Waiting for the cranes

POSTED IN Stories June 19, 2015

Waiting for the cranes

And again, time takes another path, back through the years, at that age of innocence, when her Papa was young and her only hero. She was around four years old, a wild child, only dark hair and dark big eyes, widely open. They lived in an old Jewish house, an inheritance of her father from his Jewish relatives who left the country and went to Israel, leaving behind a lonely Papa. That house had a wonderful yard, with lots of trees, flowers, places to hide. In spring she’d have the wildest time to express herself. First it was her strong belief that, all the migratory birds would come back to her country personally for her. Then all the trees (particularly the one at her window!) would blossom only for her and spring would come every year just to be her toy.
Hence, every year in late March she hid herself on the roof of their summer kitchen (easy to climb on for a restless child), nobody could find her there, and she was silently waiting for the cranes.
She had the strong belief that they are coming back from other lands just for her and she would see the exact moment the first crane will appear on the horizon in the evening, if she waited for it peacefully, silently, faithfully.
She always went missing at the exact moment her family was gathering around the table, so her mother always had to scream her name, to search for her, to threaten her, and so on…
The first year went well, without big punishments but also with big disappointments, because she could not see her cranes at the moment they entered her country. The second year though brought her a bigger surprise: her father.
The same ritual, she was missing from the dinner table, her mother was nervous, it was late March and she was on the roof waiting. But this time, while everybody was searching for her, father saw her sitting on the roof and holding her knees patiently, and he came next to her, climbing on the same roof, sat in the same position and started to wait…
He did not ask anything, did not say anything… After a few minutes, he whispered: “what are we waiting for?”…
And then she told him her secret: “the cranes, Papa!”

Maria Magdalena Biela