The Big Water

Father Lentenoski or the hermit of the seasons

At least three times a month, official comrades came into the Home, do-gooders, noble people, citizens, fathers and mothers in search of their children, busy activists, teachers, artistic troupes, poets, sailors, all sorts of shits. Some comrade Lazhoski and his wife, or was she his sister, monsters, health and hygiene inspectors, some eternally hungry people. Curse me, they had to put loads of food in front of them when they came for lunch. Okay, let them eat, I wasn’t concerned about the food; everyone stole. The instructors and the teachers, each took turns. I began to hate them, more than anything else in the Home, because of their insensitivity, hypocrisy, being without a conscience. Curse me, it was as if only one thing was important to them — a plate to stuff themselves with food, to endlessly stuff themselves. We started to hate them. In the most natural way, curse me, such hate. However smart or educated they were, however many thousands of times better they knew the new laws and followed those laws most correctly but they couldn’t be justified by any law. Curse me, in what law could you see such a dark clause, instructors stealing the poor entitlements, little by little, the meagre provisions of children in the most audacious, the most heartless manner? Openly and without shame they short-changed us on bread; they took it away in their bags. Curse me, did they have any books or science in their big bags? Isn’t that what villains do? Who dares to withhold food from hungry children, to pull it from their mouths? What sort of people could they be, how could you describe their conduct? Curse me, conduct. How could someone like that instil something good in your soul, to pour in such learning with a funnel — nothing stays in your head, part of one thing comes into your head, part of another goes out. Your mind is not focused on his teacherly words, you don’t even hear him, you simply see how he’s stealing from you, how greedily he is enjoying himself. Your mind is totally focused on that — he says to you, sun, ray or angel, devil, and you think to yourself, hell, darkness, army, villain, thief, I’m not going to learn from you, that’s not right, even if I remain ignorant and blind for the rest of my life. Curse me, that was in our thoughts. We looked at how they ate; it happened that when their mouths gaped wide we’d say to them “Your health! May the food you’ve eaten turn to blood,” or “Enjoy,” “Best wishes for success,” “May the good wishes multiply!” However stupid or ignorant you were, you could feel something was wrong, oppressive. They’ve stolen your soul, it seemed they’d sunk their insatiable mouths into your soul. Oh those dreadful hygiene people. I swear, each report had the same content, one after the other. The situation excellent, improved in the third semester, one hundred percent. The Lazhovski family acted like manufacturers, they threw reports around which were as full of details as hollow macaroni. Curse me, lies blossomed at every level. I swear a one hundred per cent lie. Later, many with that fortune won excellent character appraisals for themselves. Curse me, they acted as if they were something special.

I have to admit, of those that came to the Home chasing whatever job they had, to this day I can still recall only the old man Lentenoski in a lively way, happily. Curse me, with immeasurable happiness. He came to the Home every day and, on a small two-wheel cart, with his lively, little horse, he brought bread. I still happily remember that magnificent, little old man and that black bread brought in the cart. But there was something else here too, the dear Headmaster did not have that same frightening power and brutality when faced with uncle Lentenoski. How many times, during one of his enraged, mindless actions would he stop himself when he heard the sweet ringing of the hooves of the pony on the cobbled pavement, when he heard the happy, sing-song voice of uncle Lentenoski. In some strange way the good uncle tamed the rage in him; in an instant he made a good man from the brutal one; from the enraged man, he made a reasonable being. Uncle Lenten was the only ordinary, non-official person who had the power to stop the worst rage.

The strangest thing was, from time to time, he would, all of a sudden, disappear somewhere, would be lost. For days he’d be nowhere to be seen, for months, sometimes we thought he was never coming back. Where he went, why he hid for so long, no-one knew. Only God, as they say, and his weak soul knew the reason. But just when we thought he was never going to return, all of a sudden, totally unexpectedly, he would appear, as though he’d sprung up from the dust. All of a sudden one early morning, you’d be woken by that sweet jingling of his pony, its constant, happy murmuring, humming. Even if it was over the wall, we could already see him coming, curse me, like some grand marshall. Oh uncle Lentenoski, may your dreams turn to gold. “Uncle Lentenoski is back,” listen how the children talk and how, as if commanded, they would fly to the entrance door to meet him.

