cleaning the counter. The bar was empty.
"Where is Luciana?"I asked
"Luciana comes and goes at will," he answered in an embittered tone.
"Fabrizio," I said."What is happening between the two of you?"
"Let's go out for a smoke," he said.
We went outside and I saw him light a cigarette that looked suspicious to me.
"'What's that?"I asked him.
He laughed and looked at me oddly, "A Spinello,[2]" he said.
"Since when do you smoke joints?" I asked.
"Stop acting funny. It's only a spinello. Nothing serious," he replied.
I didn’t want to bother him more than necessary. As it was, he seemed to be a bit depressed. I didn’t even tell him about my investments in Bucharest, so as not to sound arrogant.
"Fabrizio, did you and Luciana break up?"I asked.
"She is ambitious and jealous. She wants me to get divorced at once. She doesn’t want me to talk or to be friendly with any of the female customers. As soon as I get friendly with one, she immediately accuses me of wanting to fuck her," Fabrizio told me.
"What’s going to happen next?"I asked.
"I have no idea. I don’t know where all this will lead to," he replied.
After he finished smoking, we went into the bar for an espresso.
In a low voice and with tears in his eyes, he said, "She broke my heart. I am in love with her."
"Would you like me to talk to her?" I asked.
"It will probably be of no use. She found somebody else," he answered.
"Perhaps she is doing it to make you jealous?" I asked.
"She left me. I didn’t leave her," he replied.
"Nevertheless, it can't hurt to try," I suggested.
"If you think you can be successful, by all means, try," he said.
"Has Angelo tried to talk to her?"I asked.
"No," he replied.
"Give me her phone number. I will call her and try to set up a meeting," I said.
As he was about to give me her number, Luciana walked into the bar.
"Hi Giorgio," she said, as she came up to me and kissed me on my cheek, totally ignoring Fabrizio who was standing right there.
"Luciana, can I talk to you in private?"I asked.
"Sure," she answered. "Where would you like to go?"
"Let's go sit in the restaurant across the street and have a drink together," I suggested.
We walked across the street to a restaurant that was normally full of laborers enjoying their meals, but when we came it was nearly empty, with only one couple eating at the rear of the restaurant.
We sat far away from them, out of earshot. The waiter came over and handed us a menu, and in Romanian asked, "What would you like to drink?"
"Bring two Ţuică, I think we are going to need it," Luciana answered with a smile.
"Let's get right to the point. After all, we aren’t small children," I said. "Tell me, do you love him?"
"Giorgio," she began. "Do you remember how it all started? It's not a question of love, there are other interests involved here. At the moment I am involved with a wealthy Turkish businessman who is ten years younger than Fabrizio. He is good to me and I live with him in a luxury apartment that he rents in the city center. He has a car and we travel a lot. He spends a great deal of money on me, buys me clothes and we dine in the best restaurants. You tell me, what am I supposed to do?"
I didn’t know what to say. I was silent for a moment and then looked her in the eye and said, "He is madly in love with you."
"I know, and that hurts my heart, but that's the reality. I come to the bar to help him and to see that he is okay, but the bar is empty, with no customers. He’s having trouble paying the rent and other bills. There are other things, but I can’t tell you. Besides, it will not help. That’s the present situation."
I realized that there was not much I could do. I finished the Ţuică, which burnt my throat, paid the bill and we left.
Once outside, I looked her straight into the eyes and said, "Luciana, he is a good man. Too bad it has to end this way."
She didn’t answer me. She lowered her head and suddenly turned around; apparently, she didn’t want me to see the tears streaming down her face.
Luciana didn’t follow me back to the bar.
"Fabrizio, she loves you. Wait and see, she will come back to you," I said to him encouragingly.
Preparations for the opening were in full swing. Fabrizio and Angelo sent out invitations to everyone they knew. The bar was colorfully decorated in honor of the grand opening, and a large sign at the door announced that that evening, entrance to the bar was by invitation only. Fabrizio, dressed in an impressive suit, stood in the doorway and welcomed the visitors.
Angelo was able to bring some high officials from the municipality to the celebration. Several football fans who knew the bar came, as well as some Italian businessmen who had seen the invitation hanging in their hotels. Luciana arrived alone and immediately went into action. She stood at the bar preparing drinks while a waiter walked among the guests offering them.
Fabrizio sat down at the piano and started playing some jazz and Italian folk music, mainly well-known Napolitano tunes. The atmosphere in the bar began to warm up.
Oana suddenly appeared and waved to me as I went over and gave her a big hug. She looked beautiful, smelled delicious, and was dressed in a very sexy and provocative dress, with a plunging neckline that revealed her breasts and a short skirt that exposed a pair of long and shapely legs.
While everyone was celebrating and drinking, suddenly Elia and Claudio entered accompanied by two girls, Silvia and Roxana, whom we had met on our first trip. Along with them, Silvia's twin sister, Mirella came along; the Mirella who was my companion on that trip.
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