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As I hung wash on the line nearby, Paul explained the reason for Petris’s animation. He was trying to convince us of the abiding joy of installing a pump to bring water effortlessly the eighty meters from the well to the house. That way, we, too, could join the other nine residents of the hamlet and derive the benefits of a washing machine. I saw Paul get that gleam men get in their eyes when the mention of gadgets comes onto to the playing field.
| The two were diving into the specifics when I butted in with one of my truly useful Latvian words. “Nē.” Being polite, I added, “Paldies, Petris. Loti paldies bet nē.” I gave the two a big smile and trotted into the cabin. After a few minutes, Paul followed. “What’s the big deal with the nē business? I know Petris can do this and he gave me a good price.” |
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“Remember my grandfather’s hat.”
“Oh, no.” Paul blanched, sagged into a chair and pulled his hair back. “Please God. Not the hat again.”
My grandfather’s hat was a legend on my father’s side of the family. One day in Eveleth, Minnesota, he was walking along with a friend when he tipped his cap back to scratch his head. The friend stopped and scowled.
“Pietro. Look atta your hat. I ah want to tell you. That hat, she a, a, how you say? A vergogna.”
“Giovanni. Dis a good hat, not a disgrace. Last for many year. New hat, she….” He rubbed the fingers of one hand against his thumb.
“Much money, Pietro? You got money. Dynamiter in mine, he make a good money.”
At this point, whoever telling the story always performed an elaborate exaggeration of the Italian shoulder shrug, palms up and eyes rolling heavenward to show Giovanni’s surprise at my grandfather’s refusal to buy a new hat.
The way my grandfather had it figured was that once he bought that new hat, he’d need new clothes for himself and then the rest of the family. Walking around the neighborhood with all those new clothes, he figured the neighbors would snub him so they’d have to move to a better neighborhood. Of course, the new house would need new furniture, and since no one walked up there on Ariel Street, he’d have to buy a car. Once he showed up at the mines in his new clothes and fancy car, the foremen would take one look and lay him off, figuring he didn’t need the job. Since my grandfather couldn’t read or write and could barely speak English, he knew he’d never get another job.
And all that because of a new hat.
I figured my grandfather would have made a great financial advisor.
We went back to Skujas water in its three familiar forms — from the well, from the church, and from the sky. The well, being eighty meters from the cabin provided lots of exercise without that pump and hosing mechanism Petris had so energetically proposed.
The water also had a funky taste so we would get our drinking water from one of the six spigots at the spring to the side of Aglona’s sprawling white Basilica.
Locals called the church water blessed since years back it was known for its curative properties as well as its sulfur taste and peculiar green color. A bustling hospital thrived next to the spring until the sulfur taste and green color disappeared. But Pope John Paul II saved the day on his visit to the church in 1993, two years after Latvian independence from Soviet rule. After the high mass, he blessed the congregation and then walked over to bless the water.
A large number of the 300,000 in attendance for the Pope’s visit carried containers to fill at the spring. The first waters from the spigots after the Pope’s blessing had the highest priority. It’s said in Skujas that bloody skirmishes broke out as the devotees fought for the privilege to be first in line.
| I’m more apt to call rain water blessed. Every foot in the rain barrel means one less trudge to the well. One day in 2010 I hauled twenty buckets the eighty meters to the house. In retrospect, I believe that was the day I turned mean. Anything that saves those in my vicinity from a Maria “mean” is blessed indeed. |
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Water to wash dishes, take our Gypsy baths, wash floors, clothes, and hair has to be heated on the rickety two-burner Soviet-era stove. |
While hustling outside with a pot of boiling water to throw on the towels soaking in the wash tub, I fumbled with the door latch and sloshed scalding water on the fingers of both hands.
After my initial scream, I ran to stick my fingers into the tiny wedge of freezer in our miniscule refrigerator. However, recollections of the lassie who one winter welded her tongue to the pump handle got me to reconsider my tactics.
“Maybe you could go and ask the neighbors what they do for burns.”
Paul started off down the road. I cradling my burning red fingers next to my stomach and followed. When I got to Valentina’s summer cabin, I saw Paul huddled in serious conference with Valentina over a tube of ointment.
Valentina took one look at my hands while Paul translated. “She says this is going to blister bad and it’s not good at all. She keeps repeating ‘Not good.’ But she has this ointment.”
“What’s it for?”
“Well, she says it works for sunburn.”
“Oh, yeah. That shuld do the trick.”
Valentina gently took my hands and spread the ointment of my fingers shaking her head. “Nau labi. Nau labi.”
We thanked her and turned toward the cabin. Valentina grabbed my arm, repeated nau labi, and motioned for Paul to translate. “What we do here in the country is….”
Paul looked puzzled so Valentina went into a pantomime even I could understand.
On the way back to the cabin, Paul darted looks at me, “You’re going to try it, aren’t you?”
“You bet.”
I went home and peed in a bucket, transferred the liquid to a big enameled tin cup and soaked my fingers in the warm urine.
The pain eased and the next day, I only had two tiny blisters on one pinkie and they disappeared in no time. Now that was blessed water indeed. And no pump needed.
| Skujas wisdom strikes again. |
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