The Story That Cannot Be Told

by J. Kasper Kramer

  “Well, we don’t want to anyway!” my grandparents yell back, slamming down the receiver.

  If I’m sad, my mother sounds sad, and her parents sound sad too.

  “Tata? Mama?” she says, her voice shaking. “You have a granddaughter now.”

  “Liza? Liza, my sweet? Is that you?” Mamaie gasps. Tataie cannot talk because he is crying.

  Most of my quirks as a storyteller I picked up from my father or uncle, but my habit of never telling the same story the same way more than once, that came from my mother alone.

  “How can anyone learn to tell your stories like you if you’re always changing them?” Uncle Andrei complained.

  “They shouldn’t tell my stories like me,” I replied. “They should tell my stories like them.”

  “You can’t keep writing a story forever,” said my father. “Someday you’ll have to accept the thing’s done and let go.”

  At this I just rolled my eyes.

  My favorite story to change was the one I was named for. This was easy, of course, since I’d never heard the real ending. If I was having a particularly bad week, for instance, Princess Ileana would realize right away that her sisters were tricking her, and instead of completing their ridiculous tasks, she’d chop off their heads.

  My mother’s favorite story to change was the one where she ran away from the village.

  In the version she told me most often, it was spring and she was seventeen, and more than anything else in the world she loved music. All her free time was spent down at the butcher’s, listening to the radio. Maria Lătăreţu and Irina Loghin and folk singers like them were her favorites, but if there wasn’t anyone else around, and she kept the volume down low, Mr. Ursu sometimes let her try to catch Radio Free Europe’s signal. For hours and hours she’d press her ear to the speaker, humming along through the static to songs from America. Her face was always so close to the radio, it was no surprise that the music seeped through her skin and soaked into her bones. It was no surprise that she got the idea in her head to move to the city for school, where she might become a musician herself.

  She’d been chittering to her parents about this for months, about what sort of classes she wanted to take, about what sort of life she would have far away—no more chickens, no more goats, no more farming at all. They must have known she was serious, that soon she really would leave, because one warm afternoon, when she twirled into the cottage, my grandparents were waiting for her at the long table by the wood-burning stove.

  “We’ve been talking to the veterinarian,” my mamaie said. “His son’s taking over the practice.”

  “Oh?” my mother answered, pretending to care.

  Her long dark hair was kept braided under a head scarf. She had a cute, modest nose and striking hazel eyes, a figure forming in curves beneath her dresses and skirts. She was beautiful and everyone knew. The village boys—the veterinarian’s son included—often vied for her attention, but my mother’s head was always too full of songs to make room for them.

  When she looked up and found her parents staring, she snickered. “Some veterinarian Pig-Nosed Petre will make. Do you remember how he used to squeal when I chased him with frogs?”

  Tataie wasn’t smiling. “Please, Liza. Listen. We have something to tell you.”

  “Oh?” my mother responded again, but this time her eyes were unsure.

  “Petre’s started to look for a wife,” said Mamaie.

  My mother cocked her head. She folded her hands and put them in her lap. And then she said quietly, “I can’t imagine what this has to do with me.”

  “The match is well made. And it’s already settled,” Tataie said.

  My mother looked between her parents, brow rising. “You’re serious.”

  “He’s a nice boy,” said Mamaie. “He’s been fond of you since you were children.”

  But my mother began shaking her head. She stood up from the table. “You couldn’t have thought I’d agree to this! I’m going to the city! I’m going to be a musician!”

  “Please, Liza, end all this nonsense!” said Mamaie. “If your songs bring you joy, sing to yourself every day, but you can’t expect that to feed you!”

  “When I was your age, I saw cities,” Tataie said, looking grim. “I promise you’ll be happier just staying here.”

  “I’m not marrying Petre,” said my mother, “and on my life, I won’t stay one more night!”

  And with that she started packing her things.

  Or she waited till her parents were sleeping.

