Summer of The Dancing Bear

by Bianca Lakoseljac

  Jasmine’s eyes widened. “Think hard, Stefan. What did he look like? Something must’ve stood out.”

  “It was a clear night. Full moon. Not like now. It took a moment to realize where I was. Then I thought I’d heard a carp jumping. I looked across the fishing pier, and saw a man way out there, shuffling through the reeds in and out of the shadows.”

  Stefan passed his hand over his eyes as if brushing off cobwebs. “It all looked strange. As if some ghost was staggering around. Later I realized he must’ve been walking along the pier. I thought I was seeing things. My head was pounding as if somebody was hammering nails into it. And then he was coming out of the marsh – a scraggly, ghoulish shape. Sounds crazy, I know.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Another drunk like me, I thought, or the devil coming after me. I could hear my mother’s voice: ‘If you keep drinking like that, the devil himself will find you.’ He was too far away to see me, and I was glad. I hid in the shadow. Closed my eyes to ease my pounding headache. And when I opened them again he was up on the embankment.”

  “So who was it, Stefan?” Jasmine cried. “Did you recognize who it was?”

  “I stepped out of the shadow and looked at the moon. It was huge, shiny, like I’ve never seen before – it was staring at me. I stared back and I swear … I swear I saw the man in the moon! The devil stopped and turned his face to the moon. And then he waved his stick at it. For a moment I thought I heard him swearing – at the moon? What kind of devil waves his stick at the moon? I looked at his face, but all I could see was – the man in the moon! I think I didn’t really care to see the devil anyway, so I was glad he hobbled away.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?” Jasmine asked.

  Stefan laughed. “Tell them what? That I was drunk? That I saw the devil walking in the marsh? That I saw the man in the moon? Which part of my story would they find funnier? As if I am not the butt of enough jokes already.”

  “You said you heard him swearing at the moon,” Jasmine said. “Think back, Stefan. What did you hear?”

  Stefan shrugged. “Strange how the voice carries in the quiet of the night, I often thought. Tried to remember the words. But I was wasted. I could’ve imagined the whole thing – it seemed so unreal.”

  “Kris used to take his late night walks here,” Jasmine said shakily. “When that knee of his acted up, a walk helped, he used to say. Carried that cane of his around with him.”

  “Jasmine,” Lorca said, “are you saying that Kris …”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We’d come and sit here late at night. He said there was magic here – the willows casting their shadows, the marsh like a mirror in the moonlight, the fishing pier in the distance.” She looked at the others. “Funny, I can talk about him and feel nothing but an empty hole in my stomach. As if I’d been hollowed out by termites.”

  Chapter XXVI

  The Vila’s Circle

  Grandma’s black-and-white portrait on the wall seemed lonely in the semi-darkness, Kata thought, as she clutched the reed flute against her chest – the flute her grandma gave her long ago, the one she had received from the gypsy blacksmith. Kris? From Kris?

  Does she dare blow into it? The last time she’d played it was the night after Angela’s baby disappeared. She’d flung it out into the darkness. Yet some time later it had reappeared in the back of Grandma’s drawer, behind the cookie heart.

  She examined the flute, twirled it between her fingers. She recalled something else – she had hidden it in a safe place at Vila’s Circle, in a cleft in the large flat stone, the one called the altar. It had been the last time she went with Grandma. How did she come to be holding this flute?

  She used to be able to play any tune she wished. All she had to do was close her eyes and recall the melody. She would blow gently into the flute, and magic would do the rest – fill every crevice in her ears, the air bubbles about her, with its enchanting tune – as it used to when she submerged her head under the water in the sunlight-warmed aluminum washtub. She’d shut her eyes tighter and tighter, and the water infused with jumping sunrays would evolve into a flowing melody, drawing colours in her vision. The flute could do the same.

