The Weeping Light

By Gheorghe Virtosu

The Weeping Light is a perfect testimony for Gheorghe Virtosu’s undeniable talent, which turns a simple recounting into great writing: what begins as an account of a friendship between two children ends up in a heart-warming plea for timeless adventure capable to make up for any subsequent hardship and loss. The author himself as a little boy, together with his cousin and friend, Serioja, stumble over adventure in the most innocuous of places, their native village, and on most unlikely occasions. They create their own opportunity for pranks, fun, and laughter which draw the reader into a parallel universe where the elemental is elegantly and light-heartedly overridden by spirited wit and a conscious effort to forgive but never forget. The book, however, brings about its own twist in the tale: life has a way of putting distance between us and those people we want by our side forever. Paradoxically, those special people in our lives are the first to part with sometimes. But where there is life there is hope, and the author banks on the healing power of Ever-Flowing Time, which, someday, somewhere, will bring together all souls alike…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645365051

Gheorghe Virtosu

Born in The Republic of Moldova in 1968, Gheorghe Virtosu has lived an intensely eventful life. After enjoying an idyllic childhood in his village, he left his parents’ home at 15 for the middle school “in town,” which eventually led to a military career. Established in London in 1992, he gained British citizenship a few years later. Having simplicity as a guiding principle, and solitude as his main source of inspiration, Gheorghe Virtosu is rapidly becoming a household name in literature, with his mammoth-novel – A Little Frog’s Heart – already a landmark on the compulsory reading list.

Book preview

The Weeping Light

Gheorghe Virtosu

Austin Macauley Publishers

The Weeping Light

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Argument

Meet Serioja

Bridging Time

The Disappointment 1

The Defiance. The Seeds of Vengeance

Symbols, Trends and Fashions of Their Own Time. In Baba Catinca’s Undying Memory

The Revenge 1

The Weak Link or How Evil Breeds Evil

Misulica Gamurari or a Different Kind of Childhood

My First Summer Camp or the Reward

The Disappointment 2

Consequences 1

The Revenge 2

The Fruits of Recklessness or How Not to Educate Children

The Many Faces of Childhood or History in the Making

The Stuff of Legends

Consequences 2

The Revenge 3

Imagining Like a Child or Alternative Realities

Consequences 3

Epilogue

About the Author

Born in The Republic of Moldova in 1968, Gheorghe Virtosu has lived an intensely eventful life. After enjoying an idyllic childhood in his village, he left his parents’ home at 15 for the middle school in town, which eventually led to a military career. Established in London in 1992, he gained British citizenship a few years later. Having simplicity as a guiding principle, and solitude as his main source of inspiration, Gheorghe Virtosu is rapidly becoming a household name in literature, with his mammoth-novel – A Little Frog’s Heart – already a landmark on the compulsory reading list.

Dedication

This volume is dedicated to my cousin, Serioja Virtosu.

Copyright Information ©

Gheorghe Virtosu (2020)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher. Illustrations by Șerban Andreescu, translation by Mirela Bowen-Hunt. Structuring by Adriana Nazarciuc.

Any person, who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication, may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Austin Macauley is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In this spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Virtosu, Gheorghe

The Weeping Light

ISBN 9781643787480 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781643787497 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645365051 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913914

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Serioja Vartosu was my first cousin on my father’s side and a key-figure of my childhood.

I have mentioned him before in other volumes belonging to The Little Frog’s Heart Series, but the present volume, the eleventh in the series, is entirely dedicated to him.

It comes a time in everybody’s life when we revisit the past, either by leafing through the pages of an old photo album or by walking the well-worn paths of our childhood to awaken joyful or sad memories… A familiar face and the replay of a situation are just enough to trigger the deja-vu…

When I think back to the years of my childhood, Serioja is a consistent presence in all the memories close to my heart. Unfortunately, as it often happens, Serioja’s presence is exclusively confined to the past, since he is no longer with us… But even more upsetting than death itself, it is the fact that nobody knows how his life came to an end and where he had been laid to rest. His close family does not know much more; all they could tell me about it was that Serioja ‘was gone’… Just like that; vanished, disappeared from the face of the earth, and nobody knows where… I, sometimes, allow myself to imagine that he has pulled a fast one on us; his friends and family. After all, he used to do it all the time as a child: hard as you might try, you couldn’t find a better practical joker than my cousin. Performing a high-class disappearance act would have come naturally to Serioja, if he wanted to teach us a lesson for abandoning him in his darkest hour…

Argument

I will try to cast some light over the circumstances which brought us close, as well as those which pulled us apart.

