Shandi Mitchell
Page 31
When Teodor crossed his legs to pose, that’s when Maria learned that he had also traded his socks. The spring chill leached through their summer clothes as they sat unmoving. They looked into the black eye of the camera and held their breath until the photographer said, “Breathe.”
It is their only photograph. Maria has studied the image a thousand times, searching his eyes. But there is no hint. No tell of what will come. In the moment between “Breathe” and the children swarming the camera, Teodor turned to her. He was smiling. His eyes glistened. And she saw such pride.
Myron hoists Katya onto the cart. Sofia clambers over the wheels and perches herself on one of the lashed-down chairs. Dania, cradling Maxim, tucks in between the stovepipe and a blanket box. A month old, the baby is fast asleep, oblivious to the life he is leaving. A brown birthmark, like a pawprint, marks the top of his right hand. Ivan hops onto the backboard of the cart. He holds on to the twine lashing down their hill of belongings. His legs, too long for his trousers, dangle over the edge, exposing bare shins.
The children look to their mother.
Maria stands in the doorway of the empty house. She memorizes its smell, its shape, the way it looked when it was full of life. She notices how well built the frame is, how strong the timbers. She sees the clean, sharp lines etched by the hand planer, the sure, deep cuts of the saw and axe. This house would have stood a lifetime.
But this is not the time for goodbyes. Those have happened already. They happened when they took her and the children into the woods to identify the body. His face had been covered with a piece of burlap. The heels of his socks needed darning. The .22 still in his hands. Perched in the fork of two twisted trees, his coat neatly folded, boots resting on top.
She said goodbye when they carried her husband’s frozen body into the house. He was curled up as though he were bowing. They laid him on the table. She washed him, put on a clean shirt. Waited for him to thaw to straighten his legs. He never fully uncurled. They buried him on his side in a wooden crate.
She said goodbye when the police, field agents, medical examiner, witnesses, and newspapermen streamed in and out of their house and Anna’s for three consecutive days, as if they were no longer there.
She said goodbye as she watched from a distance as they buried Anna on newly consecrated land, on the edge of the north quarter. Half the town came to pay their respects to a woman they never met. They erected a solitary wooden cross, a name, dates, nothing more, paid for by Josyp Petrenko. They wrote her name in English. They spelled it wrong.
She said goodbye to Lesya and Petro as best she could. She went to the neighbours and pleaded through closed doors. She made the trek to town, ignored the stares and slurs. She got down on her knees, kissed the hem of the priest’s robe. Told him that Lesya was a hard worker, a good girl who could clean and cook, and was blessed with a voice from heaven. She said Petro was strong and could keep the church stove burning. She pleaded with him not to let Children’s Services take them, that they needed God’s protection. But it was Anna’s silver hairbrush and mirror that swayed the priest to take the girl. Not the boy.
It was Josyp Petrenko who offered to take Petro in as a farmhand. He also took the cow, Lesya’s hens, and the store of seed grain. She watched from the other side of the stone wall as the children were taken away. Neither had a proper winter coat.
She even said goodbye to Stefan, though nobody knew where he was.
She said goodbye again when they refused to grant her the land in her husband’s name and told her she would have to leave in the spring.
She said goodbye yesterday as she cleared away the thistle choking Teodor’s unmarked grave, just outside of the cemetery’s holy land, condemned even in death. Brother and sister still separated by a fence.
She has said a lifetime of goodbyes.
Maria props open the door with a large rock to let the souls wander in and out. I give it back.
She looks to her children, who are watching her, waiting for a sign that everything will be all right. Her low heels sink into the mud. She looks down over the field, past the matted thatches of winter grass and wildflower sprays of purple, white, and blue to the black tilled soil. Its furrows already softened and collapsing. Prairie fireweed beginning to heal its scorched wounds. Soon the wild grasses will reclaim the soil and all that will remain will be the stone wall. A pile of rocks that kept nothing in and nothing out. She looks no further.
She kneels down beside the stoop and for a moment the children think she is going to pray. Instead, she takes hold of a large rock nestled against the riser and struggles to push it aside. Myron steps forward, uncertain whether he should offer to help.
The hem of his mother’s long skirt wicks the dew from the grass. He can see wisps of grey, like fine threads woven through her dark hair, escaping the tight binding of her red khustyna. Her waist is larger, her arms fleshier. Her hands dry and chapped. Large, strong hands. The nails, short and chipped, permanently stained with earth. A pale indent brands her ring finger. The rock rolls away.
