Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

  I nodded.

  “Were you hiding him?”

  “He forced me to,” I said. “He said if I didn’t protect him he would kill me.”

  The officer nodded gravely.

  I watched from the kitchen window as the officer burst through the Wasiks’ door. I imagined Mary’s fear. I hoped, finally freed from him, she would forgive me and come stay in the house with us, maybe even join the women in the orchard. Some female company would be good for her. The officer pulled Taras out and bound his arms behind his back. Even in his weakness, Taras struggled against the soldier. Then, to my horror, Mary followed Taras out of the cabin. She searched the windows of our house for my face, her lips clenched tight. I ran onto the porch.

  “Mary, what are you doing? Don’t go.”

  Taras cursed me in Ukrainian.

  “She has no choice, miss. She’s his wife. She must come with me also.”

  “But she’s British.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s his wife. An accomplice. We’ve no idea what side she’s on. It’s a risk we can’t take.”

  Mary offered her wrists to the officer, but he hadn’t come prepared with restraints for two. I should have realized, even if she had been given a choice, Mary would have followed Taras anyway.

  I ran down our drive babbling to the officer that Mary was innocent, British! And had no part in whatever Taras was involved in. Mary shot me a look in an attempt to silence me. Everyone had come out of their homes now to watch us parade down the road towards the wharf.

  “Go home, Iris,” Mary said. “You’re making a scene.”

  I fell to my knees in the middle of the road. I had never felt so helpless. Taras fought against his restraints, shoulders straining, and the officer struggled to keep hold of him. Mary limped obediently behind them. Tears burned my eyes. People on the road bowed their heads and pretended not to watch Mary and Taras pass. Another man in uniform joined the officer and tied Mary’s wrists behind her back with rope and pulled her roughly by the shoulder. She tripped and fell headfirst, her arms unable to break her fall. When she stood, her nose was bleeding. Blood dripped down her chin.

  I knew it was Mrs. Bell who had told the officer about Taras, although she didn’t admit to it when I told the women what happened. Even still, it wasn’t Mrs. Bell’s fault Mary was taken. It was mine.

  I searched the Wasiks’ house for Mr. Bell’s pistol, but I couldn’t find the damn thing anywhere.

  * * *

  That autumn it was sad to see the women return to their homes. Only Mrs. Bell and Juliet stayed on to help me jar peaches and make preserves. Mrs. Bell talked on and on about London and her teenage years. She told us the dull story of how she and Phillip met, and the silly things he had done to win her over. Although her talking had annoyed me at first, it soon became a comfort, a kind of hum. The sound of her voice made the house feel full and warm.

  That winter Juliet loaned me romance novels. Henry’s library never held such books. We exchanged them wordlessly, smiles creeping up our cheeks. I filled the narratives out with the bodies of Viktor and me and used these scenes to inspire my own words. Soon I was writing letters back to Viktor. I didn’t sign my name. I didn’t sign any name. And so I decided this wasn’t exactly a betrayal. In truth, Viktor moved around so much it was impossible to know if any of the letters ever reached him.

  20

  Only Juliet and the Eber sisters returned to the orchard the following spring to work. We couldn’t keep up with all the picking, and most of the peaches went to waste again that summer. The first men returned to Winteridge late in the fall of 1917, and everyone in town went down to the wharf, hoping to see their son, brother, or husband. Although the crowd consisted of many of the same people who had once gathered to send our men off three years earlier, we had become thin and pale, worn, weak and disenchanted. We had heard of the battle in France—our men had finally taken Vimy Ridge—but it was difficult to celebrate success so far away when all we were faced with was absence. By this time we had learned that any triumph came with a death toll; we were still waiting to find out who.

  Further down the shore I saw Azami and her husband, Kenta. I had heard from Teresa, who kept up on Winteridge gossip, that Azami’s brother, Wu, was the only Japanese man in Winteridge accepted into the Canadian forces. He had been so determined to fight that when he was barred from enlisting, he travelled to Alberta because he heard they were accepting Japanese volunteers. From there he was swiftly sent off to Europe with a Canadian battalion.

