Doris Plantus-Runey 3,486 words
1230 E. South Blvd.
Troy, MI 48085
Druney5884@wideopenwest.com
At Manjoala’s Inn
A quarter of an hour to reach Manjoala’s Inn...from there, to upper-Popesti, a few more miles: at an easy walking pace, meant an hour and a half on horseback. A decent pace horse can do it…if they give him oats at the inn, and rest him three-quarter’s of an hour. That is to say, one quarter-hour plus another three, one hour, and to Popesti—one and a half, makes two and a half hours…It’s now past seven: ten at the latest, I will be at pocovnicul Iordache’s...I’m running late…I should have left sooner…but anyways…as far as waiting goes, he’ll wait for me.
I was figuring all this in my mind, when I noticed far off, by about a good shot’s length, that I could see many lights at Manjoala’s Inn, that is to say, that was how its name remained; now it was hanul Mânjolaii, his wife’s inn— the man died around five years ago...a fantastic woman! how she worked at it, improved it from what it was like when her husband was alive and they were thinking of selling it, the debts had been paid, she put an addition, she built a second stable made of stone, and even now people say she must be making good money. Some suspect she must have found a treasure…others, that she dabbled in spells and enchantments. Once some thieves wanted to rob her…they started to break down her door. One of them, the strongest among them, a man as big as a bull, raised the axe, and when he struck thirstily, he dropped to the ground. They lifted him up quickly! He was dead…His brother tried to speak, but he wasn’t able to—he was struck dumb. There were four of them. They put the dead man on his brother’s back, while the other two seized his legs so that they could bury him far off somewhere. When they were about to leave the courtyard of the inn, Manjoloaia had begun yelling out the window:
"Thieves!"
Voila! an officer with a detachment of many soldiers, four on horseback. The captain hollered out,
"Who’s there?" Two of the thieves ran each one every which way! the mute was left with his brother on his spine. Now what do you do at the trial? Everyone knew that the mute could speak; who wouldn’t suspect that the mute was merely pretending to be dumb? They beat him senseless so as to bring his voice back in place—for naught. After that, the young men lost all appetite to set foot in the inn ever again.
By the time I had thought about all of this, I arrived. A great sum of transports is resting in the courtyard of the inn; some are carrying lumber to the valley, others, corn up to the hill. It is a bitter autumn night. The drivers warm themselves by the fires…that’s why so many lights could be seen from far away. A boy takes my horse to the stable to feed it oats. I enter the bar, where a lot of people gather in common, while two sleepy gypsies, one with a violin, the other with a lute, played Oltenian music monotonously off-key. I am hungry and tired—the dampness had pierced me to the bone.
"Where’s your mistress?" I ask the young hawker who peddling his things at a small table.
"At the oven."
"It must be warmer for her over there," I say, and I pass through a little room off the bar into the kitchen.
Very clean in the kitchen…and not the same kind of steam as in the bar, of heavy sheep coats and damp leather moccasins—steam of warm baked bread. The Manjoala woman was tending the oven…
"Good to see you, Madam Marghioalo."
"Welcome, Master Fanica."
"Can one still find something to eat?"
"For decent people like you, sir, even in the middle of the night."
And quickly mistress Marghioala gives the order to a cotoroanţă to set a table in the room, and then she draws closer to the hearth of the ovenand says,
"Here. Choose something."
Madam Marghioala was beautiful, robust and large-eyed, this I knew already. But never, since I’ve known her—and I’ve known her for a long time; I used to pass by Manjoala’s inn many times, since I was a child, when my departed father was still living, because it was on the way to the marketplace—never had she seemed to me more pleasing…I was young, dashing, cheeky, more brazen than dashing. I moved close to her left side as she leaned toward the stove, and I circled her waist; my hand reaching her right arm, solid as a rock, the devil made me pinch her.
"Have you nothing else to do?" the woman says and she looked at me askance.
But I, to recover from my blunder, say,
"Bewitching eyes, have you , Madam Marghioalo!"
"Oh, do not flatter me. Tell me instead what I can give you."
"Give me…give me…give me what you have, madam."
"I mean it."
