Uncle Mărin at the Opera

[ Author Adrian Trasca ] [ From category THE Articles ] [ Subcategory OperaRail 2015 ] [ Subcategory III Opera NaÈ›ională BucureÈ™ti ] [ Translator Catalina Popescu ] [ Article date: 2015-04-07 ] [ From city Bucuresti ] [ Country România ]   This one day I went to Bucharest to visit my godfather Pandelică. I arrived, I rang at the door, nothin`. A neighbor lady with a staggering voice welcomed me, one bottle in her hand: “Ain`t home, pop, they left early in the mornin` to the sledding.â€� Well, I say to myself, my godfather may have drawn again a winning ticket and won a Feat 850, who knows? “Where, I say, Sinaia again?â€� "Not to the mountain, to the weddin` - she replies -, and they ain`t comin` back any sooner that tomorraw". I left the place. Man, so much people in this Bucharest! As far as the eye can see, people and people, swarm of cars, and even more people, hooters, noises, back and forth, and all of them in a hurry, do you hear me? Where do they go, where do they hurry like that, I wondered, `cause the winter wasn`t finished, and the field work hadn`t begun? As I was passing by their oldest park, called CiÅŸmigiu, I saw a colored sheet of paper glued on a fence. I read, it said... “Figaro`s weddingâ€�. And because I was kind of hungry, I say to myself, what if I go there, I can run into godfather Pandelică and godmother Reta. I asked for directions, I got there, Jesus, a huge building with some arched columns and a field in front of it, just good to be sowed. Great gentleman should be this Figarro having his wedding in a hell of a restaurant! I arrived there and found they call it Opera. I tried to enter, but some ladies dressed like doctors, but in black, stopped me and wanted to see my ticket. “Don`t have none, I said, but, you see, my godfather Pandelică, isn`t he on the guests` list? Because I take the key from him and I don`t stay, you know?â€� “If they were invited, check with Mr Mitică! â€� said one of them. I went where she`d said, there at that office was a chubby guy sittin` on a stool. “Your name! â€� he sais. “Juveteâ€�, I answer. He takes a look at a piece of paper and sais, “We don`t have! â€� “You don`t, I say, but, you see, godfather Pandelică you don`t have either? “`Cause it`s him I`m looking for! â€� He takes a look again. “He isn`t, he says. Why don`t you go and buy yourself a ticket?â€� I went there, I sat in the line – `cause there were a lot of people crowded at the office - I asked, that lady in the window said – but kind of sulky – “Figaro`s wedding has been canceledâ€�, today we have “Traviata! â€� Do you want a ticket?â€� Who is this Traviata and what do I have to do with her? But as outside it was cold and windy and here a lot of people – I wasn`t going to be alone with her, you know? – I got me a ticket and got to those doctoresses in black. When I entered, the view took my breath away. Beautiful here at the Opera! Well-arranged people, ladies in expensive clothes, the peasants, as in the city, you could say they were bride-grooms. It crossed my mind that I didn`t look like them in my peasant trousers and my knitted vest, but a little further I saw some even more peculiar, looking as in hooded gym suits, others in those American cowboy trousers, I felt more at ease. A little further, a queue like the one when reverend Soni imparts to the flock red wine for free. I wonder what they give here. I went, too, I stayed for a while and, when my turn came, they finished. “Vioricooo – said a madam – do you have some more? Because I finished them all! Please go to my colleague! â€� she said. I looked around, there was nobody left. I went, what could I do? The other madam gave me a piece of cardboard with lace on a side like the one they gave me at PeriniÅ£a – at the restaurant, in Craiova – when I was there for some “miciâ€� (“littleâ€�, a Romanian food based on meat). But little, veeery little they were. I opened it, but, surprise, surprise, it wasn`t with “miciâ€� and borsch! It was written... cast. What cast can it be at the wedding, don`t it say on the invitation who is getting married? Then I remembered that it wasn`t a wedding, it was something` else, but it still wasn`t clear to me. I open the piece of cardboard, it was written nicely, but half in Romanian, half in another tongue. It looked a little like our tongue in Oltenia, but it was not quite the same, do you hear me? It said... Verdi. Well, isn`t it “verdeâ€� (“greenâ€�, in Romanian)? Jermont the son. I thought that this should be some kind of name, but from what nation? Violeta Valery Felicia Filip. Man, how many names does she have and why did they wrote all of them here? Flora is Florea, here they “ateâ€� a letter. Maybe they were hungry, I thought, if Figaro, the one with the wedding, fooled them? But then, wait! It said March 28th The swans` lake. How this comes, how this comes? Besides March 28th whose is the lake? To the crows? And where is this lake, for here is a closed room, no lake can fit here! But I say to myself that maybe there is a courtyard behind the restaurant, and I read further. And here I found the wedding. It was written clearly, black on beige. April 1st, Figaro`s wedding. Would it be some kind of a joke again? I`ll call first, so that I don`t stay hungry again! As I was staying like that, I was left alone. No living soul around me. Here comes one of the madams – Viorica, I suppose – “go in the show room because it is about to start! â€� And she showed me the way, I sat, well, beautiful here at the Opera, very beautiful. From the ceiling were hung, in a circle, a lot of lamps in a single one, so that you could say it was a party with lamps! And the people were staying in some kennels lined on two levels. After that I found that they are calling those “lodgesâ€�. And a flock of smaller lamps in a circle over the lodges, and to the front a biiig curtain, big as our village hall in BăileÅŸti and over it the country`s coat of arms. And outside a big