A Story
That wedding will remain as the day they met. It was late autumn. The leaves of the trees were leaving the branches and carpeting the ground with a beautiful, multi-colored rug. Not without reason, weddings are more frequent in these months; perhaps it should be added here that they usher in the month of raki making, which in those parts has a
good name. They were both invited to take part in this celebration. They did not know each other, even though they lived in the same town. Both had been swept away by the joyous flow of the music. He kept his hand on her waist, as if trying not to fall. Light and tall, she gave the impression that he was holding the sounds of a song in his hands, twirling them to extract their joy and sweetness. They came from her mouth in the form of rustling leaves, when the evening breeze blows and joins them with the babbling of springs, flowing down the valleys of the song that wells up from the depths of the chest. He wished this wedding would never end. He wanted never to take his hand from her slender waist, and to hold her small hand, like a bird in flight, forever like that in his broad palm. He watched her chest heaving in a deep breath, and an inner desire arose in him to lay his head upon it to hear the deep beating of her heart. He wanted to know how it beat. He was ready to snatch her up just like that, suddenly, and hide from the world, off to another world that would be his alone.
She raised her beautiful eyes and smiled at him.
A large window opened up before the young man. Far off in the evening sky, he saw birds flying and chirping a love song. He was dreaming.
“Slower,” she whispered sweetly, and rested her head on his chest. “I’m getting dizzy.”
He slowed the rhythm of his movements, while his heart increased the speed of its beating even more. He could not see her eyes, but he understood her gazes through her long eyelashes.
“And when will we get married?” he said, as if to himself. He did not know if his soul had spoken or his mouth. It seemed to him that no one heard his words. They were swallowed by the hall and the powerful sounds of the music. In response, he received only a tighter squeeze of her hand and the fuller weight of her body. Was this an answer, or did it just happen by chance?
Afterwards, time flowed into the lake of their feelings and they got married. It was not long before the family grew with a new flower, whom they christened with the name Beti. They took the first two letters, Be, from the name Berti, and Ti, from the name Tina.
Their feelings were transformed into Beti. Everything was like a beautiful dream, which they lived with all the strength of their souls. Happiness has no unit of measurement, but they felt it completely.
That evening would bring, along with the cold, their great frost. Fate, nature, would unleash the fatal blow upon them. Tina snapped unexpectedly, like a flower, fell to the ground and lost consciousness, striking a death blow to the tree of feelings of Berti’s little family. At the hospital, they told Berti that it was all over. The little girl looked at his eyes filled with storms of tears, but she was unable to decipher them. Her mother had suddenly hidden from her, taking her kisses and caresses with her.
Berti decided never to marry again. The lake of his feelings could not be filled by any of the other springs in life. He dedicated his life to raising his daughter. Beside her, he felt the lost warmth of his wife. The years flew by like a train with no stations and no end. The girl blossomed greener every day. Her father saw in her his dreams, cut down by the merciless axe of fate. He would gaze longingly at his wife’s photograph and speak to it: “If only I had you near now, Beti needs you now, right now! How can I talk to her about a woman’s secrets, how?” The photograph, with its eternally stamped gaze, did not speak, did not move; this made Berti fall into the lap of melancholy. His daughter’s beauty caught the eyes of others, too. “Your girl has grown up,” one of the neighbors told him, “she’s the spitting image of her mother.” He was overjoyed. When she came back from school, he would pick up the newspaper, but he never took his eyes off her. One day she returned with unbridled enthusiasm. A mad wind of freedom and joy blew in her chest. Her face had taken on mixed hues, resembling a perfect surrealist painting. She held within her all the iridescent colors of an age in premature and unrestrained development.
“Dad!” she began to chirp. “My friends signed up to go to America. Next week they’re getting their passports. Should I sign up with the next group too?” And she kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Berti shuddered. He himself did not understand why this kiss burned him. Her enthusiasm frightened him. He felt a certain winter frost that made him cold.
“What!?” he said, to give himself time to think of an answer.
The girl formulated her statement again, this time in a louder voice.
“But you’re too young for America, sweetheart,” he would always speak to her like this.
“Don’t leave me alone like your mother did.” A veil of sadness drifted into his eyes, casting shadows on his broad, unshaven face.
Beti was taken aback when she cast her gaze into his eyes. They had lost their shine and become expressionless.
