Motherland

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Motherland Page 13

by Tetyana Denford


  ‘Listen, Julia,’ and he walked to her languidly, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. She withdrew her hands and folded her arms across her chest, moving away from him slightly.

  ‘Please, Iliya.’

  ‘Please what?’ He stopped and smiled.

  But he was beautiful, she thought, completely contradicting herself. Was it so wrong to think that? She couldn’t catch her breath.

  ‘You’re suddenly making me uncomfortable.’

  And then he moved to her again, echoing her, circling her, and she moved back, an awkward dance, with her backing towards the wall. His palm found the wall behind her and he leaned in, his shoulder blocking her, his other hand gently on her arm, his palm warm on her skin. She was in the middle of fear and longing, and she wasn’t sure which would win out, and she closed her eyes.

  ‘Don’t you think...,’ His face was inches from her own, his nose on her cheek, and he spoke to her quietly, looking down, as if sharing a secret. ‘... that we both share loneliness? Isn’t this what it has all been about?’

  ‘But you’re my friend, Iliya.’ Her voice wavered, her trust thinning. She opened her eyes and looked at him: his eyes creased at the corners as he smiled, his face purposeful as he looked at her, examined her, his grip firmer on her arm now. She felt nervous, both out of fear and out of curiosity. ‘Please.’ It felt wrong, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and in her confusion, she couldn’t find the words. All she could say was please.

  ‘Friends give each other what the other needs, surely.’ His breath smelled of sweet alcohol and the bitter burn of stale cigarettes.

  When Julia tried to reply, he held her jaw in place with a wide, calloused hand, and covered her open mouth with his own, the hard metal of his belt buckle the only sound in the room.

  13

  New York, 1974

  A small rectangular desk clock splayed its thin black hands and ticked regularly, finally settling at the seven; it was the only sound in the room as Julia held her breath, folded the paper that she’d held in her hand and placed it in the drawer, pushing it to the far back. She needed to finish getting ready, and this had delayed her. A tear had collected in her eye, and she dabbed it with her palm, leaving no trace of it.

  She called out to the other room, Henry was already dressed and waiting. 'Slava is meeting us here first, and then we’ll all take a taxi to the restaurant, yes? Or maybe we should walk? We have to leave in a few minutes.’

  Julia walked over to the mirror of the dressing table and retrieved a small gold earring and clipped it to her ear, clutching its matching pair delicately in her hand. She placed the other, and then undid the silver casing of a lipstick and ran it across her mouth in a line of dark pink. ‘Do you have a card?’ As she moved, the square window opposite reflected her shape against the night and the brick buildings beyond, the angles of her arms and curve of her back displayed in a sheer, ghostly light.

  ‘Do we need one?’ Henry’s voice called out from the other room, and she heard the clear thin sound as he retrieved a glass, then filled it. Whiskey, most likely. The soles of his dress shoes like sandpaper on the kitchen tiles as he walked, then echoed thickly on the wood floor that stretched from the living area and led to the bedroom where Julia was. He held his glass to his chest, and she saw that his tie was hanging limply under his collar, both undone, a pack of cigarettes peeking out of the breast pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Actually, no. No card. She doesn’t like being reminded how old she is.’ Julia smiled. ‘Our daughter is nothing if not stubborn.’ She opened the square black jewelry box that was in front of her and took out a thin gold chain that boasted a small byzantine cross. She fingered the worn clasp and placed it on her neck; it was one of the only items left from what her mother had given her that one night, so long ago.

  ‘Sounds like she inherited that.’ He sipped his drink and the ice hit the glass sharply as he watched for her response.

