After what felt like a year-long (45 minutes, but oh how they dragged on) trip, seven stops as usual, the wheels squealed to a stop, and everyone stood up, grabbing various coats and cardigans and bags. Slava raced ahead and stood at the front excitedly. ‘Mama! We’re here let’s go let’s go! Mama!’ The sun was bright in the sky and the air smelled sweet. Julia smiled. She needed this.
And then she felt a strange lurch in her stomach again, only this time it wasn’t from the bus ride, and suddenly her food was rising in an uncontrollable tide and the acid in her throat was the first to come out. The vomit came embarrassingly quickly, right between her feet. She bowed her head partly in shame and partly to make sure her dress wouldn’t stain. Slava looked on, mouth agape. ‘Oh no…’
She felt a hand on her shoulder, felt like a man’s. ‘You alright, madam?’
'Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry.’ She didn’t dare look up and see faces watching her in disgust. She stared at the ground, the glistening, vulgar patch in front of her framed by pale red dust. Wiping her hand across her lips, and then on her skirt, she walked around the mess and pulled Slava’s entire body up and over it, made no eye contact, and walked ahead. I’ve forgotten something. It lingered, that thought.
She saw the river glisten before they got there, through the slender trees that were planted along the perimeter. The road they walked on was busy with people and cars, but manageable. It was an easy walk. 10 minutes, with clearly marked signs saying where the park was. The banks were lined not only with trees, but also flat grassy patches dotted with benches all along the way, and it was the perfect spot for the two of them to burn the hours of the day.
‘Here!’ Slava picked a spot next to another family: a husband and wife and a small baby. They looked wealthy, in the sense that their clothes were pressed and cut in a clean and modern way, the jewelry tasteful and the baby looking immaculate. Julia nodded a quiet hello and then looked down at her own dress, that she had sewn for herself, from a pattern that she had found in something called Australian Home Journal that displayed drawings of slim women with carefully positioned hair and long eyelashes, wearing perfectly acceptable dresses that every woman should. Julia’s was a light blue cotton with a pattern of small red rosebuds, tied at the waist, with cuffed sleeves leading up to a v-shaped collar. In comparison, it was plain, and she didn’t look like these women, and so the couple nodded and turned away in response mumbling something about ‘another immigrant’.
The grass stretched along the length of the river like a green ribbon, people dotted on and around it on days similar to theirs, she imagined. They placed their belongings on a spot that Slava had picked and settled for the day.
Julia took her shoes off, watching Slava run up ahead to the playground to the right of her, and leaned back on her elbows, looked up at the sky, and let herself heal. And slowly, her need to remember dissipated, and her breath languished in a stillness. .
‘Oh god, not again.’
It was two days later, and Julia was walking past the pavilion in the park, watching Slava eat ice cream, when the nausea hit her. She doubled over, clutching her stomach, hoping no one would notice. People walked by, and it was busy, which hopefully meant that she could be inconspicuous as she ran over to a tree, the vomit spilling from her mouth and hitting its base.
Slava was watching, distractedly. ’Wait a minute, Slava. Just wait there, I'm not feeling well,’ She gestured weakly with a hand, the other one propping herself up.
She sat down helplessly, looking up at the sky. It was blue. Irritatingly blue and perfect and serene. What the hell is going on, she thought, distractedly watching as Slava stood knock-kneed, ice cream dripping down her fingers. Julia felt her forehead: it was cold and hot at the same time. She hadn’t eaten anything this morning, so she couldn’t understand why her stomach had tried to empty itself.
She looked over and saw a woman walking past the pavilion: She had a straw hat and sunglasses, white gloves, and a dress that looked expensive, the silky floral-patterned fabric resting importantly over her pregnant belly. She was beautiful and walked ever so lightly in her ladylike navy heels. A silk dress would feel lovely on her skin, and she imagined it would be cool to the touch and caught the breeze easily.
And then a curious thing happened: that understanding and admission when something important is once forgotten and suddenly remembered, that understanding that is alternately cold and warm all at once, and when breath becomes fast and shallow. Julia new exactly what it was, because it had happened to her three times before.
