The Village With Purple Windows

She was out there in the sun. All that heat buzzing like a cloud of bugs. The air trembling with heat at the top of the hill. Insects flying around or crawling quietly on her bare legs. The tree-trunks heavy with ants. The road, thick with dried mud and powdered with fine yellowish dust. The sky blue and clear and bright and very high. Everything scented heavily in a summery way. Nobody around. Red poppies in the green of wheat mixed with blue cornflowers. A light breeze pushing grass blades to a side or another every now and then. The electric lines between the shabby wooden poles vibrating their own tune.

There was a taste of happiness in the sky of her mouth. She took deep breaths of that deliciously tasting silence. Or air. Or happiness.

There were days like that.

First it is early morning. Roosters are singing everywhere. Cock-a-doodle-doo! The birds would follow and she hears them like through a dream. But she is aware it’s not a dream somehow. She was asleep on that hard mattress stuffed with straw. Sometimes at night straws poked through the home-woven sheets at her legs. She had scratches on her body the next day and no memory of what happened or when.

Then the morning grows louder. A herd of cows is passing by the house. You can hear their hoofs trotting on the rock-hard dirt road. It sounds like they walk on asphalt. One moos. She could hear even the splatter of the dung they drop.

All that was the sound of the countryside. Nothing but the sound of the summer holiday.

A deep sleep took her away from it all. It is relaxing to know that she is there. Free and happy. She felt safe now.

No alarm clocks.

No cars.

No high heels on the pavement outside the window.

No school uniform.

No ringing bell heard from the corner of the street. No running before the big gate slammed shut and locked.

No panic.

No fear at the teacher’s inquisitive voice. No dread at the teacher’s raised voice. No fearful anticipation of punishment. No teary eyes for some minor or major injustice.

No aggressive boys that pulled at your plaits.

No sad walk back home.

No brick to pull in front of the door to reach for the lock.

No empty, dark room with a bed and a table and some chairs looking abandoned.

No more cold meals to warm up on an electric heater.

No more stains on the white collar. No more panic of what mom would say. No attempts to wash the stain.

No fear that time had passed and homework was not done yet.

No terrors that in 30 minutes Mom will be home and see the unfinished meal on the table.

No guilt for the unfinished homework any more. No arguments. No tears. No grounding.

It was summer. Summer-summer-summer. Suuuuumeeeer!!

She could hear now a fly droning, trapped between the purple book covering paper in the window and the glass. The paper was pinned on the window frame to keep the sunlight away. A fly or two made their way in there almost every morning. They made enough noise to wake her up.

Now the room was bathed in a purple haze.

The book covering paper was very dark in color at the beginning. Grandma put it in the windows every year to make the bedroom dark, just for her.

Every week the paper became lighter in color letting more and more light through.

The whole village had purple windows. The paper was rough and furry. It had tiny bits of wood in it. They were flat splinters that were shinier than the rest of the furry surface.

At school, it was compulsory for everyone to cover all the books in that paper. Exercise books and manuals alike. Then a label that looked like a huge lacy stamp had to be stuck on the cover. The name of the student, the subject and the form number had to be neatly written on each book.

Every year when the school started, her mother had to buy a big roll of paper and cover her books.

Students who had their books still uncovered in purple-blue paper two weeks after school begun, were sent back home. They were sent with a note for their parents as early as nine o'clock in the morning. They were suspended from school for that day.

Her mother hated covering her books every year. She mumbled and cursed while doing it. She expressed her hopeless desire that the girl would grow up faster and be able to cover her books all by herself.

It was a hard job covering the books. The paper was cheap and brittle. It cracked and ripped in places. Than another sheet had to be used. It was also too thick and hard to crease nicely. It would absorb the glue Mom put at the corners to hold the folds. Once the glue was sucked in, a big wet stain appeared. Then the stain would dry up and harden. Once dry, the glue crumbled and came off.

The dye used to color that paper was also cheap. After covering two-three schoolbooks for the girl, Mother’s fingers were purple.