“Hey, it’s uncle Lenten!” they announced, in case someone had fallen asleep. Everyone had to be there to greet him on arrival.

“Lenten, Lenten!” came the happy clamour, one over the other, out of turn; who would be the first to shake his hand. We shook hands like great old friends.

In time, we got used to his ever more frequent disappearances, his strange life. It was precisely for that reason that the older residents thought up a separate name for uncle Lentenoski, they called him hermit of the seasons. Always, when he returned from his, to us very unusual trip, without exception, he would bring us back a story, and that was always connected with the seasons. If it was Summer, then the man in the story would be walking along a dusty road, through dry, wasted fields, through burnt down villages. Uncle Lenten knew all the villages by heart and would list off a million unknown places. The man would walk for a long time without break. Curse me, tortured by the thirst, without water for hours, with a parched soul. I swear, that man was always alone and on the road.

“Where was the man going?” one of the children would ask trembling, with a tear in his eye.

“The man, my dear little one,” uncle Lenten would gently say to the child, “the man was going through the villages and all the settlements, to all the towns and all the homes, my dear little one.”

We already knew, I swear, and however hard and wearying that road was, however ruthless the sun was, the road poisonous, he persevered, no-one could hold him back, my dear little one.

“What was the man after, uncle Lenten?” one of the children would ask quiet, with fear.

“What was the man after, well,” uncle Lenten would twirl his military moustache a little, he would wink from on high, happily, then as he was spending ages thinking about it, looked around, looked at the child and at last would say “Well, nothing, my dear, some little hermit or other, ha!”

At that moment, always somehow eager to evade, he thought up all sorts of clever things, he stood the whole time, he would make the pony lower its head, to be a clever “boy”, to say hello to the students, because they were very educated people, wise, because the young boys are also good little ponies, gentle hearted. Then he would miaow like a kitten, make every sort of sound, like a jay bird, like a cuckoo. He thought up thousands, thousands of other games, just to get away somehow. But that was impossible, he was closed in on all sides by our thirsty, shining looks. Our looks begged him, told him, “tell us dear old man, tell us uncle Lentenoski, tell us what was that man looking for?”

After a few centuries we found that out too. That man was looking for his family, his house, his children, the mother of his children. Curse me, that’s what the man was looking for.

With a tremor in his voice one of the boys would dare to ask him:

“Well, uncle Lenten, did he find his children?”

Then uncle Lentenoski cleverly would shake his head, left to right, whether he found them or not, you children don’t understand anything. After that he would start to tell us all about it with his sweet, gentle hearted voice.

“On his way he met Autumn, my dear little one, scary Autumn!”

“Oh, cursed Autumn,” the words would, all of a sudden, tear away from our hearts, “cursed Autumn,” we would curse.

“Cursed Autumn,” uncle Lentenoski would whisper, too, “cursedly bad season,” he would smile a quick, distant smile, like a rambling ray across the sky of a storm, like a rainbow in Spring over the fields. Curse me, old Lentenoski had a rainbow in his eyes.

After that came the story about Autumn. Heavy rains fell, the sky was black. The whole earth was overturned, all of the roads were lost. These frightening, cold rains were nothing for the man. The man went as if barren Autumn was nothing, the dark and scary trees, denuded, dead. The man went as if he did not care about Autumn, the man just continued on his path through the cold, through the scary waters, through the mud, through the thorns. Everywhere he reached, they gathered around him, they wondered at this muddy, filthy unclean man, where was he from, what devil was he, no-one dared to get close to him. They were afraid to speak to him, they were afraid to let him go over their thresholds, they were afraid to look him in the face. And he, curse me, he wanted nothing from the people. Not bread, not water, not a bed, I swear, he just wanted his children.

