Philipovna

by Valentina Gal

  “You know I have my sewing to do. Be reasonable, Xena. I’m sure you won’t miss the orphan with all of the Children you have of your own.”

  It was Auntie Lena. Why was she here?

  “So that’s how it is with you!” Auntie Xena was shouting. It was the first time I heard her raise her voice. “So now she’s the orphan Child— not your niece or your sister’s daughter? Your own flesh and blood!”

  My chest felt like someone was squeezing the air out of it.

  “What’s an orphan?” I asked Mitya.

  “Someone with no parents.”

  “It sounds so bad.”

  “Don’t worry, Philipovna,” he said with a little smile. “You’ll get used to it. People say things about me all the time.”

  “ORPHAN. It sounds like something a Baba Yaga would leave behind.”

  “Only if you listen to it. So don’t listen.”

  My pail bumped on the step distracting the women.

  “There you are, Vera Philipovna,” Auntie Xena said. Her voice was now smiling but her face was wet with tears. “I was about to send Viktor to find you. Come, I have a special surprise for you.”

  I followed her into the kitchen with my eyes lowered.

  “Do I have to go with Auntie Lena?”

  “Isn’t that a fine way to say ‘hello’ to your aunt? Xena, you should teach her some manners,” Auntie Lena shouted.

  “Don’t be silly,” Auntie Xena said lightly. “It’s Willow Sunday so Auntie has come to help me make some new dresses and get ready for Easter, haven’t you, Lena?”

  Lena looked down her nose at Mitya and me and said nothing.

  Auntie Xena looked at my pail.

  “Good Children, we need fresh pussy willow branches to take to church tomorrow,” she said. “Comrade Zabluda has given us permission to hold church services and we found a new priest to minister for the holy days.”

  Our old priest had disappeared shortly after Uncle Peter, the schoolmaster, and was thought to be among the villagers that were taken to Siberia. I shivered at the thought of Siberia. The sound of that word made me feel cold even on this warm, spring day.

  “But the church isn’t a church anymore,” Mitya said.

  He was right on that account. During one of the military exercises the brigade destroyed our beautiful little church, breaking windows and pulling down the crosses. They shot bullet holes into the icons, toppled the precious bells and took away the altar. It was now the centre for the military from which our area was watched and controlled. In the evenings, it doubled as the theatre where we would be forced to watch propaganda movies. Eventually, some of the villagers would come to terrible ends when the Comrades turned the sanctuary into the kolhosp court that could try and sentence anyone it pleased with no oversight from any government.

  “We’re having the service in the school house,” Auntie Xena said. Many of the village families came the next morning. The willows were blessed in the traditional Orthodox way. It seemed to be a sad service considering the event that was being celebrated. We ran about after church smacking each other with the willow branches and chanting the age-old verses: “It is the tree that hits you, not me that hits you.” And: “Soon there will be a red Easter egg for you.” Auntie said that we could be happy for Christ’s arrival, but we had to do it quietly. Hopefully, the Comrades wouldn’t be here forever. When they would go away maybe we could even walk through the village waving the willow branches just like the disciples waved their palms.

  “In your dreams,” Auntie Lena said.

  When we came home from the service, Auntie Xena put the willows into a china vase with the embroidery design of our village painted all over it. She placed it under the icon of the Last Supper. “Never disrespect the blessed things,” she said. “Once something is blessed, it is sacred. It is no longer like the everyday things of this world even though it still may look like it is.”

  We ate some borscht and rye bread rubbed with garlic and butter. I loved the sweet beets in the borscht and the pungent smell of the garlic, but when Auntie Xena spooned out generous scoops of smetana, I begged for more. The Children went to play while the adults sat out in the afternoon sun with their tea and glasses of vodka. Uncle Simon and Uncle Paulo came with their chessboards so that all of the men could play. Taras, a young neighbour of Uncle Simon, came with them, lugging his accordion. I could see Xenkovna blushing whenever he looked at her, but when he asked Uncle Misha for permission to take her walking, Xenkovna agreed warmly. Some of our neighbours stopped by to visit Auntie Lena but Uncle Misha reminded everyone to keep the festivities down so as not to attract too much attention.