If the children had to carry books in their hands, the hands and fingers became purple too. There were always few books to carry. No matter how big the school backpack was. There were a lot of books for every subject studied starting with grade 1. At least two for each plus a manual.

There were about 5 subjects to be studied every day.

Sometimes when it rained a bit and she would carry some books under her arm, the uniform would get stained.

The uniform was a checked black and white dress with a black apron in front. For the political meetings and gatherings, the little girls had to wear white aprons instead of black. They were the festive ones, for those special days only.

The white bits of the uniform would turn purple in the rain from the book covering paper. The paper itself would dissolve in the rain and fall down in pieces, staining the books too.

Mother had to wash the uniform for the next day of school and iron it. She was always angry late at night when she came home and saw the dirty uniform. She was tired, but now she had to wash and dry and iron quickly that uniform for the girl.

On the left sleeve was sown a piece of cloth with the name of the school and the matriculation number. Every student in the country had a number. Every school printed those numbers for their students on differently coloured fabric. At a glance, the passes by knew from which school the kid in the street was just by the colour of the fabric the number was printed on. All they had to do was to write down the number on that piece of cloth and report any naughty kid to the Head Master.

The fabric on which the school numbers and names were printed were colour–fast. Even more than the dye used for the book covering paper. Every time the uniform was washed, the number had to be taken off, and after the uniform was pressed it had to be sown back on. If the uniform were washed with the number on, it would stain. The numbers were usually printed on a marron or burgundy or navy blue background. The lettering was yellow or white. The lettering paint was thick and glossy. It cracked and peeled of if washed.

Very few children had two uniforms.

We cannot afford a spare one, the Mother said. They are expensive and you grow fast. It’s a waste of money to buy two every year. Besides, we do not have the money.

The purple-blue book covering paper was very popular with farmers and villagers. It was easy to find, cheap, and it lasted all summer long in the windows. It kept the sun away.

Every sunny day took away some color of the paper. Slowly, from dark purple-blue it became just purple. Without any blue in it at all. After a while, it became a fainted violet. Then the co lour turned into a light lilac. Then it went to a dark pink and finally, if it was left in the window for a year it became pale beige.

She could now hear Grandma’s voice. She was talking to her Aunt and Uncle on the veranda.

That was the best thing in the morning.

Their voices on the veranda meant summer. The voices meant holiday. They meant tenderness and love. They meant freedom.

No uniforms – just shorts.

It felt good to have to wake up to those voices there.

The Uncle and the Aunt were Mother’s younger brother and sister. They came to the village from different cities to bask in the summer feeling the same as the girl.

For them, some part of the summer also meant no more work and no more fears.

No more crowded buses in the morning. No more lack of buses in the afternoon. No more waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning every day. No more long hours at work. No more shopping and standing in line for the daily needs. No more stores and post offices and government departments and markets. No more crowds in the streets, no more compulsory public meetings to attend. No more work brought home for the weekend. No more worries.

The girl loved the Uncle and the Aunt very much. The sound of their voices was reassuring. She loved her Grandmother as well. She loved her Mother a lot too, but she was afraid of her almost as much.

What she loved the most though was the summer.

Summer came with absolute freedom.

In Grandma’s village she could walk around by herself for hours. She was allowed everywhere. The whole village and its surroundings were safe territory. They belonged to her. She could play as much as she liked. She could dress anyway she liked. She could eat fruit all day long. She could boss around all the peasant children. They all looked up to her, no matter what. Even the older ones. She was from the city.

The girl loved the purple windows of the village. Behind every one of them there was a cool, dark room with herbs drying on the top of the wardrobes. With shelves where unripened quinces and apples were placed on folded newspapers to ripen up. They perfumed the rooms with their scent. The rooms also smelled like fresh hay and straw, a scent coming from the peasant mattresses.

All that blended with the perfumed oil incense flickering under the icons. Around the icons, a bunch of dry basil dipped in holly water in church was placed.

