Translated by Mona Lepadatu.






Arrived in 2 May we stop at Margo House and after parking the car we go to the beach to finally meet the sea again. Posters all over the place, in span long letters: “Big huge competition, with donkey pulled carts. Bets, raffle tickets, prizes with no limits and no taxes. The 2 May Big Prize! Competition organised by the city of Mangalia townhall.
‘What do you think, Sache? Shall we go?’ my wife gives me a nudge.
‘What should we do there? Can’t you see it says five hundred thousands a ticket?’
‘And what if we win the bet? Couldn’t you do with some extra millions? We’ll pay for our week-end expenses.’
‘As if we knew anything about donkeys…’

But who can fight a woman’s moods? Here we are, on the paddock improvised on the spot with a few chairs and a table for the jury. About ten carts painted in all possible colours, decorated with flags and noisy horns and donkeys with hats ridiculously cut around their ears, bows in their tails and especially in their mane. The participants: Turks, Tatars, Macedonians, Romanians, all swelling their chests, proud to have been chosen by Mr. Mugurel , the mayor of Mangalia.

We blend quickly in the uproar, we pay for tickets 123 and 124 and we sit cross-legged on the grass. Through a rusty loudspeaker, a fellow in a denim suit explains away the rules for betting.
‘Sache, aren’t you going to bet?’
‘On who, dear?” On who should I bet? How should we know who’s the strongest?’
‘Look, a chart with the names of all participants. I’d say don’t bet on Tufty, bet on Fan-Fan who has Nicu as a jockey. Nobody has bet on this one. We’re going to score big, Sache. I have a feeling we will!’

I go to the lady with the bets and I put three million on Fan-Fan, who finishes the race last, in a roar of booing.

‘That’s it! Now that we’re done, lets buy ourselves a beer.’
‘Sache, what number is your ticket?’
‘Why, dear? You have another idea? Let me find it… Here: 123.’
‘You’ve won the raffle, stupid! You’re the big winner of the 2 May Trophy. Go quickly to the fat woman and see what you’re going to get!’

When I take part in raffles all I always win is toilet paper rolls, paper napkins or toothpicks, so I go to the jury with a doubting heart.
‘Do you have ticket 123?’ asks a tanned guy next to the lady with the bets.
‘I do.’
‘Give me the ticket and your identity card, please.’

I hardly have the time to give them to him that he starts to shout my name in the loudspeaker, as the winner of the great 2 May Trophy.
‘Now sign here…, and here. Like this. Please take the insurance policy, as well. Done! Congratulations, Mr. Sache! You are Argentina’s winner.’
‘Now that you’ve perforated my eardrums, can you shout to me in that machine what is it I’ve won?’
‘You’ve won Argentina!!’ obeys the guy without any sense of humour. ‘Go take her from under the wax cherry tree and do a turf tour...’
‘Wow! Wow! Put that funnel down, for heaven’s sake! What should I take, man, from under the wax cherry tree?’
‘Argentina, sir. Haven’t you read for what trophy we played? A eight month and two week old she-ass.’
‘No way! And what will I do with an ass?’
‘Please, sir. A she-ass. You take her from the bridle and you do a turf tour.’
‘Look at her teeth! What if she bites me?’
‘She is just sniffing you, sir. She feels she has a new master.’

I take the ass from the bridle and I go to my wife who looks at us dumbfounded.
‘Here is your trophy, dear. Now we have a she-ass in our family. Lets all do the turf tour, like winners.’
‘I’m not coming, I’m ashamed.’

My wife was right... What can be more awkward than walking an ass who keeps sniffing my “HARDROCK CAFÉ” T-shirt. When we finally finish the tour in the crowd’s applause, my wife lovingly takes my arm, her face glowing:
‘Sache! My dear little Sache. Do you know how much is an ass? Thirty million. That’s it, we’ve hit the jackpot. Quickly, lets go sell it.’

We walked with Argentina until late at night. We asked at every door in 2 May and in Vama Veche. No buyer for our trophy.
‘Lets go to our villa, Sache. Lets go, I’m dead tired. We’ll try again tomorrow.’
‘And where do we leave Argentina?’
We’ll tie her to our car.’
‘She’ll be stolen, woman! And they won’t take her in at Margo House.’
‘You’ll make a sacrifice one night, you’re not going to die from it. You’ll sleep in the car. Think, who’s going to have thirty million tomorrow in their little hand? Lets kiss goodnight.’

