Already a subscriber? Log in
In the village of Breb, Blacker was directed to the house of Mihai and Maria, an elderly couple who, having no children of their own, ‘might have room for me to stay’. He stayed for several years, on and off. While his gentle, self-deprecating tone reveals that he never presumes himself to be anything but a foreigner in their midst, his love for the people and the environment is so evident that one can see why he was accepted. Wishing to join the villagers scything the meadow, he goes to market, where someone helps him choose a scythe blade. Back in the village, a man measures him, ‘noting especially the distance between the ground and the tip of my chin’, and then makes a handle for him from ‘curved pieces of plum wood … selected and cut from the tree the year before.’ There are marvellous descriptions of going courting with ‘the lads’, which Mihai urges him to do, of going to church and to the fair on a hillside with the snow-capped Carpathians in the distance. It is a medieval society which makes its own clothes, grows its food, follows the seasons and operates according to traditions developed over 2,000 years. But, delightful and impressive as Blacker finds it, he is close enough to resist sentimentality.
Nor did he spend all his time in Breb. Long periods were also spent in a Saxon village he calls Halma, in Transylvania. It was then still home to some of the descendants of the community who settled there 800 years ago and built their imposing ring-walled churches. Retaining both language and customs even through 40 years of Communist rule, their real crisis came after 1989, when the German government offered passports to the inhabitants. On successive visits, Blacker sees the people disappear and their buildings deteriorate. But much as he wishes — and helps — to preserve the old buildings, it is the people who move into them that keep him coming back. The gypsies.
To begin with, the lure is a strikingly beautiful girl called Natalia. (One of the many excellent photographs in the book is of her.) Although the Saxons and Romanians, in particular a sinister policeman called Barbu, repeatedly warn Blacker to keep away from the gypsies, he persists. He meets Natalia’s family and other gypsies, learns about them and becomes fond of them. Eventually he sets up house with Natalia’s sister, Marishka. But the idyll is not straightforward and his adventures among the gypsies provide the book with a tense narrative drive that is absent from the bucolic setting of the Maramures. I will not spoil the dénouement.
Blacker is an acute observer and he writes very well, but much of what he describes defies belief. Are there really still witches in Europe? Are there really still Europeans who believe in magic? Well, yes. In 1984 I went by car from Brussels to Turkey. Rather than follow the motorway through what was then Yugoslavia, we detoured through Romania. Were it not for what I saw then in the Maramures and Transylvania, I would surely assume this remarkable book was laced with fantasy and the fruit of ethnographical research conducted in libraries. But I believe every word.
Also in Book Reviews
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in