Shandi Mitchell

by Under This Unbroken Sky (v5)

  If he was asked what he did wrong, he couldn’t explain. She didn’t say. He probably should have waited for Lesya, who was still in the outhouse, but the scarecrow kept watching him. He ran to the house, checking over his shoulder to make sure it hadn’t followed him. Once inside, he headed straight to bed. Maybe his mistake was stealing a glance at his mother.

  She was in her nightgown, sitting at the table with her back to the door. She had a willow switch in one hand. Her other hand clutched her belly. Her gown was hiked up to her waist. Her face was flush from exertion, her eyes red as if she’d been crying. As he passed by her, he saw whip marks on her upper thighs and belly. It was her stillness that scared him. “Mama?” he said.

  She looked at him as if he had called her a dirty name. She wrenched her gown down, bolted from the chair, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled down his pants. He was so shocked, he forgot to cry. With each strike, she hissed, “You didn’t see anything! You didn’t see anything! You didn’t see anything!”

  Petro tried to cover his bum with his hand. “I didn’t see anything, Mama. I didn’t see. I didn’t …”

  Maybe it was his small hand against his bony bum, or the welts already appearing, or his pleading voice, but it was more likely the baby kicking that made Anna drop the switch. It kicked hard, sending a shock of pain against her spine. It kicked again. Anna dropped to her knees.

  That’s when Lesya came in. She pulled Petro’s pants up over his quivering legs and tucked him in bed. Then she picked up the willow stick and threw it out the door. She crawled in next to her brother and pulled the burlap curtain shut. She held him tight, whispering lullabies, to block out the sound of Anna rocking back and forth on the floor.

  Exhausted by the pursuit, and cooled by the water, the hunt turns into a race before collapsing into a water fight. The boys gang up on Sofia, slapping the water, drenching her in wave after wave. When she gets too close, they lie on their backs and kick with their feet, spraying her with water, until she dives and yanks them under by their ankles. A tangle of arms and legs twists and wrenches away and breaks for the surface. One by one, the three heads bob up, gasping for air.

  “Truce, truce, truce …” They float on their backs, panting, catching their breath. The water sparkles and dances around their naked bodies. They no longer notice breasts or penises or pubic hair; they are once again children floating in the sun.

  Near shore, Katya squats low to the water and pees. Yellow pools hot between her ankles. The back of her dress trails behind her, sopping up water. She wiggles her toes, “Here fishy, fishies.”

  MR. HARDY EXAMINES the vegetables at the back entrance of his store, Hardy’s General Shop & Meat Market. Dania and Lesya flank Maria; all three stand with their heads lowered as the shopkeeper goes from basket to basket, examining the wares. Occasionally, he extracts a tomato or cucumber and brings it up close to his nose, squints through his smudged glasses, and sniffs the produce. He squeezes the firm fruit, frowns, and discards it back in the basket. Once the inspection is complete, he stands with his back to them, rubbing his glasses on his apron, as he calculates his profit in his head.

  “It’s not the best I’ve seen,” he mulls. “The tomatoes are small and the radishes have worm holes. I’m not interested in beans, I can’t give them away. And the carrots, well, carrots are a dime a dozen.” Dania translates for her mother.

  Lesya had packed the radishes herself and knows that not a single worm had got past her. Her ears blush pink with anger at the slight against her work and the fear that Maria will think she is incompetent.

  “My mother wants to sell it all,” Dania responds. Maria stares hard at the shopkeeper, daring him to insult her. Mr. Hardy isn’t a bad man, he gave her credit last winter for flour; of course it cost her five times the asking price, but he also gave Ivan a penny candy for free.

  “I can give you seventy-five cents,” he offers magnanimously.

  “For each basket?” inquires Dania.

  “For the lot.” He holds Maria’s eyes as Dania translates. The corners of Maria’s eyes twitch ever so slightly. She holds her gaze on him as she replies.

  “She wants four dollars for the lot.”

  Hardy laughs, outraged. “Four dollars! I might as well plant it myself for that and cook it up too.” The back of his head recalculates the profit margin. “I’ll give you a dollar fifty.” Maria looks to the girls and gives them an order. Hardy reaches in his pocket to count out the change.

  “You can take them inside, set them by the counter.” Hardy pats himself on the back.

