NAUMCE TRENESKI'S LOVE
Solunka Dicoska would enter the
cellar where the barrels were, poke a straw through the tap, and take a few
sips of brandy. She would not siphon off a lot through the straw, just as
much as she wanted, like a man who had been cutting hay, heaping up a dozen
mounds. For Solunka Dicoska what is a measure of brandy, made from plums,
distilled twice? All day she marches around the house like a slave. She
weaves and spins, she strings up tobacco without batting an eye. And no
woman is her match when it comes to cooking. When she prepares a meal,
you'd bite off your fingers to get at it. That is why she was the main
banquet matron at the church of St. Tanasija.
When there was a feast day Solunka Dicoska would dress up
like a bride, in a silver-embroidered blouse, with a Kicevo vest and a
fringed scarf, and she would be in front of the house with the women, or at
the church with the food. So what if she is sixty-years-old, that she
remarried but again became a widow, living in her husband’s house? The face
of Solunka Dicoska is as red as a watermelon. Hardy as a thorn bush. Bring
her in as a singer and she will brighten your table, let her dance and she
will show you some steps. And why shouldn’t she drink plum brandy, boiled,
when she is as hardy as a thorn bush? Why shouldn’t she dress every day in
a silver-embroidered blouse with a Kicevo vest, when the trunk in the
cellar next to the barrels is full of blouses and vests?
She could die tomorrow, but at least she dressed as she
wanted to, she had grieved for years as fate designed, from Turkish and
Serbian times till now. She married off her daughters and sons. Now she is
a solitary soul, a lone pear, so she lets her mind wander, looks after her
older son’s house, but hasn't a care in the world.
Naumce Treneski looks at her blissfully when she takes off
first her vest and her belt, then her skirt, down to her body never touched
by the sun, and then she removes a new linen skirt from the case, lined
with velvet, putting it on over her head, dons a hand-embroidered blouse
with the skirt, puts the belt back over the skirt, and turns her head to
examine her attire from behind. Naumce takes it all in before him, over the
fences, behind the cellar walls, right to the trunk, and he talks to
himself.
"Come to the marsh, Solunka, come over the fences, so I can
pat your skirt just once on your behind. I’ll give you whatever your heart
desires!"
Naumce Treneski is not stupid, he knows what he is doing. He
didn't let Jankula Temjanin's teasing about Solunka get to him.
"If you just patted her behind with your palm, Naumce, like a
man, your hand would burn for a week," Jankula told him.
And the women who heard what Naumce had in mind would banter
when they passed him so he could hear:
"Solunka is quite the girl, dressed in her own way!"
So Naumce lay under the walnut tree in the marsh, waiting for
Solunka Dicoska to come down. What would Naumce Treneski do at home? A
house is a house. His bed is situated in the corner, covered with a woolen
blanket. His pillow is stuffed with rye straw, his mirror hangs above the
oven next to the alcove. The chairs don't need to eat. Nothing whimpers
around him, not even a dog or a cat. He called Ugrina Angeleski to patch up
the corner of his house knocked in by the wind. There is time before the
rain and snow come. It's best when he lies under the walnut tree in the
marsh, delighting in himself. His pension will arrive again on the first,
he will fold the thousands into his handkerchief and live on that for four
weeks.
What would he do at home during the day, when he can lie
under the walnut tree like a bey? There is time until the village sleeps,
and then he can stretch his legs in the meadow. Maybe Solunka will come out
then to hang strands of tobacco or gather kindling from the garden to cook
supper. His desire was to wait for Solunka to get into the marsh and cough
so she could hear him as he lounged around the walnut tree. From the road
he often watched her in front of the houses, sitting in the sun with the
women, or at night in the moonlight. Now he wanted to see her from the
marsh. If only she would come out and hear him coughing. He wished for
nothing more. He knew what to buy for her out of his pension. That's his
business. So it was best to stretch out under the walnut tree until the
last light went out in the village. What would he do at home when nobody
waits for him? The bed is covered with the best fringed blanket, red, the
mirror hangs on the wall dotted with flies, the window is swung open,
supported by a latch. There is enough bread in the box for another week. If
it get hard, he’ll bake more. At least he knew how to bake bread. For
twenty years he kneaded dough of barley and rye and corn. Now at least he
can buy some with his pension. Why should he dig and plow when he can eat
white bread? Those who dig and plow don't eat better bread than he does.
His son Koste left for Kleonec during the partisan times. Life is life and
it has to be lived out. What else can a man do alone, without a wife? He
can't go into his grave alive. At least he could do something with his
pension, he could get by.
And how would it be if Solunka Dicoska made up her mind and
sent a message to Naumce Treneski, that one evening she was coming to his
house to be his wife, that she no longer would work for her stepson anymore
for a bite of bread. Naumce Treneski’s house would come alive.
It would be best for Naumce to skip home and fix himself up a
bit, and he combs his hair in the mirror, talking to himself. What a
housewife like Solunka Dicoska would mean for Naumce. If only to have smoke
coming from the chimney and the door always open. Twenty years of that was
enough. Twenty years, a whole youth, sitting alone between four walls,
without children, and without a wife, like an owl.
Jankula Temjanin was right when he teased him about buying
her something, to lure her. That is why Naumce Treneski stands for the
hundredth time in front of the mirror soiled by flies, combing his hair and
talking to himself.
"I’m handsome, Solunka, still healthy as a goat. Why don’t
you like me? I’ll feed you sweets. Come on, brighten my house, stop working
for crumbs!"
When Solunka would go to fill jugs with water in the evening,
she would pass the house of Naumce Treneski and shyly glance through his
open window. If she didn't see Naumce all spruced up in the window, she
would see him when she went to gather kindling in the garden, because
Naumce would be back at his old bed under the walnut tree. On the way back,
he would pass Solunka’s kindling in the dark and put a bottle of
store-bought syrup there. Solunka would find it when she picked up reeds
for her stove and would recall that it came from Naumce Treneski and his
pension. When she was alone at home she would drop her bundle next to the
trunk and tap a sip from it.
So this is what Naumce Treneski would do every day from now
on, and Solunka Dicoska would have to give in, even if she was made of
iron. So Naumce does, and he ruminates every day in the marsh and in the
mirror as he combs his hair. Solunka knows that Naumce Treneski can’t get
her out of his mind, and she taunts him even more. She'll go out onto her
veranda, or into the garden to gather reeds, and she'll gather up a bottle
or some sweets from Naumce in her skirt with the kindling and enter her
cellar from the lower door.
Solunka learned to drink brandy herself, but Naumce Trenevski
taught her to eat handfuls of candy. A dram of plum brandy goes much better
with sweets. Solunka Dicoska craved such things. It was like that until she
caught his eye, and now she can milk him like a cow. Let Naumce Treneski
stand in front of his mirror or lie under the walnut tree all spruced up,
and let him talk to his sisters: "Come on out, Solunka, into the gardens in
the moonlight, come on out in your slip, you tease."
Solunka Dicoska cannot go out into the gardens in the
moonlight in her slip, so she can’t say to Naumce Treneski: "I wish they’d
hang you on that walnut tree, you old crow; you had a child buried in
Klenoec, a twenty-year-old hero, and I nursed him."
Only a ghost as in fairytales could make it out of the
graveyard in the marsh and crush the spirit of Naumce Treneski. When the
church bell tolls the villagers will know that Naumce Treneski has died.
And Solunka Dicoska, if God doesn't happen to take her before Naumce
Treneski, will be the banquet matron.
