You come down from the cold mountains, disgusted by how easy it is to leave, by your lack of regrets, the absence of any nostalgia, humiliated to have found nothing in the mountains’ indifferent silence other than the silver of water, the darkness of poverty, and the failure of your journey to find tranquility. Somewhere, death waits for your moment of fulfillment.
In the mountains, you passed through the white border under the moon, leaned exhausted against a tree, lifted your gaze toward a branch, and felt a vast, tired astonishment in your new being.
You remained puzzled by what seemed to have happened or was happening to you, without being able to take the next step. You would have to remain a slave of expectations, for years to come, and sometimes still catch glimpses of the nomad’s thin silhouette at the end of the long corridor and the streak of his blue shirt, which marked his passage down the corridor. And that was all, for years and years: the silence of a long corridor cut by a young man’s haste. A colleague, an engineer, that’s all.
. . Lazily the sun rotated its rays in the wheels of Vasile Obreja’s wheelchair. You went on advancing blindly, not knowing where you were going or where you came from. At the burial, Obreja had accepted your pushing him around in his wheelchair, and it was the only time that the schoolteacher had said more than simply good day, yes, no, bon appétit. He asked, “Do you read stories?” — and, before you could respond, he stupidly added — “you should’ve known that babies can’t tame crocodiles, and that some illogical people can be and are despised.”
Without glancing your way, the dead man’s relatives accepted your presence at the service in that mountain village because they could not forget that the dead man’s belated passion for books had been roused by an elementary school teacher, whom they’d driven away so many times, and convinced themselves that the deceased might have lived longer if he hadn’t let himself be won over by this last silly stunt.
. . A sleeping sun kept rolling in the spirals of the wheels, and you continued to perceive nothing else, as if the old peasant, Abesei, had never existed or remained as alive as he was on those evenings when he’d take a crumpled copy of My First Book out from under his woolen vest and start practicing his ABCs.
With maybe twenty meters to go, you raised your eyes. A couple was just coming out of the village store that served as a pub. You quickly recognized the forestry administrator, Dan Vasilescu. The couple halted. The woman moved closer to her partner. They remained glued to the spot. Your pace slowed as you got closer to them. “Danny, you understand,” “Danny, I always,” “Danny, you must,” “Danny, it wouldn’t be right.” Your hands clenched the handlebars of the wheelchair. For an instant, the woman shifted her gaze. She was fat and middle aged, or rather ageless, perhaps she was even still young. The white lace of her collar lit her bright cheeks; hair aflame in the red dusk, eyes intensely blue, for a moment she had been radiant. Linking arms, the couple resumed walking. “Danny, I can’t believe,” “Danny, this beginning,” “Danny, this flight,” “Danny,” “Danny.” In the blink of an eye, her lamentations had purified the surrounding air. Impossible to understand exactly what had made you freeze: the voice of a fat and unhappy princess out of a fairy tale, the nickname Danny used for Dan, the voice in lamento, that innocence of an angelic child. Vasile Obreja’s hands trembled nervously. You started pushing his wheelchair again. Perhaps the crippled elementary schoolteacher wanted to avoid meeting the forester, who had a bad reputation in the village, where he was trying to absolve himself of some political guilt.
You might have met Monica Smântănescu back then, in one of the moments she believed she was being healed. . then, as she leaned tenderly on the shoulder of the new Danny.
It's impossible to come down from your hiding place in the bluish mountains, remembering only the face of the old peasant with kind eyes and a forgiving smile, a timeless man, anyhow, a man lacking old age, who had crossed the threshold of time — one as quiet as his native mountains, clear waters, forests — an old man healed of hate, fright, or decay. . Marveling at the capital letters of the alphabet, who would go on repeating the letters like a magic spell that could open the magnificent realm of youth. It’s impossible to leave the mountains that are silent except for the sound of damp earth covering the grave dug for Iorgu Abesei, who spent eighty years traversing five kilometers of hills to end up flipping through the ABCs. It’s impossible to leave with the memory of teacher Vasile Obreja’s shoulders and his wheelchair, pushed through the abrupt, narrow alleys, toward the locked doors of villagers bored by talkative do-gooders who disrupted their tranquil poverty.
Not even the hypothetical meeting with Monica and her pleasant voice — after her visit to the clinic where her mother Rebeca Smântănescu vegetated — could change your feelings of disgust with human beings, your disgust with their love and betrayals, so that you might come down from the mountains healed, emptied of the past, indifferent to any present or future.
Alone, frozen in the mountains’ lucid silence, among people desolated by poverty. . A meaningless refuge at the end of the world. . The silvery water, the snow’s hush on cold evenings, the tremor of an old man charged with wonder: none of that offered anything to your despair. In their silence, the tall, pure mountains stood indifferent: those huge specters, from whom you couldn’t expect a thing, so that you went on twisting those sparse strands of thin, weak hair, and your bits of fallen hair reminded you: the struggle goes on; there’s no miracle cure for memory. You must accept the disintegrations, even if the simple gesture of passing a hand through your hair turns out to be prohibited as well, just as the gesture of a passerby was once like some spontaneous combustion — long ago, recently, by chance — when he brought his hand to his throat. You were leaving the wilderness of that precarious stopover empty-handed, yet carrying everything you hadn’t yet managed to lose, replace, or forget; hands trembling in sparse hair, quickly withdrawn, frightened of the shedding; hands stiffened on the bark of a tree.
The hours there taught forgetfulness, however — gradually, slowly, hesitantly — crumbling, separating, unraveling, and scattering partial gestures, voices, and smiles. The struggle with memories went on sending small signals. . strands of hair kept falling when you least expected. The lesson of forgetting would have to be lived, forever, without end.
You stood with a hand on the bark of the tree. Wide eyes, lips damp with expectation, dread, amazement: your lunar face prepared for the greed of a new era, prey to another present.
You would have to open the door on a spring morning and show the newcomer and stranger the place near the window where the boss, Caba, bent over a desk, smoothing a small heap of banknotes with long, pale fingers. The stranger, the new engineer, brought a hand to the collar of his blue shirt. Your hair rose. Your hand pressed the wall.