She had been too distracted recently to notice, but now was feverishly recounting the times that she’d slept with Henry, and then the time with Iliya, and oh god it all became too much for her to keep her balance. She sat down on a clean patch of grass and spent the next hour watching Slava only casually, as she tried to understand what it was that was happening to her.
‘I’m so sorry’ she looked down, her eyes focusing on the dark blue cotton of the dress resting on the part of her that held the truth.
Slava walked up to her and sat down next to her and put her head on her shoulder.
Julia padded her swollen eyes, the redness increasingly fading. ‘Oh Slava, I really don’t feel well. My head hurts, my stomach is funny, my heart—’ She stopped herself short of saying my heart hurts, as Slava would’ve picked up on something a bit more serious.
‘My heart is filled with happiness that you had your ice cream and now it’s all over your dress and your face!’ She distracted with disproportionate joy and laughter through the tears. Slava erupted into giggles. In a daze, Julia reached for her and placed her on her lap. She looked at her ruddy cheeks, leaner than they were when she was a baby, her watery blue eyes hovering in wait for something magical. Maybe there is a reason for all this. And who’s to say it will survive, anyway. But maybe it will.
‘Right.’ She wobbled her legs underneath Slava and she pitched to the side, rolling over in a squeal. ‘I think we should probably make a move.’ She started to walk, slowly, waiting for Slava to catch up. She felt like walking for miles. She didn’t want to go home— not out of fear, but out of a pure desire to make something unknown more solid, more understandable. She watched people pass her by as she held onto her daughter, and as she saw them and thought that everyone had their own thoughts in their head that others would never know, she thought that it might be for the best that certain truths are best left unspoken for a time. And immediately after she resolved that that was the way to think, she asked Slava what her favorite flavor of ice cream was, and what she would like for dinner, and then she told her she loved her as they boarded the bus home.
What had been then, was a lifetime ago, Julia thought as she grabbed fistfuls of weeds by the front door as she left the house that evening. When she looked down, she smiled with a sadness that had never entirely dissipated, even after seven years: she had worn Maria’s shoes today. It was the only thing she had left of her past— a memory of love, of sisterhood. Julia kissed the tips of her fingers and padded the faded leather. ‘You would like it here, Marioshka,’ and turned towards the open sky, her cheeks reddening in the thin sunlight.
The smoke from burning cane sugar billowed in thick piles that sat across the horizon whilst Julia walked, her thin shirt rising gently with the breeze, and in the pocket of her skirts, a rosary rattled softly. She felt comfort in knowing that as soon as the black clouds turned to grey and then white, Henry would be home shortly thereafter, and his lips would taste of burnt sugar and his handsome, lean face would have a dusting of soot. Their daughter was napping when Julia had left, her small, sweaty body tangled in the bed sheets in the room that she’d now lived for the last two years.
The starlings were murmuring in the sky above the green and yellow fields as she proceeded towards the wooden fences at the perimeter of the farm, a basket by her side, the small white farmhouse shrinking in the distance behind her. In the past, there would be four of them— she and her sibling
s— all on a field like this, crisp wheat matted flat under their bodies lying and observing the sky, and now, only Julia remained with the memory.
Another house to the left, similar to theirs, a distance down the gravel and weed-strewn path, was Iliya and Elina’s, and it sat empty. Iliya was working in the fields with Henry, and Elina was finishing her day at the bookshop. Elina had become a good friend to her, and Julia reminded herself that she would need to see her soon— sometimes a burden is easier when it is shared.
Julia kept on, until she reached the pens, the cows like dots of pepper on the pasture in front of her. Ck ck ck her tongue rolled at the back of her mouth and clicked against her back teeth. Ck ck ck and one by one, they looked up, shivering and swatting tails, nickering their greeting. ‘Eh eh eyy’, Julia murmured to a brown heifer with white socks and a white star on her forehead. She patted its flank. ‘My beauty,’ She whispered, burying her head into its neck.
