Stork Mountain (26 page)

It was at that moment the pipers came in. And the drummer. Up on one wall Grandpa had seen a giant drum hanging, and on a nail beside it, coiled like an adder, a piece of hemp rope.

“Faster with the drum!” Baba Vida scolded, and Grandpa's heart too pounded faster to catch up with the beating. The two bagpipes came to screaming.

Narrow walls, a low ceiling. The heat boiling with the stink of incense. The men's faces gleaming, their sweat like liquid fire. Their hands on the hilts of their knives in the sashes. And the Greek women, taking quick steps around, crying “Vah, vah, vah!” like owls. The whites of their eyes flashing under the twitching eyelids and their arms flapping as though to take flight.

“Faster with the drum,” Baba Vida commanded, and Grandpa could tell, by the way she was shaking, how much she wanted to do what the Greek women were doing. And yet she was too old.

In the corner Lenio too was watching the women. At once, her voice rang out like a gunshot. Her arms flapped and her bare feet smacked the floor. Faster the drum was beating. Louder the bagpipes. From the outside, two local women rushed in. They too were dancing. The Greek men joined them, howling. The women seized the icons and the music followed them out in the open. They all danced a
horo
around the walnut, the mayor waving a red kerchief in the lead, their feet black with mud from the rains of last night. The crowd clapped and cheered.

At last, the dance returned them to the shrine. The icons were rested on the shelf; the music grew quiet and then drowned in silence. Only the women spoke in whispers. And Grandpa was surprised to see that Lenio too was speaking with Baba Vida, the murmur of her voice as light as the rain that had begun to drizzle.

They said of Baba Vida that she could see what hadn't come to pass yet. And sure enough that day in the shack she pulled Grandpa to one side. “Teacher, don't do it,” she whispered. “Unless you aim to wrestle Saint Kosta.” But Grandpa aimed to wrestle no one. Though, strictly speaking, he told me later, before the saint there came Lenio's brothers. And then her father, Captain Vangelis, whom people also called the Wild Ram.

 

TEN

THE DAY WAS HEAVY WITH RITUAL
. As for its meaning, no one understood it fully. “Who knows what it all means, you book rat,” the mayor said, and slammed his paw on Grandpa's back. “I do as the old
vekilin
taught me.” That's what the mayor was—
vekilin
of the Klisuran
nestinari
; which is to say, a caretaker, the bridge between them and the people's world.

After the shack, they visited a spring in the forest, hedged in and roofed over, the
ayazmo
of Saint Constantine. There the priest was waiting for the service. “I heard there is a big lunch after,” he whispered in Grandpa's ear, and let people kiss the cross and his right hand.

A fat ram was waiting in the churchyard. The mayor tied it down with the rope from the shack and slaughtered the animal
kurban
—the slaughtering hole also sacred, it too Saint Kosta's. Most of the meat they gave as alms throughout the village—the rest was taken to the shrine and cast in a cauldron over the fire. There by the shrine the mayor slaughtered one more ram and a white lamb. The parents of sick children had given them
kurban
, hoping the saint would bring a cure. As was the custom, they let the blood seep into the roots of the walnut; then they marched to the mayor's house and ate the big lunch.

*   *   *

Around five in the evening, outside the shack and under the walnut, an enormous pile of oak wood was set ablaze. Sparks and flames and black smoke carried up to the gray sky.

“It'll hold,” Baba Vida said of the rain that still drizzled. “Saint Kosta will hold it.”

At around a quarter to eight the rain picked up. The ground turned muddier and puddles pooled where the feet of the
nestinari
had sunk earlier that day. But the wood still burned with a tall flame, and a wave of relief spread through the crowd of spectators. Saint Kosta had willed it, and Baba Vida had seen it: despite the rain, there would be dancing.

It had grown dark when two men began to rake the fire with long sticks, to push the still burning stumps to one side and spread the embers in a circle. The drum was pounding faster and faster, the bagpipes were screeching, and up in the branches the black storks were crying something fierce. Yet a hush spread through the crowd when three young men stepped out of the shack with the sacred icons. Even the storks grew quiet. After the icons floated Baba Vida, Lenio and the women, Captain Vangelis and his sons, and Captain Elias and his.

