17

The Wedding of the Dead

Nunta Mortului. The Wedding of the Dead.

Stefan had been found in the street with his blood all around him. So that he did not have to suffer the fate of going into the ground as a bachelor, he would be married beside his open grave to a girl from the village.

Agnes was the oldest unmarried girl, and so had been chosen. It had been agreed upon by Anna and the other Elders, and that was that. There was no possibility of refusing.

And after the wedding service had been performed at the grave, Stefan would be buried, while Agnes, in order to serve the period of mourning, would be sent to a small hut at the edge of the forest, where she would see no other living soul for forty days.

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Peter had done his best to console her, but what could he say? All he could do was assure her that he would see that her mother was all right, make sure she was looked after, that there was enough food in the house. As for the wedding, nothing could take away her fear of going through with it and of the forty days’ isolation she must endure.

Forty days in a tiny hut, with all contact forbidden. Just within sight of the village, but outside it nonetheless, with the whole mass of the Mother Forest lurking at its back.

Stefan’s was the second funeral Peter had attended in the village, but it was so unlike that of Radu, the woodcutter. Most of the village turned out, and besides, there was the added attraction of the wedding. There had not been a Nunta Mortului for several years, and the bride this time was particularly pretty, which moved the hearts of even the most cynical.

 

The bride was ready. She had been dressed not by her mother, who was too ill to stand, but by two women chosen by the Elders. She had arrived in the cemetery wearing a long, stiff wedding dress that had been found for her. The dress, however, was a sinister parody of its usual form, having been dyed black; it was to serve as wedding and mourning dress in one. It was completed by a high headdress and a heavy beaded veil, also black, which hid the bride’s face totally. Peter could only guess that it was Agnes from her height and figure. He could see she was having trouble walking; her dress rustled like dead leaves with every uncertain step, and she held her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Maybe it was the weight of the clothes, maybe it was because she couldn’t see, but in his heart Peter knew the real reason. She was scared stiff.

The groom had arrived too. He had been made ready at his home, where he had been dressed in his best clothes, suitable for church. A wedding. Or a funeral. His body had been rubbed with lovage. Protection. His coffin lay uncovered on trestles beside his grave.

The sexton had worked hard on this grave, harder than on Radu’s, but then this was a proper burial, in the graveyard, overlooked by the sow-backed church with its wooden-tiled roof and sharply pointed onion dome. People crowded around, leaning on the fences, hemmed in between other graves, each of which had a wooden grave marker. Most of the markers were brightly painted crosses, set under small wooden roofs to shelter them from the worst of the weather. These little houses were painted too, and bore inscriptions concerning the occupant. A very few of the graves in the yard were stone, the resting places of the richest citizens of Chust.

Around the coffin stood the mourners, around them lay the graveyard, and outside the graveyard lay the village. Beyond all of this stood the endless silent forest, watching the Wedding of the Dead, seeing all, saying nothing.

Peter wrestled to get as close to Agnes as he could, but he was still far from her. Even so, he felt Agnes’s loneliness from where he stood. It was as if her forty days’ segregation had begun already.

As Daniel intoned the opening words of the wedding service, Peter saw that Agnes was trembling. At various points in the service, she had to make responses, but though Peter stood on tiptoe and craned his neck forward, he couldn’t hear what she said. Maybe he was too far away, maybe her voice was too small. He could only guess at what she was having to say, agreeing to marry a dead man. As for the groom, he was excused from having to make his responses, being in no state to do so.

As well as Agnes and Daniel there was the familiar figure of Teodor, the feldsher, who stood nearby but took no part in the ceremony. Old Anna stood next to him, her cruel, aged face glowering at anyone who dared look in her direction.

The wedding was soon over, and the burial began. As Stefan’s coffin lid was lowered onto the box, Peter saw Teodor step forward. Daniel reached out and put a hand on his arm, as if trying to stop him from approaching the coffin. Though Peter couldn’t hear what they said, he could tell there was some argument between them. People began to grow agitated; they shifted uneasily, muttering. At last Daniel appeared to relent. Teodor stepped forward and placed various items inside the coffin, along with the body. A net, some whitethorn, and small figures like a child’s dolls. Then the lid was hammered into place and the whole thing put in the ground. As it went, the mourners began to sing, spontaneously, of one accord. They sang the Miorita.

At first their singing was quiet, but as the verses told of the shepherd’s fanciful version of events, of his marriage to the princess of the stars, their voices grew louder and more rousing, until Peter found that despite his skepticism, there were tears in his eyes.


“At my wedding, tell how a bright star fell,

Sun and moon came down to hold my bridal crown.”


As the singing reached its climax, a single image was left in Peter’s mind. The princess from the stars. The young shepherd had found his magical bride, even in death.

Peter woke from his dream of the princess. The burial was over and he began to push through the crowd toward Agnes. He was cursed for his lack of manners, and pressed in on all sides by the crowd swarming through the graveyard. Looking to see where Agnes was, he saw with alarm that she was being led away by Anna and the other Elders.

“Agnes!” he called, but it was no use. She was too far away, and the Elders were taking her straight to the hut. There she would begin her mourning. Peter, imagining her dread, watched her disappear. It was said that she should speak to no one while she was in mourning for her husband. In this way, after forty days, it would be understood that she had mourned her husband for a lifetime, and she could adopt the position of a young, unwed maiden once more.

Desperately Peter made one last effort to push through the crowd. He managed to fight to within a few feet of Agnes, but here his way was barred. The Elders formed a procession around and behind Agnes, a cortege to guide her to the hut. Angry faces turned on him as he tried to force his way through.

“Agnes!” he called, and at last she heard. He saw her turn and begin to pull at her veil, desperate to see him.

“Get away from her, boy!” someone shouted sternly.

“But she’s my—”

“She’s nothing to you anymore. Not now! She’s married someone else!”

Peter wrestled, trying to protest, but a fist struck him in the back, and then another in his side, near the kidney.

He collapsed, gasping for air. As he fell he caught a single glimpse of Agnes. She had succeeded in wrenching the veil from her face, a face that was now wreathed in horror alone.