Description

The tent had gathered at the edge of the forest,where the soil was poor and the cold wind of late autumn blew.Old carts,covered with hemp tarpaulins,formed a wide circle,and in the middle a fire burned that crackled lazily.Barefoot children ran between the tents,while the women,in their long,colorful skirts, prepared polenta in black pots of smoke.The men sat together,on wooden logs,playing cards or mending cart wheels.Here lived Zarinca,a seventeen-year-old girl,with eyes as black as pitch and long hair braided in two thick tails.She had the gift of song from her mother,Saveta.Whenever Zarinca's voice rose over the plain,people would stop their work and listen.Her melodies had something wild,something that stirred your blood and made your soul tremble.Zarinca's mother had also been famous in her youth.Saveta knew how to read,she could write her name and a few words in Romanian,a rare thing in a country where few could even say their age.She had also sung in the villages of the plain,at weddings and dances,but she had never had the courage to go far."The world is bad with us,Zarinco,"she would tell her.Often,looking at her daughter with heavy eyes."Here we are among our own,as poor as we are."But Zarinca wanted more.She felt her calling in her blood.She dreamed of big cities,of squares full of people,of lights that do not go out with the sun.She dreamed of singing on real stages,of wearing velvet dresses and of no longer sleeping under moth-eaten blankets.