The story begins in year 4 of primary school, I remember vaguely being moved to a new class room every year for reasons I do not quite understand even today. Maybe it was so that we would not become accustomed to a particular class and if that is the case I do not yet understand why that would have been a reason.
In any case this particular year was special, not because of the class we were moved into but because of those dark sparkling deer looking pair of eyes I happened to gaze my eyes upon in one of the first days. They were not of a class mate, they were belonging to someone who was most likely just like me and my class mates moved into a new class and as it happened she was in the opposite class to mine.
Every time the final bell rang announcing the time to head home I would get the chance to seek them out as all pupils would rush out the class and into the school hallway at the same time to leave school, none would remain behind for there was no reason for.
I remember at first she did not notice me gazing at her and that made it hard for me to get a good look at her, enough to be able to imprint them into my mind. In any case as time went by and as I became accustomed to seeking her out she became aware and started looking back at me but only for a glance. She was brunette or so I remember, not smiling ever, very somber which for some reason I liked beyond my words can describe.
This straight face expression of her never gave me a clue of whether she liked me back or not despite gradually being able to steal her attention ever slightly longer every time we passed by each other, but we never stoped to talk in fact I never heard a single word from her, ever. Not that I would have been able to say a thing had she approached me as I have always been the kind of person who would freeze when a person from outside my circle would try to interact with me.
Things would become clear at the end of the school year when we had our prom party. The event took place at a rather unusual location, not at the school where one would expect a bunch of 12 year olds to be having their party, after all the prom party at the end of the 8th year was very disorganised and held at the school, but for this occasion we were driven by coach all the way up into the mountains, upstream the river Ialomita actually the venue was right on the bank of that stream.
The venue is located on a cul-de-sac unpaved dirt road right at the end of it, however there are three venues in total on that road, all three of them being youth camps. The very first one on the right is called The Deer (Caprioara), the second one slightly up that road on the left side is called The Stag (Cerbul) while this last one where we had our prom party is called The Hunter (Vanatorul).
I do not remember anything about the trip other than when we arrived next to an outdoor basketball or mini footpad pitch paved with tarmac on the left and a step hill on the right of the coach leading to what I figured later were big dorm rooms with two rows of single beds aligned on both sides, stretching about 10 beds each side. I have very little memories of how we spent the time there during the day, In fact all I remember is the short trip up that stream of water, and I do not recall if it was the first day or the day after however I remember teachers being rather worried not to lose any of us or for anything to go wrong.
Before we delve into the prom party itself and again the little memories I have about it, I feel the need to tell a story of an audio tape cassette. In early 1996 I remember my mother using our tape cassette player to record songs played on radio, I do not remember if the player itself was able to record straight onto the cassette from the radio or if there was a radio next to the player but it did have a record function and my mother was recording songs from the radio that year, two of the songs I remember clearly being recorded were Coco Jambo by Mr President which was released in that year and serves a time reference along with Words by F.R David. I also remember Boy George with Karma Chameleon but not truly sure it was on that cassette or not.
In any case I was given this cassette to the prom party, I do not remember how and why I just remember my mom giving it to me before I left home and as if it was arranged I was asked for it by my teacher when the party began and so I handed it over to be played.
The party room was nothing more than the canteen and I remember it being quite empty with just long tables and chairs where pupils would be sited to be fed. Now at the time of writing I wonder if the tables in there were similar to how the tables in wedding venues around my area are placed, I cannot quite tell or remember the layout very well either, what I do remember as vividly as if it it happened yesterday is that once the music started playing we were asked to form a round circle and then we started playing a game.
One of the pupils was given a coin and told to step into the middle of the circle and choose one other pupil to play "guess the hand" with and so it started. I can not tell for sure if the first pupil went right to her or the second or the third all I remember is that at one point she was offered to guess the hand and she did, she guessed it and once she got the coin she looked straight into my eyes stepped forward towards me and without saying anything raised the hands for me to guess.
I did not guess it and I think I felt relieved not having to step into the middle of the circle and attract all the attentions, but that made it clear, all that eyeing around the whole year paid off she was interested in me she did like me back. As she turned away to the middle of the circle once more I think I saw her smile for the first time, a blushed smile saying "well I tried".
