Prologue
Ben strode purposely forwards. He was a man on a mission.
It was spring and that meant an ideal combination of freshness and new life was in the air. Ben diligently navigated the bumpy pavements as he moved towards his destination. In Moldova you always had to be careful where you put your foot.
He managed to successfully arrive at his destination without any unwanted trips on the way. The park was just coming into bloom and there was a lovely scent in the air. He entered excitedly but also with trepidation. His aim was to find somebody to talk to. After circling the park, he saw a suitable candidate.
Although Ben had something important to say he never felt able to say it due to his timidness. Sitting on a brightly coloured bench somewhere near the Soviet style War Memorial was a lonely but harmless looking older lady. She looked like one of Ben’s preferred targets someone; not too needy that he might get into a pickle trying to talk to her, but also not too well off that he would be disdainfully shooed away.
Ben approached her nervously and as he did so, he whipped a chocolate croissant and a Christian leaflet out of his rucksack and began thrusting them forwards towards his victim. (Hey, it might not seem much, but a good life principle is do unto others what you would have them do unto you and in days gone by, Ben wouldn’t have minded if a complete stranger offered him a croissant and something useful to read so he didn’t see any harm offering this to others!)
This is for you He mumbled.
The lady looked up at him surprised. ‘Ce asta?’, she said in a heavy accent.
Ben was very familiar by now with the local lingo and it was all but his own.
He replied to her in her language, but his own accent, ‘A present for you!’
He wafted his gift tantalisingly before her and, as was often the case, she took the bait, reaching out her hand to take hold of it. Ben hesitated waiting to see if there was any further reaction but as there wasn’t he turned to leave.
However, a less than frequent thing happened. ‘Where are you from?’ he heard the lady asking him from behind his back.
Realizing that he had hooked a fish, Ben swivelled back around and said, ‘Great Britain’. Sometimes it was handy to have a foreign accent.
‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ said the lady, ‘my grandson lives there’. For Ben this wasn’t such a surprise as most people in Moldova seem to have a grandchild living in Great Britain.
‘So, what are you doing here?’
‘Well, that’s quite a long story’.
The lady looked briefly around and then beckoned to Ben to take a seat next to her.
‘That’s okay. I’ve got plenty of time’.