LAND OF ETERNAL SADNESS

LAND OF ETERNAL SADNESS

From just over Preval one could see Little Prespa Lake looking like an eye in tears. One could also see it from the top of Mount Bigla. The Prespa valley looked like someone had dropped and spread bundles of hay and in the middle of it was what seemed like a hose spilling water, which strongly reflected the sun’s rays. During the night the raspberry-blue cold lake valley trembled anxiously waiting for the sun to rise and for the flocks of Belvitsa (species of trout) to play in its waves. During the summer Prespa Valley is beautifully decorated with many colourful flowers; scarlet, white and thick-soaked with the smell of honey. The still air hovers above the ground and will overwhelm you with its powerful aroma…

The moment the sun hides behind the hill only the poplar tops remain illuminated in front of Ioshe Sekulovski’s tavern. That’s when the sun’s gilded rays say goodnight.

Twilight sets. First the tavern begins to dim, then the street. The light to the top of the poplars diminishes. The day fades... Darkness sets. Sparks hover over the fishermen’s fire, the waves splashing on the boat quietly die down, and in the bluish cold evening mist begins to rise in the valley.

Spring came and gave the people renewed strength and renewed life.

The fishermen happily sang while they fished and their songs echoed strongly throughout the valley. The farmers worked their soil and listened to the songs. They looked here and looked there, by the lake under the rays of the golden sun. The fisherman felt like they needed to sing from dawn to dusk. But now German is full of grief and his pain is eating away at him, poking at him… like a drill poking at a heart.

He slowly walked down the road, looking at everything. He paused and looked at the dried willows. He noticed the song from the loaded village wagons was gone.

He listened… He heard a nocturnal bird’s sinister cry in the distance. The earth, the sky, the forest and the fields were all hunted by the mad cries of this night bird...

And now, many, many years later, that sound still bothered him...

“Don’t sing to me, don’t sing to me! Spare me your song. I come from afar and fire is burning in my chest. You evil birds don’t know what it means to live in hope. But our hope depends on our destiny…” whispered German.

German Trpenovski kept walking and then took a run over Preval just like he had done many times before when he was a child, rushing into the arms of his mother. He heard a sound coming from the wild reeds by the shore which startled him. He stopped to look. His thoughts took him back to a time when the fishermen sang.

He looked towards the lake. “This is the lake that fed the people… that protected them and took care of them,” he thought. The strange sound that startled him earlier was now getting much closer. He thought he heard it again… but this time closer. He looked around. There was nothing there… not a living soul. It was a dry spring, everything was dry; the landscape, the trees, the grass… The sound was probably made by the dry grass he figured.

German Trpenovski was full of joy to have been able to come back to his beautiful home in Prespa after so many years of being away. He went closer to the shore and scooped a handful of water. He watched the tiny fish race away to hide in the deep water. He then looked at the soil. It looked sad… poor… as if someone had badly abused it… and the willow trees stood there hanging, crying and weeping.

“Oh, what a night! All the stars are out… to the last one. It is so warm and peaceful… I can feel it warm my soul again!” he thought to himself.

“I am back!” he yelled. “I came back with a song, rather unwilling but with a song, perhaps with the last song. How lucky of me…” he said. “Alone… just the night and me...! I feel a surge of love and I

cannot keep it quiet. So hear me my place of birth, understand me… I will not hide my passion from you. I want to tell you that I love you… and only you… Oh birthplace of mine!” he shouted out loud.

When he left for the village he walked over the ruins of what was once a beautiful cobblestone road. The village was completely silent. It was a deafening silence like life itself was deaf...

The moon was shining brightly in the peaceful sky. The mulberry tree in the yard was loaded with fruit. All was tranquil.

German Trpenovski stood under the blue sky, fearless but troubled by the destruction. He felt like something heavy was pressing on his chest... and that’s how he spent the night. He breathed deeply but there was no aroma of life in the air. He kept looking at the pile of black ruins that once were his house… his home. “Is this a dream? Am I sleeping? What is this?” he kept asking… looking for answers. “The coast and river that looked like a silver belt around the valley are still here but where are the houses?” he asked. “No, no, I am not going to yell. My mother is old and sick. She is certainly very old. She is very old. How long will she tease me like this? Maybe she is hiding in here somewhere. How long has it been since I have seen her last? Very long! She will cry a lot for me but I will not… I don’t want to upset her even more. I want her to be happy...” said German to himself.

He walked through the ruins looking at the dark charred remains.

The roofs were scattered and the supports stuck out like dead arms pointing skyward...

He looked away towards the slopes… They were absent of the shimmering endless rye fields and the roaring flocks of sheep... He picked up the pace and ran towards a pile of logs. He ran frantically because he was afraid of what he saw… the ruins of his own home… Desolation stared at him from behind every broken down wall...

“Calm down, calm down!” he kept telling himself.

