The Story That Cannot Be Told

by J. Kasper Kramer

  When they were through, Mamaie offered the coins she and Tataie had saved for the doctor, but the Roma woman just shook her head.

  “Take care of yourself and your husband,” she said. And then she glanced down with a smile. “Take care of your daughter as well.”

  She left that night and did not return.

  In the morning, Mamaie’s pain was gone and the goats were full to bursting with milk.

  The Funeral

  Three days after the butcher’s death, just as planned, everyone in the valley made the long trek through the forest to the next town. Our village was left empty behind us, not a soul breathing the air apart from bedridden Old Constanta. Even the three strangers were gone. They’d left in the night without paying their bill, much to Mr. Bălan’s great fury.

  As we traveled down the road out of town, the casket carried over the shoulders of men up ahead, flurries turned into snowflakes. The ground was still too warm for them to stick, so our boots clumped up with mud and stringy brown grass. Women wailed, their sorrowed voices carrying over the mountains alongside the trumpeting of long, straight buciume, the same horns used to guide flocks of sheep. The horns played the “Song of Death” while we walked.

  When we finally made it to the church, there was a sermon from a man with a black hood, and then the procession carried Mr. Ursu’s body to the cemetery, where the man spoke again. After the butcher’s casket was covered with crowns of flowers and lowered into the earth, we returned to the church, where the people from our village drank wine and sang songs and danced with colorful masks. Then everyone started to tell stories about Mr. Ursu. And as I sat laughing, listening to Tataie talk about one of Mr. Ursu’s clever tricks, I realized that joy had found its way back into the world. Sometimes a good story can help keep people close to you after they’re gone.

  Emboldened, I stood up and asked to go next.

  Mrs. Sala led me to the front of the room. It was the first time I’d spoken before an audience since the Great Tome was burned. And when one of the other village kids started to tease, I got anxious. But then Gabi noisily readied a loogie, which made everyone go quiet, and I gathered my nerve. Once the story started, there was no stopping it. I told the rest of the church how, even though I’d only met the butcher that summer, my mother’s memories had long ago made him a part of my life. For several minutes I shared stories of radios and sheep and fake bloody hands. After I was finished and went back to my seat, Tataie pulled me into a hug, and the weight of sadness in my heart lifted.

  When the funeral was over, we walked home a different way than we’d come. The sun set as we journeyed. The air grew frigid, snowflakes coming down harder and faster, but my tataie just took off his white sheepskin coat and draped it over my shoulders. It was heavy and long—so big that the sheepherders used the same kind as beds. I didn’t mind, though, because it was warm and smelled like my grandfather.

  “Won’t you get cold?” I asked, looking up.

  Tataie stretched, sucking in a deep breath, and smiled. “Yes, but I like it. Don’t you?”

  My mamaie started tittering and fussing, and I laughed.

  After all the months I’d been lonely and scared—after all the time I’d wished only to return to the city—I finally felt content being just where I was. I finally felt like I belonged. Seeing the villagers come together had filled me with hope, and listening to their stories had given me strength.

  The Securitate would forget all about my uncle, just like he’d promised. They would give up and leave my family alone. And when my mother and father came to get me—which would surely be any day—maybe I could convince them to move to a city near the mountains so I could stay close to all the people I’d come to love.

  I glowed, feeling like nothing could shatter my mood.

  But then at the front of the procession, a few of the younger men started calling out and picking up their pace. My grandparents looked at each other and began hurrying too. It wasn’t till we rounded the road to the valley, though, that we saw what was causing the commotion.

  Trucks parked in the road. Big green ones. Lots of them.

  Lights dancing through the streets and the windows and doorways of homes.

  Soldiers from the Land Forces were searching the village.

  I froze, a rock in the stream of villagers running now toward town. If they found me, would they take me away? Would they put me in a cell like my uncle? I turned my eyes toward the hill with my grandparents’ cottage, where flashlights were sweeping the trees, and I remembered the manifesto under the floorboards. My heart leaped into my throat as I realized how many others were in danger if the papers were found.

