Staff Master 2

by Daniel Sandoval

  Chapter 6:

  Connor woke up as the sun shined into the small house. The air in the house was cool and comforting as the rays of the sun slowly brought warmth to the day. Babushka and Andre continued to sleep, but Lena was already awake and working at the stove. She wore a sleeping gown that had short sleeves and was cut off at Lena's mid-thigh. Connor stood up and felt the cold floor spark a chill up his legs. He quickly found his bag and put on a pair of socks and walked over to the stove.

  "What's for breakfast?" Connor vocalized not thinking anyone else was awake.

  "Good morning Connor." Lena spoke quietly.

  Connor's senses heightened. "Oh, so sorry. Good morning."

  "I usually make a dish called kasha." Lena chuckled while Connor rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms. "Most people in Ukraine think it's a dish for babies, but Babushka and I think it's great. The American missionaries showed me some different ways to prepare it and I like it. We also have ukrainski bread."

  Connor was starved. "It sounds good to me."

  "Well I just started to boil the water so you'll have to wait a bit." Lena said.

  Connor yawned. "That's fine. How'd you sleep?"

  Lena shrugged. "Same as always."

  "What's that mean?" Connor sat down at the table across from Lena.

  "I don't sleep very well." Lena looked serious.

  Connor tried to wake himself up and focus. "Really, do you know why?"

  "No, I just don't sleep well at night." Lena’s voice was still quiet. "I usually wake up in the middle of the night and stay up for a couple hours, fall back asleep for another hour or two and then I'm up."

  "What do you do with yourself?" Connor yawned.

  Lean looked back at the stove. "What do you mean?"

  "What do you do when you're up in the middle of the night?" Connor clarified.

  "I read."

  Connor was curious. "What do you read?"

  "Mostly the Bible." Lena continued cooking.

  Connor was surprised. He thought about how organized religion in England had almost been demonized a few decades ago. "Are you pretty religious then?"

  "I suppose I am. Most people in Kyiv are religious in some way or another, despite the persecution." Lena figuratively winced. "I go to church on Sunday and Babushka stays home. She says she's too tired to leave the house."

  Connor was impressed that Kyiv still had functioning churches. "I've never read the Bible."

  "Didn't your mom or dad ever want you to go to church?" Lena asked.

  "I guess they really didn't." Connor thought about things for a minute. "We didn't live close to any churches and never had a Bible. My mom was the only one I remember ever talking about faith. She said there was One I should believe in, but she didn't really say much else."

  "So, what do you think about it?" Lena questioned.

  "I don't know." Connor was always intrigued by faith, but he never really gave it much thought. "The only thing I really believe in is family."

  "Well then you are already religious." Lena smiled.

  Connor was confused. "How do you mean?"

  "Well we are all part of God's family and are his sons and daughters." Lena spoke confidently.

  Connor's logic took hold of the conversation. "That's ridiculous. We don't even know if God is real."

  "You have to believe that he is real." Lena challenged.

  Connor felt comfortable with believing in the unknown, but he was uncertain about putting a name on something so abstract. "How do you believe in something you can't see or touch?"

  "Do you believe in the wind?" Lena asked.

  "What?" Connor wasn't following.

  Lena clarified. "You can't see the wind or really touch the wind, but no one disputes that the wind isn't real."

  "But we can measure the wind and tell what it's doing." Connor shook his head.

  "We can tell what God is doing too and we can measure his goodness by all the beauty around us." Lena gently leaned into the table. "We just need to listen and be willing to stick out our hand to feel his presence in our life, just like we sometimes stick out our hand to feel the wind."

  "I don't know that it's the same thing." Connor wasn't sure if he was buying into the analogy.

  Lena refocused. "Haven't you ever had an experience that you couldn't explain, but still knew it happened?"

  "I suppose so...I sometimes do this meditation thing that helps me, I don't know why I really do it, but it helps me." Connor felt good about discussing something he was comfortable with.

