TRANSLATIONS
24.04.2020
IN TRANSYLVANIA, IN THE ERA BEFORE CORONAVIRUS
I know it seemed strange to me from the beginning. Because the boarding house was occupied by a group, I was given a room in a side body, a lure at night behind which a dog was barking insistently. All the rooms were lined up on a porch where the black branches of some trees ready to be cut were poured. Nothing promising. But when I turned on the light, something happened. It wasn't the room I was expecting. Someone had painted the bed's headboard. And the table. And the chairs. Even the closet. The walls were white, with nothing decorative. Simple. And on the floor, peasant rugs.
In the morning I went out to see the sunrise. Too late. The mountain was already cut by an orange horizontal that illuminated its hump raised above the plain and revealed more and more the round cliffs above which, from spring to autumn, paragliders from all over the world gather in flight above the depression. In addition to the haystacks, white steam rose, it was cold, and the day bit coldly the skin of the cheeks. We went to see the first city. The one with white walls, from Alba Carolina. There were more statues than people on the cobbled alleys of the old city. And a cold wind was blowing, which kept the spring away. For lunch, we ate in the knights' cellar. On the way back, we passed the bundles of young trees offered for sale on the side of the road. Because it was still early, we walked up the hill to the five-hundred-year-old fortress above the village. I also took some pictures. With the mountains, with the mists descending easily, with the black road overturned by off-road vehicles.
We went to see the second city. Because the sun had risen and a beautiful day was announced, after a night rain, on our way through the mountains a deer jumped in front of our car, almost to ... But the rain came to us again. Just when we climbed a promontory called the Citadel. From where the city could be seen lying at the feet, rectangular, aligned with the course of Someşului Mic, with mixed colors, clean, very clean. And that's it. After that I went down to the Square where Matiaş receives the Honor of Secui's Mustaches. Or Hungarians. According to colleague of mine, it is no longer known who is who. Then we walked into an antique shop at the end of a walled street and a sewer in the works. And some spiral staircases.Nothing special, old books, old things, old stories, a sounding board, somewhere, isolated by the monotonous pulse of the city. And we went to see the third city. Far away, so far that we walked on two highways. One of 15 kilometers, the other of 10. Until we reached a Market of the future Roses. I shyly stepped on the carpets of the Great Cathedral built at the top of the park. I blinked slightly as the ceramic tiles of the Palace of Culture at the bottom shone. And, on foot, we walked around the interior of the Medieval Citadel, guarded by the solar spears of a warm March afternoon. We returned to the room with painted furniture, still during the day. Then we went out to see how the mountain was beginning to be covered by a heavy touch of darkness, which left in the retina only the thin silhouettes of budding birches.
In the morning, we discovered that we were left alone in the big house with the painted furniture, after I was alone in the house with the porch in the garden. The people were gone, no other people had come. The hosts of the mansion, dressed in folk costumes in the same colors as the furnished interiors, were still there, as on the first night, as if the yard were full of cars and all the rooms occupied. And on the way back to Bucharest, someone, on a radio station, started counting, leaving long intervals between interventions: Sibiu, 37, Târgu Roşu, 39, Râmnicu Vâlcea, 40, Piteşti, 43, Bucharest, 45. Yes , it was weird this spring. Something insinuating, something that wanted to overturn the beauty of the cold or hot or rainy days we spent in the three cities. Will it succeed?
UNKNOWN VOCABULARY:
- momâie - lure
- cerdac - porch
- cocoaşa - hump
- parapantişti - paragliders
- alei pietruite - cobbled alleys
- mesteceni înmuguriţi - budding birches