Anca of Mănuşata
A wind was blowing in gently through the open windows of Iancu's quiet house in downtown Braşov*. Iancu had always loved the wind, especially this gentle, cool kind that blew through the glossy leaves of the two corcoduş* trees in front of his gate. He loved its freedom, how refreshing its fleeting touch was on a sweltering hot day, the way it cared for none yet accepted all and the silent, effortless way it billowed around Iancu's tree-filled backyard and out into the simple secluded neighbourhood – so hushed, but still so much more noticeable than the hum of the cars that zoomed, it must be admitted, rarely, past.
And mainly he loved the way it took all the stress and worries of the day away, annihilating them completely and soothing him. The wind was so timeless, it continually transcended time and age, just flying past in its careless way. It reminded Iancu of his own life – so long and eventful!
But more than that, it reminded him of another life – that of a girl who had died tragically young centuries ago, whom he had known for a very short time, but who had made a mark on Iancu's memory that nothing could erase away.
This young girl, in turn, reminded him of France's Joan of Arc, or the Mulan of the ancient Chinese legend, or even of Ecaterina Teodoroiu* of his own country, Romania. She was like these three unforgettable women in that she, too had donned men's clothes and fought for her people. But she was not like them in that nobody knew about her, no one had written down her amazing story – because she had taken the secret of her true identity to her grave. Nobody ever suspected that she was not 'Andrei' as she introduced herself upon signing up for the army, but Anca, of the Mănuşata* village high up in the Carpathian Mountains.
That is, nobody but Iancu, her best and truest friend.
No one had written her story – so this was what Iancu purposed to do now.
He picked up his pen, sighed and laid it down on the paper again, wondering how to write about the way they'd met. But his mind was blank - Iancu was not a very experienced storyteller.
Nor was he fond of writing in the first person. For some strange reason, the thought of someone reading something he had written in this style embarrassed him, as if that particular someone were reading his diary.
So Iancu purposed to write a short, compressed tale in the third person – but in these few words, to truly capture Anca's spirit, the emotions that welled up inside him whenever he thought of her. He wanted to show the world, "This is Anca, this is the memory of her soul…this is her story."
The pen diligently scratched the page, and a story was born. Not new-born, of course, not born of Iancu's imagination. Born to the world, who had never heard of the dark-haired girl who used the sword better than the writing quill, whose laughter brought out the Sun, and who smiled radiantly, at peace with herself and the world, even as she drew her last breath.
Panting and sobbing with pain, Iancu stumbled over dead bodies and fallen weapons. In all his years fighting for his king, Vlad Dracul, he had never seen a battle quite like this. Death, like the snow, was everywhere. Puddles and splotches of blood, in different stages of freshly spilled, morbidly painted the white-gray ground all around him.
The worst part – Iancu knew he wasn't alone. A few remaining Turkic soldiers were scouring the battlefield for prisoners. Iancu knew he wasn't safe under the tree that he had been making for, but the forest was too far away, the Turks too close…he couldn't risk it.
The green flag, decorated with its ever-present white half-moon, waved mockingly behind him, a constant reminder of the defeat Wallachia* had suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
As he crawled on all fours through the tall, blood-stained grass, every heartbeat in Iancu's chest pounded out 'Why? Why? Why?' Why were those cursed Turks not satisfied to live peacefully in their own vast country instead of conquering those who, by contrast, were? Why? Why? Why? Why the bloodthirstiness, the cruelty, the evil? There was indeed glory to be had, and power of course, and lands, and riches! But at what cost?
Mii de suflete! Femei, copii, bătrâni, omorâţi toţi! Doamne, când s-or termina toate? Când ne-i scăpa de urgia turcească?* Iancu thought, mentally crying out in anguish to God for answer.
His knee bumped into someone.
Iancu jumped as a low moan escaped the soldier's lips, and his heart raced with desperate hope: of all those who had fallen, one at least would not be sentenced either to death or life as a slave!
Ignoring the piercing pain in his own side, which was sticky with blood from a wandering iatagan's* slash cut, Iancu grabbed the wounded soldier by the shoulders and dragged him off to the forest. There he laid him down and struggled to weave the trees' branches together so as to hide them from enemy eyes.
This task having been performed with relative ease, as the forest was a young pădurice* and the trees thin and bendable, Iancu sank to the ground beside the soldier and lifted his hood, so as to look into the eyes of the man he'd saved.
As the hood slipped off, Iancu froze. His eyes filled with dread and recognition as he realised who the soldier was.
"Andrei?" he asked aloud.
The soldier weakly opened his eyes
"Iancu, tu eşti*?" came the relieved gasp.
Upon hearing her voice, Iancu quickly abandoned the false name he knew Anca had adopted in order to be accepted in Vlad Dracul's* army, to fight for Wallachia. "Anca, are you alright?"
Anca's teeth were clenched with pain, but her eyes were the same - glittering, amber-coloured, full of joy.
