by Walter Basho
That night, Thomas sneaked over to the Plancks’ house. “What the hell are you doing here?” Mal Planck said, shocked and furious. “Get out of here. You’ll get my family killed.”
“We’re at Albert’s, the Todorovs’. We’re keeping low. Just until we figure out what to do.”
“Get out of here.”
“Please, my daughter and her nurse. I don’t care about myself, but I need to feed them. Please.”
Mal looked at him, red-faced and lips pursed. “Wait here.” He came back with two sacks of ready food, mostly eggs and potatoes. “Have your nurse start a winter garden. I can’t feed you forever. They’ll probably start taking food from us all. And have her come over from now on. No one can see you.”
Over the next week, they fell into a routine, sleeping much of the day. Anya did well with the eggs and potatoes, and she gathered some plants from the forest to eat. Thomas ate some of the plants, but only at first. He ate none of Mal Planck’s provisions. “Those are for you. You need them to feed Cyd,” he said.
“You have to eat, too. We need you here with us, alive.”
“No, you don’t.”
The stream of people from the town continued for a few days and then stopped. It became very quiet. Thomas kept expecting the soldiers to show up. Each day that passed without them, he imagined they were harassing the farms to the north first.
In the early morning and evening, he and Anya would try to tend the fields a little. There wasn’t a lot they could do. Anya started a small garden, in the back of the house, out of sight. Thomas mended the fences; wild animals had gotten into the fields.
Thomas slept often. Anya couldn’t convince him to eat, despite her increasing insistence and frustration. At one point, she cried, “If you die on me, I will kill you with my bare hands!”
Thomas smiled weakly. “I’ll go hunt, all right? I’ll go hunt an animal. And I will eat from that. I’ll earn my food.”
“You don’t have the strength to hunt,” she said. He was already getting started, though. He took one of Albert’s bows and a quiver of arrows, put on his boots. He kissed Cyd on the forehead. “I love you. I’m so sorry.” He went to Anya. “I’ll be back. Good-bye.”
“You idiot, don’t do this. Just eat, damn you! Just eat.” She was crying angrily. He smiled and waved at her and walked out.
He went out into the forest. He really did want to hunt, on some level. He walked into the forest for a while and came to a clearing. He sat down and decided to wait quietly. Then he felt very sleepy and rested his eyes for a bit.
When he woke up, the sky showed sunset. Several hours had passed. He thought about leaving, but he couldn’t remember the way out. He didn’t want to leave, anyway. He rested his eyes again.
That night, he heard the buzzing and chirping of birds and bugs and the cries of wind. He heard Cynthia and his mother. They were spirits, and at first they were ashamed of him, but then they forgave him. He asked them if it was all right, if he could stop and rest. They were silent.
And then he saw Albert, emerging from the woods into the clearing. He actually saw Albert; he wasn’t just a voice or a spirit. It was like he was really there. Thomas wasn’t sure whether to believe what he saw. “Albert?” he called out.
Albert walked with a dreamlike look on his face. When he heard Thomas’s call, he looked at Thomas in shock. “What are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I was resting. What are you doing here?”
“This is my home,” Albert said. Then he shook his head, like he was trying to get water out of his ears. “I’m, I’m going to my farm.”
“We’re there. My daughter and her nurse and me.”
“You’re there at my farm? Where’s your mother?” Albert stared forward, trying to work something out in his head.
“My mother died, Al. Is it all right for us to stay there?”
Albert grinned then with what seemed like great relief. “Sure, of course! Sure it is. Welcome.”
“Are you all right, Albert? Where have you been?”
Albert took a minute to answer. “Sort of. I was in Terra Baixa, and then I was on the Green Island.” He looked at Thomas again as if he were seeing him for the first time. “I saw you, Thomas! I saw you at the Abyss.” Then he hugged Thomas. “Are you all right, Thomas?”
“No, I guess not. I’m hungry. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Come on, we’ll make some food.” Albert took his hand and started walking. Thomas realized where the farm was; they were walking toward it. He felt dizzy and leaned on Albert.
