Haunted Restaurant: Part 1 (“I haunt” Series)
This tale recounts a ghost hunting night in an actual restaurant. A photo spree on old streets among once glorious properties blessed by luxurious gardens, ending with a lush supper. The venue—an impressive fin de siècle palazzo revamped high-end restaurant.
Star-struck fun-twins
My only best friend, Lucia, lives in far-away Canada, but almost each summer, lately, visits her native town. I too spend summers there, in the harbor city on the Danube where I was born, so we meet to chat and exhilarate each other.
As high school girls, we shared a desk, class, break—you name it—and impish amusement forbidden by rules. Not quite in the popular group, but cute and star-struck, we bridged between commoners and aristo-teens.
In sophomore, though, airy stardom gained viscous substance, to upgrade to junior gold-medalist. Then we performed a swift jump to senior diamond brilliance. Yet, we kept our status—untouchable, inseparable fun-twins. Above groups, but frequented by any and wowing a large fan-ship.
Well, the confetti schoolmates showered on us glinted with jealous tinsel and sparse grudge, but smelled colorful. You can’t raise envy’s stamp off a stardom package. In fact, we relished the mark. On the outside, though, since summers, vacuumed of fans, breathed solitude breezes over our podium.
Anyway, unleashed freedom following graduation rewarded us full. While colleagues dropped youthful fantasizing and picked important but no-frills careers, we went crazy.
Adventurous graduates
Lucia did geologist, speleologist, explorer on mountain bottoms and peaks. An adventurous backpacker, she fled the country while still under the communist government. Married, divorced, married anew, flew to Switzerland, lived in Paris, settled in Ottawa, then in Quebec. There, post-university studies, certificates, and the infamous knot tied with a millionaire.
My best friend manages a colossal state company, drives the latest electric sports vehicle, and lives in a mansion with a private park, lake, mountain.
I too lived my passions. Diverse, dozens. Publicist, novelist, diva inamorata, and then globetrotter myself. Housewife–business woman in Italy, model, time-sharing agent, and rent-a-car lady in Spain, mermaid gymnast, inamorata anew.
Advanced studies in Edinburgh, teacher trainer, adventurer, and educational manager. Projects in Spain, Turkey, China. High school principal, oh my God!
When Lucia and I meet, time is narrow for our new lives’ stories.
Photo spree for eerie haunts
Last summer she divulged she ran a fancy-bag small business with a friend in La Réunion. I showed her my latest published articles and books, and artistic photos. And oh, I resumed fitness training and aqua gym.
“Girl, let’s go for a ride in my rented electrical,” she said.
“Cool. We’ll resume tomorrow ticking our exploits.”
She invited me to a posh restaurant. The best, in and off town, her husband’s favorite—on his last visit. Meanwhile, she bought herself an apartment in central Montreal, where to contemplate their matrimonial fate.
“I booked for eight o’clock. Till then, ma chérie, how about hunting for derelict mansions? Eerie, maleficent, haunted.”
“Yuppie, you nailed me! I intended to go on a photo spree for my book Darxination.”
“Oh, you autographed it for me earlier.”
“The second edition will feature, for each weird chapter, a picture. Neglected palazzos, cobbled streets, that stuff.”
After winding on a maze of lanes off the historical center, we parked the car outside a wrought-iron gate to a withered venerable. Blind eyes, lame-pink caked foundation, wrinkled vines over cracked frontispiece.
“Picture?” Lucia said.
“Shaky enough, but not eerie, not the haunt in my vision.”
We wobbled to the harbor area, each phone in hand, ready to touch the camera buttons. And we touched them, oh, hundreds of times. This sculpted door here, that pompous frontispiece there, a forlorn window, a stray dog or lazy black cat.
The street in my novel
Rose and bougainvillea coats on brick or rusty fences scented our pursuit, while the misty sultriness evoked the grand lady river in the distance. When we reached the head of a street that slanted toward the bluish Danube gloam, I gasped a mouthful of stale air.