This was it the game was on and the concrete foundation was set for me so that others can build upon further, set by teachers from the Eastern Europe who still had the purest and the most morally adequate beliefs in what love stories should be like.
That evening after the party I remember sprinting up the stairs and into the boys sleeping room straight in the bed assign to me almost not believing what just happened.
There is no continuation to this story or so it seems as I shall explain it in more detail later on, in any case this was in the summer of 96 at the end of my 4th grade and in the following year or the 5th year, big changes would come our way.
The first big change is that we transitioned from having just one teacher teaching us all the subjects to having one teacher for every subject and the biggest change came in a form of experiment, which as far as I know took place only in our school and only in our generation. All the pupils in my generation not only my class, were subjected ranking, and so were were all scrambled to different classes based on the overall score achieved in the first 4 years, with the brightest being assigned to class C, the ones after class D where I ended up (formerly in class A), then class E and F. There was however an exception, class A and B were formed from only two classes and it was said that these two classes had special aptitudes, these were the best of the best one teacher in particular who was know to be devilishly harsh and who was teaching us Music lessons had only praising words to say about these two classes especially class A.
I have to say I do not fully understand the reason they made these changes but one thing is for sure they definitely tried to kill more than one bird with one change, and one of their aims was I believe to disrupt the monotony between pupils that sets in as they grow up together forming a kind of brotherhood between them.
My memory is quite vague I cannot remember in what year events had happened, for instance I had to remember at what age I started school then work out what year must have been when I was enrolled in school and then count four years to figure out in what year the prom party took place. Once I figured that out I did a search on the song Coco Jambo as I remember it being quite in fashion that year and it matched with the year we had our prom party and speaking of school enrolment I wonder how things would have turned out if it wasn't for this last minute change of mind my father had when he first tried to enrol me into school. I remember being taken to school once but right in front of the school my father turned around and said that I'm too young and I should be sent to school next year.
Back then pupils aged 7 were supposed to be enrolled into school but because school was starting on 15th of September and I being born on 24 of November I was still not 7 years old and so I stayed home for one more year. Having said that I also do not remember if this is truly my memory or just my imagination after keep hearing my dad telling me this story.
I remember a few people trying to instil false memories in to my mind by telling me stories about myself of which I do not remember being in or happening. However I tend to say this was truly the case as I indeed started school just before I turned 8 and so I got to be pretty much the oldest in my generation.
As for the next four years after the prom I do have memories but I do not remember certainly if I ever seen her again, what I can say is that in year 7 and year 8 she was nowhere to be seen any more and I mention just these two years with certainty because despite not being sure of seeing her again after the prom party I tend to say that in year 6 we have been moved into a new class room as usual, on the first or second floor and right opposite my class was class C in which I believe she was ranked in but I cannot be sure of that.
I do however know one fact about her and the memory on how I found about it is this time extremely vague as I do not even remember the colleague that told me this and since I never mentioned anything about her to anyone it seems that others got wind of me looking at her and told me this one thing. There is also a chance that it is just my imagination but to this day I remember knowing why she never smiled and seemed rather very somber.
Before I tell what I remember being told about her I have to tell a very sad story about a little girl. One day as I was walking home with my mother past the toy store to which we were referring to or calling it The Library, and frankly I didn't know that a library is all about books until I came to Britain as we refer to libraries as "biblioteca", there was a small metal cross with flowers in front of it and I remember asking my mom why was it there to which my mom said that a little girl had been run over by a car and killed as she was trying to cross the road right ahead of us and her parents placed the cross in her memory.
Fast forward to year 4 or year 6 in school and I remember extremely vaguely, so vague in fact that I do not know if it was a dream or not but this what I remember. One day one of my colleagues approached me and told me "she doesn' t smile because her younger sister died", that touched me deeply and made me have huge respect for her, but as I was told why she was never smiling I've also associated the story of the little girl who had been run over while trying to cross the road with her younger sister, none of which I know if are true or not.