Some houses had no floorboards. The floor was made of clay. The clay was fine, so well compressed and so even, it became shiny as polished concrete after people walked on it for a while. The clay floor was cool and smooth. It was nice to walk on it barefoot in the hot summer days.

In some houses they put mats made of reeds in the winter. The mats were warm and soft and protected the clay floor from becoming wet and muddy in winter when people brought in some snow on their boots.

Other houses had wooden planks on the floor. The wooden floors were covered with home made rugs. The rugs were long, narrow and colorful. The women of the house wove them during the long, snowy winter evenings. Old shirts and old skirts were ripped into long, narrow ribbons. The ribbons then were woven into rugs. All the rugs were striped. You could see in them what the entire family wore for two generations. Their old clothes made the walk on the floorboards quiet, so that the kids and grand kids could sleep in the morning.

Then there were the attics with their own smell of wool and smoked sausage and ham. Big areas of the attic were covered by white sheets. On the white sheets there was grain, put out to dry well before being taken to the mill and turned into flour. It was hot in the attics, but no matter how hot the summer, the wheat grains were cool. She loved rolling on them. But that was a secret. Nobody had to know. Children were not allowed to play with food –not even in the form of grain. The villagers believed that food was a gift from God. Children were not supposed to play with food. It was disrespectful to God.

When the days were cold the stoves in the houses were stuffed with wood. The smoke climbed up to the sky through the chimneys. The chimneys came through the ceiling of the rooms into the attic and then they pierced the roofs and showed themselves above through the tin roof or the straw roof or the tiled roof. Inside the attic they looked like a square column made of bricks. Somewhere in the middle they had a small tin door. The chimney sweeper cleaned the chimney through it. The inside of the chimney was large and coated with thick soot. It smelled like fire and charcoal and ashes inside the chimney. There were hooks and bars inside the chimney too. That was the place where the bacon and sausages were smoked. In the cold season they were smoked every day by the fire warming the house in the stoves down bellow. Then in the spring they were hanging on the rafters in the attic to dry even more in the fresh air draft. When summer came, they were put back in the chimneys through the same tin door. There, it was cool and dark and dry no matter how hot the summer was.

The attics are the second storeys of any house. Nobody has any sheds. Everybody has a cellar, an attic and a barn. Vegetables and wine are stored in the cellar. Hay and the cows and sheep or horses are in the barn.

All the interesting old things are stored in the attics: furniture, toys from the grown up children, old clothes, old photos, Christmas decorations and costumes and masks, old school books, bits and ends, crockery, old tools, jars for preserves like gem and pickles.

It is a child’s paradise, playground, hiding place and secret world.

Then there were the walnut trees with their bitter scented leaves. Grandma’s walnut trees are big and old. It is nice to climb them. Their branches are as comfortable as armchairs.

Grandma bakes the bread in an adobe style oven built in the garden. Right at the back by the pond. It is smothered with fine clay and painted with white lime on the outside.

She makes a big fire in the oven and then she racks aside the burning wood, uncovering the hot brick floor. On the flat wooden shovel with a very long handle, she puts first the walnut leaves in a thick pile and then a big, slightly flattened ball of dough.

Carefully she slides the dough and its bed of leaves onto the very hot bricks. She repeats it one after another until she fills the oven with balls of dough.

When the bread is backed a while later, the walnut leaves, burned, blackened and brittle, will peel off easily, leaving their shapes stamped onto the bottom crust. The crust is scented and has the best taste in the world.

Summer comes also with the summer rain. The rains in the countryside are scary and wonderful. They come with big winds, dark skies, thunders, lightning and big drops - enormous drops of water. Watching a summer rain from Grandma’s veranda is like watching a movie. The gutters turn into waterfalls. The ditch in the street turns into a small river. The bubbles on the “river” surface are as big as ping-pong balls. The new river looks like the boiling water in a pot. Suddenly, geese and ducks are swimming and dipping on it without hiding their joy. Tomorrow that river will change into few pools of very shallow, muddy water. It will last only a day or two, but there will be tadpoles in them nevertheless. The heavy drops of rain fill up the grass under the mulberry tree with indigo colored fruit otherwise beyond the reach of short little girls.

