The Old Man’s Village

 

The bus drew up into a ditch throwing the passengers’ midriffs forwards.  Then the driver peeled himself off his seat, popped a peanut in his mouth, bashed open the door and jumped out.  Several people stood up, holding a bag or two or even a broom.  The old man waited and sighed hearing the bus driver stroll by outside humming a football song.  He waited for the passengers to go.

 

On the slow, burning, journey he hadn’t said much.  The sun, on the other hand, had fired off his thinking. 

And memories. 

Regrets. 

The sun had pasted his eyes back with white light, greased his hair, stuck the shirt to his back and made him reach for his plastic bottle of water.  ‘This water is from my well,’ he thought while drinking, ‘and it’s the best water in the world.’  The old man wasn’t simply boasting to himself but merely affirming the truth.

‘Can’t stay long… must rush back… what will happen to the buffalo?  Who’s going to collect the honey?  Nobody.  That’s who.  Nobody.’  He had these dialogues with himself when he had nothing to do but wait for something.

One of the old women in front attempted to speak to him, having seen him staring, like a poet, out of the window to the hills and prairie.

“Have you got family in Huta?” she asked smiling, as old women do when they start.

There was no answer, though.

“I said do you have brothers or sisters in Huta?” she asked, thinking that his hearing’s probably not so good.

The old man shifted his gaze.

“I was a servant in Huta.  Sixty years ago on Zadic’s land!” and when he chuckled she joined him.

“And why are you going there now?”

“Well…” he said, thinking, “I want to see it again.”

“Really…”

He scratched the back of his head and, when doing so, his cap slid forward making him look far younger and his eyes said ‘this is not the end.’

 

It was an extremely warm day and it had been like this many years ago but maybe not even then.  It had never been as hot as the day when the old man stooped off the bus and stepped onto the dusty main road in the village of Huta.

He had not appreciated the weak breeze from the bus roof or the flittering shadows because now he had no shade and no wind and he tugged at his cap.  Seeing a house across the road he began walking to it, surprised by the village slumber.  But he thought ‘they’re out working in the field’ and then realised the house wasn’t finished as the bricks were randomly piled up and he could see from one side of the house to the other.

The bus driver, or some other man, was outside a place, leaning with his elbow against a table.  That man was drinking from a bottle so the old man grabbed his own bottle and took a big swig of clean, thrilling water.  Once more he tugged at his cap and then began moving towards what was once the centre.  He moved steadily and not once did he feel like an old man.  When he passed the bar he didn’t even look to see if the bus driver was the bus driver.  He kept looking at the houses.  Small.  Demolished.  Unfinished.  And where had his fellow travellers disappeared to?  Nothing going on and quiet just like up on the hill with the cows where sometimes he heard a branch slap another branch, or a wasp dizzy from trying, or God, but, mostly, He was silent.  And where were the porches?  Not one had he seen thus far and not one of these houses had been in such desolate a state when he was a boy. 

He heard clearly the galloping horse as the master rode in accompanied.

“Don’t stand there like an idiot!  Untie my shoes.  You will see plenty of horses from now on!”  The master, with his goatee beard and a voice that could make a fully grown man relieve himself, was right as the boy then spent a great deal of time working in the stables, eventually making horseshoes.

But no, there were no horses.  Only the bus, slanted.  A girl showed up in a window but she dashed off too.

‘When it rains they face a hard time here,’ he thought, caught up in a groove in the dirt, dust spraying over him.  He kept walking, though, because he couldn’t stop, feeling the bristles of his beard sprouting in protest against sweat and endless dust.

At the crossroad he stopped.

Here was where he imagined he’d end the journey, near the market where the people would welcome him.  In reality, the market and the people had been replaced by a big oak that had grown crooked while the road ahead went nowhere and to the right a few houses here and there were specks on the hill.  And there were no animals or voices to be heard.

The old man stared again at the oak and reminisced…he thought he’d never be able to afford any of the luxurious fruit on sale never mind the fancy clothes he knew not the names of.  He hadn’t been able to observe too long then and now that he was a man, and had lived a life, he wanted to stay, take it in and believe he’d earned his place amongst the living and in the eyes of God.  Who would’ve thought that a tree would overshadow all that?  Natural but out of place, if he could go home he would and bring back with him the axe.  Afterwards, he would not take the logs for winter.  He’d leave them there, scattered, in disgust.

But he couldn’t go home for he had plenty of time, what with the bus heading back in five hours or so.  The old man would find out where the people had gone to, whether they had formed a dwelling underground or blown like ashes skyward.  Drinking some more of his water he thought ‘I’ll go knock on the first door I see.’

 

While knocking he heard light footsteps on the other side.  An old woman, wearing a red headscarf, opened the door.  She had been on the bus right near the front.

“Come in,” she said and stepped back into a dark room where he followed.

In this room, candles showed up the corners and yellow made blue green.  To the side the old man heard a different woman breathing.  Then he felt something prodding his legs.

“Here.  Sit down.”  It was a chair.

