BORISAV STANKOVIć (Борисав Станковић)(Serbia, ex-Yugoslavia): Christmas Comes, After All

Borisav Stanković

Christmas Comes, After All!

Translated by Ernst Pawel

Who would worry about sleeping at a time like this? It has been weeks since anybody has had a good night’s sleep. First Christmas came to Skoplje: now it is at Preshevo and Bilach, and moving closer and closer. The dried sparrows strung up in chains are already beginning to crack and fall apart. The high-button shoes, the cotton blouse and the jacket made out of an old greatcoat have been ready for the longest time. There they are, on the box, neatly laid out, one next to the other, waiting for me. and somehow they give me no peace, the shoes in particular. They’re yellow, are these shoes, polished to shine like a mirror, and their soles smell of cobbler’s wax. Whenever mother leaves for the market, I lock the door and get all dressed up. I walk around the room trying to catch a glimpse of myself to see what I’ll be looking like on Christmas Day. Only, this isn’t Christmas yet. Not yet. But I can feel it in the air. The room is sweet with the scent of elecampane and dry basil above the ikon. And mother no longer dares scold me when I break something, let alone give me a thrashing: that just isn’t done before Christmas. She even looks at me differently somehow. Not like a mother at all, but rather humbly like as if I were the older one.

“Will you do some shopping for me?” And she sends me to the market to buy some trifles, given me money without even counting it.

Off I go. And when I come back, struggling with the load and trying to balance the bundles, she already awaits me at the door and rushes out to relieve me of my burden, not bothering to ask me for the change. She leaves it to me these days, so that I can grandly walk around jingling the coins in my pocket and bragging to my pals about it.

And in the meantime she slaves at her work. It’s been at least a week since she last sat down at the table for a regular meal. She has the whole house to take care of. Nobody even to carry water for her. She is killing herself with work. Her blouse in torn, and her trousers keep slipping. Every other minute she stops to retire her apron strings, but the apron drops down just the same. She is hunched with age, but on she goes and works her fingers to the bone.

She has rolled up her sleeves. Her hands are grimy, and the skin around the nails is cracked and peeling from all the scrubbing and washing. She never had time to put on slippers on sandals, but runs around in the same old, darned stockings, wading through the puddles and the little piles of dirt that are all over the floor. The polished pots glisten on their shelf, neatly arranged. The table and the copper baking pans have been propped up against the wall to dry out as quickly as possible. Steaming hot water still runs off them in tiny streams. Shelves, doors, thresholds and window frames have all been scrubbed to a spotless yellow. The whole house exudes an odor of moisture and scrubbing. And mother does everything herself—where does she find the strength to do it? She works as if it were no bother at all. she never is tired. From early in the morning until nightfall she goes on—slowly, it is true, but never resting, dragging herself from one task to the next, always completely engrossed in whatever she happens to be doing.

And on top of all this she also takes care of me. some meat dish is always stewing in a pot on the fire; some cake has always just been taken out of the oven and stands there to cool off, still covered with a table cloth, spreading its seductive fragrance.

“Don’t, baby,” she gently restrains me, as though afraid she might insult me. “Don’t. It will be all yours, anyway. Whom else do I have? Don’t—wait for Christmas. It’ll be here tomorrow. It’s already in Tekija…”

“With whom in Tekija?” I rebel. “I’m going down there to see for myself.” And off I go.

“Please don’t!” she stops me. “You can’t see it. it’ll come here, too…”

And Christmas came, indeed. And what a Christmas! My poor, darling mother! Day broke. At dawn the cannon was fired, and the shot rattled the windowpanes. From the street came the sharp click of brand-new shoes. Above my head, next to the pillow, were the suit and the underwear, all smelling very new and clean. Under the ikon the little lamp was flickering, and the smell of incense filled the room. The room itself was warm, clean and decorated. You were already up and in the kitchen; still half asleep I heard you rummaging around, carrying in the wooden through and a kettle of hot water. Then you came over to me, threw back the blanket, put your bony, wrinkled hands under me and lifted me the way I was, naked and still warm with sleep, out of my bed to take me into your lap, and covered me with kisses.

“Time to get up, son. Christmas has come. Time to get up, master of the house.”

At the words, “master of the house,” your puckered, warm lips trembled, and a tear dropped on my burning cheek.

