A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 21

A Bed for the Wretched – Chapter 21

Before dawn Numo entered the cabin where Pando was sleeping. He quietly passed by the people sleeping there and gently touched Pando on the shoulder with his crutch. He said: “Pando, hey Pando… wake up…” Pando uncovered his head, looked at Numo, barely recognizing him in the dark, got up and they went outside. “What’s up?” Pando asked. “It’s time…” replied Numo. “About half an hour ago they came to my cabin, woke me up and asked me to report to the designated place where a truck is waiting to take me away.” There was a visible sign of bitterness, helplessness, pain, anxiety, suffering and torture in Pando’s tear-filled eyes. “So, you’re really going, eh…” Pando blurted, stretching out his words, followed by a long silence. “What can I say…” Pando again blurted out. “Nothing that I can say matters… The burden you accepted you must carry alone. The abuse too, Numo. They grow like moss in all of us… We have said so many farewells, Numo, that we have worn out our mouths. We constantly say goodbye and we constantly send people away... Well, goodbye Numo... Have a safe trip and be careful out there.” “Oh, stop with the ‘goodbye’, the ‘thank you’ and the ‘be careful’…” replied Numo. They hugged and Pando’s shoulders began to tremble. Someone passing by whispered: “Let’s go, they are waiting for us. We must go now before the people wake up.” Hunched slightly forward, leaning hard on his crutch and limping, Numo walked away. At that very moment, as Pando watched Numo walk away, he got a deep feeling of uneasiness. He watched his own fate, Numo’s fate and the fate of all the Macedonian people unfold before his eyes. He saw them all cut down by a sickle and smashed by a hammer. It gave him a bitter feeling deep inside and burdened him with heavy sorrow. Numo took a few steps and stopped. He then turned. And for the first time, since he had come here to Prenies, he smiled. It was a sight Pando had not seen for a long, long time. And for the first time he noticed the wrinkles on Numo’s cheeks and forehead and how much he had aged in such a short time. Behind the smile Pando could sense a serenity in Numo he had never seen before, which sparkled like an explosion and disappeared like the flask of a firefly suddenly lost in the roadside bushes. Then, as Numo turned away, something new began to grip, squeeze and stab Pando’s chest, something hard and cold. Numo leaned on his crutch and, barely visibly, waved goodbye with his left hand as he walked away. Pando responded by gently nodding his head. Pando then went to the side of the road and waited and watched the trucks disappear behind the second curve. The noise was soon gone too as Pando kept staring into the distance, watching the dust settle on the trees and on the cobblestone road. Over the hill behind which the trucks had disappeared, the grey colour of the sky began to turn white and come alive with colour. A moment later Prenies assumed its familiar reddish tinge. As Pando was witnessing the birth of a new day he noticed something hanging between two strands of tall grass. It was a cobweb moist with fresh morning dew, shimmering like a string of pearls in the first rays of the morning sun. People began to quietly come out of their cabins. Soldiers, wearing old Czech khaki uniforms, began to form lines down at the meadow… And so the makings of another working day began to develop in Prenies, full of the usual burdens, bitterness and hardships... Pando stood at the side of the road with a lump in his throat. He pulled a pouch from his chest pocket, ripped and folded some paper, added some tobacco, roots and herbs to it and curled it into a cigarette. He lit it and took a couple of puffs. He then, at a slow pace, took a stroll uphill. He sat down under a rock near the cemetery, leaned on the rock wall and began to cry…