The Silence of Trees (6 page)

A Polish woman on the opposite side of the car shouted, "Shut up, old woman! They will take us all away." Baba Lena stopped but continued to glare.

I looked over at the girl, who was finally awake and staring at the other women. "I am Ukrainian," she whispered. Still the others stayed away from her.

Then she looked at me, eyes pleading. "I am Ukrainian." She couldn’t have been much older than Halya, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old.

Not knowing how to respond, I nodded.

Baba Lena laughed, a loud laugh that shook her old body.

Suddenly, something in the girl snapped. I recognized the look in her eye, and the hairs on my neck rose, a shiver on my shoulders. Her eyebrows gathered together, thick wrinkles formed on the bridge of her nose. Her lips curled and pulled back to show perfectly straight, white teeth that she gritted tightly together. She stared at the old woman.

"You are not the only one to face death," she said slowly, each word heavy in her mouth. Then she brought her lips together and spat in Baba Lena’s direction. Baba Lena just smiled.

The girl straightened her thin shoulders and looked at me. She motioned for me to move closer. I was terrified.

"Sit here," she said.

When I didn’t move she said "Please" and motioned for me to face her, my back to the other women. "Please block them from my sight."

For some reason I did, although I hated to have my back to anyone. Maybe it was because she reminded me of my sister. Maybe because I was drawn to her strength, that flash of warrior spirit in her eyes as she faced Baba Lena. Maybe I did it because I was so lonely.

After I sat down, something in her face softened. Again she looked so young, so frail.

"Thank you," she said, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. She didn’t move to wipe them away.

"I am . . . so tired . . . of fighting." She shook her head. "So tired . . . of all this."

She coughed and turned her head away. The coughing didn’t stop, and she lifted to her mouth a discolored handkerchief with "Miriam" embroidered on it in tiny blue stitches. When she took it away, it was stained dark red.

"Will you listen?" she whispered. After looking behind me around the car, I nodded.

"I’m dying," she said. Again I nodded. I could smell death on her now. It clung to her, sweet and metallic.

"I want someone to know." She brushed damp blond curls away from her face, and then began rubbing her hands together. Again the soft rustling sound.

"So much," she exhaled. "So tired."

She looked at me for a moment, at my face, and frowned. "I’m called Miriam," she said.

Cocking her head to the right, she stared at my eyebrows, my forehead. How hard she stared with those deep blue eyes. Then she looked down at my hands. The rustling stopped as she reached out to take my hands in hers, holding my palms upward. The gloves were stiff and coarse against my skin.

Time passed, and all she did was look down, exhaling heavy breaths and shaking her head.

"Ukrainian hands," Miriam said. "Ukrainian hands. Calluses on your fingers, your palms. Strong hands." She held them, but her grip was so weak. She kept her eyes on my palms and said, "You see, everything can be seen in the hands. Future. Past. It’s all there. If a man’s hands are graceful and thin, his nails too long and well-groomed, if he always rubs his thumb against his fingers, then his nature is that of a fox. He will be crafty and cruel." Miriam continued to stare at my fingertips.

"I saw it when he pushed open the door," she continued. "His hands were thick and hairy like a black bear. After he entered, they rested always in fists."

"They took me and Mummy outside. The one with bear hands tried to kiss me. I spat in his face, tried to gouge his eyes. I had long beautiful nails, strong. They left a deep scratch on his face. He slapped me, grabbed my wrists, and walked me over to the fire."

At this she let go of my hands and pulled off her black gloves. The effort brought tears to her eyes. She winced and asked, "Do you see? Look at mine, do you see?" I stared at the black wrinkled flesh. It didn’t look like skin at all. It reminded me of burned meat, dry and dark.

"He held my hands in the fire," Miriam said. "I saw skin melt away . . . the smell . . . then pain. I fainted. When I woke, I was naked . . . bleeding . . . burned. Mummy lay next to me . . . dead."

