The Silence of Trees (20 page)

Living in the condo, Ana came to miss her lush garden and decided to grow marjoram, rosemary, sage, rue, and chamomile in her window box. When she and Niki traveled to the Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin, Manitoba, Ana asked me to water her seedlings.

I unlocked the door and took off my shoes. Laying the mail on the table by the door, I walked straight to the kitchen window, determined to water the plants and go home. Pavlo had a chess game with Yuri Radchenko, and I had the morning to myself. The truth was, without Ana, I had little else to occupy my time. I wanted nothing more than to hide in this sanctuary, but I felt awkward about being alone in their home. Of course, Ana told me she had no secrets from me, her home was my home. I wished I could be as open with her.

I filled the watering can and walked over to the window box. Ana’s green thumb always rewarded her with healthy plants, and her herbs were growing beautifully. She said her secret was the songs she sang to them every sunrise while she brewed her tea. I think it was because she loved them.

The herbs watered, I looked around. My Baba always said that you could feel the happiness of a family in their home, that their joy filled the rooms and lightened the air like spring flowers and baking bread. Ana and Niki’s home certainly felt cheerful, passionate, and welcoming. I fought with myself to stay, to look around for clues into their happiness, the happiness that I was missing. Walking slowly through the rooms, my fingertips grazed the surfaces of counters, tables, chairs, feeling for secrets.

I looked down at their Oriental rugs and big, fluffy jewel-toned pillows scattered about the room. As if any moment, you might find yourself sinking to the ground and would be greeted with soft luxury. Ana and Niki didn’t really collect knickknacks, but it seemed that every possible surface was covered with candles, half-melted and hinting at romantic evenings. Traces of their scent still lingered in the air.

Growing bolder, I walked into their bedroom. Leaning with my back against the dresser, I looked around at the mismatched woods and textures. So different from my own blue and white flowered bedspread and carefully matched dresser and chest. The purple satin sheets and crimson blanket were slightly tousled, but everything else was in perfect order. I walked over to the bed and sat down, running my hands along the covers—such softness.

I lay down on my stomach and closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of lily of the valley and something deeper, like wine. Wondering if this was Ana’s side of the bed. Wondering if this is what passion smelled like. I rubbed my cheek along the blanket, as if somehow it would share their embraces with me. My fingers searched the pillow for their breath, the secrets of their lips. On the nightstand, Ana’s reading glasses stood beside a single black feather and a rose petal, like relics of a religion into which I was not initiated.

I stood up and walked over to the closet and stepped inside. Ana had told me how much she loved lingerie, even showing me a nightgown here and there, but I had never seen her entire collection. Everywhere silks and satin and lace. I stretched out my hands to touch them, my fingers alive with sensations. I brushed my cheeks along the fabrics, smelled the powder-fresh fabric softener.

What would Pavlo think if I brought home one of these nightgowns? He would probably laugh or think I had a fever, or that I was having an affair. Well, he would not have to think because I would not do it. This old body in lace and ribbons? I would have to be crazy. That had never been me. Perhaps if I had walked a different path?

I spied their slippers, scattered like footsteps in a dance near the bed. Both sets were men’s brown leather—Ana’s feet were too big for most women’s styles. Walking over to her dresser, I reached for the heavy French perfume that she always wore and dabbed it on my wrists. Bolder with her scent on me, I now opened their drawers with a quiet hunger.

Plain white briefs for him, for her—underwear of many different colors and patterns. "For different moods, darling," she told me once while we were shopping, "or else to create different moods. Color is very powerful. Never take color for granted. Back home, during the war, so much was gray. Here colors are delicious, and so I devour them."

This philosophy played out in everything, from her clothes to her home. Never had I seen so many mismatched colors in one place: her walls, her rugs, her furniture—different shades of every color and fabric.

"What about matching, Ana?" I once asked her. "Certain colors go together very well."

"Who can decide what goes well together?" she asked with a wink. "Look at Niki and me: Do we match?"

I searched through the underwear and found treasures: beads, a silver ring, chains and bracelets, silk handkerchiefs. I raised the scarves to my face, soft and sweet-smelling. Ana had started wearing them when her hair began to thin.

Suddenly their eyes were upon me. Everywhere, black and white photos of Ana and Niki in exotic places peered over at me standing guilty, my hands rooting about in their underwear. I tossed the silk scarves under the underwear, slammed the drawer, and turned back to the photos of their adventures.

Every time they went on a trip, Ana brought me back a spoon. I never told her that I liked or wanted them, but she had decided that I needed something to collect. So I have spoons from Cairo, Rome, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Paris, New Orleans, Seville, and Malta. Pavlo hates them. He says they’re a waste of space because you can’t actually use them for coffee or tea. I think that’s why I decided to buy a little cabinet to hold them all in the kitchen. I don’t have many things that are mine alone. Let him have his garden, I will have my spoons.

I walked back to the front room, stopping to look at their antique globe next to their wine rack. On it were little slips of red and green paper pinned to different countries. The red for places they’ve seen, the green for places they were going to visit next. There were many red tabs, but only one green one left.

The cuckoo clock brought me back to reality, and with a final glance I locked the door and went on my way to the bakery for rye bread. I would make borshch for dinner. Maybe I could find a way to make it a little spicy?

After they returned home, I waited to see if Ana would notice any disruption in their house, but she never mentioned anything. The morning after they flew home, she just handed me a spoon decorated with pair of red boots and poppies. She went on and on about the wonderful Ukrainian dance groups and delicious varenyky and borshch, "just like from home."