  Julia moved her chair back, the scrape of the wood on the floor interrupting him. ‘I think I’ll need stockings tonight.’ Henry grew quiet at her reply. The cream silk of her blouse gently sagged into the waistband of her green wool skirt, draping just past her knees. It was March, but the streets were faintly dusted with the kind of icing sugar snow from her childhood, in a sudden snap of cold that no one had anticipated. She imagined clouds of cold breath erupting as people greeted each other outside the entrances of theaters and bars, the air resounding with the sound of yellow taxicabs bleating in impatience to bring cold bodies from one warm place to the next. She thought of how familiar it all was now, the noise and the color: red streetlights, glittering signs that spelled out names of theaters, grey clouds of steam from the manhole covers and the strains of music seeping out of restaurant windows. There was a safety, here, but her memories took her so very far from the path under her feet now. She longed, only a little, for the ground to soften just a little; to give into her toes and let her feel the ground.

  She moved, looking at her reflection long enough to be pleased that she had left her hair down, sitting on her shoulders, as she used to when she was young and had no additional adornments.

  ‘Henry,’ She stopped in front of him, lifting his tie towards her and pulling it taught. ‘I’ve lived so many lifetimes in my years.’ She looped the slick material smoothly under, over, and through her fingers.

  ‘We both have.’

  ‘Stubbornness equals survival.’

  ‘Or maybe avoidance.’

  The shadows under his eyes revealed a kind of faded pain that she knew he carried with him as a constant companion. He sipped from his glass awkwardly; her hands were still securing his tie. His gaze never left her face.

  Julia tightened the knot and a moment of helplessness flashed across her face as she looked at the man who had been the cause of it. His once dark hair, now littered with bits of grey, framed his handsome face, the stubble scattered softly on his cheeks. They divided the burden of their secret equally between them. And they loved each other still, regardless.

  He lowered his drink and it hung at his fingertips by his side. ‘Julia…’

  Julia placed a palm on his chest gently and smiled up at him. ‘Don’t, Henry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Too much pain.’

  The doorbell pinged and then a rap at the door. Julia stepped around Henry, and as she walked to the door, she undid her clenched fists and reached for her coat.

  14

  Stratford, 1948

  It was the next evening that Henry finally came home, and the day felt like a month, as she recounted every detail of what had happened twenty-four hours earlier.

  She had thought of him after Iliya had left, and she thought of him still as she barely slept that night, and as the sun rose the next morning, and shed its milky light on the farmhouse and the quiet garden, she thought of him still. She had made Slava breakfast, had taken her to play in the park by the Avon in Stratford, and later that afternoon back at the house, she placed the dirt-stained clothes in a tub of soap and water to soak and heated some water for the bath, so that she could clean her little body, as she was covered in sand and crumbs and sticky stains of ice cream. She’d scraped the skin and earth off the freshly collected potatoes, made dinner, read a story-- all with a kind of distant banality, as she thought of Henry. All she wished was to see his face to remember who she was.

  Slava was finally asleep. The house was quiet. Julia looked down at her hands: they were thin. Pale. Her nails were worn to the quick and had dirt under them, her skin was dry. Her dinner sat, untouched, and she stared at the door. There was no feeling of sadness, nor happiness, just a stillness.

  She waited, and feared, Henry’s shadow to fill the space. She imagined his body gliding off his bicycle in the semi-darkness, walking up the path towards the door. The door that she never had fixed, in the end. The sound of it rattled her now; it felt like a scar. She touched her face. It was still there, she realized, and she stood up, walking over
to the bedroom to peer at her reflection in the small round mirror on the dresser. Her face was pale, her hair had lost its wave and sat lifeless at her back. Her lip was swollen and there was a red, angry scar on her jaw. She moved in the lamplight and pinched her cheeks and bit her lip to bring the color back. Would he notice? She opened the drawer at her fingertips and found a powder compact, hardly used, and dabbed a bit of powder, camouflaging the red mark. She practiced a smile. Hello Henry, she imagined saying. Things have been as they should be.

  And then she heard it. The gravel shifted and crunched outside. She walked back to the kitchen and stood in the middle of the room, waiting.

  His slow footsteps passed by the door, to the side of the house. She turned her head slightly as she listened to the familiar sound, as he walked into the garden to clean his hands in the washbasin. She heard the water slosh delicately, heard him clear his throat. She heard the scrape of the lighter and smelled the cigarette smoke. She sat down at the table.

