After that came the story about Autumn. Heavy rains fell, the sky was black. The whole earth was overturned, all of the roads were lost. These frightening, cold rains were nothing for the man. The man went as if barren Autumn was nothing, the dark and scary trees, denuded, dead. The man went as if he did not care about Autumn, the man just continued on his path through the cold, through the scary waters, through the mud, through the thorns. Everywhere he reached, they gathered around him, they wondered at this muddy, filthy unclean man, where was he from, what devil was he, no-one dared to get close to him. They were afraid to speak to him, they were afraid to let him go over their thresholds, they were afraid to look him in the face. And he, curse me, he wanted nothing from the people. Not bread, not water, not a bed, I swear, he just wanted his children.
They didn’t believe him, they shook their heads in disbelief. They left him alone, saying:
“What are you asking us for, you unfortunate man! There’s the government! Go to the government, the government knows!”
“Go, go!”
“What an unreasonable man! Maybe there’s something wrong with him,” the people said.
“What, even an animal would understand more quickly, see how he’s looking, look at his eyes!”
“Madman, you should take a stick to him, he would see better!”
“Maybe he’s not human,” the women made a ritual, protective spit into their shirtfront to ward off evil, then shrieking, they gathered their children around them like hens and locked themselves in their homes.
“And he, uncle Lenten, what did he do?” one of the boys would ask in tears. Uncle Lenten would then go quiet for a bit longer, that little man looked strange in that evening, in the middle of the children, in the deserted, strange, in the silent home. He was quiet, like a thin, captured, little bird. With tiny, lively eyes he looked from child to child; now we were quiet. Curse me, everything was quiet. It seemed it was as if, in that moment, uncle Lentenoski got a thousand years older all at once, irrevocably. Curse me, a thousand years of lost life. How many times did we decide never to ask about such things again but we never stuck by our word. Some evil spirit was pressing us, wouldn’t leave us in peace.
Once, however, we heard the whole story.
It was in the Winter, the first Winter after the snow, the man returned to his home from the war and he didn’t find his home. The man had a wife and two children. They told him that they had gone to some distant mountain village. They’d stayed there in the Spring, they told him, they found the wife dead in the mountain, with a little pack of firewood, covered in snow. The children must have been cold, they lived in a little hut beside the village. Curse me, the children must have been cold that their mother had to go on such a frightening blizzardy day to gather wood in the mountain. Mothers are not afraid of snow, mothers are not afraid of anything when their children are cold. Curse me, mothers are without fear, they have just one fear, their children. Dear mothers of gold, our own dear mothers. I swear, that’s the only fear that lives in them, their children. The children departed in Spring. Sometime before Spring with the winds, when the snow starts to melt. First of all the littlest one was lost, one day he didn’t return to the hut. Maybe the boy went to look for his mother, curse me, maybe he went after his own mother. After that they found him in the plain, in a cornfield, when the snow had all melted, some ploughman in his ploughing, the child was lying on the ground like a little bird with folded wings; a fallen bird, most certainly killed by the north wind. As if he was sleeping, with his face on the warm earth, among the yellow field grasses, between small, new-born beetles. Curse me, the ploughman thought the boy was sleeping, dreaming. Then the older boy went, alone, he wafted along the road like a little cloud. Quickly he went along the road, healthy and alive. Where he was going, what he was doing, they didn’t know, they didn’t ask him. A child, what is there to ask? He was with his spotted puppy, Boobi, they ran along the melted snow, the sun was shining. Curse me, sun.
After that, running along, the boy and the puppy got to another village, an unfamiliar one, they went to the city, they saw them on some bank, near a big water he and his dog rambled around for hours, they played in the waves, they took him to some Home...
That night we didn’t hear the bell calling us to the assembly line. No-one wanted to move from the spot, to leave uncle Lentenoski alone. That night, curse me, the most snivelling boy could take any punishment.
“What’s up with you, you little devils?” asked the instructor who was on duty, mindlessly. “You will assemble or else you will be punished; you’ll miss out on dinner!”
He could shout at us all night, the idiot couldn’t see. I swear, we weren’t in the Home any more. We were far away, very far away, on a road. We were going through the fields, through the villages, through the caves, through the snow, through the waters, through unfamiliar settlements and cities, through all the homes, everywhere where that man pounded the road. Curse me, we went everywhere with him, together. A black rain hit us, a strong sun killed us, we broke through the most frightening snow, a gale, no, nothing could turn us back from that road, to separate us from that man. Every place where we met people, familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad, we told them all the name of our mother, the name of our father, the names of our sisters and brothers, our secret signs. Oh God, maybe they had other names now, other signs, maybe they were now Hungarians, Russians, Poles, French, Czechs, Germans; we told them of the beautiful dream of the place we were born; where was it, do you remember, there was a hill, a hill with sun in the morning, then a little river, from there the river runs into a wood, a silver, a gold forest and the sky above it just the same, don’t you... but then again, maybe we were together in a home, in a room, curse me, maybe that Metodija Grishkoski is your brother, degenerate, impossible... I swear, we didn’t recognise our sisters, brothers, oh, we have to find them, nothing can make us turn back from that road.
“You will be shut in the cellar,” Olivera Srezoska, the Assistant-Headmaster raged.
No-one got up, we were all satisfied. As though blind, as though entranced, each one set off wherever their eyes lighted, we set off through the yard, through the rooms. The place couldn’t hold us, we climbed up to the dormitories, we went out, I swear, we travelled with that man.
That same night uncle Lenten disappeared. It was late Summer, maybe Autumn, the birds were migrating, no-one knew exactly. I swear, all of the children were with uncle Lentenoski, above all we most wanted him to return to us. To return once again with his son and if he wanted, after that, never to come back again to the Home. Curse me, every morning, you’d wake up and you see all the children have pricked their ears like rabbits, has uncle Lenten come back? You hear the arrival of the cart and something would trick you, it would seem he was back again, breathlessly you’d run into the yard. Undressed, barefooted. Your heart could hardly stand it until that cursed door opened, even though you knew it wasn’t him, you wait. That lasted a few centuries.
The Winter, the fifteenth of February, he returned. It was morning, we were in the assembly line. We were singing the anthem. Curse me, the anthem. But when, like a little mouse, uncle Lenten softly snuck through the door, when we saw his stooped, shrunken shape, we all went quiet as if commanded to. It was as if he wanted to rest, he stood by the door for a bit. Then one of the children, a little devil, flew from the assembly line like an arrow and as if strangled by someone shrieked despairingly:
“Daddy Lenten!” Curse me, with all his strength he hung around his neck.
“Daddy Lenten,” he murmured, “I knew you would come back,” he murmured over and over, “I knew you were my father!”