  Dania and Lesya cover the baskets with the linen and hoist them up on the crooks of their arms.

  “They’re not for sale,” says Dania. “Mama says we’re going to La Corey. They pay a good price there.”

  “That’s ten miles away,” Hardy sputters, watching his profit preparing to leave. Lesya makes a big show of draping her cloth over the radishes. They had looked in Hardy’s front window when they arrived in town. Jostled between the brooms and advertising signs for Gillette razors was a motley display of limp, dried-up carrots, overripe tomatoes, and generally paltry produce.

  “She says, You’re right. Ten miles is too far to go. We’ll go to the hotel, sell directly to the restaurant. She says to thank you for the good idea, Mr. Hardy.”

  And with that Maria makes three dollars and fifty cents for her wares.

  MARIA SPENDS the first dollar and twenty cents on chicks. She lets Lesya help choose them. Shows her how to check their wings, feel their weight, see how attentive they are, and rejects the ones that are too listless or too aggressive, have weak chests or other abnormalities. One of the more obvious rejects is a chick whose foot is bent completely backward. It hobbles lopsided to the water dish. The other chicks crowd it from drinking, but it pushes its way through. As if to compensate for its physical inadequacy, this chick has been endowed with girth and size; it is even larger than the young rooster Maria selected. And it is fearless. It limps directly up to Maria and Lesya, dragging its foot behind, leaving a claw-mark trail in the sawdust, and pecks their toes.

  Maria ignores it, but Lesya surreptitiously slips her deformed foot forward to kick it away and the chick jumps onto her shoe. Lesya pulls her foot back; the chick wobbles but holds its balance and surveys the world from its new perch. It looks up at Lesya, as if pondering, before sliding off. It looks up at her again, questioning or challenging. Lesya walks away. The chick follows, staying close to the left of her twisted foot. Lesya picks up her pace and so does the chick.

  Maria plops the last of the chicks into the cardboard box and is about to tell the girls it is time to leave when she notices her niece. Lesya has squatted down in the dust and is holding the chick in the palm of her hand, stroking its head. The bird clucks and coos, bobbing its head back and forth, as if conversing. Lesya sets it on the ground and the chick jumps on her shoe again. “Do you think it’s a good one?” Maria asks.

  Lesya knows it doesn’t have much of a chance. It can’t run from a predator; the other birds will ignore it or, worse, attack it; it will have to fight for food; it’s no good as breed stock; it isn’t even pretty. “It’s big and strong, it might make a good brood hen.” Knowing that answer isn’t satisfactory, she adds, “It hasn’t given up.” And with that it is added to the cardboard box, for the reduced price of a nickel.

  Whenever Lesya opens the cardboard flap, it is always her chick on top, stepping on the heads of the others, as dependable as a jack-inthe-box, and this pleases her. She opens it again, peek-a-bird, out pops its head. She taps it lightly on the beak and gently closes the top.

  They return to Hardy’s after making rounds to Lively’s Feed Shop and the Willow Creek Post Office/Drugstore. As usual, there isn’t any mail, but that doesn’t deter Maria from buying a three-cent stamp, an envelope and sheet of paper, and sending yet another letter to Ukraïna: an update about the children, the farm, the weather … nothing that could be construed as political. We are well
. The same letter she has always written, regardless of their circumstances. Hope you are, too. She sends it, not knowing if it will ever get through or if there is anyone to receive it.

  As they continue down Main Street, the town’s only street, Maria admires the colourful false storefronts masking squat square buildings: MERVIN BOARDING HOUSE—MEALS ALL HOURS, AP MACLEOD—SADDLER, MILBURN AND MILBURN FURNITURE. She crosses herself as they pass the church and stops to marvel at the new plank-wood house, two storeys high with a dozen windows, and wonders how many families are going to live in it. They hurry past the hotel and the ladies perched on the balcony railings lazily waving to the men passing by on horseback. When the train whistle blows heralding its imminent arrival, the ladies scurry back inside, straightening their dresses and preening their hair.

  This time, when they reach Hardy’s General Shop, Maria walks through the front door with her money in hand. She picks up an English newspaper for Teodor and a Ukrainian one for her. Mr. Hardy greets her as if he hasn’t seen her in months and directs her and Dania to the new fabric arrivals from Edmonton. Maria takes note of her carrots neatly stacked in the front window and notices that the price has gone up.

