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| Foto: D.D. |
I
don’t know why it had entered my head that I had to go and see the
church in Cioropina, a village in the south, on the Argeș valley,
spreading on both sides of the highway. I was six or seven back then
and it was summer. I could not walk on foot, it was too far, but I
had a new scooter, which my father had just bought from Bucharest,
where he used to go on business now and then. Yet I did not feel like
venturing to Cioropina on my new scooter, as I did not know the way
and I was afraid of finding myself wandering through some
god-forsaken places and running into trouble. And maybe I would have
waited a few years until I grew up, so that my father could buy me a
bike and I could have learned the way better, if one of the boys from
Blendea’s infamous family, whose name I cannot remember, although
this is of no importance, looking wistfully at my new scooter, had
not convinced me that he would guide me himself in that pious
pilgrimage to the above-mentioned village, where he happened to have
some relatives, his paternal grandparents, it seems. I knew this boy
by sight as I always saw him pass on our street, ruffled and dirty,
and knew that he was repeating the year. Blendea’s boy was the
spitting image of the Blendea family, but this I was going to find
out later. He asked me for one leu so that he would buy a package of
Nationals, he said they were for his grandfather in Cioropina, and
warned me not to say a word about our planned trip to my parents,
while setting up a meeting for the following morning, down the
street, after my father left for work. I was to make sure that nobody
would see me leave home, and if I could not keep my mouth shut, he
was not going to take me with him and I was not going to see that big
beautiful Church, full of painted saints, in Cioropina. He started to
walk towards the soda water shop, where they also sold cigarettes,
and I stayed on the doorstep, until Blendea’s boy disappeared from
my view and I was seized by a certain perplexity, wondering whether I
had given him one leu for nothing. The night might have seemed long
thinking of the expedition next day and I might have dreamt of
scooters and painted churches with one thousand one saints, who
deserved the effort of being closely seen and of the leu I had given
to Blendea’s boy. Luckily, the dawn broke soon, my father jumped on
his wreck of a Russian bicycle and rode to work. I crept outside too,
on my new scooter, which was still smelling of fresh paint and
started on my way in the other direction. I sped up down the hill, as
if I was being chased by demons, rising clouds of dust behind me.
Blendea’s boy was true to his word: he was waiting for me
bandy-legged, near the soda water shop, smoking a cigarette. ‘Come
on, we’re late! Why did it take you so long?’ he started scolding
me even from afar, then threw away the cigarette butt in a ditch,
jumped on the scooter in front of me, clutched tight at the handle
bars and told me to step on it, as the afternoon was approaching. He
was standing with both feet on my scooter, while I used only one,
with the other pedaling. Luckily the highway was paved with asphalt
and although Blendea’s boy had a wrong position and hampered my
pedaling, blocking my view, the scooter was driving like an
inspection trolley on the railway.
We
drove out of our village without my noticing it, we rushed through
Cioacele and I have no idea how we got to Cioropina. Yet somehow we
had made it. We stopped near the church, which was not a princely
cathedral and did not even resemble the Dorobanți church on the
hill, run-down, but full of saints and ancient things. Curious, I got
off the scooter and went to contemplate the place where the people in
Cioropina worshipped God. Blendea’s boy, not at all willing to see
the church more closely as I was, with a slight air of boredom,
stayed behind on the margin of the highway, clutching at the handles
without a word. He had fulfilled his promise by bringing me here and
nothing concerned him anymore. I went round the church, counting the
saints painted on the walls, but I was not very impressed. At least,
not as much as I had expected. The church in my village was bigger
and it seemed more beautiful.
It
was about noon. While I was still contemplating the church walls,
trying to weigh the worth of the painted saints, the rattle of some
wheels made me turn my head and I saw Blendea’s boy just as he was
riding away on my scooter. Until I was able to utter a word, to ask
him what he was doing and where he was going, he had already crossed
the highway and went through the gate of his grandparents’ house
together with my scooter, closing the gate tight behind him. I stood
motionless for some moments, as I did not expect this and I could not
understand what was happening. Until then I had had about seven
scooters, which I had ruined, yet none of them happened to be taken
by somebody, so it had not crossed my mind that something like this
would be possible. When I recovered my senses, I thought that
Blendea’s boy would come out to give me my scooter back or he would
invite me to his grandparents’ house for lunch. A vain hope, as the
wretched Blendea’s boy was not coming out. After entering his
grandparents’ place, he abandoned my scooter in the middle of the
yard, like a kind of trophy and he stood by air with a provocative
air, as if saying: “I am now home and this scooter belongs to me”.