  Lena beamed a smile. "Your meditation is what I would call a prayer."

  "But I'm not praying to anyone, I just close my eyes and focus on one thing." Connor clarified.

  "What do you focus on?" Lena asked.

  Connor paused. "I usually focus on my training."

  Lena continued to probe. "What does that training remind you of?"

  "It reminds me of my dad, my childhood, and the animal styles I use in my fighting." Connor responded.

  "What if you thought about the possibility of God?" Lena questioned.

  Connor felt misdirected. "I don't know what God looks like or anything about him, it would be hard to meditate on something I didn't know much about."

  "What if we did it together?" Lena suggested.

  Connor was still feeling reluctant. "I think it'd be best if we just left things as they are. I'm not ready to learn about God."

  "I understand." Lena stood up and walked toward the stove. "Breakfast is almost ready and I have a lot of work to do today. It's almost time to harvest."

  "I'll help you with what you have to do if you want." Connor offered.

  "Sounds good. Sit down and let's eat." Lena smiled.

  Lena served Connor a bowl of a hot mushy substance that was sweet. He ate the dark colored bread with a smear of butter and filled his stomach. Shortly after he finished eating, Babushka and Andre woke up and Lena served them. The three of them conversed in Russian about something. Connor was quietly polite during the conversation. After Andre had finished his breakfast he asked what the plan for the day was. Andre told him that he wanted to stay with Babushka for the day. Connor was excited to get his hands in the dirt and return to his roots of farming.

  By the time Connor had changed into clothes that were appropriate for getting dirty, Lena was walking out the back door. He quickly followed her. She went into a small enclosed structure and took out some shovels, gloves, a deep wheelbarrow, and a plastic jar filled with water. Andre watched as she quickly organized everything and started pushing the wheelbarrow out towards the thicket of trees behind the house.

  "Where are we going?" Connor asked excitedly.

  Lena silently laughed. "I am going to the potato field."

  "So we're harvesting potatoes?" Connor interjected.

  "This morning we are harvesting potatoes, later this morning we'll be harvesting apples from the orchard."

  "I thought you just harvested from the area around the house." Connor sought clarificiation.

  "In the country we all share the land for growing. We work together." Lena laughed as she hurried off in front of Connor. "We will get enough potatoes to store through the winter and enough apples to preserve over the winter."

  "Do you and Babushka make any money?" Connor was used to selling a crop to earn money.

  "No Connor. All we have comes from the land. Babushka inherited her house from her father and the land around it. She actually owns most of the land in the village." Lena slowed down so Connor could catch up. "She has allowed other families and people to build houses on it if they promised to work the land. Most of them sell some of what they grow, but Babushka likes to live humbly."

  Connor was intrigued by Babushka's decision. "Is the land worth money?"

  "It's worth quite a bit of money. Some government official wanted to buy it to build more apartmen
t homes on a few years back." Lena's posture improved as she spoke. "Luckily I was around to help Babushka file the paperwork to protect her land a couple years before that. Since then we've only had business men come and try to buy her land. She always refuses and I always show them the paperwork that protects her land from being purchased while she's alive."

  Connor's mind jumped forward. "So do you get the land when she dies?"

  Lena hesitated in answering as the wheelbarrow just hit a rock in the grove of trees and jostled her grip. "No one gets the land. She has left the land to the village. The village will need to form a governing body and decide how to govern the land." Lena regained control of the wheelbarrow and kept moving. "My guess is they will probably sell it when she dies. I told her not to do it, but she still believes they are good and honest people, she doesn't see all the things I see."

  Connor watched as the trees suddenly disappeared and an enormous field appeared. "Wow, is this the potato field?"

  "Doesn't look like they're ready yet." Lena bent over and dug up a potato and examined it more closely. "I thought they'd be ready this week. Oh well, let's go to the orchard."

