Ana-Maria Chircea is participating in the International Literary Creation Competition, 7th Edition, from Oradea, Romania and is 39 years old. We thank her for her participation and wish her success.

The Silence of Zamfira

     Zamfira felt the weight of her eighty-six years in the creak of her body, in that morning mist, in which memories blurred and slipped away. Next to her, Ilinca was finishing a cup of hot chocolate.

     ʹGran, how old were you when Dad was born?ʹ Ilinca asked.

     ʹI was, my dear,ʹ she said softly, ʹfourty.ʹ

     ʹAnd how old was Dad when I was in Mummy’s tummy?ʹ

     ʹForty, as well.ʹ she replied, a smile touching the corner of her mouth.

     ʹAre girls made, as well, when you’re forty?ʹ Ilinca asked. ʹJust like boys?ʹ

     ʹThey come into the world when their parents are ready to receive them.ʹ the reply came.

     Ilinca pressed her forefinger to her temple and frowned.

     ʹHow do parents know when they are ready?ʹ

     Grandma Zamfira laughed softly. It was a fragile, almost childlike sound, as though a younger self had briefly wandered back into the room, only to vanish again. The lines upon her face seemed, for a moment, to soften. She drew a short breath and turned her gaze towards her son Teodor, visible through the window. He was busy chopping wood in the barn. The scene outside held a hush, where snowflakes drifted down like a silent, patient waltz.

     ʹSometimes,ʹ she said slowly, her voice a thread weaving through the stillness, ʹthey do not know it themselves. But their hearts… oh, their hearts whisper. And one day, they listen, you know.ʹ

     Ilinca’s gaze drifted to the fire in the stove, somehow pleased with the answer.

     ʹI’m hungry for golden walnut rolls!ʹ she added eagerly. ʹDoes it have to rise for ever and ever?ʹ

     ʹUntil it grows,ʹ her grandmother replied, a smile touching her lips.

     ʹThat will take forever!ʹ protested Ilinca, whose curls tumbled over the red ribbons.

     As Ilinca made room on the table and carefully arranged her pencils in a neat arc of rainbow colours, old Zamfira felt a sudden chill stir in her soul. She had been ready at forty, yes, but only because twenty long years had passed during which she had not been ready. Twenty years of waiting, of quiet yearning. The years themselves had slipped by, but the pain had not.

     ʹGranʹ Ilinca said, her voice bright, ʹThere’s a girl at school that looks a lot like me!ʹ

     ʹThat must mean you’re both very pretty.ʹ Zamfira replied softly. ʹWhat is her name?ʹ

     ʹXenia. We were born on the same day! My mummy gets on so well with her mummy. They came to visit last Saturday. We played Dolls in the pink wooden house, while our mums played Remi. They laughed and laughed. I think they’re friends now, just like us.ʹ

     Before Zamfira could speak, her son Teodor came in, snowflakes clinging to him like a fine frost. His heavy, insulated boots left glistening prints across the blue floor. His hands were rough and reddened from the cold.

     ʹMum, a quick cup of coffee, please!ʹ he said. Cristina said I must be home by seven.ʹ

     Zamfira handed him the cup, freshly brewed. The flavour rose warmly between them. How fortunate Teodor had been to find Cristina, a kind woman, with a mind that complemented his own.

     ʹMum, do you know what strikes me as odd?ʹ Teodor began, settling into the warmth of the kitchen. ʹHow much Ilinca resembles the girl coming to visit us tonight: curly hair, oval face, green eyes, same dimples in their cheeks. They both sigh in that same way you do, unexpectedly, as though some parallel universe is quietly pulsing behind their thoughts.ʹ Teodor’s eyes twinkled.

     ʹSometimes, what we recognize in them… isn’t about them at all.ʹ Zamfira replied, as the well-risen walnut roll settled gently into the oven, filling the kitchen with a yeasty scent.

     Teodor paused for a moment to watch his little girl, absorbed in a delicate winter scene.

     ʹSweetheart, please finish your drawing. Later on, you’ll show it to Xenia and she’ll tell you what she’s done at her grandmother’s house.ʹ

     ʹAnisia!ʹ the little artist looked up. ʹGrandma Anisiaʹ she whispered to herself.

