A traveller in her own country

by Alexandra Tuta (Denmark)

A leap into the unknown Romania

There she was, slightly pale because of the long trip and slightly out of place with her head scarf and humble peasant wear, looking at and beyond the sea shore. Far away from the hilly terrain framing her village life, could this new sight be disorienting? Was the incessant back and forth of the seagulls a nuisance -a cacophony of shrieks-, or an unexpected delight? My grandmother was 75 and a first-time traveller in her own country. Of course she knew the Black Sea belonged to her, too. She had watched it on TV during the summer-long broadcasts meant to lure us to the country’s prime entertainment destination. She must have overheard mine and my cousins´ fabulations about undersea dragons and epic wave entanglements when, as schoolchildren, we were left in her care during the summer holidays. My parents would drop us at her house on the drive back from the seaside when our bodies still abounded with floating sensations. As her urban grandchildren-in-residence we had tried in our imperfect and silly ways to help: bringing the two cows back home from herd grazing; fetching water from the village well; feeding the dog, cats, hens and geese; loading hay onto the horse-drawn carriage. Punctuated by the rooster’s morning wail and the twelve o’clock church bells, the chores had felt half-imposition half-game. My recollection of those summer days have collapsed in two contrasting lenses: the boundary-erasing and rule-free coastal flatland vs. the horizon-limiting and rule-bound village motions. I recently invited my grandma on a trip to the Black Sea intuiting that the death of a close companion took a heavier toll than she was willing to admit. For the offer to be considered, I contrived an intricate system of neighbourly coordination to ensure that the plants, vegetables, birds, would be all tended to with care and diligence. Even after all such practical concerns were alleviated, her reluctance was discouraging “but what is the point really? It´s just water under the same sky…”. Hard to beat that. “Yes, grandma, but it´s salty water that smells like wilderness, good to sink your skin in but disgusting on your tongue; it´s the waves collapsing at your feet; it´s the light, those blueish and pinkish hues; it´s the sun appearing out of nowhere, no hill to obstruct your vision, no chores you have to succumb to when it´s at its zenith…” We were now sitting on two fishing chairs on the pier facing the beachfront under the gentle May sun. We drove from the northern highlands to the southern plains in silence. I was anxiously awaiting a reaction, even a reproach about the attempt to dislocate her from the familiar surroundings. When she finally removed her headscarf and let the bun-pulled hair flow down her shoulders, I smiled at the human reflex to reveal the hidden when summoned by the seaside breeze. Her voice eventually broke down, at first hesitantly and gradually more rhythmically, into an unfamiliar humming –a hymn or a lullaby? Here she was, I said to myself, conversing with an element that eluded her grasp for too long. As her melody picked up force, the intensity pulled me towards a past where her voice (and my mother´s voice) spun the heavy threads laying the ground for my own incursions into that which appeared foreign and enticing at once.