gutter, and I think there was something there, `cause you could see a light and some sticks comin` out of it. As I was staying like that, more astonished than Sucă when he saw the Iron Gates building site, the lights went off. But they went off slowly, as if they were afraid not to break if they went off at once, you know? Only the front light from the gutter remained, and I saw the people starting to clap their hands. I clapped, too, and then I saw that a bald guy was coming out of the gutter, nodded three times, the clapping stopped, he turned his back – I think he got upset that the applauses stopped – and it was silence. You could hear the fly buzzin`, do you hear me? And then a crystalline sound … But crystalline… how to say… It was like Dizzy Saiche`s violin when he plays it at weddings in Calafat, Desa and the swamps of Rast, but maybe more delicate than Saiche`s! The sound was leaking inside you, I felt as if I was Veta`s butter when she forgets it on the porch in the summer, in the brightest sun. After a while it ended. I`m glad it finished, I say, `cause I was without strength, I swear, from that sweet creak. But the bald guy started to shake his arms more powerfully and other music could be heard now. That big curtain broke in half, moved aside and I saw in front of me a lot of people, some more arranged than the others. “Here is the wedding, I say, those from the ticket office fooled me! â€� I say inside. As I was looking amazed, the one that seemed to be a bride started singing beautifully. Beautiful, but I didn`t understand anything. I asked a madam sitting next to me with some feathers on her head what she said, because it was not our tongue. The madam, kind, whispered to me like Sucă under the blanket in the mornin` when he was pretending to be asleep so that his old man wouldn`t send him to school. She said “she sings in Italian and, you see, the translation is written above.â€� Why would they need to sing in Italian? In Romanian isn`t it good enough? But maybe this is the situation here in the capital, you know, maybe that`s how it is here! I should ask my Veta to sing in Latin and French to those children when she puts them to bed in the evening! Well, how else could I prepare them for the capital? As we spoke like that, others from the back told us to shut up. “Ssst! You don`t speak while somebody is singing! â€� I shut up, what could I do, because this is what the elders taught me, not to disturb people without a reason, you know?â€� Heeei, slowly, slowly, here came the break. Now I didn`t know that it was a break – and I didn`t like it, do you hear me, as I was enchanted by the music as if I was bewitched by Rat`s old woman, who is now called Curmei`s – but beause the people were keeping going out, I, too, went out with them. I say, “Where are all these people going?â€� “In the lobby! â€�, said a lady. But what was that a lobby, because we don`t have such a thing in BăileÅŸti! Then I found out that it is a kind of porch, where people drink wine with water and a glass of talking until the music starts again. I went to drink, too. There, another beauty. A big roof over my head fuuul to the brim with golden curls! Such entangled, spread patterns, it was a pleasure to see, do you hear me? People were drinking wine with water, juices – that colored water – were moving up and down as if it were the National Day, when I look, my eyes popped like onions, do you hear: my Sucă in a bride-groom suit arm in arm with a flaxen haired gal! The girl, kind of long, do you hear? Kind of long. Almost reaching Suca`s top of the head. I think it was because of her shoes, as the girl had some stilts and they were put into some sandals climbed on a stick as long as the staff that my old man gave to me to scare away the dogs, you know? And skinyyyy, that you could watch TV through her, do you hear? I got closer to him, but I think he didn`t see me, because they turned back and went in the other direction! And as he was walking like that – a little hurriedly, I thought – my Sucă stumbled and fell like a hawk over a madam`s table, where she was tasting a cake with the teaspoon tip – not to disturb the cake, you know? Now, it was one of those small round tables like in the village tavern, the table overturned and the cake flew right on a high-bosomed madam`s decolletage. I covered my eyes not to be tempted – because I couldn`t live with Veta in peace afterwards – but I removed it when I heard that madam scolding my Sucă, and as he was covered with whipped cream, too, and was laughing, the madam took another piece of cake from another table and tossed it in his head, then she stood on her hind legs and left. Sucă vas laughing even louder, he saw me and said “Hello, Nea Mărin! Here, she is Bianca from BucureÅŸti. Bianca, this is Mr Mărin Juvete, my uncle from BăileÅŸti. But how comes you are at the Opera?â€� “Forget about me – I barked at him – since when do you call me mister, since when do you call me mister?â€� “Come on, Nea Mărin, don`t be upset. This is how they say it here, in the capital.â€� As we were chatting, a gong rang, like on Sundays, in the church. “What is this, is the priest coming?â€� I say, but Sucă cleared this up for me. “Go to the seat written on your ticket, because now starts the music. I have to go and wash, we can speak at the other breakâ€�, he said. “Is there another one?â€� I say. “There is, go! â€� he said and I left, for I liked it, a little earlier I`d thought it had finished. Heeei, in the end it did finish. It was beautiful, magic, but I left upset from there. How can this be, such beauty of children, to go and destroy their marriage? For that girl was a flower bud! It is true that they weren`t officially married, but they could have done a wedding, as it should, instead of the girl running, catching a goat`s cough and dying. `Cause such are some people, they forget they were once young, too. They forget!

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