  Lena walked off around the rim of the field and Connor followed her. "So what about the village?"

  "Well it's just that the world is becoming more evil, even in the smallest parts like our village." Lena commented.

  "Did you try to get Babushka to leave the land to Andre?" Connor offered a suggestion.

  "She didn't want to. She really didn't know if he was alive or not when we were making those decisions." Lena sounded as if she was second guessing the decision. "Besides, he wouldn't stick around to take care of things."

  Connor stopped talking and thought about things for a minute. He thought how ironic it was that Andre could have the one thing Connor desperately wanted in life, but would probably refuse it because he didn't value it. He could tell Lena valued the land and understood many of the things Connor did from being in the land and with the land.

  "I could spend a lifetime here." Connor said.

  "Well I guess we'll see how good you do with picking apples, the orchards just up ahead." Lena motioned with her head a pathway to their right.

  Connor looked and could see a small pathway leading out of the field. He knew it was probably a good while before they actually got to the orchard, but he was soaking in the experience of the trees, open sky, smell of nature, and greenery all around.

  The work in the orchard took most of the morning. Connor had filled the wheelbarrow with apples while Lena had collected four baskets of tomatoes. The baskets were sitting in the orchard when they had arrived and after Lena showed Connor which apples to pick she had disappeared with the baskets.

  By the time the harvest was over Connor felt famished. "Are we going to walk back to the house to eat?"

  "Eat a couple of apples while we're here." Lena tossed Connor two apples. "It will help us get back to the house."

  Connor caught the apples and bit into one. He had forgotten how sweet food could taste when it was freshly picked. He savored each bite and then ate the other apple. Lena also ate an apple and then a tomato. She then positioned the baskets to hang from the handle of the shovel and lifted the handle across her shoulders and started walking.

  Connor was shocked to see Lena lift the shovel with the baskets. "Isn't that heavy?"

  "It's fine. Let's go and get back." Lena grunted.

  The wheelbarrow in front of Connor was huge and appeared to weigh at least forty kilograms. He lifted it and could tell the trip back home would take longer than the fifteen minutes it took to get to the orchard. He started walking and felt the weight push against his desire to keep up with Lena. Continuing to press forward he finally got a decent pace going. By the time he got back to the potato field his shoulders were burning and his hands clutched tight. Step after step was a struggle to keep pace with Lena, but he eventually caught her on the other side of the potato field. Connor knew he would pass her in the grove of trees and by the time he reached the house Lena was at least one hundred meters ahead of him. He sat the wheelbarrow down next to the small enclosure Lena got it from and he stopped to catch his breath.

  He looked up and watched as Lena dripped sweat as she stumbled closer to the house, Connor could tell something was wrong and then Lena suddenly fell to the ground. Connor rushed over to her. She was conscious, but looked panicked. He took the shovel off her shoulder and cleared the spilled tomatoes away from her. Gently he placed her head on the ground and called for Andre. Andre came out of the house and stared at the situation. Connor yelled that he bring some water. Lena took long blinks with her eyes and nodded her head as Connor asked if she needed water. When Andre arrived with a bucket and cup Connor gently wiped water across Lena's hot forehead. He gave her a small drink. She sipped and then her eyes closed and she lost consciousness. Andre and Connor lifted her into the house and tried to cool her down.

  The house was much cooler then the outside temperature, but Lena continued to lie unconscious. Babushka took over tending to Lena when they brought her inside. She gently placed wet rags on Lena's head and chest and stripped her down to her nightgown. Babushka also instructed Andre to boil water outside and then to quickly bring it to her. Connor watched as Babushka waved steam into the face Lena and then put cold water packs on her head. After an hour of tending to Lena she slowly woke up. Babushka spoke to her in Russian and held her hand tightly. She had her drink some warm water and gave her something else to drink that Connor didn't recognize. Lena sipped the liquid and rested. Andre eventually came to Connor and escorted him out of the house.