And now so many years later out on our terrace, where Grandpa told me this story, I too could see them. He didn't have to tell me how the women trembled and pulled on the edges of their wet scarves. How one by one the men took the icons and swiftly, lightly carried them across the embers hissing with the rain. How Giorgios, who'd limped all day behind his brother, now hopped in perfect balance. How the mud splashed and red sparks scattered. How the rain pounded and Lenio's face ran black with liquid ashes. How terrified Grandpa was to watch her and feel on his cheeks the cold drops lashing each time the ropes of her hair whooshed in the dark.

I too could feel the heat of the fire, the cold of the harsh drops. I too was terrified. Because I too loved a girl and missed her.

*   *   *

All in all, ten minutes. That's how long the dance lasted. But those minutes seemed like many hours—the crowd awed and, by the end, exhausted. As were the
nestinari
—sitting now quietly on red pillows in the shrine, each staring into the nothing. Tired, but calmed somehow.

“May Saint Kosta aid us,” the mayor, their
vekilin
, said as a blessing. A long rug had been rolled out on the freshly swept floor, and on it bowls of yogurt, plates of white cheese, saucers with young walnuts. They drank
rakia
from three small bottles and then they ate the
kurban
, for good health. Tomorrow every ritual would be repeated—this time to honor Saint Elena.

Only two souls weren't eating: Grandpa in his corner, his heart heavy, his fingers stained iodine from the walnut he was crushing into a pulp. And in her corner, Lenio, the Greek girl.

Yes, Lenio, you can relax now. Take a deep breath, have a sip of
rakia
. Fear nothing. Saint Kosta likes you. He took your hand and led you unharmed through the fire. So be merry. But take care not to show it. Your father, the Wild Ram, he doesn't like laughter. And your brothers, the cowards, they do as he tells them. So let them keep grave and quiet, the tombstones. But you, Lenio, are not a tombstone. You laugh now, the way you've learned how to—like a spring running beneath thick ice. Your cheeks red apples, your lips pomegranate. Your bare feet white as the yogurt and, only under your toenails, where no one can see it, the black ash.

 

ELEVEN

WHEN DOES A PERSON FALL IN LOVE EXACTLY?
Is it a single moment—the heart takes a beat past which there is no more turning? Or does it happen the way spring arrives, without sharp definitions?

The morning before the Greeks left for their village, Grandpa woke up awfully hungover. All night he'd drunk
rakia
with the captains and the mayor. His head was throbbing and he was so thirsty he could drain a river. He grabbed a towel and stumbled down to the well in the courtyard.

There by the well, in the blue dawn, Lenio was washing her long hair. She was fully clothed but she had let her hair fall free of the thick braids. She gathered the tresses and dipped them into a pail of water. Each time she pressed down the tresses, water splashed at her bare feet. For some time Grandpa watched her and only then did she turn around to see him.

She wasn't startled. Instead, she was smiling. She pulled out her hair and began to wring it as if it were laundry. Then she put out her hand. She wanted the towel on Grandpa's shoulder. So he came near, his bare feet on the cool water, and he gave her the towel. When she took it, her fingers brushed his.

Had it been when he'd seen her in the shack, frightened as she was before the icon of Saint Kosta? Had it been when she'd danced in the fire? Had it been there in the courtyard, her hair dripping well water? Who can tell you? But my grandfather's heart had taken a beat past which there was no more turning.

On parting, Captain Vangelis came to Grandpa. Out in the yard, his sons were roping a bundle to Captain Elias's back—the sacred icons. By the well, some of the men sharpened their knives; some of the women wound bands of cloth around their feet to protect them from the road's thorns and sharp stones.

“An orchard is not a school,” Captain Vangelis said, ready it seemed to pick up the old fight. But before Grandpa could answer, the captain pulled out from his cloak a fist of paper money. For fifteen years the
nestinari
had collected from candles and donations. To patch up the shrine if need be, and, one day, to rebuild it nicer.

“Build a real school,” said Captain Vangelis.

And so, a week after they first arrived, Grandpa watched from the terrace the Greeks disappear up the road—their
vekilin
, Captain Vangelis, in the lead, then Captain Elias with the icons, their sons, their mothers, and strolling lightly at their heels, Lenio, her white kerchief last to vanish. So that was that, Grandpa thought, and after he finished his cigarette he lit another. His fingers burned where she'd touched him. Never again would he see her.

