07.08.09.
Writing the date, I remember an old joke :
Q:" Why is 10 afraid of 7 ?"
A:" 'Cause 7 8 9 !"
I found an old book, today, in the attic. So old, that its letters were unreadable.
There, on the first page, yellow, like the burnt wax of 1000 candles, lay tar-black the following date :
1842
Numbers being the same, I could read but the year.
I went downstairs and asked mum what's the deal with it.
And then, all afternoon I found out a story from an ancient time, locked away in my genes, raging to pierce the shell .
I was raised by my grandparents, along with my cousin.
40 miles from the city lay a hidden place near the mountains, where the noise and the perverted decay of civilsation didn't reach 20 years ago.
Now all that is gone. Like breadcrumbs blown sfwitly away by the breeze.
My Great-Grand Mother. The Book was hers.
I remember her so clearly, for she died at 93 years, that makes me a 4th grader at the time.
The story begins in the summer of 1905 anno Domini. That year, in the family of the wealthiest man of the community, Mariya Felicia, youngest of three siblings saw the first light.
Being blessed by odds to be the youngest, she was allowed to do anything. She even had access to education, which was uncommon for women at that time, thus making her worth 10 times her value.
And she was both beautiful and proud.
Mum stands up, heads towards the library, leaving me with her words : She was exactly like you...
I light up a smoke, and lose myself among the blue sky made from clouds of tobacco.
Returning with an old, violet velvety covered photo album, she points towards her portrait.
A black and white time stamp, with Time's claws dug in heart of the paper.
Young woman with black hair, tangled in cascades, flowing on her snow shoulders. Same eyes - bewithcing - with their deep fountains of darkness, lit her figure, like stars pinned in the sky.
Foamy lace ruffles highlighting her skin. Though, her skin tone was of most virginal white. Mine's way darker...But that's a secret of gene pools.
Apart from that, yesterday's me was looking at today's rememberrance of myself.
Vanity was her sin - for who would bear living next to such a creature?! Men of all conditions and classes dreamt of her, many came to ask her hand, few remained unhumilliated.
She was waiting.
For what?
Nobody knows.
Though, differently from wine, women don't tend to become of better taste with age.
She was 23, still a maiden, thus making her forever doomed to be a "Mrs".
O, tempora! Oh, mores! Those were the days when by 20, an unmarried woman was doomed for loneliness of a lifetime.
She couldn't fight with her parents, and agreed upon settling with a commoner.
Great-grandfather, who sadly, I didn't get the chance to know...
Having lost just one battle, but not the war, she had her ways of getting back at Life, for not letting her live the way she'd dreamed...
Now that I know these things, I understand. She understands me, my mother, for whilst recalling history, question marks about my behaviour seemed clearer to her - like the dew on trembling morning water-lillies.
Now that I know, I hold her picture once more, and another riddle, unravells...