The sight gladdened him… yet a small, defiant part of him still managed to hate the rest of him for having given in, albeit nowhere near as much as it hated that affectionate, regal, insufferable voice that spoke above those of the attendants, as they busied themselves in restoring and beautifying him:

“Welcome back to your people, my sweet, my beloved little Alexandreina.”

 

Moldova, 2008

In the outskirts of Chisinau, at the far north end of Strada Alba Iulia, stood an old block of flats: a grey, weather-stained concrete box in that particular Stalinist style that seemed to flaunt its sheer ugliness with a sort of architectural reverse snobbery. This once achieved an even more pronounced ugliness by virtue of its boarded-up windows, giving it an air of abandonment.