Ropes of garlic hung like braids off the vegetable stands of a small village market not far from Târgu Mureș.

The late heat-burdened afternoon had no effect on the lively atmosphere of bargaining, haggling and the intense crying and praising of their produce by the marketers.

A chicken cackled in a nearby cage and a pig was on offer. It looked, rosy, with friendly eyes, not expecting that its end was near, when its blood will be caught in a bucket and its feet soon served on fermented cabbage with white wine.

A symphony of laughter, singing, screaming and the neighing of horses resounded over to the wooded slopes and echoed back from the houses around the market place in the centre.

Suddenly there was a stillness when a bier with a coffin came to a halt in front of the undertaker’s house not far away from the market, in preparation of the wake.

The pig seller cursed, other mumbled to themselves “may the Lord forgive her”. Most of them took off their hats.

Many of the villagers knew who the dead person was: a young woman with a dubious background and a history which gave rise to talk and gossip.

As quick as the silence had set in, the whispering started.

While the coffin was carried into the house, the bier with fluttering catafalques was pushed around the corner out of sight. The death knell rang from the near church.

Keeners entered the house to hold the lamentation in the morning, at noon and in the evening, for three days, every time the death bell would sound.

The backdrop for a life which ended too soon was a laying-out room with worn chairs along the walls.

The dead body was laid out, dressed in a simple burial gown. She wore white gloves, the symbol of innocence. Her face was white like a sheet of paper. Apparently, nobody had noticed the two small puncture marks about her neck.

At the head-end of the coffin, a candle which was supposed to burn for the next two or three nights flickered nervously in the same rhythm as the eyelid of an elderly woman who sat there in prayer. And a glass of water with a marking of the water level to check the next morning if the dead had drunk from it or not, stood on a pedestal.

Pious people came unasked into the house to kneel around the casket. Some generous souls had provided pork in jelly and chicken legs, plates with smoked meat and filled eggs prepared for those keeping the wake and the traditional bread of mercy for the priest, the psalm reader and the bell ringer.

But the priest refused to come, and the bell ringer rang the death bell only out of pity and compassion for the dead.

The psalms reader, however, painted a cross on the wall with the burning candle, a symbolic sign, to ward off any evil.

There would be no priest to seal the casket by carving a cross with a nail on it.

Tradition dictates not to leave the corpse unattended day and night, not one moment.

Some hired men gathered around to take turns.

The women sang a last song before they left, leaving the three hired men behind, who’s eyes were heavy. The flickering candle at the head of the casket gave the impression as if the dead person’s face twitched and that she smiled.

Nearing midnight and after one of them had left to call his brother to give him a break, the two remaining wakers fell asleep.

A sudden gust blew the candle, a bad omen or a sign for the dead to open the eyes as the wake was interrupted.

There was a movement. Bredica climbed out of the coffin. Like a sleepwalker she moved forward step by step, her death gown slid off her shoulders and she walked naked past the tall mirror in the hall and only showed her white gloves which she was still wearing.

The village was in a deep sleep, not one lighted window, not even the bark of a dog could be heard, or the shy walk of a cat be noticed.

She crossed the street and walked into the forest, her feet sank into the soft soil, she kneeled and grabbed withered leaves and let them fall on her head, she took a hand full of the soil and rubbed it on her skin.

The moon broke through the clouds.

She went straight down to the river, were she washed off the smell of soil and forest. She stood there motionless like a lost child and felt second by second how she decayed into a nothing.

With the first rays of the morning sun, an animal, resembling a black cat, was seen leaping ashore.

It had two white front paws.

By Edward Schmidt-Zorner

From: Ireland

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