The following three days went by fast. Between getting used to her new surroundings, fighting against jet lag and functioning as a normal human being trying to nurture their basic needs, Daciana had little energy left at the end of the day.
Luckily, her new job was not highly demanding. She had been brought over to help with a project researching the Carpathian Edelweiss, a protected species in Romania. As its local name, "floare de colţ" implied this plant grew at high altitudes of over 1600 meters. While Daciana would not have minded doing some hiking field work right now, the flower could only be found during the warmer months in Romania, between May-June and September. This reduced her contribution to office work, either interpreting the results obtained so far, looking over articles already published on the topic or, at times, helping correct translations for the international partners. Back home, she would have rebelled against doing the assignment of a glorified secretary. This time, however, she found the tasks a well-deserved break for her brain in overdrive from all the novelty and welcomed any undertaking that required her to work exclusively in English.
After the two days reserved for travel and the three at work, the weekend finally gave Daciana the time to explore her neighbourhood during the day.
Like many other European cities, this one had a unique charm and a completely different style than anything she knew back home.
The newer areas had apartment buildings up to ten stories high, massively broad constructions whose length was larger than their height, that housed hundreds of people.
Yet the majority of people still lived in houses with one or two stories and gates at least two meters tall that protected the inner courtyard from any unwanted onlookers. Walking down the narrow streets, one could notice some of the original architecture and details that nowadays constructions would eliminate for practical reasons. Many homes still had old-school shutters and geranium boxes on their windows. Beautiful window sills and frames sculpted directly around the windows, a tablet below the edge of the roof with, Daciana guessed, the initials of the person who first built the house and wooden fences darkened by the many rains over the years, all gave this place character and allowed this temporary resident to glimpse into a time before her time.
And then there was the old town. Retaining many of the elements it had during medieval times, this remarkable place allowed the traveller to enter through gates that were once the only passage towards the citadel and likely heavily guarded at the time. Here, many streets were still in cobblestone. All buildings on a block were glued to one another in an array of neutral colours mixed in with greens, pinks and yellows, all with immense wooden doors that were a work of art in itself.
Some of these buildings had been converted into small restaurants and hotels that made use of the inner courtyards and surrounding establishments. Others housed little shops and stores, usually hidden on the first floors, because there was no place to build anything new. A guitar shop, an old school bookstore, a place that made pies and pastries, a place that sold only fruits and vegetables called simply "Alimentara," all adorable and all survivors from a different era.
Daciana had lunch at a place that looked neither fancy nor elegant but teeming with people who seemed to be having a good time. To her surprise, the server had no trouble speaking to her in English, pointing out the more traditional menu items specific to the area. She opted for a salad and a hearty bean soup in a bread bowl, served with red onion slices and a red hot pepper on the side. For dessert, she had a fuming hot, just-baked dish of crepes filled with soft cheese and raisins with a sweet vanilla flavour.
After this, Daciana passed the old defence wall and took the serpentines to the summit of the hill. She snapped a couple of photos for her parents, and when her watch showed 3:30 PM, she hurried downhill for her most important mission of the day.
On Saturdays, the antique shop closed at 5 PM. This left Daciana about 30 minutes to get some answers to her questions and maybe even browse around a bit – because this place was a treasure trove jam-packed with things. Back-to-back oil paintings decorated the walls, most mediocre but also a few truly beautiful creations. A couple of portraits by the same author left her staring, one of peasants working the field with their animals, the other of a girl with piercing blue eyes, wearing a traditional garment, sitting in the grass with a bouquet of wildflowers in her hands. Lower down the walls, old cameras hung by their straps. Adjacent to them, an entire collection of silver spoons with manufacturing years going back to the 1920s. Silverware and books, jewelry and watches were all stacked in boxes of various sizes. Vases of clay and crystal were kept separate to prevent damage. Coins, medals, and war decorations were visible through a window display that the clerk could access from behind the counter. Some furniture and traditional clothes could be found in the back. All of them pieces from an incomplete story.
"Bună seara, fată dragă!" an old man with a broad smile greeted her.
"Bună seara!" Daciana replied. "Din păcate, eu nu vorbesc bine româneşte. Vorbiţi cumva şi engleză?" she spoke the words she had practiced.
"My darling, in this day and age, almost anyone around here speaks English, and most Romanians also studied at least another foreign language. My wife and I can get by in about seven different languages, and the tourists who open our doors are always happy."
"Seven languages?" Dacy marvelled.
"Yes. You'd like to know what they are," he said without asking.
Daciana nodded.
"German was probably one of the first languages we learned, and this is because of the history of these parts. Because Romanian is our mother tongue, the Latin family of languages comes easily to us. I am better at French, and my wife is better at Spanish, but we're both good at Italian. We both know Russian because this was a mandatory class when our generation was young, and luckily, I also had the sanity to understand early on that knowing English would open many doors. My wife can get by but she is shy to speak because she learned it later, so she usually lets me speak whenever we have someone who prefers English. Add Romanian, and that makes seven."
"That's wonderful!" Coming from a place where some people found pride in only speaking one language, Daciana could not help but be moved by this seventy-something-year-old whose mind had the openness of a young child.
