Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

  * * *

  Taras was proud when Yuri and Viktor were both accepted into the Canadian army. He walked around town as big-chested as a robin. His voice boomed with the news of it. Although Mary was British, she begged her sons not to go. It wasn’t until Yuri and Viktor were sent their letters of appointment that Taras realized his sons had changed their last name to Wilson. Yuri carried a plum-purple bruise on his jaw that hadn’t disappeared even when he boarded the boat to leave. He said he fell from a tree but I knew different.

  Despite Henry’s visits having stopped completely, one day he arrived at our house to see Llewelyna. Taras threw him threatening looks as he passed the Wasiks’ cottage and Mary disapproved so fervently that she had to leave the house when Henry entered. Henry and I nodded our hellos before he went to Llewelyna’s room. They spoke quietly for hours. At one point Llewelyna gave a sharp little whimper and began to cry. From my room I could hear the bed creak as Henry lay down beside my mother. With that, I too had to leave the house, though I could no longer blame them for their unfaithfulness. I knew they had loved each other for a long time. My father had betrayed Llewelyna, twice now, abandoned her completely. Henry, on the other hand, had seen Llewelyna through everything. He understood parts of her that my father couldn’t bear to know.

  The approaching reality of war had everyone acting desperately. We each searched for something solid, if only for a moment, to hold on to.

  * * *

  I was running on the road. I had no destination, I just wanted to get away. When I passed the Pearl there was a group of men in olive suits gathered on the porch drinking beer.

  “Iris!” one of the men called. It was Yuri. He stumbled down the steps and met me on the road. I realized the group wasn’t made up of strange men but of local boys disguised in uniforms. Ronald, the McCarthys, the Ebers, and of course Viktor, who whistled and hooted licentiously.

  “Ah, yes. Now is your chance, hen!”

  Yuri could see I had been crying. He took me by the elbow and led me to the lakeshore, beneath the cover of trees. “What is it?” he asked, and his sincere concern was so welcome, so refreshing after everything, that I reached for the back of his neck. Kissing him in that moment felt like the only thing in the world left to do, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I ran my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, shaved close to the skin and smooth as velvet.

  “I am so afraid,” I said. “I am so afraid of being left alone with her.” I could see the disappointment on his face. He took my hands in his. His palms were warm. His breath was sweet with brandy.

  “It will be a short time. We’ll end this war and be back in no time. And when I return…I don’t know. Maybe we can be together.”

  I could still hear the men in the Pearl laughing and singing foolish songs. I was angry how casually everyone was treating this war. I didn’t see the apocalyptic images Llewelyna did, but her response to the visions frightened me. And here Yuri, my tender friend, was to enter this world of Llewelyna’s imagination, brimming with explosions and fire and blood.

  “Llewelyna says it’s sure death. The end of the world as we know it. She’s dreamt my father’s death a hundred times.”

  “I know, you told me that.” He brought a hand to my cheek and wiped a tear away with his thumb. “Those are just dreams, Iris. I’ll come back. I promise.”

  * * *

  The Rosamond was docked at the wharf. Someone had repainted the siren. She was garish with her pale skin, pinched cheeks, and blue eyelids. Her areolas were the size of peaches, or perhaps they were meant to be clamshells set upon her breasts. Her lips turned up in a wolfish grin. The Rosamond had already been around to many of the nearby towns and villages along the lake. It sat low in the water, crowded with uniformed men who shouted and cheered at the crowd gathered in the bay. Taras hadn’t come down to the shore to see his sons off.

  “Have you seen Viktor?” Mary asked me.

  “He forgot something at the house,” Yuri said. He had a cloth bag over his shoulder and seemed much older in his starched uniform and cap and with his hair shaved behind the ears. I spotted Henry in the crowd. He too was dressed in one of the olive suits, his hair shaved like Yuri’s. I left the Wasiks and ran to him.

  “What are you doing here? It’s Britain that’s at war.”

