Least the landscape was beautiful, I thought.
And boy howdy was it. Rolling hills rising high to peaks of green and gray, verdant valleys teaming with wildlife, shallow mountain streams running so cold and clean they seemed to be handed down by God himself to slake the thirst one developed hiking through the rarified, sun-warmed air. The days topped out near seventy. The nights were darn near cold enough to frost. And though everything, from the pitch of the roofs to the guarded cast to the faces of the locals, spoke of a culture used to hard winters and even harder rule, I found that by and large I was welcomed here, and I responded with rare good cheer.
I soon learned maps were useless here. Half these towns weren’t on them, and the other half weren’t where they were supposed to be. The one in which I currently stood was a bit of both. It, and the castle that once lorded over it, were referenced only once by a cartographer as far as I could tell from my extensive research, the valley labeled simply “moarte”, meaning death. The map itself was burned half to cinder when the library that housed it mysteriously caught fire some three hundred years back. And when I inquired around as to how I might find the town and the ruins of said castle today, the directions I got from the few historians and/or local mountain guides who would even deign to talk about it to me were at once so vague and contradictory, I got the impression that not only had they never seen the place of which I spoke, they clearly had no desire to do so. And those were the ones who didn’t storm off or hang up on me when I broached the topic. Odd for a nation so reliant on tourism, and so proud of their nation’s history and great natural beauty.
A whole country full of people avoiding the same village en masse? That sounded like Brethren mojo writ large to me. Which meant one way or another, I was gonna find the place.
The problem is, how do you find someplace that doesn’t want to be found? And the answer I came upon was slow and painstaking, but ultimately worthwhile. I drove around the countryside for weeks, the car loaded up with bottled water, coarse Romanian jug wine, and cured meats, not to mention two cans of spare gas stashed in the trunk. Every time I came across an intersection, I flipped a coin, assigning one direction heads, the other tails (or, in the case of the Romanian ten-Bani coin I was using, the less satisfying crest and stamped number value, respectively). Whichever route won the toss, I skipped, opting to take the losing path instead.
I won’t lie, I had my share of doubts that it would work, but the nature of the place I was looking for meant I couldn’t trust my doubts, for they might not truly be my own. And no doubt, the strange aversion-mojo the Brethren seemed to so delight in employing was not the only tactic of dissuasion at play here, because even though I’d cooked up a method to thwart it, that damn coin led me down a whole lot of metaphorical blind alleys in the form of quaint little villages with nary a monster or set of creepy ruins in sight.
As I climbed out of my car beside the nameless town’s square, though, I felt suddenly sure I had found the town at last. Because the second my foot touched the ground, an icy finger of anxiety dragged across my spine, and I was gripped with the sudden realization I’d left the iron on. Never mind I’d been living out of my rental car — which as far as I was aware did not boast an iron among its standard features — or that I hadn’t found myself with cause to iron since I last counted myself among the living. Knowing that didn’t prevent me from wanting to hop back in the car, hightail it out of here, and check the last five places I’d laid my head, just to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently lit any of them on fire.
It’s funny; the place didn’t look like it’d exude such a village-of-the-damned vibe. It was clean and well-kempt, its buildings timeworn but charming. And it was veritably teeming with life for so small a town, folks no doubt driven outside by the beautiful spring day. A flock of small children ranging from maybe four to ten moved as one across the square — giggling, chattering, and shrieking in the way that children do when they’re excited — with a soccer ball at the flock’s center. An old man fed the birds between puffs on a corncob pipe from a bench beneath a willow tree. Younger men — some dressed like farmhands, others tidier as if more accustomed to life behind a counter or a desk — walked to and fro across the square, waving and smiling at one another as they passed, or ducking into one of the tidy little shops. Occasionally, one of them would reemerge with a paper sack of meats or cheese or bread, and head back the way they came, noshing on a little something for their troubles. Sure, they all cast the occasional sidelong glance at me, but who could blame them? I was an outsider, after all.
But then there was the small matter of the women. And of the windows.
Namely, I didn’t see any of the former. A few pigtailed little girls mixed in among the little boys playing in the square, but none older than that, despite there being loads of men in sight from teenaged to elderly. And though the day was just as pretty as could be, all the windows that faced the square save for the storefronts were shuttered.
I suppose it could have been a fluke. Two flukes, I mean. The women were perhaps all off together having tea. The windows shuttered because no one occupied those upper floors. But two flukes seemed a little hard to swallow. Particularly in light of the twist of anxiety I felt the second I set foot here.
Well, I thought, guess it’s time to poke the hive and see what comes buzzing out.
I strolled across the small town square in a diagonal, skirting the octagonal gazebo, map and guidebook in my hands, a smile on my face. All for show, of course. “Excuse me,” I called to a young man headed past me in the opposite direction. He slowed a moment, eyes meeting mine, and I saw a flicker of understanding cross his face, as if he spoke enough English to’ve understood my interruption of his walk, at least. “I was wondering if you could help me,” I continued, emboldened by his reaction. “I’d like to know about the castle.” I pointed toward the ruins on the hill to underline my meaning. “It isn’t on my map.”
When I gestured toward the ruins, his eyes widened, and his pace quickened. “Eu nu vorbesc limba engleza,” he told me as he passed. I don’t speak English. I’d heard the phrase plenty since landing in-country, often said apologetically, as if it was some failing of the speaker’s and not my own ignorance of foreign tongues that was to blame for our linguistic impasse. But this guy was far from apologetic.
He was brusque.
Hostile.
Frightened.
I tried again with my inquiry, this time targeting a couple older gentlemen ensconced in genial conversation at park’s edge. “Excuse me, sirs?” I called, trotting toward them. They looked up at me and frowned — language barrier or sun’s glare, I wasn’t sure. “Pardon,” I amended (pronouncing it par-DOHN), making a show of consulting my guidebook as I did, as if I hadn’t learned that word or asked the question that followed ten dozen times since landing in this country weeks ago. “Vorbi?i engleza?” Do you speak English?
One of the old men shook his head, a little more emphatically than perhaps was called for. The other scowled and pointed at the church, metal scaffolding gleaming in the brilliant sunlight. I nodded, and massacred my way through “Multumesc.” Thank you.