The Encounter with the Wolf — Storm, Return Home

“And did you ever see a wolf?”

“Well, I hung around with one.”

One time I went to the brook below the house to do the laundry. We had running water there throughout winter and summer. Men had placed “washboards” there for their wives to do the laundry.

A washboard was a piece of smooth stone, part of it jutting out above the water, so that each woman had her own spot. If several women came at the same time, each knew which stone and which place by the river belonged to her.

We washed clothes by laying them on the stone and pounding them with a wooden beetle in one hand, while constantly turning them over with the other.

So one day I came down there. It was Saturday, and I wanted to have everything clean for Sunday. I brought all our light-coloured clothes and started washing.

Usually there were several women there, but this time I was alone. Although it was autumn, the day was nice and sunny.

As I washed, I would occasionally look up above the brook, because my sheep and lambs were grazing there, partly hidden by the bushes.

So I kept washing and watching over my sheep, but I never looked to my left. The second time, the third time I looked up, there they were, all neatly in place.

And I kept washing.

Then I looked up again, and all of a sudden, high up on a rock, I saw a wolf. He stood there stretched out, his head and neck extended, his tail slightly raised and wagging contentedly.

He was looking at me, and now I was looking at him.

I didn’t know what to do. An animal — I couldn’t know whether he was rabid or friendly. I couldn’t know that. But he was a wolf. I recognised the animal.

Then it occurred to me to use the wooden beetle. I swept the laundry off the stone and started pounding the stone with it, shouting:

“Yup! Yup! Yupi!”

I did that two or three times.

And he turned around and left. He went off in completely the opposite direction, leaving the sheep and me in peace.

Then I decided that the wolf must have been full — not hungry at all, and probably not thirsty either. Because if he had been hungry, he would have snatched a lamb, and I would have died of fear.

And when a wolf senses human fear, he becomes twice as daring. He feels superior and dares to attack a person.

That was why they taught us not to be afraid, but to make noise and shout the hunting cry:

“Yup! Yup! Yupi!”

That was the cry used during wolf hunts.

Anyway, the animal seemed to be in a good mood, with a full stomach, and he had probably already drunk some water too.

The wolf performed an inspection of the place and left.

“I find it easier to think back than to think forward. That’s what happens in old age.”

“And how do you explain that?”

“Well, it’s like with a computer. Everything is stored somewhere in the memory, waiting all the time for you to activate certain points, certain moments that are interconnected. And when you put them all together, you get a complete story.

You don’t get the whole thing until the tenth time. That’s why you can tell the truth only once — and most authentically the first time.”

“Why is that?”

“Is that only the way I think, or is it really so? When I want to tell a story for the second time, I feel an urge to expand it, to add details, and then the story as I told it the first time somehow loses its value for me.

It is difficult to tell the truth in a different way. What I tell the second time does not necessarily have to be untrue, but I try to make it more convincing. That is the intention.

There — I can’t remember what happened yesterday, and yet I remember events from the distant past very well.

And it seems that I remember the difficult times and moments more often, and the happy ones less often, although there were so many of them. Those were mostly holidays, Christmases, patron saint’s days.

I say that I’m confused. I was always the one who entertained people by telling stories. And if I find a subject, then I can keep developing stories.”

I remember, it was February, or some winter month like that. I went to school in the morning, around eight o’clock. When I left, I said goodbye to Granny. But I didn’t tell her about the dream I had had the night before because there wasn’t enough time.

Later, during the long school break, my aunt came to the school. She lived across the road from it, and she told me that my granny had died.

What could I do? I was so sad, and then I told my aunt about this incredible dream.

“I saw two big black birds sitting on a branch of the tree outside the house. All of a sudden they flew up and started cawing, horribly and loudly, and then they flew towards the cemetery.

I saw them settle on the big cherry tree that stood there.”

The dream must have been an omen of something, and I remembered it forever.