  Or the conversation happened again, several days later.

  Or it never happened at all.

  In most versions of the story, there is a confrontation with yelling and tears. In most versions, there’s the threat of an unwanted marriage. In most versions, my mother leaves bitter.

  In every version of the story, though, no matter how else it gets told, a girl of just seventeen realizes her parents love her too much to let her live the life that she wants, so she leaves without saying good-bye. She packs her clothes and her songbook and her two favorite pillows from bed. She lights a lantern and steals a small wad of money from her parents’ dresser. She leaves a letter on the long table by the wood-burning stove.

  In some versions of the story, told to me when I was young, my mother walks down the mountain in the dark. She holds her lantern out before her and straps her bag to her back and takes the narrow, twisting road through the trees. The forest creeps in, but she keeps her head high and her eyes straight ahead. In some versions, the butcher stops to pick her up and she rides in the bed of his truck with the sheep. Eventually she reaches the train station at the edge of the world.

  On nights when I raged over eggplant or television, when I threw fits where I threatened to leave—to run away as she had—my mother would tell me about the sounds of scurrying creatures in the woods, about the sight of yellow eyes staring back from the brush.

  On nights when I knew my mother secretly missed home, she would describe the smell of grilled sausages, the taste of fresh milk and eggs, the sound of Mamaie weaving at the loom.

  I often tried to discover which version of the story was true. Did my tataie sob by the door? Did my mother ride in a truck full of sheep?

  Was she always still happy she left?

  My father taught me most of what I knew about stories. My uncle made being a writer seem possible. But it was my mother who showed me that after a story has been told for so long, truth is not something that can be picked out like a single thread from the rest.

  Something Eating Me from Inside

  For three days and three nights, I did not leave my grandparents’ cottage. I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother’s voice on the other end of the phone, close enough to almost hear but not quite. I couldn’t stop thinking of how she’d run away from the very same place where I was staying. So for three days and three nights, I paced the wooden floors and wandered between the kitchen and the one little bedroom. I stared at the piece of chocolate tucked away in my bag, considered eating it all in one bite, then wrapped it up and hid it instead. When Mamaie and Tataie were out in the fields sowing crops, I climbed the ladder to the attic, lifted the boards, and peeked my head up inside. A thick, heavy smell clogged the air, and large, chunky shapes hung from the rafters. In the darkness it took me a moment to realize these were animal carcasses—meat being smoked and preserved—and I almost fell down the ladder in my fright.

  I didn’t want to be cramped up in the creepy old house, but I didn’t want to go into town even more. Becoming acquainted with the rest of the village meant accepting that I was staying. And how long would that be? For a week? For a month? Forever?

  The only way I kept calm was by telling myself that my parents would arrive at any moment. They’d discover that the wrong apartment had been bugged. My uncle was just away on a holiday. The Great Tome was safe under my bed.

  There was no need to go into town, because the next time I walked out the door, I
’d be going home.

  So when my grandparents asked if I’d like to see the farmland, I just shook my head.

  “No, thank you.”

  When they offered to introduce me to the local children, I politely declined.

  “That’s okay. I like being alone.”

  When my tataie brought a newly hatched chick right into the cottage, trying to tempt me to come out and see the animals they kept, I petted its head with a finger and followed him in a trance all the way to the front door. But then I started thinking how great it would be to draw tiny fuzzy chicks around the border of a page—to write a story where one falls in love with a girl just like me and becomes her best friend.

  I shriveled up before making it to the porch.

  “Actually, I don’t like animals so much. Even really cute ones. And I don’t like trees, either. Or farms. Or little villages in the woods. So it’s really better if I just stay here.”

  I moped about, plucking at Tataie’s fiddle and counting embroidered pillows. Thirty-six. Some were as tiny as my palm, with a single rosebud stitched in the center. Some were wide enough and stuffed so full that I could barely get my arms all the way round. After I ran out of pillows, I counted woven blankets. But I couldn’t decide where to begin and kept starting over. Did I include the ones used as rugs? The ones nailed up like wallpaper? The ones draped over my grandparents’ two narrow beds and across the backs of each chair?

