by Jeff Kamen
By now he’d met in passing most of her neighbours in the valley, and increasingly, with winter festivities beginning, he began to meet them by arrangement, often at dances or gatherings in outbuildings and village halls. Cora seemed to have friends everywhere, and although this concerned him at first, worried about the impression he’d make, the locals responded to him well, pleased, they confided, that she’d found love at last, the more so with someone pleasant and sensible, and who clearly doted on her. In time he sensed himself becoming welcome in his own right, and was happy to attend every celebration they were invited to, nights of spiced wine and stacked fires and welcoming company all that early festive period. Such celebrations, he began to realise, were not just times for frivolity, but a chance to meet with people and share reflections with them on the year which had passed, and on the year ahead. Occasionally, as the music quietened, people would pull up chairs, and then the stories would flow.
And such stories. Sometimes there’d be tears and sometimes shouts of triumph as witnesses came forward to recount the darkest and strangest events of recent times. Some were actual survivors of the fighting on the bridge, or had been hurt or injured when the troops had entered their homes. Others were relatives or lovers of those who’d been taken, broken, slaughtered. Already the deeds of a few months before were hardening into legend, becoming tales of heroism and blood and vengeance, of cowards and monsters and lies.
The stories fascinated him, yet he could not extinguish the sense that he could have done more to help back then. He thought that with greater courage and effort he might have left his chains and run, thereby obtaining help from the City and the available Nassgrube weapons and resources. Listening to the survivors speak, he felt increasingly compelled to contribute in some way, and finally he decided to air his own views about the Ostgrenzers. The moment he spoke up, however, he felt an elbow in his ribs and saw Cora’s look of warning. Realising his mistake, he managed to quickly move the conversation on again, and thereafter, upon following her advice, he made a point of avoiding the subject altogether.
As a result of this, he found himself obscuring the details of his past whenever he was questioned about himself, and learned to steer discussions about his background away with a joke or a wave of the hand. He told people he was just a wanderer from the north who had come through the valley one day, one who in seeking his fortune had been lucky enough to find the most wonderful woman alive. Discovering that this kind of sentiment tended to provoke toasts rather than awkward questions, he continued with it, and over time, with people on all sides complimenting him for bringing such happiness into Cora’s life, he found himself accepted by the locals as one of their own.
~O~
With the new year approaching, they hung ivy around the house, hung fircones and evergreen branches.
They stayed a few days with Clareka and Miklós and the baby, bringing with them an old cot of Clareka’s from the junkroom, along with some gifts and clothes and toys. Whilst there, they went to the local hall and joined the other families in singing and dancing beneath the hanging lanterns. The great fire crackled up the flue and the air grew fuggy and everyone was linking arms and breaking off again and clapping, clapping, Cora laughing as they danced and he with his teeth shining within his unkempt beard, eyes glittering warmly with amusement. Round they went and round, and on a small raised stage the fiddlers sawed away like red-faced demons, leaning in together, stamping out the cold, stamping out the dust, beckoning the verdant breath of spring.
They sowed carrots and onions and yet more beans, and still the snow fell. A cold like he’d never known. He couldn’t believe it would happen every year. Their breath rose in torches as they tended to the pigs, and every trip out to the latrine was an agony. They had to use an axe to get to the water in the rainbarrel, hard metal ringing off the ice. But still he was grateful, and took each day as a gift he barely deserved; as something which had come to him unbidden.
When the festive season ended, they were mostly alone again. They went walking in a scenery of pressed white iron; black droppings pitting the trails. She told him that she loved the snow, but under the second moon she went down with a bad chill. He insisted on nursing her.
‘It’s me,’ he whispered, arriving with a tray for the bedside table. ‘I’ve made some soup.’
She turned from looking at the room’s little brick fireplace, where a fresh log was hissing. ‘It’s too smoky,’ he said, and went to one of the blocked shutters and opened it. ‘Just a few minutes,’ he added, then sat at her side and stroked her hair. She squeezed his arm. He watched her, his eyes like the forest, dark hair hanging around a pensive smile.