He pulled up his trousers slightly, as he did out of habit, and sat, his eyes adjusting.  In front of him was a bed on which two old women lay.  He tapped his feet on the floor. 

Clay.

One of the old women was so small she looked like she had shrunk to fit just half the bed.

“We’re sisters,” said the slightly larger one who’d opened the door.

“Hmm…”

“What’d you come here for?” asked the small one.

“Oh, you know…”

“Out on a trip are you?”

“No,” he said, trying to think and fighting to see.

“What did you work?”

“I was a servant for Zadic.  Sixty years ago…or sixty-three…”

“Oh.”

“Everybody’s gone.  After his death, Zadic’s children sold everything, absolutely everything, and left.”

“Offf…there’s only a few of us left,” whispered the small one.

The brothers, sisters and cousins of the remaining few would come to visit, sometimes bringing essentials, always bringing gossip.

“We moved after the war.”

“Which one?” asked the old man, coyly.

“She went,” began the small woman, “and I told her to go!  Just go! I said.  I could see then the roads were never going to reach us.  How the bus gets here I don’t know…” and she trailed off, tired.

The old man tapped his feet on the clay floor, his shoes making reassuring sounds.

“I know that.  I can see it,” he said and shook his head.  “Where’s your family?”

“This is it,” said the larger woman.  “Nelu’s in Spain and Arghil does construction in Italy.  Their children are there too…they come, you know, maybe once a year, maybe twice a year, and they don’t stay long.  They look around.  They talk to us.  But they don’t look like they’re home.  They don’t look the same.”

“Arghil,” continued the small woman, “is building a villa not far away.  He says we’ll all live in it.  Me!  That’s what I need… and my daughter can’t do a thing.  She can’t cook, complains about cleaning… her husband does everything…”

“I know,” said the old man, his face serious, trying to make out the intricate shapes of the women, “mine are like that.”

Silence filled in the gaps.  They analysed each other and thought about the nights in which they went to bed early because they didn’t have anything else to do and it was quiet, like this, and they gave up and slept.  The limbs are tired but the mind is active!

“Have a drink of water,” said the larger woman, getting up and then bending over to grab a metal canister from under the bed.

“No, no.  I’ve got water,” said the old man, showing her his almost finished bottle.

“Have you eaten?

“Oh… it’s not important…”

“What do you mean it’s not important?  Let me bring you some of our mămăligă from morning…” and without waiting for his answer she hurried out slamming the door behind.

 

He could hear the small woman’s slightly hoarse breathing.  ‘She must be ill,’ he thought and tried to look at the walls but he could see the blanket covering her.  He then looked at his own shoes and shirt.

“I was wondering,” he said, smiling, “what’s happened to Ion, the son of Meşter?  He and I-”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

‘Pity.’

“What about Murgu Augustin?  We went bathing together in-”

“He’s dead too.”

‘All the old boys…’

“And Costică, his brother?  He was fast that boy-”

“He’s been dead longer than the other two.”

‘And I’m still alive!’

“Really?  I thought he would live forever,” said the old man and exhaled a throaty laugh.

“No one lives forever.  Apart from the Communists,” and the old woman laughed along too.

“And what about Nucu Aurica?  Is she dead?”  She was the most beautiful of girls, the angel of the village, God’s miracle.

“Aurica?  You mean the girl who used to live near the public gardens?”

“That’s right.”

“You mean the girl who couldn’t stop teasing all the stupid boys?”

The old man had tears in his eyes because he had felt her in his heart years after he had gone back home.  Then she gradually began to vanish from his mind and other worries took over.  And now he had remembered.

“You mean the girl with the most delicately embroidered dresses?”

“Yes.”

“That girl?  Aurica?”

“Hmm…”

“You found me,” and when she spoke those words the old man’s eyes shot up.  He had known that something was a little strange about this place with the yellow blue green lights, clay floor and no windows.  He had known that his life would open out to him like a flower and be crushed beneath the weight of time.  He had known it when he arrived, when he walked in, when he saw the tree, when he followed the red scarf, when he sat on the chair, when he was blind, when all he could see was sadness, he had known it this old man who could feel much more than anyone had realised.

“What…”

“What happened?  Yes, what happened?  When and how did it happen?  And, most importantly, why?”

“I don’t know…we…we…” the old man stumbled and felt his feet weightless and the weight from his feet and the rest of his body an anvil on his mind.

“I thought I recognised the walk but I didn’t know from where,” said Aurica.  “Is that you, Petrică?”

But he hadn’t recognised her.  She was just a little old woman, so tiny she had almost no presence.  And now she had become a shadow, illuminated across the walls.  He couldn’t breathe.  ‘What’s wrong with this weather?’  The heat had tied a knot in his throat and another knot in his stomach and was pulling on both.

“You’re-” but Petrică stopped, hearing the now familiar footsteps.

“Come,” said the old woman with the red headscarf, “the table is outside.”

 

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This story is taken from my forthcoming book The Wooden Tongue Speaks– Romanians: Contradictions & Realities which will be published by Subculture Books.