Man of God

 

How tellingly she had used the phrase. You can describe it like that now; back then it was just another example of her other-worldly rattle, that bizarre, mystifying flow of hers that erupted in talk with compatriots. Čovječe Božji! Creature of god; male. Man of god. Within a tale of some kind it concerned a person who ought to have known better, one who had said or done something beyond bounds, transgressed the code and needed to be pulled up. Of course there was none better than herself for that kind of task; she knew all the ways about it. The indiv concerned had pretty much demeaned himself, clearly and plainly. It was invariably a man. Women were not prone to suchlike; they had learned to be much more circumspect. (Although she herself was a blabberer; lajava, as she confessed, used usually for a dog. Barking mad in the Oz vernacular of recent years.) A man of the right sort, enlightened and knowing, could never have slipped like that. There was a standard implied, always. Bog stobom! God with you! Following some other like error that ought to have been abundantly clear. Reading Annie Ernaux on her parents and anticipating further jousting with Zdravun, the lexicographer for our old tongue up in the village, the phrase came back late in the night, bringing her energetic person up close. It could be deployed against Z; it would ring for him nicely. His head was also full of those voices from that era. And it was marvellous to throw him some of that curved ball from way out in the field. Made in god’s image implied too. Even rude mountain people were included in that. Ernaux had surprised when she suggested the speech of the dear departed was recalled more clearly than face or form.