‘You here,’ she said huskily. ‘I thought you busy today.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Don’t. Please, Motte. It will pass.’
‘I didn’t know if you were hungry. But you should eat anyway.’
‘I always hungry, no? You should know that.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered, kissing her, ‘I should. I should know that.’
He nursed her with tender devotion, bringing news of the pigs and the garden until she was up again and back alongside him. The world remained trapped under frost for another few weeks. Then, like a miracle, the days began to brighten.
~O~
There were two rooms across the upstairs landing: the room where junk was stored, and of more interest to him, her workroom.
He’d looked in on it a few times before, intrigued by the sight of an old upright loom, and had occasionally cast glances towards the drawing desk by the window, noting the jars of pencils and brushes, the dishes of pigment powders. Owing to the cold he’d never spent much time in there, and one morning, before it slipped his mind again, he asked her what the loom was for.
‘Not much these day,’ she said. ‘Before, I make thing to sell. Small rug. Blanket. Dress. Thing like this.’
‘Sounds like hard work.’
‘Yes, not easy. If my hands too cold, stiff, it is not possible.’ She approached the bed, smiling. ‘I like knitting now. By my fire. Near my Motte.’
He sat back, pulling on a sock. ‘Would you teach me how to use it?’
‘What? Why?’
He laughed. ‘Would you?’
‘Yes, but it is difficult.’
‘Please. It’ll be worth it.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve decided I’m going to make you something. A gift.’
‘A gift?’ she said, smiling. ‘Okay, now maybe I teach you.’
They planted more potatoes and spring vetch and beans. They pricked out the faster growing crops as they swelled in the soil, and using another scattering of mulch, earthed up the beds again. They spread compost where it was needed and bagged the rest for trade. In time they began to clear the rubble from the wasteland up the valley, and pleased with their progress, Cora was more than happy to sit him before a half-finished blanket on the loom and show him how it worked.
He tried to follow what she was doing, the intricacy of it, tried hard, then realised it would be impossible to make anything wearable that way, given the time left before her birthday. There were so many moving parts to control and orchestrate — hooks and shafts, boards and rods and spindles — that he soon gave up, admitting that he was wasting her time. When she said she didn’t mind, that it would take just a few weeks of learning and application, he was about to tell her he’d changed his plans completely, when he thought of something. ‘Knitting,’ he said. ‘What about that? Seems a lot easier.’
She duly gave him a demonstration, and from that time on, whenever she was out on nursing calls or visiting friends, he would wait a few minutes in case she’d forgotten something, then rush upstairs and sit at the wool basket and practise what she’d shown him. At first he found it difficult to remember which stitches performed which function, but when the weather improved and she was out more frequently, he found he had more time to devote to it. He went to her wardrobe to see h
ow her other woollens were made, and after some deliberation he decided to make her a shawl.
He returned to the basket, and after many false starts and enraged unpickings, he managed to get the hang of making rows. He settled on a colour scheme, and before long was making steady progress. A few days later, having established a basic triangle, he began to knit with more confidence, working sporadic hours around the new plantings.
The workroom itself saddened him when he considered it. He would often think of Kornél, snatched from Cora at a young age. Opening the shutters one afternoon, he found himself picturing him at the desk. Painting, sketching, thinking.
Beside the inkpots and a collection of jars lay a stack of drawings, made on sheets of an ageing cream-coloured paper. He spent a while picking sympathetically through them, the sketched trees and plants. As with the picture in his old room, he found inscribed in the corner of each a small letter K. He nodded to himself, leafing back through the pile. Over the winter she’d told him a number of things about the dead husband, and he felt that he knew him quite well. He kept thinking how awful it was that such a pleasant and well-intentioned man, an innocent man supporting a family, should sit there quietly drawing with no idea that he was about to lose everything, would soon be lying with his arms crossed over his chest beneath the garden. He shook his head, studying the fine details the artist had noted in the world around himself: the shapes of bursting leaves or ripening fruit, the birches standing in bare-branched elegance. Everything perfect, he thought, setting the drawings back in place; everything waiting for a day that would never be.