You gave me a bath while outside the bells were ringing. No, not ringing; rather, they sounded subdued and quiet, as though trying to hum and then losing courage. The lamp was flickering. There was the smell of the clean rugs blending with the smell of straw from the mat. Voices were out in the street, and the blue of the night was entering through the window, softened and dispersed by the candlelight. Then you dressed me. the suit seemed too large for me, and so did the shoes and the blouse. I got angry and impatient.

“It isn’t too big at all. Really it isn’t. as a matter of fact it’s a little tight for you. goodness, how tall you are!”

Spreading your arms, still on your knees, you moved off a little, the better to see how tall I was. And in order to make me look still more impressive and older than my age, you put father’s dark blue silk belt around me and gave me his watch, carefully arranging the massive chain so as to make it as conspicuous as possible. On my little fez you put a tassel, dad’s old one, of real ivory. It hung down to below my ears. You gave me a candle, the basil and the kerchief, and saw me to the door, giving me a last once-over, looking at me both anxiously and with pride. Even out on the street, carried away by the crowd, I could still see you looking after me, following me with your eyes…

On my other holiday I’d much rather have gone up to the old Turkish cemetery to watch them load and fie the big guns. But on Christmas that thought didn’t even occur to me. I kept my hands in my pockets. The candle I had stuck in my belt. It was fun to listen to the click of my new shoes on the pavement and to the rustle and crackle of my starched new blouse, even if I did feel a little cramped in my new clothes. The collar especially was a bit too tight.

The market square was jammed, with more people joining the crowd every minute. There were many old men, walking along slowly and cautiously in their long white wraps, white stockings and stiffly starched white collars, with huge warm fur caps on their heads. Each one of them had a few grandchildren on either side of him over whom he was supposed to watch.

At quite a distance from the church the air was already filled with the smell of incense, and the church itself was bathed in a glow of candlelight. From inside came the strains of singing. My eyes were blinded by the sudden glare, in the midst of this sea of candles—whose flames, like so many tongues, seemed to be licking its stone walls—the church itself stood out clearly against the breaking day. Still at the other end of the street, I already took off my cap, tucked it well into my shirt so no one could pull it out, and lit my candle. I just barely made it to the portal. People were all around me, surging forward, pushing and shoving, tightly packed; each one bareheaded, carrying a candle, making the sign of the cross, and joining in the songs and prayers reaching us from inside the church. In the church itself nothing was visible but eh light from countless candles, their smoke rising and curling and finally, thinning out somewhere high under the vaulted roof until disappearance. Losing oneself, forgetting oneself into the mesmerizing cadence was easy. Through it all shone the altar, bright, with the holy lamps flickering on it, and the candles around the cross glistening and twinkling like so many stars from sky above. On the ambo, his back turned toward us, stood the deacon in an attitude of prayerful expectancy, his right hand raised, reading, no, singing out the words in his powerful, stirring voice. Daylight paled the scene, and from the depth of the choir alternately ebbed and rose the song:

“Thy day of birth, oh Christ, Our Lord.”

And as the song died out, the bells started to ring and the guns thundered outside, and the frozen naked earth trembled and shook.

Try as I might, I just couldn’t manage to get hold of a copy of the anaphora which the deacon handed out from the ambo, and had to be content with what I was given by the sexton. I went back home. The door was wide open. The yard had been cleaned, the wood under the eaves neatly stacked alongside the wall. On the shelf shone the kettles, and a long white cloth covered the pitchers. Pots were boiling on the fire, a roast was simmering in the pan. I entered the room. mother acted as if she hadn’t seen me, busying herself with the dishes and the fruit jars.

“Kristos se rodi!” I uttered the traditional Christmas greeting. Christ is born!

She turned. And seeing me in my fez with my father’s tassel on it, wearing father’s old belt, she was shaken and confused.

She drew closer. She replied with the traditional reply:

“Vaistinu se rodi!” Indeed he is born!

She held out her hand reluctantly as though secretly tempted to kiss mine instead. Then she kissed me on my forehead, eyes, eyebrows, and cheeks. she would have continued kissing me, if I hadn’t stopped her. I offered her the anaphora and asked whether anyone had yet come to see us—asked in a voice so manly that it made her swell with pride, and caused her to answer me quite humbly.

“Our cousin, son. I wanted them to wait until you came home, but they didn’t have the time. here, they left an orange for you and send you their regards. But listen—you must be starved! Oh my poor darling!”

