WINTER SUN
The car stopped behind two or three
other cars that were parked in front of the two isolated houses on the
mountain. While the women were taking out bunches of flowers and other
small items usually brought on such occasions, I noticed some people in
front of the larger single-story house, relatives and friends of the
deceased person, lined up in the subdued expectation of accepting
condolences and letting the newcomers enter. It seemed to me that it lasted
too long; nevertheless, we got out, shook hands and kissed the relatives;
with the others we only shook hands, expressing our sorrow for the great
loss.
The fear that we might be late seemed to be exaggerated, but
the winter day was swiftly coming to an end. We entered the house. In the
large room where we usually heated sheep’s milk during the summer, or where
we all gathered, watched TV, and chatted with relatives, about ten women
stood, with some men. The deceased person lay in the midst of stringy
winter flowers in the same bed opposite the windows where he used to sleep
and rest every day and night. I stayed there for a while, and then I went
into the narrow hall between the rooms. I met the son there, who was also
master of the house. I shook hands with him and kissed him, and then said
in a restrained voice, "So, your father passed away."
He took me to the other room, where we sat and smoked
cigarettes. He told me about the old man's last days and moments. A friend
of the old man had come from the lower village and brought him a bottle of
wine. The old man was not allowed to drink wine, but he drank it anyway, a
sip at a time. Then he vomited for three days, couldn't eat, and felt bad,
but he didn't want to call a doctor.
"Daughter-in-law, I will tell you something tonight," the old
man had said to the middle-aged woman.
That afternoon he had felt very bad. The son had gone to the
lower village to call for a doctor. When he had returned, his father had
already passed away. He had not managed to tell his daughter-in-law that
"something." The son was wondering in front of me what that could have
been. Was it his last will? Or the revealing of a secret of his? Or a
message?
The old man lay motionless in his bed among the flowers, and
the women came in and out of the room. The priest had already come, too. We
stood up and parted.
After a while they took the dead man to the front of the
house. That was announced by two piercing voices, actually two screaming
cries, one female, which probably belonged to one of his daughters, and the
second male, coming from one of his sons. Those voices, their screaming
cries, seemed to express a painful wrenching from the oldest and deepest
root of the house.
The priest, a middle-aged man with a short black beard and
clean mantle, sang some sacred songs, and the procession began. The
cemetery was not far from there. The low hill called Tumba was about a
hundred or two hundred meters from the house. The grandchildren took the
cross and the garlands, and a few men took the coffin. The procession set
off. The road led to a gentle rise where we went in summertime to collect
dry twigs or to straighten out the irrigation ditch.
The procession looked strange to me. About twenty or thirty
men and women from the lower village or the nearby town slowly climbed
Tumba. Their gray, blue, and orange clothes made a sort of living organism
that crawled over the rise with its sparse vegetation. People say that
death is equally bad everywhere. However, maybe because of the quiet, light
air or the clear winter-day transparency on the mountain, death and
everything about it looked like it was taking something from the
mountainous lightness and transparency.
We climbed the steep slope and arrived on Tumba. There were
more stones than earth around the grave. There's little topsoil on the
mountain. The priest conducted the burial service. Those who were closer
listened to him, while the others talked to each other. Because space was
limited on Tumba hill, some old, long-forgotten graves were crowded with
people from the old village. A man close to me asked, pointing to a nearly
flattened grave, "Whose grave is this?"
"It is Stojan's grave, of the Petkos."
"Shame on his sons," my neighbor said. "When he was alive he
did everything for them, and here is how they have paid him back."
The quiet conversation stopped, and the priest was still
singing. By the movements and glances of the graveyard attendants and those
who helped them I knew that the funeral sermon was over. The man standing
near the open grave asked quietly, "Haven't you brought a rope? The grave
is a little cramped."
"No, we have forgotten."
"I’m going to get it," volunteered a young boy with fair hair
in front of me.
"It’s behind the haystack near the house. Bring two of them."
The boy ran down toward the two isolated houses. The priest
sang like still water, and the winter sun almost sat on the high mountain
crest in the west. Maybe it needed a rest too.
For those who didn't follow the priest's singing it seemed to
stop suddenly. Then he addressed the people directly, the small group of
people gathered on the low hill above the valley. With temperate words and
a serene voice the priest unobtrusively but quite precisely touched the
gathered people with thoughts and feelings. He gave details of the dead
man's virtues, not forgetting to emphasize among them his great devotion to
that land and the old village, his insistence on staying there until the
end of his life.
After the "last kiss," they placed the lid on the coffin and
over his corpse, and four experienced men lowered it into the cramped
grave. The best among the masons present, a tall, thin man with tanned face
and arms from his work in the wind and sun, went down into the grave, sat
on the coffin and started building the foundation of a future grave on the
edge of the coffin.
"The biggest stone first," he said, turning up to those
helping him.
He arranged the stones from one end of the coffin to the
other with subdued ease, as if he were building a house. When the
foundation was taller than the coffin, the bricklayer stopped, and a man
from above passed him a white sack with the bones of the dead man's wife.
"What a nice woman she was," said my neighbor next to me.
"Tall, with a stern expression but hands of gold. Every member of her
household would be given a chore in the morning and they would finish it
without complaining. All kinds of chores concerning the sheep were done
well and promptly, and the house was always sparkling clean. She was a real
pillar of the house. A rare woman."
The bricklayer placed the woman's bones carefully beside the
dead man's legs, left the grave, and said, "Now you can throw on some
dirt."
Earth began to cover the dead man, and in the west, beyond
the rocky crest, the cold sun lay behind the mountain. The winter day is as
short as a person’s life.
*
Then it seemed that everyone was in a rush. They washed their
hands with cold water in the yard, wiped them with clean towels, and went
into the house. Since there were more guests than seats at the tables, they
ate their meal in shifts. Those in the first shift had already taken their
seats in the room with a view of Tumba from its windows. The women and some
of the young people served drinks, bread, and food, and those seated helped
themselves, talking to each other.
"It’s good that a small factory is going to be built in the
village," said a pale-faced man with a large, pointy nose. "But it would’ve
been better if they had built it ten or maybe twenty years ago. Then it
wouldn’t be necessary to move two hundred houses. People, we are late, we
are always late, we are very late, and the land is being neglected."
"And the old master, God have mercy on his soul, passed away
just in time. He was neither early, like some of them, nor late. He lived
over eighty years and passed away. If only we had lived that much."
There was no answer to those words. It was like a sound that
trembles in the air a little, just enough to appear and die itself.
The cattle-breeder asked the guests to help themselves, and
they quietly, but very quickly, enacted the ritual. Some of them were
already looking toward the door. And when the sitting people finished their
lunch, one of them said, "Let's hurry up, people, because there are others
standing outside waiting to take our places."
We all stood and went out into the cold. Another group of
people entered the room. Half an hour later some of the cars started
roaring. People said goodbye, invited each other for a visit, but all that
was said in a hurry, looking with one eye toward the mountain and sky—as if
they were afraid the night might catch them there.
The household gathered at home. It seemed that in a few
minutes both the yard and the mountain were deserted. There had been some
people, gathered I think for something essential, something very important
to our lives, and they suddenly all disappeared. What was it? Mourning over
the loss of a close friend's life, or was it a fear for our own lives?
Running away from the night that covered the day with a heavy darkness, I
found refuge behind the thick stone walls of the little house--in serenity
full of uncertainty.