  The following week was a flurry of preparation. I stayed home from school to help Xenkovna watch the Children while the aunts measured and cut some of my Mama’s cloth for new skirts for Auntie and Xenkovna. The wheel of my Mama’s sewing machine whirred as Auntie Lena treadled and refitted their old skirts for me and my little cousins.

  “What a miracle this machine is. Pretty soon Philipovna should start learning how to use it,” Auntie Lena said. The aunts exchanged knowing looks and Auntie Xena went on ironing.

  The embroidered sashes and vests with their red and black cross-stitching and lattice work of grape vines were taken out of the trunk. The smell of the mothballs in which they were stored burned my throat and nose as I spread them out on the bushes to air.

  “Xenkovna can wear your Mama’s vest and sash till you grow into it yourself,” Auntie Xena said. “She’ll take good care of it. You can wear the one she’s grown out of till then.” I stood in my traditional Ukrainian outfit and spun around so that the skirt would flare out like an umbrella. A rare smile managed to squeeze across Auntie Lena’s sullen face as she watched me.

  “We’ll have to tame that wild hair of hers,” she said. “She’s got enough for two— and so curly.”

  “Don’t mind that. Once I’m done with it she’ll have a braid that’ll be the envy of the village,” Auntie Xena said. “When she’s grown, she’ll even be more beautiful then Barbara was.”

  “If you can control her. Since I’ve been here all I’ve seen her do is run wild with that Mitya instead of learning something about her mother’s craft. She can’t even stand still long enough for me to see that the hem is straight.”

  Uncle and the boy cousins’ shirts were also remade and mended. After a storm of words, Auntie Xena convinced her sister-in-law to mend an old shirt for Mitya.

  “He must present himself decently before the Cross on Easter Sunday,” Auntie Xena said. “Surely, The Good Lord will reward your kindness.”

  Auntie Lena sniffed her usual distaste.

  On Thursday the cooking began. The aunts made a holodetz from pork hocks and meat Auntie Lena brought, while I sat on the back step and grated the last of the horseradish.

  “Sit with the breeze blowing away from you,” Auntie Xena said, wiping her hands on her apron. “And for the love of God, don’t touch your eyes while you’re grating. They’ll feel like they’re on fire.” She went to her cold cellar to check on the progress of her present batch of smetana and cottage cheese. We had churned the butter before Auntie Lena’s arrival.

  “And don’t dawdle,” Auntie Lena said. “There’s lot of work to do when you finish.”

  I grated till the muscles in my arm were burning, but I didn’t mind the pain. At least I didn’t have to sit in the kitchen with Auntie Lena’s stares and nasty comments. Meanwhile, they made varenyky, some with potato and cheese and others with fried sauerkraut and onions. The whole house was filled with spicy steam that made my mouth water. Xenkovna helped with the paska because she loved to bake bread. She particularly liked to fashion the little birds and flowers that would decorate the top. When the paska cooled, Auntie Xena chose the best one for the Easter basket and the second best to save for the following Sunday when we all would go to the cemetery to celebrate Memory Eternal. We would cut small pieces of this special paska and give them out to anyone w
ho came to our graves for the blessing of the remembered ones.

  On Saturday, I woke up to the aunts bustling around the kitchen.

  “Where did you find those?” Auntie Lena asked.

  “Katerina’s chickens always seem to lay white eggs,” Auntie Xena said. “They’ll make beautiful colours, won’t they?”

  “I’m sure you’ll have to do more than your share to repay the old witch,” Auntie Lena said. “You know how that old baba can hang on to an obligation.”

  The aunts giggled like schoolgirls as they boiled first onion peels and then beet and carrot peelings in pots of water. Then, they cooked eggs till they were sure they were hard-boiled and dipped them into the pots of boiling peelings. They added small amounts of vinegar to the pots to help keep the eggs from cracking.

  “Can I try?” I asked, wrinkling my nose over the smell of the sour steam.