Quickly she brought me a skillfully carved dried sparrow to taste first, so that all year long I’d be light as a sparrow. And then the rest. I ate—while all the time she was fussing over me, watching that I wouldn’t get any spots on my new clothes, and sweeping up the crumbs as far as they fell, just in case a visitor came to surprise us. Outside everything was quiet and powerful. The fiddlers were playing away at the other end of our town, at the upper market, in the rich folks’ homes. The few passers-by out in the street were in a hurry to get their obligatory visits over with and rush home for their meals. I kept on eating wanting more, but mother wouldn’t let me.

“Don’t. you’ve had enough and won’t have any appetite left her dinner. And besides, someone might come, after all . . .”

She took the leftovers of the food away. I wanted to get out in the street, but she wouldn’t allow me. she took off my fez, combed my hair again, unbuttoned my blouse far enough for the new shirt to show, and told me to stay in the room.

“You sit down here. Who is going to welcome the guests if you are not here? Are you the master of the house, or aren’t you? I can’t do it all on my own after all. I have work in the kitchen and besides, I’m not even properly dressed to received guests as good manners demand.”

And so I stayed, pacing up and down, taking huge steps. The room smelled sweet, warm and dry. The ikon light flickered. Wavelike, the incense strong smell spread through the house. In the kitchen, good food was on the fire, and its smell mixed in the atmosphere. The guests started to arrive.

As they reached the kitchen door, they shouted: “Kristos se rodi!” rushing in and naturally wanting to shake hands with mother. But mother wouldn’t let them see her or enter the kitchen. She sent them to me with a merry voice. And they entered. Dutifully they took a seat on the couch, hands folded in their laps, ready to jump up right away and be off again to make some more visits to more people. They asked me the usual nosy questions. They looked at every single object in the room though they had all been here countless times before and knew each piece and where it was placed. But I, bareheaded, self-possessed and perfectly at ease, stuck out my chest a little and brought them the tobacco jar. We made conversation, that is to say. I told them about their children, my pals, including friends and classmates—what we did together, where we went staking, and so forth, as if they didn’t already know.

After a while, mother came in, drying her hands in her apron.

“And how are you? How is everything?” she asked them all while arranging the shoes they had taken off upon entering in such a way that, on leaving, they would be able to step into them without even looking down. They all kissed and she withdrew again back into her kitchen to make coffee, leaving me to entertain them just as any head of a family would be doing. Pretty soon she brought in the coffee, a separate cup for each guest and waited, hands folded, for them to finish so that she would be on hand to relieve them of their cups and saucers at once. And, of course, they were all ashamed to have her wait on them; everybody sipped his coffee as quickly as possible, put a lemon or an orange on the table as a gift, and left hurriedly.

She even took them to the door politely, keeping the last farewell greetings going. actually it would have been my duty as the master of the house to see them off, but apparently she didn’t quite trust me with this task. She knew that once I set foot outside the door, I’d see the street—the ancient, crooked street with its chipped and broken walls on either side—and there surely would be some of my friends out there, bragging about how much money they had got for presents and how much cake they had eaten, and I’d be off with them, leaving her to look for me all over town.

Therefore I just didn’t leave the room. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her, of her scolding; but I knew how I’d feel afterwards, what that plaintive reproach in her eyes would do to me once she did find me. she would take me by the hand, silently leading me home without one angry word; on the contrary, she would even defend me before the others and would let no one say that I had deserted her on this holiest of days. But she would not look happy any more the way she did now, setting the table, bringing on the bread, the salt and all the rest, putting a lighted candle in the center, the food being brought in a pan so she would not have to get up again during the meal.

Then she washed her hands, approached the ikon and, taking off her kerchief for the one and only time during the year, began to read a prayer to bless the food. I stood behind her, making the sign of the cross. But I could not at the same time bend down and cross myself the way she did; bending down a triffle too quickly I feel on my knees and had to support myself with my hands, before touching the floor with my forehead. The strong odor of food filled the room. above us burned the ikon lamp, throwing its feeble light upon mother’s gray hair and brown neck. She whispered:

“Lord Jesus Christ! Holy St. Nicholas, my miracle-doer, my saint! Look down upon us, oh Lord, and take pity on us. Help us. Bless Thy food, bless the bread ‘Thou hast given us’.” And she fell on her knees so hard that I could hear the joints cracking.

