by Adele B.
Livia gazed at the yet-unopened leather bag, then at Petros. Although this had the appearance of a commercial visit, she could tell by his looks, the elegantly-turned coat and the faint scent of perfume that he had actually come for her.
Although the clothes, shoes and perfume were of good quality, Livia could not help but remark to herself how vulgar and rude he seemed. Hefty, heavily built, with wide hips and thick calves, of uncertain age, he was in reality very much different from the image he wished to project. As he opened the small leather bag to produce a few pieces of embroidered cloth, she noticed with repulsion the thick wet lips covered by a whitish foam, and the tip of his fat tongue as it quickly flickered from the corner of his mouth. Disgusted, she lifted her eyes towards his, ignoring the aquiline nose. A shiver ran through her.
His large, fierce eyes spoke clearly, telling her everything his lips could not utter. That she would be his, and nothing and no one would stop this from happening. She tore her gaze from his with difficulty, feeling like a little bird ensnared by the serpent.
The tension rose in the room. It was becoming clear this was no ordinary commercial visit. As Livia looked at the merchant, the priest's wife was studying them both; she had noticed Livia's disgusted look, had hoped for a miracle but it didn't happen. By her coldness and aloofness it was clear that Livia had rejected the merchant beyond any doubt.
Petros had stopped spreading and showing the pieces of cloth no one was looking at. He closed the chest and instead started telling them about his fortune, his estates, the Oriental voyage he was soon going to undertake. He had noticed the repulsion on Livia's face, but this did not put him off. He would convince her, she would accept him as a husband. He would use the same methods by which he persuaded women who at first rejected his merchandise to end up buying more than they could afford. If he had been able to build such a huge fortune from scratch, he would certainly be able to have Livia too, even if it would prove to be a thousand times more difficult. For him, it was like a bet he took against himself; he would get her, no matter the cost.
Livia was just what he needed. She had it all; beauty, grace, intelligence. He was not afraid of his ignorance, of the fact that she spoke four languages of which he could hardly understand a word, of the years she had spent in college studying arts and philosophy. His money could buy the whole college, teachers included, and he could even make Livia the Director of this college just on a whim.
His thoughts dwelt upon the women he had had, young and not so young, some attracted by his money and some – by his coarse but powerfully sensuous body. None of them could compare to Livia, with her pink porcelain face, with her large green eyes but especially with that aristocratic air. She seemed to belong to nobility even though she didn't – and it was his duty to raise her from this Godforsaken village's mud and buy a nobility title for her. She richly deserved it.
Catrina looked from on to the other, worried. The situation was critical, Livia was tense and hostile and knowing her well she expected an emotional outburst at any moment. Taking the man's arm she smilingly led him towards the terrace, where she offered him a delicious blackberry jam. She hoped with all her heart that her daughter's rude behaviour hadn't offended him.
Livia sat in the kitchen and tried to concentrate on the embroidery, while listening through the open windows to her mother's small talk about the weather, the harvest and the people from the castle. At long last, they entered the kitchen too. Petros drew near her, and bowing he kissed her hand. Then he said “I hope we'll see each other soon, young lady !”
Livia gratified him with a vague smile, fixing her gaze somewhere on his left shoulder.
While her mother was showing the guest to the door, Livia rose and carefully stored her embroidery in her little basket, then headed for her room.
She was thinking about Ilona and her obsession for clothes, when she noticed her mother storming into the room with an enraged expression on her face. She thought it better to start the quarrel herself, if there was to be one; she would make it very clear she was not going to marry an oldish, arrogant rag-peddlar.
“No, Mother – I will not marry this man under any circumstances! He is not what I want or what I have dreamed! I tell you now, over and over again – no and again no, and nobody in this world will make me change my decision!” She said this in a decided tone, waiting anxiously for her mother's reply.
The priest's wife turned beet red and her fury rose like a tide.
“My dear child, listen and listen well!” she said, stopping in front of her daughter with her hands on her hips. “Thanks to the small amount of money I had, you could afford to study in an elegant college, while your childhood friends broke their backs working in the fields! Thanks to my modest fortune you spend your afternoons walking through the woods and gathering flowers, while our neighbours have to work the Grof's land! And it is my modest fortune again which offers you leisurely mornings, reading Voltaire in the rocking-chair!” she continued, taking the book Livia had left opened on the table and throwing it to the ground. “You will most certainly marry him!”
Livia had never seen her mother so angry and she felt lost, without any help. She knew her father had no authority whatsoever in front of his fierce wife, and therefore could not save her. Tears started running on her cheeks as she thought about Edward. About his clear blue eyes, his smile, his sweet whispers. A terrible desperation swept over her- so obvious that her mother lowered her voice.
“You will forget Edward, my child. Life with him, would be really difficult. All he has is that Count title, but titles don't keep hunger or cold at bay; without any money, you won't be able to offer your children the education we were able to provide for you . I thought life in the village would seem horrid enough to you. I thought you would remember childhood friends who grew up not knowing the taste of eggs or of meat because their mothers were forced to sell them at the market, make a little money for a sack of flour.
