La Dame sans Camellias 6

Her parents were divorced long time now. They separated in the most inappropriate time when Mia needed a father the most and when “the society” wouldn’t nod approvingly at such “unaccountable” human acts. She never got the complete idea what is that a society constitutes of, apart the common stereotypes introduced by someone, somewhere in time. Yet, by the way people seemed to use it as a tool in so many important for the adults occasions, Mia could guess The Society might have looked like a fat judge in black robe and a snow white wig, covering quite a bald head, who took the obligation to define what is and what is not appropriate, handed out to you as a leaflet at the very entrance of Life.

To put it commonly, this was the yardstick measure, used by everybody around to qualify various important and less important things and it proved to be a grandiose excuse to poke one’s nose in obviously other people’s private affairs, including the availability or the lack of people’s fathers and the primal reason for both. During the forthcoming years, the family would devote all efforts to feel the gap left after the missing parent. Tall order.

The kids would be thankful most probably, showing their gratitude mainly by the way they have been maturing silently through the years.

Auntie Pavla emerged like a morning fog over stale lake waters with her rosy cheeks now even better defined by the kitchen warmth. The sitting room was overtaken by the smell of just open tuck-shop like the ones that may be spotted in every schoolyard, the ones that added an enchanting zest of marvel to the air of that particular street and that was in power to turn almost every passenger, but those on a diet, off the road.

„The Agnes“ was the family pastry at Mia's house. A delight with crispy yellow top covering a full and soft nut body as an after taste. Mia adored the afternoons in Grandpa Grantzy's house. They stayed. Like those tourists at the end of the summer who find it difficult to depart from the sea, the beaches and the seagulls.

Her words flew up imperceptibly for Mia all the way up to the second floor and stood calmly at Granny Rakitsa’s door. "Bringing the loaf up to try it." For complete strangers they were to each other, the two women quickly managed to get well along. No instructive arguments, so common for mothers and daughters, or bad concealed intolerance as in the conversations of the young wives with their mothers-in-law stood between them. The old woman was like a healing warm tea in winter's evenings when she would feel most definitely the absence of her own grandmother Tsveta, at whose funeral serves Mia hadn't been allowed to go. That August! It was her mother's decision...at the awareness of it, Mia felt she might need the biggest Russian samovar containing the hottest tea that was possible to be found in the world.

Half the year now. She still had the visions of grandma in her sleep. Almost every second night Mia cried in her sleep asking the skies above to allow her another visit. This part took a long time accompanied by the usual consolations that souls are making their ways to a better place above. Everybody believed it was so, even the fat judge “The Society”. Old Greeks would comfort their tears with the convincing argument that it was light and not tears to be drawn in, a soul needed on its way afterlife. Zendagi migzara.

That’s what she read in a book she last read and over which pages she decently cried too. Mia was not attributed a “best father” figure in her life. She simply had a father. The possession of whom was also a questionable matter. The content she poured to fill the rest of the days until full year was mainly baking breads and drawing from time to time thinking of Simeon who always started conversations by asking her how she gave a meaning to that particular day.