On the Road to Babadag Read Online Free PDF Page A

knocked stones loose, and the rattling plummet echoed through the valley. At the bottom, women and children waited to pull all this across the river and pile it into wheelbarrows. They were in no hurry. Along the road lay blankets, a campfire, a mangled doll. Their home was a few dozen meters away, yet they had set up another shelter here. Near the fire lay the remains of a meal, plastic bottles, mugs, other things, but we didn't want to pry. One clump of saplings caught halfway down the cliff, and the man slowly lowered himself to free it.
    Rain began to fall after we were back inside. I sat at an open window in the attic, listening to the patter on the roof and on the leaves of the grapevine that filled the yard below. The pale mountains in the south darkened like a soaked fabric. A herd of white goats took cover in a thicket. I reflected that he would now be eighty-nine and could be sitting where I sat. This house, after all, belonged to his family. Our host was Petru Cioran. He had Emil's books on his shelf, though I doubt that he ever opened them. Anyway, they were in French and English. He and his wife showed us washed-out photographs: This is Emil when he was eight, and this is Relu, his younger brother. The stocky fifty-year-old man was proud, but every day he ran his store. He got up early, put crates in the van, drove to town for merchandise. At breakfast, we had a shot of slivovitz. It smelled like moonshine, was as strong as pure alcohol, and went well with smoked pork, goat cheese, and paprika.
    So Emil could have been sitting here instead of me, could have been watching the rain wet the sacks of cement piled on the platform of the van parked in the street. The pavement shines, the smoke from the chimneys disappears in the gray haze, the water in the gutters swells and gathers trash, and he has returned, as if he never left, and is merely an old man alone with his thoughts. He no longer has the strength to walk in the mountains, nor the wish to chat with the shepherds. He looks, he listens. Philosophy gradually assumes physical shape. It enters his body and destroys it. Paris and traveling were a waste. Without them, things would have gone on a little longer, and boredom would have taken a less sophisticated form. From the kitchen on the ground floor comes the smell of heated fat and the voices of the women. The grapevines gleam and rustle in the rain. Then, from the east, dusk arrives, and the men assemble in the shed by the store. After the long day, they will be tired and dirty. They'll want a bottle of yeast vodka. The woman selling it will give them a thick glass, and they'll finish off the bottle in fifteen minutes. He will hear their talk, which becomes louder and faster, and smell the smell of their bodies through the foliage. The first man will give off tar, the second smoke, the third goats in a stable at the threshold of spring, when the animals begin to reek of urine, musk, and rut. The third will get drunk the quickest, and his friends will hold him up, prop him against a wall, with no interruption in the talk. A pack of Carpati cigarettes will be empty in an hour, and by then they will be drinking yellow beer from green bottles. The gold-gray light from the store's open door mixes with their hot breath, with the stuffy night, making their shapes light, transparent, cleansed of dirt and weariness. Then a couple enters: he swarthy, with a thin mustache, in a plaid jacket, gallant, graceful, boots shining and black trousers pressed, aglow and fluent; she a bit confused, occupied, as if deciding something important. The woman will smile timidly and adjust her peroxide hair. He will entertain her, hop about, brag, at the same time buy things—chocolate, vodka, beer—and stuff it all in a plastic bag, keeping up the nuptial dance throughout. They drink one beer on the premises, standing and gazing at each other. She from a glass, he from the bottle. Then they leave, arms around each other, into the