February 1795.
In a rather shabby carriage, Hagi Ion — a minor polkovnik from Prahova — and his daughter, whose name history does not record, disembark in front of the Metropolitan Church. Both are wrapped in heavy furs and wear oversized headgear: the father a large, globular ișlic, the daughter a red cap veiled in fine scarves.
The father walks briskly, unsmiling. The daughter looks ready for anything — even to poison rats — an impression reinforced by her large, pale eyes.
What can be done with such characters? There is always a conflict — either a direct one, when two people meet a third who resists them, or a scattered conflict, revealed through small narratives about life before the decisive day. No one really cares where they came from or what they did before. Not now. What matters is what happens next.
And yet today I intend to prove two things: first, that no matter how hard I try to tell what happened at the Metropolitan Church, I will inevitably return to earlier events; and second, that nothing happening in the present truly interests anyone. Despite the much-praised force of the present moment, storytelling always rushes backward — toward the past, with its face like a dried plum.
So while the polkovnik and his daughter make their way toward the building, a man already waits in the corridor, visibly anxious.
Grigore — Gore, Gorache, poor fellow — just over twenty, his hair properly bound under a scarf, carrying a gold-tipped cane and wearing new boots. He lacks a proper overcoat — or, as it was called then, a malotea — and instead wears a coarse woolen cloak, elevated to respectability by a brand-new kid-leather collar.
It is Gore whom the polkovnik has come to crush.
The story is short. The unfortunate Gore no longer wishes to marry the polkovnik’s daughter. He admits that he made a promise. More than that: he admits they loved each other, violating every canon. He even admits the affair lasted nearly a year. The Metropolitan envisions passing days; the princely inspector imagines lifted skirts. For 365 days, the two rolled through the dependencies of the polkovnik’s houses, indulging freely.
But now Gore refuses her. He is furious — and has a serious reason. The daughter, adorned with her red cap, eyes swollen with tears over a wedding that will not happen, has carried on another relationship just as steadily, at the same time. The rival lover is a nobody from the neighborhood — a servant, more precisely a farmhand employed by the polkovnik’s brother-in-law.
The Metropolitan widens his eyes. The girl turns pale; the polkovnik is outraged by the accusation. He cannot imagine his daughter touched by a farmhand. Gore insists he has proof. The girl sobs uncontrollably.
The Metropolitan listens without comment, without questions. The case seems clear from the first words: this is a grave matter, requiring the trial by curse.
He therefore drafts a document transferring the case to Prahova, to the parish of the three aggrieved parties. Both the daughter and Gorache appear to be telling the truth. In such cases, testimony was sworn with one’s hand on the cross, and the final verdict would be delivered by God Himself. Something always followed: someone from the liar’s family would die, or a chicken would go lame. The form did not matter — only the sign.
Of course, there is also an element of surprise: the character capable of overturning everything, of throwing straw onto the fire — the farmhand.
I said I would take you back to the past, to the events of the previous year, but I have not done so entirely. For this farmhand proves to be a figure more closely tied to the future — at least at first glance. Yet in the reality that matters, whatever he might say, he too must speak of the past: of secret meetings, reprehensible acts, or else alibis, strangers’ eyes, supposed witnesses.
But who listens to a farmhand’s story, once a Metropolitan like Deli Zorzo has written in black ink that the case shall be resolved by the trial of the curse?