Then she put her kerchief back on again and sat down at the table, free at last to breathe after one more look around the room, still afraid lest she had forgotten something that needed doing before dinner. And I, holding out my glass filled with taki and simultaneously offering her my check, wished her a happy holiday;

“Kristos se rodi, my darling mother! A merry Christmas to you!”

“The same to you, my child. This year we are alone, you and your mother. But next year, the Lord willing, you’ll. . .” Something in her throat made her cough, and she barely managed to down her glass.

We ate. In spite of all her careful preparations she still had to get up every now and then to bring in more food from the kitchen. I had to have first choice of everything, and she merely nibbled a bit here and there, quite hurriedly. It was only after I had had my fill and got up that she really started to eat.

Afterwards everything was quiet and peaceful. I heard the cat purring and the hen in the kitchen moving among the pots and pans looking for crumbs.

The heavy odor of overly rich food seemed to hang over the entire town. In all homes, drowsy from overeating, the men lay around the brazier or the stove, huddled in their white wraps, and the women with their aprons thrown over their heads. They have to rest, for, after all, Christmas lasts for three days, and this is only the first one. A man can’t right away . . . there’s plenty of time yet. Each person needs to keep the energy going throughout the whole period.

But on the stroke of midnight, as the second day of Christmas began, somewhere the sound of a zurla, the bagpipe my mother liked so much, could be heard being tuned in. Rehearsal didn’t take long and soon the first song sounded through the night. That faraway sound accompanied us until we fell asleep.

Morning came again; but this time the priests were the only ones who really stayed for the entire service: the others merely came to make a show of lighting a candle and quickly bowed out again backward, crossing themselves in double quick time as though doing penance. Everywhere the chimneys began to belch the dense black smoke that indicated meat, roast and sausages. The aroma of smoked lamb permeated the streets. Little crowds of women began to appear, plaintive and yet belligerent, walking down the streets in groups; their shoes weren’t buttoned because they had to take them off every few moments, their wraps had been thrown in a hurry, and their yees were bloodshot and full of tears. Every servant and every child they could lay their hands on were pressed into service to help find Fatima, the gypsy girl with the fair face and the round black eyes. later on the community had to marry off Fatima by force, since she made very man who met her completely how his mind and his conscience, so that they drank with her till morning, night after night, spent all their money on her, beat their wives and drove them out of their homes for Fatima’s sake.

Everything was changed all of a sudden, the very air bursting with exuberance and a kind of extravagant elation. Shouting, singing and music everywhere! Fiddlers appeared in front of the houses, followed by gangs of screaming children with used-up voices already. The zurlas whistled and whined, the drums were beaten till all the windowpanes shook and all the ikon lights went out.

Everywhere, that is, except in our house. We were too far away to be visited by the zurla players. We had finished eating long ago, mostly food left over from the day before. After dinner I stood in front of our door listening to the revelry and watching how Crazy Menko, drunk as a lord, rolled over into the gutter and started to undress for some reason. I guess that the reason was that he was so drunk he didn’t really know what he was doing. Everybody knows Crazy Menko, but nobody can predict what he might do next. And when I went back inside again, letting Crazy Menko to his own devices, there was mother there—but I hardly recognized her.

She was wearing a starched blouse, her face was scrubbed clean, and a beautiful kerchief was tied around her head. Her cheeks looked round and pink. Suddenly she looked ten years younger. She was sitting by the window, hands folded in her lap, looking out into the street, pressing her forehead against the pane. For all its wrinkles her face looked soft now, fresh and almost young. The little veins were pulsing in her thin, strong neck. The dust in the room had just settled from the after dinner clean-up. Neatly arranged on the old buffet stood the glasses, and next to them a large pitcher full of wine. The other pitcher out in the kitchen also was filled; that’s where we had poured all the wine sent to us by our rich neighbors. And the coffee was made, the cake all ready and waiting.

Only—there was no one to whom we could offer any of these precious gifts; no one whom we could welcome as a guest. All those who felt obligated to come had appeared in the morning, showing up for just a quick drink to save us expenses. They knew we didn’t have any money, and so they had come in the morning because at that time the custom is not to sit around for any length of time so that nobody can consume much. What wouldn’t I have given for a few guests! How I would have waited on them, serving them food and drink! If only they hadn’t tried to spare us, if only they would let us be like everyone else. That, perhaps, was why my mother smiled so sadly. Her eyes seemed to be smarting from looking out into the street filled with people, the crowds constantly moving past our wide open door, and not a soul to enter. The house and the yard were deserted, while all around us there was singing, playing, and wild happiness. Even the drinking got under way so early.

