After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  Mei-Li pin Dorothy Bek-Murzin’s skirt up so I can do the measuring. Her legs are white and smooth. I get down on the floor with the tape. Fold the leather around her ankles and shins. My hands trembling. She got a warm-smelling perfume about her; I got the smell of it on my hands when I finish.

  “Come back next week and take me to the bathhouse, Willo,” she say. “I need someone to carry my trunk.”

  With the money we got for the coat, Jacob buy an old sewing machine. He say we gonna need it to make the boots cos the leather gonna be thick and hard to stitch by hand. “They’ve got to fit like a glove, Willo,” he say.

  The machine’s a solid black lump. You got to turn the wheel by hand and fight the heavy needle to get it to punch down through the leather. But it make a pretty neat job after I got to know it roundside about and fiddle with the knobs and threads and bobbins so it aint pulling the thread too tight or too loose or not at all.

  “Where does she get all her money?” I ask Jacob one day when we been cutting the soles out of a thick piece of hide.

  “She has friends.”

  “And they just give her money?”

  “They’re very important friends. Mmm. Hand me the scissors.”

  “She aint married, is she?”

  Jacob got the awl between his teeth. “Nnn, nuh sher issn marri.”

  “But she got men who come and see her?”

  Jacob take the haft out his mouth. Look up from the table.

  “Yes, Willo. But why all this interest? Mmm? Rich men want a beautiful woman to look at. To touch. That’s how she gets her money and fine things and candles burning all over the house. Mmm, and these clothes too. Pass me the scriver.”

  “But she always been so happy and laughing.”

  “Well, she’s as tough as leather under that smiling pretty face, my boy, yes yes.” He pull the scriver down across the leather. “Tough as this leather. And probably not as happy as she looks. No no. Not as happy as she looks. Now stop asking questions and hold this skin flat for me.”

  The rain stop that day so I sneak out and wander on the streets. The piles of snow on the sides of the road near all melted away now. People walking through the mud, their boots wrapped in canvas. Little girls sell snowdrops.

  I feel different inside.

  It been five months I been here now. Seem like forever. Trapped in the city. The fight in me gonna smoulder away if I don’t get a plan. The Farngod seem a thousand miles away. I don’t say my words no more. Cos it don’t seem they gonna help me with the dog so far away and all. Aint got no news of Dad or Magda or the others. Even Mary getting to be a memory. But it been the bad memories that stick—like the mud.

  The graybeards always say there aint no point trying to burn a log when it’s green. Got to let it season. Grow hard and dry.

  That’s how I feel.

  Like I been drying and hardening.

  When it aint raining Jacob open up the windows and let the fresh air wash away the stink of smoke clinging onto every bit of clothing and blanket in our little rooms. We wash the soot off the walls. Scrub the floor. We rent a tinbath from the soap seller. I help Jacob collect rainwater in buckets and heat it on the stove. Aint no use waiting for the power to come on. Jacob hang a curtain around the fire.

  It been good to sit in the bath. Soak away my worry in the steaming water. Fire warming my face. Take me right back home. Magda hauling water over the stove, shouting out, “Willo, come down and get in!” The twins all laughing and steaming, standing by the hearth, dripping wet with the sheet wrapped around them both, Magda rubbing their hair so that it stick up like new-grown grass. Me got to get in the tub, filled to the brim. Covering myself. And Magda telling me, “Don’t be silly, Willo, it’s only me,” but I’m still gonna cover myself up til she go out. Then I can pour the water over my head and feel it running down my shoulders, tickling the skin on my back. Bath day always better than you think it gonna be.

  Sometimes at night the tears feel like they gonna come. And I turn to the wall then. Try to breathe still. That lowdown feeling make me want to blub like a kid. It really do.

  But blubbing like a baby aint gonna bring my dad back, nor Magda nor the twins. Aint gonna help me find Mary. And now the melt come I know I got to find them. Even if I die in the trying. Got to get into the settlement, go back to the canal, the beerhouse. Maybe Vince gonna know something. It aint the dog telling me what to do. It been in my heart.