The village with purple windows smells like wet dust, wet hay and charcoal, burned strawberries and freshly backed bread.

Next day after the rain the family goes to the forest to pick up mushrooms.

The forest is, like any other forest, enchanted.

It looks and feels like a castle with the roof made of leaves and the floor carpeted with moss. You cannot see the sky. Up there is just bright green everywhere. A multitude of colonnades supports the green roof – the tree trunks. They are huge and have very tall, extremely straight dark trunks.

The forest has an echo, like any other enchanted castle. You can whisper in it and even the whisper has en echo.

The mushrooms to be picked are called porcini mushrooms and the other ones are called “little ears”. The porcini have thick stalks, huge caps and underneath the caps the flesh is yellowish-green or yellowish-brown and spongy. When the girl presses there, her finger leaves a reddish fingerprint. It looks like the mushroom is bleeding. The girl regrets making the mushroom bleed. The spongy part has millions of little holes in it.

Leaves are attached sometimes to the tops of the mushrooms so well, the girl cannot see whole bunches of them hiding at the base of a tree. She passes them by. But the Aunt or Uncle calls her back. She hops happily, skipping and singing and picks them up.

Wild strawberries grow in the forest. They shine like drops of blood from under the leaves. Their aroma is wonderful. Their taste is better than any candy.

Every now and then an owl flies away, scared by the echo. A fox barks like a puppy somewhere in a distance. A badger or a porcupine disappears behind a shrub in a hurry. If nobody talks for a while, a deer might stop and look around for a full minute wit her very beautiful eyes.

Peasants from the neighboring villages pick up mushrooms too after the rain. They greet everyone politely.

Those peasants only live just 2 kilometers away but they look a bit different. They wear differently fashioned clothes. Men wear tall straw hats with very wide brims and a black ribbon around the base. Their white shirts have large sleeves with tiny cuffs held together at the wrist and around the neck by milk-white tiny glass buttons. Women’s dresses are all dark, printed with tinny-tiny white floral patterns. Their aprons are made from the same material like their skirts. The aprons’ patterns and the skirts’ blend together. Their head kerchiefs are brightly coloured with big floral patterns – mainly roses. Red roses on green. Red roses on yellow. Red roses on blue.

The old women wear only black head kerchiefs. The married women wear their head kerchiefs tied under their chin. The young unmarried ones wear their head kerchiefs tied under their heavy plaits at the back of their neck, so their beautiful white necks are exposed to the world to see. They also wear brightly coloured beads around their necks.

Both men and women wear sleeveless black vests made of thin felt on top of their clothes even in summer.

They pick up different mushrooms. In Grandma’s village nobody eats those. The neighbouring villages’ peasants tell everyone from Grandma’s village not to eat the porcini because they are poisonous. The people from Grandma’s village tell them the red hats and the orange “little ears” they pick are poisonous. The exchange is very polite, but every group is quite certain that the others are wrong.

The evenings in the countryside are even better than the days. Old women come to Grandma’s house to visit. Some of them haven’t seen her since last summer. Grandma does live in the village only from the onset of spring till early autumn. She spends the winter in a distant city with her youngest daughter. The old women bring with them some of their own grandchildren. That is nice of them, the girl thinks. Now she can play some city games with other city children. The village children join in, learning the games. It’s nice to play in a large group.

After a review of the local gossip the old women start telling stories. The village children go home to sleep. They have heard those stories many times before. During the long winter evenings when half the village women gather in a house or another to spin the wool together, everybody tells stories and fairy tales. The village children also have to take the cows to the herd the morning at the crack of down.

The city children gather around the old women, leaning against the laps of their own grandmothers. The very young ones fall asleep pretty soon. The older ones listen intently to the stories with their mouths open in wonder. An ancient oil lamp with smoked glass casts scary dancing shadows on the faces.

There’s no electricity quite everywhere in the house.

It’s only the Sixties in the Village with Purple Windows…