let our children know; (English)

 

I have finally translated this one as well. It’s one of my favorite stories I have written, and it’s beyond me how I was able to create an objectively good story, seeing how I can’t even scrape together a bad one right now. 

But either way, I just finished translating it, and there’s more to come. (Hopefully not just translation, however much I love doing that.) 

So here, I present to you, “let our children know;” – enjoy! :)

[ credit ]

original: { magyarul }

music: { here } and { this }

I watched the horizon with admiring eyes. I saw only a couple of feet into the distance, gray mist covering everything after that. The branches of the forest trees were being shoved from side to side by the angry wind, the heavy curtain of rain falling down with a loud patter. Before the frequent, deep roars of thunder, eloquent lightning bolts split the dark sky like veins.

I was sitting with my back straight, as always, on a small, three-legged stool made of dark wood and coated nearly a century ago in white paint that was severely aged by now. It had been my mother’s. Often, she would sit here, knitting or peeling potatoes, with a ladylike straight back until the very end.

I remember my mother staying out here on the balcony, sitting on this stool until very late at night, and just staring into the dark, majestic forest in front of our small cabin. I’d always been afraid to look outside when I was a little girl; the trees had seemed to come alive in the dark, swaying about as terrifying giants in front of my window and surely hiding bloodthirsty beasts in the shadows between their trunks. Meanwhile, my mother would stand out there each night.

She’d loved stormy nights especially, just like tonight. She’d lean out over the fence, and the wind would catch at her long red hair, making it float in the air graciously. I swear, there is nothing more majestic than my mother was those nights. Even in this stilted position, she’d keep her ever-eloquent posture: her soft arms crossed gently on the fence, thin legs raised to stand on her toes; long neck straining forward effortlessly, she lifted her head with grace, pointy chin held up. Her red locks would caress the velvety skin of her face, and her ocean-blue eyes would see far above the treetops, watching the sky be overrun by black, gray and dark blue clouds that would give their vitalizing tears to the ground.

A few times, I’d get myself to stand beside her on the balcony too. One time, as I put my elbows up on top of the fence – or tried to, at least, since I was so small that I was only able to reach a lower plank –, I glanced up at my mom’s face from the side. Her face was different, then. Smooth, dreamy, caught in a reverie… All her life I’d known her, she’d always been a kind, ever-smiling woman, but what I’d witnessed that night had been something else.

I’d only seen this smile once after that: lying in her coffin on the day of her funeral.

That night, when I saw this smile for the first time, it was like she was under a spell. For a long time she didn’t seem to notice her daughter being there. After what seemed like an eternity of staring silently at the shadows, I decided to head back into my room and try to sleep. Then, my mother suddenly spoke.

“If you look far enough above the trees, you can see the waves of the ocean.” Her voice was misty but still full of the usual softness and kindness.

I had done so. I looked, strained my eyes to see far, further than physically possible, but I didn’t see anything. How could I, I thought, there’s no ocean in the sky – anyway, maybe I was just too small to see further into the distance.

“I must take you to the ocean one day. You must see those majestic waves, hear the rumbling of that huge body of water that only a powerful storm can cause… We’ll stand on a cliff, up high – don’t you worry, darling, I’ve got you. We’ll watch the ocean below – vast, gray and foamy –, and we’ll spread our arms when we’re hit by wind, as if we were birds, as if we wanted to fly; because we’re birds and we’re flying, high above the water, with the wind in our wings, and we’re going where it takes us. We’re flying above a big ship now, made of dark wood. She’s strong and relentless, barely even feeling the raging storm. We settle on a mast with a black flag waving on top of it. We watch the people on deck; they grab each other and drink, sing, dance – and ho, there’s a young lady with ocean-blue eyes and red hair, leaning on top of the rail in the bow, and she’s looking at the ocean and the dark horizon. She’s smiling. She’s at home.”

I watched mom’s calm, smiling face in surprise. She was still looking far above the forest.

I stood there for a while longer, waiting to see if she had any more to say, but when nothing happened, I left her there and went into bed. We’d never talked about that night ever again.

Years later, when I’d been married for a while, my mom passed away. I’d inherited her three journals, among other things. At first I was dumbfounded by this – I realized why, however, as soon as I opened and started reading the first leather-bound and weather-beaten book.

The writings in these books bore tales of experiences I’d never had the faintest idea about; a big ship made of dark wood had been my mother’s home for about a year. This ship was so strong and relentless that even the most powerful storms had been but a light wind for her; she crossed the seas and oceans stubbornly, often with a brave woman standing in her bow, who would become my mother.

And to think that the main character of this story was the same woman who’d taught me how to knit and cook, who’d read bedtime stories to me and braided my hair, who’d given me advice when I was pregnant, and helped to rock my baby into sleep when I’d been up all night and was exhausted… It seemed unimaginable to me.

The story’s main character drank rum by daylight and slept with different men by night, laughed uncontrollably and danced on deck, stole food and got in swordfights. She was joyful and happy, and entirely, authentically herself. This was the same woman I’d had the fortune of meeting for a few moments that night on the balcony. Just as she had said then: she’d been at home at sea. That was where she’d really been at home. And when she would stand on that little balcony at night, when she’d listen to the nonexistent rumbling of the ocean calling her – she was homesick then.

However, a paragraph in her third journal had made me stop reading the books.

“Should this life ever end, I’d end any other kind right away that I’d get! Oh, what sort of life could that be if I was left without my love, keeper of my burdens, my only loyal partner – the wonderful sea? And this? this majestic, kind ship upon which I’ve been standing for the last 9 months – who else would I be able to care for so? This tenderness can not be replaced in my heart by any child. My heart, therefore, has no place for any family other than this.”