Albert was back. Thomas was rejoicing inside. It was almost like everything was all right.
+ + +
They reached the farm. “Everything’s a mess,” Albert said. “I guess that’s because your mom died? They stopped taking care of it?”
“That’s close enough. I’m sorry we didn’t take better care of your farm, Albert.”
Albert shrugged and smiled at Thomas. “That’s all right. It gives us something to do.” He burst into the front door with Thomas close behind. “Hello!” he cried.
Anya emerged from her room with a look of horror. “You’re back? What the hell are you doing? Who is this?”
Thomas smiled weakly. “This is Albert Todorov. I told you about him. He owns the farm.”
“He’s big,” Anya said. “You’re a soldier?”
Albert frowned. “I’m not a soldier,” he said. “I used to be, but I’m not anymore.”
“We need a soldier. If you aren’t a soldier, you better shut up before you get us all killed.”
“You shut up,” Albert said, but teasingly. “You’re Thomas’s wife? I like you.”
“Not the wife. The nurse.”
Albert smiled at her, then moved to the kitchen. “What can we make for Thomas? He’s hungry.”
“Of course he’s hungry,” Anya said. “He’s killing himself.” Thomas gave her an angry look, which she ignored.
“That’s ridiculous,” Albert laughed. “If I don’t get to kill myself, then no one else does either.” He found the eggs and the flour. “I’ll make some flatcakes in the pan. That will fill us all up. Miss Nurse, can you fetch us some milk?”
“There’s no milk,” Anya said. “There’s no cow.”
Albert stared at her. “What happened to the cow? I guess there’s no goat, either?”
“No nothing. I just started some vegetables, and in a few weeks we will have what the animals don’t eat. That’s it.”
“Well, we can use water. Miss Nurse, would you fetch us some water?” Anya stared at Albert for a long moment, shrugged, and then went for water.
Albert made some cakes and insisted that everyone eat. Thomas did. At first, it was hard to keep the food down. But eventually he finished two whole cakes. The satisfaction of it made him feel giddy, his head spinning.
“I’ll hunt us something good tomorrow. And I can go to Mal. I’ll get some staples from him to tide us over until we are going strong again here. Or did you lose Mal, too?” he asked through a mouthful of flatcakes.
“The other farmer is there,” Anya said. “He doesn’t like us. He doesn’t want his farm burned and his children killed.”
“Who would do that?” Albert asked.
Anya sneered at him. “The soldiers, Albert. I guess you don’t know, because you’re not a soldier. But there are many of them, and you should start thinking about them. They burned the town. They killed a lot of people. They will kill you if you keep shouting like you do.”
“I’m not shouting,” Albert said, loudly. “So we have to do something about these soldiers?”
“I’m sure that will go well,” Anya said. She stabbed at her plate without eating anything.
“I could try. They sound pretty bad,” Albert said, taking in another big mouthful. “I say we just get the farm going first, and then we’ll see what comes next.”
“What comes next is that they will kill us, boy, and then they
will burn the farm that you ‘get going,’” Anya said. “You need to understand what’s real here. You’re setting us all up to die.”
“Is that so, Nurse? Do you know that?” Albert boomed. “Do you know the future? I don’t think you do. I think I’m the only one here who knows the future.” He stared at them wildly. “So, since the one here who knows the future says we’ll farm first, and then see what comes next, then maybe we should do that. Right?” Red-faced, he stood and went to the bowl of batter. “I’m eating more flatcakes. Who wants more flatcakes?”
Anya glared at Thomas with wide, shocked eyes. Thomas stared back, still barely strong enough to do more than shrug. Then he said, “I say we go with Albert’s plan. And I’d love another flatcake.”
“I’m having two more,” Albert said. “And one for Thomas. And Nurse . . . What is your name, anyway? I can’t keep calling you that.”
“My name is Anya,” she said. She said it so quietly. Her voice had something final to it that Thomas had never heard before.
Albert stopped his motion for a moment and looked right at her. “Anya, on this farm, no one will hurt any of you. Not soldiers, not me. Nobody. I swear this on the graves of my parents. Do you believe me?”