  A toddler was crouched at her feet picking up stones and turning them over in his tiny hands as if searching for a message written on one in particular. I knew Azami had named this son Juro, after her father. A name her father had tried to leave behind in Japan. Azami held a swaddled baby in her arms also, another boy, only a few weeks old. I wondered if he had a name yet and what it might be.

  When the Rosamond first came around the bend, the crowd in the bay cheered it along, and then, as the boat approached and the weakened condition of the soldiers was made clear, we all grew quiet. Only a cough or two punctured the silence. There were few men returning, and they were wounded at that. These were not the warriors we expected, but men who could no longer fight, could hardly stand. The painted face of the siren on the ship’s bow was smeared. She looked like a whore after a long, terrible night.

  Although I hadn’t received word from Viktor, Yuri, or Jacob for months, and had no reason to believe they were returning that day, I looked desperately for Jacob’s red curls, Yuri’s blond hair, and of course Viktor. But the men all wore hats and bent awkwardly over crutches or slouched in wheelchairs. I didn’t recognize any of them. A couple of girls squealed as they ran up to a young man with a pale face and pushed the bewildered soul down the wharf in a wheelchair.

  Azami was staring at something, her eyes wide and unmoving. Her brother had not arrived and so her family had turned towards the shore, but she remained, looking out at the boat. I followed her eyes and found Viktor on the upper deck. He had a dark beard and was unrecognizable except for his eyes, which gaped back at Azami. His mouth was open in shock. The baby in Azami’s arms began to cry but still she didn’t move. The ramp was being lifted; the Rosamond was about to set off. Azami’s husband came up beside her, tapped her shoulder. Finally Kenta looked up to where Azami was looking, saw Viktor, and more forcefully tugged at her shoulder. She gave in.

  “Viktor!” I ran down the wharf. The man securing the ramp to the boat stalled and looked up at me. “There’s someone still on the boat. Wait.”

  “Are you sure, miss?”

  “Yes, my…my friend. I see him. He must be confused. Viktor!” I called out to him. He didn’t look at me. I pointed Viktor out and he was led off the boat, helped by a man with a mangled hand. Viktor looked at me dully, a bottle tucked in his pocket. I had imagined him so thoroughly in my mind that it seemed strange he should still possess a body at all.

  “Well hello, Your Highness,” he said in mock earnest. I was passed Viktor’s cloth sack; the very same one Mary had packed for both him and Yuri when they left. It had bulged with supplies then; now it was limp and light and might not have contained anything at all. I took Viktor by the arm. He used a crutch to walk. The bottom half of his right leg, from the knee down, was gone. He leaned on me heavily as we walked home, arm in arm, and despite the tragedy of it all, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that this body, however worn and disfigured, was mine to care for. Viktor needed me now.

  “I wonder why my mother didn’t come to the bay,” Viktor said quietly as we hobbled together down the road. I hadn’t thought through what I would tell him about Taras and Mary and so I pretended not to hear him. When we got to the driveway I tried to steer Viktor towards my house. He stopped outside the Wasiks’ cabin, already searching the windows for Mary.

  “Come inside the house, I’ll make some soup,” I said.

  “I should go home right away, my mother will want—”
/>   “They’re not home.”

  “Ah. Have they gone to town, then?”

  “No, Viktor. They’ve been taken.”

  “Taken?” He stumbled, his crutch dropped. He grabbed my arm and I struggled to stand under his weight.

  “I did everything I could,” I said. I thought I would vomit from guilt.

  Viktor shook me. “What are you talking about?”

  “Some officers took them to a camp in Vernon.”

  “What? Why? A work camp?”

  “I don’t know. They said it’s just until the war’s over.”

  “This goddamned war will never end.”

  “I’m so sorry, Viktor.” His hands were cinched tight around my arms and the pain felt good, earned.

  “But why did they take them?”

  “Because they’re considered enemies, like you once said.”

  “Enemies?”

  “Hungarians.”

  “My mother’s British, for God sakes, and their sons are fighting for the Allies against the Huns. Their sons…I have to find them. Help me with the crutch.” I positioned the crutch back under his arm. He took his cloth bag from me and wobbled towards his parents’ cabin.