     Her father hurried out, catching the name in passing, but old Zamfira remained rooted to the spot. She sank into the blue chair, its paint peeling in places to reveal the faint echoes of colours long since layered over. Memories pressed into the wood itself. Could it be… her Anisia? The thought seemed impossible, yet it pressed upon her chest. Time seemed to stretch and shiver. Bottom of Form

     At eighteen, they placed an engagement ring upon her finger, too tight, too unfamiliar, and her family nudged her toward a boy whose household was bathed in wealth and ease. The marriage began with no tremors and ended, in its outward life, without apparent regrets. Yet, she remembers those tense days: the young woman who could not bend her head, and the man who left home until dawn, returning with fists that shook not only her body, but her fragile soul as well.

     At nineteen, she was compelled, her body pressed into duty before her spirit could consent, to bear a child. At twenty, the fruit of their non-existing love was born. Light seeped into the house in a way that no fist could extinguish. She named that shining pulse of joys – Anisia. Soon after, Toma, Anisia’s father, returned to his old ways. Her mother-in-law’s words were stern and unyielding: endure and serve, speak only when required, or leave. She felt herself shrinking, delicate as a sound that echoes into nothingness. At twenty-three, she turned to her mother for counsel. Her mother’s gaze was a torch of quiet, restrained anger. ʹBow your head,ʹ she said, ʹfor shame cannot be washed away. Silence is the conduct of a flawless wife.ʹBottom of Form

     What did Zamfira do when her mother’s words fell upon her, heavy as lead? She ran, carrying her child close against her chest, and sought shelter with a childhood friend. But even that fragile refuge was taken from her: Anisia was removed, forever. That day she learned, in the bitterest way, that friendship is not always faithful. The world reshaped itself around her. Once a woman left behind, marked by her husband’s hand, she became a woman of whispered scandal. The rumours spread faster than the sorrow that consumed her, while her unseen wounds deepened, her spirit bleeding in silence. Doors, once familiar, closed in her face. She ceased to matter. The people around her had become walls, between a mother and her child.

     Young Zamfira found sanctuary with a distant aunt, childless, solitary, slightly eccentric, but the only one left to help her. From time to time, she approached the door of her former home, hoping that perhaps, for a moment, she might see her daughter, to soothe the ache in her chest. Each time, she left with emptiness pressing like winter frost against her heart. She had given birth to her daughter, crying, and now it seemed as though she was losing her, in silence. The former friend had made herself at home in the house that once, perhaps never, belonged to Zamfira. Every plea she made met with the same response, repeated until it sounded hollow in her ears: ‘It is for her own good!ʹ Zamfira was not permitted to exist in Anisia’s life; she was permitted to be silent.

      Endlessly, year upon year, Toma’s family repeated it: she was unruly, disordered, troubled. She began to believe it herself, that Anisia’s happiness lay elsewhere, not with her. November twenty-fifth became the most painful day of the year. The day she had become a mother had become the day on which her longing bit deepest. She told herself to be patient, to wait for the moment when Anisia would understand the whole story. Zamfira did not know that the rejection would deepen as her daughter grew. By the age of fifteen, Anisia rejected her, not through the steps that drew her away from the body she had longed to hold, but through the silence that tore them apart, through the disappointment that opened a chasm between the two beings.

     ʹYou came too late.ʹ Anisia whispered, disappointed. ʹ I have waited for you through so many nights!ʹ her voice rose.

     Out of love, and after years of sorrow, she remarried to a kind man. The year she gave birth to Teodor, she learned that Anisia had died giving birth to a daughter. Zamfira’s heart fractured, quietly, into countless, irreparable shards. Clutching the baby to her chest, she made her way to her former home, only to be told that the final farewell was taking place elsewhere, in her ex-husband’s village, far beyond her reach. Any attempt to locate the grave later was denied. Any claim to comfort, any connection, was forbidden.

     ʹIt is none of your business to know!ʹ they had said.

     From that day onward, each year, in the last hour of November, Zamfira lights a single candle—not in mourning, but to keep Anisia’s memory alive.

     ʹGran, do the golden walnut rolls still need to stay in the oven?ʹ

     The question drew her from the corridors of memory. Tiny, impatient feet tapped upon the floor, eager for the freshly baked walnut cake’s scent to settle gently in the corners of the kitchen. Her eyes shone, bright and uncontainable, like scattered stars on a summer night.

     ʹIlinca, my dear,ʹ she said ʹwould you like to come over with your friend over the winter break?ʹ