  I lost interest and stopped counting. In fact I lost interest in doing anything at all.

  By the third day, I’d gone from sulking to irritable. I was missing my tome and my TV. The Aristocats had surely been rescued already after being abandoned out in the country, but now I’d never get to see how. I was missing my bookshelves, my bed, and my bathroom. At the cottage, there were no books at all. At the cottage, I slept on a pallet made of pillows and blankets on the kitchen floor. At the cottage, I had to pee in a stinky wooden outhouse and bathe in a metal tub in the yard.

  My mamaie, who believed all ailments could be cured with good food, prepared a country spread fit for the Leader himself. I knew I shouldn’t, knew I couldn’t, test their patience any longer, but the bad feelings slipped out of my mouth in the most familiar of ways.

  “I really appreciate all your hard work,” I said to my grandmother, “but there are a lot of foods I don’t eat. Not eggplant. Not liver. Not onions. Not peppers. I can make a list. My mom knows it. She knows everything. So it’s not that your cooking isn’t nice or something, but I just really only like bread and jam. Chicken’s fine too. My favorite part is the legs, but heads and feet are okay.”

  I made a face at my mincemeat cabbage rolls and cheese mămăligă, eggplant salad and potato goulash. I pushed my plate out away from me.

  Mamaie’s eyes narrowed. “I see,” she said.

  After dinner, as the summer sun set, she took away the food dish by dish. Tataie had to go check on the goats. He put on his blue felt hat with the wide brim. He buttoned up his vest. If I hadn’t seen the goats from the little window in the bedroom, I would have thought he was going all the way into town.

  When the door closed behind him, Mamaie and I were alone.

  “Well, let’s have it out. I’ve kept my peace, but now the thing’s filling up the place and we just don’t have room,” she said.

  I blinked. “Don’t have room for what?”

  I was half ready to drop to my knees. If my mother discovered I’d been evicted from her parents’ home for complaining about dinner, I would never sit properly in a chair for the rest of my life.

  “Something’s eating you up from inside. I want it out,” said Mamaie. She poked my stomach and then picked up another stack of dishes. “It’s not just sadness. I know sadness. I know loneliness, too.”

  I placed my palm on my stomach. When she returned to the table again, my grandmother pushed into my hands a large box of matches.

  “Light the lamps,” she said.

  It was the first time in three days anyone had told me to do anything at all. I sat staring at the box. In my apartment I wasn’t allowed to touch matches. My parents always lit the candles when the electricity went out. I stood up from the bench, looking over my shoulder to make sure Mamaie hadn’t made a mistake. She was busy at the table, so I opened the box and pinched a matchstick in my fingers. Excitement swept through me. Relief, too. And, quite suddenly, I realized how tired I was of feeling bad.

  It took a few strikes to light my first match, and when it caught fire I stood too long gaping. The tiny flame burned my fingertips. My second try was better. By my third, I got the first lamp lit.

  “We’re so happy you’ve come to stay with us, your tataie and I. We want you to be comfortable here. We want you to feel welcome,” said Mamaie. “I don’t know what your life in the city is like. I’ve only ever lived here in the village. But it takes a lot of work to make things grow and get ready for winter. There’s the farmland to tend, the gardens to care for, and the animals, too. Your tataie and I aren’t young anymore. We have trouble sometimes just keeping ourselves. If we’re going to keep you, too, Ileana, we’ll need help.”

  I looked up as I lit the last lamp, the room glowing orange. My grandmother held out a wet towel, wiggling it in my direction, and I hurried over to take it. She motioned to the dishes and I began scrubbing—another job that was not mine at home. My mamaie hummed as she dried.

  “I could be a farmer, maybe,” I finally said. “Or I could be the one to take care of all the baby chicks.”