  “Be very careful,” Auntie Xena said. She gave me an egg balanced on a big spoon and I dipped too.

  “Make sure you turn it,” she said and gently guided my hand so as to turn the egg in the simmering water till the shell absorbed the colour evenly.

  “Look, look, it’s such a pretty golden colour,” I shouted. It was the first time I ever coloured an Easter egg.

  “Stop dancing around with it. You might drop it — and for Heaven’s sakes, don’t splash the colour around the kitchen.”

  “Does that girl ever stay still?” Auntie Lena said. But she did have one of her rare smiles on her face. She gave me a cloth with a little piece of butter in the centre of it.

  “When each egg is completely dry,” she said, “rub it till it shines. Be careful not to crack any of them. We won’t have any extra.”

  I rubbed for hours and then arranged and rearranged the amazing eggs in different patterns on a big platter. Meanwhile, the aunts laid a beautifully embroidered cloth into the basket that would carry our breakfast for its blessing. Great Grandmother had stitched the cloth with her own hand and it was only taken out for special occasions. They put a paska in the centre. Around it they placed some of everything we would eat for the holy breakfast, a piece of smoked ham, a hunk of cheese, some sausage, a small container of salt, butter and even a little glassful of the horseradish I grated on Thursday. When all of that was in, they took some of my eggs and decorated the top of the basket. I thought it was perfect until Auntie Lena reached into her bag and pulled out a carefully wrapped bundle.

  “This should do it,” she said. “I hope none of them are broken.” There on her white cloth lay four fancy designed eggs. They had little birds and sprigs of flowers on their sides with different squiggles of colour between the pictures. Two of them had flowers on their ends and interlacing designs sprouted out from between the points of each petal. I thought my eyes would pop just from looking at them. A new candle was stuck into the centre of the paska and the basket was ready.

  “If you like colouring eggs so much,” Auntie Lena said, “come home with me and I’ll teach you how to write pysanky.”

  I looked hard at her but the word “orphan” still rang in my ears. I couldn’t answer. I felt dirty or was it different? Then it was time for all of us Children to wash and go to bed.

  “The sun is still up and it’s not even supper time yet,” my cousin Viktor said.

  “You’ll be happy for the rest when we wake you at midnight,” Auntie Xena said. “The service lasts all night and you have to be there for as much of the liturgy as you can.”

  “Why can’t we go like at Christmas?”

  “Because it’s Easter and it’s more important than Christmas.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Vera Philipovna, everyone is born just like Jesus was, but no one rises again. If you don’t remember anything else I ever teach you, Child, remember, Christ suffered for all of us — for every sin we all commit. On this day he rose as we must all rise from beneath anything that comes our way. Suffering purifies our soul and we all need to learn to do it with His Grace. When we die and go to Heaven we’ll be perfect and we won’t have to suffer any more. Now, go to sleep.”

  “Will Mama be watching?” I asked.

  Her hazel eyes glittered and she rubbed them with the back of her hand.

  “Yes, Child. Now do what I ask.” She gently stroked my mass of brown hair.

  I was so excited that I thought I would never go to sleep. But sleep I did and, in what seemed a very few minutes, I was awakened by enthusiastic voices in the kitchen. Uncle George, who couldn’t leave the ploughing for the whole week, arrived to join his wife for Easter. He brought Godfather with him.

  “Why is Godfather here? Is he going to make me go home with Auntie Lena?” I asked Auntie Xena as she braided my hair.

  “Good Heavens, Child! Don’t carry on so,” she said.

  “You look just like your mother,” Godfather said, tearfully, when Auntie presented me to him in my grown-up Ukrainian outfit. “You’ll be a lucky woman if your character is as much like your mother’s as your looks are.”

  It was past midnight when we all walked to service. There were no more fancy icons. I wondered what happened to the beautiful ones that used to hang in the church. The men stood, bareheaded on the right facing the priest and the women stood on the left, their heads wrapped in embroidered platoks as was the custom since the days St. Vladimir brought Christ to the Ukrainian countryside almost a thousand years ago. Only the very old or sick were allowed to sit through a service that would last all night.

