Her mother ate the blackberry. She chewed it. She smiled. “See?” she said, “Tasty. They don’t bite. Look at your brother.”
Rachel looked over at her brother. He started at one end of his thorny vine and worked his way to the other. His lips were purple from the berry juice.
Rachel frowned. “If they bite me, I’ll scream.”
Her mother plucked another blackberry from the top, heavy with juice and dark, dark purple. Rachel closed her eyes. She opened her mouth. She reached out with her tongue for the berry.
Her mother smacked her daughter’s head. “Hey, close that mouth!” she said, sternly, “Never let your tongue show like that!”
Rachel rubbed her head. Her mouth jammed into a pout. “It bit me,” she said. She took the blackberry from her mother’s hand, and squashed it into her mother’s dress.
“Rachel!” said her mother, “No! That’s a bad girl!”
Rachel stormed off to the shade where her brother had already eaten halfway down his long vine.
“I’m hot,” said Rachel, “and I’m hungry.”
Her mother was still scraping blackberry out of the ruined suede skirt of her dress. “Rachel, all we have are blackberries. Share with your brother.”
Djoss smiled at his sister, and his teeth were all purple. He chewed one with his mouth open.
“They look like bugs,” she said.
Djoss smashed a blackberry into his sister’s hair.
Rachel rubbed at it, screaming and jumping. It felt like a fat, dead bug.
Djoss laughed at her. “Serves you right,” he said.
Rachel stood up and started to jump up and down.
“I can’t deal with you monsters!” said her mother, “I just can’t!”
She pressed her hands into her temples. “Rachel, you have to be quiet now.”
Rachel kept jumping and screaming. Her hands smacked at the mess in her hair.
“Rachel!” shouted her mother. Her mother clapped her hands at her daughter. A strong wind blew her back into the grass. Ice clamped over her arms.
Rachel kept screaming.
“Djoss, cover your sister’s mouth!” she said, “Hurry!”
Djoss said, “She’ll bite me. I’ll get sick.”
Ice filled her mouth. The cold ran all through her body. Now she wanted to scream from the cold. She gasped for air. She breathed hard from her nose.
“Please, kids,” said her mother, “Please be quiet. You know they’re looking for us.”
Djoss had his knife out. He went back to the blackberries. He cut another vine. “Because Da killed a guy,” he said.
“Your father didn’t kill anyone,” she said, “Don’t talk about it in front of your sister. He’ll find us as soon as he throws those people off our trail.”
“He’ll be pissed when he catches up with us. We won’t be able to ditch him. I hope they get him,” said Djoss. He bent the empty vine like a rope so he could lash long blackberry canes together. “I hope they burn him alive.”
“Djoss,” said the mother, “Don’t say that in front of your sister.”
“We should leave him,” said Djoss, “We should head south, back to the village.”
“Djoss, you have to protect your sister,” she said, “No matter what, you have to protect her. You know what would happen to all of us if he’s taken alive?”
Her mother walked over to Rachel. Rachel was crying, hard. The cold ball of ice in her mouth hurt so much. Her mother placed a hand over her mouth. The ice dissipated into the air. Her mother kept her hand over Rachel’s mouth.
“Are you going to scream, little one?” said Rachel’s mother.
Rachel shook her head.
Her mother removed her hand from Rachel’s mouth. She brushed at Rachel’s tears. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I hate you, Mommy” said Rachel.
Her mother didn’t look away. Her breath moved in and out. She kept brushing away her daughter’s tears as if the little girl hadn’t said anything. Djoss had gathered a large stack of blackberry stems by now, on his shoulder.
“We need to move,” said Djoss, “They probably heard her screaming.”
Rachel’s mother nodded. “I wonder, little one,” said Rachel’s mother, “why you scream so much. Didn’t you ever hear about the princess that screamed and flailed so much she accidentally swallowed her own hair and then she was bald and her handsome Prince wouldn’t marry her anymore?”