They didn’t believe him, they shook their heads in disbelief. They left him alone, saying:

“What are you asking us for, you unfortunate man! There’s the government! Go to the government, the government knows!”

“Go, go!”

“What an unreasonable man! Maybe there’s something wrong with him,” the people said.

“What, even an animal would understand more quickly, see how he’s looking, look at his eyes!”

“Madman, you should take a stick to him, he would see better!”

“Maybe he’s not human,” the women made a ritual, protective spit into their shirtfront to ward off evil, then shrieking, they gathered their children around them like hens and locked themselves in their homes.

“And he, uncle Lenten, what did he do?” one of the boys would ask in tears. Uncle Lenten would then go quiet for a bit longer, that little man looked strange in that evening, in the middle of the children, in the deserted, strange, in the silent home. He was quiet, like a thin, captured, little bird. With tiny, lively eyes he looked from child to child; now we were quiet. Curse me, everything was quiet. It seemed it was as if, in that moment, uncle Lentenoski got a thousand years older all at once, irrevocably. Curse me, a thousand years of lost life. How many times did we decide never to ask about such things again but we never stuck by our word. Some evil spirit was pressing us, wouldn’t leave us in peace.

Once, however, we heard the whole story.

It was in the Winter, the first Winter after the snow, the man returned to his home from the war and he didn’t find his home. The man had a wife and two children. They told him that they had gone to some distant mountain village. They’d stayed there in the Spring, they told him, they found the wife dead in the mountain, with a little pack of firewood, covered in snow. The children must have been cold, they lived in a little hut beside the village. Curse me, the children must have been cold that their mother had to go on such a frightening blizzardy day to gather wood in the mountain. Mothers are not afraid of snow, mothers are not afraid of anything when their children are cold. Curse me, mothers are without fear, they have just one fear, their children. Dear mothers of gold, our own dear mothers. I swear, that’s the only fear that lives in them, their children. The children departed in Spring. Sometime before Spring with the winds, when the snow starts to melt. First of all the littlest one was lost, one day he didn’t return to the hut. Maybe the boy went to look for his mother, curse me, maybe he went after his own mother. After that they found him in the plain, in a cornfield, when the snow had all melted, some ploughman in his ploughing, the child was lying on the ground like a little bird with folded wings; a fallen bird, most certainly killed by the north wind. As if he was sleeping, with his face on the warm earth, among the yellow field grasses, between small, new-born beetles. Curse me, the ploughman thought the boy was sleeping, dreaming. Then the older boy went, alone, he wafted along the road like a little cloud. Quickly he went along the road, healthy and alive. Where he was going, what he was doing, they didn’t know, they didn’t ask him. A child, what is there to ask? He was with his spotted puppy, Boobi, they ran along the melted snow, the sun was shining. Curse me, sun.

After that, running along, the boy and the puppy got to another village, an unfamiliar one, they went to the city, they saw them on some bank, near a big water he and his dog rambled around for hours, they played in the waves, they took him to some Home...

That night we didn’t hear the bell calling us to the assembly line. No-one wanted to move from the spot, to leave uncle Lentenoski alone. That night, curse me, the most snivelling boy could take any punishment.

“What’s up with you, you little devils?” asked the instructor who was on duty, mindlessly. “You will assemble or else you will be punished; you’ll miss out on dinner!”

He could shout at us all night, the idiot couldn’t see. I swear, we weren’t in the Home any more. We were far away, very far away, on a road. We were going through the fields, through the villages, through the caves, through the snow, through the waters, through unfamiliar settlements and cities, through all the homes, everywhere where that man pounded the road. Curse me, we went everywhere with him, together. A black rain hit us, a strong sun killed us, we broke through the most frightening snow, a gale, no, nothing could turn us back from that road, to separate us from that man. Every place where we met people, familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad, we told them all the name of our mother, the name of our father, the names of our sisters and brothers, our secret signs. Oh God, maybe they had other names now, other signs, maybe they were now Hungarians, Russians, Poles, French, Czechs, Germans; we told them of the beautiful dream of the place we were born; where was it, do you remember, there was a hill, a hill with sun in the morning, then a little river, from there the river runs into a wood, a silver, a gold forest and the sky above it just the same, don’t you... but then again, maybe we were together in a home, in a room, curse me, maybe that Metodija Grishkoski is your brother, degenerate, impossible... I swear, we didn’t recognise our sisters, brothers, oh, we have to find them, nothing can make us turn back from that road.

