Elixir of Flesh
Page 14
Chapter 6
After the Last Sunset
After what seemed like only an eye blink, Anton was roused from his sleep by the sound of a fist pounding on a door. Truth was that several hours had passed, but he progressed through such deep sleep that it seemed like nothing.
As he looked around, he momentarily forgot where he was, so accustomed was he to waking up in his one-room cottage with his family. He looked around and gradually remembered his surroundings. He saw Vasile sleeping soundly in a bed across the room from him and was able to recount how he’d arrived there. All the while, the distant sound of someone ferociously pounding on the door continued.
The pounding wasn’t on his bedroom door but rather on the thick exterior door of Andrei’s, the back door that led into the workroom. As he began to focus his ears, he heard a voice that accompanied the pounding. It clearly was shouting repeatedly, “Andrei! Open this door!”
He then heard the voice say, “Give me back my son! You can’t take my son! The magistrate will hear of this!” before the voice returned to the repeated refrain of, “Andrei! Open this door!”
Anton now recognized, in the sound, muted through the thick walls, the incensed voice of his father.
Andrei arrived at the back door and opened it up, permitting Josif to enter. The middle-aged man was transported with rage and huffed with deep breaths as he lunged inside. His large, broad-shouldered body eclipsed the wiry, old frame of the aged merchant, who recoiled with some fear as Josif said, “You’ve taken my son! You’re holding him here. I’ve come to take him back.”
“The boy is resting,” Andrei said, with some attempt at a calming voice, “Let him sleep. He’s been out all night.”
Josif didn’t seem to even hear Andrei and began moving around the room, calling “Anton!” and looking for the boy, as if he would find him hidden under an overturned bowl, all the while asking, “Where is he? Where are you hiding him?”
Anton appeared at the door, drowsy and sleepy-eyed, and said in an irritated voice, “Dad, what are you doing here?”
Josif ran over to Anton and grabbed him by the arm, telling him, “Come on. We’re leaving this place, now!”
Anton removed his father’s hand from his arm angrily and pushed it away, saying, “No, dad! I’ve decided to come here. I just told you yesterday you can’t stop me from doing this. Just let it be.”
“That I don’t believe. No son of mine would decide to do this. I think I know my son. This apothecary has persuaded you by unnatural means. What potion has this magician given you?”
“None!” Anton started to scream, grabbing his father by the shirt and shaking him, “I’ve come here to earn money. I am doing this for all of us.” But as soon as Anton noticed himself growing angrier, his hands trembling, he restrained himself, letting go of his father’s shirt and backing away.
“Your sister misses you,” Josif said, “Your mother misses you.”
“I will come and see them. I am less than a league away and have only been gone for one night,” Anton said.
“So, is this how it is to be?” Josif said, shrinking like one wounded, “You live here and only come to visit us? You don’t want to eat or sleep with your own family anymore? You’ll earn money and we’ll be too poor for you?”
Anton lowered his eyes when he heard this and said to his father, “Just go. We’ll speak of this another time.”
“Vasile is taking care of your son,” Andrei interjected, “He will keep your son safe.”
“I don’t want to hear from you, sorcerer,” Josif said to Andrei, and he turned around and left the workroom, slamming the door as he left.
“You should go back to sleep,” Andrei said to Anton who hunched over despondently.
Anton returned to his room and lay back in the soft bed, tired but unable to sleep as his heart raced. His thoughts drifted to his family, and particularly to his sister Constanta, and he realized that he missed them too.