Right around that time Ana started getting more and more headaches, and each one seemed worse than the one before. She tried taking the medicinal herb feverfew, which had worked in the past. When that failed, she switched to magnesium and then aspirin, but nothing helped. Eventually Niki and I convinced her to see a doctor, who recommended a series of tests—injecting dye into her head and taking pictures of her brain. Ana went into the hospital for a special scan right before their final trip together to Ireland. "The land of myth and magic," Ana called it. "The perfect place to celebrate life and find the strength for a miracle."

I once asked Ana why she and Niki traveled to the places they did. Their albums were filled with pictures of ancient ruins, tombs of kings and queens, stone circles and monuments, pyramids and temples. All of their pictures were of places long gone and civilizations buried by time.

"It’s a mystery, darling, and I love a mystery. These ancient peoples have secrets we can never learn, wisdom buried under earth and stone and sand. When we travel, I look for clues. Sometimes, if you stand very still in the shadows of those places, you can hear songs on the wind, whispers in the trees. That is why I travel.

"Someday, when we are dead and buried, someone will walk past our gravestones and wonder about my secrets, your secrets. Will our wisdom be buried with us? Or will it somehow survive?"

One week after their return from Ireland, I was called to identify their bodies. They had no other family and few friends, so I was the one called to the morgue. A sheet was draped over their nude bodies. My neighbor’s son Ihor was the officer assigned to the case. Ihor told me that he had found them naked in bed. A Cheremshyna CD, set on repeat disk, was playing softly.

Apparently Niki had prepared a large, fancy dinner for the two of them. Ihor had found the remains of a feast on the dining room table: borshch, mashed potatoes, smoked salmon, stuffed mushrooms, and fresh baked rye bread. They must have consumed three bottles of expensive wine between the two of them, because two empty bottles were on the table and one beside the bed. The tub had been filled with soapy water and rose petals, and there were a few strawberries dipped in chocolate lying on the floor of their bathroom. The chocolate had been mixed with poison.

Niki had thought of everything. The gas had been left on, so when their neighbors, the Jaworskys, came home to their condo across the hall, they smelled gas and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, they called the fire department. To avoid scandal, I bribed Ihor to arrange it so their death certificates read "died of natural causes." He told me that it was going to be quite a lot of trouble. Five hundred dollars bought them a proper death.

Many in the Ukrainian community hadn’t liked the couple in life and would have been only too happy to disgrace their deaths. Judge and jury, the Ukrainian gossips had long condemned their many sins. Ana and Nicholas were too affectionate in public. How dare they hold hands and kiss like newlyweds? They traveled too much. They never went to church. They drank too much wine. They danced like young people, to boogie-woogie music!

So many outrageous theories had been whispered by gossiping babas over fences, on telephones, and in bathroom stalls at church: Ana and Niki were really Jews, or Gypsies, or Nazis. They never had children because they were really brother and sister. They were Soviet spies, who often had to return home to get new assignments.

I had talked with Ana the day before they died, after she came back from the hospital to find out the test results. She had been diagnosed with a high-grade astrocytoma, a cancer in her brain stem. The doctors said that there was nothing they could do.

Ana tried to explain it to me over the phone that day. "This cancer, it’s like an invasive weed in my precious garden. It has infected the low, stemlike part of my brain and has also put out roots into my healthy brain tissue."

Suddenly there was panic in her voice, "Why my brain? I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to lose my mind. Slowly fall apart." I heard her fighting away tears. "Nadya, I don’t want Niki to watch me die."

She gave in to tears. "We had so many more trips planned; so many adventures. If only there were some miracle."

Ana asked me to light a candle for her in church. She had only been to church twice since I met her, once for Mykola’s funeral and once for Taras’ wedding.

That night she called again. Her voice was calmer.

"Darling, I’m sorry I was so upset before. It was just the shock of it all. Thank you for listening."

I reassured her, told her I understood, and asked to see her the next day.

She replied happily, "Oh, Nadya, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is a special day. It’s our anniversary."

Suddenly she laughed; a girlish giggle.

"Stop that, Niki," she said away from the phone, and then to me, "I have to go. I love you, Nadya dear."

"I love you, too, Ana. See you—" but before I could finish, I heard a click, then silence.

I made arrangements for their funeral. My family and I were the only ones who attended. At the gravesite I planted daisies, Ana’s favorite. I didn’t visit them at the cemetery often, choosing instead to talk with Ana in my garden, along the fence. That was "our spot." Here I felt Niki’s presence as well as hers. Maybe it was their photograph on the headstone, but I felt more self-conscious speaking candidly. However, because of the dream Ana sent me, I now felt the need to speak with her right then and there. I sat down on the grass in front of the tombstone.

"Ana, I burned the envelope. I’m not sure what good it will do. My mind will still wander back and forth, wondering who is out there, but I trust your wisdom, as always."

I felt such an ache in my heart. I should have her there with me in person, not in the ground. I wanted to hold her hand, not stroke the grass. I fought back tears.

"It was good to see you, even in my dreams. I miss you, Ana."

Just one sentence, one thought entered my head, Go home; kiss Pavlo.

I hesitated, wanting to sit with her a little longer, but again the voice, Go home; kiss Pavlo.

I went home. Pavlo was sitting on the bench in the backyard, drinking tea in the shade. I walked over to him and kissed the top of his head.

"Did you have a nice visit at the cemetery?" he asked.

"I did." I answered, "but I’m tired of burying people I love."

He patted the seat next to him on the wooden bench, and I sat down.

"It’s going to get harder," he said after a few minutes of silence. "More of our friends are dying."

"That’s not what I wanted to hear, Pavlo," I said.

"But it’s the truth, Nadya. We can’t wish it away or pretend it’s not happening. Our lives have been long and full."

I looked at my husband. He looked tired, but still handsome. Ours was not a passionate or easy life, but overall, it was a good life. I put my hands on his cheeks and kissed him on the lips. His eyes were wide when I pulled away.