“Maybe a few more steps and I will find my dear old mother. This is where I spent my childhood... I am such a coward...” he thought.

He saw smoke coming out from an underground hut.

“It must be my mother… she is awake and waiting for me. I must have made a mistake and gone to the wrong house...” he said to himself.

That night he was unable to hide his tears. On the way he ran into an old female dog which forced him to hide in the charred ruins and defend himself with smoke laden stones.

“Stop! Calm down dog! Can’t you see I am a person…? I am not your enemy you stupid dog…!” he yelled out loud.

“Why are you yelling so much? Who are you, eh, son? Where do you come from?” he heard the voice of an old woman ask. She came closer.

“I am German... I had difficulty finding you...” he replied.

“German? Oh, poor Iana, she did not wait for you son,” said the old woman while dropping the pile of dry tree branches that she was carrying on her back. “She waited for years...” the old woman said and embraced him.

The old woman braced herself on the first upright log she ran into then pointed and said:

“Your uncle is there, go in…”

A faint and muffled voice was heard coming from the corner, seeming like it was coming from a crack deep in the cellar.

German went closer to greet the old man but the old man did not see German’s extended hand and did not shake it. The old man was sitting down on a straw mattress. He was very thin… skin and bones…

“How are you, Uncle?” German asked.

When he heard German’s voice the old man was delighted and stood up slightly.

“Which one are you?” he asked.

“I am German…” German answered with a hoarse voice.

“Ah, you came back? Where is Dame? Dame? Dame? Son…?” asked the old man and got up to see how many there were in the room. The old woman ran in and tried to calm him down. He slowly sat down again.

“Well, you are not all here...” the old man said quietly with a disappointed tone of voice.

“Well, my nephew I have been waiting for all of you... Life goes on by its own rules…” he then added.

The old man took a long pause and then said: “Little by little the days are going by and your Aunt Tsveta and I have been anxiously waiting for you to come back. We have been waiting for destiny to bring us happy news. The old woman has always stood by me. She gives me water and other things. We have remained here as guardians. Now things are not as they used to be. No one says anything to us now… They are not afraid of us giving more births and populating this country with our kind… Listen Tsveta, go out there and shut that dog up. I am tired of listening to it barking. Tell her the man is one of us…”

German handed the old man the package he brought for his mother but it was too heavy for the old man and pulled his dry thin arms down to his lap. The old man held it there… looking at it… Tears began to drop on it.

“I want one thing from life…” said the old man, “I want our people to return… to come back to their families… to the place where they were born... I want the desolation to go away. I want the devastation, the rubble and the infirmity to be gone. These things, my son, are

murderers of man’s spirit. These things will suck the life out of anyone who runs into them. We who find ourselves in them, and live among them, are being slowly eaten away; they gnaw at us slowly, day by day. But if you ask me, nephew, it is good for a man to die in his own country, on the soil where he was born. We did not come to this country over the mountains and along the rivers. This has been our homeland for many generations. For centuries we were born here and we died here. If those who banished us think they can take our lands, I will be the last one to give it up, but before I do I want to testify that anyone who dares touch this land is a thief...” said the old man.

“Who will remain on this soil when you and I are gone?” interjected the old woman.

“This land does not belong to just anyone! It belongs to my son! It belongs to him even though he was chased away and banished from this country! Tsveta, go out there and dig up some soil. Put it in the white handkerchief you were saving for the mother-in-law. And you, German, you will look everywhere in the world until you find my son and you will give this to him as a gift!”

“The soil?!” asked German.

“Yes, the soil, son... You will give him this soil and you will tell him it’s his! Let this be his greatest proof before the people that this soil is his...”

German took the lump of soil and wanted to cry because he knew that Dame would never accept it.

The old woman just shook her head and began to cry. She was sad and afraid…

German bid farewell to everything... It seemed like the flowers were talking to him, with their heads bowing down, saying: “Well, goodbye. You will never again see your father’s home, your place of birth or the lake…” Heavy black clouds began to creep over the horizon.

The spring by the roadside was still gushing water. He remembered filling a water jug when he was a little boy and handing it to his grandfather. His grandfather raised it up with both hands and drank from it. While he was drinking droplets were rolling down his chin like beads, leaving no trace. He watched his grandfather quench his thirst with the water he fetched for him. His grandfather then wiped the sweat from his forehead and said: “Bless you, my son”.

German then turned towards the valley and said: “Rest in peace old fisherman...”

It was getting dark. He was alone in the train car. The train’s wheels were noisy. German was clutching the lump of soil the old man had given him, like he was hugging his homeland for the last time. The windows in his car were dark. He felt like he was traveling through a tunnel.

German was on his way back to Australia.

Finally the train came to a stop.

“Solun! - Thessaloniki!” yelled the conductor.

German did not hear him… he could not hear him. He lay on the floor of the empty car, firmly squeezing the lump of soil.

His children were left waiting for him in a foreign country...