  The next day, I went to take Viktor some breakfast, and he was gone.

  * * *

  It was while Viktor was away, looking for his parents, that I received another letter. This one was not delivered by a young soldier but came instead with the regular post. I had to read the name over and over: Jacob Sparks. They were balanced by the next words, missing in action. Passchendaele. At first I didn’t know how to understand this message. Missing? Then I closed my eyes and I saw it. I saw Jacob fall. I didn’t want to tell Llewelyna of this news. I could hear her upstairs, singing softly. She must not have forseen this particular tragedy. I wanted to go upstairs and join the world that still existed for her, a world in which Jacob was alive and well and the words from his last letter still trickled through her mind. When I had taken up her breakfast that morning she had been in a good mood, alert and upright and writing in the Mabinogion. Her hands were always blackened with ink now. The work seemed to keep her seizures at bay along with small doses of the bromide.

  I went upstairs and found Llewelyna in the tin bathtub. It took me a moment to realize the fish was gone from the jar beside the tub.

  “What have you done?”

  Llewelyna smiled eerily. “Was wasting away in there.” She shrugged. “What’s the harm?” She lifted her chin and sniffed as if tracking a smell in the air.

  “You swallowed my fish?”

  “Your fish?” She spoke as if her tongue was swollen.

  “The woman said it was for me.”

  “For you!”

  “Yes, she said it was for a girl.”

  “And you think that girl is you? Ha!”

  “Did you eat it?”

  She smiled darkly.

  “I hate you.”

  That’s when the trembling began. Her head jerked back against the tub. Her neck was strung with tendons, her jaw clenched, and her teeth locked. Her eyes went wide, the pupils slowly eclipsing the green irises. Her arms were stiff against her sides and her hands made fists. The thrashing created a wake and bathwater splashed the floor. I cradled her head in my hands to keep it from slipping underwater. Sweat pebbled her temples and pink drool trickled from the corner of her mouth and onto my hands. The whites of her eyes flooded red as the blood vessels burst. The seizure lasted forever. When the trembling slowed, her body remained stiff. I could feel the moment she was finally released. Her mouth went slack, and her bloodshot eyes finally blinked.

  “Water,” she said.

  I returned from the kitchen with a pinch of bromide dissolved in water. She was sitting up now, amused by something near her feet.

  “Look,” she said. The blue fish was darting through the bathwater, dipping and swirling past her limbs. She giggled when it grazed her skin. “It won’t have me,” she said, a little sad. “Rejected me. Just like it did the woman who walked out of the lake.”

  “But she died.”

  “Yes, and now it needs a new body. Wisdom like that needs a home.”

  We watched the blue fish flash through the water.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Henry found the woman? That he put her in the lake?”

  “Well, you didn’t seem much interested. Apparently you never even saw her in the first place.” She cupped her hand and caught the fish against her leg. I refilled the jar and she placed the fish back in it.

  “Maybe I should just put the fish back in the lake,” I said.

  Llewelyna shot forward and grabbed the wrist of my hand holding the jar. She clutched the jar with her other hand, but I wouldn’t let it go.

  “Don’t you dare. Don’t even think of it.” Her fingers pressed against the veins of my wrist and my hand swelled with trapped blood. “You don’t even know what this is, you fool.” She squeezed my wrist even harder. My hand went numb. “Let go,” she said.

  “You can’t swallow it.”

  “It doesn’t want me anyway.”

  I let go of the jar. Llewelyna lifted it close to her face and smiled at the blue fish. I passed her the lid and she screwed it back on. “I had a dream,” she said. “A vision.”

  I swallowed hard. I thought she might know about Jacob now. Llewelyna lifted her eyes to mine before she closed them. I knelt beside the tub but I did not close my eyes. I didn’t trust her.

