“She was in rags; her feet were in wooden shoes, and by the light of the fire she was knitting woolen stockings for the little Thenardiers.”
April 12, 1995
“$20 dollars,” James motions to a tiny green Dacia. “He’ll take us to Sapintsa, wait until we’re through, and then drive us back for $20.”
I point to a white station wagon, an Opel. “He’ll do it for $10.”
In a moment, we’re in the back of the unmarked taxi, on our way to see a cemetery.
* * *
The first hand-carved headstone I see bears an image of a girl; and a poem, as do all the graves of the Cimitirul Vesel. The Merry Cemetery.
“What does it say?”
Fire burning taxi,
All the way from Sibiu,
However vast Romania may be,
It wasn't large enough,
To keep you from stopping by our house,
And running over me.
No parents can ever know
A stronger loss, a greater sorrow,
Than when you've lost your little sparrow,
Nor is there pain that can compare,
When that little sparrow has come and gone
And yet her parents still live on.
But still, little sparrow, you will fly,
If only in our thoughts,
Forever in our thoughts.
* * *
It should be warmer than it is, but passing through Baia Mare we are caught in a snow storm. The following day, our bus begins to smell heavily of brake fluid. The driver pulls over near a roadside café, and crawls underneath, an iron wrench in his hand. We smoke cigarettes in the falling snow and listen to him bang the chassis. After a moment, he emerges and heads into the café, answering a fellow passenger’s question.
“What did he say?”
“He said we’ll leave after he has a beer.”
He exits the café, wipes his mouth with his coat sleeve and we all board the bus. He has parked atop a hill, and instead of turning the ignition, he merely releases the brake. We roll with gravity downhill for a while before he releases the clutch. The bus shakes, then starts, and we’re back on our way.
* * *
I watch as three generations of women spin wool in a one-bedroom house, in a village overlooking Ukraine, absent of men, and absent of electricity until just a few years ago. The third generation, a lovely girl in her teens asks me in Romanian, “Are you married?”
I expect her mother, or grandmother, to look crossly at her, but instead they look to me in anticipation of my answer.
“Yes. I married last month.”
“A Romanian?”
“Yes. A Sibienca.”
“Is she pretty?”
Now her mother does look cross. I answer, “She is lovely.”
“All the girls from Sibiu are lovely. Even the foreigners know this,” says the grandmother.
* * *
On the road back to Sighet, the Opel breaks down, steam escaping from the hood. The driver lifts his hands in apology to us. We don’t know if there is a hotel in Sighet, and our train leaves shortly. We don’t mind. James and I take photos of Ukraine, and watch the driver run to the river. He comes back with two liters of water, which he pours into the radiator. We are back on the road, momentarily, to board a train that will take us all the way across the country to an obscure vineyard in the south. Where it’s warm. Where the people have electricity. And where the cemeteries aren’t so merry.
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