The ice at Rachel’s wrists and legs melted away. Somewhere in the thicket hills, a dog bayed. Then it stopped like it was stopped suddenly mid-bark. Rachel didn’t know what was happening.
“Carry me, Mommy,” she said. Rachel held out her arms.
Rachel’s mother picked her up. “All right, little one,” said Rachel’s mother. She moved Rachel up to her shoulders. Rachel curled into her mother’s head, holding on with her hands. “Hold on tight, now,” said Rachel’s mother, “We need to move very fast while we still have daylight.”
Rachel buried her face in her mother’s hair. Her senses filled with the sweaty road dust, with the woman’s true scent underneath.
Later on, Rachel dreamed of the scent. She didn’t always recognize it right away, but the smell lingered at the edge of her consciousness until it hit her in a burst. Then, when she remembered the smell, the dream faded, and the smell faded, and all that was left was a hollow feeling.
And she’d tell Jona about it, sometimes.
***
Rachel’s father was tall, like Djoss. Both men’s shoulders filled shirts like meat in a sack. His dark, terrible eyes weren’t terrible, yet. They were warm, kind eyes. He spent his days unloading ships, and his nights with his wife and son. They traveled with the seasons over the oceans to follow the prevailing winds. Better winds, more ships with cargo to unload.
Between him and the fortune-telling of his wife, money was enough. Their boy was growing up like his father, with the same huge smile, and tiny, intense eyes in a huge head.
In autumn, the winds favored the fjords.
(Another reason my husband does not suspect the Rejk fjords is how bitter cold it is in Rejk, and none would dip their head in the water unnecessarily. My husband thinks they must have been wandering the Okena.)
“What you need to do is,” I can hear the man’s voice in Jona’s imagination. He sounds like Nicola Calipari. He looks down at his daughter with such soft eyes. “What you need to do is, get some sleep. We’ve got a long walk in the morning to the wheat fields. Harvest season’s here. Good money if we can get there in time.”
He’s taking off his boots. His boots were the most expensive thing he owned. They were brown leather, worn in thick creases where they bent. They smelled like mud. They felt just as hard as a dog’s padded paws. His feet emerged from the shoe, as tough as the shoe-leather. He rubbed one foot.
“Were you listening?” he said.
He put that foot down. He picked up the other foot, and rubbed it.
Rachel was listening. She curled up into a ball in her bedroll.
She felt her father’s heavy hand on her foot. “Little one,” he said, “You should keep your boots on in case someone discovers us sleeping here. Where are the boots I made you?”
He pulled a blanket over her foot. She could feel her father watching her sleeping. She pretended to be asleep.
“You’re such a beautiful thing,” he whispered, “Where’s your brother?”
Rachel shivered, pulling herself tighter into a ball. She pressed her eyes closed, hard.
“I asked you a question,” he said. He thumped her leg. “Hey, where’s your brother?”
Her mother spoke. “The last I saw of him he was out with his friends. Leave him be. The little ruffian’s going to make more tonight than we did all day.”
“I’m going out, too,” he said. He reached for his boots. His joints crackled.
Rachel’s mother reached out to him. She touched his skin and rubbed it. She didn’t want the man to f
ind her son. She sang to him, “Aren’t you tired after your long day?”
“No,” he said. He stood up. Every bone in his body popped and groaned. He didn’t seem to mind the painful sounds.
***
Rachel’s mother placed a hand on her daughter’s head. Her other hand pointed at a stevedore. Men milled about the deck, and men milled about the dock, but Rachel’s mother had been pointing at precisely that stevedore. “Rachel, go over to that man over there and tell him that his wife knows,” said Rachel’s mother.
The stevedore wasn’t particularly tall, but his neck was as thick as a tree. He had a sour face, bent all crooked, like he had spent so much time in his life angry that he couldn’t untwist what he had spent so much time doing. The stevedore stacked boxes onto the pallet that a crane would lift into a ship’s hold.
Rachel didn’t want to go over to the man.