I thought you would remember them coming home all the way from Gyula, after having walked for a whole day with that sack of flour on their back- flour as precious as gold. But of course, you were raised up differently, you would not be able to do any of this!”
Without answering, Livia headed for her room. She was trying to estimate the time needed for Edward to reach Vienna and then to obtain the transfer to Transylvania. Remembering his words and his promises she felt calm, confident, her face relaxed and peace swept over her – a peace which filled her with force.
As long as his memory was alive and strong in her heart, her mother's
plans would have no chance of success.
Chapter 5
“My love
At long last I reached Vienna. I found the same fascinating city, agitated and calm all at the same time, both elegant and intimate. I walked again down streets dear to my heart, I watched the flower-filled windows, I answered the kind salutes of passers-by, I explored cafes and pastry-shops filled with the most enticing smells. I saw my old comrades again, I visited the old garrison where one could indeed believe nothing much has changed, all goes on as before. I am the only one who knows how untrue this is.
Nothing is the same for me since I met you, this city is no longer home to me now. Vienna is the same, I am the one who has been changed, and now home for me is the place where you are. Now that my whole being is filled with your presence, nothing else holds any interest for me.
I can imagine you, beautiful and proud, sweet and commanding, strolling through the orchard which, not so long ago, sheltered our budding love.
How precious the moment when I will be able to drown my face in your forest-scented hair! Your hair, smelling of rain and of cherry blossoms, of long summer nights and mysterious legends!
How precious the moment when I will be able to hold you in my arms again – so delicate, so light and airy, a forest nymph who filled my heart with anxiety and impatience, tormenting both my days and my nights with the memory of two deep green eyes!
The transfer demand has been approved, and soon I will return to you. One of these days I will find out the exact city I have been posted to.
You know, many people just made fun of me, not understanding how one can choose to abandon Vienna for a dusty little city in “wild and hostile Transylvania”. But they don't know what I know; that somewhere between those hills, ravines and rough mountains my heart started beating in a rhythm it has never before displayed, for anyone in this world.
Waite for me as impatiently as I wait for the moment when we'll be together again.
Think about me as intensely as I think about wrapping my arms around you again.
Dream of me as your husband and your lover, your friend and your protector, forever.
Thus, our meeting will be a perfect crowning of both our wishes and our dreams.
I'll see you soon
your
Edward”
Livia was carefully studying the letter which had just arrived in the afternoon; she had read and reread it so many times she already knew it by heart, but she enjoyed seeing the rounded, elegant, almost-feminine handwriting. She was searching for words hidden between other words.
His phrases had not been enough for her, she needed more, much more. She would wait for him just as he had asked, she would think about him, she would dream of him. And nothing could be more pleasant than this. Through him, she had discovered so many feelings foreign to her simple, childish and later ingenuous adolescent world. Through him she had discovered happiness, waiting, the fear of loss, hope, the unsettling fretting of a heart in love – and she was grateful for all of these.
She carefully stored the letter in the same drawer which contained the dried but not wilted wild flower crown he had set on her head at their second meeting. She turned off the lamp which had bathed the room in a faint light, and climbed into bed, thinking of Edward's words.
Through the wide-opened windows, Livia listened to the sounds of the night. She adored summer nights, deep and perfumed, she adored the sensation of absolute isolation they brought. Just her and the night, just her and the music of windswept trees dancing to a strange mysterious tune.
The desperate hooting of an owl resounded from old Lela's house. The house seemed even more ominous and sinister now that the old woman, as ancient as time itself, had died. Upon hearing the sharp cry of another owl, Livia quickly said a prayer for old Lela who used to cure all the ailments of unruly village children with her herbs and potions. She was the self-appointed village doctor, the herbalist who reached the patient even quicker than this latter would. She had charms for peace in the household, and love-potions which made the village girls come to her door secretly, at night, for help. Charms for rain and for good luck, all amalgamated in the same unclear incantations which invariably finished with the ritual of red-hot embers extinguished in holy water.
She remembered how she ran to old Lela whenever she fell and hurt her knees; without her parents' knowledge, of course- as they didn't believe in the old hag's mutterings. But most of all, they wouldn't want Livia to hear all those weird stories the old woman would recount, about vampires and werewolves, about dishevelled virgins kidnapped at midnight by creatures hungry for young, warm blood.
Midnight had already passed and the forest was stirring, preparing for that great event; dawn. First the titmouse started to tweet, answered by the blackbird - then it all turned into a chaotic chorus which awoke all the roosters in the village.
First one started timidly in the distance, slightly puzzled and not exactly convinced. He waited; hearing no other rooster answering, but just the unconvinced yapping of an overzealous puppy, he gave up. The village would be able to sleep for a few moments more.