  I got to get a pony.

  Got to be soon.

  Sneak out one night and head west.

  I feel the sap rising up in me.

  Then the weather turn cold again. All the meltwater and mud frozen on the streets. It kind of freeze the smell up so it aint all bad. The streets get like a frozen pond. I see a horse scrabbling on the ice, falling down on its knees between the shafts of a cart. Horse screaming out. Driver shout, trying to pull that horse up. It bellow out more. He whip it and push it and pull it until it just give up. Fall over on its side exhausted. Nostrils wide. Breath steam in the frozen air. The people from the cart crowd around. Horse look pretty scared. Someone got to come and shoot it cos it been broken in the legs. Army truck come and do it. Drag the horse away. Make a pretty big crowd come out to see what all the fuss about. But they get off pretty soon when the soldiers come out with their guns. Driver shouting that it been his only horse. They aint got no right to take all the dead horses, he shout. He got mouths to feed. But the soldiers push him away. I get away too. I got papers but I aint in a hurry to show them to no one.

  “Why Bek-Murzin want me to take her to the bathhouse? She got a girl for that, aint she?” I ask Jacob.

  “She likes you, Willo. Remember. Patience.”

  “But I aint never been before. What she want me for?”

  “You aren’t going in the bath with her. No no.” He laugh. “Just carrying her trunk.”

  “Why she got to take a trunk to the baths?”

  “She’s hardly going to come out with wet hair and no rouge on her cheeks, is she, you silly boy?” say Elizabeth. “She’ll have a new set of clothes and all her potions and perfumes in that trunk. Too heavy for her girl. So be sure not to drop it.”

  Before I go the old woman reach out to me.

  “Take care, Willo. Take care.”

  Reckon she’s getting soft in the head.

  I sharpen up the remains of the studs on the soles of my boots. Aint much left of them with walking on the icy roads. But I don’t want to slip carrying Bek-Murzin’s trunk.

  Today I’m gonna ask her. I’m gonna say, “What about my dad—you hear anything about my dad?” I aint told Jacob. It get him wringing his hands and whining, “Now don’t pester her, Willo. Patience, patience, patience.”

  But I aint got no more room inside for patience. I been storing so much of it, it gonna come bursting out like beer that ferment too quick and blow out the bottle. I been patient enough when I been sitting out on the Farngod waiting for hare. That kind of patience got an end. A good big stewpot of an end. But this kind of patience aint got nothing good in it. It’s just like waiting for bad really.

  So I been cursing the street and the ice and the carts and the grog sellers and the flurries of snow that whip down from the peaks and the shitty smells and the choking smog and the man whipping his lame horse and the beggars sitting in the gutter and the cold burning my nostrils. I been cursing it all on that walk across the city to Chinatown.

  Mei-Li waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The trunk is open and she wrap a hairbrush and comb in a square of silk, fold a linen towel and place it on top.

  “I pack it all for her good. But keep it upright. No tip. No tip the trunk. Everything fall out. Madame get angry. No tip.”

  “I aint gonna tip it up, Mei-Li.”

  “No no. You no tip it, Willo.”

  “Did you remember the powder, Mei-Li?” Dorothy say at the top of the stairs.

  “Yes, Madame.”

  Dorothy, wearing a loose cotton sh
ift tied at the waist, coming down the steps. Over her dress, a soft wool coat. Mei-Li fetch a hooded fur cape—lay it over her shoulders and tie it at the neck.

  “Such a fuss to be clean,” Dorothy say through her soft red lips.

  Mei-Li bend down with a pair of clogs, the flat wooden sole raised off the ground on tall wedges. Dorothy Bek-Murzin climb up onto them—hold my shoulder to steady herself. Mei-Li tie them tight with ribbons, and towering above me Dorothy clop out into the street. Slow and careful like she’s crossing a stream. Her feet and hems high off the dirty ground.

  “Stay close, Willo.”

  The trunk bite into my legs. But I tell you, people move out the way quick when something pretty as that come walking down the road.

