by Rena Rossner
“Don’t be mad at me, Liba,” Laya says. “I wanted to know if they knew anything about Jennike, if they’d seen any bears out in the woods. Anyway, aren’t you human? Don’t you want to taste some of that fruit? Just once in your life? We’re so lucky to have them here. In winter of all seasons! Do you know that they grow all the fruits themselves? In their orchards? Imagine that! They collect the seeds and the saplings on their travels, and bring them all back here. They have a special method of watering the roots of the trees so they stay warm in winter. I’d love to be married to someone who has orchards like those and to travel the world with him finding new fruits and bringing back saplings …”
“Who’s filling your head with all this nonsense? And why in the world are you talking of marriage—with a goy no less?”
“You sound like Tati.” She rolls her eyes at me. “Not everyone wants to live and die alone like you with your nose stuffed in a book.”
“Shtuss. I don’t want to live alone. I’m just not tempted by stupidity. I will marry someone …” I almost say, that Tati chooses for me, but I don’t. “Just not some goy fruit merchant from who knows where. What could you possibly have in common with someone like that? Anything that circumvents the laws of nature like that must be enchanted.”
“Maybe they’re just really talented gardeners, did that occur to you? Why are you so quick to judge?”
“Pfft. Yeah. I’m sure they’re talented in lots of ways.”
“Liba!”
I stop walking. “Laya, there’s something off about them. Do you know what I felt when you put his hand in mine?”
Laya sighs. “Yeah … isn’t it dreamy?”
“No! It’s not dreamy. It’s unnatural. Nobody should make you feel that way the moment you meet them, the instant you touch them!” But that’s how Dovid made me feel—and we didn’t even touch. I swallow hard, not knowing what to think anymore. I say the words I know I’m supposed to say. “That’s why we’re not supposed to touch before marriage. And did you hear what they said about us? About Jews? Why would you want to have anything to do with someone like that?”
“Just because that was the first time in your life that you ever felt anything …”
“Laya! That’s not true.”
“Oh, really?” She waggles her eyebrows. “It’s Dovid, isn’t it? What happened? Did you hold hands? Did my saintly sister kiss a boy? Oh, now I simply must know.”
“No! Stop. Enough. I promised Mami and Tati that I would keep you out of trouble, and that’s what I intend to do. Would you be gallivanting around with shaygetzim if Tati was still here? You wouldn’t dream of it.”
“But he’s not here, Liba. And everything’s changing,” she says soberly. She takes a deep breath. “I’m changing.”
I swallow hard and stop and look at her. Could things be happening to her too? I’m older and I only just started feeling the changes in my body, the echo of fur under my skin, the pinch of sharper teeth, the razor’s edge of claws …
“I don’t know what I want anymore, Liba,” Laya says in a way that feels like it could be me speaking, and suddenly I think, Maybe she’s just as scared and confused as I am.
“Laya, I … sometimes I feel the same way.”
“It’s just that maybe now that Mami and Tati are away, I finally have a chance to figure stuff out. They can’t keep us cooped up in that cottage forever. I’m older now, and I want things I didn’t want before. Mami told me that as you get older you start to feel things you never felt before. Especially …”
“Especially people like you and me?” I say.
Laya looks up at me, shrugs, and looks at the ground. “What I feel when I look at Fedir is exactly what Mami told me she felt the first time she saw Tati. And he didn’t ‘enchant’ her. She wasn’t even Jewish and he married her. Why should things be any different for me?”
“It was different with Mami,” I say.
“How would you know?” Laya looks at me, eyes blazing. “You’re just like those river rocks you love so much. Cold and stoic. Maybe your beshert will be just as cold as you are—a match made in heaven. God save me from that kind of future!”
I shake my head and feel tears in my eyes. I’m a beast, Laya, I want to say. I’m not like you. It’s so easy for you and Mami to love and be loved—you are light and beautiful and I am cumbersome and plain … but I don’t. I can’t. I don’t say anything at all.
Our parents have barely been gone a week and already Laya and I are fighting. She’s all I have in this world. I can’t lose her. Then I truly will have nothing.
“When?” My voice scratches my throat.
“When what?”
“When did you see him?”
“What? Just now. In the marketplace.”
“And he managed to spin all those fanciful tales about orchards and marriage? Just now?”
Laya blushes. “I met him in the glen,” she whispers. “Last night.”
“By chance?”
“Sort of.”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“I wanted to ask what he knew, if he’d seen anything … any bears,” she says.
“Why?”
“You know, to see if the rumors were true.”
“Oh.”
“Look. We talked. Fedir snuck up on me. He gave me a fright. He’s so graceful, I didn’t see him coming. Isn’t that strange? I mean, you know me: I hear every movement in the forest, but he snuck up on me.”
