A
BALLAD OF BONES
by Alin Dărângă
The Obsidian Sun Society
I often recall those places, the marble columns fallen under
coarse moss, the black, knarred branches
of the trees, the worn-out tombstones, covered by undecipherable inscriptions.
I remember the white manor, perched on top of the loess hill, the endlessly
melancholic September afternoons when I wandered, alone or accompanied by
Hermann, under an unreal blue sky, searching for pheasant nests and gathering
the fossils which drew hieratic rock carvings on the fissured cliffs surrounding the lake.
Passing the butchers market, we used to buy barbecued sheep
from old Omar, aghast by the grinning
skulls that were looking at us, skinned and bloody. Afterwards, we descended
the cobbled streets to the tavern where, at night, women with ivory thighs used
to dance with dervish-like moves. At daytime, this place was almost empty, so
we sat at a table, ordered some wine and apricots and talked with the travelers
who stopped to enjoy the shade of the tavern.
Hermann had an old
bone flute, with strange inlays, received from abroad. He used to play
melancholic, eerie songs which saddened me terribly, without knowing why and
frightened away the cats sheltered in the surroundings, but the owner of the
tavern seemed to enjoy them very much and always invited us to play.
I used to drag an ancient lute, trying to learn the craft
and sometimes accompanied him, although I often preferred to drink and listen
to Hermann singing.
*
Outside, a huge wave of snow was blown by the winter winds over the
park, swallowing half of the tree trunks. Some patients are walking along the
frost covered path, accompanied by relatives or friends. In the morning, when I
drink my coffee, I like to check if my old fingers still obey, trying to lift
the heavy stone statue that keeps my window closed and to sit it on the floor.
From the attic room which I inhabit I look into the sanatorium court.
Ivy is creeping unimpeded on dilapidated walls and crawls over the old trees
bark, as a Driade. Nurses have the feeling that I am looking at them and wave
to me, smiling. I see some of them daily, for years now, but I am reluctant to
approach.
I do not like their optimism, that warm touch on the shoulder that they
believe to cure anything. Anything but the emptiness I feel since Hermann
disappeared….
*
I wandered through the old
cemetery, with my board and paints gathered together in a cloth bag, nibbled
and stained. I hoped these places would inspire me so I had left Hermann
sleeping and headed out to the market, where I had bought some bread and figs,
then turned on the dusty trail, covered with weeds, the sound of my feet
scaring away snakes and gray grasshoppers that hid in the withered bushes.
The air hung an aroma of wild
thyme and rosemary…Sometimes, when I passed by a herd of goats I asked the
child that was guarding them to fill up with milk a pot that I carried with me.
The goat would then obey the
small, sunburned hands, bleating softly and foamy milk was spurting, warm and
smelling like grass.
Perhaps the Devil urged me that
day to avoid the vineyard, where scented juices was fermenting quietly hidden
inside the ripen grapes, and to head for the cemetery, where slabs laid
scattered like the bones of a giant, among the weeds hit by drought.
And it was still the Devil who
pushed me forward to the grave of the Old Landlord, the one whom grandfather
bitterly spoke about in the winter nights when the blizzard howled outside like
a rabid wolf, above the chimneys, while grandmother was baking pumpkin pie.
We crouched beside the fireplace
and listened enamored to the stories that our old man told, while twisting his
parchment foil and filling it up with tobacco.
-
My beloved
children, he sighed, smoothing his whitened moustache, there were times that you did not get to experience, and of which it
might be useful for you to learn, so that you could understand how much blood
and sweat your ancestors have shed on these lands…It happened when I was a lad,
around these places, that there lived a cruel and evil landlord, as
black-hearted as the cauldron on the bottom when you put it off the fire. And
he received tribute from each of us, villagers, every year. If you did not give
him what he considered to be his lawful right, he would send his servants to
take the pig from your yard and the corn from your barn. I was married with a
woman from another village back then. One year, there came a terrible drought,
which arose a dry hot wind from the East, along with a red dust, that settled
everywhere, on our faces, on the linens, on the food and over the water that
the cattle and the horses drank. Elders said that it was a sign of dire times
and war, but I was young and I used to make fun of their words, as you laugh
now, while you watch the pie coming out of the oven. And I left the village to
work when the lord came to take his toll. In front of our fence, my wife begged
him to leave us just a little more time to get the money, she told him that the
drought has withered the leaves of the plants, that the corn was not ripen yet
and that she could not give him any of the pigs, because we would starve to
death at winter. Then, the landlord glanced at her and started laughing.
-
Why are you laughing, My Lord? Look, nothing remained to feed my child! We had a wonderful boy, he was three years
of age, and he was hiding behind his mother’s skirt, staring at the landlord. The
bastard laughed again, turned to his servants and cried:
-
Take everything that you can find! Look
everywhere, I am sure that they have hidden away some gold from us!
Then, he whipped his horse and left. When I
came home after two weeks I have found an empty yard and my wife in the grave,
brokenhearted by grief. They have stolen everything, even her dowry, and they
have ripped off her earrings. The landlord’s name was Dragomir. He died a month
later, when his mansion burned to the ground. The servants have fled when
ignited, but he was closed in a room with his lover and when he had realized
the danger, it was too late. No one knew who set the fire, and nobody managed
to find out, but you probably guess now…And they built a large stone tomb,
and they had put in his scorched bones,
all that remained from him after the
fire. Afterwards, his only son fled abroad and nobody has seen him ever since….
*
So, there I
was, in front of this cursed mausoleum, watched over by the granite statue of
an angel, which stood there mourning, with an arm bent over his moss-covered forehead.
Ruin seemed to have engulfed the whole building, only the carved head of a goat
stood over the entrance, like a guardian of both life and death. I went in and
descended the stairs covered by mould that lead to his crypt. Down there, among
rotting boards, blackened by damp and spider webs that formed a curtain over
the walls, scattered bones laid squired,
aged by the fire and the years. I touched them, hypnotized, and, without
realizing, I began to reconstitute his body. And when I have finished my macabre
work, I then realized that the femur was missing. And then I knew where Hermann
has got his flute from…And I realized who Hermann was, and why he always
avoided speaking about his father and grandfather. And then I felt hatred, the
same hatred that I have felt in my oldman’s eyes and voice.
*
I am alone now, with my paintings and
statues. I have left the village for decades. People said that I had left
because I could not bare the loss of Hermann. The house we used to inhabit had
burnt to the ground, and everybody, knowing how much Hermann enjoyed to drink
and smoke, assumed that he had felt asleep with his cigarette lit…In the yard
of the sanatorium, visiting hours are over and patients return to their rooms.
A little girl looks up to me and smiles. I smile to her and sip some coffee. I
had put too much sugar in it.. None of my visitors understand why I never carve
bone statues and why I hate flute tunes. But you probably guess now…..
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