  She start talking all soft under her breath. “Now don’t speak. Look straight ahead.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll find out. I have some news for you, Willo. It is about your father. I want you to meet someone. A friend of mine. He is coming to my house later. That is why I asked you to come with me to the bathhouse. To tell you this. I don’t trust anyone anymore. They watch me. Mei-Li especially.”

  The studs on my boots crunch down in the ice. My arms ache with holding the trunk out.

  I have some news for you, Willo.

  32

  “Put the trunk down, Willo. Come upstairs.”

  Mei-Li take off Dorothy’s cape and the wooden clogs and she step down to the ground on her clean slippered feet.

  “Empty the trunk, Mei-Li, and wash the linen. Willo is measuring me for a new pair of gloves. We are waiting for a furrier who’s bringing some skins. Be sure and listen for him at the door.”

  Mei-Li nod. Her face is still, can’t see nothing on it. Some people you can tell right off what they been thinking. Not this girl.

  “There’s no need to come up. You can have the afternoon off after you’ve shown the furrier in. I’m not hungry.”

  The girl make a little bow and take the trunk.

  When we get upstairs Dorothy close the doors and put her finger to her mouth. Beckon me over to another door. She take a key from a chain around her neck and put it in the lock.

  We been in her bedroom I guess cos there’s a great big bed hanging with curtains. The windows been shuttered. She light a candle on a table. Open the drawer underneath. Draw out a small box. Out of the box she take some money. A bundle of paper yuan. She hand it to me.

  I aint got a clue what she want.

  “Take it,” she whisper. “You’re going away. It’s all I have. Give it to Callum. You can leave after Mei-Li has gone. He’s going to take you.”

  “I don’t understand. Who is Callum?”

  “Keep your voice down. He’s coming soon. He knows about your father.”

  “My father?”

  “Listen, Willo. Bad times are coming. There aren’t many who are ready. Everyone is needed. You are needed. Especially you.”

  “But my dad. What about him?”

  “Callum will tell you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Listen. Your father, Robin Blake …”

  A knock on the door in the other room. Dorothy push the box back in the drawer.

  “Quick—”

  “But—”

  She dip across out of the bedroom, close the door, pull me over to a chair by the fire. Hold out a hand. “Come in.”

  Mei-Li step silently onto the carpet.

  “—and I want the gloves to widen at the cuffs, Willo. Oh, Mei-Li, has the furrier arrived?”

  “Yes, Madame, he’s here.”

  “Well show him in. Then you may leave.”

  Mei-Li back out of the room, and a large man wearing a ponyskin coat step inside. He got a small pack on his back. Mud on his boots. Thick stubble on his face. Look like he been walking long without much sleep.

  “I’ve come with some fine hareskins, Madame. Fine hareskins. I believe you’re wanting them for gloves now.” He look back over his shoulder.

  The door clicks shut behind him. Dorothy is up. Drawing the curtains at the windows. She poke the fire. It been the only light in the room now. She step gentle to the keyhole, bend down with her ear pressed against it. “She’s gone.”

  The man take his hat off. His head is big and square and solid. The hair cropped short. His cheeks thin and dark beneath the stubble. His skin been bit by the frost some time for sure.

  “You made it. How did you get out of the settlement, Callum?”

  “It was difficult. Roadblocks everywhere. Soldiers everywhere. Betham gangs rampaging every night because there’s no madak getting in. You can only come in and out with a work permit. And even then—and the rains. The mud. I came along the flooded canal.”

  “What about the children?”

  “I was caught. In a blizzard. I lost the boy. I—”

  Dorothy come close. Take his arm.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  He wipe his face. “There’s nothing anyone could have done … . But I got back. Found the girl. Spent all winter in the settlement. It’s terrible. Terrible. No one can get in or out without papers. Hardly any food—”

  Dorothy run her hand over his arm. “Maybe you’ll find the boy.”

  The man look at her with sad eyes. Shake his head. He take off his pack. “And you, Dorothy?”

  “They came. Asked questions.”

  “About what?”

