Gloria's Diary, Albert Russo [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

parents worried about my state and were very supportive, even if in their hearts, this alternative suited them.
Maya was, of course, the first one to be informed.  She stood dumbfounded when I told her, it was a terrible shock for that dear friend of mine.  But once I had explained to her my reasons, she composed herself and assured me of her continuous friendship.  As I had expected, Sasha took it very badly and that is when I saw him cry for the first time.  Not with loud sobs, like in Dostoevsky's novels, but silently, almost inconspicuously, if it wasn't for the sudden redness of his eyes which reflected how bruised his heart got.  He looked at me, as if I had suddenly become a stranger, no, worse, a traitor: I could almost read the word "betrayal", spilling out of his pupils like a fine stream of incandescent lava.
I tried to justify my decision, insisting on the genuine affection I felt for him and how much I respected him as a person.
He asked me, in a hoarse voice, to think about it again.  Was it really definite?
I promised I would, so sorry I was to see him in such a state, knowing full well that I wouldn't change my mind.  Of course, this gave me a guilty conscience. I too suffered a great deal, not only because I liked him so much, but because I was giving him even the slightest of hopes.  But the week after he had to face the hard and cruel reality.
Having discussed the matter at length with my parents, we arrived at the conclusion that I should give the Kislovs my resignation, for my presence among them would prove too difficult for all of us, particularly for Sasha.  I cried my eyes out, not in front of them, of course.  My only consolation was that I would soon meet again with my best friend, but in a different context.
Thankfully there was the piano, that instrument of the soul, upon which I could pour forth all my pain.  The notes would roll under my fingers for hours on end and sometimes well into the night.  When I hit bottom - which occurred all too often - I would thump on them with deafening rage, then, as I became exhausted and emotionally drained, having no more strength in my arms, I would just brush them and play so softly that I had the impression the music just echoed in my mind and that no one else could hear it besides me.  But the lull would always be followed by an explosion of tears.
Many times my mother had to call me to order, for I was monopolizing both their time and their space.
The days would slip away, sad and monotonous.  But then, in the midst of my despair, unexpectedly and by a curious coincidence, I picked up the threads of an old acquaintance, Debbie Levenson, a pal from my early school days.  And I suddenly recalled the happy moments we had spent together as little girls, especially when she took me to visit her grandfather, a wonderful old man, so colorful, so full of zest and humor, yet, at the same time, so imbued with biblical wisdom, who owned a small tailor shop on Manica road, just behind the city's main train station.
This reunion was heart-warming for it had the immediate consequence of chasing away the murkiness that had settled in my head.  Debbie had by now become the assistant to the director of Barbour's, Salisbury's poshest department store, where I loved to spend the little time I had at my disposal, as a working girl, to do my shopping, accompanied either by a friend or by my mom, especially during the sales period.  But I eagerly dropped by throughout the year, on the lookout for their new arrivals of fine garments and underwear that came in from Britain, the US or the Continent (Europe, of course).  Most of the time my pals and I would just go there to satisfy our curiosity, and buy maybe a couple of items - usually, but not always, the least expensive ones.  
The cherry on the cake - an image which isn't solely virtual - was, once we had finished our errands, to go and sit at the brightly lit tea-room on the last floor, all the while we savored some of their delicious tidbits: ham, salami or mortadella, cucumber, cream cheese, tomatoes and cress, sandwiched in between very thin slices of plain white bread, shortcake and a variety of delicate pastries, crusty scones, fresh from the oven, served with marmalade and strawberry jam, with, of course, the very best tea in the world. But what I enjoyed the most was, now that I was on a forced sabbatical, to eat breakfast there and have a taste of any of their scrumptious dishes: fried, poached or scrambled eggs and bacon, smoked kippers, grilled baby sausages, with brown toast or with the softest bread rolls you can get, and cakes of all kinds, with the inevitable tin fruit, all so very uniquely English, and so very tasty.  Give them at least this, as well as their desserts.  Have I mentioned it already? Maybe, but there is so little the world likes about their food, that I don't mind repeating myself.  
It was during one of these solitary outings that I noticed Debbie, sitting at a table just across from mine.  We were then mere acquaintances, nodding a brief “hello” when we saw each other, nothing more.  Life and circumstances had put a distance between us.  But that morning, we clicked immediately and closed the gap that had separated us during all our youthful years.  She invited me to move next to her, for she too was eating alone.
We caught up on the time and the events that had gone by and began to talk about our private lives, comparing our destinies.  Debbie had had two inconclusive experiences with men, just before she was to make the great jump, and so we became, me with my heartbreaking decision, still so fresh, close, almost instantly.  We made a vow to see each other regularly and to share happier moments together.
Soon enough, I paid a visit to her folks, who welcomed me in their midst with genuine affection, as if we had seen each other the day before.  I was delighted to accompany Debbie to see her grandfather, after so many years.  He had aged, of course, but remained surprisingly alert, and above all, he had the same humor that used to make me laugh so much when I was a little girl.  When I asked him how he was, he replied, with a grin:
"My bones are rusty, my back hurts, I can't walk straight, I have to wear glasses to read, but otherwise, I'm OK, thanks."   
And both Debbie and I guffawed.  What an incredible man, the Levinson patriarch was!  His mind was as ebullient as that of a twenty-year old and he still enjoyed discussing theology with his old Anglican, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist friends; they argued sometimes forcefully, but always came to the conclusion that they shared the same fundamental values and principles, that led to universal fraternity.  Not like nowadays, where those Islamic extremists have declared war on the whole world - including their own brethren whom they consider to be heretics - and where the Pope condemns women priests, contraception and homosexuality, sowing terrible confusion amongst his followers in the Third World! 
One week following that providential reunion, Debbie proposed:
"What would you say if we both went and spent a fortnight in Elisabethville, in the Belgian Congo, towards the middle of next month?  I haven't used my holiday time yet.  A dear cousin of mine lives there, she often comes to visit us in Salisbury.  She's insisted for a while, that I return the favor and stay with her, for she claims that the capital of Katanga is a jolly place and that people there know how to have fun, going out to fine restaurants - Belgian cuisine is supposed to be as tasty as French - and ending their evenings dancing in lively night-clubs.  Elisabethville is even nicknamed “the subtropical Paris". 
At first the idea of going to the Congo puzzled me, for when we left Rhodesia for a holiday, we automatically thought of Beira and Lourenço Marques (today’s Maputo), in Mozambique, or else, Durban and Capetown, in the Union of South Africa, but never the Congo.
After a moment's hesitation, I said:
"It seems a bit wild to me, but why not!  It will be a change of atmosphere, and also, we'll be able to practice our French, not that I remember much from my earlier classes, except for songs like ‘Frére Jacques’, or a couple of tales from La Fontaine.  Was it ‘Le renard et le corbeau’, or the other way round?  ‘La grenouille qui ...’ you know, the story about the frog that wanted to become as fat as a cow and died bursting at the end!  What an awful conclusion!  I fear though that I won't understand a thing when they will want to talk to me.”
"Don't worry, I'm not better than you are in French conversation, but Belgians usually have a smattering of English, particularly the Flemings, and from what I gather, they are more lenient towards foreigners than les Français, so don't call them ‘froggies’ as they wouldn't appreciate it.  And also, in case of need my cousin will be our interpreter, since she is fluent in English."

