The Woman Behind The Waterfall

by Meriel,Leonora

  She remembers the stories her mother used to tell her about dancing here on this riverbank on the night of Ivan Kupala, with the music and fires in the distance. Dancing in a blue dress with Father, and then swimming together in the river. I wonder if that was when she got pregnant with me? Lyuda suddenly thinks. They weren’t married at the time. She was very young. I wonder if that was why she made me have the abortion. So that I wouldn’t do what she did. And does that mean that what she did was a mistake? That having me was a mistake for her?

  She stares down into the river. So many questions. The water is flowing fast, unusually high for early summer. She takes off her sandals and climbs down the bank and dips her foot into the water. It isn’t as cold as she had thought and its touch on her skin is calming. She climbs up the bank again and walks barefoot to the widest of the willow trees, to the one where her mother said she had danced.

  She lays the palm of her hand on the rough bark and runs it lightly down the trunk. She leans forward and holds her cheek against it. She thinks about the child she might have had by now, the one who would be Maria’s age. She pictures a little girl running along the bank towards her over the grass. A little girl in a white dress, with long, black hair. She reaches out a hand to her, to the little girl who is smiling, her face lit up with the sunshine, and then she pushes her head into the willow trunk, her eyes filled with tears.

  Why did you take her away from me? Why did you take her away from me? Why did you take her away from me?

  She holds the trunk of the willow tree with both her hands and lets the tears run down her cheeks, her heart breaking for the little girl dancing in the sunlight, the little girl whose shadow is dancing behind the beating of her heart.

  Across the river, beneath the oldest willow tree, Grandmother shakes her head from side to side. I didn’t, she whispers. I didn’t, I couldn’t. Her own tears drop down onto her lap. I did, she whispers. I took her away from you. And her tears dissolve into the old, old cloth of her dress, and back into the hard, rutted skin of her face and her hands. Quietly, she fades.

  Lyuda tries to breathe, calming herself. She pushes back the shadow and wipes her face and again climbs down the bank to the river. She sits on the edge of the bank and slips her feet into the water. She reaches her hands down and splashes some of the cold droplets over her face. They mingle with her tears and she wipes them away. She looks down into the flowing water, rushing by. She has a vision of herself, lying on the bottom of the river, and she feels an extraordinary calm. She pictures herself lying there, with the water moving over her in a cool, delicious flow, and her looking up and out at the world. It would be so peaceful, she thinks. There would be no long years in an empty house. There would be no regret. There would be no hurt.

  She closes her eyes. The river moves over her heart and leaves traces of wild flowers. I can’t bear it, she thinks. She opens her eyes slowly and puts her hand out behind her to push herself up from the bank and down into the fast-flowing current. Then she stops, and quickly pulls her feet out of the water and stands upright.

  “What are you doing?” she says aloud. “This is crazy.” She scrambles up the bank and starts pulling her sandals onto her wet feet. She slaps herself across the cheek with her open palm.

  “You’re crazy,” she says again, almost shouting. “You have everything! You have Volodiya. You have money. You have a house. You have clothes. You have everything that anyone could ever want.” She pauses. “And you have Maria. Little Marychka. You have her. There. You have everything.”

  She shakes her head furiously and her face has become hard. She looks round at the river with cold eyes and then turns away from it, and she turns away from the willow trees and walks as fast as she can back towards the village.

  Across her heart, and across the willow trees, the shadow of a girl leans forward into a perfect arabesque and then disappears.

  T

  Grandmother sits on a fallen log on the riverbank. The moon has touched the night-time willow leaves with silver. The moonlight touches her hair and seems to curve around her body, giving her a slight trembling outline. Grandmother sits, and she thinks about her daughter and about her granddaughter. As she remembers, tears start to drop from her eyes, and she catches them in cupped hands.

  The tears form a little pool in the crevices of her wrinkled palms, and when she has finished crying, she stands carefully and carries her tears down the slope of starlit grass to the silver river below. She steps into the water and looks up to the sky, where clouds have gathered. She wills the clouds, and the rain starts to fall, and she holds her cupped hands out to let the silver rain descend into the tears, and her hands start to tremble, and when her palms are almost full she spreads her fingers and opens her hands away from each other and the droplets flow down into the river and disappear into the night waters.

