IN THE SHADOW OF THE BIG OAK

IN THE SHADOW OF THE BIG OAK

“ Here, it is still there” Lucy said, with a wiggle of her chin to point  straight  , over there, at the end of the lawn. She was looking out the window. In front of the house there was a vegetable garden, with also some fruit trees, a plum tree, two pear trees, three cherry trees. Beyond the vegetable garden there was the lawn, of modest side, a strip of land which was not cultivated, to let grass grow, which later would have become hay.  Over there, at the end of the lawn there was it, indeed She, majestic, invincible, the big oak. Lucy, who was forty, remembered to have always seen the big oak, which seemed to have always been over there, at the end of the lawn. She had in fact learned from her grandfather that the big oak stood already there not only since he had been  a child, but since his grandfather was a child.-

Lucy had never been able to understand how the big oak could have become so large, so luxuriant, how it ( she) could have been prospering so much and so long , since its roots were planted not in the ditch at the end of the lawn, that is not in the base ( ground) of the ditch, but they ( instead) were planted downhill on one side of the ditch.

As a child, the meadow  at the foot of the big oak had been a playground for her and other neighborhood children, who were very intrigued by that big, large tree, towering over them.

Lucy remembered that all m children were fascinated by the acorns, so shiny, so dazzling , that they invited you to taste them. And in fact they all, she too, had tried to bite the acorns, without succeeding in it, since they were harder than wood. Her father, her uncle had made fun of them, when they had seen them trying to eat the acorns. “On, children, you are not pigs! Let pigs eat acorns….acorns are good for pigs” She, Lucy, then had asked why they didn’t bring the pigs, which were always locked up in the stable, under the oak, she would have liked to see the pigs eat the acorns. She would have loved it so much that she had dreamed the pigs grazing at the foot of the big oak, while they children were playing in the lawn, and they approached even the pigs, they touched them, they laughed amused when the pigs grunted. Lucy had continued to dream for some time the same dream. In her dream she saw the pigs, with their large, rounded body, with the pink of their skin standing out in the green , with their snouts stuck in the grass to scratch , while they children went near them ( pigs), curious , impatient to see how the pigs were able to eat the acorns. How much big, strong, sharp teeth pigs had, how easy they crushed acorns: crack-crash…..Their toothed, indeed armed jaws were almost fearful too, but in her dream the children approached the pigs without fear, and they also touched them, while they, the animals, gave no sign of impatience , or of being bothered , on the contrary they seemed to appreciate the

closeness of the children. Then once in her dream, hitherto always the same, it had happened that one of the children, the youngest of them, Tommy, of four years, had been eaten by a pig, The great animal, with its toothed jaws, had grabbed him , who was trotting beside it, smoothing its head with his little hand, and  the pig had crushed the child as if he was  an acorn :crash-crash. Therefore Lucy, whenever she had happened to dream pigs at the foot of the great oak again, (she) had woken up screaming, to avoid seeing Tommy being crushed by the pig jaws.

But you see, how strange, as she would have thought later, that dream could have been prophetic. A few years later her dream Tommy had disappeared , and more than a month

after his disappearance he had been found dead in a wood not far from there.  Tommy had been strangled , and he had been mutilated  in his hands and feet, which were never found. It was said that the child had been killed by a pedophile , but there were also those who made the hypothesis of a doctor, perhaps an orthopedist, who had killed Tommy in order to use his hands and his feet, that is, to transplant them.

So many stories revolved ( rounded ) around that indestructible , mythical great oak, stories that Lucy had heard told when she was a child.  Hannibal , an uncle of her grandfather had told her that, during the war, when there was the German occupation, a Jewish family of four, father, mother and two children, had hidden inside the trunk of the big oak to avoid to be taken and deported to the lager. The great uncle had told that he, like other people of the village, had gone to bring food to the Jews hidden inside the trunk of the very big oak, since they had been hidden in there for over a month. To Lucy as a child it seemed that he story of the great- uncle Hannibal had something of a fairy tale. She had been more impressed, even more interested in the cavity which she imaged as….about a castle, which had to be inside the oak , so large it had to be, that four persons ( people) could find ( could have found) refuge in there, than

In them, the four Jewish people , who had found refuge there, to escape deportation to the lager.

“ Ah, you know, inside the big oak there is a large den, it must be as great as a house, but even more than a house…..ah….” Lucy had told to the children of the neighborhood, who came every day yo play in the meadow at the foot of the oak.  They all ( all the children)  had been delighted, but even very enchanted to hear of that hidden secret place, which none of them would ever have thought it, a such place, could be  inside the big oak, inside its trunk, when they had played in the meadow, at the foot of the oak.  Each of them imaged  that secret refuge as a wonderful place, each of them could not help but fantasize about it. Oh, but then they had to find the way to access that wonderful, fantastic place.  What had great-uncle Hannibal said, eh? Was it possible to get in there? They had asked with a terrible insistence, trembling with impatience ( to her)

Unfortunately the great-uncle had been very vague, indeed reticent about it .There had have been an access for that hidden place inside the oak, if the story he had told Lucy was true, but it had seemed to her that he didn’t at all want to talk about it.