‘Look at the way they listen to you,’ Henry spoke, his voice gravelly, suddenly appearing around the corner of the house with a pitchfork, as he watched Julia, the cows moving towards his wife as she stood by them, changing their feed and giving them fresh water, fresh milk in a bucket at her feet. Fresh milk was a comfort that she’d had as a child: it was warm and sweet and thick, and she still craved it daily.
‘Hey! Wasn’t expecting you.’ Julia smiled, standing up to greet him, her feet nervously knocking into the basket of eggs beside. His presence had always unsettled her, and now, it was because she needed so speak to him.
‘A welcome surprise?’ Henry leaned the pitchfork against the fence and lit a cigarette, his lean body curved as the flame sputtered, then straightening as he looked across at her. He was dashing, she thought, the afternoon light settling around him, his hair dark, his thick lips parting in a wide smile. I owe you the truth, she thought. But at his smile, the impulse vanished.
‘Of course, it is’ Her cheeks rose as she smiled. ‘Better than a kick in the knee, my Baba used to say.’ They both laughed.
‘I see you’re busy with company.’
‘My friends, all of them!’ Julia replied, a smile lighting her face as she spread out her arms. ‘They keep me very entertained.’ She wiped an arm across her brow.
Henry laughed, and then a sooty cough caught his throat. ‘I think you’re the one that keeps them entertained.’
Julia sat down gently on a bale of hay, gathering her skirts, watching lazily as Henry hovered around the animals. He patted the brown flank of one of the cows. ‘Slava alright?’ He looked back at the house in the distance.
‘She needed a little rest. She ran me ragged today.’ She wondered if he was scanning her face. She wondered if he knew already.
‘Ah, well. Takes after her father.’ He walked over to her and sat down next to Julia, the hay bale sagging under his weight.
‘Strange, isn’t it.’ The smoke curled around him and hovered as he spoke.
‘What?’
‘Us. Here.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She looked at him. ‘Feels familiar.’
‘What does?’
She gestured at their bodies, sat so close. ‘This.’
He smiled, and exhaled smoke, placing a hand on her leg. ‘We’ve only been here a short while.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘But maybe it’s because we no longer have fear in our shadow.’
‘Yes, no more looking over our shoulders.’ Julia sighed. ‘No more pain.’
Henry coughed and looked down at his scarred hands. ‘I feel very old for my twenty-eight years. And we may always be looking over our shoulders, I have a feeling.’ He ran a hand through his hair and left it resting on his head. ‘I just want this feeling to leave me.’
Julia glanced at him and her breath caught. ‘What feeling?’
‘Like there will always be yet another thing. Another worry.’ He looked squarely at Julia. ‘Unsettling.’
‘Maybe you will always feel that way, in one way or another.’ Julia looked at his profile. He was noble, his face was sharp and contemplative, but the shadows under his eyes defined him for as long as she’d known him. ‘Your father?’ she whispered.
Henry nodded, looking down. ‘It’s the past. It should stay in the past.’
‘Ah, well. That’s the shame, Hironimus. Ghosts don’t have a preference of time.’
Henry stretched his head back, breathing deeply, releasing the spirit of his father. The skies were darkening, and the smoke had cleared into a thin veil, exposing a thin line of muted orange as the sun set.
‘I feel safe here.’ Julia folded her hands across her chest and nodded, looking across and saw the quiet farmhouses lit with a faint glow, just like theirs, small and insignificant in the distance, underneath the blanket of the Australian sky. ‘Maybe the ground won’t move under my feet again.’ She took off Maria’s shoes and dug her toes into the dirt. ‘It feels good.’ She was trying to convince herself; she was trying to hide a secret, and it was imperceptible even to her own husband.
‘We are too small for it,’ Henry nodded. ‘Our little lives.’
‘This big, what they call, ‘dust bowl’.’ She leaned against him, her small body fitting into the crook of his side, a puzzle piece. ‘But maybe I think I understand it now.’
‘Understand what, exactly? The dust on our faces?’