Of course it’s strange! Why doesn’t she see that? Then I think, Maybe she doesn’t want to see it. That thought chills me to the bone. I really am going to lose her, to a swan or to a fruit seller—does it really matter? I know what choice she is going to make, and it’s not going to be me. I’m not going to tell her everything. I want to hold on to my sister for as long as I can.
“Liba?”
“What?”
“Did you even hear me?”
“Of course I did.”
“Why aren’t you yelling at me?”
“Because you know better. You don’t need me to tell you to stay away from those boys.”
“Oh come on, what could they possibly do?”
“Do I really need to answer that? Don’t be naive.”
“Well, I’m going tonight. And you can’t stop me.”
“Going where?”
“See! You weren’t listening. I’m not going to repeat myself.” Laya crosses her hands over her chest and turns her back to me.
“Laya, wait! It’s shabbes tonight. Friday night …”
“So?”
“So? Mami and Tati leave and now you don’t keep shabbes? We were invited—”
“I’m not going to do anything wrong. Just go for a walk before shul …”
“So maybe I’ll come with you.”
“No, you won’t! You’ll just ruin everything. You’re not my mother or my father, and I’m going to do what I like. I’ll fly to get there if I have to, even if it’s on shabbes! You can’t control me.” Laya turns and runs into the woods.
Fly? Did I hear her say fly?
My heart cracks into a million pieces.
As I walk back to the house, my heart hurts. I should be swooning with her over those boys. I would give anything to be normal. But my dreams have teeth and claws and bloody feathers and birds that fall from trees and rip my sister from my arms. And suddenly I’m filled with rage at Mami and Tati for leaving us and burdening me with secrets that don’t feel like mine to tell. My fingernails tingle.
Why aren’t I the swan? The shayna meidel—beautiful and lovely and free? Instead I’m large, and awkward, and afraid of what I feel.
I look at my hands and see that my nails are getting sharper. Why? I don’t want to be this thing that I’m becoming. I slump down to the forest floor and dig my fingers into the soft loam until I can’t feel them anymore. Everything hurts. My hands, my feet, every pore of my body. I feel faint and jittery.
I focus on the feel of the earth between my f
ingers. The sounds of the forest all around me. The ground beneath me hums with the sap of all the trees. We are connected to this land. Laya and I belong in the Kodari and in the orchards and vineyards that line the banks of the river. We are creatures of the wood. It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else but here.
But I know from Tati’s books that the Jews were uprooted from land like this in Jerusalem and Babylon. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and also wept when we remembered Zion … Tati used to sing that every Saturday afternoon at shalos seudos—the third meal. It’s hard to breathe. Will we one day weep over Dubossary, over the quiet life we had here, like we weep over Babylon and Jerusalem? One day soon, my sister and I will both go our separate ways. I feel like we are on the cusp of that change. My tears wet the earth.
But then I feel the fine brown hairs on my back prickle. Someone is watching me.
I crouch down, look around, and scent the air. There. I smell it. I turn and see a swatch of fur in the trees. I run after it, but it disappears from view. I search the woods all around me, but it’s gone. I’m alone in the woods. My whole body seizes up in fear.
28
Laya
Back home,
the air stirs
outside my window.
Something is brewing.
If there are bears
in the woods,
I must find them
before they find
my sister.
I brew chamomile tea
to quiet my mind
and make extra,
a concentrate
we can use
on shabbes.
It’s a habit
I can’t break.
But really
I want ginger
for the fire
that runs
through my veins
when I think of Fedir.
For the way
my lips tingle
and burn
at the thought
of his lips
on mine.
My tongue aches
as if it were dry.
Will he taste
like apricots
tonight?
Or something else
entirely?
My hands
only want
to touch his
again.
I want answers
that only he
can give.
29
Liba
My fingers are black with soil, but my fingertips are white and whole again. I wait and listen some more, heart pounding in my ears, then turn and run all the way back home.
Who was that man we saw in the marketplace? Should I let the kahal members know? Maybe Laya’s not the only one who needs protection. Maybe we all do.
I wipe my dirty hands on my skirt and open the front door. Laya yelps as she sees me.
“You’re here!” I say.
“Where else would I be?”
“I thought that maybe … you’d gone already.”
Laya smiles. “I made tea, and extra for shabbes.”
My heart softens. Everything is okay. Everything is going to be okay. “I love you, Laya-bell. I’m sorry. I just feel so responsible all the time. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. You’re all I have left in this world.”
“I love you too.” She comes over and hugs me.
“I miss Mami and Tati,” I admit. “I’m worried about them. And I’m tired of trying to be strong.”
“I know,” she whispers as she strokes my hair. “And I know you’re just looking out for me. But I can’t stay cooped up like this. I need to be out and about. I want to find out what people know.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But … Laya, what exactly did Mami tell you before she went away?”
“I know what you are, Liba.”
My heart thuds. “You do?”