  “I’ve as much of a right as anyone to fight,” Henry said, a little defensively. Then his face softened and he leaned down to my level. “There is only so much knowledge to gain from reading books.” He smiled. “But in truth, I need to get away from these ghosts for a while.”

  From the corner of my vision, I saw the Lake Person with the blistered face dart between the trees not far from us. “Is she here? Your half-sister?”

  Henry nodded.

  I remembered how she had approached us in the forest so long ago. She had looked as though she had wanted to hurt Henry then. Now she seemed worried, flitting between the trees, desperate to stay near him.

  “Please be careful,” I told Henry.

  He pulled Llewelyna’s Saint Francis statuette from his pocket. “I have my lucky charm.” He tucked it away.

  “Iris!” Yuri waved to me from the other side of the crowd. “We’ll board soon.”

  I kissed Henry on the silver scar down his cheek. “Thank you,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “For loving my despicable mother.” I smiled.

  Henry’s face went stoic. He gave a little nod and looked away.

  I hurried to join Yuri and Mary. Mary dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as she said goodbye to Yuri. He turned from her and approached me. He stood close. Too close. Then he was on his knees. The crowd in the bay hushed. Even the birds went quiet and the fish went still in the water.

  “Iris Sparks,” Yuri began in a whisper I could hardly hear over the pounding in my ears. I could feel the hot red splotches inching up my neck. “Will you give me something to come back for? Will you marry me?” I looked around. Henry smiled at me from across the crowd, nodding, as if I had already given my answer. One of the McCarthy boys snickered but was quickly silenced by his mother.

  “Yuri, I…” He was trembling. In his eyes I could see a reflection of the clouds, the fringe of pine trees. I thought of Yuri swimming through the dark water. I thought of us as children, asleep in the tree fort, his arms wrapped around me. I looked behind Yuri and saw Viktor emerge from the forest in his olive suit, his mouth agape at the scene. Azami approached from the trees further down the shore. Something greedy boiled in my gut. People started to whisper. The men on the Rosamond cheered, finally realizing the situation. Yuri was about to stand back up, my silence too long.

  “Yes,” I said, finally, catching Viktor’s eye. “I will.” Yuri nearly fell as he stood. He pulled me in and kissed me square on the lips. “But only if you come home, you understand?” I said. The already exuberant crowd laughed and cheered around us.

  Yuri took my face in his hands. “Thank you,” he whispered. It was an odd thing to say. He pushed something into the palm of my hand.

  Viktor patted Yuri hard on the back, then pulled me close, kissed me on the cheek. I could see the chain of Azami’s lucky necklace at his neck. “Goodbye, Your Highness,” he whispered in my ear.

  Yuri and Viktor joined the lineup of identical men boarding the Rosamond. Yuri kept turning around, waving to me, his face bursting. Mary wrapped an arm around my waist.

  “It’s no mystery,” she said. “Our Yuri has loved you for so long.”

  I opened my fist and found a ring carved from purple lilac wood and sanded smooth. There was an imprint in my palm from holding it too tight. I fit the ring on my thumb; it was far too big for any of my fingers.

  “Wait!” I called as I ran towards the lineup of men. I found Yuri and planted another kiss on his lips. My eyes found Viktor’s. He stood just behind Yuri. And in that moment I thought I had finally made Viktor want me back.

  The crowd in the bay cheered again as the
Rosamond set off. I couldn’t tell Yuri or Viktor from the other men on the boat. They all looked the same, waving and shouting their final indecipherable offerings to the crowd. When the lakeboat turned past the last curve of land, a silence fell upon Winteridge, one that wouldn’t lift for four years. All our young men gone in a single stroke. The war was a darkness our men disappeared into. Those few who did eventually return to Winteridge never recovered from the dark.

