Thousands of Afternoons Ago II

Almost everyone I met in my first days in the school recommended me to see a student called N because she was a compatriot. She seemed, according to what I heard, quite popular among the students.

I was introduced to her later, and we clicked straight away. That was the beginning of a long friendship that lasted many years until we lost track of each other. N was a ball of energy, spontaneity and humor. A shock of black hair surrounded a long face distinguished for its big eyes. Whenever she was asked how she kept her figure slim despite her healthy appetite, she answered “Coffee, cigarettes and a 24 hours working brain”. She could never hide her emotions or their reflections on her face, as if her features were wired up directly to her heart. She just loved this or hated that for no apparent reason and I failed many times to understand the logic. I had eventually to give up understanding, admitting that she was the type of person who was led by her first impressions.

When friends thought what N and I had meant more than friendship, we just laughed and commented “Let them think what they like to think”.

After some time of our friendship, she revealed some tragic past, but frankly I could never know where borders between reality and imagination (if any) began or end in her story. The main storylines remained the same along the years, but I do not know why a cloud of disbelief, or precisely partial disbelief, always hanged over.

N introduced me to her close circle of 5 friends. Two girls and three guys. They were of different nationalities. I could not find the faintest ray of similarity among their characters. Gathering these different persons in one social group was somehow surrealist and fun. Or that what appeared to me.

When I realized that I started to go out regularly with them, and did not mind their divergence, I understood then how this group, in the first place, could get together!

The real fun part was when the students moved later from the small city to join their universities or institutions in Paris where life was much more colorful. Differences between “friends” got clearer. The group rapidly walked to its doomsday, and in a later episode after the doomsday interesting “secrets” got uncovered about hidden relationships, bad mouthing quotes and blushing confessions.

N witnessed the collapse of her group of friends as calmly as humans witness the change of seasons. By that time, she was forming a new group of friends in her university. A little more harmonious. I kept her friendship on a bilateral track only, as my own sphere was evolving gradually and far away. A sphere where faces I saw, characters I dealt with, and circumstances I went under helped to crystallize my ideas about friendship, love, life and above all about myself.