I painted that street in my novel, with the same peculiar houses, suspended terraces, hanging roses, never aware it existed for real. These perfumes enchanted Estera, and beyond flowery curtains, I guessed the fairy garden where Carola danced naked with night insects.
I stood statue, raised my arms, my fingertips tasting God’s summer glory.
“Lucia, I’m in my novel.” I performed a revering lunge, ogling my friend’s icon. “Je t’aime, ma chérie. Never been here, but—”
“Laura, no kidding?”
“Cross my heart. I lived in this quarter while writing. Darxination, for one month.”
“What?”
“The story existed, yeah. I received and put it on paper.”
“Incredible.”
“A gift from beyond.”
Lucia’s mouth, a beauty, split her healthy-boned face, revealing the sexiest teeth gap, now the cutest. Her peals infected my spirits, so I burst into laughter, accompanying her.
On our haunches, we paused the city hike for a happy while. Then, a wild photo session began—from this angle, in that light, capture that fin de siècle evocative sight.
A tableau beyond ages
As we descended to the grand river, violaceous warm gold gilded ripples upon ripples of tin roofs bathing the city’s harbor valley. Far away, under the nebula of a different sky, the ancient Macin Mountains dozed fairy dreams, swaying.
Wonder petrified me in an open-mouthed statue—the adoration of Jesus revamped. A dove fluttered her wings above. I gasped incense.
“God, Lucia, the tableau ahead lingers in my novel forever, beyond ages, when Dobrogea Mountains will have dulled to waste plains. When the sea covers their rocks ground to dust and Danube’s last spasms together.”
“Oh, you stayed a fantasist teen, ma chérie. Books don’t resist cataclysms.”
“Physical?”
“Yeah. Electronic, too. Stick-stuck, chipped, you name it.”
“How about metaphysical storage?”
Lucia showed her gapped front teeth again.
“Hey, don’t poke fun at me. The universe stocks imagined landscapes and stories, no sham. Read my novel, you’ll see.”
We switched back to buoyancy and the photographic spree.
“Ma chérie, it’s past seven. Let’s put smart shutters on hold and leave this alluring heaven.”
“Yours is an iPhone.”
“Blah, a label in the mobile league. But lo, no random pick—I’m a smart artificial intelligence freak.”
“Rhymes, Lucy, since when? God, you imitate Marcus.”
“Marcus who?”
“No last name. My male protagonist, the rhyme-speaker. And you haven’t even read Darxination.”
Lucia sat on a bluestone block in the curbside to shake off astonishment, exhaustion, hilarity.
“Ah, your book’s killing my judgment and senses. Don’t tell me fictional characters haunt actual places and people.”
“I’ll knock you off feet if I tell more.”
“Shoot, I’m sitting.”
The restaurant in my novel
“On that summer night, Marcus invited Estera to a swish restaurant in the harbor area. They walked past picturesque mansions and gardens in what I named the Greek quarter, then the Jewish quarter.”
“They once stood in Braila, the wealthiest, proudest—my dad described them.”
“Mine too. But in my writer’s vision, they thrived with palpable charm, smellable fragrances, visible rose petals. And gramophone waltzes.”
“Ah, Darxination guided our steps here, not I. What if we are in the ancient Jewish quarter?”
“If yes, no wonder. I remember: I designed Estera green-eyed. She is you.”
Lucia shivered with confused giggles. She stood up and said, “Come, our reserved supper’s waiting.”
“Are you taking me to the restaurant in my novel?”
Photo by Viviana Ioan
Restaurant flip
An architectural jewel in the old center where kids my age ate vanilla and pistachio ice cream from ornate coupes.
Sometimes parents ordered millet brew—braga—and assortments of divine cakes. Chocolate moist sponge inundated with whipped cream sprinkled with currants and walnut grind was my favorite.