“You will be shut in the cellar,” Olivera Srezoska, the Assistant-Headmaster raged.

No-one got up, we were all satisfied. As though blind, as though entranced, each one set off wherever their eyes lighted, we set off through the yard, through the rooms. The place couldn’t hold us, we climbed up to the dormitories, we went out, I swear, we travelled with that man.

That same night uncle Lenten disappeared. It was late Summer, maybe Autumn, the birds were migrating, no-one knew exactly. I swear, all of the children were with uncle Lentenoski, above all we most wanted him to return to us. To return once again with his son and if he wanted, after that, never to come back again to the Home. Curse me, every morning, you’d wake up and you see all the children have pricked their ears like rabbits, has uncle Lenten come back? You hear the arrival of the cart and something would trick you, it would seem he was back again, breathlessly you’d run into the yard. Undressed, barefooted. Your heart could hardly stand it until that cursed door opened, even though you knew it wasn’t him, you wait. That lasted a few centuries.

The Winter, the fifteenth of February, he returned. It was morning, we were in the assembly line. We were singing the anthem. Curse me, the anthem. But when, like a little mouse, uncle Lenten softly snuck through the door, when we saw his stooped, shrunken shape, we all went quiet as if commanded to. It was as if he wanted to rest, he stood by the door for a bit. Then one of the children, a little devil, flew from the assembly line like an arrow and as if strangled by someone shrieked despairingly:

“Daddy Lenten!” Curse me, with all his strength he hung around his neck.

“Daddy Lenten,” he murmured, “I knew you would come back,” he murmured over and over, “I knew you were my father!”

The dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski gave us a signal to continue with the singing of the anthem as if nothing had happened. Curse me, for the first time, we sang it with all our hearts, for the first time, with love. Oh, you had to see the son of Kejtin. He was so carried away, he was so far away, that he didn’t notice that we’d stopped singing, that the flag was already waving. In his enthusiasm, he continued to sing. Curse me, he was singing.

His soft, hoarse voice sounded strangely; it was unreal, magical. Curse me, when the anthem is being sung, you should stand still, Kejtin was singing freely, he sang happily, and we stood quietly, in line. He certainly did not see us, he must have been on one of his secret great wanderings ... Oh great, oh free water! Our hearts shouted with happiness.

Drought. The drought lasted a few centuries. Curse me, the whole earth dried up. I swear, everything was scorched. While the drought lasted, everything around was mute, nothing moved. The sun had been struck in the heart, it was melting. It was bleeding. Every day we saw how the sun was dying. Curse me, the sun was dying. What would happen if the sun died, we bore such stupid thoughts. If the sun died, wouldn’t a heavy endless darkness fall on the earth; the trees and the beautiful grasses would die and surely you wouldn’t be able to see the birds fly, or clear waters run? Everything would turn into ice, the trees, the grasses, plants, the waters, the air that we breathe and maybe even the sun. Oh God, how frightened we were! “Has the sun a mother?” asked a stupid little boy; he wanted to know if the sun had a mother. Everything on this earth has a mother, the matron Verna Jakovleska said to us, and the sun has a mother. Certainly curse me, everything has a mother. Just so. That is the most beautiful thing, a mother. But such storytelling didn’t appeal to the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. “Listen, old woman,” he said to her firmly, just managing not to burst, “Don’t spread holiness, you know we’re in the clear with the saints.” Curse me, in the clear. After that, the old lady went to her little room without a word and didn’t come out for a long time. The drought lasted a hundred, a thousand centuries. We saw neither the Senterlev mountain nor the Big Water. Everything ran away, disappeared. That’s why complete deafness reigned. Curse me, certainly that was fear.