I
crossed the street and stood before the closed gate. Blendea’s boy
was standing next to the scooter, like a guardian, and was looking at
me without budging, with the gaze of a Sphinx, under the afternoon
sun which was burning both of us. He was looking straight into my
eyes, without saying a word. The yard and his grandparents’ house
seemed deserted and I waited in vain to see any of them coming out. I
did not dare enter that foreign yard, for fear that a dog would jump
at me or something else would happen, and after a few minutes of
hopeless waiting, I started to shout at the top of my lungs.
Blendea’s boy did not react in any way. He stood his ground.
Whether he had premeditated his theft or not, one could see that he
meant to cling to my scooter and did not want to give it back.
Instead, on the previously deserted alley a group of women appeared,
some young, some older, who had heard me crying. They gathered round
me and asked what had happened to me. Among sobs I told them my
story, pointing to Blendea’s boy and my scooter behind the fence.
The women appeared deeply impressed by what had happened and one of
them, older and more robust, started to swear at Blendea’s boy on
account of his cheating, which was apparently not far from his
esteemed grandparents either, and then all the women urged him in one
voice to give me my scooter back. But the cheat who had swindled me
continued to stay behind the closed gate and he had no intention of
admitting to his cheat and giving the scooter back. No threat managed
to make him step back. Then the robust woman went to her house and
came back with her son. A boy that was older and stronger than
Blendea’s. He first tried to enter the gate in order to bring back
the scooter, but as the gate had been locked he had to jump over the
fence. Once on the other side he took the scooter from where it had
been thrown, without Blendea’s boy trying to resist him, he went
out triumphantly with it through the gate with it and returned it to
me, looking to see if Blendea’s boy had damaged it.
I
could go back home now, but the women showed their concern and did
not let me go back alone, for fear that Blendea’s boy would meet me
at the village end and steal the scooter a second time. In Cioropina
he was notorious for his bad deeds. They asked the boy who had
recovered my scooter to see me off home and we started immediately.
When we went out of the village, at a bend in the road, he showed me
some back gardens from where Blendea’s boy could have cut my way
and told me about his old deeds, well-known to the villagers. We
passed by the accursed place without anything happening to us, as
Blendea’s boy did not show himself or want to show himself; maybe
he was spying on us hidden somewhere, when we went on the highway
behind the gardens, but gave it up seeing that I was not alone.
This
small history has several endings.
The
son of the woman in Cioropina brought me back safe and sound and went
back to his village on foot, without asking for anything in return.
Of course I kept silent about everything in front of my parents,
otherwise they wouldn’t have allowed me to ride my scooter for a
long time. A few months passed since that event and life was carrying
me forward, when, one day, I met my rescuer again, passing through
our village in a cart. We recognized each other as if we had parted
the day before, we stopped and talked like two good old friends.
Afterwards I did not see him again, yet the event that made me know
and appreciate him stayed in my memory.
Twenty
or so years passed since then. One day, when I had come on a visit in
the village, I found out that Blendea’s boy had just died in a
serious accident. He had crashed into a tree with a stolen motorbike
at 100 km per hour. The constable had found out first about the
accident and went to his parents’ home to give them the sad news.
When he saw the policeman on his doorstep, old Blendea, imagining
that his son had committed another theft or started a new scandal in
the village, without letting the law officer speak first, is rumoured
to have welcomed him with this legendary parental enquiry:
“Has
my son screwed it up again?! … Beat him up, beat him up!...
The
law officer, looking askance at him, shut him up with the following
reply:
“How
can I beat him up, you blockhead, he’s dead.”
From my scooter,
Blendea’s boy had shifted to motorbikes. He never got to vehicles,
though.
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