  17

  Soon our men’s letters arrived as if to replace them. Those of us left behind in Winteridge lived half our lives through their words. Jacob wrote to Llewelyna, and though she didn’t share his letters with me, I could hear her open the envelopes when I left the room. The letters I received from Yuri relayed only common, mundane events like the weather and the details of this or that supper. Yuri was a poor writer, having never gone to school, and I suspected Viktor had transcribed his words. Yuri called me his beloved. The word already felt worn and tired and plucked from some song he might have heard. He and Viktor were about to leave the dusty training base in Valcartier where they slept in tents. They would be part of the first Canadian Division and would leave Quebec for Europe in a few days.

  One day I received an especially thick letter from Yuri. Inside, along with his letter, was a sealed envelope with Azami written on it in Viktor’s handwriting. Yuri’s letter instructed me to deliver Viktor’s sealed envelope to Azami. I held Viktor’s letter to the sunlight but couldn’t see through the cream paper. I slipped my fingertip beneath the seal. I could tell Azami it was the censors. Although Yuri’s dull letters were rarely altered, I heard some of the women received letters that were blacked out with ink. I made a little rip and stopped, visited once again by the guilt of the shrine and the fire. I put the envelope down.

  The next day I untied one of the cart horses and rode to the edge of town and then through the forest to the Kobas’ property on the other side of the hill. I tied the horse up to a pine tree and slipped along the edge of the orchard. I hadn’t been there since I had delivered the new shrine to Azami. The apple trees were lush with fruit and there were many pickers up in the branches. Although the peach season was now over and the majority of our unpicked harvest had gone to rot, the apple season didn’t end until November. Even after, there was plenty of sorting and packing to be done. I recognized some of the Japanese pickers who had worked on our orchard. Those who had been denied service in the war had promptly left our orchard and joined the Japanese workforce at the Kobas’, leaving only Taras to tend to our peaches. Viktor was right: preventing the Japanese from joining up didn’t settle well. Our community was more divided than it had ever been before.

  Azami was up in one of the apple trees. I whistled to her from the bushes. She scanned the forest and when she saw me came down the ladder and walked casually between the trees, then ducked into the woods. Viktor must have told her to expect me, his little gofer. When I passed her the letter she slipped it into her overalls.

  “Thank you,” she said. She had a small cut beside her eye. Someone called to her. She handed me a brown envelope and kissed me on the cheek. Her smile revealed an open trust I did not deserve.

  I dropped Azami’s letter, unread, into the river on the way home. I followed the brown envelope along the bank until it got clogged amongst some roots and sank.

  * * *

  Our rotten harvest continued to fester beneath the trees well into the fall. Taras didn’t bother to clean it up. He had taken to whisky and had grown negligent of his responsibilities. Insects and mice made their homes in the fruit. The fetid smell was inescapable even inside our house. I was relieved when the mess was covered by snow that hardened into sheets of ice that cracked underfoot. Mary worked tirelessly all day nursing Llewelyna and returned to her own cottage at night to nurse Taras, who drank himself into a sickness.

  I opened our front door one morning to find Azami holding a basket of shining red apples, like a character in a faery tale, a Japanese Snow White. The branches of the peach trees behind her were ornamented with icicles.

  “Merry Christmas.” She put the apples down between us. A Japanese man held another basket of apples behind her. She gestured to him. “This is my cousin Kenta.”

  “Hello, Kenta. Merry Christmas.”

  He bowed slightly.

  “He doesn’t speak English,” she said, and came a little closer. “Any word?” she whispered. Her eyebrows arched with a desperation I couldn’t help but enjoy. It was strange to see worry on a face that was usually so numb.

  I shook my head.