And I, sighing:
"So be it, for such bewitching eyes have you, Madam Marghioalo!"
"And if your father-in-law could hear you?"
"What father-in-law? How do you know?"
"You think, sir, that if you hide beneath your cap, no one sees what you do anymore…Are you not on your way to pocovnicul Iordache to become engaged to his oldest daughter? Come now, don’t you look at me like that; go into the other room to the table."
Many clean and restful rooms have I seen in my life, but one like that room…what a bed! What curtains! What walls! What a ceiling! All white as milk. And the lampshade and all, everything crocheted by hand…and it was warm, like under the wing of a hen…and the smell of apples and quince.
I wanted to sit down at the table and, mindful of the tradition ingrained in me since childhood, I turned to see which way was east, so that I could bow and make the sign of the cross over myself. I looked around at all the walls with keen attention—not one icon.
"What are you looking at?"
I say:
"Icons—where do you keep them?"
She says:
"The hell with icons! I can barely weed out worms and wood lice as it is..."
A clean woman! I sat at the table, crossing myself after the custom, when all at once, a scream: seems I stepped on an old tomcat under the table with my boot heel. Madam Marghioala jumps up quickly and opens the door. The angry tomcat streams outside; while a cold air rushes in and puts out the lamp. She gropes around for the matches; I look there, she looks here—we met chest to chest in the darkness. I, impertinent, take her well into my arms and begin to kiss her...The lady was first disinclined, then relented a bit: her cheeks were burning, her mouth was cold, and beside her ear, bristled peach fuzz bristled along side her ear. Finally, lo and behold the woman servant brings in a tray of food with a candle as well. We must have been hunting for matches a good while, because the lamp had cooled off entirely. I lit it again.
Good food! warm bread, roast duck and cabbage, fried pork sausage and some wine! and Turkish coffee! and laughter and conversation…bravo, Madam Marghioala! After coffee she says to the old haggish woman servant:
"Tell them to get a half-bottle of muscadine…"
Excellent muscadine!...A kind of numbness was overtaking me, starting at my joints; I sat down on the side of the bed to smoke a cigarette with the last amber drops remaining in the glass, and I gazed through the tobacco smoke at Madam Marghioala, who was sitting on a chair, facing me, and rolling my cigarettes. I say:
"Indeed, Madam Marghioala, bewitching eyes have you…do you know what?"
"What?"
"If you don’t mind, you could make me a cup of coffee, only…not so sweet…"
And I laugh!... When the woman servant comes with the coffee, she says:
"Madam, you are in here talking..but you don’t know what’s going on outside…"
"What is it?"
"A great wind has started from above…havoc is coming."
I jumped to my feet and I looked at the clock. Almost 10:45. Instead of a half an hour, I had been at the inn for two and a half hours? See what happens when you get caught up with conversation?
"They should bring my horse."
"Who? The stable boys are all asleep."
"I’ll go to the stable myself."
"They put your little jug by the pocovnic!" says the lady, chuckling as she blocked my way to the door.
I moved her aside and I went out on the porch. Truly there was strange weather in the air...The fires of the wagon drivers had all gone out; people and cows slept on the straw, digging one into the other mindfully on the ground, while overhead a mad wind was howling.
"It’s a wicked storm brewing," said Madam Marghioala, upset, seizing my hand and squeezing it; "Are you crazy? You would leave in this kind of weather! Ride from here at night; leave tomorrow morning."
"It’s not possible…"
I pulled my hand sharply away. I went to the stable and with great difficulty woke one of the stable hands and I found my horse; I saddled him up, led him to the stairs, and I went back into the room to take my leave and say goodnight to my hostess. The woman, lost in thought, was sitting on the side of the bed with my cap in her hands, she kept turning and twisting it over and over, this way and that.
"How much do I owe you?"
"You will pay me when you return," she answered, looking deeply into the bottom of my cap.
Then she stood up and handed it to me. I took my cap and put it on my head, like so, to one side. Gazing at the woman directly in her eyes, which flickered incredibly strangely, I say:
"I kiss your eyes, Madam Marghioala."
"Go in health!"
