T
There is the trace of a sound in the back of Lyuda’s head, and she tries to let the hiss of the river flow over it, but she finds it is getting louder, and repeating, like a drum beat, summoning her. She fights against the sound, but it is drawing her away. There is a struggle, as she tries to stay with the river, with the soothing, hissing rush, with the cold emptiness that is ready to embrace her. But the drum is getting louder, and now there is a high song to it, and the song is calling to something within her, and she has no choice but to respond.
Mama, Mamochka, Mamusya, Matenka moiya!
“No,” she says. “No, Angela. I can’t, I can’t!” But I am calling – “Mama! Mama! Mama!” – and I am pulling her hand and she is trying with all of her strength not to open her eyes, not to see me, not to be drawn away from the place where she is, but I will not let go! I am pulling her hand for myself and for the child I have felt in my arms. And I remember the feeling once again, and I shout, “Mama! Come back!”
Around Lyuda, the river is fading, the flow of the current, the dancing green of the willows, the smooth stones beneath her feet. She struggles to hold on to them, but the sounds in her head are growing clearer and louder, and one by one the images disappear, until at last, all that remains is the sight of a small girl before her, with long, tangled hair and a white dress.
Mama opens her eyes, and she is with me.
T
“Mama!” I say. “There is something you have to see! Come with me!”
I take her hand, and I am leading her into the garden where I was before, where Grandmother had taken me. I lead her here with my hand holding hers tightly, and as we enter, she changes, and she is older, she is a different woman, suddenly no longer the young and broken girl. She is calmer, and her face is lined and there is colour in her cheeks, and her hair is woven into a dark golden plait and wound around her head. She no longer seems scared. She no longer seems like a small girl.
“Mama, look!” I say, and she is turning around in this garden and then her eyes rest upon me, and I know that she is seeing me as the young mother that I am – my happy, tired face above a child in my arms, and the light that is all around us.
And I say, “Mama, this is what I choose. Mama, this can only be if you are with me. Mama, this can only happen if you stay with me.”
And Mother says, “Come, Angela.” And she is walking towards the house, and I follow her, with the child in my arms, and Mother goes to our front door and she steps inside the kitchen and looks around, and we can see that everything is clean, and that the wind is blowing the yellow curtains open, and on the table are bowls of fruit and bread and jars of jam and honey, and on the wall next to the stove there is a mirror, and Mother goes over to the mirror and she stands in front of it, and she looks at herself, as if trying to understand who this might be, the person who has come to this place, who has walked the steps of her journey, who has come through the darkness to this place of peace.
She looks into the mirror, into the calm, brown eyes, the new lines on her face, the neat, plaited hair, the colour in her cheeks from working outside in the garden. But she stares for the longest time into her eyes, seeking the pain, seeking the regret, seeking the longing.
But the veil of falling water has gone, and all that looks back at her is peace.
35
Sveta moves around her kitchen, making a list in her head of all the things she has to do that day. She takes a wet cloth and wipes the windowsill, which is covered in dust and tiny flies, and she lifts the lid of the soup and stirs it with a metal spoon. There is a sound of hammering in the garden, and through the yellow and black sunflowers she can see Vasya knocking nails into planks of wood, building a makeshift shower across from the outhouse.
She puts her hand to her head and adjusts the headscarf she is wearing, and then she unties it and reties it at the back of her neck. She glances into the bedroom at the back of the house where the beds are pushed neatly against the windows and covered up with blankets, and then she goes out into the hallway, changes from her slippers to her outdoor shoes, and stands on the front step.
She sees that the sunflowers are growing well and she looks over to her neighbour’s garden and the gardens beyond it, lush with greenery, separated by wooden fences and tall trellises woven with vines and honeysuckle. She listens for a moment to the sounds of the village – dogs barking close by, the flutter of swallows’ wings darting up and down, the shouting of children and the banging of the hammer onto metal nails.
She walks down the path through the open sunflowers towards Vasya, and she sees that Taras is beside him, holding the bag of nails, passing one to his father. Vasya’s face is covered in sweat and he wipes his forehead with his forearm and picks up another of the planks. He fits the wood into place and then looks up at her watching him, and jerks his head towards the house.
“Bring something to drink,” he says, and turns back to the wood, holding the nail between thick fingers.
Sveta watches him for a few moments, aiming the hammer, Taras following his movements, and she can hear a bird trilling and pecking nearby, and the sunshine is warm through her headscarf, and then she turns and starts walking back to the house, along a path lined with yellow sunflowers, and there is a smile on her face.
T
Grandmother, on the riverbank, is drawing herself into the willow for the last time.
In the early morning, with only the sounds of the river hissing and the calling of birds and the village dogs barking in the distance, she brings her spirit into the tree and releases it. Without effort, it flows into every part of the willow, into every coiled leaf, every opening bud; down, down to the roots sunk deep into the black soil. She feels the waters of the river drawn up through the roots; up, up to the wide, ridged trunk, to the branches, to the hanging tendrils. And as the water is drawn up through Grandmother’s body, through each of her limbs, she uncurls her fingers, stretching them out, and the young leaves, wet with morning dew, unfurl, waking, into the grey morning.
