The Wolfer
A Weird Folk Tale
“O formidabilă activitate de duh pe care noi o mai putem savîrși. Magul primitiv devenea, prin asta, arhetipul lupului, marele lup spiritual de dincolo, dinaintea căruia haiticul de rînd se trage infiorat, ca oamenii la apariția unui înger.”
— V. Voiculescu, “În mijlocul lupilor”
“…Now you got to tell me where I can find this guy,” said the fat, bald man. His thick eyebrows dropped pearls of sweat on the old wooden table. His thick red mustache was being twirled by the sausages that he used for fingers.
“Now we drink. I’ll tell you later.” I said, and then I leaned back in my seat, the chair letting out a squeak that filled the silence. His glassy eyes were staring me down.
“I didn’t come to this forgotten village to drink. I entertained you for a while. But you promised that you would tell me where to find the wolfer.”
“Did I?” I couldn’t hold in a giggle. “I said I met him when I was a kid. Once. Besides, didn’t everybody around here tell you to stay away from such nonsense? The woods, small now as they are, are still dangerous, especially for a city boy like you. I don’t think you do a lot of running, jogging, I think you educated people call it,” I said, leaning over the table to tap his belly. Only for his own good, I was trying to cut down his resolve. Surely, I found a good wound from which to draw blood.
Everything is prey, băiete, everything under God’s own Heaven. Everything can be hunted. It’s only a matter of learning from which wound to draw blood. And once it’s bleeding, it can run, but your nose will take you to where you need to find it.
“Yes, you did, a glass or two ago. It’s been five of them so far, and I am no more knowledgeable, but I surely am a bit drunk. I will entertain you, but I need to get to the wolfer. I told you I need to interview him to get that grant money. Your superstitions and taboos be damned.”
“Don’t be like that, my friend. You’ll get your money. But the wolfer is not that easy to find. I’m afraid that drinking with me will be the best way for you to get your little scholarship—“
“I am not going to get paid to reimburse you for your alcohol. It’s coming out of my own empty pockets,“ he arranged his white polo shirt, exhaling.
“I wasn’t going to ask you for that; you are a guest in my house,” I said, extending my hands, reaching for the high ceiling. “My great-grandfather built this house when he came after the Russians invaded Bucovina—“ he slapped the table, rudely interrupting my little reverie.
“Please, don’t let me make a fool of myself in front of the department. They all told me the wolfer was an urban legend…” his upper lip shivered. I did not need my nose to smell his desperation. He stood up straight and downed his drink, wiping his hands on those blue trousers. Rising, he put his large belly in my face.
“Sit your fat ass down!” and he obeyed my command. I looked deep into his eyes. His pupils were shrunk with fear. I took the bottle of blueberry liquor and poured each of us another glass of the dark red liquor.
“Firstly, this is a village; thus, the wolfer would be a rural legend if anything. Secondly, it’s not a legend at all. I met him—“
“So you really did?” his eyes lit up like a child’s in front of a present. Fear was gone, and I nodded and raised my glass. He met it with his, and we both downed them; joy and friendship abounded within and around us.
“Twice, actually,” I said after a fiery exhale, my voice sweetened by the blueberry liquor. “A lot of people knew him during Ceausescu’s time. He was their meat supplier.” I said, leaning back in my chair, a smug smile on my face. I looked at him, wondering why this fat man came to our village to ask every man, woman, child, nun, and drunk about the wolfer. Was it just for that stupid scholarship money? Whatever his reasons, they made him lean in closer.
“So he sold wolf’s meat? Were people really that desperate back then? I was aware of food shortages and breadlines, but not outright famine.” his heavy left leg was jumping and twitching. He poured each other another round and downed his dark-filled glass.
“Not wolf’s meat. Venison. And lots of it. The forest around here used to be wider, denser. Many beasts were roaming through it. The river used to be wider too, overflowing so heavily in spring when the snow thawed that cattle used to drown in it. Dozens of them every year. People too. The village didn’t really change that much over time. It has always been a civilized place, full of God-fearing folk. Blame it on the monastery just up the hill.” I took a small sip from my glass—
“I know all about this place. Read all I could before I came here. The wolfer is what interests me—” but not too small not to be interrupted.
“I was ten years old when I first met the wolfer. Personally, my grandfather knew him quite well. They traded—“
“They traded? But wasn’t the communist regime cutting down all private initiative?” The fat man almost jumped out of his seat at such blasphemy against his own knowledge.
“Well, you, Professor Interrupting Prick, are right. The regime cut trade down. But people still made some deals here and there as people always do. In the 1980s, the regime was getting harsher, food shortages being the norm. Not a famine, nothing close to that. Meat became a luxury. Even if you had the money, it was damn hard to get your hands on even a slice of Sibiu salami. But not for us here around the village, as we had the wolfer, pity he didn’t hunt Sibiu salami,” I chuckled.