Serioja and I went everywhere together, neither leaving the other one’s side for too long. We were more like brothers than cousins. The only time we parted with a light heart was in the evenings, when each had to go to his own home. Had we been given the chance, we would have gladly had sleep-overs each and every night. It’s quite often that families with many children don’t mind taking on another little one, if only for a short time. In fact, this sort of communities come together like one individual in times of hardship, caring for one another, and providing the kind of relief that only family can provide. Under ordinary circumstances, however, the unwritten rule of the community was that every child should spend the night under his parents’ roof, unless, otherwise, agreed by the grown-ups.

Unfortunately, Serioja’s father had died in a tractor accident when he was very young. My cousin had no memories of his father, except for the few treasured photos in the family album. Although he was put up with his grandparents, who let him get away with almost anything, the man who became his step-father never ceased tormenting him, right throughout his childhood. Back in the olden days, nobody would have put things right for Serioja, since interfering into somebody else’s family affairs would have been a no-go zone. Step or not, the grown-ups were in-charge of their own children and nobody ever disputed that!

Even though it was not much I could do about it, memories of Serioja’s hard childhood still fill me with a painful sense of helplessness to this day.

Life is sometimes stranger than fiction; despite my vivid memories of great adventures and happy times, I don’t seem to be able to recall the time we started drifting away from each other. It happened suddenly and unexpectedly one day, when I had to leave the village for the ‘big school’ in the nearby town and Serioja decided to join a group of older lads who, like him, wanted to become tractor drivers. He was following in his father’s footsteps.

I took up a different path, which made me part not only with Serioja, but with many other friends and acquaintances from my childhood. I, sometimes, wonder whether it would have been possible that our adulthood carried on the magical adventures of our childhood, although I know full-well that the answer to that question is no. Still, what would we be without the power to dream…?

I also know that our life choices make us who we are and sooner or later, we all have to pursue our destiny… and that’s exactly what all of us have done.

Meet Serioja

To my great shame, I can’t quite remember my cousin as an adult but as a child, Serioja was a great lad! After leaving the village to go our separate ways, we seldom saw each other on the rare occasions when we both happened to come home at the same time during the school breaks.

Our tight friendship wilted away with the passing of time, like the flowers of the fields. And when I think that, I used to secretly laugh at our elderly lamenting the cruelty of time and its undoing of all things and men! Hindsight is truly an eye-opener; time is the great creator of the present and future, just as it is the destructive force which brings down the past and sentences it to oblivion. The remainders of the past are but the cinders of former people and places; good only to sweep away the regrets and remorse! Even the most exquisite of nature’s beauties fall victim to its ruthlessness, their destiny already decided before they even come to life, with the name of death encrypted in the core of their unborn beings, a necessary and unavoidable sacrifice to the eternity of time…

Like most things in this world, my relationship with Serioja did not pass the test of time. As we grew up, we also grew apart.

The last instance I remember seeing Serioja does not do me any favors; I can’t help feeling disappointed with myself. It was around the time when I came home after completing my military service. The topics for conversation were quickly exhausted, since the only things we had left in common were our childhood memories. The awkward smiles exchanged, while struggling for words made us both realize that we had moved on with our lives and our friendship was a thing of the past.

Besides, Serioja had taken up smoking and drinking, following, without questioning, deeply rooted traditions, which allowed men to drink themselves to oblivion during the religious festivals. Moreover, the drinking tradition of the old folk demanded that every glass of liquor be emptied in one go. No wonder the young and old would soon find themselves slurring their words after a few too many glasses of ‘God’s blood,’ as they enticingly called it! I, for one, could never see the attraction of it.

I ventured a few words of advice, trying to warn my cousin about the slippery road to bad habits which die hard and, boy, did I regret it almost instantly!

Will you spare me the good old advice, Gheorghita! Ever since I was a little boy, everybody, including my step-father, was full of good advice for me; no matter where I turn to, left, right, or middle, everybody tells me what to do and nobody notices that I can do without the well-intended advice, thank you very much! He splattered.

I understood that I had better kept my own council, if I wanted to, at least, save the precious memories of our happy times together. No word of advice passed my lips again. Despite our differences, however, my fondness for Serioja has never abated. To me, he’ll always be the bubbly trickster, who used to put a smile on everyone’s face.

After qualifying as a tractor driver, Serioja returned to our village where he eventually met a girl he liked; she was tall, delicate, and easy on the eye. She had recently moved to our village to teach folk dance to the young people in the area and her classes were hosted in the village hall.

Serioja and the girl of his dreams became dance partners and for a while, it looked like things couldn’t get any further, since the girl already had a boyfriend who had come over with her. It was usually a sign of a serious relationship.

Slowly, Serioja and his girl grew fond of each other and ended up going out together as a couple. It was as if their love was meant to be; I blamed it on the romantic ballads they used to dance on, as well as the mysterious star-light shimmering over the many long walks they took together.

