Portrait of a Woman
Portrait of a Woman
Part Two -Notes from a journey to Romania
She had eyes that spoke of the places we might visit in an old myth; thin places, places a soul might slip through. She sat beside me, laid down, helped herself to the Cozonac. Laid and gobbled, as if working through something other than the white fluffy bread, honey and walnuts. She swallowed, turned her head & looked straight through me, into the parts a soul hides behind. Hers was a look that changes an interior, separates the wheat from the chaff.
She didn’t need words, let alone English. There is a language beyond such things. Google translate knows little of this. Such was the reason we spoke with the eyes, not the mouth. Hers were cerulean, blue as the embroidered cross she wore around her neck. Her wrinkles gave frame to a face that spoke beyond living. She had a face that had accepted death, had been intimate with it.
She grabbed hold of my arm & pulled me upwards. Walked me to the bricks & mortar of her nest. We walked hand in hand down a dusty, pebble dashed path. Making sure to leave enough space for the Romany people & their horses. She led me through the opening of an old rusty gate. Stopped & gestured with a long swoop of her arm. This was her land. The quality of her stopping told me she was proud of it, proud of herself; she had planted these vegetables despite the weight of old age upon her back. To the left she had a modest garden of tomatoes, peas, potatoes, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, onion & garlic. The leaves of the plants were a luscious green, well tended too. The land surrounding the house had recently been cut, the air smelt of fresh grass & stubble of wild flower tickled my feet. Beside the garden hung scythes and rakes with weathered wooden handles. She grabbed a scythe, her favourite one & showed me how to use it. Laughing. She pointed to the walnut & apple trees and led me into the house.
Inside were buckets of corn, corn husks, flour, wheat, and an ancient grey stove that leant backwards into the wall. She showed me the bread oven, the pantry, the important places. Offered me a shot of homemade apple Horenka; last years apple bobbing like a golden sun in the bottom of the Fanta bottle. Under another doorway, we walked into a room of brightly coloured embroidered fabric. She tidied away the papers & the plate of corn puffs she had been munching on and pointed for me to sit down. Her hands were thick & muddy. Soil decorated the rounds of her nails; umber waning moons hanging beneath each finger. She left, back hunched, hands holding one another eagerly. When she returned she had a bag full of items. Pork fat, sheep cheese, Horenka, walnuts, six gooseberries & two apples. She handed me the bag.
She walked with a wide & sure gait in a pair of a navy blue fleeced crocs, she was agile on her feet. A curious thing for someone her age. I thought of her garden, the neat rows of vegetables, the umber moons beneath her nails. I thought of the elderly at home. Gardenless. Fridges full of plastic wrapped food.
In silence we walked to another room. More embroidered fabric hung from black & white framed paintings, portraits of faces from a screenless time. She approached a large wooden dresser & pulled out a photo album, it’s leather covering sepia with age. She excitedly tugged at the cover as if to reveal a box of treasure inside. Her mannerisms reminded me of a toddler. A toddler in the skin of a woman who has lived thrice my years.
These were the faces of her dead. Staring out from beyond the plastic into the eyes of a stranger. These were the memories that gave a lonely heart company. I rubbed my finger over their faces as if to say hello, wondering as I did so if these people wanted to be seen, whether they’d consent to my looking. In one reality, I stood alongside this woman holding a book that contained black & white photographs of humans I did not know the names of. In another, I communed with a portal. For these people were not dead, they were here with her, not in body but spirit.
Brooding dark eyes stared back at us. The room filled with the presence of the faces, the weight of their names, unspoken stories vibrated out from the pages of the leather bound book. In the distance there was a shrill metal laugh, the sound of men working the land & children playing. She closed the book & placed it back on the dresser, clasped my hand with both of hers. Enough.
Outside, we sat on the wooden rocking bench. The sun was hot but the canopy of the bench sheltered us. She pointed at the birds and then she held my hand. We sat there in silence, side by side. The territories of distant decades glittering between us. We watched the birds & watched time unfold together. The clatter of wooden carts across a pebble dashed path. The smell of hay stacks burning beneath a hot June sun. The cool green of unripe walnuts hanging from the tree. Honeysuckle. The contentment of witnessing & being witnessed.