  A hand on each of my shoulders—my grandparents—got me moving forward again. Terrified, I followed the mass of people to the schoolhouse, where everyone was being herded like cattle.

  “Keep in line. No pushing. No reason for alarm,” an official in a brown suit said, smiling as the building filled with our bodies. The three Securitate officers from before were standing outside with him, watching.

  Shoulder to shoulder we squeezed in. Wall to wall. I was sure they couldn’t fit any more of us, but they did. And when we were all stuffed inside—adults sitting on desks, children propped up on shoulders—the man in the brown suit skirted toward the front of the room and stood up in Mrs. Sala’s chair. Somehow, Gabi found me in the crowd as he started to talk. I must have been pale, I must have been trembling, because she looked at me strangely and whispered, “Are you about to puke?”

  I was so scared that I could have.

  The official in the brown suit explained that recent incidents had brought the state’s attention to the village. At first I was sure he meant me, and for the longest breath I’d ever held in my life, I waited for my name to be called.

  Instead, though, the man said, “Your mountains are infested with terrorists. Anti-Communist foreigners who have no love for our country have been spotted in these very woods. If you have any information the state would find useful, you’re obligated by law to speak up.”

  The schoolhouse filled with murmurs and frightened noises, but no one raised a voice above the rest. The man in the brown suit nodded, as though he had expected as much.

  “No reason to fret. We’ll stay till the issue’s resolved. You’re entirely safe,” he said.

  Of course, this brought only more worried glances.

  “But there’s other business as well.” The man pulled an envelope from his jacket and took out a folded sheet of paper. Bone white. Black, typed letters. A red stamp. He wiggled it in the air till the room quieted. “An official announcement from the Supreme Leader himself!”

  He opened the paper and read it out loud.

  When he got to the part about the village being chosen for systemization, the adults in the room started yelling and shouting from all sides. I didn’t know what the word meant, but I knew from the panicked reaction that it was bad.

  “Everyone! Can’t you see the opportunity your country is giving you?” The man spread out his hands, palms up, and smiled. “Life in these mountains is brutal. Your farmland’s frozen for most of the year. The rest of Romania is moving forward without you!”

  “We’ve always done just as you told us,” cried Mr. Sala, shocked. “We send the crops down each year, right on time!”

  “Eh,” said the man in the brown suit, scrunching his nose. “But it seems, now and then, there’s a bit off the top, yes? Those pigs you and your wife raise in the backyard, they don’t all make it down the mountains, do they?”

  Mrs. Sala started to sob. It was the first time I’d ever seen a teacher do such a thing, and it shook me right to the core.

  “Many of you will still keep your professions,” said the man. “I hear you have a talented veterinarian here? Even has a skill for tending people in an emergency, so it’s rumored.” He smiled at Sanda, who went white. “Those of you who have experience farming will simply be relocated to more productive communities.”


  “And what about the rest of us?” demanded Mr. Bălan.

  “Why, you’ll go to the cities, where you’ll serve your country from the factory lines,” the man said.

  Voices rose again. The crowd began to get rowdy, eyes darting to the soldiers stationed at the door. Mrs. Ursu, face still puffy from crying, walked up and spat at the man’s feet. He pursed his lips as her neighbors pulled her away.

  “The Leader wants everyone gone by the new year,” the man said over the rumble. “You should start taking apart your houses as soon as possible. We’ll be recycling the materials for future projects, and the sooner you get to work, the sooner your country can too. Besides, you wouldn’t want to get stuck outside pulling nails in a snowstorm, right? I hear this place can get pretty cold!”

  As if on cue—as if the government could control even the weather—a gust of snow rushed past the windows, pushing hard on the glass. Mr. Bălan shoved his way to the front of the room, thumping his chest with the heel of his hand.