Jovan Palamar, for example, threw brazier and stove out into the street—he was too hot!—broke all the glasses in the house and started drinking out of a pan. He didn’t stand up to welcome his guests but remained seated on the floor in the middle of an empty room, leaving his guests to shift for themselves as best they could. Rista, the Troublemaker, already had had a fight and had locked himself up in his house. he was sitting on the porch, firing off his rifle whenever the spirit moved him, forcing his wife to sing for him and at the same time cursing the world at the top of his lungs. In many yards our national dance, the kolo, was being danced, and the gold pieces which the girls wore in chains around their necks jingled to the beat of the music. From Stephen Dobrovanjec’s house came the high-pitched screaming of his spoilt children, the desperate sobbing of his wife and his own hoarse shouting and cursing. He was, it seemed, looking for his horse and his horse and his sword, some old sword he had managed to get hold of during the wars of liberation. And sue enough, in no time at all, he appeared on his spirited charger, in full-dress uniform, cap and all, the battered sword at his hip. Riding from one door to the next he leaped off the horse right into the room, driving before him the fiddlers as well as Fatima who, in a white silken bodice and bloomers, danced around him with snake-like grace, singing:

I don’t rue my nakedness,

I merely rue my silver blouse,

I merely rue mu silver blouse. . .

“Everybody over here!” somebody suddenly shouted right in front of our door.

Mother jumped. The tears rolled down her cheeks. in rushed Uncle Yovan, my late father’s pal, his fur cap deep down over his eyes, and behind him, jostling one another, the fiddlers.

“Hi, Master of the House!” Uncle Yovan cried with a deep bow.

“Here we are—right here…” mother answered in my stead, swallowing hard and trying to collect herself.

“Kristos se rodi! Lady of the House, welcome to my humble house. And where be the master?”

“Here he is right here!” my mother said, pointing at me and beckoning him to come in; she even let the gypsy enter. Uncle Yovan stepped inside. I kissed his hand and he, bending down, kissed my forehead, taking my whole face into his dry old paws. Then he sat down right on the floor, crossing his legs.

“Well, come on, let’s have a song!” he told the gypsies who had lined up along the wall.

“What would you like, master?”

“Whatever the Master of the House wants!” he said, nodding in my direction. The gypsies looked at me, and I felt the blood rushing to my head from happiness and confusion.

Mother came in and in passing me she whispered: “Tell them you want The Roses Are Blooming”.

And that’s what I ordered the gypsies to play.

“Excellent, excellent!” Uncle Yovan cried out, surprised and happy that I had picked out his favorite tune. “Come on, now, let’s have it!”

He started to tell them all about us, about our home, and about my father with whom he had broken bread and shared his salt, and whose best friend he had been for so many years; how sometimes the celebration in our house went on for three days and three nights straight, nothing but singing and dancing all the time. And, sure enough, one of the gypsies had known my father and had played for him. My poor mother, sobbing with happiness, made the gypsies drink to their hearts’ content too—not out of glasses but straight out of the bottle, all the raki they wanted and more. She waited on them, gave them meat and bread, and whatever they couldn’t polish off on the spot, they stuck into their pockets.

“Sit down, dear.” Uncle Yovan finally told her. “Let him take care of things for awhile.” He pointed at me. “Lord, how he has grown! Here, come, sit down next to me.”

He moved over to make room for her. Mother sat down and held out her glass to him, her hand trembling.

“Here, try this, Yovan. I saved it especially for you. thank you for having thought of us.”

But she didn’t want to mention her heartache so she said nothing about that. She didn’t even talk about herself, just about me.

“If his father were alive, things would be different. But this way… Anyhow, thank you, thank you for remembering us and for coming…”

“What do you take me for?” Uncle Yovan said gruffly. “Did you really think I’d forget this house?” and turning to the gypsies, he shouted: “Play some more!”

The gypsies played on. The screech of the zurla must have been heard all the way over in Turkey. The drum rolled, the windows rattled, the oil kept splashing out of the lamp, and from the beams above came a fine spray of chalk dust. Outside it was getting dark and wet . in his worn-out, croaky voice Uncle Yovan sang:

The roses are blooming . . .

And my mother, a tear slowly, slowly rolling down her cheek, looked at me, standing bareheaded between her and the fiddlers, as if trying to say:

“You see, son? Christmas has come after all . . .”