  “If I’d heard things. You know, who I’m seeing.”

  “Do they know?”

  “They—they know more than they say. They were tough, but I told them nothing. They know I have contacts—friends in the settlement.”

  “You must be careful. You’re alone here. And this is the boy?” He look at me.

  “Like a bird in a cage …” she whisper. “Yes, Robin Blake’s son.”

  “Dorothy says you came from the hills, Willo. Alone.” He got his tired eyes on me, Dorothy at his side.

  “I’ve given him all the money I have,” Dorothy say.

  The man look down at that pretty face looking up at him. He take her hand. “Won’t you come, Dorothy?”

  “Across the mountain? Look at me. Look at my hands, Callum. Look at them.”

  He turn her pale ringed fingers over in his gloved hand. Hold them at the wrist.

  “Can these hands dig down in the snow for potatoes or haul wood, lift heavy buckets of water?” she say.

  Callum smile. “We’ll make you gloves—”

  She pull away from him. “Listen to me, Callum. I can’t come.”

  “But what will you do, Dorothy?”

  “What I have always done. Look after myself.”

  “They’re watching everyone. It isn’t safe for you here.”

  “I can look after myself, Callum. You know that. I was born in a tent like you but I’ve grown soft. I remember the feel of rags on my feet but I found chinks in the walls. You’re like a dog but I am a cat, always seeking the warmth of the fire. I cannot come where you are going. But the boy. He will go.”

  Callum turn to me. “So you’re Robin’s son.”

  “How do you know my dad?”

  “Dorothy told me about you. That’s why I came.”

  “Why? What about my dad?”

  “They took him away and his wife. Anyone up on the hills.”

  “I know my dad been taken away. But where did they take him? Why did you come here for me?” Anger building up inside me with this big graybeard talking to me like he know something that I don’t.

  “You don’t understand, Willo. But you have to trust me. Have to come with me. Tonight. We haven’t got much time. It’s what your father would have wanted, Willo. He would have wanted you to come.”

  “You don’t know. You don’t know what my dad gonna want!”

  “But I do. It’s because of him that I’m here. Because of him we’re going.”

  “Going? Where?”

  “They’ve built the boat. It’s time. We’re going to t
he Island. Moths are on the wing.”

  “What island? What moths? Tell me how you know my dad.”

  “Because I read his words every day, Willo. We all know him.”

  “What do you mean? What do you mean you read his words? Where is he?”

  “He doesn’t know, Callum,” say Dorothy, turning to the fire. Leaning her head on the mantel.

  There’s a hot wind. Rushing in my head. “It’s the reading make you human, Willo.” Dad’s showing me how to scrape a skin clean—his hands tight round the scraper. “We’ve got to be beacons of hope.” Dad leading the graybeards cutting hay up on the Farngod. “This is just a time when men forgot to be human—see?” I see a picture of Dad in my head, striding toward the river. “Step up, Willo. Death stalks the streets. The bad things—the animal bit in everyone’s head.” Reading to me from his book.

  The boat at Barmuth. Old Roger and the fishermen who stay there all winter, even after the Meet been and gone. I hear the grown-ups talk about it. Everyone bring food and caulk and timber to Roger cos he stay all winter.

  “Willo.”

  They both looking at me.

  “You have to tell him, Callum,” Dorothy say.

  But I’m sinking into Trawsfi nnid Lake. Down into the blackness like a stone. Dad standing on the grass naked. “You got to learn to swim, Willo.”

  No. He aint told me everything.

  “Willo”—Callum take me by the shoulder—“look at me!”

  “Step up, Willo. Death stalks the streets. The bad things—the animal bit in everyone’s head.”

  And the wind is thrashing and blowing and whipping the air, and I sink into the blackness. Arms reach down for me. But I’m falling and twisting.

  Dorothy screaming out.

  Downstairs the crack of splintering wood.

  “Willo!” Callum grab my arm. “The window. In the bedroom.”

  But boots are on the stairs.

  Thud

  Thud

  Thud

  THUD.

  “Dorothy! Quick!”