Ciorascu and I-can’t-remember-her-first-name was my colleague in the first year of school. She was Gypsy.

Quite tall for her age, a bit overweight, with curly dark hair and strikingly round, dark-brown pupils.

Our teacher – a man – regularly took us outside to do physical warm-up.

In the derelict courtyard turned a sports arena, at the back of our School of Music, we were braving the potholes, running from one end to the other, guided by hand signals.

Ciorascu had a particular ‘laziness’ in her eyes, I thought: she always looked bored, detached, indifferent somehow.

Teacher’s arm goes up: he gives the signal. ‘Go, Ciorascu, go!’ On the sides, the kids start to shout their bullying.

She very difficultly reaches the other end of the courtyard to meet an angered teacher.

‘You idiot! Whatever is wrong with you? Are you not able to move or what? Come on! Move yourself!’ Then the teacher bangs a fist into her upper arm.

Under the uniform’s blue dress, I can see her plump flesh trembling, the fist sinking in the upper arm’s fatness.

The look didn’t change at all in Ciorascu’s eyes: she remained as impassive as before, with her dark, dark-brown and incredibly round pupils.

For that first year, she was handed a fail.

But her eyes have kept on looking at all of us in that class. It’s like she was telling us: my time is not your time and your time will never be my time. Whatever you do to me and however you choose to bully me, the look in my eyes will never change.

It’s like the look in her eyes (which was involuntary, I’m sure) stood as a testimony that there are some things we will never be able to overcome, will never be able to change, will never be able to destroy in others.

How comforting that look in your eyes still is, Ciorascu!