‘Yes. The dust. The reason. Why we are here.’ Julia pointed at their house. ‘I mean, we have Slava, and we have time now. And hopefully, well— ‘she pushed her elbow into his arm gently. ‘—we can create a life here.’
‘Ah. I see where this is going.’ Henry looked at the sky with a wry smile and felt for Julia’s hand. ‘Do you want more?’
Julia hung her head, placing her palm on her stomach, and running it across gently.
Henry’s eyes rested on her face. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’
Julia placed a hand on his arm and looked at him resolutely. ‘But what if it does work? And then we’ll look back and realize that some broken things just need a bit more time to fix.’ She shrugged, smiling. She felt broken, and confused, and yet here was a man that loved her, that stood by her. Now. She would tell him now.
She stood up and moved in front of him, putting her hands on his shoulders. ‘Henry…’ She paused, and held her breath. And then told him the truth. The truth about where she was now, and not about what the past had done to her. ‘I'm pregnant.’
The words came out quickly and unceremoniously, and she looked over his shoulder at the fields behind him. Sometimes not seeing someone’s face helped dissipate the news; made it less traumatic, more manageable. She turned her face back to look at him.
‘Okay.’ He stood up and put his hands in his pockets, his cigarette firmly in the corner of his mouth, and scanned her face hesitantly for the confirmation of truth. ‘You’re sure.’
‘Well, I’ve been really ill the past week,’ She sighed, ‘and then today I realized that I hadn’t bled for a month or so…’ She drifted off, hating that she couldn’t give him any more of an explanation. Men liked a reason. A solution. She had neither.
‘Well, then.’ He ran his fingers through his hair tentatively. His voice was charged. ‘What about a doctor? Why don’t you just confirm it for a doctor before you worry. Or celebrate. We have lost before, so…’
‘Yes, but what if? What if I really am?’ She scratched her head absentmindedly and shrugged.
He leaned forward and brought his large square hand to the side of her face, stroking it quietly. ‘It means we have to have more chickens. And more celebratory dinners with friends, to share the good news.’
He put his arm around her and stamped out his cigarette. ‘You act as if this is terrible. We are not broken. You are not broken.’ He squeezed her to his side.
‘You look broken, though.’ Julia laughed. ‘Broken and thin, like they’ve scraped you off the cross.’
‘Well, then. That’s probably because I am desperate for some food.’
‘No more rations to live off of, at least,’ Julia shook her head in relief. ‘I have no idea how we keep surviving this life.’
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to count our blessings yet. It feels like only last week that we were in Germany, praying for miracles.’ Henry sighed. ‘And yet, here we are. With a miracle.’
Julia nodded. ‘Come, let’s go in. Our memories are the making of us, it seems.’ Julia lifted her basket, the eggs delicately scraping next to each other. ‘Besides, it’s time to wake up Slava.’ They walked back together, and Julia felt for his hand, lacing her fingers through his.
The last hint of sun left the sky, and the animals slowly settled their warm bodies close to one another, quiet secrets between them.
When the house was quiet that evening and everyone slept heavily, Julia watched from the small window by their bed, in the bedroom, as the dull orange glow of the fires in the fields that day filtered out. It reminded her of the gold icons of Ukrainian churches: glistening metal portraits, melancholy and silent, glowing as if lit from within. A mile’s walk from the farm in Lviv, there was a church full of them in every corner. The church was all wooden, held together with without a single nail, like a puzzle of architecture. It had three carved, tall wooden pillars that to her, as a little girl, felt like they would possibly be the gates to heaven. She felt small in that church, yet never lonely. She remembered the heaviness of the incense surrounding her; clouds of it emanating from hidden corners. The icons would wink through the smoke, watching her, winking at her, watching her. The murmurs and chants of solemn prayers would fill the small space and vibrate through her small body as she prayed.
She heard movement from the other room and heard Henry’s footsteps come up behind her. He positioned himself beside her and put his hand on her stomach tenderly.
‘Listen. It won’t be easy.’
‘I know,’ she nodded, wishing she could say more.
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