  “Ten generations,” he said. “My family’s been here ten generations! You think I’ll just pick up and leave?”

  “Yes, I do.” The man smiled again, bigger this time.

  “And what if I won’t? What if I tell you to go to hell? You can’t force me to tear down my own house.” The innkeeper leveled his gaze. Ioan, standing next to him, tugged his father’s hand but was ignored.

  “You see what effect living like this has on good people?” The man in the brown suit gestured, addressing the rest of the room. “You’re too distanced from modern society. You forget how the world works. If you won’t do as you’re asked, you place the burden on others, who then have to do the job for you.” He shook his head at Mr. Bălan, who was still flushed, fists knotted beside his potbelly. “We’ll be ordering machinery to help with any troublesome structures. When it arrives, your inn will be the first building to go.”

  Everyone was dismissed. In a mass exodus the villagers were shooed out the door—all except the innkeeper and his family. As I stepped outside, I could hear Mr. Bălan start pleading with the official. His fire was gone, pinched right out. I didn’t want to look back. I knew that I shouldn’t. But I did. Ioan had sat down on the floor right where he’d been standing. His mother was sobbing nearby. His father dropped to his knees, begging at the man’s shiny brown shoes.

  In the snow, still dressed all in black for mourning, the villagers returned to their houses.

  Into the House of the Witch

  The next day, after school, Gabi followed me up the hill and we crawled under the cottage to talk.

  “Are you a terrorist?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Is your uncle?”

  “I don’t think so. Unless… are poets terrorists?”

  Gabi just shrugged. “So why did you look like you were about to be sick last night?”

  I hesitated. Keeping my secrets completely to myself was the only sure way to be safe, but with things getting so serious, I knew I might not be able to save everyone all on my own. Besides, Gabi was my best friend. I trusted her.

  So I told her my story from beginning to end. I told her about “The Baker’s Boy.” I told her about the electrician. I even told her about the manifesto buried under the floor.

  “I’ve got to protect it,” I said. “Will you help me?”

  Gabi bit her bottom lip. “How about we just get rid of it? Then no one could find it and see all the names. We could light it on fire or something.”

  “No!” I gasped, taking her wrists. “My uncle almost died bringing it here. Those words are worth more than our lives!”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, shaking me off. “Don’t freak out. So what do we do?”

  “First we find out what the soldiers are up to. Then we make a plan to protect the people we love.”

  My friend shook her head, uncertain. “We’re just kids, Ileana.”

  “Yeah. We’re just kids. Think about it. No one’s going to suspect we’ll do anything. I mean, has an adult ever come up to you and asked you strange questions? Like what your mom’s reading, or what kind of things the teacher’s saying in class?”

  Gabi nodded.

  “That’s because they’re trying to make you a spy,” I said. “Just like in the story that got me in trouble. Kids are really good spies, because adults don’t think about what they’re doing when they’re around us.”

  “You want to spy on the soldiers?” Gabi asked. After a moment she smiled. “I guess that could be pretty fun.”

  We got right to work as the rest of October crept forward. The wind gushed down from the peaks of the mountains, heaping snow-crusted leaves all over the cottage’s yard. The great owl that nested nearby continued to call from our rooftop, night after night. I watched from the porch as she circled, hunting, fattening up for the cold months ahead.

  I was fattening up too, but not with food.

  Each day, I stuffed my little notebook into my jacket and filled it with writing about everything that I saw. When the soldiers put tents in the valley and took up residence in people’s attics and kitchens, I made a list of who was sleeping where. When they started to go on routine security checks, I noted the route they walked and when they would break for a snack.