  “You’ll let me know?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  In a few weeks a letter for Azami from Viktor did arrive, and then another, and another. I cherished the power of keeping the letters from Azami and used the incessant snowfall to excuse my inaction. When I finally decided to ride to the Kobas’ orchard to deliver the letters to Azami, there was a foot of fresh snow on the ground. I wore several wool sweaters, and an overcoat, and wrapped a scarf around my neck so my own breath could warm my face. I tied the horse to a tree just outside the Kobas’ orchard and walked carefully in the snow along the perimeter. The apple trees were as bare as bones and covered in snow. There were no workers. My boots were not high enough and my feet were already wet and cold. I knew I couldn’t approach the house, and I was about to turn back when I heard a voice. I followed the sound down a hill to the far side of the property. I didn’t know the Kobas’ land extended this far north. What I found below fascinated me. From above it looked like an enormous crystal sparkling among all that fresh snow in the winter sun. I walked carefully down the steep hillside, nearly forgetting what I had come here for. As I got nearer, I could see the building was very low; the glass roof came no higher than my shoulder. The walls were made of wood, and panes of glass angled up to form a peaked roof. I would have to crouch or crawl to get around inside. I had never seen a greenhouse before.

  I leaned over to see what was inside and found Azami and Kenta rocking together amongst the greenery of spinach and onions and garlic shoots. They were naked and it was a wonder to see bare skin and lush vegetables on such a white, cold day. The windowpanes were slightly steamed. Kenta was on top of her, and Azami’s legs were around his waist. Her hair spilled out beneath her like syrup. She arched her back in pleasure, her eyes pinched closed. I felt for Viktor’s letters in my pocket and hiked back up the ridge to my horse.

  When I got home I ran my finger over Azami’s name scrawled on the envelope in Viktor’s writing. I peeled back the flap and slipped his letter out.

  What a fool I was to complain of our training in Salisbury. We’re in France but we could be in any Hell. It’s been three days of rain. These trenches are full of blood water. Yesterday a man died in my arms. He had two children and a wife back home in Winnipeg. As blood spilled from a hole in his chest, and bombs exploded in the near distance, I told him about our house in the sky. The beaded chimes ringing in the morning breeze and the sun falling on your face like melted butter. I dream of it, you know. I dream of your warm nakedness pressed up to me and then I wake to this nightmare. I regret everything. I am a selfish coward. I would do anything to return to you now. I would lose a limb to be next to you. The man closed his eyes and eased into death. Once his spirit was gone his body became so heavy another man had to help lift him off me. When I come home I will take you away. Never mind what our fathers might think. Life is much too short. Я тебе кохаю. I love you.

  I set the letter down. Then picked it up and read it again, slowly. Yuri never wrote of love or death. His self-censorship irritated me. He only asked about Winteridge and told me about different men in his battalion and the food he did and did not get to eat. After I read Viktor’s letter for a third time, I set it on fire in the stove. Then I read the other letters.

  Only time separates the land of the living and the land of the dead. And here, in Hell, time has disappeared. I pinch myself to make sure I am still alive, still awake,
but it’s so cold this no longer proves useful. Only the thought of you warms me. I relive that night you told me about Coyote, the trickster, and we made love until the church bells rang in the valley. Do you remember? Yesterday I thought I saw you in the trench. I followed you until you changed back into a yellow tarpaulin whipping in the wind. Я тебе кохаю

  Why don’t you write? I need your words. Today I killed a boy. Pimples freckled his forehead like stars. He wore a silver cross under his uniform. I was close enough to smell the fresh piss in his pants. I was close enough to hear his last words. The words were in German, but I know he called for his mother in that final breath—mutti, mutti, mutti. He stuck his bayonet in my chest but I did not feel a thing. No matter where I go, his blood cries out to me from the ground. I am forever half of whoever I was before. Pray for my soul. I have lost it somewhere in the bloody mud.

  I burned these letters up too.

  * * *

  One night, a few weeks later, I woke to a pounding on the door. I had to pull the door open hard against the wind. Spindly branches from the orchard whipped across the porch. Azami stood there, bundled in her scrubby picking clothes, a lock of hair swept across her face and into her mouth.

  “Iris. You must tell me what to do.”

  “What is it?”

  “Is he dead?” Azami bit her lip, her eyes full of water. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”