Ovidiu Verdes was a professor of literary theory at Litere, Bucharest, so not just any professor who juggles abstractions like I’m drinking water. And for two or three days he is no longer in the world. He suffered: he died. He left me in this world with some music and some phases. And with great silence: who is it?

When the world opened up after 1989, Ovidiu Verdes was one of the few people I thought I had known all my life. I am sure that everyone knows him in his own way. For me it was like that, although we exchanged a few words at the time.

Ovidiu Verdes was placed in a time without time. He scared me with his piercing eyes, steadfastly, as if nothing had happened, lived his illusions, utopias, times, anxieties. And so, for me, Ovid is worth watching and imitating. He must have known something I will never know.

It was mine because I had so many crazy things going on in my head that I needed a Sphinx. I knew him without seeing him. From words. And so it seemed strange how I leaned in front of him, strange how he tolerated me near him. I’m always shy and joke how can you be different in front of the Sphinx…

He silences or emphasizes remarks. Like a top-class boxer looking at a supposed opponent.

Do not think that Ovidiu Verdes knew them all or was even a Sphinx. no He was human. But he spoke little, and in his avarice told me more than a machine of conflicting or gossiping mouths. He was human, but you see, that’s how the human mind reduces friendship to labels.

When his art book “Music and Phases” came out, I couldn’t believe it. When I read the book, it was him again, and it wasn’t him. He “revealed” a bit, but he also knew how to be a puppeteer: he fascinated us. It was the book with which he appeared that broke the fair in its own way, in its own style.

Ovidiu Verdes, mother, what vodkas and what nights we spent together. And now I understand that it was still not enough. What fantastic expeditions we have made, what worlds we have despaired of. But, I repeat, he is somehow withdrawn, full of fantasy, I let thieves into passion.

Huge as Don Quixote, I thought I was the grumpy Sancho, but I’m not. I don’t remember him giving me any advice, I didn’t ask, I don’t know what his advice was, but I took a state of contemplation from him ahead of time. Silence, ambiguity. So if you ask me, who is Ovid? I really have no idea. I was silent for a long time with Ovidiu Verdes and I really liked it.