THE EVE WAITING, WHEN TIME SEEMS TO BE RUNNING OUT

THE EVE WAITING , WHEN TIME SEEMS TO BE RUNNING OUT

Alina sighed, closing the suitcase she had just finished preparing. She was about to leave for Cortina, the mountain location where she had decided to celebrate the end of the year and the arrival of the New Year. It wouldn’t take more than two hours to get to Cortina.  This year she didn’t feel like taking a long trip to celebrate, but indeed to live THAT PASSAGE OF TIME, from December31st to January 1^st,  that she had always felt like a different time from the time of the all other days of the year. THAT TIME, the time between the year which was about to end and the New Year, which was about to arrive, had always had a special quality for her. The time of the last day of the year seemed to her to run faster, she felt it running away, as if it were in a hurry to finish, like a train in a hurry to arrive at its destination. The last day of the year had become even more meaningful  for her since, on December 31 of seven years earlier her meeting with Michel  had taken place as an epiphany. That year she had gone to Prague and the hotel where she was staying , a graceful liberty building, had set up a spectacular exhibition of Arcimboldo’s paintings for the guests of the great party dinner on New Year’s Eve. Some of the guests at that party wore masks inspired by Arcimboldo’s portraits-

While some of the guests at the New Year Eve’s party had stood up from the table and started dancing in the center of the room____as wiener waltzes and polkas were played____Alina had gone to watch the Arcimboldo’s paintings hanging on the walls. She was absorbed to look at the grotesque face of the WINTER, when she heard that voice from behind her: “ Oh, well, I see that you like the Arcimboldo’s portraits” Alina turned and found herself facing the same face of Arcimboldo’s WINTER , which ,obviously, was a mask. Behind that mask there was his face, the pleasant, smiling face of a still young man. Alina spent the all night with Michel. They danced. Michel was a skilled dancer. They sang, even pieces of opera.  Alina had a beautiful alto voice and he, Michel a remarkable bass voice. They toasted together to the New year with many glasses of champagne.  And they talked , conversed for a long time , between a glass of champagne and a slice of dessert, and they laughed a lot too. When it was day, and it was the first day of the New year, they were the only ones  left in the wide hall ( room) of the hotel, where the big party awaiting the New Year had taken place. Yes, they talked for a long time, but , despite this, Alina was able to know very little about Michel. He did not even tell her where he was from, besides giving her no information about his age, nor about his profession , nor about his family ( situation).

When it was time to say goodbye____he had to take a flight to New York____Michel  had said, smiling: “ Oh, we’ll surely meet again, sooner or later, we will  see ” To her those words  had seemed just a joke, said so to say. But how she had felt when, in the following New Year’s Eve, when she had gone to Madrid, she had met Michel again, and just as if by chance, as had happened a year earlier in Prague.  And the same had happened on every New Year’s Eve for the following four year.  Always, throughout the year, for each of those years, she had not known anything about Michel. They had not seen each other, they had not spoken by phone, nor had they written each other. But the last day of the year, wherever she had decided to spend it, it regularly happened that Alina met Michel again. And every time it was ( had been) as if their meeting happened by chance, even if she thought that it could not be by chance. That year seven years had passed since her first meeting , in Prague, with him . From year to year it had grown, it had consolidated in her the certainty that in New Year’s Eve , she would again have encountered him. Not that they had planned to meet again, but it was as if it was a tacit agreement between them, as if they had given each other a tacit appointment whereby they would meet again even on the last day of that year.  Always during their meetings Alina and Michel had talked, they had even laughed, and had had a lot of fun . Yet she, Alina, could only speculate about who Michel really was, about what he deal with, even about where he was from. She had become convinced, as the years went by, that Michel was an agent of the secret services of some country, she would not have been able to say of which. She believed he could know, every year, where she was going to celebrate the New Year’s Eve. So Alina was sure that she would have met him that year too, the last day of the year, indeed the last night. When she arrived at the hotel, which was very cozy, and delightfully decorated for the big party of the New year’s Eve, it was still early. Alina got ready and dressed up very carefully before going down to the room where dinner would be served, where would be music, dancing and partying. She was very excited at the thought that she would soon be meeting Michel again. When she went down to the great room already full of guests, she looked around in vain looking for him. Michel was not there. Alina sat down at the table in front of very inviting, appetizing dishes, while the music of the beautiful Blue Danube was playing and some of the guests were dancing. Alina did not feel like eating. She kept looking around , she was sure that Michel could appear ( arrive) at any moment. But time passed and he did not arrive. Alina began to doubt that he would come. Oh, but it was impossible, she said herself soon after. But of course that Michel would come. He could not miss their appointment on the last night of the year.  Alina’s heart was beating fast, wildly , precipitously, as she waited for Michel’s arrival. It seemed that her heart wanted to run away, just as time was running away. As if not only the year was ending, but time itself was going to end. Time, like her heart, was going to sink.

There were only a few minutes to midnight when a woman dressed entirely in black, with a black veil on her head and her face, of which only the eyes were uncovered, entered the great party room, passed among the many guests who were dancing , and went in front of Alina, who was sitting at the table. “ You’re waiting for Michel, aren’t you?” The woman in black asked.  “Yes…but” It was all Alina was able to say. “ I came to tell you that Michel will not come. He is dead” The woman said, and immediately she turned to go away. “ Wait!” Alina shouted, running after her. “ What did Michel die for? When did he die? And…you, who are you?” Alina asked.

“ Michel was killed a week ago” The woman in black said. “ I’m one of his four wives”