Grandma

By Barbu Stefantescu Delavrancea

I see, just like in the dream.

I see clear, just like she was. High, lean, with white and curly hair, with brown eyes, with tight
mouth and with notched upper lip in her comb thet, from the Nous down.
When she was open the gate, I jump ahead of her.
She gently puts her hand in his breast and say to me:
“Guess”
“Peanuts”
“ No”
“Raisins”
“No”
“Bull”
“No”
“GingerBread”
“No”
Until I don’t guess, she did not remove her hand from her breast and all the time, her breast was
full.
I kiss her hand.
She puts my hair up and kisses my forehead.
We going in the dud’s shadows, from the bottom of the garden.
She put the fork in the arm and she start to pull and twist a long and thin thread. I was lying on
my back and let my head in her lap.
The spindle was hissing in my ears. I look at the sky, among the mulberry leaves. From above it
seemed to me that a blue rain was falling.
“So, what do you want anymore?” grandmother tell to me.
Her smile trickled the top of my head.
“To says.”
And never says the tale.
Her sweet voice rock me, my genes was shining and I go a sleep, sometimes I was thrill and ask
her something, and she start to say and I dream further.
“Once upon a time, a high, high king… “
“How high? “
“Very high. And him love his wife just like his eyes. But him don’t has childrens. And he was
sorry that he had no children. And he was sorry that he had no children…”
“Grandma, was a bad thing to don’t have cildrens?”
“Of course it’s bad. The man house without children is a wilderness house. “
“Grandma, but I don’t have children and I am not sorry for this. “
She left the spindle, smile, untangles my curly hair in two and kiss me in my forehead.
Every leaf came off from the branches and fell swaying. I was keeping an eye on her and says:
“Say, grandma. Say.“
“And this, and he was very sorry that he had no children. And… he could no longer feel sorry for
not having children… One day, at him, come at him an old, old, old man, like he was pulling his
beard down from the old man and the hunchback he was. And small, very small. “
“How small was he? “
“Maybe small, that, like you. “
“That mean, he was not small, not very small…”
“Was small, but not small at all. And how come, he told him: “Your mightiness, you have two
apples in your garden, one next to the other, and you don't know which are the branches of one
and which of the other. And when they bloom you don’t know with are the flowers of one and
witch are of the other, and this two apples, budded, blooming, shooking and don’t makes apples.
Your mightiness, to know that when that two apples start make apples, the empress have to
become heavy and have to give birth to a golden cocon.” … The dwarf was go, and the emperor
start run to the garden, and start search, search every were, until him fint two apples. The apples
was shaken by the blooms, as if it had snowed under them, but they had not set fruit. “
“Wy didn’t they bind fruits, grandma? “
“Know I?... God’s Know… “
Was so hot… so good in my grandma’s lap… a slow breeze cooled my forehead… the white
cloud’s gliding across the blue sky, I was dizzy… I close my eyes.
She says, says before, quickly and easily milking the long thread from the linen beat.
“And the emperor think at what is next to do, how should apples make apples. Some of the
people advised him. Some of them tell him to shower them always, others told him to give to
them more sun, and the emperor start to cut all the three from around. And him Apples start
blooming all the week, and they were shaking, and they did not bear fruit. One day, at the
emperor, come an old, old and wrinkly grandmother, wrinkly like me, and small, small, small
like you… “
“Small like the grandfather? “
“Yes, like the grandfather…”
“That mean she was not small at all…”
“Not small at all. And the emperor says: Your mightiness, until I don’t have a jug of milk from
the flowers fairy, how sleep beyond the valley of lamentation, in a field of chamomile, and if I
will not wet with her milk, the apples will not beat fruit. But have careful, your mightiness, as
soon as the flowers feel you, start moves, to fight, and many lean towards her cheeks, and she
realizes that she sleeps more easily than a bird. And woe to him who saw them, that he pretends
to be it, as the tone grabs it, in the slimy weed or in the smelly flower, but from there it does not
move.
“Why did you start a sleep, my darling? “
I thrill.
“Ah, no… I don’t know where I stayed… at-t-t.. the Flowers Fairy…”
I had heard in a dream.
My eyelids fell dark from laziness, from sleep, from contentment. And I feel me light as a flake
floating on slow flowing water, slowly, slowly, slowly…
And my grandma say, say before, And the spindle buzzing in my ears, like a bumblebee, like
those songs from the weeds in which I had fallen asleep so many times.
“And the emperor mounted his best horse…”
“The best… I cheat, for fear of not falling asleep.
“He took a bag of snacks and left…”
“And left… “
“And him go, and go, and go…”
“And go… and go…”
“Until him see a big and darkness forest…”
“… Darkness…”
“... if you can't see through it. and there he tied his horse to an old oak tree, laid down his
saddlebags and closed his eyes to rest. and... the forest was singing and talking, because it was
enchanted. and... as he brought whispers to him from afar, from where she was like smoke, the
emperor fell asleep, and sleep, and sleep…
When I wake up, my grandma finished the beat.
But the tale?
With my head in my grandmother's lap, I could never listen to an entire fairy tale.
She had an enchanted lap, and a voice, and a spindle that stole my senses and I asleep happy
upside her looks and smile.