"What can I do for you, my dear? I have a feeling you're here for more than just looking around."
"The blouses you have in the back..."
"We called them <ie>. They are the traditional Romanian blouses worn by women for special occasions. Would you like to see them? Don't worry. We Romanians are not at all sensitive about cultural appropriation. Quite the opposite, we wholeheartedly love to share. We are so proud of what we make and want others to see and love our creations just as much as we do."
"I own one already. My grandmother left it for me, and I just got it recently."
"Are you trying to sell it?"
"No, nothing like that. I couldn't part ways with it. I just want to know a bit more about it."
"Why didn't you say so? I would love to have a look. Do you have it with you?"
"I do," Daciana said softly, reaching for her backpack and grabbing the bag inside, her heart pounding.
"Oh, what beautiful work!" said the old man, his wrinkly hands barely touching the fabric. "How did your grandmother come across this?"
"She made it herself." Daciana articulated full of emotion.
"So your grandmother was Romanian."
"Yes. My family moved to Canada before I was born though."
"You know, we Romanians believe that someone's eyes never lie. And your eyes told me you were Romanian the moment you walked in." the man said with joy in his voice, and even when a part of her thought that he may be exaggerating, Daciana felt proud to belong to this place.
"Let me call my wife too, I know a thing or two about these blouses but she's the expert. Marioara, vino puţin în faţă, te rog. Am o fată aici care vrea să ştie de o ie." he yelled towards the back of the store. "I'm Tache by the way, short for Costache," a jovial Tache said, pulling his chair closer to the counter.
Before Marioara could put whatever she was working on aside and come to the front of the store, Tache made his way toward the back door, and Daciana noticed he was limping. He didn't seem to mind, though and, as if he had done this hundreds of times, he grabbed a mismatched chair that looked a hundred years old and brought it next to his for his wife. He pulled a heavily stuffed velvet pillow from under the counter and placed it on the chair for her. When a woman about his height, rounder but just about as gentle looking as he was, made her way in, he patted the pillow to invite her to sit, hugged her from the back and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Tache explained to Marioara what was in front of them. Then, for a good few minutes, they spoke among themselves in Romanian, pointing to and admiring different elements of the blouse. Daciana did not understand much, but then the man switched back to speaking to her in English.
"My darling girl, Marioara and I have been fortunate in life. First to have found ourselves," Tache said, and the woman smiled broadly, her eyes not leaving his, "and then in life in general. We now own this store, but it is not for the money. We love the history of every object here and helping others discover what the naked eye cannot know. This is why seeing a new object like the one you brought us is always a pleasure.
The blouse you have here is also one made for special occasions. You can tell by the heavy embroidery on the sleeve. Day-to-day blouses, even with the same cut, were simpler, with less intricate patterns. The fabric looks close to a hundred years old, but I probably don't have to tell you that since you know your grandmother made it.
The pattern looks like it could be from the region Neamţ, but me and the wife here are not sure. Do you know where your grandma was from?"
"I don't," Daciana said with guilt. "But I think I can ask my father."
"If he doesn't remember, you could try asking in a museum. They're usually much better than us at recognizing these things. If you still haven't gotten an answer after, get back to us. My missus knows of a large group of women who sew these blouses. They communicate in Romanian, but we can take a few pictures, and I'm sure someone can help us identify where it comes from."
"That's very kind of you," Dacy said towards Marioara, who nodded back.
"Now for the embroidery," Tache continued. "Every woman puts her fingerprint onto creating a blouse that is just as unique as she is, and so did your grandma.
The front and the back have a very typical pattern of a <ie>. We call these vertical embroidery <rivers>. The term refers to their flow and does not necessarily represent an actual river."
"I noticed." Daciana countered. "These ones look a lot like branches of coniferous trees," she continued, pointing to the green embroidery decorating the front and the back.
"That's what we thought, too, a forest at a high altitude. You can tell the person who sewn this knew what they were doing because the stitching goes from the front of the neck to the waist. These blouses are back in fashion nowadays; however, the market is saturated with cheap imitations, where the embroidery starts lower on the chest, and they look... incomplete." Said Tache, and Marioara looked like she agreed.
"Any chance you can tell me anything about the sleeves too?" Daciana probed with caution.
"Dear girl, of course. The sleeves are the best part. This is where your blouse is no longer a blouse and becomes a true <ie>. Because, unlike a traditional blouse, a <ie> has to have all three parts, like yours right here, and gets to tell its beautiful story.
Starting with the top, this heavy embroidered blue part is called "altiţa," and it represents the sky. Marioara here pointed out the diamond pattern and the colors blue and silver, which are a clear giveaway for stars."
"Then this could be a constellation?" Daciana gasped.
"Could very well be. Your grandma seemed to like the sky, but we can't tell you which constellation this could be. We're both great at history, but astronomy is not our forte."
"That's okay. This is a great lead, and I can research this further."