As a teen, I had lunch bites or dinner steak with rice and jazzy veggies at the cake shop turned brasserie. When older, cups of Turkish coffee or lemonade, on the street terrace.
“So, Lucy, you kept the venue a secret. We used to drink braga here after classes.”
“Amazing how the current owners renovated this place to revive its bygone charm.”
Stained-glass windows and monumental front door panels, art nouveau. A bijou vestibule, then a few steps to a sculpted portal. I had climbed those steps innumerable times, but never in luxury.
As soon as a liveried male attendant ushered us in, a starlet materialized from an early Hollywood talkie to take over the hospitality protocol.
From this larger vestibule, the former cake shop’s binging room, the entrails, hidden in the communist era, revealed their glory to us. A sumptuous, dark-oak staircase unrolled its burnished splendor to a coquette respite landing.
A tall, gold-rimmed mirror dominated my eyesight and spirit from impressive heights. From the frame’s baroque intricacies, it glinted crystal nobility and alluring leers.
Lucia told the hostess she knew the way to the pledged chamber, so we stuck free in the lobby.
“Never imagined a wow flip, right?”
“Lucia, I’m stunned. Who the hell owns this dining museum?”
She pointed to the towering mirror. “Up we go.”
“Not before I take pictures.”
Photo by Viviana Ioan
Restaurant fancy rooms
Bewitched through the viewfinder, I ghosted steps on the imperial-blue carpet. Rococo settees flanked the Venetian regina, so Lucia sat on one, inviting me beside her. We took pictures.
The staircase branched and fanned lustrous steps higher. When I glanced at the ceiling, I dared not compare it but with vaults in my dreams.
Art nouveau, but a mysterious thrill seeped in through the blue, emerald, violet vitreous panes, caught in stern, yet lascivious shapes. They grieved inside a huge, tomb-like, protuberant wooden frame, forming an upside-down pedestal. Not peeling my eyes off it, I snapped photos.
Photo by Viviana Ioan
On the next landing, Lucia led me along interminable corridors decorated with signed paintings and objets d’art on console tables. Alabaster, bronze, rose quartz. An exclusive collection hid in the restaurant, including a conglomerate of styles and beauty.
“Why so many doors? They also run a hotel?”
“Don’t know. Most rooms are for various periods dining, though, re-creating bygone gist to please customers’ fancies. Ancient, rococo, neoclassical, art deco.”
“Way different from my book’s restaurant—Moroccan to please Marco.”
“You called him Marcus before.”
“Sorry, for rhyme’s sake.”
And we partook of a laughing break. For starters.
“I’ll show you some rooms after supper if they are unlocked. My husband and I peeked into the Arabian Nights, the Austrian Stern, Pompadour Boudoir, Venetian Carnival. The Hollywood Heights Opulent—a glass-walled latest addition on top—allows only owners, said a gossipy waiter.”
“Traitors, to spoil sacred historical roof territory.”
Ha ha ha.
“Laura, after Pompadour, my husband, blessed his wealth, promised me a four-poster bed. I ponder whether to accept this luxury over liberty.”
Ha ha ha.
“Lucia, in what style are we going to eat if we’ll eat at all?”
“They offer mostly art deco—New York Ritz, Gatsby Glitz—but I picked Cozy Hall.”
“Sounds fine.”
Art deco cozy hall
The Cozy appealed to me from the hallway. Through crystal wings wide open to receive guests, it enchanted your steps with radiating brilliance and soft, sensuous tango sounds.
Despite the lush display of space, the vast vacant middle, glass leaves of chandeliers hanging high, the atmosphere effused peace, a sweet balm. On a massive feasting table covered in green velvet, three candelabra waited.
At two smaller tables in opposite corners, companions ate and whispered. Brass candelabra and zappy mosaic lamps embraced the room with a mellow mist. They shone from occult tops of French buffets, silvery sideboards, and consoles. Lustrous flares showcased slender bronze damsels and sleek silver boxes inlaid with ivory, emerald, enamel.
