I think of Maria and wonder if maybe her papa is introducing her to a man now too. Is this how it works? Why so early? I am not to get married for at least another four years, possibly six, if I can go all the way at school. Is this man to wait that long for me? Will he allow me to become a teacher? I want to see Maria, talk to her, but then I think of her papa and the spitting men, and his comment about the Zanesti brothers and my home of too many men. An image of my cousin Katerina comes to my mind. The man they chose to be her husband was old and heavy and not from around here. We have not seen or heard from her since she left, two days after her eighteenth birthday. When I asked about her a few weeks later, an icy wind seemed to blow into the room, and Papa pressed a finger against his lips.

The dog is licking my face and I push it off me. Its ears are pinned back and it snarls at me, tail wagging still. I know enough not to look an animal in the eye when it’s feeling threatened.

The light is fading and it’s difficult to tell if this is dusk or just a thickening of the cloud cover, which settles over our heads on still, musty days like these. Papa says it’s from the factories that belch out big black clouds of ash in Chişinău. Although you never know with Papa.

The man may have come and gone, or the man may still be there – I must have been gone for hours now. I look around me at the forest floor and know that I wouldn’t stand a chance out here: I haven’t a clue what would poison and what would feed, or how cold it gets at night. My stomach feels bloated from too many hours of not eating.

The walk home is not as long as I wish it would be. I debate whether to run back into the forest, run to Maria’s house, run to the town, run anywhere but towards this man, when I find myself at the old fellow’s side. I wait a moment, hoping for whispers in the wind, some direction to take, some call to action, invocation. The sky reveals itself in yellow patches as daytime still, casting its eerie light through his feathery branches, but no instructions are issued. I find my feet taking off in the direction of our house. What other choice? What, dog? It cocks its head to one side and barks gustily.