There was a silence when he finished, a cavernous silence. Anya opened her mouth as if to rebuke him, but then just met his eyes with an urgent, subtle gaze. After several moments, she nodded. “Yes, I do,” she whispered. Then she composed herself and said, stiffly, “I’ll have another flatcake.”
“Great!” Albert said. “Flatcakes for everybody.”
After they finished, Thomas took Albert to see Cyd. She had slept through Albert’s arrival. “She’d sleep through the apocalypse,” Thomas said.
Albert grinned, his eyes lighting up. “She’s so cute!” he whispered. “Where’s her mother? Is Cynthia her mother?”
“Yes, Cynthia’s her mother. Cynthia died,” he said. “I wish you would have met her. She was wonderful . . . kind, and bright—so bright! The conversations we’d have—and she understood. You and I, what we were, all of it. She was a good friend.” He paused. “She took ill after Cyd was born. Sister Alice was gone by then. And then the sickness came.” He paused. “And then she died.”
Thomas drew closer to Cyd, put a hand gently on the crown of her head. “She’s so beautiful,” he said. “She’s healthy.” He looked over at Albert and saw tears streaming down Albert’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Albert looked at Thomas, then at Cyd, and then let out a howl, a bleat: a pure sound of grief Thomas had never heard from any human, much less Albert. He turned into the corner of the room, curled in on himself, and began shaking with great racking sobs. “No, no, no,” he repeated over and over again, like a chant. Thomas led him out of the room.
He held Albert to his chest. “Shh, it’s all right. She’s fine. We’re all fine. Baixa must have been so hard.” When he said that, Albert began wailing. Cyd woke up and started to cry, too. Anya, beyond surprise at this point, stood up from the table, lips pursed, and went to her. “Make yourself useful and clean up the dishes,” she said to Thomas on the way in.
Thomas led Albert out of the room, then held him for a long time and didn’t say anything, afraid that he’d cause upset again. He held him tighter and rubbed his shoulders. Sometimes, in school, he would dare to touch Albert between the shoulders like this, always amazed that it was an intimacy Albert would allow. Albert would always lean into Thomas’s hand, and relax, and continue on with what he was doing as Thomas stroked his back. He could feel Albert rest against his hand.
Eventually, Albert calmed down, his crying turning into sporadic shudders and hiccups. By the end, Thomas was rocking him a little. It was quiet from Cyd and Anya’s room.
“How about we put you to bed?” Thomas said gently.
Albert shook his head. “I don’t want to be by myself. Don’t make me.”
“All right, just sit here a minute.” Albert did, and Thomas cleaned the dishes. He heated some water, and made a basin with soap. Then he filled the basin with the hot water and scrubbed the dishes, and dried them with some of Lini’s linens they had found in a cupboard when they arrived. He then put them on a rack to finish drying.
He started humming a little and looked at Albert from time to time. “Do you want some tea?” Thomas asked. Albert, slack-jawed, flushed and spent and silent from the long cry, innocently shook his head. Thomas smiled at him. This was what he could be good at, he realized. He knew how to love and comfort Albert. He had been doing it for years. This was his new job.
When he finished the dishes, he took Albert’s hand. “I’m in your room, the bed isn’t very big. But your papa’s bed isn’t any bigger.”
“I don’t want to sleep in Papa’s room,” Albert said, shaking his head, on the edge of somewhere dark again.
Thomas rubbed the crown of his head. “It’s fine, we’ll be close in the bed, but it’s fine. Like when we were kids.”
They went to Albert’s room. Albert stripped off his clothes in a pile on the floor. By the time Thomas picked them up, folded them, and put them on a chair, Albert was in bed and snoring already. Thomas climbed in and spooned him. As he settled in, Thomas thought of all the concerns and troubles that were inevitable, and dismissed them one by one. He was determined not to care, to just put his mind to this moment. He buried his face in Albert’s shoulder and in the smell and warmth and feel of his skin.
They slept, with some occasional tossing and turning. In the middle of the night, Thomas woke, disoriented and unsure where he was. Albert had rolled onto the floor, but he still had his hand on Albert’s shoulder.