  The first time she discovered that the flute was magic was at Vila’s Circle. She scoffed at the memory. How naïve she used to be, how easily she used to believe in everything, even magic. Yet, that evening at the marsh dancing in the moonlight was magic. Maybe my magic is back. She closed her eyes so she could recall a melody, a soothing melody.

  sleep my little baby

  sleep in the night

  Kata shook her head. “No! Not Angela’s lullaby!” she yelled. “I want a happy song.” She closed her eyes again.

  sleep in your cradle under moonlight

  She envisioned Angela sitting by the pig puddle next to her grandfather’s well, leaning against the mulberry tree. She opened her eyes. Is the melody trying to tell me something? If I can play it on my flute, perhaps I can find Angela’s baby. She lifted the flute to her lips, spaced her fingers, and gently blew.

  She winced at the grotesque sound that had emerged. Worse than the screeching peacocks. Worse than the screeching gate. It was painful. As if someone screamed in pain. In fright, she threw the flute across the room. It hit the wall, the floor, bounced and settled into a corner. The tune, the lullaby in her head, became more audible as if somebody had just turned up the volume.

  “Stop!” she yelled, squeezing her head, palms cupping her ears. “Stop the lullaby! Stop the dreams! The voices! Stop!”

  Something, someone screeched again. She stared. There was no one. She was alone. The rooster crowed. It was dawn.

  ****

  Go back, retrace your steps, and you’ll find it, Grandma’s voice urged every time Kata lost something. But magic? How could I look for magic, Kata wondered as she walked the wobbly dock, stepping over rotted boards. She paused, her eyes absorbing the rosy eastern sky reflected in the pools of water between the clusters of bulrushes that dotted the marsh. Dew glistened everywhere.

  Kneeling at the dock’s edge, she felt below it for the metal hook and unlatched the old dinghy. The boards creaked as she stepped into the boat. With her foot, she pushed away the tangled fishing net atop a beat-up aluminum pail, releasing a whiff of dry fish scales. She rubbed her foot across the bottom, searching for a clean spot to drop her straw bag. Seeing the oarlocks on the boat’s gunnels, she slung her bag over the hook so it rested on the dry wood at the side.

  A mental inventory of her bundle proved satisfactory: a light blanket, a few slices of bread spread with lard and sprinkled with red paprika and salt, a couple of rose-pears she’d picked up under the tree and knew were sugar-sweet and pink inside, a few small cucumbers she’d pulled off the vine, and a large bottle of water. And a straw hat Grandma had woven for her a few years back. Grandma would have approved – she always made sure Kata wore her hat in the strong sun.

  As she pushed off with the broad oar, a small chunk of wood rot crumbled and fell onto the stagnant surface. It drifted and sank into the murky depth, into some debris below. She scanned the marsh for the wooded hillock on the far side, where she and Grandma had gone to pick mushrooms and collect snails. She could not see it, but knew that she would spot it once she was a bit farther out in the open.

  A flutter of wings startled her. A brownish bird flew out from under the dock. It cheeped and carved a smooth arc in the sky, then swooped down and vanished behind a clump of reeds. A swallow? Do they nest in the marsh? They usually stay in the barns. What kind of a bird is this? Grandma would’ve known.

  The wooden blades propelled the creaky vessel with surprising smoothness, gliding through the white-blossomed lily pads that reminded her of cream puffs she used to make with Grandma. Her stomach rumbled. She reached into the bag and pulled out a pear. A cream puff would have been better.

  She scanned the expansive blossoming surface in the distance, glimpsing an outline of the old growth forest. She veered o
ff, bypassed a growth of reeds, and when she looked up, the forest was nowhere in sight. “Hidden by the bulrushes,” she murmured. Placing one foot against the right edge of the boat’s bottom, left against the left edge, she briefly stood to scan the marsh. She sat back down to resume rowing and watched frogs jumping aside, bugs on the surface skidding away, lily pads parting before her. The sun had risen high and it was steaming hot. She slapped on her straw hat and continued, arms getting weaker, the muggy air sticking in her chest. Keep rowing. The old forest is near. I know it’s near.