I was happy everything worked itself out for them, just as I admired the fact that the former boyfriend, eventually, decided to call it a day and go back home.

Needless to say that the new couple was a match made in heaven; both of them good-looking, they seemed happy as a summer’s day together, and for a while, they were the envy of all the lonely hearts in search for the love of their life. As you can easily imagine, the two of them soon got married and settled down in our village. Unfortunately, my whereabouts at the time were far away from home and, therefore, I couldn’t go to the wedding.

1988 was a year of great changes in my life, as I decided to go chase my destiny abroad, a long way away from home. The 90s, however, brought forth a historic change of circumstances in everybody’s destiny, and later on, I heard that my cousin and his wife moved over to Moscow, looking for a better, more prosperous lifestyle. Little did they know that life abroad was nothing but glorified slavery, a truth, which I would soon become familiar with, as I had decided, in the meantime, to take up the hard path of making a life for myself abroad.

Twenty years went past. I had been established in London for a while, running my own building company, which employed mainly workers from my home village. It was during a party which I organized for my employees that I heard again about my cousin Serioja. The news was far from happy, which made me think of getting back in touch with Serioja and offering him a job in my company. I was hoping I could help him turn a new leaf in his life.

Serioja’s story, as I heard it from a mutual friend, saddened me greatly. Serioja had apparently split up with his wife, despite having had a child together. In fact, the cause of their separation was somebody we both knew very well from our childhood, a common friend. Ironically, Serioja helped his friend move over to Moscow. Sadly, his friend, although married himself, sought favor with Serioja’s wife and before long, things got too far. Serioja’s marriage was beyond repair and my cousin drowned his sorrow in wine and spirits.

My heart sank when I found out about Serioja’s sorry state and I left no stone unturned trying to find out some sort of contact details. Eventually, I got hold of his phone number and I called him. Let me tell you now that I had a job for the first half an hour convincing him it really was me. As if, that on its own hadn’t been hard enough, the communication was seriously hindered by the noticeable difference in the fluency of our spoken Romanian; my cousin’s native language had already suffered a lot of collateral damage after years of life in a Russian-speaking environment, while my mother-tongue was still ‘clean’ and true to itself. In an attempt to judder his memory, I reminded him of a few occasions when we nearly got away with murder when prancing around as children. He remembered and started crying like a child, which brought me on the verge of tears. But I had to grind my teeth and keep it together for his sake, otherwise, I would have had him falling to pieces at the other and of the line… After a few minutes of lively conversation, he fell unusually quiet. I took the opportunity to suggest to him that he should head back to our home village for a little while, until I could put together all the paperwork for him and help him come over to London and make a fresh start.

My pep-talk seemed to have worked and Serioja sounded a lot calmer when he spoke again,

I can’t tell how happy I am for you, cous’… Hearing from you made my day… It’s great that you are doing so well and I’m ever so grateful for your kindness! I can’t let you go, however, without telling you how proud I am of your crystal-clear Romanian; you’ve kept your speech nice and clear like in the olden days… I can’t believe you’ve been in London for so long and kept our mother-tongue so crisp and clear.

It’s all down to the great efforts of our wonderful Romanian teacher; can you remember the time when we pranked him putting a frog on his desk? I joked, referring to one of the many stories recounted in the beginning of volume six of the present series.

Remember it? How can I forget it, cous’? Serioja burst into tears again, as my little joke managed to get the opposite effect out of him. Our Romanian teacher, may God bless his soul, passed away a while ago, I don’t know whether you’ve heard… and, thinking about it now, it feels like he’s taken with him the olden times and all the joy which came with them…

I quickly steered the topic back to reality; making a last desperate attempt to help him snap out of it,

Serioja, coming back to our conversation, we’ve made our plan and now we have to stick to it; you go back home and I’ll come and get you as soon as I sort out the papers! Forget about everything else, it’s time you changed your luck… Trust me on this one and you won’t be sorry!

Okey-doke, cous’… I promise I’ll do as you say!

Have you got money to make your way back home? I wanted to know.

I haven’t, but I’ll manage…

And how are you planning to do that?

I’m just teasing…

Our conversation on the phone that day ended on a high note, as we both assumed that we were going to meet shortly after. I even made sure that Serioja had enough money to travel back to our native village and I started on his paperwork to bring him over to London and give him a new start in life. Little did I know that only two weeks after our discussion, I was going to be arrested in France and put behind bars for a few years. Those were dark times for me; an unexpected and terrible descent into hell. For the next few years, my main focus was on keeping myself safe and alive, as I was going though inferno.

Amongst the first things I did once out of that hell-hole, was to enquire about Serioja’s whereabouts. Many a time, while imprisoned, I dreamed of my cousin and of our pranks in the olden days and the news of his premature death gave me a terrible blow, as it reached me at about the same time with news about my own brother’s passing away.

