I met Cristina Busila in 2010 at the European College of Liberal Arts (ECLA), Berlin. We immediately became friends; it was her second year and my first in Berlin. Her room became our sanctuary, and we spent hours talking about our lives before our move to Berlin. She was one of the several Romanian students at this bizarre liberal arts school, which seemed more like a monastery than a normal university. Our friendship was the best gift ECLA gave me. There was hardly anything in common on the surface. She was brought up in post-communist Bucharest, fluent in German and French, and was writing about art and economics. Whereas I, just arrived from Pakistan, having escaped multiple arranged marriages, had no idea which direction my life was going. I had heard of Romania perhaps once in my entire life, through my father, who toured across Eastern Europe in the 1980’s but the world was a different place when I met Cristina.
To say that I fell in love with her would be an understatement. Cristina was and still can draw devotees to her. Several men and women longed to talk to her and spend time with her. Being her friend has always been and is one of the highest privileges of my life. Soon, our conversations revealed to us our common feelings towards the West. We both resented the ambitious Western lifestyle, yet, wanted to live here as well. We both liked the idea of liberal, open-minded men, but found Western men to be lacking commitment. There is hardly anything for which I have not sought her opinion since I met her. Cristina has been my comrade.
Not only that, but Cristina was an icon of sophistication. She was one of the most well-dressed and well-spoken students on campus. She taught me how to shop for appropriate accouterments and look after myself. I will never forget our shopping trips in Berlin. She appeared every morning, clean, pristine, extremely well put together. She chose the finest words to express herself. She ate delicacies and introduced European cuisine to me. What made her so charming was her unassuming and detached manner. She was never needing or wanting anything and had a slight melancholia about her. Witty, good-humoured and observant. While most Eastern European students rushed to take on a German identity, Cristina always displayed a quiet resignation and acceptance of who she was and is.
Since 2011, we have shared several visits despite the awful distance between us. When my family could not make it to my Berlin graduation in 2015, Cristina was there. She listened, she packed lunches for my last few days of retreats, because she always knows how to be there for another person, silently and without expecting much in return. This is what makes her an excellent mother as well. In 2019, I visited Bucharest to meet Cristina and her beautiful three-year-old boy. Few modern women can balance both work and full-time child care, like Cristina does. After seeing her with her boy Steffan, I longed to be a mother like her. We walked around the city, reminiscing about our time in Berlin, her visit to London, and our lives ahead.
What brings Cristina and me together is not just my absolute love and appreciation for her, but also our Eastern backgrounds. Her East is different from my East, but we remain outsiders in the West. I have received a tremendous amount of criticism from people on all sides, for being with a white man. Few people acknowledge that it is not the whiteness of that man, but his virtues and our mutual love and care for each other, which outdo our cultural differences. Nevertheless, in my heart, I retain a certain eastern sensibility, and Cristina role-models for me how to maintain that sense while living in the West.
I was fortunate to be at Bernhard Schlink’s and Claire Messud’s talk about History and Fiction at the New School today. Both writers discuss migratory experiences from the West to the East in their new novels. It could be Algerians moving to France or East Germans becoming part of the West, but the East is distinct from the West. Perhaps, there will never be a complete integration of the two, and maybe that is what makes our world such a colorful and vibrant place to be.
