Marie (Part I)

If I had already known Stella-Stella by Starlight then, I would be a hundred percent sure this had been her sister. She had a very similar face, the same color hair, a bit shorter, but Stella-Stella by Starlight was some one meter eighty.

Thin at the waist, she had everything necessary in its correct place, maybe even to a greater degree than Stella-Stella by Starlight.

She gave Bławat her ticket, and when he put in front of her a medium sized travel bag, she quickly removed from it a large envelope she had prepared earlier, very likely containing a bundle of documents. She asked with a smile if she could leave her bag a bit longer, because at this moment she had to go take care of something.

Bławat gave her a ticket again and hid her bag.

“How can I get to the university?” this time she asked the two of us both, and maybe even more so me.

I always had a pretty good reflex, which was strengthened and perfected thanks to my participation in sports, such that I responded immediately that she was very lucky because I was going in just that direction and would gladly show her.

We left, and when I was closing the door, I saw Bławat, who shook his fist at me jokingly.

We took one of the main streets.

When we were halfway there, meaning at the market, I knew almost everything about her already: that this morning she came in from Bielsko, that her dad was one of the richest people there, but he always had troubles, because even though everyone sat in his pocket, some envious pest would always come along and try urgently to knock him up somehow for money, that a week ago she had passed her high school exit exams and even that for the last half year she had had to attend night school, that almost a year ago she had married, even though she wouldn’t finish eighteen years until 15 August, that she had applied to study law, and that she would definitely get in, because her father had already a long time ago taken care of everything there, and that she only had to show up in half an hour, that her name was Maria, but from childhood everyone had called her Marika, like the fucking countess in Kálmán’s operetta, that she had come here with her husband, but he had been doing something for her father and so left her in the café where at seven they would be meeting, because before ten they had a train to Bielsko, and of course that now she had to spend a couple of hours at the university.

Her mouth did not close, and even though I was never really the quiet type, I didn’t have a chance to get in anything intelligent or interesting.

When we were finally approaching the law building, she admitted that she had a huge favor to ask of me, namely if I could give her my address, because she did not know anyone in this town and if for some reason she had during the course of the summer to take care of something at the school, then she asked would it be possible to turn to me in this case and whether this would not be problematic for me. I answered that I lived alone and it would definitely not be any trouble.

My address I had nothing to write with nor to write on, but I remembered that just as I was leaving my house, my mailman caught me and gave me a postcard from the library about my unreturned books.

This notice I gave to Marika as my business card. We took our leave heartfully, but even though she was very attractive, maybe because of her husband, no thoughts of sexual-erotic approach crossed my mind. I was overawed also by her girlishness.

At the end she said that she would really count on me in the future, because I could help her find some nice place to live, and that at the end of August she would definitely show up.