That's all i got...

We took the train to Hunedoara. A wind instrumentalist, a guitarist, a soloist and a percussionist. It was raining, I think, or it was just my imagination and actually it was the coolness of the evening. Which glided towards the Gara de Nord. We headed off.

With plastic bags instead of luggage, groaning under the weight of beer cans, there was Gais. He had connected us with the organizers of the Hunedoara Autumn Festival. Moreover, for this edition, The Graphic Studio - meaning he and Carla, Carla and him, the two of them together or taking turns - had made an enormous banner which was hung on the local town hall with the fervor of a petitioner, (on) during the entire festival. That is, for six!!! days. We arrived.

I hadn't seen the town before. All I knew about the town were the 80's gesticulations of the Corvin Football Team, a former local splendor. The faded thaw, the grey shades defining the space, the futuristic combine, slipping among Whitman's verses and cut like a slice of cake by Mittal, the Indian guy who bought the iron factory - when melting or at the eternal flame - all made me wonder.
For whom? For whom were we supposed to play, to whom was this festival dedicated? We carried our instruments to the castle. The Huniards Castle. As in every country town, the distances were short. A few people in the audience were standing near us, on the sidewalk. Obviously we were going to play. It was hard for us to keep this thing secret. We entered quietly, both artists and the local audience, in the hall of the castle. The show had already begun. We all slid together along the years, to the rhythm of the music, in a time when things were not that different from nowadays. Back then, musicians also wandered the cities, in the days of the plague, and in those years that were dim for us, strong hands were melting the ore.

We remembered the applause and our promise to return, facing the wine glasses, placed exactly like the soldiers on the table in Zlasti's house. A district in Hunedoara. The place where Gais was born. A sort of a district-village. Rural versus urban. With my head on the pillow, late in night, sleeping, I thought about Tanase, my father's brother, who died young, in a tractor accident. Turning over in the thread of water bathed by the sun the following day. And which we followed to Hunedoara. From there, the railway led us back to Bucharest.

Ever since that year I have visited The Huniards Castle more often then the sea side. For example.
(Calin Torsan)