  Lesya chooses to wait outside. She peers into the cardboard box resting at her feet. The cheeps and chirps emanating from the dark confines make her smile. She opens the flap and ten chicks and the cockerel, still with patches of downy yellow amid the mottled brown feathers, gape up at her with beady eyes. Their stumpy, undeveloped wings flap and their awkward lanky legs scramble on top of one another to reach the light. Lesya quickly shuts the flap and feels their little heads bopbop against the cardboard.

  “What’s in the box?”

  She sees his boots first. Polished to a shine, masking the cracks and scuffs. The flap of the sole has come undone at the toe. She looks up the frayed hems to the wrinkled but clean pants, follows the soiled cuffs along the too-short dress coat past the greying shirt to her father’s face.

  “Hi, Lesya.” Stefan smiles widely, too widely, and she can smell alcohol and cigar smoke. Protectively she puts her arms around the box and pulls it tighter to her legs.

  “Is your mama here?” He looks nervously to the door. Lesya shakes her head no.

  “Look how long your hair is,” and he runs his fingers through a strand, pulling the tangled ends. Lesya lowers her head and tries to disappear inside the cardboard box with her chick.

  “Cat still got your tongue?” He grins, his teeth stained yellow. “Don’t you wanna know how your ol’ man’s doing? I got a job in the hotel. Got a room. Got lots of money to spend. Food and drink when I want it.” He puffs out his chest. “I’m working on a land deal.” He leans in close as if someone might overhear. “I’m gonna be ready when the spur line comes.” He swings his arm toward the elevator and the train station, which throws him off balance. “I’m gonna own that land and then I’m gonna own the town at the end of it, you wait and see, Lesya. Your tato’s gonna be a big man here.”

  A police car slows to get around a horse and buggy. “Gerry, Gerry,” hollers Stefan, “this is my daughter.” The officer frowns and keeps on driving.

  He confides to Lesya: “I know him, he relies on me for information. He has to keep a low profile, all hush-hush. I beat the son of a bitch at cards last night.”

  The bell on the door tinkles open and Maria and Dania step out.

  “Maria!” Stefan stumbles up the bottom step, Lesya protectively leans over the box. Stefan removes his hat. “You look beautiful, Maria. You always were a beautiful woman.”

  “How are you, Stefan?” Maria responds neutrally.

  “I’m good, I’m real good.”

  The pause widens.

  “I hear Teodor’s back.”

  “Yes,” she says.

  He eyes the packages. “Things are going well for you. It’s good we could help you out in a time of need.”

  “Anna’s doing fine,” Maria states pointedly.

  Stefan is about to reply, thinks better of it, and laughs. “I’m workin’ on things here, got a deal going.” He winks at Lesya. “When I got it all sewed up, I’ll be home to look after things. Tell Teodor to make sure he takes good care of my place.”

  “We have to go.” Maria takes a step down. These words release Lesya and she picks up the box, ready to run.

  “Sure, sure, me too, I gotta get back to work … at the hotel.”

  “Goodbye, Stefan.” Maria descends the stairs, the girls huddle close to her skirt.

  “Maria?” He grabs her arm but promptly lets go when her eyes pierce him. “You got anything you can spare?” He tries to smile charmingly. “I’m between paydays.”

  “Go on ahead.” The girls hesitantly obey. Maria reaches in the pouch around her neck and fishes out twenty-five cents, careful not to let him see the other dollar. “That’s all I have left.” His trembling hand clutches it thirstily.

  “I’ll pay you back.” He laughs, and says half jokingly, “Or we can call it rent payment for the land.”

  Maria’s eyes turn cold. “Take care of yourself, Stefan.”

  “Lesya!” Stefan hollers. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

  “Goodbye,” she says weakly. She quickens her step and trips over her crippled foot.

  THE BOYS CONSTRUCT a henhouse fenced with willow, designed more to keep the chicks contained than to keep danger out. Ivan and Petro, tired and hungry, race to complete the job. In the middle of the night, the families wake to hysterical cackling. Lesya arrives first, ignoring Teodor’s shouts to stay back as he loads his gun. She rips open the makeshift fence gate and the yellow tomcat glares back at her. Its shoulders hunched, its claws extended, its eyes reflecting green and empty in the moon’s light, its mouth stuffed with feathers, it flees into the night.

