Proza

It was on a Friday night during one midsummer. In midsummer, as a tradition in Finland, people preferred absconding to the country-side and lived in summer cottages for a couple of days in the middle of nowhere, adjacent to a lake or trees to provoke a bonfire. Workplaces were closed and all doors of shops locked by noon. Midsummer or Juhannus in Finnish was the biggest national holiday after Christmas. Only few pubs and nightclubs were open for those with no summer cabins to go to, and for the locals who consider summer cottage either boring or useless, thus opted to stay behind. With nearly two third of the population away, and less mobility by public transport, the streets looked deserted and dead silent. The night was still young, and Saha was the only club with its doors open, and DJ Cliff was one of the few DJs in Finland working on that day. Few people had started arriving at the club, it was half empty inside by the time we got there. The session was filled with the early hours music and the small crowd that was on the dance floor had already started feeling the vibe. I was standing near the DJ booth witnessing the legendary DJ Cliff– whom I had already befriended – sliding in and out songs. There was a small circle of people in the dance-floor responding to the early tunes, while others bounced their heads side-ways as they slowly sipped their iced drinks. I don’t remember seeing Zsófia coming into the club, but I remember seeing her in a group – sort of a circle – dancing, I did not know anything about her then, we had not met yet.
Gradually the club was getting packed, and it was already full past midnight.  A friend of mine, Modo, was in the dance floor dancing with two girls, at the same time trying his luck on one of them. Another random guy roved around and suddenly stopped in front of me and blocked my view; I could not follow the scene in the dance floor any more. I repositioned myself closer to where Modo was dancing. I stood there for few minutes with a bottle of Fresita hanging in my hand, and when I turned around inadvertently I saw her, stooped under the table as if looking for something. Our eyes met when she hoisted herself up. I said hello. She hello back with a gentle smile and carried on as if ignoring me. She stood up after few seconds and spoke to me again. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but she tapped me on the left shoulder after her words, to me that was an inviting gesture. I watched her spoke to her brother who came from the dance floor and stood next to her. Her hands moved towards all directions as she spoke to him, then his brother went back to dance.She came closer and announced to me that she had been looking for a key. “I am Zsófia Egyed from Hungary,” she said. The little I knew about Hungary was that they spoke in a language called Magyar, something a bit similar to Finnish. Both belonged to a group of languages known as Finno-Ugrian. I also learned immediately that she had been to Tanzania, in the northern part of the country, Arusha, for six months on a volunteer project.
I asked her for a dance after we talked for a while; she hesitated in a trice then led the way to the floor. She was tipsy already, I could tell by the misstep of her steps. Her brother was observing her by stealing glances at us when we danced. She said to me over and over again to the point that her words, repeatedly, sounded like a broken record, “that’s my brother you know, that’s my brother you know.”
She and her brother had not seen each other for almost a year. She came all the way from Budapest to visit him, and she stayed for two weeks only, the day we met was her last weekend in Tampere. Her brother had been living in Finland for two years by that time. He came to Tampere as an exchange student and fell in love with the country and the quality of its education. So like many others before him he applied at the University of Tampere after his exchange program was over and got accepted.
She got tired with dancing and suggested that we sit down, we secured a delightful dim-lit spot, away from the rowdiness of the crowd and loudness of music, and sat down to a long conversation. I hesitantly caressed her silky hair when she stared at my eyes yearningly. I massaged her forehead, first with my thumps, then with my lips. I kissed her forehead and cascaded onto her nose. She closed her eyes by then and tilted her head slightly to the right side before my lips met hers. We smooched in slow motion for a while, as if our lips were too slippery to lock into each other. We talked about the pleasure of kissing and the possibility of spending quality time together soon again. She confessed to me that good conversation always turned her on, and it had often led her to kiss the guy she conversed with. We tried to exchange phone numbers but it didn’t seem to work: she could neither remember her phone number nor call mine, because her Hungarian number could not work outside Hungary. So Facebook seemed to be the only option. I saved her Facebook account with the intention of adding her up to my list of friends once I get home. We approached the floor again and danced to the last song, and the night between us culminated in lots of unending good byes and with solemn promises of seeing each other soon.