"Your hands." She looked first at her own and then mine. "I can see so much in the way you keep them in your lap, fingers curled round each other, the way you were cradling your stone. You have gentle hands, small but strong; your nails short but thick. Yours are the hands of a female wolf, loyal and fierce, and kind." Miriam reached for her handkerchief and coughed again. More blood.

The wind carried wisps of thick black smoke through the car, the scent of death. It was like the smell around my parents’ burning barn, but stronger, thousands of times stronger. Even the sleeping women gasped and coughed.

Miriam stiffened and put the gloves back on her hands. We took turns peering out through the crack in the wall. I saw only the sky filled with thick black smoke. Miriam shuddered and began to rub her hands together again.

"It’s just a factory," I said.

"No, it’s not," she whispered.

We sat there in silence for what seemed like hours, the only sound the rustling of her gloves and her occasional coughs. Only after the smell finally faded away did she speak again.

She told me about her rich family in New York City, America. Her mother used to write letters to her Uncle David, who owned his own business. Miriam told me about this strange new place. To pass the time. To keep our thoughts away from death and darkness.

"How wonderful it is there. Everyone is rich. They have stores filled with fruit and vegetables, apples and pears and exotic fruits, like oranges and coconuts. They have moving pictures, fancy cars. You can go to dinner and sit next to a movie star or the president. Everyone is equal. It’s heaven." Miriam got very quiet, spoke in a tiny voice. "I can get my hands fixed there. I can play piano again. Draw. Feel things."

She blinked back tears. "I miss feeling things."

I held her gloved hand as she talked. I had never known anyone who lived in America. I didn’t know much about it, except for rumors about Hollywood that Sonya had heard from her Aunt Sophia. As long as Miriam talked about this magical place, she filled my head with new dreams to replace the nightmares of the past few weeks. As long as she kept talking, I didn’t have to think about Stephan or Mama or Halya. I could live in her words.

Miriam died in my arms the night we arrived at the camp. What had the vorozhka foretold? Tragedy. Loss. Separation. It all came true.

When I rode away on that train, I vowed never to return to Ukraine. I arrived in Germany with the understanding that I would find a new life somewhere else. I had no idea what that new life would look like, but I knew it could not include my past.

I never imagined that fifty years later, someone from home would try to find me. I never anticipated that anyone could be alive who would remember.

"What’s that burning, old woman?" Pavlo asked, shuffling up behind me, "One would think that after seventy years on this Earth, you would know how to cook eggs without burning them."

The ham and eggs on the stove were ash shadows of breakfast. Again my daydreaming had distracted me. I reached for the spatula to scrape the charred bits into the trash as my cat, Khvostyk (named for the cat I had had as a child) stood by and waited for me to drop bits of ham on the floor. After thirteen years, he knew that I hadn’t the best aim.

"Old man," I said without turning around, "one would think that after more than fifty years, you would give me at least one morning of peace and quiet. These eggs are not for you; they’re for me. I like my breakfast crispy, or have you forgotten?"

He chuckled and smacked me on the behind before sitting at the kitchen table. Knowing he would reach for the basket of pompushky I had baked the night before, I turned around and said sternly, "Those are not for you, Pavlo. Taras and the kids will be coming by after church tomorrow, and I want to have some treats and coffee ready for them."

He put back the pompushok and reached for his lighter. "Well, how much longer then?"

"Long enough for you to slowly kill yourself with your morning cigarette. I’ve always wanted to be a widow. So glamorous, like Elizabeth Taylor." I knocked on the wooden cutting board beside the sink; better not to tempt fate. But Pavlo didn’t react, and I watched him slowly rise from his seat and walk to the washroom. "Besides," I continued, "it’s been one year since Marko Somovych’s wife died, and he’ll be looking for another bride soon. He says I make the best varenyky."