  “I remember it like this,” she said, and I was confused because this was how she began her old stories, not her visions. She hummed. “Ba ba bach. Babi bach,” she sang in Welsh. “The baby was so small. She had white fuzz on her skin, like a peach. Not quite ripe. Hardly two days old.” Llewelyna wore a smile that unsettled me. “When the mother carried her to the water, the infant spoke, for she was wise and had lived many lives before this one. ‘Where did you come from?’ the mother asked the infant. ‘My original country is the region of the summer stars,’ the baby responded. ‘It is not known whether my body is flesh or fish.’ The mother asked, ‘What should I call you?’ And the infant said, ‘You shall call me Neb. For I am no one.’ And with that the mother placed the infant in the water until she was no more. And then the mother—”

  “This is you,” I interrupted. “This is a story about you. All of these horrible stories are about you.”

  Llewelyna’s eyes shot open. “Are they?”

  “You drowned your baby.” I stood and looked down at her. Her body was grotesque, sinewed and starved, all bone and joint. Her skin was faintly green. She kept her eyes on me. I wanted to take the fish from her but her knuckles were white around the jar and she had the look of a snake about to strike.

  “You did,” I said, “didn’t you.”

  Llewelyna threw her head back and laughed heartily. I slammed the door.

  “One day you will understand,” I heard her say.

  I busied myself with housework on the main floor until dark. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to hear her confess her evils. I didn’t want to understand her. Around midnight I heard her step out of the tub and walk around. I heard her fall. I might have gone up then to see if she was okay, but I didn’t. A few minutes later I heard something break. And still I refused to go upstairs. I remained for hours on the ground floor standing at the bottom of the stairs. It was far too quiet. It is possible I knew. It is possible I wanted it to happen.

  I can only recall a few vivid details: her arm, palm up, veins exposed, resting on the edge of the tin tub. The broken jar. A bloody shard. The blue fish frantic in the rusty bathwater, darting around her limbs. I used my hand to scoop up the fish. My fingers grazed her cold, lifeless skin. I don’t remember running to the Nickels’ store with bare feet. I don’t remember watching Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Nickel carry the tin tub down the stairs and out of the house. I don’t remember the water spilling on the kitchen floor or slipping in that puddle and bruising my elbow. I can’t connect her death to any
of that. It was much too unreal to be true. What I do know for certain is that Llewelyna knew about Jacob the whole time.

  I am still haunted by a recurring dream of Llewelyna’s death. In this dream she is standing at the shore of the lake in the blue light of stars. The moon is enormous. She is in the white dress she wore that first night on the Rosamond. The lake is calm. She clutches a large rock to her chest. As she walks into the lake her dress floats up around her knees, her hips, her stomach. The monster raises its head from the lake. I can’t see it in the dark but I know it is there. The lake becomes turbulent and takes Llewelyna with it.

  In part because of this vision, but also because I knew my mother and her wishes, I refused to have Llewelyna’s body buried. Instead, I had it sent off in the lakeboat to the city. It returned in a parcel of ash. Giving her to the water was the only kindness I could bear to offer Llewelyna. Mr. McCarthy paddled Juliet Pearl and me out into the middle of the lake in his rowboat. Juliet held my hand tight and sang a beautiful song about angels and white-robed martyrs and it all sounded like sacrilege coming from her heavily lipsticked mouth. Old Mr. McCarthy kept his face turned from us, as if only looking directly at my grief would make him privy to it. He looked towards the horizon as I poured my mother’s body into the icy blue water.

  Llewelyna would have been satisfied to know that the night she died, she entered into myth. Everyone in Winteridge had his or her own version of her death. Juliet said that the night she died, her father had seen Llewelyna walking towards the lake, the peacock trailing behind her. He had asked her what she was doing out in the cold at that hour, and she had said she was going for a swim. The similarity between Mr. Pearl’s vision and my own recurring dream of Llewelyna’s death made me shiver. Later Mrs. McCarthy told me she saw Llewelyna wandering through the wooded hills the night she died. A fisherman from another village reported a woman on the cliffs, standing over the edge and looking down at the water below, her dress blowing in the wind. He called to her but she didn’t respond. There were rumours about Saint Francis too. He disappeared the same night Llewelyna died. Kenji, a picker on the Kobas’ orchard, saw Saint Francis, the flightless bird, soaring above the apple trees. Mr. Nickel saw the bird stalking the shore of the lake, squawking mournfully.