aici<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
You might think that Mari\u015fca is an irresistible woman. That she\u2019s damn pretty, that she\u2019s got naturally curly hair, either blonde or dark, depends which you like, that she\u2019s joyful, that she\u2019s got something attractive about her. That she\u2019s smart too. That she found an incomparable husband, a handsome man, strong, whom she loves with all her heart, whom she has a child with, who\u2019s also pretty, whom they both shower with love. That Mari\u015fca is happy with her wonderful family. All this being said, we conclude that our Mari\u015fca is the ideal woman, having found her happily ever after. So the bridge was mended and my story’s ended.[1] God, help!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, she\u2019s not a pretty woman, Mari\u015fca. She isn\u2019t young any more, either. \u201cYour time\u2019s long gone, you damned woman, stop lusting after these kids, haven\u2019t you done enough? Damn you to hell and back!\u201d, that\u2019s what people say to Mari\u015fca. The woman ignores them, she looks at us, the boys, and laughs. Teeth full of cavities can be seen inside Mari\u015fca\u2019s mouth, there\u2019s the huge gap between her front teeth, there\u2019s the brown fang, like a rotten tree, there\u2019s the strangely placed tooth too, like it\u2019s coming from the roof of her mouth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not a pretty woman, Mari\u015fca, but she\u2019s so agile, she springs out like an eel and tries to pinch us, to touch us, \u201cDamn, so handsome!\u201d, that\u2019s what Mari\u015fca tells us. We, the boys, are scared of Mari\u015fca, of her bony, translucent hands, of her sneer, of her thin, bluish lips, of her dishevelled hair, of the dirty apron she wears every day, but we\u2019re so naughty and spiteful, running around her, annoying her. As agile as she is, Mari\u015fca never manages to catch us, we scatter like partridges, left and right, since we\u2019re young and quick, us boys.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not a pretty woman, Mari\u015fca. Mari\u015fca stands at her gate, in front of her house, eating seeds and spitting husks on the ground and watching people. What\u2019s going through her mind, she\u2019s the only one who knows, because Mari\u015fca doesn\u2019t speak much. She only watches, laughs, spits husks and waits for us, the boys.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not a pretty woman, Mari\u015fca, because people don\u2019t speak well of her. They curse her, call her all kinds of names, crone, hag, shrew, that\u2019s what they call her, and the most furious ones spit at her and shove her. They all know her story, apparently the ugly damned woman\u2019s only ever had eyes for the young ones. They all know how some years ago she lured one of the stupider guys, Ioji, inside her house. A few years older than us, Ioji the idiot barely had a trace of moustache on his face. For a whole week, Ioji refused to confess anything, but then his father beat him up and didn\u2019t feed him any more till he fainted, that\u2019s how the story goes. He kept slapping him with his belt, and Ioji had no choice in the end. He confessed everything, otherwise he was going to die. He said how he was walking down the street carelessly, wanting to go home, it was almost dark. How Mari\u015fca was leaning against her gate, eating seeds, how she stopped him and bluntly asked if he had ever seen \u201cany of that\u201d, he didn\u2019t quite get what she meant with \u201cthat\u201d, he got scared though, the woman was looking at him so strangely, he wanted to run off, it was too late, Mari\u015fca caught his hand and put it on, on . . . Ioji stopped here, he didn\u2019t want to go on talking, he started crying, the old man beat him to a bloody pulp again, \u201cFlesh of my flesh, so I can<\/em> kill you\u201d, he\u2019d say. Actually, the story went on like this. What else could he have done? Poor Ioji resumed his story, on her tits, on her tits, since he couldn\u2019t say it in a nicer way. She pulled him inside her house, because apparently he struggled, he tried to free himself, but who would believe him? \u201cYou gave in for a pair of tits, damn bastard, you thought you\u2019d never ever get your hands on another pair. You\u2019ve shamed me, idiot! And they weren\u2019t even worth it!\u201d His dad didn\u2019t believe him, but neither did he slap him with his belt any more. He listened patiently, his head dropping into his palms, taking in shame after shame, his son threw shame at him with each and every word, as Ioji felt braver now that he saw his old man had calmed down, and the idiot told him in detail everything he had gone through. The man listened to it all, what could he have done, kill his own son? His mind was elsewhere, he was already planning how to hide from the gossipers. But when he heard how Mari\u015fca pulled the boy\u2019s pants off, he couldn\u2019t handle the humiliation any more. He bellowed like a bison, and the belt fell from his hands and he started crying. Like a child. He stumbled out of the house, went down to the basement and started drinking, he drank till he blacked out, they carried him out of the basement more dead than alive. His hair had gone unusually gray, he couldn\u2019t even remember his own name, he only kept his hands tightly fisted and said: \u201cShe pulled his pants off, she pulled his pants off.\u201d The man didn\u2019t live long afterwards, not with this craziness, they buried him after less than a month, without them even knowing what had happened to him. They kept trying to make Ioji talk, first nicely, then with \u201cStop making your dad roll in his grave\u201d, even a priest tried to scold him, but all in vain, the boy would shrug, he had already seen how his words had brought death once already. He left one night, shortly after his old man\u2019s death, for another town or another country, nobody knew where, they suspected somewhere far away, because they couldn\u2019t find him any more. That\u2019s how the story goes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t a pretty woman, Mari\u015fca, because people didn\u2019t speak well of her. This story, Mari\u015fca\u2019s, which I\u2019ve grown up with ever since I was still peeing my pants, and which I\u2019m now telling to you all, after almost thirty years, was written by this guy who claimed he was a great writer, kept travelling in search of thrilling stories. He was round our street for a few days too\u2014who knew how he\u2019d ended up here with us?