One Candle

“You haven’t got a birthday,” Ani said on the stairs, and held out a sheet of squared paper as proof.

It was her list. Everybody in our building, one line each, in green felt pen. Eter, March. Valiko, July, with a small drawing of a cigarette. Gia, “the cold month”. Muria had a line too: “Whenever he wants.” Mine was empty.

“Everybody has one,” she said. “When were you born?”

“In September.”

“September is over.” She looked at me the way her teacher must look at late homework. “So it’s today.”

Nobody argues with Ani. By six in the evening Eter had made a Napoleon cake, which takes two days, in one afternoon and with a face that said it had cost her. Valiko brought a bottle and a speech. Gia brought the chairs from his kitchen, because mine are four and all of them are the same.

Ani stood over the cake with the box of candles.

“How old are you?”

“New,” I said.

“Like Gia’s wine?”

“Younger.”

She thought about it and put in one candle, right in the middle, very straight. Valiko lit it with his lighter. Then he started “Mravalzhamieri” alone, in a voice for three men, and the others joined in where they remembered the words.

“Now make a wish,” said Eter. “And blow. All at once, or it doesn’t count.”

I closed my eyes, because that is how it is done. Then I took a big breath, the biggest I could, and blew.

The flame didn’t move. It stood there, small and straight, like Ani’s candle, like a guard.

“Harder,” said Valiko.

I blew harder. The flame leaned a little toward me, as if it wanted to hear what I was saying.

The kitchen went quiet. Gia looked at Eter. Eter looked at the cake. Under the table Muria lifted his head.

Ani climbed onto the chair beside me.

“Together,” she said. “On three.”

On three she blew so hard that a crumb flew off the cake. The candle went out. A thin grey thread of smoke went up toward the lamp, and everybody clapped, and Valiko said that in his day a man blew out his own candles, and Eter said that last July it took Valiko four goes and his grandson.

Ani got down off the chair.

“You helped,” she said, kindly.

Later, washing up, she asked me what I had wished for.

“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Then it definitely won’t.”

She went home satisfied. On her list, by my name, she had written the date in green felt pen, and next to it, in pencil, small, a question mark.

I wished for a second candle.