The Christmas Tree
 A. Cristina Emanuela Dascalu

                              In muntii nostri astazi zapezile torc lenes
                        Izvoarele ingheata in clinchete subtiri/Iar caprele de munte, nervoase, prin poiene-si
                        Urmeaza-n taina calea iernaticei iubiri/Stiu ca pe masa vinul asteapta-n adormire
                        E vinul ros din care pe-atunci n-ai vrut sa-mi dai/In vremurile-acelea pastrate-n amintire
                        C-o mama grijulie si-un baietel balai.
                                -Nicolae Labis, Iarna romaneasca

 It is late November, a foggy, glacial evening, and I am going out with my boyfriend to buy a Christmas tree. Each year since I have come to this country, I go shopping for a fir tree earlier and earlier, conforming to the American tradition of preparing for the winter holidays while eating the Thanksgiving turkey. It still seems funny and somewhat unnatural to me, yet here I am, deeply involved in finding the perfect tree for my perfect living room. I surely don't want to go again through the disappointment of my first winter here, when I tried to buy the tree only a week before Christmas, according to the Romanian tradition, and I could barely acquire a tiny, twisted, scraggy pine tree, a kind of caricature of solemn emotions and Kansas winters.

 It snowed heavily last night, an unexpected event for late November in this part of the country; it snowed as if to remind me of other Christmas times, other places and people; it snowed memories and forgiveness and silence. . .
{you look down at the piece of paper counting and weighting my words evaluating their power their presence looking over my shoulder while i try to round the vowels–[poets are always sensitive to sounds and movements once you told me you can hear the grass growing]–touching the flakes with your heavy breath while reading les fleurs du mal melting away emotions cleaning the pavement with your long veil}

 It had been snowing for hours when I finally woke up, tired and confused, feeling entrapped in unknown images on my blurred retina, part of a scenario written out in small fonts, cursively in another language, one that I do not speak, one that I do not recognize. Again it is morning; I am skipping back in this time, delivered in a red brougham or maybe waited for by my dad's car, our first (and last) family automobile, a blushed beauty, a foreigner, our Lada 1500, also known as Marita.
{you check for corrigenda always looking for errors trying to make me feel guilty for using curved consonants continuously reminding me that there is no thought self contained or self referential syllables as arrows with random targets fragments of sentences like nestling afraid to leave the paragraphs tomorrow}

He was here just a minute ago, we were here together, to be exact and precise–how I hate this kind of solidified statements–we were part of the story whose plot I don't know yet; I have to bring him back, place him in the setting, determine time, place, and other details for the reader not to get lost . . .

     that day I was trying to return home after work; I think
     it was another late November; but we were not here;
     actually, you did not exist; a projection of my feeble
     senses, you worked on creating your own determiners
     much later, before I was born, before you ever existed;
     what point do I try to make? why do I get lost? that's
     exactly what I want to remind you; it was a late
     November, another November, another place (and time?),
     another me?–no, still Me–and I was circling that church,
     three times, ten times; I could not figure out the Way; no
     matter where I turned, what path I took, Here I was  
     again (in vain?), in front of the same gate: but

            No Entrance. . .

Next lines are written in anger, and they were in my notebook when I woke up. I cannot be held responsible for their content which I do not know yet. There is my grandmother also, cutting her nails, her silky, wavy, blond hair in cascades on her empty shoulders–the fashionable dress of the time, the same as in the picture I found ten years from now in the basement (or maybe the attic?), and again there is snow, and again there is a late November time, an end of the harvest season; the scent of gardenia corrodes the senses, when I woke up again my father was born. . .

It is still snowing outside, and we have been walking for a while; 1989 December Tanks on the University Square Red Pavement Red Flags Shooting More Shooting Silence

      –Would you like to buy the red decorations? The shop assistant wears his fake smile as a torn apart flag. I am quickly placed in reality; my horizons automatically adjust to their reduced dimension:

      “Mos Craciun cu plete dalbe. . .” the singers, their voices are so familiar: “Buna dimineata la Mos Ajun . . .”

      -Christmas Songs; that's a great choice, especially since the CD is on sale this week only . . .

      It snowed heavily over night. It had been snowing for hours.

[I have dreaded writing the story for hours and days, finding reasons and priorities, and here I am lying on the couch, avoiding the bed's comfort, the comfy clothes, half asleep (or in between dream and reality?) wandering if seraphim sing in winter or if there are any seraphim or any winter at all]

{each encounter with time is like a victory against yourself. Tactfully layering memories till the seagull transforms itself into an eagle and the piece of sand in a precious pearl. I was reading novels on the back porch, imagining people and places, imagining myself, inventing this heavy winter and you. . . }

There are definitely many potentially successful Christmas trees in here, bourgeois appearances and modest peasants, different clothes/pines, and dialects. The trees are tired from too much and too long traveling; gathered together, they are now waiting to be housed soon. There are really many trees here, “too many,” my boyfriend comments, hesitantly looking around, and the shop assistant, unshaved, in his forties, his red shirt buttoned to the wattles of his throat, shivering with cold, cannot wait to go home either. I would offer him a cup of hot tea, but there are people coming in, an affluence of all kind of people, for all kinds of trees.

My boyfriend and I have different ideas about how to pick the Christmas tree–as we have in regard to everything else–but in time we have learnt to compromise somehow. If he could have it his way, we would be out of here the next minute or so. He will grab a tree, at random, probably the one in his closest proximity, completely ignoring the other trees, a habit I find impolite; so I try to compensate by visiting with the ignored pine trees, and fir trees, and molids . . .

[you'd better not laugh again pointing out that i could as well get myself a nice artificial Christmas tree. . . cannot you see that i need to feel the pine smell the aroma of wonder the aroma of time passing by]

He is definitely tired, moving his weight and thought from one leg to another, ignoring possibilities in the distance. I would like to tell him, “just few more steps and dinner is ready . . .” my mother and my father and my elder sister in the kitchen smell of food and wine and Christmas and fir trees and carols and snow and happiness appetizers, especially the jellied pork, sour chicken soup, Romanian borsch, grape leaf rolls and Salad Boeuf, all so delicious, “tochitura moldoveneasca,” breaded veal, baked pork roast, carp roe paste–a Pantagruelic feast–duck with cucumbers, layered cakes–layered memories–i can smell the winter air in the visitors' coats, they have just returned from the snow, the carol singers, pastries, strudels, pies, and other desserts, French pate, fried peppers salad, horseradish, eggplant salad, the smell of fresh bread almost nauseating and the voices the familiar voices:

      –I think this will work out quite well.

      –Sixty bucks, sir . . .

It snowed heavily last night. It had been snowing for hours when I woke up and, as every morning, ran to the window to see if winter had come. The street was unrecognizable, old and fluffy lady, overdressed in its ermine coat. I was warm and comfortable in the old house with its calm, soothing feeling like an overprotective, maternal behavior. I feel tenderness for the walls, and the carpets, and the furniture–all too well known. This house knows my routine and my thoughts better than the friends who ventured inside, like in a big fish, a senseless biblical allusion.

    you lie down on my bed your face turned to me we talk about
    dissension in the belarusian parliament about grozny and tbilisi  
    and about second hand cars i look at your mouth i feel no
    desire it is just the proximity just the smell the christmas tree
    aroma my hands almost in yours a kind of momentary
    intimacy a kind of soothing fluid you lie down on my bed i
    know you for years thinking that i start smiling you say are
    you making fun of me while we both lie on the rim of night's
    scream . . .

    -Ma’am, would you like to buy the Christmas tree? We are closing in ten minutes!