I threw myself into the saddle. The old haggish servant woman opened the gate for me and I went out. Leaning my left hand on the horse’s hip, I turned my head back; above the tall fence one could see the door to the room open and, in the opening, the white shadow of the woman shading the arc of her brows with her hand. I kept an easy pace, whistling a song of the world as if for me alone, until I got to the end of the fence where my road began and the landscape hid from my eyes. I said, Onward! To the road! and I crossed myself: then I heard quite well the door slam shut and the shrill meow of a tomcat. My hostess knew I could no longer see her, she had hastened back into the warmth and caught the cat’s tail in the door, for sure. Damned cat. It’s always weaving in and out of people’s feet.
I must have gone a good portion of the way. The storm grew, shaking me in my saddle. High up, the cloud after cloud were flying frightfully, as if terrified by some punishment, higher still, some in the valley, down below, others over the hill, draping the weary light of the quarter moon in long moments, now thicker, now thinner. The wet cold was piercing me through: I felt it freezing my legs and arms. Going forward with my head bent so that the wind wouldn’t suffocate me; I was beginning to feel pain in the back of my neck, in my forehead and burning temples and in my ears, thunder. I drank too much, I thought to myself, shoving my cap further back on my head, and lifting my forehead up toward the sky. But the swirling clouds made me dizzy; my left side, under my ribs burned me. I sipped from the cold wind, but a cramp shot through my chest like lightning, from here to there. Again I bent my head down toward my chin. My cap seemed to tighten around my head like a vise; I pulled it off and put it on my saddle horn…I felt sick…it was a mistake to leave! At pocovnicul Iordache’s, everyone must now be asleep: they must have waited for me; with this weather, they would have thought, naturally, that I would not be stupid enough to leave…I urged the horse, who, himself, was walking with woven steps as though drunk, forward.
But the wind died down; it shone like rain; a foggy light; it starts to sprinkle with small sharp drops...I put my cap on again…Immediately the blood starts to burn the walls of my head. The horse is completely spent; he gags from the choking wind. I squeeze him with my heels, I give him a strike with my whip. The dumb animal makes a few quick steps, then snorts and stops in his tracks as though he was seeing before him an unexpected obstacle. I look…In truth, at a few steps in front of the horse I caught a glimpse of a small creature jumping and hopping…an idiot!...What could it be?...A beast?...Too small...I put my hand on my gun; then I hear the bleat of a little goat…I urge the horse as best as I can, he turns around in place and starts going back. A few paces…again he stops and snorts…again the little goat…I stop him, I turn him around, I give him a few strikes, tightening the bit. He goes…A few paces…Again, the little goat...The clouds have thinned out altogether; now I see clearly as anything. It is a little black baby goat; he comes here, here he turns around; he kicks his heels; afterward he rears back on two legs, runs with his chin tucked in his chest and his forehead thrust forward to buck, and he makes unbelievable jumps and bleats and commences all manner of crazy antics. I dismount the horse, who no longer wants to go forward for anything, and I seize the reins short and tight. I bend down to call the little billygoat: "Tza-Tza!" with my hand outstretched, as if I wanted to give him some oats. The little goat approaches, still frolicking playfully. The horse snorts like crazy, ready to jerk away; he puts me to my knees, but I hold him tight. The little goat came up to my hand: it is a black kid, very sweet, who gently yields as I pick him up. I put him the saddle bag on the right, on top of some clothes. At this time, the horse shakes and rumbles from all of his joints like from the fever of death.
I mount…the horse bolts wildly.