"No," she distinctly replied. But she still smiled upon hearing her real name. She knew she was safe with Iancu, the only other soldier that knew who she really was, to die in peace.
Iancu's eyes brimmed with tears. He'd known Anca since the beginning of the war. She had disguised as a man and left her village in the dead of night. Such had been her desire to fight for her land. Now she was dying in a forest, the life seeping out of her skinny body with every drop of blood that oozed from the fatal wound she had received as the sole reward for her courage, for all that she had done for her country. It was a long, unbelievable story to be sure - Anca's life, and the daring, one might even say, unwise thing she had done.
And this was where that story ended.
"Don't say that – you will!" Iancu whispered desperately. He tore a long strip of cloth from his cloak and set it in his lap as he worked on freeing Anca's upper body from her tunic and undershirt. Anca was too exhausted from the agonizing pain in her lower back to even to cover her now-exposed chest. Not that ther was much of it though – and that is why disguising had been less difficult, to by no means say easier, for Anca.
Iancu tied the long rag tightly around Anca, then tore another one off and covered the first makeshift bandage with it, thus adding another layer . Then, with some effort, he slipped the linen undershirt back onto Anca. She was already so limp, like an old ragdoll – without some sort of covering she'd certainly reeze to death.
Anca let out a quiet laugh and her large and innocent brown eyes looked benevolently up at Iancu. "You shouldn't have ruined such a pretty cloak only to waste it on someone who is going to die anyway!" she chided jokingly. "Lasă-mă*."
Anger built up in Iancu's heart, threatening to spill out violently. "You are not going to die!" He would have screamed it, had he lost all his common sense.
Oh, that was so Anca, making light of such serious, heartbreaking things!
"I can feel it, Iancu," she now told him in a hoarse whisper. "My life is over – I can only hope I have lived it well." Iancu's heart sank as he watched the shadow of death creep slowly over Anca's bright eyes. Though his heart screamed at him not to admit it, Iancu knew that Anca was not merely delirious.
"I don't have much time," she continued. Then, as an afterthought she added, "Iancu, I told you what village I'm from, did I not?"
"M-m-mănuşata," Iancu choked, tears streaming down his grime-covered cheeks. "In the B-Banat Mountains*…"
Anca barely nodded. "I you're ever there," she whispered, starting to sob a little too, "tell my parents -"
She never got to finish her sentence. Aslight tremor shook her body, her eyes squeezed shut, and a small trickle of blood poured from her mouth.
And just like that, Iancu's dearest friend, the brave, spunky country 'lad' the whole barracks knew and loved, was gone.
For ever.
Iancu had never been a very dramatic person. There was no melodrama, no 'speak to me,' no shaking of Anca's lifeless body. He knew she was gone, and the realization sank in with a series of jerky sobs but no torrent of overwhelming emotion.
But he wanted to die, too, and cursed Fate for taking Anca instead of him.
"Anca, Anca," Iancu whispered through the muffled sobs escaping his lips, and the name was like a prayer.
A slight wind had begun to weave through the branches. As Iancu wept freely, head buried in Anca's tousled mane of bobbed black hair, he thought he could hear the warm chords of Anca's lute lilt over to him through the cryptic whispers of the leaves.
Why, on cold nights, Anca's joyful ballads had warmed the entire battalion more than the hesitant fire!
But Anca had done more than play music and fearlessly slug soldiers twice her size in the arm as she jested naughtily, when ţuică* was passed around. Anca had done what she'd always wanted to do, what she'd whispered about to Iancu, teeth chattering under the scanty protection provided by the thin blankets they slept with in winter.
She had fought to protect her homeland, her beautiful, beloved homeland – and though this battle had been lost, Anca had won.
Romanian words used:
*Braşov – a large city in south-east Romania
*Corcoduş – a kind of plum-like fruit
*Ecaterina Teodoroiu – the first woman to serve in the Romanian army and be decorated. She fought in WWI and was captured by the Germans, from which she heroically escaped and decorated for but was later killed in action.
*Mănuşata – a fictional village. Its name translates to 'the Gloved Girl'
* Mii de suflete! Femei, copii, bătrâni, omorâţi toţi! Doamne, când s-or termina toate? Când ne-i scăpa de urgia turcească? - Thousands of souls! Women, children, old men, all killed! Lord, when will it all end? When will you deliver us from the fury of the turks?
*Iatagan – a Turkish curved sword
*Iancu, tu eşti? – Iancu, is it you?
*Pădurice – young forest
*Wallachia – in Romanian, Valahia or Vlahia. Name used for the independent principate in southern Romania, later called Ţara Românească (the Romanian Land)
*Vlad Dracul – Vlad the Impaler's father
*The Banat Mountains – the Northern part of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania
*Lasă-mă – Leave me
*Ţuică – a traditional Romanian alcoholic drink made from fermented corcoduşe, or plums