“It’s okay, little one,” said Rachel’s mother, “He’s harmless. I’ll watch and make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”
Rachel carefully stepped over to the man. She tapped the man’s knee.
He looked down. He had angry eyebrows, like two caterpillars trying to push the skin between together. “What?” he grumbled.
Rachel took a step back. She looked over her shoulder at her mother. Rachel’s mother smiled serenely and gestured for her daughter to go ahead.
The man crossed his arms. “What is it, kid?”
Rachel crossed her own arms. “Hey,” she said, “My mommy wants me to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
“She says to tell you that she knows something.”
“Well, little one, you tell her to leave me alone,” he said, “I’m working.”
Rachel shrugged. “Well, that’s what my mommy says to tell you. She says that she knows something about you,” said Rachel, “Your wife knows it, too.”
“Huh,” said the stevedore. He bent down on one knee. He looked Rachel in the eye. “Your mother, she’s a Senta?”
Rachel nodded.
The man looked past Rachel’s shoulders at the woman across the dock. He fumbled into his pocket for some coins. “Give your Ma this,” he said. He pressed coins into Rachel’s hands. “Tell her ‘Thanks’.”
The man stood up. He went back to work.
Rachel walked back to her mother, staring at the coins. Rachel handed the coins up to her mother. “He gave me this,” she said.
“Good job!” said the Senta. She slipped the coins into her pocket.
“Why’d he do that?” said Rachel.
Rachel’s mother smirked mysteriously. She looked back at the man working. “I saw that he had a wedding ring in his nose. That’s where the wives mark their husbands up here. A man like that always keeps secrets from his wife. And, their wives always know the secrets, too.”
“What secret?”
“Any secret at all,” said the Senta, “Remember that trick, Rachel, and you can make a few coins doing something besides begging. Did you see how mean he looked?”
“He was scary.”
“Well, when you see a scary man and he’s married, he’s keeping something from his wife. And, she knows about it. You pass on this simple truth, and he will be grateful. He will give you coins. But, only stop a scary man if he is working. Never stop a man who is doing nothing at all. Nothing is scarier than a scary man with nothing to keep his hands busy.”
***
Djoss jumped into a ring of boys. Two boys in the center whacked at each other with long sticks. Djoss grabbed both of the sticks at the ends. He smashed the two boys together on the ends of their sticks. He tore the sticks from their hands. He swung the sticks around heroically. “A guilder for the boy that can beat me!” he shouted, “One whole guilder!”
A cheer among the boys and a challenger jumped down. Djoss tossed the stick at the boy. Djoss was younger, but he was about the same size. The boy spun his stick elegantly in the air, showing-off for his friends. Djoss ground his knuckles into the wood like a bull stomping before a charge. Then, he charged.
The other boy jumped sideways. Djoss managed to jam the tip of his stick onto the boy’s boot. The boy’s legs spread. His hands thrust out to catch his fall.
Djoss smashed the boy’s stick hard. The boy dropped it.
“Ha!” said Djoss.
The boys were cheering.
Rachel sat on a fence near the boys. She watched her brother, watched the boys cheering him on.
Her mother had told both of the children to stay there and read from their books. Djoss had handed his book to Rachel, and had jumped down to play with the boys.
Rachel opened the book he had given to her. She ran her eyes lazily down the words of the Senta koans, meditating only slightly in the noise and boredom.
A princess was born blind. The king, her father, didn’t want his daughter to know that she was missing out on the beautiful world. He instructed all his servants to cover their own eyes, and never mention to the beloved child that she had no sight.
The princess grew up beautiful despite her blindness. She married a handsome prince from a distant land that did not know she was blind.
He told her that she looked beautiful.
She thought he had hiccupped. She pounded his back as if he had hiccupped.
He laughed and loved her all the more for it.
She never understood what he meant when he recited poems that compared her beauty to purple petals of an orchid. She called them nonsense words. He laughed at that, too.