Maria looks to her children, watching impassively, no longer surprised by secrets. She scans the empty horizon, then pries away the barn board propped against the side of the stoop. She looks up at Myron. He crouches down and peers under the step. He looks to his mother. Her eyes betray nothing.
He drags out a bundle swathed in his mother’s soiled blanket. Maria unwraps the faded woollen cloth, exposing a bulging burlap sack. She checks for mouse holes. No rot, no dampness. She unties the twine binding and opens the bag. The smell is dry and sweet. The seeds of grain are golden. For the first time since that night, she feels as though she might cry.
She stands brusquely. “Put it up front with the .22.”
Maybe someday his mother will tell him how she covered her tracks following the tangle of men’s bootprints into the moonless night and how still the horse stood at the stone wall as she went ahead. Maybe someday she’ll tell him how slowly she unlatched the granary door. Or how quietly the bag slid across the snow as she dragged it, harnessed behind her. A low, soft scrape. Maybe someday he will be brave enough to ask if she was afraid. Maybe someday he will tell her that he followed her there and then they will talk like only a mother and son can.
Myron pushes back the too-long sleeves of his father’s leather jacket, freeing his hands. His arms, all muscle and sinew, strain under the weight of the future. He hoists the bag on his shoulder and carries it to the cart.
Maria turns to Ivan, who is squirming to keep his bum from sliding off the narrow back edge. Soon he will need new pants. She places her hand on his chest to calm his sobbing heart. “Hold on tight.”
She walks to the front of the cart, counting heads.
“My hotovi?” Are we ready?
The children nod their assent.
Myron picks up the reins to lead the horse. They watch their mother. The morning sun in their faces. Maria lifts the hem of her skirt and walks.
Myron rubs the horse’s nose. His feet slide in his father’s oversized boots. Tch-tch-tch. The cart lurches ahead.
The children sway to its roll, their eyes fixed on the greying house and the prairies unfolding between them.
a cognizant original v5 release october 07 2010
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM INDEBTED to many for the creation of this work:
Those who read my early, tentative scenes and drafts and responded with such enthusiasm: Carol Bruneau, Richard Cumyn, Gwen Davies, Stephen Kimber, Alice Kuipers, and Daria Salamon.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Mentorship Program and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. Jane Buss, who took me under her wing and was the first to cry. Sue Goyette for her mentorship and guiding light, who believed long before I dared to say the word “novel.” Steven Galloway for challenging me not to look away when I was most afraid. Janice Kulyk Keefer for asking how. Heather Sangster and Olga Gardner Galvin, my copy editors, for making it better when I thought there was nothing mo
re to find. Orysia Tracz for caring so deeply.
Though the characters and their stories are fictional, I tried to set their lives in a realistic framework anchored in historical fact. I could not have created their world without the Provincial Archives of Alberta, Alberta Justice Department, Government of Canada National Parole Board, and the Government of the Province of Alberta – Department of Lands and Mines.
I used photographs for inspiration and relied on the incredible resources of virtual museums and photo galleries for my research: Glenbow Museum – Photographic Archives, The Great Depression of Canada, The American Experience Surviving the Dust Bowl, Alberta Depression Years, Saskatchewan’s Heritage Multi-Media Gallery, Ukrainian Museum in New York City – Holodomor (The Great Famine), and the Holodomor Photographic Archives – Ukraine.
I learned from those who collected Ukrainian folklore, folktales, and customs and shared them with those who had lost or forgotten them.
My family: Paul for the first spell check. Joanne for always being there. Shawn for all that he has taught me. Ron, Connie, and Christine for their blessing and sharing of all that is prairie. Uncle Marvin and Aunt Xan for family recipes. Baba, whose stories I never had a chance to hear. Mom MacLeod for reading the characters as if they were alive. Mom Mitchell who never doubted. Dad where it all began.
Suzanne Brandreth, Sally Harding, Dean Cooke, and Mary Hu of The Cooke Agency for their unfailing quest to bring this book to the world. And especially Suzanne, who said yes.
My extraordinary trinity of editors who made it all shine and their creative teams who took such pride in every detail of their art. Nicole Winstanley of Penguin Canada for her passion, wisdom, and gentle, brilliant clarity. Arzu Tahsin of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, who asked for more light. Claire Wachtel, Jonathan Burnham, and Julia Novitch of Harper Collins US who trusted.
Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage – Culture Division for helping to keep food on the table and a roof over my head by investing in the writings of an East Coast Prairie girl.
Kino for teaching me the way of dogs.
And Alan
for everything.