“My grandfather was a merchant by nature—a bişnițar, you know that word? And he always got his hands on all sorts of interesting stuff, a lot of it illegal. The wolfer had a gun, and for that he needed bullets. And more than that, he needed somebody brave enough to buy them from, yet also trustworthy. The story goes that he used to be a resistance fighter. No, he wasn’t a fighter; that’s not a good term, because he never actually fought, at least not during my lifetime. Nevertheless,
he was resisting. He spent his days living in the woods, hunting. I guess that’s where he also slept. He came down to the village once a month, on the third Sunday.” I took another sip to water my mouth, a smirk rising around the end of the glass.
“On one such Sunday when I was about ten years old, I was playing by the river. And the river wasn’t this small stream full of garbage. It was wide as a highway, doubling in size in spring. Its underwater currents took many young men to an early watery grave. I almost became part of that number, if not for the wolfer. I can remember feeling a giant hug from beneath the water, wrapping itself around my body and pulling me into the cold water. I was shouting and screaming, swimming with all my might. It was for naught; the water was getting in my mouth. The last thing I remember before I started to drown was a man surrounded by what seemed to be five dogs. I woke up later, after a lifetime, to my face being licked by a wolf. A strange man wearing a woolen shepherds’ cap, a heavy belt, like a bandolier, held up his dirty army fatigues, a single suspender that wrapped around the matching green tunic. All of his clothes were riddled with holes, many of them sewn up. Only his black boots, creased as they were with time, looked as if they were shined that very morning. He smiled when I woke up, or he seemed. I was hard to tell beneath the massive grey beard. I was too shocked to say anything, yet he did all the speaking for both of us.”
“And what did he say? Were there actual wolves? I thought that was something that was added by the papers; how did he tame them? Did he tell you that?” The fat man almost jumped out of his seat again. This time, gluttony or gravity kept him in place.
“He told me that this never happened. I nodded, still in shock, surrounded by the five wolves that were panting like puppies. He winked and then barked at his wild hounds to go, speaking in their tongue. They disappeared instantly. The wolfer winked at me once more. I still couldn’t react. This seemed to amuse him, the wolfer letting out a short laugh that revealed a pair of small, dog-like fangs. He started walking slowly to the forest. I watched him until he disappeared in the woods.”
“So he had wolves as pets? This, if true, is better than I thought.” he tried taking a sip from the empty glass, spilling the single drop that was hanging on the rim on his polo shirt.
Pool of blood, pool of blood on the snow, ravens circling over you
“Yes, he did. After that, all I could think about was him. Just like you, I was asking myself endless questions. Who was this strange man? Was he ex-military? How did he survive in the woods? Did he use the wolves for hunting? How did he tame them? But most importantly: how could I become like him? From that day, in one way or another, I knew that I wanted to be trained by him, learn his ways.” I looked at the old wardrobe behind my companion’s seat. A dark wooden box sat atop it. I kept staring at it.
Băiete, băiete, soon I will die, just like my old pups. Others will take their place, but who will take mine? Walk after me and find somebody to walk after and after, until that old monastery turns to ash and dust in the fires of a new, more savage world, carrying the two Gospels in their heart and on the path…
“I started asking questions, and most of the time I was scolded for being foolish, sometimes even slapped across the face by the older women in the village, oftentimes in broad daylight. Later I found out that I wasn’t the first who wanted to be his apprentice. Apparently, in the sixties or even earlier, there were a few boys he took under his wing. Those who didn’t get eaten alive by wolves got arrested. From then on, whenever he was asked about taking an apprentice, he replied that there can only be one wolfer. But I couldn’t be refused. So I started to train by myself, reading military survival manuals and practicing what I learned whenever I got the chance. I became more and more feral with each self-inflicted trial. My granddad saw my resolve and decided to put it to good use. He sent me away to military school. I was a star at the academy, but I never graduated.” It became harder not to look at the wooden box and even harder to contain my smile.
Nepoate, now you listen here to me. I know you don’t like it up there, at school. But soon you’ll be an officer, and soon the regime will fall. As the one before it fell, I am an old man, and I can only pray—who am I kidding? I don’t pray. But I hope to live long enough to see it: rulers fall, but the army always lives on. And imagine how much money you’ll be able to make, selling all their tanks and their guns. I took you with me to the markets; I taught you to trade. You’ll sell every bolt and bullet, I am sure of that. That wolfer will die in the woods. He ain’t getting younger, neither am I. But you are young, and you’ll live like a rich man. You will forget him; he will only be a story to be told over glasses of wine or blueberry liquor. Nothing more, I am sure…
“Why didn’t you graduate?” my oblivious friend pressed on, again interrupting yet another reverie.
