Feb 20, 2012

STOLEN ROOSTER & BORS




We have been hungry for quite some time, Moldova has ran poor under the new communist system, but today we'll have a big feast. Father our hunter and gatherer came home with game. His feathers are red, black, yellow and orange, his stance beautiful and proud. I seem to know him from somewhere, but I brush the thought out of my mind and I keep digging in father’s briefcase looking for yummy things he always brings for me. 


While I’m searching father steps out n the yard and a while later while I’m crunching on an apple he returns carrying the decapitated bird. Some sadness engulfs me but I brush it away helping father cook. He is a master at bors (sour soups) and many other dishes. I help him clean the legumes while the featherless rooster is set in a big pot claws up to boil. 


Father is chopping the carrots in tinyl perfect shape cubes and I watch him in awe when suddenly the kitchen door swings open and a loud voice, visibly upset grandma Ecaterina steps in wailing and lamenting, “pintenatu meu, pestritu meu, mi-ai furat cocosu“(my spear, my rainbow, you stole my rooster!) and she looms over the pot shedding her salty tears in the boiling soup and over rooster‘s claws. 


I now realize why this bird felt familiar, he used to sing on grandma’s fence. He was her alarm clock, her yard warrior. Grandma cries and curses, yells and sobs, father begs for forgiveness and I slide outside to escape the drama.

2 comments:

  1. Very moving. I want to know more about the writer and her history.

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    1. Thanks for visiting Olya. I was born and raised to the age of 9 in Iasi, Romanian Moldova. This essay is part of my memoirs titled "Nobody's Child".

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