She hears a voice calling to her. Grisha is reaching out his hand.
“It is time to come back,” he says. “The path has been set. Your work is finished.”
Grandmother feels the tree breathing around her, drawing in, releasing. She senses all the parts of it at once, working and transforming, the leaves growing, the roots drinking, the constant regeneration by sunshine, by water, by song. The taking and the giving.
She holds out her hand to Grisha.
“Look,” she says.
She waits until his fingers are touching hers, and then she shows him what she can see from the willow. The wind moving in patterns above the river, the dance of the leaves to the singing water, the birds dipping and laughing and the intense peace of the tree itself, in its ancient constancy, and its rebirth second by second, in every green leaf, in every bud, in every breath of sunshine.
Grisha allows the gift to move through him, and he takes it all into himself.
“I had forgotten,” he says, breathing in with the willow, and breathing out again. “I had forgotten why we return.”
Grandmother smiles, and releases herself from the willow into his arms.
“Now it is time to rest,” she says, as they fade into the morning sunlight.
T
I come to land at the edge of the nest and I glance around for threats. It is clear. My mate lifts up in a smooth flight and leaves to seek for food. I jerk my head down. Five eggs. Cream and pale blue. I settle onto the nest. I can feel the warmth of the eggs. My eggs. It will not be long. The garden is singing around me. My mate is flying. All of the flock are building and nesting and hatching and mating. It is a good season. Food is everywhere. Warmth is constant. The eggs will hatch and we will feed them and wait until they are strong and then they will leave to join the other fledglings, to discover for themselves the darting insects, the imperative song, the call of the morning and the sweetest dew, which settles in the flower cups during
the night-time hours. The distant river. They will discover all of this. But for now, they are safe, beneath me. Five smooth eggs.
I hear the beating of my mate’s wings. She is returning. She has food in her mouth. I raise my wings and hop to the side of the nest. She has returned. I glance around. There are no threats.
I fly.
36
Lyuda sits down heavily beneath the lilac tree.
The spring is already fading, and she can feel the pull of the summer months, as the wild abundance of the first sunshine passes to a lusher, calmer green; the months where day after day will be spent in a dazed heat, and the river will be filled with laughing children and the market stalls will be overflowing with furred peaches and sweet black grapes.
Lyuda looks around her garden and she sees the shadows passing there. The shadow of a small girl with a long, fair plait. The shadow of her mother, feeding the rabbits and walking down the path with a bucket of cold water from the well. The shadow of her father, hammering nails into the bench that her mother never liked. And now, there are new shadows, faint ones: the shadow of a young woman with a child in her arms, and the shadow of a woman who Lyuda now wonders, wonders if one day she could be. A woman who has chosen what will be in her life. A woman who stands strong between the choices that she has made and the heartbreak that life brings with those choices. A woman who understands that the seasons pass, one after the other, and that the winter will come and bring with it a time of grief, but that beyond the winter there is something new, and that behind the seasons, beating the strokes of a more ancient time, is the love that her mother has given to her, and that she is now giving to her daughter, to the shadow, laughing now in the sunlit garden at a white-and-yellow butterfly, at a falling blossom, at a leaf caught in the summer breeze.
There is the sound of the gate opening, and then the latch falling back into its clasp.
“Lyudmilla Hrihorivna.”
It is Kolya.
Lyuda turns her head round as Kolya walks down the garden path towards her.
“Kolya,” she says. “You can start over there.”
She points towards the narrow bench next to the fence, where the shadow of her father is hammering the nails, where the shadow of her mother sits with a sour look on her face.
“It’s never been wide enough,” she says, still pointing. “Mother hated it. We need an extra plank, or even two. And a coat of paint. I think yellow would look good.”
Kolya walks over to the bench and sits down on it. He is holding a hammer and a handful of nails.
“I’ve got the wood,” he says. “I’ll need to cut it down to size. I’ll have to fetch the saw. Should be finished by the afternoon.”
He looks over to Lyuda beneath the tree.
“Then maybe we can share some of that samohon.” He clears his throat. “Make a change from drinking it alone.”
Lyuda pushes herself up from the ground and brushes the soil from her dress. She seeks Kolya’s eye and holds it.
“If you finish the bench early, you can start on the rabbit hutches,” she says. “And I want to build a shower. Down by the outhouse. And fix the gate. And everything needs a new coat of paint.”
She turns towards the house.
“I’ll bring some tea,” she says. “And I’m making a honey cake later. You can have some of that.”
She walks up the garden path, through the overgrown grasses and the red tulips growing wild among them, and she pauses on the doorstep, running through her head what she will need for the cake. Black honey, flour, eggs, walnuts, sour cream.
“An-ge-la,” she calls.
Kolya coughs, and scratches his stubble with his fingernails. He watches her go into the house, and then he stands slowly from the bench and picks up his hammer and nails.
“One kiss,” he growls. “One kiss and I have to repair her whole house.”
He glances once more towards the kitchen, where he can see Lyuda’s shape moving beyond the frame of the yellow curtains. The sun is lighting on her fair hair, and he can see that she is speaking, or singing, or calling to her daughter.
