One Saturday afternoon in September 2016, the most beautiful girl walked into the library. An Italian girl, so I learned quickly. And with her she brought something which I cannot describe in words, an emotion which I had never felt before. It was as if we already knew that, in this brief moment, we exchanged something that would change our lives. An Autumn and a winter passed by, and mostly I was not there when she brought a visit. But then came Spring. May 2017.
I was working when Giulia walked in, or rather, raged in... Ignoring everyone. I followed her with my eyes when she walked passed me and went to the back of the library. I could not care less about in which mood she was in. The important thing was that she was there. I gave her a moment to calm down, took some books and went close to where she was standing. “Come va?” I asked here with some acted nonchalance. And she gave me a most enchanting smile in return. And then she said she was looking for a book about a Dutch painter who lived in New York. “Ehm, Willem De Kooning you mean?” And she took a moment to think. “No, not that one.” So I said I was going to look it up and away I went. Actually I went up to the office where my friend Marijn, colleague in that period, was sitting and I told him in a state of excitement that that Italian girl had returned. He said that I had to go for it and that is exactly what I did. When I got back to her to tell her that I had not found that other Dutch painter who lived in New York, she told me that I was right. It was Willem De Kooning she was looking for.
We chatted a bit, mostly about art and more precisely about the exposition of the Belgian Belle Époque painter Rik Wouters. And then I asked her if she, by any chance, wanted to go with me to that exposition. And so she did. I asked her phone number and apparently she had switched the last two numbers when noting it down. I sent some messages to someone in Italy of whom I will never know who it is but eventually found Giulia’s real phone number and so we had our first date on the 28th of May 2017. MAGICAL.
And what happened with Marijn? Two years later he will be my witness at our wedding.
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