  “Lyuda,” she calls out into the night sky, “It is time to come back.”

  24

  Lyuda stands in the kitchen and looks around her. She has set out all the ingredients for the cake.

  Maria should be here soon, she thinks. I’ll ask her to pick some raspberries from the garden. We can put them on the cake. It will be delicious.

  On the table is a small vase of flowers, which she has gathered that morning. Red poppies and white and yellow daisies. The kitchen window is open and there is a faint scent of lilac and summer grasses. Lyuda smiles. It is all fine, she thinks. Look at how lovely everything is. She is meeting Volodiya later to choose materials for the new house. Tiles, carpets, paints. But first I am making this cake for Marychka. And then everything else.

  She turns to the sideboard and takes a measuring cup from the cupboard and starts gathering the ingredients into the bowl. She pours a cup of flour through the sieve, and then a cup of rough, yellowed sugar. The jar of sour cream is next to the box of ten eggs, and she takes two of the eggs and breaks them into the bowl and puts the shells to one side. She stirs the mixture with a wooden spoon.

  A bird is singing outside the window. She looks up and she can see it perched on the white fence, a small brown shape with a black beak. It calls out and then hops along the pointed tops of the fence posts, from one to another. Lyuda watches it and smiles. It is all going to be fine, she thinks.

  She hears the latch of the gate being opened and she leans forward to see Maria coming down the garden path. Her heart jumps a little when she sees her, and starts to beat faster. She glances down at the bowl of cake mixture. She had wanted it to be ready when Maria came. She will have to hurry now. As she passes the kitchen window, the girl looks up, and seeing Lyuda there, she smiles. There is something in her eyes. She comes to the open door.

  “Good morning,” she says, “May I come in?” She is holding something in her hand.

  “Of course,” says Lyuda. She pushes aside the bowl with the wooden spoon in it and tucks her hair away from her face, behind her ears.

  Maria comes into the kitchen, slipping through the open door and then closing it behind her. She is dressed in the red skirt and white blouse, and her black hair is hanging loose down her back. It looks a little untidy, and Lyuda thinks that she would like to brush it, to comb it into a plait for her. She would like to hold her. She shakes her head.

  “Look,” she says, smiling. “I was making you a cake. But you’ve come early. I wanted you to pick some raspberries and we could put them in the middle with the cream and on top to decorate. It’ll be ready in half an hour. You can take some home to your mother.”

  “Lyudmilla Hrihorivna?”

  The girl is looking at her. Lyuda can’t remember when she had addressed her so formally, with her patronymic. She sees that she is holding some papers in her hand.

  “Yes, Marychka? What is it? Do you want to sit down?”

  “Lyudmilla Hrihorivna, Mama says that I’m not allowed to come and play here any more.”

  She stops. Lyuda does not move. She blinks. The bird sings. The girl tilts her head just a little to the sid
e. It looks like she might cry.

  “Mama says that I’m going to stay with Babulya for the rest of the summer. In Khotyn. I’m going on Saturday. Mama gave me a letter for you.” She pauses. “I’m only allowed to stay for five minutes. Mama didn’t want to let me come.”

  The girl holds out her hand, showing her the folded piece of paper. Lyuda wonders if she is going to cry. She wonders if her eyes are about to fill with tears, but she thinks that she shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be good to cry in front of the girl. She puts her top and bottom teeth together and pushes hard. Her face tenses. It is easier.

  “You must do what your mother says, Marusenka.” She sees a tear trickling down the girl’s face. She thinks that she won’t see her again for the whole summer. And then the girl will be at school. And then I will be in the big house, just me and Volodiya. And then, and then, and then.

  Then this is it, she thinks. This is the end.

  She let’s out a little noise. Neither of them are saying anything. The girl’s hand is still stretched out holding the piece of paper.

