I Knew She Was Under Age, Your Honour!

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what can I say? I am guilty! Please, there is no need to be lenient, I deserve what’s coming my way. And the fun was totally worth it. But, ladies of the jury, take it from a sex predator: I may be guilty, but still I was even more innocent than her. She was my Lolita. Lo-lee-tah… My sin, Your Honour.

I’ve done a couple of things in my lifetime, but none as well and as often as looking for love in all the wrong places. Only that high-school summer camp in Ciric, in 2001, was not one of them. I was there on a business assignment. They were teenage wannabe journalists and I was there to teach them the ABC’s of the trade. The newsroom, the editor-in-chief, the general producer, my fellow reporters and a world of viewers were all counting on me to pass knowledge, not body fluids.

But as it happened, I was left behind without a ride home. And dark fell the night upon us, though it was summer. I was only 23, Your Honour, and the city was far to walk to, stray dogs have always been my nightmare. I’m not afraid of death any more than the next coward, but saying goodbye to this illusive world just to appease the hunger of Butch the Pitbull and his pack of hungry beasts was still below my worst expectations. So around I hung, drinking and singing with some other media personnel and teenage students ’til midnight.

That's me at 23, a real lady magnet. Or stray dogs, whatever came first.

I hadn’t heeded much attention to her. She was a high-school kid and a friend of mine (from PRO TV) was already flirting his way into her graces. Why even care about that when the main concern was getting a ride back home, for the next day bore the burden of an early start? That’s something reporters of all extractions loathe wholeheartedly, by the way.

But before I knew it, everyone had fled, vanished, teleported or dug a hole in the ground, for there I found myself, alone in the scorching hot summer night, in my shaggy blue jeans, with my sunburned complexion and skinny physique, alone with this tall dark-haired 16 year old nymph in an almost transparent T-shirt and pink lady-bird ribbons in her hair – this fragile creature that hid within her inconspicuously looking sunshiny girly self a world of intense words and fiery passions – and who deigned to ask what my name was.

She was a poet, too, your honour, and not before long she’d be sharing her works with me. I charmed her without even knowing: as soon as she’d recite one of hers, I’d strike back with something borrowed from a poet friend of mine – Iulian Tănase. For hours on end, until the night was young no more. But young and foolish was I, thinking despite the odds that the night was to end soon, with an exchange of professional handshakes, visit cards and numbers none would ever call, on the doorstep of her room. She was 16, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and I was 23, I was meant to be a tutor, a teacher, a mentor – not a lover, that least of all.

But inside she called me, as the heat at midnight was turning into the chilling light just before sunrise, and so I reluctantly entered a room with four bunks, on which another three teenage girls were sleeping furiously, just like the colourless green ideas from Uni. I stepped into the upper bunk alongside with her, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. I should have run, I should have thrown myself at the mercy of the stray dogs, I should have drunk myself senseless and be given a free ride to town in an ambulance, rather than to do what I did… But I did it… Your Honour, ladies of the jury, I wasn’t even her first.

And the dawn broke with bangs on the door that rudely awoke me and the four teenage girls in the room. To my absolute shock, none seemed to be surprised by my presence, though the supervisor on the other side of the door might have been. I was praying to God that none breaks out in shrieks of “God, there is a MAN in our room! Call the police!”. I was already imagining the headlines: “Antena 1 Reporter Caught in 4 Teenage Girls’ Bunk Bedroom” or “Sex Predator Reports for Antena 1″. But instead one of the girls just pointed the floor to me. Christ almighty, before I knew it I was hidden under one of the beds, doing my best not to sneeze from the dust underneath, as the supervisor was chatting with the girls.

But that was not the end of it, Your Honour. It’s now when my sin actually begins. My Lolita was from Bucharest, I lived in Iaşi. I never did care very much for long-distance relationships – or any at all, for that matter. But she wrote to me letters by the dozens – I barely opened one, once, and saw there were flower petals and poetry, things too girly for me to bear. I had no time for such trivia, I was building a career in television. So then I just kept piling them up without even reading them for about a year.

The picture my Lolita took the day I failed a job interview with Ziua, in Bucharest

In order to get her off my back, I even introduced her to my poet friend, Iulian Tănase, whose words had charmed her, but she told me that my substitute Cyrano friend’s words only sounded romantic when spoken by me. I even tried to explain to her that I was too old and that she was too young and told her to read Vladimir Nabokov’s book, Lolita, hoping she’d understand. What she did was just to take the name for herself: Lo-lee-tah…

We met in Bucharest, too: once when I sat for a job interview – and failed – and then when I eventually came to Bucharest for good. We met in broad daylight, in Piaţa Unirii. It was June and scorching hot too, just like the first time, but there was no darkness, no forest, no mystery, no pink lady bird ribbons in her hair and no lake and, worst of all, no sense of sin. In my 6×8 foot bohemian room in Piaţa Romană we indulged that day in the same lust and desire as we had before, in the girly dorm by the lake, but she was already 18, Your Honour. It just felt normal.

Thank you for not releasing her name to the media. After all, she was a minor at the time. She’s still one of my dearest friends – my Lolita.
Lo-lee-tah… My sin, your honour…

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