  “That would be a good start.” Then she added, “We could also use someone to do a bit of cleaning. Someone to go into town to run errands. And since you have such particular tastes, you’ll be helping me with the meals. People with lists like yours need to learn how to cook for themselves. Your tataie doesn’t cook, but he doesn’t complain. I won’t be hearing it again at my table.”

  She didn’t sound angry, but I flinched anyway.

  The wood-burning stove was made of brick smoothed over with white plaster. There were shelves like steps that went up toward the ceiling. Even with the lamps lit, the stove still put off the brightest light in the room, so when the dishes were done, Mamaie pulled up a chair and took out her embroidery. I sat down on the woven rug next to her, scooting back a bit from the heat.

  “In the city, I didn’t have those kinds of jobs,” I said. “I mean, I cleaned my room when Mama got mad. But mostly I had a different job.”

  “You can do your city job here.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “What was it, then?”

  I pulled at the frayed ends of the rug, and she reached down and smacked my hand with her crewel needle. I looked up and considered whether or not to react before saying, “I was the storyteller.”

  Mamaie raised her eyebrows. “That’s an important job. And for someone so young.”

  “Well…” I started to pick at the rug again but stopped and put my hands in my lap. “I’m going to… I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. My uncle Andrei is a writer—or at least he was before the Securitate took him away. And my tata, he teaches at the university. He taught me all about stories and how the parts go together, like character and setting and the climax.” I realized what I was saying and clamped my mouth shut. It seemed that perhaps Mamaie was right, because something inside started gnawing like mad. “But I’m not going to be a writer anymore. Stories are stupid and so are people who like them.”

  Mamaie watched me for a long time, narrowing her eyes beneath her red-and-black scarf. She watched me so long I got nervous and shrugged. “What? Why are you looking at me?”

  “I’m trying to see what’s eating you up.” She leaned forward, squinting. “It’s there, all right. Nasty little thing. I wonder how we’ll ever get it out.”

  I touched my stomach again, uncomfortable, and said stubbornly, “There’s nothing eating me. I’d know it.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong.” She sat back, sighing. “It’s too bad, really
, about the storytelling. Everyone would have been so excited.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, stories are very important in this village. We have a long tradition of telling tales. It’s how we remember our history, how we pass the time when the winters are harsh or a day in the fields has been long. And good tellers are hard to come by, you know. I suspect the other villagers would have been quite thrilled to hear someone new.”

  “Oh,” I said. And then, feeling defensive: “What kind of stories do people tell here? Like kissing stories and ones for little kids about animals? Like that kind of thing?”

  “My goodness, no,” said Mamaie, taken aback. “Have you heard about the balauri? The twelve-headed, finned dragons whose spit turns into precious stones?”

  I shook my head.

  “How about Muma Pădurii, the Mother of the Forest, who steals the sleep of little girls and boys or kidnaps them to cook in her sour soup?”

  I shook my head again.

  “The pricolici, maybe? The dead who return as giant wolf-beasts and attack travelers in the woods? Or the iele, who dance in the moonlight on the tops of the trees with bells tied to their ankles?”

  This time I scrunched up my nose. “Your storytellers tell stories like those?”

  “Of course. Really wonderful tellers can cast a spell over the whole audience, too, entrancing people so they forget even to breathe! I expect you’d be a teller like that.” But then she raised her hands, laughing. “What am I saying? You don’t like stories. They’re for stupid people. And I can see you aren’t stupid.”

  I chewed my cheek. “I mean, I still like some stories. I’d probably like those if I heard them. It’s just… all my stories are gone. Tata took them.”

  Mamaie scoffed. “You can’t take someone’s stories.”

  “But he did,” I insisted. “He burned the Great Tome. It’s gone, really. He thought my stories were dangerous.”

  “Stories are dangerous. He was right to be wary. But once a story is told, it stays with you forever.” She tapped my forehead with her crewel needle. “If you want them, you’ll find them.”