Abafi

1. A House in the Village
“Go, my son...”, he said.
- Walter Scott
In the valley of the beautiful river Maros, Alvinc is one of the richest villages of Transilvania.
Good fields lie beneath it, promising plenty of grains for its diligent farmers. Beyond the
Maros, dark grey vineyards stand tall, under which the straw rooftops of Borberek seem like
they are from a fairytale.
Near the middle of the village the grey walls of an old castle of a lord can be seen, they were
still in one piece at the time, which is when our story takes place. The building has two other
wings as well, the door opens to one of them under a high arch, and the other two are ruins
today, and are used only for storage. In one of the corners of this wing, there are still a few
walls standing of the onetime room where Gy?rgy Martinusius was killed, thrown out the
window, not to be buried for a long time.
On the western side of this pretty village was a short, simple house, with dark, half painted
walls, that you can still see around in villages far from roads. It is tall with a sharp roof, has a
chimney topped with shingles, and a porch that is only 17 inches wide. The stairs leading
there are made of blocks of shapeless wood. On the porch, which is held up by roughly
carved beams, the half-open granary is to the right, the roof made of hemp, next to it a badly
made little barrel, the paint-stained sides showing its contents. There is a bench to the left,
with wide, rickety legs, next to the door which leads to the ante-room. On the other side a
hemp swingle and a few short chairs. Behind these, chickens are picking oat and barley seeds.
Around this simple house, a harrowed fence was built, but parts of it were already holey by
the weather and bad neighbours. On the left side of the small yard was a hutch topped with
straw. Next to it was a remise without doors, a rick of hay, and two piggeries with its
residents sticking out their grunting noses from time to time.
The building consisted of three rooms and a court with a lonely, smoke filled kitchen at the
end of the latter. At the present, on its stove, neither fire, nor a pot, nor even the
housekeeper was visible, only a few dishes, spoons, and several other similar things were
hanging in nice disorder from its walls. In the room left of the kitchen the only servant of the
house, an old lady lived. The right side consisted of two rooms: one next to the yard, the only
window of the other one opened to the plum garden. The first one was pretty big with a big
open furnace and fireplace that took up almost one eighth of its space. In front of the
fireplace was a bed covered with pillows, showing some places its onetime paintings. Next to
the wall, with two circle plaited windows, were painted chests, an old sideboard, and a few
wooden chairs. On the opposite side of the door, a large oak table occupied the whole wall.
Everything showed the below average, uncomfortable situation of the owner of the house.
Mrs. Tímár, a widow of Mr. Istók Tímár, the onetime notary of the village, was the owner
with her only son, Miska Tímár, who, after three years of studying, spent his time mostly
with errands around the house, sleeping, and sometimes going to the local pub, the “Limp
Cock”.
The woman was tall, lean and a very mobile old lady, with dark blue eyes, and a clever face,
carved with the usual pleats of sixty years, and she sat at the fireplace. She had a dark blue
kerchief on her head above her shirt, which showed that Saturday was coming by its dirt,
along with a black open vest. Her skirt had a similar color that was protected by a homemade
linen apron, unexpectedly clean unlike her other clothing. Her sad looks and worried listening
showed that she is waiting for someone.
Her son, Miska, a twenty something usual looking boy, was sitting on one of the painted
chests. His eyes looking straight forward, his narrowed mouth showed that he is pouting. His
clothing was rough with blue trousers and a sleeveless dolman, made of similar fabrics.
“Oh God!” said the old one, getting up from her seat and going to one of the windows,
“Neither Sári, nor the neighbour is coming. Zsiga is lost forever. What should I do?” she
whispered in a drowning sound, with her hands around her head.
“Ey”, answered Miska, “Don’t be sad, mother! A nine year old boy doesn’t get lost so
easily, and he is knacky as well. Maybe he wandered off because he wanted to!”
'Oh!', answered the old one with a punishing voice, which sounded almost like crying, “May
God give us that it was so! Just make him appear already. But I’m afraid he got lost in the
woods somewhere, and either a wolf eats him, or he starves to death. Oh, my boy, you will
be sorry then! You did not look for him as much as you should have.”
Miska got off the tulip patterned chest angrily. “Mother” he said, “I tell it to you again. The
child is not lost. Bad money never gets lost. Do you remember, a few days ago, when you hit
him with the distaff and he said 'It does not last forever!'?”