~O~
Her birthday was still a few weeks away; just enough time, he thought, for him to finish.
Hobby turned to obsession. At night, when she was asleep, he would sneak across the landing and in the chill air continue his project by lamplight. Checking the loops and patterns he’d made, counting and recounting the rows until his eyes hurt. Now that there was more of it to see, he kept the door locked to avoid spoiling the surprise. He sensed her becoming ever more curious about his behaviour, but at the same time she was game enough to play along with him, and not once did she complain. Soon, the shawl looked like something she would not only wear, but wear with pride. Front was front and back was back and he knew what to do with the loose ends. He grew excited, working at every opportunity, and with her birthday almost upon them, his work lay all but completed.
The day before the occasion, Eva came visiting, asking to trade her goatmilk for some ham. From what he’d gathered, the old woman had gradually come to accept him as part of the furniture of Cora’s life, and had been given to understand that his illness was now over. Finally; mercifully — it was a running joke between them, and Eva was charmingly oblivious to it all. On this occasion he heard she’d brought a pet with her, and going to the doorway to look out, tea in hand, he saw a white goatling tethered to the gate by a leash, its small horns scraping at the gateposts as it nibbled at the ground. He stood looking out with a queasy expression. Dtch-dtch-dt-dt-dt was the noise it made as it ate. He stared at it. Then, as it turned to face him, he became aware of a strange and growing discomfort, a kind of dull prickling in body and mind that he’d not known in months. Something about its cold magnetic eyes, a steady gaze seeing more than it appeared to see …
Studying him, knowing him … but why?
Then an image came to him from that far remoteness, that faded life before: a coarse-skinned and toadlike figure rising up. Reaching out to make use of him.
He stumbled back inside, sweating, then excused himself and went upstairs. Shaken, he went to the workroom window for air, and sat down, trying to calm his breathing. He could not fathom his thoughts — no, his reaction — to the animal turning its eyes his way. He clapped his hands over his face, struggling, and then more images came to him, images with a shuddering quality: pictures of fires burning in the darkness, the flames not yielding light.
And within the darkness a stony chanting; wild, glistening figures looking round … a huge concussive roar ...
Slowly the flames and chanting faded. ‘Idiot,’ he muttered, sitting upright, forcing a laugh as he looked around the room. He told himself it had come from over-exerting himself recently, not getting enough sleep; and taking up his needles again, he focussed his energies on his near-finished masterpiece.
As he added the finishing touches, he made himself promise to go to bed early that night. Drink a herbal broth or something. Avoid wine for a few days.
He wiped his brow. Exhaustion, that was it. Too much work late at night, too much heavy concentration when he was tired.
After correcting a couple of mistakes at one corner, he tied off the row and spread the shawl flat on the floor. He measured it on all sides, then he snipped off the unwanted threads that were trailing and lay it flat again, proud and satisfied at his achievement.
The next morning, he wished Cora congratulations and brought her breakfast in bed, suggesting she do something out of the usual routine that day. She said she’d rest an hour, then fancied baking a cake, and leaving her to lie dozing, he went to work as usual. After lunch he worked a few hours more, then he returned inside and crept upstairs to get the surprise ready. All was set out as before, the long job over. Going to the desk, he picked up a pencil and wrote:
To the woman I love. You make me warm, and I hope this warms you, too. Happy Birthday Cora. Baš si lijepa. Yours eternally, M.