Materializing our project, Debbie and I thus took the train, traveling in a second-class sleeping car that we shared with two other women.  We must have changed maybe three locomotives and transferred into at least two different coaches, as we crossed Southern (Zimbabwe), then Northern (Zambia) Rhodesia, riding through a wide variety of landscapes, from our verdant kopjes and the familiar tobacco plantations, to the more humid and lush tropical expanses of our neighbor, finally entering the drier Katangese Savannah, blistered with ugly anthills - some of them as tall as a double-storied house and bearing clusters of shrubs or even a small tree on its crest.  Then, as we approached our destination, the ground veered from a dirty yellow to the blood-red hue of laterite.
All along the trip, whenever I lowered the window, sticking my head out, I would inhale the potent smell of soot that wafted from the chimney, letting it whip my face with the fury of a gale, as if I were swallowing the most exhilarating of elixirs.  This adventure into the heart of the Black continent was so unlike that which had introduced me to the sophisticated cities of South Africa, where one could easily fantasize, believing that you were traveling to some Australian or North American metropolis.
The crown jewel of this journey which lasted several days was the sight of Victoria Falls.  I had never before been confronted with a more awesome, more thunderous and more majestic vision, in the sense that only a superior force could have engendered such a prodigy.  Even when, many years later, I was lucky enough to visit Niagara Falls, as well as Iguazú, on the border between Brazil and Argentina.  As much as I admired the latter two, both magnificent, without a doubt, they didn't elicit the same high-powered emotion that their African counterpart did. 

The interlude that Elisabethville promised to be was like a fountain of youth, or rather the discovery of an unexpected world, under the very same African sky which had seen me grow and evolve.          
In the capital of Katanga, Debbie and I, who were staying at her cousin Bella's, both experienced the same kind of euphoria children experience the first time they are