“I feel like maybe I’ve known it all along. When Mami told me—it just made sense. So many things make sense now.”
I don’t know what to say. “Do you ever feel … I mean, have you started to …?” I close my eyes and decide to just say it: “Sometimes my nails grow long, and I feel my teeth sharpen. I’m hungry all the time,” I admit.
“My shoulders itch and my arms ache, and sometimes I feel I could jump off a tree and the air would catch me.”
I stare at Laya and she stares back at me—we’re seeing each other with new eyes. But I don’t know how to tell Laya that the swans might come for her. I don’t want to tell her. I’m scared of losing her. Instead I say, “Laya, if you ever see swans in the forest—will you tell me?”
“I see swans all the time.”
I swallow. “You do?”
“Yeah. On the river, in the sky. And there’s one that I’ve seen land on our roof … Will you tell me if you see bears?”
“Yes, but … stay away from them, okay? Don’t go out on the roof when you see a swan. Can you promise me that?”
Laya nods, but I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t mean it.
“Do you really think there are wild bears in the woods?” I ask her.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
“Well, I felt like something was watching me this afternoon when I was walking back here. I tried to follow whatever it was, but I wasn’t fast enough. The only thing I saw was fur. Watch out tonight, Layoosh. I used to think the only bear in our woods was me.”
“I’ll be careful, but you should be too! Don’t go running after strange bears in the woods.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll try not to. But can you promise me something else?”
“What?”
“If you ever see me … change … run as far away from me as you can.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t trust myself. I’m scared. What if I can’t control what happens? What if I hurt you?”
“I trust you,” she says.
I sigh. “Well, at least one of us does.”
“What does this mean for you and Dovid?”
I shake my head. “There is no me and Dovid.” Saying those words makes my belly ache.
“Don’t think that way, Liba. You can find a way to make it work.”
I shake my head. “I wish these things came as easy to me as they do to you. Just be careful, okay? I don’t trust Fedir … What if there’s someone else who’s meant to be in your future?”
“He’d better hurry and show himself.” Laya crosses her arms over her chest.
“I think you should give someone else a chance before you decide.”
“Right, and you should definitely give a couple guys from town a chance too, eh?”
“It’s different.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Laya holds my gaze. I see the reflection of my ice-blue eyes in her brown-black ones, and I know that nothing between us will ever be the same again. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s the way that things are meant to be. We are always changing, like the moon.
“Perhaps it’s safer in town?” Laya says.
I shiver, thinking of what I saw in the woods. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore.
“I know you’ve spoken to the Meisels—do you think they’d take you in?” Laya asks.
“Me? What about you?”
“I don’t know if I can leave the forest.”
“What are you, meshugge? I’m not leaving you here alone. I don’t know what’s out there, and Mami and Tati would have wanted us to stick together.”
“Mami and Tati are gone. They may never come back.”
“They will come back,” I whisper, but my voice cracks.
“They abandoned us.”
“Laya, that’s not true … Tati went to visit the Rebbe, who is on his deathbed. What was he supposed to do? Not go?”
“We need Tati here. Things are happening here.”
I want to argue with her, but she’s right. I do wish th
ey had stayed. I don’t tell Laya about the humming I felt beneath the ground because I don’t know how to explain it, and I don’t know if she’d understand. Maybe it was just a figment of my imagination. But then I realize that it’s not just that I think we should stick together—I don’t want Laya to go walking in the woods tonight alone because it means that I’ll be walking in the woods alone too.
“Sometimes at night I hear all kinds of sounds,” Laya says, “and even though I’m scared, I want to know what’s out there. Do you hear the noises too? The scratching on the roof?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Our house feels like a cage,” she says.
“Of course it does … but that’s because you’re a bird,” I laugh.
“It’s not funny.” Laya scowls.
I put my hand over my mouth, sigh, and tuck one of Laya’s white-gold locks behind her ear.
“Ich hob dir lieb! Forever and ever,” I tell her. It’s what Mami would say.
“I love you too. Forever and ever,” Laya replies. She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Even if I move away and marry someone smolderingly handsome?”
I think of Dovid and his warm hands and eyes and even his laughter at me. I think about what it would be like to see him again. To sit around the Meisels’ table and feel like I belonged.
“Even if,” I say. “But not if it’s Fedir Hovlin!”
“Why, you …” Laya lunges for me and smacks me with a kitchen rag. I shriek and run out the door into the meadow. We chase each other until we hear the kettle’s shrill whistle.
“The tea!” Laya yelps and runs inside to take the kettle off the fire.
I follow her back in and my heart is less heavy. Whatever comes, we will face it together.
30
Laya
I wait until Liba
is taking
a pre-shabbes nap.
Then I slowly,
silently creep
creep
creep
down the ladder.
I take my cloak off its hook,
careful not to make it rustle.
Then I open a window
and climb out.
31