“Because I met the wolfer a second time. It was a short time after my grandfather died. It was during the summer holiday when I was on leave to help with the harvest. I was really depressed at that time, the prospects of a life in Ceausescu’s Romania being bleak. I was eighteen and soon to graduate. I remember going to my grandfather’s grave a lot. He was buried in our old family plot. Late one evening, I went there and saw an old wolf at the entrance. He started wiggling his tail when he saw me. I recognized him as the beast who woke me back to life eight years ago on the banks of the river. I petted his head as I entered the tomb. In there was the wolfer, old and with his clothes now turned to rags. He was resting on a large stick, used as a cane and for protection. After my grandfather’s death, it became impossible for him to get bullets. I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and smiled at me, revealing his fangs, two of the few teeth he had left. His beard and heavy eyebrows covered his wrinkle-ridden face. He didn’t seem to recognize me, yet he didn’t seem to recognize much in those days. I asked him how he was holding up; he scoffed. I asked him if he wanted to take me as his apprentice; he started laughing, shaking his head.”
“Was he that old? But there were sightings just last year? What did he say?”
“He said that there can only be one wolfer—“
“And?” I asked him to get me the box on the wardrobe. He followed my orders, throwing the box on the table. I told him to open it, revealing a skull with its face pointing upwards. The fat man started screaming and crying as he pricked himself in one of its fangs. He fainted, letting my old master’s head roll in my lap. I poured two more glasses of afinată, and we toasted together, and I kissed him on his white forehead. And I smelled him for answers on what I should do next.
By the warm fire, grateful as Father Iustin was for the little feast for him and his pupils, he was still annoyed that he had to listen to Baba Florica fill the children’s heads with devilish superstitions. Enough, you old sow with your blasphemies; there has been no wolfer, and there will never be another. But he couldn’t say that. It was the Feast of Saint Andrew, after all. It was the Christmas Fast, wasn’t it? And so he listened to the old auntie tell them about how her ggrandfather used to buy venison during Putin’s Campaign of 2037.
“And my sweet little darlings, know that this chain of wolfers is unbroken, going all the way back to when Saint Andrew himself came up north, to our little corner of the land; he was saved by a hunter from the heathens, from the Romans who hated him for they hated The Light. And the hunter traveled with him, and one night wolves surrounded them, and the hunter readied his arrow upon them, but the Saint said no, none of God’s creatures should die, and then he politely asked the wolves to leave. And they did. The hunter asked him how he did that, and the Saint taught him the wolvish tongue. And that’s how he became the first wolfer, and because Scripture says give what you’ve been given, the wolfer always passed his tongue onto an apprentice to this very day. Why, any of you could be the very next wolfer—”
“Enough, mătuşă, enough with these folk tales. We are still fasting for Christmas, and I don’t think it’s edifying for these little boys and girls to listen to such tales,” Father Iustin found himself saying. Baba Florea smiled, and she looked up, just above him, staring at something. Father Iustin turned his head to see a wooden box.
“Father, I didn’t mean to anger you. I will stop, but know that when new heathens come after us, it will be a wolfer that shall save our Gospel, as much as we’ve understood it here in Bucovina,” Baba Florea let out a long sigh and then tapped the table, “In any case, who wants some negresă? There isn’t much of it, but it’s fasting-friendly, unlike some of my tales.”
Master, why did you let the stranger leave? asked Good Fang with his yellow eyes.
So said the spirit of my teacher, leave him in a ditch and he will think he just got drunk and dreamed, I barked in his wolfish tongue. I looked at him and his brothers, all strong and loyal pups, full moon shining above us, blessing us with The Light.
You think he will come back? To be your apprentice? asked Pink Paw, panting with his tail wagging with excitement.
God knows, I said, petting him to calm down. Last fall, I read in the lichens that my apprentice would come down from the city, but I don’t know if it will be him. I think he might be too old, I said, looking the moon into its large grey eyes.
You think so? asked Good Fang with a loud bark.
Think what, old boy? I answered, barking back at him.
That he is too old? Smells to me like you don’t want an apprentice at all.
It’s not about what I want. It’s about passing it on. Freely given, but only to those who ask with their hearts for the wolvish tongue. Or so the howl goes.
And with that, we all howled at the good moon, asking The Light to send us an apprentice, not just a scholar. For soon, most books will burn. At least that’s what I read in the lichens last spring.
This dialogue drips with intense patience.
The trope subversions are really fun in this one. The benevolent prankster nature of the wolfer was surprising and refreshing, as was the connection to St. Andrew.
Blueberry liquor also sounds tasty.