  A splash in the bulrushes sent warm liquid trickling down her face. She yawned and wiped it off. The oar in her right hand seemed stuck. She tugged at the handle to free the blade. The boat heaved, as if an invisible limb was hoisting it up from beneath. A tangle of twigs poked through the smooth greenish surface an arm’s length away. It led to a huge mass of entangled roots embedded in mud, concealed under the shade of a gigantic willow. She pushed her hat back and stared at the sparse row of willows lined up along the embankment. Beyond the willows, a gentle slope rose toward a tall grove.

  The boat was wedged in, and it would not budge. The water seemed too deep for walking to the shore. Swim? No. She and Maja almost drowned at a small stretch of beach on the banks of the Sava where some of the village boys, led by Miladin, learned to swim. Besides, this is where Grandma used to collect her leeches and starve them in a jar of water so she could place them on her legs until they swelled up and fell off – her foolproof remedy for lowering high blood pressure.

  She unlatched the oar and stuck it into the swamp, searching for bottom. The blade stopped half way up the handle – not as deep as she’d thought. The oar popped out of mud as if it were a suction cup. She stuck it in at another spot, and it slid in a bit deeper, then stopped. Standing, she lowered one leg over the side of the boat and felt for the tree trunk below the surface. She set her foot on the slimy limb and tried for a firm grip, the duckweed twining itself around her calf. She turned to lift the other foot out of the boat and small-step along the log to the shore, only a few steps …

  The glittering surface blurred and a dull thump reverberated in her head plugging her ears with cream puffs. A hush filled the warm liquid greenness about her, stuffing every crevice, and she sank into the soft, comforting stillness … a sunray reaching all the way into her quiet world. She reaching for the sunray …

  ****

  The smell of the marsh filled her nostrils. The hot sun beating down on her skin beneath the faded fabric was comforting. She sized up the steepness of the embankment above her and quickened her pace, stomach grumbling. She entered a sparse woodlot of locust where clumps of blackberries loaded with ripe purple fruit dappled the shade. She stuffed handfuls into her mouth.

  She resumed her climb. The woodlot became dense and the air cool. There were fewer patches of sun and after every few steps the light dimmed. Soon she found herself in a light fog. She stopped and looked around, shivering. Would she ever see the world she left behind? The world with warm sunrays?

  She began walking on spongy ground studded with decomposing tree stumps, stepping over fallen trees, their broad trunks covered in moss. This was the right place, she knew, the forest she and Grandma walked through on the way to Vila’s Circle. Grandma was retelling her story about the First World War.

  “Dead soldiers, everywhere. Like fallen tree trunks. I turned them over, looked at their faces, looked for my brother’s face.”

  Kata could see it – Grandma bent over a fallen tree trunk, grasping the underside. “I found him,” she said and Kata glimpsed a smile through the tears rolling down the furrowed cheeks. “So I could bury him. Save him from the vultures, the wolves, fighting over his eyes, his heart. He was nineteen years old. Nineteen. My big brother.”

  And when Kata glanced around she saw an army of fallen trees, scattered on the infinite forest floor. She stepped over one and paused. Could this be the tree that reminded Grandma of her dead brother? She tried to roll it, but it was heavy and would not budge. The forest was getting denser, darker. Kata felt her heart sinking. Will I be lost, forever among the dead soldiers?

  A spear of light pierced her shaded world. Her eyes followed it up into the green oak crowns, then back down into the undergrowth at the forest floor, where a patch of sun settled over a mossy bed. She lay on its velvety tufts – sinking into the softness filling every crevice of humid air, sinking, sinking.

  “Here? Was it here, Bako, you saw a vila?”

  “Yes, dear. In the mist, in the sunrise.”

  Kata peered into the mist at the silhouette combing the long black hair that hid her face and much of her body as it billowed down into the tall blades of swaying grass.

  “Were you scared, Bako? That she would blind you, or make you go mad?”

  “Just a little, dear. But they also help people. Just look at Farmer Vila.”

  “Did anybody else get enchanted?”

  “Many women, even your mother. She went into the forest and returned the next day to elope with your father.”

  “You think she was enchanted?”