  He opened the door and her chest felt suddenly tight, as if she were underwater. She breathed slowly, methodically; her eyes suddenly wet. She wiped them quickly with her palm before he could notice.

  He dried his hands on his shirt, removed his jacket, and left it on the couch as he walked over to the table, sitting down in front of the plate of food. He prodded it; it was cold. He looked at Julia.

  ‘Thank you.’ He rolled up his sleeves. ‘Oh, wait. Is this yours? Have you eaten?’

  She stared at his face, searching his eyes. She smiled stiffly. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not hungry.’

  Henry frowned. ‘Oh. Why not?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t hungry.’ she snapped back, instantly regretting it.

  ‘Hey, I’m only asking.’

  ‘I know. I just don’t understand, sometimes.’

  ‘What don’t you understand?’ Henry was tired, hungry, and now this conversation was leading to nowhere.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Julia shook her head as if to wake herself. ‘Never mind.’

  He picked up the fork and started to eat. ‘I can still eat this, though. Is that alright? Is there anymore?’

  She shrugged, exasperated. ‘Look for yourself.’

  He narrowed his eyes.

  Julia sighed. ‘Yes, there is a bit more left.’ Each word was a lie. Each word felt painful as it drifted out of her mouth.

  She looked down at the table as he ate, every once in a while, looking up, and his face would meet hers, and he would attempt a smile, and she in return, and then the cycle began again. When he finished and walked outside to check on the progress of the greenhouse and the new orchids that he had planted. She followed him, hovering a few feet away until he noticed her. He turned around.

  ‘Julia?’

  ‘Henry, I....’ She clasped her hands together in front of her skirt, squeezing tightly. She squeezed harder, the blood draining from her fingertips. She just needed the strength to tell him, to tell him everything that sat in a ball at the base of her throat. ‘I just... I wanted to tell you, that...’

  He waited, the quiet of the dark behind him, the ember of the cigarette glowing like a star.

  ‘... that I was sorry.’ She continued. It was only part of the truth. It was all she would say for now.

  He stamped out his cigarette and walked over to her, confused, but assumed it was an admission of her mood. Henry knew her to be like this occasionally: lost in her thoughts, too much thinking, finding her own stillness and strength.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ He put his arms around her, his warm body enveloping hers. She smelled the smoke clinging to his clothes. She began to cry silently, the girl with skin so soft and bones so delicate, folded into the arms of a man who loved her. ‘Don’t worry. I know things are difficult right now. We’ll be alright.’ He leaned back to look at her closely and pushed her hair back off her face. That’s when he saw it.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ He ran a fingertip on her jaw.

  Julia covered it with her hand. ‘Oh, that’s Slava being a tornado again,’ she smiled painfully. ‘Ran straight into me. Fell headfirst into me as I sat with her in the garden.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Henry moved her hair back over her hand that still rested on her face. ‘Love can be a bit a violent,’ he smiled and laughed. Julia leaned back into his arms and closed her eyes, her heart tightening like a fist.

  15

  When she remembered that night, the memories rushed at her like knives, scattered and sharp and searching for weakness. She fought to forget, but the more she fought the more they pressed into her: she felt and saw him everywhere. And that was her prolonged punishment, though the physical effects had worn off.

  Already a month had passed in painful, crawling minutes. The unfortunate result of harboring a secret is that it forces you to pay attention to the details; you are forced to remember how you were before, and then how you were after, and these two worlds had entirely different colors and shapes, and even tastes. The way Henry touched her felt different, the food she ate was tasteless and occasionally, she didn’t eat at all. Julia floated in a kind of wan acceptance of her life in these two states of being, but then a silent irrational anger wishing that her husband had never existed would suddenly erupt in absolute clarity. None of this was Henry’s fault, she had to remind herself.