  The aunts whispered about who was there and who was not, noting that most of the families who worked on the collective were absent. So were a lot of the young people who normally sang in the choir. I loved to hear the music. It wasn’t lively and dancing like Uncle’s music when he played his guitar. The notes were drawn out and full with big words that I didn’t really understand. But the hospodi pomilui was a special thread between Jesus and me and if I hung on to it and the words of the Lord’s Prayer, I would surely see my parents someday. I pictured myself floating up on that beautiful sound, like the chimney smoke does on a winter’s day. Up, up, I could go right to my mother and father on that swell of sound if I could only be good enough. But I was an orphan now. Did God want orphans in Heaven? Would He let me in?

  The service went on. Kneel, then stand; stand, then kneel. The schoolroom that had become the church for this night got hot and stuffy with the smell of sweat, mothballs and incense. I started to feel tired. I tried not to yawn, but soon I couldn’t hold it back, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. I tried to focus on the candles at the front of the room. I imagined the faces of people I knew in the clear spot of the candle flame. Auntie said that a dead person’s soul could go there when they wanted to be remembered by the living. If I concentrated, would God put my Mama’s face in one of those candles so that I could finally see what she really looked like? Did I really look as beautiful as she was supposed to have been? A gentle tug on my sash broke into my contemplations.

  I don’t know how, but Mitya had squeezed between the praying women and, without making a sound or sudden movement, motioned for me to follow. I whispered to Auntie Xena that I had to tend to a call of nature and quietly slipped out from among them. The cool spring night woke me up immediately.

  “What are we going to do out here?” I asked. “Aren’t you bored with all of that praying yet?”

  “Yes,” I said, lying. I wouldn’t dare tell him the truth in case Jesus would get angry and keep me away from my parents if I died someday. I also didn’t want anyone to go into that special place that opened when I prayed at church.

  “Well, I am, and I want to go to the river so that I can see it at night.”

  “The river? Won’t the Baba Yaga and her goblins be out?”

  “Stop being a big baby. We’ll just have a quick look and come back before anyone notices.”

  I hesitated for a moment. The sky was so black and the stars so bright. The air was damp with its springtime smell of awakening earth. It was
quiet. The only sound was the song of the river, low and compelling.

  “All right, I’ll come but we’ll just take a quick peek. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  We tiptoed through the village. Its houses seemed unfamiliar, dark and still in a fairy tale landscape. Even the dogs were asleep. The birch trees glistened in their silver ghostliness casting their branches in fingers of shadow in the moonlight. We didn’t speak till we passed Auntie’s house.

  “Let’s go round that woodpile and across the field,” Mitya said. “If we cut through Uncle Paulo’s orchard, we can make it faster.”

  “No, we can’t. Your white shirt will get dirty and I can’t get mud on my new skirt. Auntie Lena will kill me if I do.”

  Mitya shrugged his shoulders and held to the main path that would bring us to the riverbank. I followed behind like the page in the song of Good King Wenceslas. The twigs that snapped under my feet seemed to echo like thunder claps through the silent village. The path skirted the orchard whose opening cherry blossoms looked as if they were glowing in the moonlight. Their fragrance beckoned to me on a breeze that seemed to be stirring because we were disturbing the quiet night. Mitya’s longer legs covered the distance more quickly than mine so I soon was breathless. Suddenly, he stopped. I almost made him lose his balance when I bumped into his back.

  “Be still!” he hissed under his breath.

  “Why?” I whispered. “There’s no one here.”

  I stared at the silver ribbon of moonlit water that cut through the land below the bluff on which we stood. It wasn’t far from the spot where we found the pussy willows just one week ago. The scene was familiar, but eerily beautiful. Mitya was not looking at the river. He stood rigid, his arm gesturing for me to look upstream. The acrid smell of smoke had taken the place of the smell of cherry blossoms. There on the bank, not far from the water’s edge, was a roaring bonfire with people around it.

  “Who could that be?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll go and check it out.” He moved toward the fire.