  “Must’ve been. Married against Mihailo’s wishes – disobeyed her own father.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Goya was, dear. Told to take care of her people, to become a healer.”

  “The vila spoke to her?”

  “Through her thoughts, dear. Helped Goya to understand her calling.”

  “How would I know if the vila is good or bad, Bako?”

  “You’d know. Just follow your own feelings. And always think for yourself. Don’t let anybody put thoughts in your head.”

  “Are we almost there, Bako?”

  “Yes dear. This is Vila’s Circle. A sacred place.”

  “Is this where they dance to the moon? After midnight?”

  “You see that circle of rocks?” Grandma pointed to large boulders arranged along the edge of the clearing. “Twelve of them. See how flat the tops are? How smooth and clean, free of moss? Well, how can a rock stay free of moss in a forest like this one, you may ask? Only if somebody was to dance on them, night after night, that’s how.” Her voice was distorted; she spoke like an exuberant child. “And see the stone altar in the middle, my little swallow?” She pointed to a larger stone block in the centre, so large a person could sleep on it. “That’s where the offerings to their deity are made.”

  “Offerings of what, Bako?”

  “Oh, could be of mushrooms or wild roots, could be of animals, even humans,” Grandma said with a carefree giggle. “People have vanished, for good.”

  Kata winced. There was something eerie about the whole place. About Grandma.

  “The marsh swallows up a person every once in a while,” Grandma said with an impish glimmer in her eye. “Makes them confess their sins. Only then are they set free.”

  “Set free? I thought they get swallowed by the marsh!”

  “Only if their sins are not forgivable, dear,” Grandma chuckled. “That’s up to the head vila to decide.”

  “The one who plays the flute and has turquoise eyes?”

  “I don’t know about the colour, dear,” Grandma said. “She peers deeply into people’s eyes. Burns holes in their souls. Makes them tell the truth.”

  “How do you know all this, Bako?”

  “Some say she is a young girl who met an untimely death,” Grandma said winking. “Some say she’s an old hag. And some say she’s a beautiful young maiden – like you, my little swallow.”

  Kata glanced about. Something was not right. All about her was mist and fog and Grandma was not her usual self. She was much younger, but Kata knew it was still her, had to be her. She was the only one who knew all these things. Told them to Kata, long ago. Yet there was something unreal about it all.

  “Wait here,” Grandma said, as she walked deeper into the forest, carrying two burlap sacks, one for the mushrooms and one for the Roman snails.

  Kata ran into the circle of boulders. She lay
on the warm altar stone and closed her eyes, basking in the sunrays, intrigued by odd bird songs.

  A flock of swishing wings glided by in a swirl and an entire army of reed instruments rose from their mossy bed, their tune turning shrill:

  sleep my little baby

  sleep in the night …

  Tall, billowing women, their faces veiled by Zephyrus’ wind, were closing the circle of light. Kata reached into the deep crevice below the altar stone and pulled out the only perfect flute. She raised the sleeping flute to her lips and blew. Sweet singing voices melded as one, drowning the ruthless melody:

  only the truth can set you free

  only the truth can set you free

  only the truth can set you free

  “I made that holy water that wasn’t holy,” Kata whispered.

  “Childish pranks, dear,” Grandma’s voice echoed from somewhere deep in the forest. “That’s all forgiven my little swallow.” And the sweet melody grew, filling the air all about her.

  “Kata, Kata!” Her mother was leaning over her, shaking her arm. “Say something, anything. So I know you’re all right.”

  “Where am I?” Kata whispered.

  “In your bed. Well, in your Grandma’s bed. Roza insisted we put you in your grandma’s bed. To get better quickly, she said.”

  Roza? Kata tried to focus. But everything seemed foggy, in slow motion.

  “She found you this morning, way out there in the bog, hoisted on a tree root.”

  Her mother brushed Kata’s hair from her face: “The old fishing boat was wedged nearby in the bulrushes, so she put you in and rowed back.” Her mother shook her head: “Way out there near the old forest, what’s left of it, anyway.”

  Kata wondered why her mother was here in Grandma’s room.