“ Ah, but there must be a door, or rather a hidden, secret door, which is not visible to those who don’t know of its existence, a secret entrance on the trunk of the oak, we must find it….with our fingers more than our eyes and then we will come in the secret shelter” Alice had said, convincing everyone. Then they children had started to feel with their hands, with their fingers, inch by inch, the great, rough trunk of the oak, while they also observed it minutely,( inch by inch) On the massive trunk of the oak, wrapped in ivy , they had found more than one nest, dug by woodpeckers, but no area of the trunk  that opened like a door for entry. ( to come in).

Some of the children had then started shouting that they had to dig the nests of the woodpeckers, so they could have found  under one of them the access to the secret place. Then they children had armed (themselves) with picks and hammers . But they had just started beating in those holes, which were the nests of the woodpeckers, when Lucy’s father and grandfather had ordered them to stop, that otherwise they would have killed the oak.

Lucy and the other children, not at all resigned, after a few days had tried to make an opening in the trunk of the oak. So ,using cutters, knives and even scissors they had only managed to carve the bark of the trunk, but, having carved a rectangular space on the trunk, indeed on its bark, they hoped, or imaged to be able to open a door on it. Ah, that time they had been scolded very severely. There had been also severe penalties for some of them, for Lucy too. But, oh, in short , what had they got into their heads? Did they want to destroy that hundred year-old oak? They parents had scolded them. 

“ Oh, but we did only be looking for that secret place, for the shelter which is inside the oak, inside its trunk….Eh, how can we get in it?” Lucy had asked.

“ But what a shelter! There is no shelter inside the oak!” her father had claimed.

“ And instead the great-uncle Hannibal said me that there is, oh, but sure , a shelter, a refuge inside the trunk of the oak!” Lucy had protested resentfully. “ Uncle Hannibal came in there he too, during the war, to bring food to a Jewish family who ( which) had hidden there” Lucy had added.   At those words her father and her grandfather had exchanged a worried and full of implications look, a look which Lucy was too child , that is too young, to be able to worry about.

For her, who had noticed , glimpsed it, that exchange of look had been only…..something dark, as dark as an evening shadow, even something perhaps worried, but she had not wondered what that look could mean. That dark look which her father and her grandfather had exchanged, above her head, (it) had not at all made her suspicious.

“Oh, that there, my uncle Hannibal! Oh, but he is crazy at all! You mustn’t believe the stories he tells, they are invented from scratch” Her grandfather  had said, beating his stick on the ground and then pointing it at her.

Shortly thereafter the great-uncle Hannibal had died. Lucy had continued to believe that inside the trunk of the big oak there was a cavity , which she imaged as a great palace or as a castle.  She had continued to talk of that secret place, which remained inaccessible for her, for all  of them children. But, oh, if it had been possible to go there, it would have been like entering an enchanted world.

Years passed, Lucy was grown up, she was now a teenager. Meanwhile her grandfather had dead too.

One day Lucy saw an elderly woman, holding a little girl by hand, at the foot of the big oak.  The woman was called Esther and the little girl, who was her grandchild, Judith.  Esther said she had come to see, to greet, the great oak, which had saved her life over fifty years before.  Oh, then there was truly a secret refuge inside the trunk of the oak! Lucy had cheered, enthusiastic, and soon she had asked to Esther how to access it.  Lucy had also told that her great-uncle had spoken of that secret shelter, but without telling her how to be able to access it.

“ Ah, I can understand….your great-uncle had wanted the refuge to remain secret” Esther had said.  Then she, going close the oak, had started to touch, to feel with her hands the trunk of the oak, as if looking for something. “ HERE, found !“ she had exclaimed after a while. Incredible! The trunk had opened , and Lucy could come in the secret shelter with Esther and Judith.  The shelter was not as large as she had imagined. It had not have been easy or comfortable to be locked up in four people for over a month, Lucy had said.  Then Esther had told her something important that her great-uncle had instead omitted.  Yeah, since if the great-uncle Hannibal had found for Esther’s family that secret shelter, and he had helped them to escape the arrest and the deportation, then it had happened that other people of the village had betrayed them, had sold them to the Germans, revealing that hiding place to them.  When the German soldiers had broken into their refuge only she, Esther, by a miracle, had managed not to be captured and taken away, since she had hidden, holed up  in an even more hiding place, a narrow tunnel  in which the German soldiers had not seen her.  “ HERE, look” Esther had said, pressing a fingertip on a wall of the shelter, which had opened in a very small space, a kind of hole.

Esther had left a doll in the shelter, which she had promised herself she would have come back for it someday.  She now had come back to thank the great oak and to take her doll, which would have been of Judith.