“Just for one week, Dad, just one week,” she pleaded, and kissed him again.
He fell silent. He wanted to say a lot, but he did not want to ruin the harmony and his relationship with his daughter. Since his wife’s death, he had never denied her wishes. He was afraid of losing her. Whenever he came back tired from work, he would call out and look for her through the rooms. He would take her in his arms and be overjoyed
when he saw her growing up healthy like a flower in early spring. But now, her springs had multiplied, and along with them, the problems of a delicate age. She demanded more freedom, and this worried Berti. He did the same that day. He went into the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen, but he did not see her anywhere. His wave of joy turned into an iceberg; his body began to tremble when he saw a letter on her bed.
“Dad, I got my passport and left with my friends for America, for a week.”
Kisses, Beti.
He collapsed to the ground, just as his wife once had.
“Get up!” he heard, as if in a dream. His wife was ordering him. “Get up and find Beti before it’s too late.”
He got up with difficulty. He floated through the city streets like an abandoned, motorless boat. The posters stuck to the walls seemed to suffocate him.
It seemed to him as if his daughter’s beloved face would suddenly appear on their pages.
The train that had just stopped looked like a giant, seeking to devour
crowds of people, and him along with them. The wet tracks appeared to him like
endless wet ropes, tightening around his throat and cutting off his breath. The train’s siren howled, waiting to depart for who knows where. He climbed aboard, with the last hope in his soul that somewhere he would find his only joy, who, out of a great desire to fly, had gotten lost in the vast sea of life.
* * *
Beti and her friends ran happily toward America, toward their dreams.
“This way!” her friend reminded her. “Where is your head?” She pulled her by the arm. “This way!”
She followed her obediently, like a little puppy. She thought of her father for a moment and asked herself, “Has he read the letter? What is he doing now?” Her thoughts came and went in a rush, just like her own movements and footsteps.
They got into a car that was waiting for them. The man escorting them hardly spoke at all. He spoke dryly and sharply, as if he were chopping wood with an axe he held in his mouth. “This way, don’t speak,” or when they asked him something, he would just say, “You will learn everything when we get to the designated place; my job is to escort you.” He was hold-
ing a loaded pistol in his hand, ready to fire.
“What is this?” Beti gathered her courage and asked.
“We are important and protected,” her friend answered. “Just obey,” she advised her.
Beti calmed down somewhat, but inside the space of her soul, the storms unleashed their first rains to flood the joy that still lingered on her little lips.
Somewhere the car stopped. “Hurry, hurry,” their escort ordered them. “The slightest delay will make us miss the plane.” They ran across paths and pathless terrain, like remote-controlled robots guided by a hidden hand. Beti was not understanding anything.
After a short walk, they boarded a helicopter. Beti was somewhat glad that she would see everything from above, the way she had never seen it before. But now, mixed with her joy, her gaze had frozen from a snow of fear that covered her saddened soul. In less than two hours, the helicopter landed. They hurried into a
large and noisy building. There they found other beautifully dressed girls.
“Listen!” one of them spoke up. “They will come to take you to where you are headed, but first you must change your clothes. Seeing you like this, you look to me
as if you have come out of the brambles, like black crows. How can you attract the gentlemen’s attention? Like this, only those who have lost their way will find rest on your chests.” And she laughed out loud, with a raspy voice, like an out-of-tune and discarded accordion. At the same time, she collected the girls’ bags and passports, which they were still holding in their hands.
In an instant, several beautifully dressed gentlemen appeared. One was wearing a long tailcoat and a hat, casting a shadow that hid his eyes.
Another, in leather clothes like a medieval knight, held a whip in his hand, like the ones used to beat horses.
“Strip!” ordered the second one, and cracked his whip.
The girls pulled back in fright and began to hurry.
“What?” Beti asked the friend beside her.
“Strip and don’t speak,” she advised her.
They stripped, awkwardly looking at one another.
“Everything!” he ordered again.
Beti began to tremble all over, like a solitary twig in a harsh winter. She was not understanding anything. Even though it was early summer, she started to feel cold. Her voice left her, her vision blurred, her heart seemed to be stopping
its beats and the blood was clotting in her veins, like the flow of a stream drying up in the arid summer.