\u2014he spoke with a few people, he noticed some stuff, and that\u2019s what he thought was best, to write bad things about Mari\u015fca. Considering everything, Mari\u015fca really was ugly and kind of crazy too, how could you write differently about her?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The fact is that they all believed his story when, later, one guy brought us his book and showed us what was written in it. We believed it, what else could we have done, since he claimed he was a great writer, and three-quarters of us were idiots, if the other man was a writer and had published a book, then he was the best, why not believe him?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They went after Mari\u015fca at once to lynch her, but why am I saying they<\/em>? We<\/em> went, because I was there too, amongst them, a ten year old. My dad dragged me, \u201cCome on, boy, let\u2019s kill the witch\u201d, he told me, and in his eyes there was a glint of hatred, and I think I had that glint in mine, too, because I was the dead spit of my dad. All united to raise hell, we broke her windows with stones, boo, we kicked down her door, boo, boo, we made a huge ruckus, she swore it wasn\u2019t true, the wretch, and indifferent as she was towards others, she was scared to death, this wasn\u2019t a joke, because we were all nuts and with that glint in our eyes, we threw her to the ground as if she were a rag and started kicking her and spitting at her and cursing her and I was so proud of myself when I kicked her in the ass and I heard her groan and my dad saying, \u201cJust like that, boy, good job.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Fortunately for the woman, somebody smarter interfered and started shouting at us: \u201cCut your cackle, you maniacs, why are you acting like animals, it\u2019s not like that, Ioji didn\u2019t leave like the story says, haven\u2019t you seen him every day since then? What the hell! If that guy, the writer, says something, or the pope, or the mayor, you believe everything immediately, bloody hell! You fools and blockheads, I don\u2019t even know what to call you any more, damn it!\u201d That\u2019s what this guy, the wise one, told us, and we looked back and forth between him and Mari\u015fca, we mumbled for a while and then we all left, disappointed that we hadn\u2019t done the bitch in, since the smart one was right, Ioji hadn\u2019t left anywhere after his old man\u2019s death and we, the brawlers, hadn\u2019t taken that into consideration.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Although we didn\u2019t do Mari\u015fca in, the legend survived, and seeing as I managed to remember it, I told it to you all as well. But why am I even telling you this, no idea, since you\u2019ve obviously realised it, better tell you how things are at present.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ioji\u2019s 44 years old. He\u2019s as tough as a nail, he found a pretty stupid woman, just like him, married her, they had two kids, a boy and a girl. Both also stupid. I once asked him: \u201cIoji, in the end, did it happen or didn\u2019t it?\u201d He shrugged, mumbled something that sounded like a curse and turned away. Oh, and he still hasn\u2019t left these lands.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The wise man\u2019s 56 years old. He became a famous psychotherapist. He left for the States, where he\u2019s still living now. That\u2019s all I know about him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The writer\u2019s also 56 years old. He still writes, I bought his books like the loyal reader I am, eleven books. Honestly, they\u2019re not worth the money. He writes all kinds of idiocies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mari\u015fca should\u2019ve been 72 years old. She died at 70 in a home for the elderly, in the States. I think she hated it there, they all acted nice to her, no one swore at her, she had no one to look at, she only had happy old men around her, and Mari\u015fca definitely didn\u2019t understand a word they said in their American language. What could she possibly have liked there? Apparently she asked for some seeds to break their husks between her teeth. And because they didn\u2019t get what she wanted, they didn\u2019t give her anything. That topped it all, because Mari\u015fca went to bed and died.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As for me, what can I say, I\u2019m fine, in good health, you can take my word for it, who believes me, good, who doesn\u2019t, I\u2019m fine with that too.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
[1] Taken from http:\/\/www.folktale.net\/endings.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Bogdan Munteanu Translation from Romanian by Dorothy McCarthy and Raisa Lambru, MTTLC student pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click\u00a0aici You might think that Mari\u015fca is an irresistible woman. That she\u2019s damn pretty, that she\u2019s got naturally curly hair, either blonde or dark, depends which you like, that she\u2019s joyful, that she\u2019s got something attractive about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[925,22],"tags":[910,669,1160,403,897,1116,312],"class_list":["post-8742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-35","category-short-story","tag-bogdan-munteanu","tag-dorothy-mccarthy","tag-egophobia-35","tag-mttlc","tag-raisa-lambru","tag-short-story","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2h0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8742"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9041,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8742\/revisions\/9041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}