  At last, Lyuda reaches towards her and takes it, but she doesn’t look at it. Then she thinks of something.

  “Marusenka, stay here,” she says. “I want to give you something before you leave.”

  She goes out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, puts down the piece of paper, and opens a drawer at the bottom of her wardrobe. She finds her jewellery box hidden in the back of the drawer, and opens it. What can I give the girl? She looks through the pieces she has, and then she sees it: an amber necklace with a silver clasp. It is beautiful, and simple enough for a child.

  She takes an empty red jewellery box and lays the dark orange necklace carefully inside it. Then she pushes the drawer closed. She looks down at the piece of paper and sees Sveta’s scrawled handwriting on it. She doesn’t need to read it. Maria has already told her what it says. She goes over to the mirror and checks her calm reflection. She nods. She smooths down her hair and goes back into the kitchen.

  “Marusenka. I have a gift for you. You see, I don’t have a little girl of my own, and I have this beautiful necklace and nobody to wear it. I’d like to give it to you.”

  She opens the box and holds it out to her. Maria gasps. “Oh, it’s beautiful! Really? Thank you Lyuda! Can I try it on?”

  Lyuda takes the necklace out of the box and clasps it around the girl’s neck. Her hair smells of soil and her neck and shoulders are warm from the sunshine. “Go and look in the mirror,” she says, and Maria runs over to the mirror and stares at herself in it. The dark amber beads look natural against her skin. “Thank you Lyuda, it’s beautiful! I love it!” she says. “And I brought something for you, too.” She turns to the kitchen table and takes the piece of paper she had put there and hands it to Lyuda. Lyuda takes it in her hands and smiles. It is a picture of a lilac tree and a bird and a sun.

  “I love it,” she says, looking at the little girl. “Thank you, Marusenka.” She holds out her arms and Maria skips forward into them, and she holds the child to her and strokes her warm, untidy hair. She feels as if she has never held anything so precious in her entire life. She pushes her teeth together again, and then she lets the girl go.

  “Time for you to get back to your mother,” she says. “Have a wonderful summer with Babulya. Don’t forget about the garden.”

  “I’ll never forget.” Maria touches the amber beads. “I’ll wear the necklace every day. It’s the best present anyone’s ever given me.”

  She looks at Lyuda and there are tears in her eyes.

  She is going to leave, thinks Lyuda. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.

  She forces the words from her mouth.

  “Maria,” she says.

  Little swallow.

  Little rabbit.

  “Goodbye,” she says.

  She sees a loose strand of black hair and she reaches out a hand to touch it, to straighten it, to smooth it, but Maria is at the kitchen door.

  “Goodbye,” she says.

  A girl in a red skirt and a white blouse.

  Maria pushes open the kitchen door.

  Lyuda stands, waiting for her to pass under the window. The girl waves as she goes by and Lyuda blows her a kiss through the open space.

  And then she is gone.

  For a few moments, Lyuda doesn’t move. Then she turns and looks at the mixture for the cake, the congealed flour sitting in a pool of beaten, yellow egg.

  She feels a pressure gathering inside her head and around her heart, a squeezing, just as when she was pushing her teeth together, but now it is happening without her pushing down. She feels dizzy. It is something heavy pressing, pressing down inside her, and then she covers her face with her hands, shaking her head from side to side. She becomes aware of the air entering and leaving her body and it is suddenly difficult to breathe.

  She moves her hands away from her eyes and sees again the bowl of separated mixture, the wooden spoon, the pot of honey, the walnuts, the sour cream. She reaches out and picks up the jar of sour cream.

  “What has happened to my life?” she whispers, the anger and grief rushing up inside her, and she smashes the jar onto the stone floor in front of her.

  The jar crashes and shatters and pieces of glass fly across the paving stones. Cream spews out over the floor and Lyuda steps back, panting. She clenches her fists and stares down at it. Broken glass is everywhere. Her heart is beating violently. She hears her mother’s voice as if from far away.

  Lyuda, Lyuda, Lyuda.