"The second part here is not typical," Tache continued, "so this is where we had a bit of trouble. This part is called "încreţ." In the past, women would make <altiţa> more narrow, and this part would be sewn in folds to help join it with the rest of the sleeve in equal lengths. Rest assured, even when your grandma's is not folded, it is just as traditional. This part of the sleeve represents the soil or the earth. Because people used seeds on it, this part often has diamond patterns representing the seeds.
We did have trouble with two aspects, though. First, if you look at any of the blouses we have in the back, you'll notice that they all have this part in either yellow, ocher or, sometimes, white. This is the traditional way to do it. Rarely, you'll encounter some blouses with red, green or blue and only on blouses made by women whose families established in Romania from other parts of Europe. Yours is silver and utterly different than anything we've seen before, so we don't know what to make of it. And that's not all.
Upon closer examination of the pattern, you'll notice it is not perfectly symmetrical. Usually, these things are sewn to mirror each other from left to right in a repeating pattern. This one is very rich, and, at first glance, you'd think it's symmetrical, but it's not. If you look close, right here," Tache pointed, "you'll notice a pointy shape that repeats itself higher and higher, like a stair with six steps going from the left and climbing up to the right where it meets the blue embroidery. Marioara and I don't know what this could be, but if you ever discover what your grandma wanted to portray, we would love to hear about it." Tache laughed wholeheartedly.
"I'll certainly love to be able to tell you one day." Daciana smiled back.
"We have a couple more things to show you. First, to finish with the sleeve: these are also <rivers>", Tache went down on the fabric, showing her the blue embroidery. These ones could be an actual body of flowing water, based on the colour, although no steam or river would repeat itself like this naturally.
Next, and we really loved these: What do you think these are?" the old man pointed to the band of silver triangles at the end of the sleeve and the neck.
"Don't look at the silver part; it's there as a filler. Look at the part that's not embroidered, the white fabric. What does it look like?"
"I don't know?" Daciana continued to inspect the embroidery, puzzled, but Tache and Marioara kept quiet, letting her think.
"Teeth? Something from an animal, maybe?" she guessed, unsure.
"Bingo!" Tache laughed again. "These are called <colţii lupului>, <wolf's fangs> in Romanian. Women sew these on for protection. Notice how they always face the exterior? They make it like that to keep evil spirits away from the person wearing a garment like this."
"That's really poetic."
"Maybe, but maybe there's an ounce of truth to it," the old man said with a knowing look.
"Arată-i şi spatele!" Marioara pleaded with a whisper.
"Oh, yes. Here's something that you may not have noticed." Tache said, turning the blouse. "In the past, some women would leave their mark on the blouses they made. Your grandma did the same, and it's not obvious, but we found her mark. If you look here on the back, you'll notice two little initials sewn in the same colour as the fabric. Marioara thinks she may have used thread from the same fabric. It's not easily noticeable because the thread matured and changed colour along with the rest of blouse. Still, if you know how to look, the letters are clearly there, a small C and an L."
"Wow, this is the first I noticed this," Daciana said in wonder, a part of her struggling hard not to tear up. "These are her initials. Codruţa Lupu"
"That's a great name for the person who made this blouse!"
"Why do you say that?" Daciana never realized that her grandma's name had a meaning; she had always been just <grandma> to her, or <grandma Codruţa> when her parents spoke about her and tried to differentiate her from her other grandma, Doina.
"Well, let's start with her first name. Codruţa is a name whose root comes from the word <codru>, in English <woods> or <forest>. This certainly gives a more interesting meaning to the rivers on the front and back." Daciana agreed in wonder.
"And then her last name, Lupu. You said you're Canadian. Do you speak French as well?"
"I do." What did this have to do with anything?
"What does the name remind you of?"
Was the name "Lupu" supposed to remind her of something?
"Oh, my! It means <wolf>!" she jumped in front of the two smiling faces before her. "It's the same as <loup> in French. I can't believe I never realized this." The name that her grandmother and every other Lupu woman before fought to keep, her last name meant <wolf>. How wild!
"This is incredible. I can't thank you enough for this."
"No need to thank us, dear." This time, it was Marioara who replied. "It was our pleasure."
"Can I ask one last question?" Daciana inquired.
"Please."
"Am I allowed to wear it?" Her grandma said she should, but wearing something so old and so precious did not feel right.
"Of course you are. I already told you that these are back in style. Romanian girls have started wearing these more and more in the last few years, both new and old blouses. You should definitely wear yours, too. Wear it with confidence and wear it often; you'll make your grandma proud. If I may offer a small suggestion, this is a blouse made for a day of celebration. Next week, we have a big holiday, Saint Andrew, on November 30. It's a great day to wear your blouse for the first time."
Leontopodium alpinum, a plant that grows at high altitudes and produces a flower with a double star formation. Its leaves and white petals have a velvety appearance.
In literal translation, "flower of the cliff
Approximately 5250 feet.
Six feet.
Good evening, dear girl!
Unfortunately, I don't speak Romanian well. Do you happen to speak English as well?
Marioana, please come to the front for a bit. I have a girl here who wants to know about a <ie>.
Pronounced Tah-ke, a short version of Kos-tah-ke.
Show her the back, too!