Braless in Bucharest

            From sandaled teens in spandex shorts to dusty crones in shapeless dresses, the women of Bucharest exhibited a certain freedom.  Nipple shadows smudged thin, summer fabrics.  Breasts bounced and jiggled. I was the only woman on Independence Boulevard wearing a bra. My inch of cleavage, daring on the airplane, now seemed dull. My bra felt like armor, chain mail at the feast after the battle is won.  I had seen this boulevard on CNN lined with tanks. The Intercontinental Hotel, where I had bribed a bellhop to guard my luggage, had sheltered journalists filing reports punctuated by machine gunfire. Today, the only artillery sounds are rust-riddled busses lining the street. Shell pocked buildings and white crosses entwined with fresh flowers drew no attention from the festive after-work crowd. A slender boy kissed his girl in the speckled shade of a lone tree.

            Shopfronts were open along the sidewalk, and merchandise was arrayed in unpainted, wooden bins. I stopped by a display of long sausages and fat, yellow cheeses smelling of summer afternoons by Lake Michigan where smoke mingles but not the picnicking Poles, Italians, and Jews. The aproned clerk spoke Romanian. I shrugged that I did not understand. Her look was accusing as if she interpreted my gesture as indifference. I moved on, pleased that my dark hair and black jersey dress were homogenous with the Eastern European crowd. No one stared at my breasts. Middle-aged here was like middle-aged anywhere.

            I was in Romania to document work of a charity that had trooped to this newly democratic country like white corpuscles to a new wound. The charity's mission was Bible-based. Mine was dollar-driven, sweetened with stamps on my passport and a growing collection of native art. These symbols of my comeback perched like exotic birds above my afghan, British novels, and two fat, cozy cats. As a betrayed woman, I carried on with élan. He got the trophy wife; I got the gutsy life. Insured, of course. If tanks trolled down Independence Boulevard again, my SOS insurance guaranteed an airlift to safety. Maybe they would send a helicopter to the roof of the Intercontinental Hotel, echoing the fall of Saigon. My ex would see me on TV and then stop boasting to our kids about his adventures in Vegas.

            I looked at my watch and turned back to the hotel. Had I advanced it when I changed planes in Milan or in the confusion of clearing immigration? John's plane from London arrived at six. Bucharest time. According to my Timex, it was six now. Somewhere in Europe. I had arranged to meet this stranger at the hotel so he could escort me on the night train to Transylvania. All I knew of John was that he was British and wealthy enough to do volunteer work for the charity. All I knew of Transylvania was the usual vampire lore, which I was too well educated to believe. Vald Dracula was a mortal horror, godfather of the billboard, impaling victims from anus to nostril and posting them along the main roads.

            The bellhop lurched for the door after it banged behind me. The opulent lobby was a snapshot of Ceausescu’s rape of Romania. The chandelier hung askew, and the worn Oriental carpet was bruised with stains.  A greasy-haired porker smoked a stogie behind an English edition of Financial Times. He looked up. And back to the paper. Relieved that he was not John, I asked the desk clerk for the ladies' room. He shrugged. Elbows of his red, wool uniform were worn to a shine. I asked for the restroom. He shrugged again. "Toilet," I said. He pointed to an unlit hallway.

            Halfway down the corridor, I opened a door marked "femme." The word seemed clear enough, yet I glanced around for a urinal before I stepped in. As I brushed my hair, dim light played on green faux-marble behind me. I winced at the undersea cast to my face. Powder turned green shine to green matte. I brushed a sprinkle of powder from my jersey bodice. My breasts were not remarkable, and they had earned the right to sag.

            When in Romania?

            Yes!

             I yanked down my zipper, tore off my bra, and stuffed it into my laptop computer case. I zipped up, thrust back my shoulders, and strutted out of the "femme," my nipples black studs.

            I retrieved my luggage from the bellhop and settled into a worn plush sofa to wait for John.  My paperback edition of Pride and Prejudice curtained the drama in my mind. John would be tall, dark, his black turtleneck concealing a purple love bruise, for who could resist this man. He had a woman in London, two in Paris, several in Roma and none, as yet, in Romania. He would be in a cab now, running his fingers through his hair, too confident to bother with a comb. He was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and sneering at Romania 's officious security police, for he had cleared customs again with ganja in his jeans. He was thinking about me, hoping I was not one of those sweet young things who thought wild sex was unzipping his pants with a shy, trembling hand. He liked teeth on his zipper tab, toes in his mouth, and double entendres that were not clichés. I would not disappoint him.

            I turned a page.

            He was only half British with roots in places not discussed over boiled eggs and cold toast. He would look into my eyes and know that my lineage branched back to that Transylvanian forest where peasants drove wooden stakes through our hearts and sprinkled salt on our unmarked grave.

            I turned a page, looked up.

            Dropped the book.

            John picked it up and glanced at the cover. With flawless diction, he said he was pleased to meet me. I smiled and extended my hand wondering if my breasts implied, "I was waiting for someone, but not for you." His hand was wrinkled and dry and his jowls sagged more than my breasts. What was left of his hair was gray. He escorted me to a taxi and into a restaurant, speaking English to me and Romanian to the driver and waiter, all with a Lake District accent. The tablecloth was patched, but clean, and a bouquet of marigolds was casually thrust into a water tumbler. I asked John to order for me, said I was hungry enough to eat anything. He raised an eyebrow and handed our menus to the waiter.

            My first meal in Romania was an aborted school lunch. Runny catsup covered bloated noodles, diced baloney, and pickle. The pasta disintegrated in my mouth. I spit it out in my napkin. I gulped my wine. Plum flavored white lighting. I choked. Fruity moonshine forced down throats in surgical tents.  I gagged. I grabbed the green bottle of mineral water. The flat seltzer neutralized my tongue. I sat back, exhausted, depressed. I was braless in Bucharest for what? A Heimlich maneuver?

            John looked up from his plate of half-eaten pasta and said, "Romanians take their soups seriously." He waved for the waiter.

            He was correct. I ate two bowls of hearty, sour soup, thinking a full stomach would help me sleep on the overnight train. I certainly wouldn't be snoozing off a round of wild sex.

            John folded his napkin beside his plate and said that Pride and Prejudice was an elegant novel. As the candle on our table burned down, he analyzed the plot. I wondered how my soul mate would find me now. Did he know a Jane Austin fan had abducted me? Was he searching the streets of Bucharest? After all this time, did he still care? Or was he in the throes of a midlife crisis, stalking the perkiest breasts on Independence Boulevard, forgetting all the passion and pain we had shared.

            Just like my ex.

            John wound up his lecture on Austin prose style and I excused myself. I hoped that John would think I took my computer to the toilet to avoid theft. How could I explain that I was feeling rather silly discussing English literature without the proper underwear? When I returned, he stood and pulled back my chair. I scrutinized his expression. Bra off or bra on, his pupils did not wax or wane.

            Over soggy flan, we discussed Sense and Sensibility, both the movie and the book. He was interested that I had once taught English. I did not tell him that my nude modeling career had given me greater personal satisfaction than cramming Hamlet into the soccer team. As we left, he placed the tip directly in the waiter's hand instead of leaving it on the table. I pondered why such forthright men failed to stir my passions. In the taxi, I tried to find an umbrella word for my former lovers: the bisexual poet, the priest, the riverboat pilot from New Orleans. Soon, I gave up and stifled my yawns, grateful for the dark streets of Bucharest. John's moderate enthusiasm for Mansfield Park was a lullaby. I fell asleep dyspeptic with my underwear placed as precisely as plain words in a competent paragraph.  

 Jane Austen would be pleased.