For a while now, he galloped over holes, over mole hills, over tree trunks, as if launched from a sling shot, without me being able to stop him at all, without recognizing where I was, without knowing where he would take me. In this furious ride, during which time I might have broken my neck, with my body frozen and my head as if on fire, I thought of my little nest that I had abandoned so stupidly…Why? Mistress Marghioala would have given me her room; otherwise she wouldn’t have invited me to stay…The kid moved around in the saddle bag to settle himself better: I turned to look at him: behaving himself, with his wise little head sticking out of the bag, he looked at me also. I recalled other eyes…How stupid I was!...The horse stumbled; I stopped him with force; he wants to start again, but falls crushed to his knees. Suddenly, through a crack in the clouds a slice of the waning moon rocks back on her hip. Her appearance dazed me like a cudgel blow to the forehead. She was in front of me…Then there must be two moons in the sky! I’m heading to the hill: the moon should be at my back! And I whirled my head around to see the real one…I mistook the way! I’m heading toward the valley…Where am I? I look ahead; corn fields with their stalks uncut; behind, a large field. In anguish I cross myself, squeezing the horse with my numb legs that he should stand—then, I feel a powerful throbbing next to my right leg. A shriek!...I crushed the kid! I put my hand quickly in the saddle bag: empty saddle bag—I lost the kid on the road! The horse rises, shaking his head as though woozy; he rears back on two legs, jerks to one side and hurls me to the other side; after he bolts over the field as though swarmed by gadflies and disappears in the darkness. As I rise, weakened, I hear rustling in the straw and the voice of a man nearby.
"Tiu! Tza-tza! Ptiu!. Curse you, the devil take you to the wilderness!"
"Who is there?" I call out.
"A good man."
"Which one?"
"Gheorghe!"
"Which Gheorghe?"
"Natrutz…Gheorghe Natrutz who tends the pen."
"Won’t you come closer?"
"Sure, here I come."
And from the pen, shows the shadow of the man.
"Pardon me, brother Gheorghe, where are we here? I lost the road in this storm."
"But where, sir, do you want to go?"
"To upper Popesti."
"Aha! To pocovnicul Iordache."
"Well, yes."
"Then you didn’t lose the road. But you have yet a pitch-fork’s worth to go to get to Popesti. Here you are just in Haculesti."
"Haculesti?" I replied with joy, "Then I am close to Manjoala’s Inn."
"There it is. We’re behind the stable."
"Come and show me the way, so I don’t break my neck since I am so close already."
I had been wandering for about four hours… In a few steps I was at the gate.
Inside Madam Marghioala’s room, light and shadows moved on the curtains…Who knows what wiser traveler now had that clean bed. I would have had a perch beside the oven. But wait—what luck! Just as I knocked, she heard me. The old woman servant ran to open the door…Just as I was entering, I tripped on something soft—the kid…the same one! it was my host’s kid! He too entered the room and went off to sleep obediently beneath the bed.
What should I say? Did the woman know I would return?...or did she awake early?...The bed was not slept in.
"Madam Marghioala!" as all I could say and, wanting to thank God for escaping with my life, I started to raise my right hand to my forehead to cross myself.
The lady grabbed my hand quickly and, pushing it down, took me with all her might in her arms.
I can almost see that room again…
What a bed!...what curtains!...what walls!...what a ceiling!...all white as milk. And the lampshade and everything crocheted...and warm like under hen’s wing…and a smell of apples and quince.
I would have stayed a long time at Manjoloa’s inn, had my father-in-law, pocovnicul Iordache, may God forgive him, not come to remove me with great spectacle from there. Three times I ran away from the engagement and I returned to the inn, until one day, the old man, who wanted badly to make me his son-in-law, had some people catch me and they took me hog-tied to a monastery up in the mountains: forty days, fasting, prostration, and prayers. I left their repentant. I was engaged and I married.
Sometime later, on a calm winter night, when I was sitting with my father-in-law, talking, as was the custom in the village, around a jug of wine, I had found out from a sub-prefect who had arrived with purchases from the town, that there had been a huge fire in Haculesti: Manjoala’s inn had burned to the ground, burying poor Marghioala, now old and used up, beneath a gigantic mountain of ash.
"Well, they finally put the witch in the coals," said my father-in-law, laughing.
And he made me tell him the above history again for I don’t know how many more times. The pocovnic maintained that the mistress had put a spell of enchantment in the inside of my cap, and that the kid and the tomcat were one in the same.
"Ah—come on," I said.
"She was the devil, you listen to me."
"Maybe she was," I answered, "but if that’s so, pocovnice, then the devil takes you even to the good."
"First he gives you the good, so as to profane you, then after he knows very well where to take you."
"How do you know this, sir?"
"That’s none of your business," answered the old one, "that’s a different cap."