  The young cock and eight chicks scurry frantically in circles, ricocheting off the fence, screeching, The sky is falling! The sky is falling! And this time they are right.

  “Here chick, chick, chick,” she calls, trying to sound calm, her voice wavering. Her twisted foot throbs from the impact of running across the yard. “Here chick, chick, chick,” ignoring the ones colliding into her ankles, looking for only one. She walks toward the chicken coop, a hastily slapped together shelter of pallets and crates. Her bare feet follow the trail of feathers. Flecks of white, softly glowing, tremble in the breeze. She falls to her knees, not caring about the hot chicken shit smearing her hands, and crawls into its darkness.

  Her fingers grope the straw and search the corners, finding nothing but splinters and mouse droppings. She holds her breath and listens with her entire heart, until the blood pumping in her ears deafens her. She falls back in the dirt, a small feather stuck to her big toe, and looks out to her family.

  Maria gathers the other chicks safely in her nightgown. Anna stands at the gate, her arms impassively crossed. Teodor brandishes the .22 like a soldier pacing the perimeter, looking for the enemy. Behind them the sleepy faces of her cousins peer over the thatched fence, an odd display of floating heads barely visible in the night. Petro keeps his head down, knowing he is the one who left a hole in the fence. He had asked Lesya if she had seen Tato in town. She said, No, he’s gone and he’s never coming back. Like she didn’t care.

  Inside the roost, apart from everyone else, Lesya wishes she had never been born. She imagines herself inside an egg, getting smaller and smaller, until she is nothing more than a fleck, floating in a thick sea of yolk, upside down, surrounded by warmth. Outside the voices recede, muffled by the walls of her shell. She could disappear if it wasn’t for the peck-peck-peck intruding on her silence.

  She opens her eyes and sees a loose floorboard flopping up and down and a yellow head pushing through the space between. The chick squirms its way out, sprawls onto the floor, shakes its ruffled wings, and then hops onto her foot. That very instant, Lesya names the chick Happiness, a word she had never understood before, and in the next breath she vows never to tell anyone. She carries the
chick to Maria and passes it to her waiting hands.

  Ivan and Petro, with Teodor supervising, spend the rest of the night reinforcing the fence. It isn’t until the morning sun peeks out that he releases them back to bed. A few hours later, Ivan wakes with a start and runs to check the fence, a pattern he will repeat every night for a week. Over the next month, the boys add briars and another layer of willow. Whenever Ivan sees the yellow cat, he throws a rock at it.

  THE HENS ARE EACH LAYING an egg a day now. The families gorge themselves on fried eggs and boiled eggs, ladled with hand-churned butter. Maria makes thick, fluffy pancakes. She bakes poppyseed cakes that require eight whipped egg whites and scrambles the yolks for breakfast and dinner. She pickles dozens more. Those that go bad or break are given to the cats, the eggshells are scattered in the garden, and the boys smuggle a few for their stink-bomb arsenal. The family takes on the roundness of a soft-boiled egg.

  The girls’ hips widen, their breasts grow heavier, the boys’ muscles swell and their bellies soften. The girls wash their hair in egg yolks to make it shine. Every Sunday, they sell two dozen to the hotel for twenty-five cents. Maria keeps the money in a tin can under her bed, a savings account for the purchase of a window for their new house.

  It is Lesya and Katya’s job to tend the chickens. Lesya is in charge of collecting the eggs and overseeing the feeding and watering. Katya is poop patrol and the clean straw brigade. Every morning, Lesya’s chicken greets her by hopping on her foot, then following her as she does her chores, keeping up a constant chatter, as if relaying the previous night’s events. Lesya sings to the bird and it cocks its head back and forth as if trying to catch the notes, tapping its crooked foot like it is dancing, all the while clucking off key. Ivan says she should sell it to a travelling circus or better yet let him take it to town and hold a show, Ivan’s Singing Dancing Chicken. He even volunteers Dania to make the hen a dress. They’d be rich. But no matter how much Ivan coaxes the bird to perform, the only one who can make it dance is Lesya, and she has no intention of ever taking it back to town.