It goes without saying, he was mistaken.

 

TWELVE

THE MONEY CAPTAIN VANGELIS GAVE
Grandpa was not sufficient. And the mayor wouldn't hear of helping. The truth came loose after much pressing—every time Klisurans rebuilt their school, the village ended up in ruin.

“So you're afraid!” Grandpa said, triumphant, for the mayor had driven himself into a shameful corner.

“I? Afraid?” the mayor cried, then made a few phone calls. Beams, rafters, planks, nails, lime, and tiles—he bought them at preferential prices. And by the end of the week the ruins of the old school had been transformed into a construction site.

“Here are your builders,” the mayor said, and by his side were only old men. It was the end of June, just as it was now when Grandpa told me this story, and all the young ones had gone to do field work.

“These men are good for nothing,” Grandpa cried, because really, a stronger gust, it seemed, would knock them over. But, oh, was he mistaken. These men were mules. Worse yet—devils who never tired.

Each night Grandpa collapsed in his bed, a wreckage. Each morning, he woke up a living pain. Muscles he never knew existed hurt him. Bones, joints, teeth, even his scalp and hair were aching. All summer they built—Grandpa, the mayor, Vassilko, and the old brigadiers. And on September 15, the first official day of classes, Father Dionysus held a service, a
vodosvet
to bless the new school.

A school is not a Christian church
, complained the people of the Muslim hamlet. And they locked at home their sons and daughters. This time, it was the mayor who came along with Grandpa, from one door to another, and tried to convince them—there was no need to be frightened.

*   *   *

It was the Pope these people feared. For ever since he'd first arrived in Klisura, Father Dionysus had worked like the old brigadiers—a mule, a devil who never tired. Tireless, he roamed the hills of the Strandja, hamlet to hamlet, no matter how distant, as long as a Muslim lived there. He'd grown heavier, though not in belly, but in stature. His shoulders had widened, the muscles in his legs and arms had swollen up, his beard had thickened—a great and terrifying thing, like a flaming bush it put the laity in fear. But he spoke kindly, gently, in an alluring voice. Gather around me, you poor people. I've come to tell you something. And the poor people gathered to hear his stories. How, a long time back, the Strandja had been all Christian, which was to say, all Bulgarian really. Because to be Bulgarian meant to be Christian and no one could be Bulgarian if they weren't Christian. It was, and always had been, this simple.

On and on Father Dionysus spun his stories and in them the centuries rolled by. Glorious tsars and martyrs came to life, then dust took them. Until a great danger arrived at the Bulgarian threshold—Murad the terrible sultan, at the head of a boundless army. Bravely, the Bulgarians fought him, in the name of Christ the great Lord. But the Turks were many and at last darkness overcame Christ's people, so they might be tested.

For many centuries the Bulgarians fought and resisted. Push after push, the way that oak tree right over there resists the gales from Turkey. Each time our people honored Christ, it was their own blood they honored. Each time they preserved Christ, it was themselves they were preserving. But not all trees are strong like the oak tree. And sometimes the gale fells us.

There came a day at last, Father Dionysus told them, when the Ottoman Empire weakened. Afraid of losing land and power, the sultan gave an order—turn all Bulgarians into Muslims, so they may never wish to break free. Terrible janissaries roamed the Strandja, and in their lead—black imams. When a Bulgarian refused to take off his fur cap, to renounce Christ and put on a turban, they cut his head off. Many a head rolled in those days, for great was the courage of our forefathers. But not all heads. For some bowed to accept the turban. And in this, there is no shame. Again, I tell you, not all trees are strong like the oak tree.

What matters most, Father Dionysus told them, is that God still loves you. It is never too late. Renounce the lie. Redeem your blood. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Return to your roots. Be born again.

And some people shook their heads, spat in the dirt, cursed the Pope, and stormed away angry. But others went home pensive, the worm of doubt gnawing at their innards. And still others, though not that many, came to the Pope, and when he offered, they kissed his right hand. And when he offered, they kissed the cross and he baptized them.