Forest of the Hanged

by Liviu Rebreanu

  Presently the door opened of itself, turned quietly on its hinges, and came to rest against the wall. In the blackness of the doorway stood the prosecutor—a dumb summons. Popa Constantin bent over Apostol’s head, gentle as a father who awakens from sleep a beloved little child:

  “Arise, my son, and be strong in the hour of the last trial, as was Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

  Apostol Bologa shuddered, but rose at once and looked round with expectant eyes. Seeing the figure of the prosecutor in the doorway, he remembered, and stretched out his arm towards the table for the soft ribbonless hat with worn-out edges. Fie caught sight of the watch on his wrist and sharply drew back his arm. He carefully undid the strap and gave the watch to the priest without looking at the time, saying in a low voice:

  “Constantin, don’t forget me …”

  The priest gripped the watch in the palm of his hand under the shaking crucifix. Then Apostol took up the hat, crumpled it between his fingers, and looked perplexedly first at Boteanu and then towards the prosecutor in the corridor.

  “Bologa … the time has come.… Courage!” said the prosecutor, and disappeared immediately.

  Apostol went towards the door, crossed the threshold, and at the top of the steps stopped dead, bewildered. The courtyard was full of soldiers with lighted torches and shining helmets, as at a torchlight procession on the eve of some great festival. The torches spluttered noisily with ruddy gleams and clouds of suffocating smoke. The house, with the offices of the division, stood out against the hill-side at the back, and the old poplar-trees which crowned the ridge rose up like black, imploring hands stretched out towards the purple sky sprinkled thickly with stars.

  The sight awed Apostol, and all those eyes fixed on him oppressed him. The cold gripped him, he shivered, and with both hands he put on his hat, drawing it right over his eyes so that he should no longer be able to see anything. Then, very agitated, he turned up the collar of his coat to cover his bare neck.

  “Forward!” the prosecutor’s voice sounded all at once above the spluttering of the torches—somewhere—far away.

  Apostol tried to start, but his legs would not move. The priest was at his side. He took his arm, thankful, that he had found a support, and descended the steps. They went on for a while. All around him he heard nothing but the spluttering of the torches and the noise of heavy boots being dragged along with difficulty. Then from the left came a burst of loud, long-drawn-out, shrill weeping, which covered the whole convoy and filled the air like a dirge. Apostol said to himself: “That’s Ilona,” and gripped the priest’s arm harder, but he did not turn his head that way, nor did he raise his eyes.

  They came out into the highroad. The torches no longer burned so brightly; it seemed as if their light had become scattered and only the smoke had been left. Behind, the sobs still moaned, but fainter and farther away. Apostol saw that they had turned off to the right; he was surprised, and whispered to the priest clearly and with a tinge of regret in his voice:

  “Where are we going, Father?”

  In his heart, side by side with the regret, he found a tiny thread of hope which whispered to him secretly, “Perhaps after all …” Soon, however, they left the highroad, passed under a brick-built viaduct, then over a tiny bridge of new planks.

  “My God, where are we going?” Apostol now asked himself painfully, for he had never been this way before.

  He could not feel his legs, and wondered how he could walk without legs, and it seemed to him he was floating in the air as in a dream. He turned again to the priest, who was holding the crucifix before him.

  “Forgive me, Constantin, that through my fault you must tire yourself out so … tire yourself so …”

  For answer Boteanu murmured fragments of prayers. Apostol could not understand a word, and wanted to ask him what he had said, but the unknown surroundings vexed him so much that he forgot what he wanted, and thought again, distressed:

  “Where are we going?”

  For a time they ascended a road which had been cut into the slope of a hill. The streamlet from under the little bridge of new planks now gurgled noisily on the right at the foot of the slope. Hearing people pant all round him, Apostol whispered into the priest’s ear:

  “I don’t seem to have any legs—I seem to be floating.” Boteanu uttered his prayer in a louder voice, alarmed at Apostol’s words and at the weight which pressed more and more heavily on his numbed arm.

  The ascent ended, the streamlet was murmuring again somnolently alongside. To Apostol it seemed that he had been walking for an eternity on an endless road, and once more the question sprang up in his mind:

  “Where are we going?” And then the priest seemed to stumble and at once began to pray more fervently and more hurriedly.