The gentleman who was giving orders approached her and covered her with the shadow of his body and his words. He cast his eyes over her blossoming meadows and snapped at her:
“Everything, we said, everything!” fixing his harsh gaze into the depths of her innocent eyes. She lowered her eyes, wanting to avoid those stares. But a hard kick to her legs made her sway like a severed branch, and along with the pain that accompanied it, knocked her to the ground. They laughed.
Beti saw their teeth, blackened by tobacco smoke, and felt up close the heavy
smell of alcohol. The woman who had spoken earlier helped her up. The man in leather clothes came near her. Beti saw his face, full of cracked ravines, and an earring hanging from his left ear.
“You’ve never been with men? Is it your first time?” He sneered near her ear. “Strip!”
Beti stripped. Her face had taken on the color of a violet when its petals begin to fall, while her body turned a bashful pink.
Invisible hands grabbed her, and they vanished into the dark labyrinths of the
abandoned castle. An invisible emptiness seized her body, she felt dizzy, she felt like vomiting, a bitter pain tore through her fragile body. Any resistance from her was useless. Tears flowed down her flushed cheeks. Only in them did she find her sole comfort, as well as in her father, whom she brought to mind at that moment.
Berti had not believed the trip to America. For days he had been wandering the streets and cities. He had forgotten the taste of bread, sleep had fled from his eyelids, and his body had begun to lose its weight and strength. He looked everywhere at the posters and large advertisements, hoping to find a shred of comfort in them, but nothing. Everything seemed to him like a sad dream torturing him mercilessly. He would take out
his wife’s photograph and speak to it as if he had her in front of him.
“I will find her, my darling, I will find her. Even if finding her requires my life.” He did not understand whether this was a promise and a desire, or a truth expected only of him. He walked, dragging his feet, with exhausted thoughts and depleted strength. There, some more posters tucked away deep inside a billboard. It seemed to him that they were sticking their tongues out at him and mocking him for his incompetence. He turned to leave, but he thought he heard them speaking to him; he turned his head, nothing. Was the wind playing with his pain, or was exhaustion making him step outside reality? He turned his head. His eyes
saw his daughter’s photograph. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, focused, but her photograph did not move from the poster. He thought he could hear her voice.
“Dad, it’s me! Don’t leave, please!” He cast his gaze around; silence, only cars moving in a rush. He felt dizzy, stood for a moment in hesitation,
took a deep breath, and opened the iron door beside him.
“Hey, hey, slow down, sir, don’t rush, they’re not running away, we brought them here for you. Sex shakes hearts but it shouldn’t topple logic. Besides, what I read
in your years, you must have eaten the sweet feeling of love with a shovel.” A tall, unshaven young man was laughing and sneering in front of him.
Berti wanted to strike this shadow, which he had been searching for for days, but he gathered himself. A wrong move would cost him dearly.
“Where is this river of love traveling so hastily?” the man spoke again, rubbing his beard.
“To room seven.”
“Slow down, don’t rush, there might be someone else inside, wait. Show a little restraint, a bit more culture, my friend.”
Where did this guy find a friend in me, Berti thought, and the blood rushed to his head.
“Alright, alright. Pay 100 euros and go through.”
Berti shuddered. He had never thought he could live through such moments. He paid more and set off up the stairs.
“Ah, youth, youth,” the other sneered, but Berti did not hear him.
* * *
Berti had been waiting for the click of the key for days. The house had been deaf for so many months without her voice. She had not yet opened it when her father appeared at the door.
She saw him, stood motionless for a moment looking into his eyes, as if she wanted to read into their depths, and when she saw that her father was waiting with open arms like before, she threw herself onto his chest.
“Forgive me, Dad!” she uttered with trembling lips. Her soul was laden with emotions.
Together they made the long walk from the door to her room. It was just as she had left it, and the letter was there. Berti had forgotten to take it. Her father took a jewelry box and opened it; a sparkle of diamonds gave a different gleam to the part of the wall they were near.
“They are your mother’s,” he whispered to her, and kissed her. “Now and in the future, they belong to you. You have grown up, my daughter.”
Two teardrops slid down Beti’s flushed cheeks.
“Thank you,” she whispered amidst her sobs, and kissed her father again, this time longer, and let herself fall into his arms.
His wife’s photograph, hanging near them, seemed to Berti to smile. It took on a new sparkle and light, as if it had been waiting for this day.
