The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 37 Complementing for fishes with Auntie Sacha

Spencer winced at each splashing step as he tiptoed as gently as he could, through the muddy puddles in his dress shoes and peered down at the khaki coloured spatters steadily accumulating on the highly buffed patent leather uppers. He was headed toward what could only loosely be described as a front door, and he stood for a moment to compose himself when he reached it before knocking on it. With a creak the plain plywood panel fell inwards off its top hinge pivoting inwards into the hovel.

"Hello!" Spencer called out hesitantly in Slavik. He peered inside seeing little. It was bright sunshine outside and dingy inside so it took Spencer quite a while to resolve an image. At first all that he could see was a green after image of the brightness outside.

"Hello!" He said hesitantly once again. "Is there somebody at home?"

"Come in! Come in! I've been expecting you!" Came the cracked but feminine reply. "Still mustn't grumble must we? I don't get that many gentleman callers these days!"

"Indeed!" Spencer ventured, he wondered who or what had informed the resident of his immanent arrival .

The sole occupant was a grinning, almost toothless, old woman with a clay pipe, wearing  a dress skilfully crafted from a patchwork of at least five different fabrics with what appeared to be a perfectly symmetrical arrangement.

"You like the dress." She remarked, mistaking his awestruck face for admiration.  

Actually Spencer was more  taken aback than impressed by the dress. He deemed the hem to be far too high and the neck line too low for a woman of her advanced years, but then he reflected that the material that it was probably all the fabric that she could afford. What made things worse was that it was possible that judging from the rather discoloured nature of it, all down the front, it was the only one that she currently possessed. 

 "My niece Eliška made the dress for me cause my old fingers aren't what they used to be. "She said proudly. "In fact nothing is same used to be. Still mustn't grumble."

"Indeed yes madam!" Spencer Ventured in his best Slavik. "The dress has been most professionally made... What there is of it!"

The old lady was perched on a rusted metal bar stool, displaying far too great an expanse of stocking-less, varicose legs for Spencer's preference. 

"Don't you dare pity me young man."  She said derisively. "I have lived longer than you will ever get a chance to!"

This seemed to seep directly into his head without her having to move her lips despite the heavy block in Spencers mind. 

"Still mustn't grumble. It's nice that someone is taking an interest in me for a change!" She laughed. She made no secret that she was admiring his long legs though she was seeing him in silhouette in doorway. "You definitely ate all your dinners when you were a little boy."

When Spencer's vision finally resolved itself,  he saw that she was stirring some liqui in old battered and chipped earthenware pot, suspended on wires over a fire from a tripod.  Spencer couldn't tell what kind fuel she was burning to heat the pot, but whatever it was; it certainly wasn't wood and the fumes smelt vaguely of apples. When he looked down at the source of the heat, a strange blue green flame seemed to be hovering just above a collection of large pebbles on the ground. Spencer guessed that the unusual colour was due to some metal impurity in the fuel.

In addition to the strange fuel, the bubbling mixture gave off an aroma redolent of boil washing a whole football team's dirty underwear, as the vapour rose from the pot. From time to time she exhaled in his direction and the pipe smoke made the atmosphere almost unbreathable. Whatever was in the pipe it wasn't tobacco. Spencer guessed correctly that it must be some local herb... but whatever it was it was making him feel light headed.