I tie the ass to the bumper of the car and go to sleep in the Supernova, carefully stretching my legs between the gear stick and the steering wheel. How nice you can hear the crickets sing. And the frogs…

At ten to five in the morning the alarm starts! A long guttural roar throws me directly in the back window and then in the back door of the car. I crawl out on all fours and I listen without a word to the protests of the tourists lodged in the villas in the neighbourhood. Eventually I hear my wife’s whining voice:
‘Sache! Sache! Is the trophy all right?’

The weekend is nearly over. We have not had time to go dancing, we’ve had to go to the restaurant in turns, and we’ve done our sunbathing on the cliff between 2 May and Vama Veche, near the board announcing “Danger! Imminent fall!”

Madame Margo, the landlady, regretfully announces us that she has found no client for Argentina. So my wife gets into the Supernova and drives to Bucharest alone, while I take the 3432 fright train to Bucharest Obor.

We arrive in the evening exhausted, both Argentina and I. My wife is waiting for us in her red inciting dressing gown, her nails freshly done.
‘What are you doing, Sache? Are you bringing the ass in the house?’
‘I’m not sleeping in the car anymore. Leave her here, in the living room… Diana is not at home anyway, so…’
‘You smell so bad! Go quickly and take a shower.’
‘What did you think I’d smell like? I’ve travelled with two horses, one buffalo cow, two pigs, three cows, eight chickens and Argentina. And I swear to you none of them had recently used deodorant.’
‘Sache! Argentina is sick!’
‘What? What’s wrong with her?’
‘Look, she’s rolling her eyes! Our trophy’s dying, dear! Sache, do something!’
‘Call the vet, quick! Here’s the phone number. It’s that medicine man who treated our brach hound…’

Argentina lies down tired on the floor and remains on the floor. Standing in the doorway my wife tells me crying:
‘He’s coming in half a hour… What’s wrong with our ass? Oh, no, look, she’s rolling her eyes! She’s gone, poor thing.’
‘It must be her fate, to die in the middle of Bucharest. What can you do, that’s destiny… poor Argentina.’

Right then I hear the doorbell.
‘Go see who it is, it must be the vet. Send him away…, it’s too late now.’
‘Sache, someone is here for you. Mister Enache from the insurance company.’

I go to the door where a thin guy with a huge briefcase under his arm is indeed waiting for me.
‘ Good evening. Are you Mr. Sache, the owner of policy number 871243?’
‘What policy?’
‘The insurance policy of an ass called Argentina.’
‘I see. I don’t know, let me check. yes, I do have policy number 871243.
‘Can I see your identity card, please? Right, in tonight’s special draw your policy is the winner. The prize is one hundred million lei. Lets go to the stables to check the donkey and, if everything is all right, you can come by tomorrow to get your money from the our agency pay office in Caderea Bastiliei street’, says the guy smiling obligingly.
‘What stables?’
‘Well, the stables where you keep Argentina. You know, in order to get the prize, I must see the ass first. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come all this way... and on a Sunday evening at that.’
‘Let me see the papers for a minute. Are these the insurance policy and the result of the draw? OK. Look what I’m going to do now: tear them into pieces! See? No more prize, no more winning ticket, gone the money, the ass, everything. Beat it!’ scream I full of hate and bang the door in his nose.

I drag myself back into the living room, where Argentina’s dead body was lying on the floor, and I sit down sighing on the edge of the sofa, next to my wife. Poor donkey...

The doorbell rings again. This time it’s the vet.
‘You’re too late. She’s dead’, whisper I sadly.
‘Who?’
‘The she-ass.’
‘Look at that, you’ve brought the ass in the living room. Lets have a look... But she’s not dead, she has just fainted. From hunger. See? She also needs calcium. I’ll give her an injection, to put her back on her feet a little. When did you last feed her?’
‘Err.. I have no idea. Honey, why don’t you stay here with the vet and I’ll go look for Enache. Maybe I can still catch him...’
‘What do you feed a she-ass?’ asks my wife while I was running downstairs three steps at a time.

I run to the bus stop for bus 182, no trace of Enache. I run to the bus stop on the opposite side of the road, for bus 135. Nothing again. Meanwhile, from a living room in the Floreasca district, comes a guttural victory cry. The trophy had come back to life!