'That is all true, but what will his mother say when she comes here? And it can happen any
minute now. Miska, don’t be lazy, walk around the forest once more and ask around the
neighbourhood,' said the old one, who opened one of the chests, and took a small purse out.
'Here, son. Everything I gathered in two years, nice new silver coins, you can buy nine heavy
buttons for your dolman from it. It is all yours, if you find Zsiga.”
The heir of the house took a glimpse at the money with a grim on his face and spurted, 'So
be it!' as he put on his hat. 'I will go. Saddle up the grey one, but if I cannot find him, don’t
curse me, mother!”
The old one looked relieved. While her son left, she sat down by the fireplace again,
continuing her weaving. She was in a lot of trouble because little Zsiga was not her son. Four
years ago, on a late autumn night, a nice young woman came to her with the little Zsiga. She
trusted her to take care of him. Since then, she appeared several times, never empty handed,
and always with promises which, because she fulfilled them time to time, were all true to the
old lady. She did not know the parents of the boy. It seemed to be a deep secret, but because
of the love the woman who gave her had towards Zsiga, it seemed as if she was his mother,
with peculiar views about her son. 'Raise him,” told many times to the old Mrs. Tímár,
“Raise my Zsiga to be a strong, persistent man! Do not spare him from any work. He should
endure warmth, cold, hunger, thirst. He should have a heart that knows work, good, but not
softness. He should learn little but learn it well. Make him a man whose body and soul is
strong! He should be used to being alone, because,' she said in tears, which she looked to be
ashamed of, 'his fate is to be alone between the waves of life, he has to be able to be without
everything, but he has to know what to be without.”
The old woman listened to these principles carefully, half understanding what they mean and
deciding, mostly because she liked the little boy and partly because of greed, that she will
comply to them the best she can.
She raised Zsiga roughly. The boy went to the priest only twice a week, where he learned
quickly how to read and write. Around the house he took part in every work: fed the animals,
cleaned the yard, renovated the walls, he couldn’t get out of anything hard. He took the two
horses of the old woman's to drink occasionally and would get up on one or the other's back.
He often loitered around getting them home sweaty and dirty, making his guardian angry on
him. He shepherded her sheep and spent days with them, sometimes, on the edges of forests
or on the pastures.
After Miska came home, the old lady was not so careful about the young one anymore. The
boy was more serious than happy, but his rare kindnesses made them even nicer. Everything
he did had a very deep feeling behind it. If he hugged his guardian mom sometimes, it was
something that could not be left unanswered.
All this created a very deep feeling in the old lady towards the boy. But Miska was not the
same, he seemed to be jealous and was not happy to share the love of his mother with
someone else, even though he did not earn it, nor was able to repay it. He would mostly be
bitter with him, whenever he could. Otherwise he was very careful and nice with little Zsiga,
although he watched him sometimes with suspicion, and never forgot about the gifts of the
possible mother of the boy.
The old lady, a day before we met this small family, sent the young boy with her eleven
sheep and three goats to the forest to graze them. Late that night, the sheep came home alone,
so the old lady called her son to go after the boy. Miska either went to look for him, or not
(only he knows), but he came back angrily in the morning, without the boy. It seemed that
the old woman took the news very badly. While the little boy was around all day long, she
didn’t even surmise how much she got used to him or how much she loved him now that
she'd lost him. She felt bitter partly because of the love, partly because of the fear that maybe
his mother wants him back, and partly because her income would be lower because of all this.
Because sometimes the small amount of money she got to feed the boy was the only money
the family got to get by.
The old woman walked about concerned. She didn’t get by with her weaving and she had that
peculiar feeling in her heart which is always paired with useless waiting. She did not think the
boy was lost; he was too cunning for that. He either couldn’t find his way, which was not
very uncommon in forests at that time, or he got away because he wanted to, which offended
the old woman twice, because she did not feel that their relationship had been like that. This
wondering, disencouragement, hope, and waiting lasted hour after hour. The sun already
hurried to its night quarters, showing only pale streams above the tops of the mountains. The
herd of the village came back with a dust cloud around them, and the church already called
everyone for the evening worship. Neither Sára the old servant, nor her old neighbour, who
went to look for Zsiga, came back yet. Miska went to search for him a long time ago as well.
The usual companion of the evening darkness, the shaking encompassed her with its demonic
hangs and casted a deep pain on her heart. It seemed that she really had lost the little boy,
and tears began to appear in her eyes. She cryed, stooped sitting on one of the chests,
listening to her own complaints.