  She starts to cry. Her tears fall and mingle with the white cream and the broken glass of her life.

  “Mama,” she whispers. “I am coming.”

  T

  I am moving down a tunnel. There is something pulling me forward, although it is not something I can see. It is a sensation of my heart being drawn onwards, and my mind and the centre of my body, as if there were threads leading from inside me to the place where I am going, and they are carrying me to their source. It is an urgent feeling, but at the same time a good one. I am being drawn to where I want to go, although I do not know where that is.

  I feel another presence in this tunnel. It is a Nightspirit. It feels safe to move close to it, to be drawn to its peaceful energy. It is easy. I want to follow it.

  The tunnel is a pale grey, which merges here and there into a bright silver. I am not sure why I even call it a tunnel. It is more like a space we are moving through, or as if we are a space moving through a space; as if we are water moving through water. Although I am not sure how we are moving through it, or how we are moving at all. I follow the Nightspirit.

  And then I think, It is not a tunnel that we are in, and as I think this, I see that in fact there is nothing at all of what I thought was a tunnel, but that it is a great, wide field of gold that we are passing through; waving, undulating dunes of pale grey and gold. And we are passing through these waves. But I think that we could dive into them, or I could release myself into them and become a part of their soft, endless rolling.

  The Nightspirit is calling me onwards, but I feel a great desire to look and see inside these golden waves, and I dive into one at random, and I feel myself becoming a part of this moving light, and then through the light I can see something forming before me and I can see figures taking shape and images and I gasp. It is myself that I can see!

  And the Nightspirit is calling me and I draw myself out of this wave for a moment and then dive into another one and I see myself again, and I have such a joyful smile on my face and I call out to the Nightspirit.

  “Look! Look! Here I am happy!”

  And I dive further in so that the images become clearer and I see Volodiya in the garden and Angela is dancing in front of him and we are laughing, all three of us! We are together and we are laughing and I see that there is such joy on my face as if I have never known any pain at all! And I start crying with happiness to see myself like this, and I am calling out.

  “Look, just look! It can be alright! Do
n’t tell me that it can’t be happy!”

  And the Nightspirit is trying to pull me back, and then I feel something going into me, something stabbing into me, and I try to pull away so I don’t have to see any more but it is too late. I am held by something dark, and I see the same scene, and I see the shadows of Volodiya and Angela who have gone. I see they have left me there after the happiness and I am trying to leave so I don’t have to see anymore, but I cannot leave, and the Nightspirit cannot draw me out because the pull of the darkness is too strong.

  And I see myself as the snow is pouring down, climbing out into the whiteness, and on my face is now a look of such despair that I think that this field of gold must break into a thousand pieces. I think that it is too much to bear, that it must end. And the tears are falling down my cheeks, here, there, and I see myself lying in the snow with the snowflakes descending onto me and I see myself moving out from behind a secret and hidden waterfall, out into the warmth of death; the thing I have longed for here, there, in all my realities. The only thing I have ever truly owned. My death.

  The Nightspirit has entered the wave, and she wraps herself around me and I cannot move. I am experiencing the pouring snow and the waterfall and the call of that white, white, wonderful end, and I am weeping and I cannot move.

  She takes me and she pulls me gently out of the wave and she moves her light around me and around me and around me, washing away the vision, the cold, the despair.

  It is not here, she whispers. It is not now. We have to go. And she pulls me forward, pulls me on, and I am shaking my head and I look out again over this field of moving gold, and I wonder is there even one place here where there is no despair?

  She carries me forward, and now it is she who imagines the tunnel, and it forms again around us. She creates again the waves of grey and gold, but now they are closed. I cannot move into them. We can go only forwards.

  Close your eyes, the spirit says to me, and I think what a strange thing this is to say, because I had not thought that my eyes were open, or even that I had such things as eyes, here in this place. And yet, I close them, and I feel her calm blue light carrying me at an incredible speed, and I am awake but not seeing, and we are going so fast that it seems like everything in my mind is falling away, like we are moving faster than my mind and leaving it behind, memory by memory, image by image, word by word.