Lonely on a wood mantle, a phonograph played centerpiece on the back wall, its mute flaring horn reverberating light from the mirror behind, but no music. As I sent love waves toward it, Lucia showed our table.
“Look, our guest tag.”
Its spacious top, oak-rimmed and coated in downy antique green, coddled us.
We ordered, ate, drank lemonade and braga, laughing over each course and drink. Late, after the other guests left, we endeavored to photograph the museum room.
Restaurant terrace velvet & gossip
Then Lucia suggested we slick out to a side terrace for coffee and cigarettes. An intimate one, looking out into a garden fenced by sycamores. The sky, an immensity of electric deep blue, lowered its peace veil on us.
To compare that night with velvet is no cheap stylistic feat. Satiny cilia caressed our cheeks. Secluded at the building’s back, we unrolled further episodes, divulged mini-secrets, and of course laughed and made merry. Merrier. Our peals ruffled lashes of dormant stars.
The sycamore leaves rustled a melancholic breath, foregrounding our incredible night-cup venue on earth.
“Never guessed a garden tucked in the town’s center, hidden from citizens’ eyes. The braga joint treasured unthought-of secrets, therefore.”
“Secrets today’s magnates scavenged and brought to fresh life while retaining the mysterious flare and charm.”
“Fresh mysteries too, Lucia. Who has the financial power to undertake a project this grand? The architectural plans alone must have cost a fortune. Then the army of designers and craftspeople—moldings, silk and wood paneling, carved stairs.”
“Marble, oak, Venetian mirrors, French crystal, silver, gold—my husband’s guts fainted.”
“And the fine art collection.”
“The reconstructed restaurant beats the ancient aristocrats’ villa.”
“Restaurant? Lucy, you’re kidding. This gilded mammoth hides more.”
“You got me thinking—a sanctuary for smuggled period pieces.”
“Unlawfully private, worth ogling by art lovers, fake or genuine, in museums. Or stolen. Shh!”
I pointed to the peeping waiter in the French door’s frame.
Lucia peeked sideways and burst into chuckling. “He’s eavesdropping.”
“Was. Checked whether we left without paying.”
“Ha ha.” Lucia fished a card holder from her purse, flapped it open, and with pincer fingertips, drew a platinum. “Few have this. A speck of its fill will settle the bill.”
Creepy gran clock
I got up and leaned on the trim, minimal, black iron rail. “Oh, fragrances of antique roses. They remind me of Carola and her dances. I wonder how they landscaped the garden.”
“When we have lunch here, ma chérie. Now, forget your novel, it’s eleven.”
“Look, the glass penthouse! I distinguish black ducts in wide sleek panels. Sure the magnate owners reserved it for under-stars sleeping. Your flair guesses the stairway there?”
“Never bothered. Next time, we’ll spy on the modern heights. Now we’d better raid the premises for a French boudoir or weird Venetian glamor in carnival.”
We ghosted the corridor on that level, jiggling knob after doorknob, on either mute side. The imperial-blue runner’s tiny end got larger but less creepy, thank God. The pendulum clock, though, a timeless gran stuck on the card-narrow end wall, watched our advancement with forbidden tick-tocks.
“Lucia, let’s turn around. The creepy gran clock shows twelve. What if they close and lock us inside? I wouldn’t spend the night here.”
“That clock’s dead. My actual iPhone says twenty past. Then, do you think they leave the premises without mopping and washing up?”
“They. This word gains horrific dimensions at this hour. In my novel—”
“We’re not in your novel. Calm down, Estera.”
“Estera was you. I depicted myself in Carola.”
“Whatever, ma chère Laura. But don’t we hunt tonight for spookiness absolute? That’s how we started today’s adventure. Your second edition needs genuine spooky pictures.”
“You’re right. I’ll sacrifice my guts’ peace for art.”
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