+ + +
The next morning was the best of early spring, sunny with some high and wispy clouds. Albert was back in high spirits. “This is going to be a great day. We’re going to get this farm running again.” He dug into the breakfast Thomas had made, eggs and flatcakes. Thomas had gotten up early and harvested some mushrooms and chives from the forest to put in the cakes. “Thomas, you’re going to finish mending the fences. I’m going to thresh all the fields.”
“All the fields?” Anya said. “All of them. Right.”
“Yes, all of them!” Albert grinned. “What are you going to do, Anya?”
“I’m going to tend to the garden. And continue to feed and raise this boy’s daughter,” Anya said, pointing dryly at Thomas with her head.
Thomas took to the fences while Albert sharpened a scythe. The fences had gotten a little better with some of the early work he had done, but there was still plenty to do. He looked back at Albert from time to time and saw him swinging the scythe normally, almost lazily. Then, when the sun was high, he turned from his work to notice the fields were clean of the high grasses that had grown.
“That’s impossible,” he said to Albert when he found him. “You did all the fields?”
“I had a good morning,” Albert smiled.
Lunch was eggs and flatcakes again, nearly the last of the store. “We won’t have supper,” Anya said.
“I’ll go hunt us some supper this afternoon,” Albert said.
“I’ll go with you,” Thomas said, excited.
Albert paused for a moment. “Actually, how about you get some more of those mushrooms and greens? Those were delicious. We could have a good supper with those. You could maybe find some roots, too.”
Thomas nodded, a little dejected. “That’s fine.”
Albert patted his knee. “We’ll go hunting together next time.”
Thomas went out just to the edge of the forest and gathered. This was a good time of year for his favorite mushroom, small but meaty and concentrated with flavor. He found some young leafy greens as well, and a couple of roots. He had just put his full basket at the porch when he heard Albert calling him from the edge of the forest. Albert had killed a great boar. They dragged it toward the house, and worked together for some time to skin and clean the boar. Anya came out in late afternoon to check on them. “We have supp
er, Anya!” Albert cried, grinning, glowing, arms covered in blood and offal.
By the time they had the carcass taken apart, the sun was setting. Anya and Thomas took to roasting a shoulder in the clay oven. “I’m going to take some of this over to Mal. We should put the rest on salt.”
“We don’t have much salt,” Anya said.
“I’ll get some more from Mal.”
Albert was gone for a while. When he came back, he was still smiling, but was a little more pensive.
“I talked to Mal. We worked it out. He and his boys haven’t been able to hunt much, so they can use the meat. I’ll take him more, and he’ll give us some stuff we can use in exchange. See?” he said to Anya. “It’s going well. It’s been a good day.”
“Did he talk to you about the soldiers?” Anya asked.
“Yes,” Albert said. “I told him I’d take care of it.”
The next morning, Thomas answered a knock at the door. It was Mal Planck. He was there with a goat, a couple of hens, and some bags. “This is flour, and seed, and salt,” he said as he pointed. He looked at Thomas, eyes nervous. “We talked to Albert. If anyone can get that gang under control, it’s him.”
“Yes, he’s back, it’s a blessing,” Thomas said.
“I’m not sure he’s well,” Mal said. “But he needs to be. He needs to save us. Do you understand? You make him well.”
+ + +
They settled in to a pattern. Albert borrowed Mal’s ox and tilled and sowed the fields. Thomas learned to milk the goat and tend to the chickens, and how to make cheese and yogurt. Anya’s garden came up quickly, more quickly than Thomas would have said possible. All the crops started coming up quickly as well; they had ripened rows of barley and spelt within a month, which didn’t seem possible. It looked like it would be an early harvest, and a big one. Cyd started to grow, rolling over, then pushing up. Albert would play peek-a-boo with her. Even Anya relaxed a little.
A week after his arrival, Thomas turned Albert around from their spooning position and began kissing him. Desperate for affection and out of practice, he awkwardly clawed at Albert’s crotch. Albert pushed him back. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” he said.