But now Dan, the village fool, started on his usual dawn patrol, crying out “Down with the Emperor!” He was unable to sleep at night and in his troubled head the turmoil of unruly thoughts traced tactics and strategies. Many years ago, as a child, he had suffered a shock because of the Revolution. For him, time had stopped in that year of horror. Every day he hoped people would awaken and follow him in a ranged battle. He didn't know against whom, it had been difficult for him to understand all that crowding of peoples – Magyars, Hungarians, Romanians, Austrians, Russians.
He never managed to enroll the peasants in his army, but he still achieved a degree of agitation. Birds started to sing in the trees, dogs barked in courtyards, cows in the stables impatiently waited for the housewives- for their udders were filled with fresh warm milk whose aroma would awaken the children. Here and there one could hear a coughing or muttering peasant.
“Yes, Dan, down with the Emperor!”
The night was disappearing in light blue streaks, and a new day appeared between the hills and mountains, valleys and meadows of Transylvania.
All the while in the woods rhythmically painful screams could be heard from the forest guard's little house. A new life was being born, his wife was having their third girl. Livia rose and shut the window, she could not stand to hear the woman's badly-omened, slaughtered -animal cries. Often in the village a life was extinguished while another was being brought into the world, as naturally as night died to make place for day.
Livia fell asleep wrapped in the sheets.
# # #
She awoke sweaty and scared. She had had a terrible nightmare. She was unable to remember it, she only saw fragments, the old Gypsy who had told her fortune smiling strangely with her one tooth, Edward going away, Petros squeezing her arm. She felt her arm being shaken real hard now, and upon opening her eyes she saw her mother who was slowly calling her name.
“Livia, get ready, today we have to go and gather wild strawberries and blackberries – then we'll make jam” said the priest's wife, studying her daughter's frightened face. She had told no one about the plan she and Petros had concocted amongst themselves, so she didn't understand why Livia looked so frightened upon hearing her words.
“I had a bad dream, Mother. I haven't slept all night, I only fell asleep at dawn and it was the tiredness which gave me nightmares” she answered, looking out the window. It was about 9 o'clock, the sun was up and its light made all her fears and presumptions disappear.
She would have liked to loiter a bit more in bed, but she wouldn't miss for the world the age-old ritual of wild berry gathering! She nostalgically remembered how, as a child, she would slip her tiny hands through the tangled, cutting branches of blackberry bushes which tried to defend their juicy fruit from her greedy grasp. She was always the winner, in this fight. She proudly wore the signs and scratches as badges of courage obtained in battle. They were the price she had to pay for delicious, fragrant jam.
The old pleasant memories made her feel suddenly happy, and she jumped out of bed with renewed vigour. She loved to explore the woods, where Nature was bountiful and both she and her brother George would return carrying baskets filled with wild strawberries, blackberries, multicoloured mushrooms or just bunches of wild flowers. She thought fondly about George now, about the way he would climb the tallest trees in search of bird nests. He would triumphantly come down, carrying a nest filled with chicks- but after studying them Livia threatened to tell their father, so he had to return to the top of the tree and replace the nest on its branch. Fear of their father's wrath was always stronger than the desire to keep the chicks.
She opened the clothes chest, inhaling the strong lavender scent – then she chose a long discoloured and used blouse and a skirt showing traces of time's passage. These were old garments, suitable for a wal
k through the woods and ready to be torn a bit in the wild berry battle.
She hurriedly dressed and headed towards the kitchen, where the smell of warm milk, freshly-baked bread and jam awaited her.
“I prepared breakfast for you”said the priest's wife, looking at her daughter. She had seen the postman bring Edward's letter, the day before; she had seen the happiness on Livia's face after she had read it; and her heart fluttered when she thought of the trap she had set for her daughter, like a noose round an unsuspecting deer's limb. Gazing upon her daughter's flawless beauty and her deep green eyes, soon to be filled with tears, she felt ill. But she told herself that it all was for Livia's good, and strengthened by this belief she took her little food basket and headed for the door.
“I'm waiting outside, please hurry, soon the heat will be oppressive “
Livia found her mother's whole behaviour strange – the way she had looked at her, the way her face had turned pale. She went into the next room and sprinkled fresh cool water on her face and neck, hoping to dispel the uneasy feeling sweeping over her. Spreading blackberry jam on a piece of bread, she was studying her mother who, lost in thought, was watering the garden roses.
She spread jam on another slice of bread -this time for Puf, who was waiting for her by the door. Smiling, she waited until the dog had finished the feast, then they all headed for the woods. Out on the road grumbling peasants were heading for another day of work on the Grof's domain. Ragged children ran after animals, respectfully saluting the two women. Puf , as small and white as a snowball, faithfully followed them. Although it had only been born at the beginning of spring, it was bouncy and filled with life and energy. It ran in circles around them, barked in a thin voice, chased after ducks and geese, got lost in their skirts.