  “Have we arrived?” asked Bologa, not daring to lift his eyes.

  “Be strong, my son, be strong!” mumbled Popa Constantin tearfully.

  Then Apostol felt grass under his feet, and all at once his legs began to ache, as if he had been carrying a load beyond his strength.

  “Make room! On the other side, Father!” called the prosecutor in a very hoarse voice.

  Bologa, not recognizing the voice and wishing to find out who had shouted, looked up and saw barely ten paces away a white glossy post with an arm curving from the top. The halter swayed slightly, and this swaying reminded him how a short while back he had tried with his own hands the strength of the rope. Something strange was being made clear by the white gloss of the wood, and Apostol hastily bowed his head.

  When he reopened his eyes he was quite close to the post. His right hand accidentally touched the wood, which was cold and slimy, like the skin of a snake. He felt sickened, and started to wipe off the sliminess on his trousers. Meanwhile he let his eyes rove calmly over the multitude of strange and unknown faces, which hardly looked human in the light of the smoky torches, and hid themselves under the wide-brimmed helmets. The smell of burnt resin tickled his nostrils, and the smoke irritated him because it obscured his vision. He bent his head slightly and saw that the ground at his feet had an ugly, yellowish open wound. The hole did not seem deep, and the clay had only been heaped up on the right-hand side, forming a mound on which the prosecutor stood, towering over everyone else, just as if he were going to … On the left, on the margin of the grave, stood a fir coffin, empty and uncovered. The lid, with a black cross in the middle, lay next to a large wooden cross on which was written in crooked letters: “Apostol Bologa”. The name seemed strange to him, and he asked himself almost crossly:

  “Who on earth is Apostol Bologa?”

  “Ready? Ready!” shouted the prosecutor from his mound, waving a sheet of paper.

  Apostol listened only to the beginning of the sentence, then he looked at the people nearest to him. The thought passed through his mind that the general had not come, that he was probably asleep. Near the prosecutor’s mound he saw a doctor, watch in hand: “It isn’t Doctor Meyer … no … no.” At the foot of the grave he recognized Klapka, with swollen and panic-stricken eyes, which harassed him so much that he looked away. Two paces away, on the left, stood a peasant leaning on a hoe. He was bare-headed, and his hair, clammy with sweat, clung to his forehead; his cheeks were wet with tears. “Why, there’s the grave-digger Vidor,” he thought, pleased, and wanted to wave to him. But just then the prosecutor finished his reading in a shrill, strident voice, like the creaking of a door with rusty hinges, and Apostol, now attentive, asked himself fearfully what would happen next. A moment later he heard clearly behind him a faltering voice saying:

  “Must … on the stool …”

  Bologa understood that he was required to stand on the stool, which almost touched his knees but which he had not noticed until then. He was afraid that again he would be unable to move his legs. “I must … must … try,” flashed through his brain. And then, suddenly, he felt someone’s arms around him. He was terrified. The grave-digger kissed him heavily on the cheeks, with moist lip
s and damp moustaches.

  “Back!” roared the startled prosecutor, raising both arms.

  Apostol stood up on the stool, and his head knocked against the dangling halter. The hat was pushed right over his eyes. He took it off and threw it into the grave. At that moment a deep, desperate, wild sob burst out. “Who’s weeping?” thought Bologa. Klapka was beating his breast with his fists.

  Then a wave of love, as if issuing from the very bowels of the earth, encompassed Apostol. He raised his eyes towards the sky, in which a few belated stars still lingered. The peaks of the mountains stood out against the sky like a gigantic saw with worn-out teeth. Right opposite, the morning star gleamed mysteriously, announcing the rising of the sun. Apostol fixed the rope himself, his eyes athirst for the light from the east. The earth was snatched from under his feet. He felt his body hanging like a weight. But his gaze flew impatiently towards the heavenly brightness, while in his ears the voice of the priest was growing faint:

  “Receive, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant Apostol … Apostol … Apostol …

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © Casemate Publishers 2017

  978-1-5040-5010-4

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