He nods, thinking of her mother Zoryana, who he remembers through the same window, wearing a blue dress, and of his mother and Zoryana’s mother, who were friends, laughing over the fence as he and Zoryana played in the flowerbeds, and their grandmothers, bright eyed and watchful, sitting in their gardens amidst a chaos of goats and hens and geese and rabbits and flowers and vegetables and grandchildren and singing birds.
He nods again.
“That’s how it is meant to be,” he says to himself, and then he turns back to the bench, the hammer and the nails in his hands, and sets to work.
T
I come dancing into the kitchen when Mother calls me.
“Angela, I am making a cake,” she says to me. “Can you run to the market? We need some more walnuts.”
She is standing by the window; behind her are the yellow curtains we have put up together. Behind her is the green, green garden, and there is the banging of a hammer, and the birds are singing. Soon, the new birds will be born. Perhaps I will find another broken egg in the grass for my treasure chest.
“Yes, Mama,” I say. “Yes, I’ll go now.”
I skip up to her and I stand on my tiptoes and I kiss her cheek, and she winds her fingers lightly around my hair, and she says, “We need to do you a new plait zayinka, little rabbit. This one is coming undone.”
“When I get back,” I say, and I skip out of the kitchen and into the garden. A bird is singing there, and I catch the thread of its song and I release myself into it. I shift the girl into a quiet background and enter the breath of music, which carries me into the bird. We are flying to the market, to find morsels of dried fruit and small nuts to carry back to the nest. The air is warm and easy and there are insects everywhere to peck, to eat, and my nest is filled with speckled blue-and-white eggs and soon there will be gasping, open mouths to feed, and we will need to make them fat and strong so that their young wings will carry them far and fast from predators, to seek food, to discover the winds and lands around this garden that is our home.
I fly, my wings flapping fast above the village, and I know I won’t be able to do this forever. But for now, I move with the spirit of everything around me. I can feel it closing, the door. I can feel the pull of the single stream. The pull of one single thread of thought. The door will close, and I will be decided. I will be a girl, a single spirit, a single thread of silk in the rope. And my life will weave onwards and onwards, weaving with the choices of my mother and my grandmother, and for the daughter who will come and the granddaughter, and the flow of the river onwards, onwards, towards the dreamer, towards the place where all imagination starts, towards the place where we all began.
Below me is the village. Below me, the people, the teachers, the labourers, the lovers, the children, the wives and the husbands. The heartbroken and the enamoured. And I hope that there will be someone there for Mother. Someone to lift her up into the years ahead. Someone to walk with her through the silver birch glade and dance with her on the bank of the river, as the accordions and the violins of the village drift towards them on the summer breeze.
But for these last days, these precious last hours and moments, I will be everyone. My most beloved bird, the late-spring flowers in the garden, the breath of wind carrying the pollen to its lovers, the slender strand of grass pushing upwards, upwards from the rich black soil.
And I find that I have flown past the market, over the glade of silver birch trees, and have come to the willowbank, with the wide, sleepy river and the willows trailing their branches into its moving waters. It is quiet here, now that Grandmother has gone, but I like to fly across the river, to sit in her tree, to remember her stories, to see the wind moving in patterns above the river, the dance of the leaves to the singing water, the birds dipping and laughing, and the intense peace of the tree itself, in its ancient constancy, and its rebirth second by second, in every green
leaf, in every bud, in every breath of sunshine.
And now, something is calling me. My mate in the nest, asking for food. The garden, asking for my spirit to flow through it. My mother in the kitchen, looking for me to run laughing through the kitchen doorway, and into her arms.
I fly.
With heartfelt thanks to
John Uff and Diana Uff for support in every possible way, including reading, re-reading and many kind words; Katja Rusanen and Maite Valdivia for sharing the journey of becoming a writer, and the journey onwards; Timothy Gilbert for superb carpentry in the Barcelona flat and for being a great friend; Vitaly Butenko for friendship, partnership and extraordinary life experiences; Father Yuvenaly for taking me around western Ukraine and answering hours of questions; Hunter Tremayne for believing in an early draft of the novel and surviving a heart attack while giving me feedback on it; Leslie Gardner for taking a risk on a new writer; Rebecca Coles for superb advice on the title; Dan Coles for hours of dedicated reading, editing and support, and for bringing the joy which completed this novel; Valentina and Robert for being extraordinary in every way and for teaching me far more than I could ever teach you.
A special thank you to Clarissa Pinkola Estés: the wolves are in your honour.
For helping to shape this novel, thank you to Anna Green for a beautiful cover; to Andrew Lowe for thoughtful and precise editing; to Anna Hogarty for faultless proofreading; to Nicky Lovick for structural advice; to Leila Dewji and Ali Dewji for a superb service, professionalism and expertise.
And last, and always, always first, to Francesca Hector: the friend who knows the song in my heart and sings it back to me when I have forgotten the words.
Thank you.
LEONORA MERIEL
The Unity Game
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The Woman Behind The Waterfall Page 21