  Gabi was in charge of the drawings. She mapped the whole village and added the new military structures, like the roadblock and the mysterious, growing pile of metal boxes—always covered with a black tarp. It was hard work, paying attention to so much all at once, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  By the end of the month, things started to get strange at school. More than one family had already left town, taking their children with them, and the empty desks in our classroom were an unhappy reminder each day. Mrs. Sala was acting weird too. Most mornings she looked like a plump little bird perched on a sill, head perking up at every small sound. She’d write a word on the board, then erase it, then go back and write the same one. The only good thing about her distracted demeanor was that she stopped assigning us homework. Gabi and I wondered why she bothered to stay, why she kept teaching, but I guess, when it came down to it, we were all just trying to act normal.

  One day after school, Gabi and I planned to go to the abandoned church to exchange notes. We often met there when we had dangerous things to discuss, and we had stashed all sorts of secret lists and drawings in the debris of its broken chairs and crumbling tiles. When we scurried down the schoolhouse steps together, though, Sanda started calling from up the street.

  “She’s gonna make me stick thermometers up cow butts, I just know it,” Gabi whined. “We’ll meet later, okay?”

  I waved good-bye as she ran off, then watched the other children walk home. It had stopped snowing for a few days, but the ground was still covered in white, the sky puffy and gray overhead. A group of men in uniforms was sitting outside the tavern, playing cards. They kicked at stray dogs when the animals wandered too close. I’d have to pass the men alone if I went back to the cottage, and just the thought of that made me sweat.

  I turned, hurrying toward the church—and walked straight into a Securitate officer.

  “Whoa there, little one!” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  I looked up and my eyes widened. It was the man who’d yelled at Mr. Ursu about the pig. My mamaie blamed him for the butcher’s death. I wanted to be angry—to tell him to get his hand off me—but all I felt was afraid.

  “Where are you off to so fast?” the officer asked, looking around.

  Besides the ruins of the church, there was nothing in the direction I was headed except for Old Constanta’s house. I opened my mouth, planning to say something incredibly cunning, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  After a moment the officer squinted, looking closer, and asked, “Whose daughter are you? Which family are you from?”

  Considering all the times I’d pictured this interrogation—all the imagined scenarios—surely, I should have had a quick answer. But it wa
s like my brain wasn’t working. It was like I’d been cursed. The notebook in my coat pocket dug into my side, and I wondered if he could see its shape through the fabric. My mouth moved, soundless. I was trembling.

  The officer tilted his head.

  I was sure he would ask, “Are your parents Liza and Lucian? Is your uncle named Andrei? Where is he now? Have you hidden him? Have you hidden something for him?” I was sure he’d reach right into my coat and yank out all my notes and my stories, scattering them as he shouted, “What’s this you’ve been writing? Did you think we wouldn’t find out?”

  But before anything like that could happen, a familiar sensation tingled right up my spine.

  Someone was watching.

  I turned and my eyes landed on Old Constanta’s window. When I saw the hunched figure standing at her glass, the temperature dropped ten degrees. I remained perfectly still, my heart thudding, as the shadow vanished and the curtains were yanked shut.

  Mamaie said Old Constanta could not rise from her bed.

  She said the woman was so sick and so frail that other people—neighbors and nurses and distant relatives—had to bathe her and feed her and help her use the toilet. Mamaie said every time they tried to take Old Constanta to live in a hospital down at the bottom of the mountain, she went wild and scratched and bit like an animal.

  The wind rushed past my ears and flurries dusted the edge of my coat, whirling and skirting at my feet.

  Old Constanta’s front door creaked open.

  “Hey, Earth to kid. You still with me?” the officer asked, jiggling my shoulder.

  I spun away and ran toward the widow’s yellow house, crunching through her dead, frozen grass, dashing up her front porch, and slamming the door closed once I was inside. Panting, I pressed my back to the wood, then scooted along the wall to peek out through the curtains. The officer had a confused look on his face, but after a moment he just shook his head and made his way up the street toward the tavern. I knew I needed to sneak behind the houses and back up the hill in case the man changed his mind, but my heart was still pounding, so I slumped to the floor, catching my breath.