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AT THE RESTAURANT FOR LUNCH

2024-09-01 08:21:00, Kulturë CNA

When I told my wife, we will have lunch at the restaurant, her face lit up. Because he likes the salmon fillet very much and when we go there, they cry it, it is said in the everyday slang. I saw the question in his eyes, do we have a reason today or is it useless? I didn't let him do it.

- We will talk when we sit at the table.

And when we put the pizzas in the oven, I started to explain:

- Do you remember Faith?

-Which Belief?

- The one we met in Orikum many, many years ago! I spoke to him.

- Ah, yes, yes. I remember Where is that good man forgotten!

- I met him today, he came from Italy on vacation. It will stay for ten days.

Meanwhile, she became curious. He forgot to ask me why we came for lunch at the restaurant. He was waiting for me to talk to him about it. And in a few moments I remembered Faith. We met him that year when we bought a beach house in Orikum. Among the many adjustments, we needed some decorations to put on the walls. We were recommended a kiosk there by the theater building. We went to the door and saw four people. A middle-aged man, two beautiful girls who looked like high school students, and a little boy playing with a teddy bear.

-Who sells here? asked the woman.

- Me, - the three adults answer at the same time.

The little one laughed at that moment. We went inside and it seemed to me that we were at a well-known store. Not because they offered us what we wanted, but because the communication with them was so warm as if we had known each other for years. That kiosk was like Aladdin's cave. Open the mountain, say everything about the new house. In addition, books, tape recorders, postcards, and artistic photos with frames were also sold there. An artistic universe. And above all there was a lot of culture. From the dialogues, from the smiles, from the packaging of everything we bought and from the invitation, come out to us again even if you don't buy anything.

We left with many impressions. I asked some neighbors about Besim, some of his friends, that is, I learned a lot. That was from Dukat. In the dictatorship, he grew up in poverty, but in a dignified family.

Who loved freedom, spoke for freedom even though they were condemned as a tribe for free thoughts. Democracy found him with high school graduation, but not allowed to go to university. Therefore, since he was married and had a child, he devoted himself to lectures. He wanted to become an economist. And after a lot of fatigue, after a lot of sacrifices, because he worked during the day, he finished the university. The sun came down for him at last.

He married a girl again, but also became a manager of a bank branch in the town. He felt fulfilled. Between those years, he lost his wife to a serious illness. Earthquakes for the whole family. Little children missed their mother, Besimi was left without her friend. In the many meetings with him, whenever he mentioned it, he cried. It was understood, it was great and deep love. Yes, life is like the sea. The first wave hits you, but the second wave doesn't wait until you calm down. It comes and then the third, fourth and so on.

Besimi was dealing with work, with the girls and with the son who was navel. Three children who had to be raised and most importantly educated. Year after year, the girls stood out among the other students. That they had the gene, but also that they had will and ambition. It was precisely the years when they took courage and opened the kiosk for summer tourists. They matured and were taking responsibility on their shoulders.

One big day he went to Tirana, to the university. The little one was getting ready to go there. Chuni was finishing her ninth grade. And precisely in the midst of these events, Besimi is fired. Governments had changed. Those who won would reward their own. Faith was felt as in the former dictatorship.

Thrown away, without any explanatory motive, without any thanks for his hard work. But pride closed his mouth. It was not worth asking for clarification from those who did not call victory the progress of the country, but the filling of their pockets. He gathered at the kiosk and put it off for some time. Until one day they took that away. The girls finished high school. They started work in Tirana. It seemed that some rays fell on him. I warmed up when I met my new life friend. The young woman was said to be a few years younger than Besimi, but also known for her wisdom and manual labor.

He had been living in Italy for years. He was from the same province, immigrating early. The three children, although they did not call their mother, relied on her as a mother. And one day when the boy was getting ready to escape to Italy clandestinely, Besimi's young wife proposed that Besimi should come with the boy to her. Albania does not give you anything. Love him, but love yourself first, he advised. When he was thinking, the girls pushed him to run away.

One of them even decided to join them. One morning they woke up in Venice. In a sunny house with lights that never went out. Faith started work after a week. Even chicken, even oysters. The girl in Albania was happy with this news. The family lived with the routine of Italian families. The colors of life were full of light. Before the engagements of the girls started, then lo and behold, this morning I met Besimi at Epoka Pastry Shop.

- He had bought a house in Venice, - I told the woman.

She was surprised.

-And cheaper than in Orikum.

Her eyes were waiting for an explanation, why we came for lunch. Maybe an anniversary that she had forgotten, maybe a gift, maybe a gift from me, maybe...

- We came from Faith, - I told him.

He was surprised. I didn't leave it like that.

-Today, when he told me about his life, I was very happy. I was almost happy, believe me. That man had changed. Even in his behavior, in his clothes, and in his speech, he has always radiated culture, prudence and dignity, but now he seemed a little more cultured. Few, how to say it..

- As you like to call yourself. Albanian-American. - she completed me.

- Yes, fixed like that. Besimi seemed to me Albanian-Italian today. A complete man, a man with two homelands. That the pain, the tears, the excitement, the memory is here, while there in Italy there is the fuel, the engine of life, there is the hope, there is the dream.

He understood me. He welcomed the lunch break. I read it in his eyes. Man rejoices with the joys of others. All the more of a man who suffered but did not give up. To a friend who has been in the middle of the sea and has never shied away from the waves. Never…/ CNA