It is in moments like those that I get to ask myself why such terrible things happen all at once. To this day, I haven’t found an answer and it seems to me that very few are those who do. We get to the end of our lives on earth oblivious of why we have been here or what purpose we have fulfilled by doing so. My father, God bless his soul, as he has departed this world for a while now, had a theory about it. At times, when he had a glass too many, he would become talkative and willing to share his wisdom with the ones around him. I used to cease those opportunities and ask all sorts of philosophical questions about life and the world around. Thus, my father told me that we were all little cogs in a great mechanism created by God at the beginning of times and meant to last into eternity. Now and again, when our frail mortal bodies fail us, the cogs need changing, so that the great clockwork can carry on regardless. Thus, one generation replaces the one before, keeping the time-machine ticking over.

Dad would usually finish his story about the meaning of life by tapping the tip of my nose with his finger, hinting at the fact that I was going to take over from him one day.

Bridging Time

Throughout the time I lived abroad, there have been many places I used to call ‘home,’ as I inevitably ended up dwelling, for a while, in one place or another according to my needs at the time.

But the one place I have always called ‘home’, knowing with unmovable certainty that my ancestral roots are deeply laid in there, is Bessarabia. Whenever I travel back to my homeland, I make time to visit the graves of my beloved, who are no longer with us, just as I make time to revisit the landmarks of my childhood. Some of them make me happy, some bring forth sorrow and sadness, but they all help to keep alive; moments of my life which I would never get to recall otherwise. As time goes by, past joys and sorrows melt into one, making me the person I am today.

There is one particular time which stuck in my mind; it was one of the many holidays which I chose to spend in my home village with my sisters. We were all grown-ups and life had scattered us about all over the world, but now and again, we would be drawn back home to catch up with one another and to remember those who were no longer with us. It was in late spring and blossoming lilac was giving out the most delightful scent.

After the exhilaration and excitement of seeing everybody again had worn out a bit, my sisters and I decided to go and pay our respects to our late parents and brother. We took fresh flowers to the graves, making sure that each had their favorite resting on their head-stones. It is an ancient custom of ours that we remember our beloved ones by making offerings of what used to be their favorite things while alive.

As we were making our way to the graveyard, I could hear roars of crystalline laughter traveling through the air from a foot-path on the right hand-side. It just so happened that the very same foot-path was so familiar, more like a short-cut, taking me straight down memory lane. I used to often go up and down that way, as a child, attending the village school. I couldn’t help noticing that there wasn’t one blade of grass in sight on the path, as if somebody had poured a canister of petrol or some other weed-killer over it. In a strange sort of way, the barren sight of the foot-path was a living memory of the many small steps that had trotted up and down on it over the many years the school was in use.

Little did I know at the time that the village had found another use for the building of the old school; it was now the medical center of the village and the once small steps treading along the foot-path had been replaced, in the meantime, with the hesitant unsteady walk of the ill and the elderly.

I stopped in front of the old gates, while my head was swimming in childhood memories. Just then, the children, whose shrieks and laughter were cutting through the air, around came running through the gates. Their care-free joy made them oblivious to the world around, as they passed us frolicking and fooling about. A moment later, they looked back at us and realized they were forgetting their manners. Blushing, they quietened down for a few moments and greeted us shyly. Glad to see that old good manners were still safely in place, we answered smilingly. Perhaps, feeling a bit apologetic for their overexcitement, the children took themselves to the side of the path, gathering around the drinking-well on the side of the road.

It might have been the scent of the lilac in the breeze, or perhaps the sight of those children making merry like we used to do once, when I suddenly felt a heart-wrenching desire to revisit the place. Aware of my unusual silence, my sisters turned to me and voiced out my thoughts,

Do you fancy a sneak peek? Our old primary school…

All of us held plenty of memories of the place and this journey, back in time, brought up deeply buried emotions…

Nina, the only one of us who decided to settle down in our home village, told us that the old school had been converted into a GP practice. Apart from replacing the school furniture with medical gear, not many changes had been made to the old building. Rumor has it that the school teachers were allowed to dispose of the school desks any way they wanted, so they chopped them up and gave themselves a few years’ supply of firewood. Hard as I may try, I cannot imagine any of my former teachers doing that, but what do I know? Times change and people change with them… And, at the end of the day, if they really needed that firewood, it all went to a good cause; better than be eaten up by woodworm!

The old schoolyard was nothing like I remembered it; no trace of the coal-shed, where my Romanian teacher disguised himself as a caretaker, which allowed him to move freely through the school and do his bit in spreading the seeds of patriotism. The story is featured in the sixth volume of the