  She tried to seek solace in the mundane: she walked with Slava to the bus stop and took her into town—seven stops, like always, and seven stops back. She would visit the butcher and distantly ask for a five-inch square of meat that bled onto the parchment. She took Slava to the park to feel the breezes off the Avon on their faces. She would smile coolly at women who had bright red lips and delicate hats and dresses, and she would adjust her skirts and pat down her shirt, glancing at Slava to see if she’d tied her hair back properly, for beautiful hair displayed a certain kind of status (of which they had none). She watched, removed, as the days passed on their parcel of land, hours and minutes marked by mealtimes, sleep, sunrises and sunsets, and she healed ever so slowly, and reached for a strength that she had been gifted by her own mother. It was getting warmer, and she was desperate for a change in season that marked more distance from a day in July that had brought her so much shame.

  ‘Hey, is that mine?’ Henry packed his bag for work, and he glanced and saw her as she stood watching him, as if behind glass, her hands gripping a cup of coffee. ‘You look tired. Dazed.’ They’d slept together a few times since he’d arrived back, and he noticed a sadness in the way she kissed him, or a confusion, almost. But she’d not been sleeping well, and he assumed she was also still annoyed about the fact that he’d been away so long.

  She blinked and forced herself to focus. ‘So, I was thinking of taking Slava to the Avon today. For a picnic. Sit on the banks and relax for a bit.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ He zipped up his rucksack and looked up. ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ He squinted. ‘It’ll be warm out today.’

  ‘Just tired. I feel fine otherwise.’ She sipped his coffee absentmindedly.

  He grabbed the coffee out of her hands. ‘If that’s ‘fine’, I’d hate to see what ‘ill’ looks like.’ He gulped a mouthful. ‘Thanks for drinking my coffee by the way.’

  He handed it back, then left quickly, jumping on his bicycle for the long ride into work.

  ‘Mama.’ Slava padded out into the kitchen in her thin nightdress, soft matted hair full of sleep.

  ‘Hey! So,’ Julia crouched down to her daughter’s height. ‘We need to pack some things with us because we’re taking the bus to the river for some adventure today.’

  ‘Mama will we see ducks? Can we feed them?’

  ‘Sure, love.’

  After breakfast, Julia scraped a few of Henry’s shirts and trousers off the washboard and wrung them out in the sunlight, pinning them to the delicate line that was attached to two wooden posts, stretching horizontally across the garden. Then she dressed Slava in a light cotton dress that she had sewed
a little while ago, a thick pinafore that always survived play, a hat, shoes, and enough bits of food in the straw bag for the journey.

  At the very end of the road they lived on, past all the farmhouses, there was a small, winding path that rose up to lead to a main dirt road that cars and buses would use to get into the main town of Stratford. They found the stop, and waited for it expectantly, pleased at how soon it arrived. It was a beige-painted tin animal, with convenient pram hooks for mothers with children to board without issue. All sorted, they settled into the generous leather seats—Slava by the window, Julia beside. Slava played a curious game of What Is That and Who Are Those People, and it was a curious conditioning of sorts: travelling so much and so often, her young mind was now conditioned to make an adventure of it all, a game.

  As soon as the dust rose around them and the bus jerked and rumbled to a start, Julia felt cold and her forehead damp in mild panic. I forgot something, she looked around her, patting the pockets of her dress. She looked in her bag. Tissues, money, sweets, lipstick, food. That’s it, yes? She looked at Slava, who was now on her knees, clinging to the seat and peering over at the gentleman behind her. She scanned her little body. Her hair was tied, she had the clothes that she needed. She had a knot, a subtle dread, like she’d left something behind, though maybe it was exhaustion. Distraction. It unnerved her.

  ‘Sit down, Slava. Seats are for bottoms, not for feet.’ Distracted, she held Slava’s arm too tightly, her sudden frustration making her react to everything.

  The bus lurched over unfamiliar and rough patches of gravel, making everyone on the bus grab their stomachs. ‘Oh, honestly this is very unpleasant, my breakfast feels like it’s swimming.’ Slava erupted in giggles.

  ‘Oh, Mama. I'm hungry, Mama. Do you have anything to eat?’ Julia rummaged through her bag and found some water crackers. She took one for herself and gave a few to Slava. Her stomach ached.

 

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