"He wouldn’t have you, Nadya." Pavlo reached for the blue and yellow bathrobe hanging on the inside of the door—a gift from the grandchildren last Father’s Day. "Marko’s looking for a younger woman, not an old bag like you. Besides, all of your junk wouldn’t fit in his tiny house." He winked at me and went out onto the porch.

"Pat down your hair; you’ll scare the neighborhood kids." I shouted out the window, but he didn’t hear me. I saw his new hearing aid sitting on the window sill.

Of course his "morning cigarette" was really three or four, so I had plenty of time to cook up his breakfast before he began to get anxious again.

I cracked two more eggs into the skillet, put on some ham, and placed rolls to warm in the stove. After a restless night, I had overslept and felt unsettled. I usually woke long before my husband and savored the time to myself. Instead I felt rushed trying to prepare his breakfast when I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee.

I didn’t like it when my morning routine was interrupted. It made me feel anxious. Each morning, I would brew a pot of coffee, then walk to my icon corner, where Pavlo and I had hung the icons we bought with our first paychecks. In the Ukrainian tradition, a couple’s parents usually gave them a set of icons for their wedding and new life together, but all of our parents were dead when we married, and we never had a blessing ceremony. I had embroidered ritual towels to drape over the icons, each covered in black and red stitches that formed the Tree of Life. This little corner was the heart of our home, a spiritual connection to Ukraine and the life we had left far behind.

I walked to the icon corner, lit a candle in front of Mary, and thanked her for my health and the health of my family. I asked her to watch over my children, and then reflected on an upsetting dream that lingered in my memory. When I was a child, my mother taught me that dreams carried messages. As I stood before the icons, I recalled my dream about three spiders weaving a web in the corner of my bedroom. I had watched the spiders work together to create a beautiful web that eventually stretched from one side of the room to the other. When they were done, the smallest spider ate the larger two, landed on my chest, and stared into my eyes. She was crawling toward my throat when I woke up.

What was my message? Clearly I was being warned of something.

I stood for a moment in silence, offered thanks, and then chose my hand-decorated "Baba" mug from the cupboard—a gift from one of my grandchildren. I didn’t always pick the same mug; it depended on my mood. I had a few to choose from. If I needed strength, I chose the Kitchen Goddess mug that my best friend, Ana, had given me. When I was feeling sad, I drank from the grey, chipped mug I had "accidentally" taken home from my first job at the factory.

Checking back on the eggs, I thought about Pavlo, who was smoking his precious cigarettes in his beloved garden. I thought about his kiss and crooked smile, the raised mole on his shoulder and the way he lifted his eyebrows when he was being coy. Sadness made my breath catch in my throat because I remembered what it was like to be in love. I remembered another man, another lifetime, another passion. I remembered how that ache hollowed me out inside. How different from the quiet, comfortable affection I felt for my husband.

I brewed some coffee and turned the flame off the eggs and ham. I didn’t want to risk another burned breakfast. I had so much cleaning and cooking to do before Palm Sunday. I looked back at the pile of papers on the table. No matter how much I cleaned and sorted, the pile kept growing.

There were bills, a letter from the church, and some advertisements. Underneath them all was an envelope addressed to me. The return address—scribbled in faded blue ink—was a village in western Ukraine; it did not include a name. The tiny farming village was not on many maps, but I recognized it because it was where I was born. My hands shook as I turned the envelope over. It was opened; the letter missing.

Stephan?

He was dead. I tried to push the name, the face, and the emotions out of my head, as I had done for half a century.

But who? I couldn’t imagine who had sent it or why. No one there knew me anymore. No one had seen or heard from me since I was sixteen years old. There was no one left alive to remember.

I ran my fingers along the edge of the envelope, tracing the letters: my name, my address, VIA AIR MAIL printed on the front. I put it between my hands and closed my eyes. I slid the paper in between my palms, trying to feel something of the hands that held it, that wrote my name. Who could be left alive to remember me?