This had hit me so hard when I’d read it, the idyllic memory of the small forest cabin with my mother and father had started fading in my mind, and I hadn’t been able to pick up that book since. I placed it beside the other two journals in the back row of the bookshelf. I’d only thought of them ever since when dusting them off every once in a while.

Now, sitting here on this little stool and staring into the storm, the thought of perhaps finishing the last journal crossed my mind. The first white strands of hair had started appearing in my blond hair, now pulled back in a bun – some said, my hair looked as red in the moonlight as my mother’s had. Some wrinkles had deepened here and there on my face, my fingers had swollen, and the golden ring that had been shining on my finger for very long now, could tell a thousand stories. I’d given birth to three children; two boys, one little girl, who’d grown up to be men and woman because this was the order of things. My daughter and oldest son were soon to be married, and although my younger son had always been slower at maturing, surely he would find a nice woman soon, too. I’d never told my children about their grandmother’s other life at sea. Not even to my husband had I ever recanted what I’d read.

I got up from the stool and leaned on the fence. The wind caught a lock of hair that had got free from my bun.

I turned around and walked inside, over to the bookshelf. I dug out the third journal and picked up where I’d left off, as if nothing had happened, as if all those years hadn’t passed. I still had every bit and piece in my memory about everything I’d read; all those exciting stories had been lurking there in my head all throughout my life.

There weren’t many entries left in the book; after that painful segment, there was one about a food-stealing mission during which they’d gotten hold of some gold as well, and for a couple of weeks after that she was writing about a man who’d joined them during that previous mission. This seemed like a rather common event, judging by the other entries in the journals, and there was a constant demand for new crew members anyway as death was an expected and recurrent event as a result of these fights. This man though… she wrote entirely differently about this man than she had about any other recruits before.

After he’d been officially welcomed to the crew and made to swear on the Code, she spent the night lying next to him on the upper deck, watching the stars and listening to the waves gently hitting the sides of the ship. And they laughed, a lot. The next night, they talked about all sorts of things while standing at the rail and looking out at the sea, listening to the wind, and laughing a lot. The following two nights passed by similarly. On the third night, the conversation stopped at one point and they made love – there, on the deck of the unstoppable ship, on the open sea, under the starry sky.

“The quirky wind was playing with my hair, caught and ruffled it, big raindrops fell on our face and back, above us black, gray and dark blue clouds passed by slowly, and eloquent lightning bolts split the dark sky like veins. Together with the song of storm, the creaking of the planks and the crashing waves created a magical symphony, interlaced with the moans of this beautiful man—this was the wonderful, incredible, amazing feeling that overwhelmed me then; I moaned loudly, he kissed me, deep and lustful, and our last big sigh caught in one another’s mouth. Afterward, playing with a red lock of hair, he made a promise to me that he’d propose to me properly once he’d have the chance. We slept wrapped in each other’s arms, and while I was waiting for sleep to fight through my feelings of utter euphoria and come to me, a strange sensation nestled into my body.”

They were forced to anchor down a few weeks after that, and once on land, the entire crew had been captured, at least to my mother’s best knowledge. A long entry followed next in the journal, written more than a week after the capture. According to her, she’d been put in a cell next to the man, where he proposed to her right away, and they constructed a plan of escape. In court, my mother “pleaded the belly” – a rather common, witty tactic among women at the time; canceling the execution because, allegedly, she was pregnant. There was nothing to be done, she ought to be let free. She met the man at the docks that night, and they fled the country in a boat.

The journal ended there. That had been all my mother’s seafaring stories.

Although the story felt incomplete, there was nothing to be done about that; that was that, I acknowledged as I closed the book. To my relief, a piece of paper fell out from under the leather cover. This could be the explanation I was looking for.

As I read the letter, tears ran down my face, and I was crying uncontrollably by the end. Clutching the piece of paper and pressing it to my chest, I swore to myself that I’d never miss another chance to share my mother’s stories. Holding my grandchildren in my arms, rocking them on my knees, they would be growing up listening to their great-grandmother’s pirate-stories, and they would become their favorite bedtime stories.

My dearest child,

You’re reading this letter of mine with me six feet under, I’m sure. Don’t you let sorrow take over – be joyful instead that I’ve had the fortune of meeting and nursing my sweet grandchildren. I’ve had thousands of opportunities for death, as God is the witness, but I stayed alive for long enough to experience this joy.

Dear child, my only regret is that I’ve never told you about any of this earlier; when you asked, I listened – or worse yet, lied. I beg of you, darling, forgive me for this! Naturally, my only reason for this was the determination to keep you safe. Of course, I should’ve known; no harm can come to a child conceived in storm and birthed in sea. This alone should’ve been indication enough of how strong you are—still, I was protecting you as if you were a fragile, helpless little baby – as any mother would have, I trust. Oh, how little I knew when I thought of my ship as my child! So foolish of me… You, my darling, I’ve been protecting you – and wanting to protect you – a thousand times more and stronger than I ever could’ve that ship.

After our escape, we found this forest and this abandoned little cabin, and your father and I fell in love with it immediately. How often I felt homesick, how often I felt the calling of the sea! and your dear father would remind me every time that the memories were engraved in my heart and the experiences, just as himself, would stay with me forever – but it was always you, my sweet child, who best soothed this longing in me.

Hence this letter and the journals; I want you to know how much you mean to me, darling. You carry within you the part of my life that means the most to me, your entire being reminding me of all those wondrous adventures I’ve had. In you I see all the loves of my life: your father, my ship, the sea, and of course you yourself, dear child.

All good things shall come to an end. So cherish them while they last.

Kisses,

Your mother

and the sea that is thus your home as well