He read it through, adding kisses, then looked over his work again. The shawl was dark and tawny, like Cora herself, and he decided to wrap it in something brighter for when he presented it. It would need a pin, too, he reflected, but that could wait: perhaps they could head west in the next few days and buy something suitable. Picking through a large pile of fabrics, he tugged out a sheet of a dusty red material near the bottom, pulling along with it part of what appeared to be a greyish rug. He knelt down, curious, knowing her dislike of that colour, and holding the pile steady, he pulled out the rest of it, fold on heavy fold.
Sitting back, he frowned. It wasn’t a rug at all: it appeared to be a tapestry. The design seemed unusual to him, for there were none of the shapes and patterns he was used to seeing: these seemed to be more pictorial, emblematic. Intrigued, he stood up holding the corners and unfurled it across the floor. It rolled out with a thump.
Presenting the picture of a man. Bearded. Kind-faced.
Grave. Troubled-looking.
He stared at it. The room shimmering slowly.
Then he gasped, holding himself as if struck by a sudden blow. The man lying almost the length of it was wearing bulky grey overalls.
He saw intelligent eyes stitched with tiny crosses. A familiar-looking head and face. Rays surrounding the figure in yellow and white, portraying him with a kind of unearthly splendour.
Spinning, everything was spinning round. He steadied himself against the loom.
My favourite ... how is it? Dish?
Feeling scared.
Yes, my lovely dish ...
Feeling insane.
You see, I could eat this man ...
Feeling a sense of deep and growing terror. Seeing the blankness of her face as they slaughtered the pigs. She looking up at him with blood on her hands.
He is dead, yes. Maybe you think about this …
His mind was flashing, flashing white. Sweating, he rolled up the tapestry and stumbled out the door. Carrying it under his arm, he went down the stairs, the flaming stairs. Stamped down them heavily, aware of Cora long before he entered the kitchen, for she was asking what the noise was for. As he entered the room she turned from the recess with some dishes. There was a sharp knife on the table next to the cake she’d made; she seemed puzzled by him.
He stood still. His face pale within his trailing locks. Inhaling as though trying to get his breath when in fact he was frightened of screaming, of crying.
As soon as she noticed the tapestry, her expression clouded. Black anger flashed in her eyes and she s
houted, ‘Why you have that? Give it here!’
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
‘GIVE IT! IT NOT YOURS!’
‘You knew I was coming here,’ he said, feeling his skin dampen. ‘Didn’t you? Didn’t you?’
She shook her head.
‘You knew,’ he yelled. ‘You killed him, didn’t you? What have you done to him? Where is he?’
‘Motte?’ She was glaring dangerously, her voice turning to a low growl.
‘What have you done to him? Answer me. What have you done? Is he in the garden? Eh? Is that right? Is he dead? Like the others? Is he dead?’
She shouted again, telling him to shut up, shut up, ordering him to explain himself, to return the tapestry to her at once. He screamed fresh accusations at her and she screamed back at him. Then he held the tapestry before him so that she could see the picture, kicking the bottom of the material to ensure it unfurled.
‘What you do?’ she screamed. ‘Put him away!’
‘I’m not putting him away! It’s my father. Where is he?’
‘What?’ she cried. Her face was contorting. Huge tears fell from her eyes. She too was looking scared, was staring wildly. ‘What ... what father?’
‘This,’ he roared, pointing to the woven figure. ‘THIS. This is my father. This man.’
She seemed to grow faint, to waver. Her eyes blinking uncomprehendingly. ‘You father?’ she said. ‘This man? Him? Klaus?’
‘Yes,’ he wept, breaking down. ‘My father. How ... how do you know him?’
She dropped the plates.
Chapter 61 — Leaving The Bubble
Grethà was strong in her as she selected a few last ingredients from her pouch, adding them to the tall steel pot heating on an electric plate they’d put on the counter.
The old lady seemed to marvel at seeing such firm young hands at work, and guided them to open a wrap of herbs before stirring the still-damp leaves in with the dark lumps afloat in the heady stew. Jaala forked up a steaming wad and lifted it to ascertain its colour. A bilious liquid seeped from the mush and dripped. There was a murmuring from the onlookers.