He never understood why she did not concern herself with make-up and decorations and continually bumped into things when she walked alone.
For her part, she never strayed from her beloved with the vanities of the kings, for she could not see to bother with handsome courtiers and innuendo in a glance.
In the end, they lived happily ever after.
The cheers subsided. Djoss collected coins from losers, bowing gracefully to each of his vanquished foes. After he got the last coin from the last boy, he declared that he was going to buy a sack of apples to share with them all, for being such gracious losers.
He told Rachel to stay there.
Rachel frowned. She told her brother that they were supposed to wait here and read.
Djoss rolled his eyes. He disappeared around the corner with the pack of boys, his new friends.
***
Djoss kept the stick with him for days. If he saw his father getting too close to him, he’d smack the man over the head, hard. Rachel’s father hissed and kicked at Djoss. Djoss ran off, jabbing at his father’s legs.
Her mother covered Rachel’s eyes. “Don’t look, little one,” she said, “Don’t look.”
All the guilders for the winner.
***
The family slept at the edge of the village, in a poplar grove. The huge poplars, with their branches pointing to the sky like a bunch of scared pine trees, barely broke the wind off the mountains.
Her father was asleep. He was lying on his side. His head rested on a balled up wad of old cloth. One hand draped over Rachel’s mother’s stomach like he was holding down the red X right where the two lines crossed.
Djoss wasn’t asleep. Neither was the sun. Djoss sat next to his father’s head. He waved at Rachel. “Come here,” he whispered, “Don’t wake them.”
Rachel crawled over on her hands and knees.
Djoss pointed into the man’s ear.
“Look,” whispered Djoss. He pointed into the man’s ear.
Rachel leaned over, but her shadow fell over the ear and she couldn’t see anything. Djoss nudged her out of the way of the sun, so the light could fall into her father’s ear.
She blinked. The insect edge of something like a centipede’s head was down there, looking up at them both, with sharp, tiny mandibles.
“It’s asleep,” said Djoss, “It’s not Dad, but it’s controlling him. That’s what Ma says. She says it’s your father, but not mine.”
“It’s gross,”
whispered Rachel, “What is it?”
Djoss frowned. He took his sister’s hand. “Come on,” he said, “Let’s go into town and see if we can get something to eat. You can play a trick and then we’ll get some money and we’ll find something to eat.”
Rachel let her brother lead her away into the village. They walked down a hill to a small fishing village. The town had more taverns than shops, and most of the men spent their days at sea hauling fish in nets to another town on an island over the horizon.
They walked down a hill, and onto the dirt avenue between the buildings. Women waiting for the return of their men swept out the old bones and scales from their plank floors. They looked at the two children walking hand-in-hand to the marketplace, where women had clumps of fish, seafruits, and gathered mushrooms.
Djoss asked the mushroom vendor about the different kind of mushrooms in the mountains.
The old woman smiled. “I know my mushrooms, dear,” she said, “None of mine are bad. I picked them all yesterday.”
“How do you know a good mushroom from a bad one?” said Djoss.
“None of mine are the bad.”
“Don’t even got a single coin,” said Djoss, “I just want to know how you know the difference.”
“If you aren’t buying, best move along, dear,” said the old lady. She smiled. She pulled her baskets back from the two children. “I don’t mean to be rude about it,” she said.
Djoss looked around the marketplace. This early, the shopkeepers had barely all arrived, much less customers.
Rachel reached for a mushroom. “I think this one’s sour,” she said, “I can tell.”
The old woman smacked Rachel’s hand. “How dare you say such a thing, dear! My mushrooms are all clean! I’ve been picking mushrooms for nigh on thirty years and not once has a body gone down from my mushrooms! Get on out of here with your awful accusations!”
Another woman, selling strawberries, laughed. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the girl. Her ma’s that Senta. Mayhap she knows something you don’t.”
“Hush up, Kari!” shouted the old woman, “You’ll be poxing me!”
We Leave Together Page 13