Under This Unbroken Sky (28 page)

Teodor doesn’t bother answering. He gets up heavily and heads for the door. He wants to go home. He wants to feel Katya’s arms around his neck, the softness of her cheek rubbing against his whiskers. He wants to answer Ivan’s never-ending questions:
Where does the snow come from? Where do the worms go in the winter?
He wants to feel the calm of his eldest daughter. He wants to tease Sofia about her pin curls. He wants to watch Myron lumbering into manhood. He wants to hold his wife. He wants this to be over.

“Don’t walk out on me!” Anna slams the table as she stands up.

Teodor stops at the door. He turns to her, weary from all the betrayals, all the disappointments, all the cowardice.

“What do you want me to say, Anna?” Teodor asks. “You made your choice.”

It’s his dismissal, his righteous condescension, his simple assessment of her life that infuriates Anna. This man who has never been left, who has never been used like a whore, who has never doubted that someone loved him, who has never had his insides torn apart giving birth to yet another hopeless life. What was her choice?

She had no choice the moment she was born. She would marry, she would bear children, she would farm, she would be poor, she would sacrifice her desires for the good of her husband, her family, she would be obedient and selfless. That was all that was offered. That was her only choice. And she tried to choose well: she chose a life that would take her off the farm and into the city. She chose an officer. She made the best choice to save herself, and she ended up here.

She has become this bloated thing. Her nails are cracked; dirt has leached into her skin, staining the bottom of her feet, the back of her neck. Her teeth are yellow. Her vagina is loose and used. She is old. She is rotting. She needs Stefan to make it all stop. She
needs Stefan to do what she can’t. But she can’t tell Teodor that. If she says it out loud, it will mean he is right.

“You did this!” she shrieks. “He’s gone because of you. You drove him away!” Her face flushes red, she hears the hysteria in her voice; pain tears through her abdomen. “You came into our lives and took over!” She attacks him, needing to convince herself. “You made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. Like we were beggars on our own land.” The words tumble out, a torrent that can’t be stopped. “You’re no better than he is. You’re no better than any of us. You’re a thief, who washed himself clean. But underneath you’re as dirty as everyone else.”

The words froth in her mouth. Teodor stares impassively at her, as though he’s waiting for an animal to die. These are just the kicks and thrashings of a pig whose throat is already slit. Anna chokes back another contraction. She wants to stop. She wants Teodor to put his arms around her and she’ll tell him everything. She’ll tell him how afraid she is. She’ll tell him everything that she’s done. She’ll ask him for absolution. She wants to be washed clean. But he’s staring at her as if she’s already ceased to exist.

“Why couldn’t you just leave?” The words escape in a trickle, already regretted. The only question she wanted to ask, needed to ask, was “Why?” That’s all she needed answered. It’s the only word welling inside her: “Why?”

Teodor straightens his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye he is aware of Lesya, chewing her fingernails, her foot splayed to the side, her eyes on him.

He answers with a chilling calm: “Because it’s my land. It’s all I have and all I am. And no one will ever take it away.”

He walks up close to the table and leans in to Anna, so Lesya won’t hear. “Why did he leave last time, Anna? And the time
before that?” He can’t hide his contempt. “Look at you. Look what you’ve let him do.” She clutches the side of the table; the rouge on her cheeks has streaked down her face. “You have a family to take care of,” he hisses. “Think of them for a change.”

Anna slaps him hard across the face. Lesya cringes and braces for her uncle to hit back. But he doesn’t. He steps away, the imprint of her mother’s hand emblazoned on his cheek. He puts on his hat and gloves and walks out the door.

He goes to the barn, gathers up the tack, blankets, feed buckets, and a bag of oats, and loads it on the horse. He takes the reins and leads it across the field to its new home.

Anna remains standing at the table, her fingernails digging into the wood, until Teodor is well past the stone wall.

Then she tells Lesya her water has broken.

IT IS FADING TO NIGHT AND IT IS ONLY FIVE IN THE afternoon. The wind has quelled to a low whisper. Water boils on the stove. The kerosene light flickers. Lesya dampens her mother’s dry lips with a wet cloth. Anna is propped up in bed in a semi-sitting position, her knees bent, her thighs open. The contractions have been increasing steadily over the last twenty minutes. They are now no more than three or four minutes apart.

Lesya pleads again: “Let me get help. Let me get Aunt Maria.” Her hand pressed on her mother’s belly, she can feel that the baby has dropped low. “I won’t know what to do if something goes wrong. Please, Mama.”

Anna squeezes her daughter’s hand as another contraction swells. “No,” she blurts as her body writhes in pain. She pushes down on the bed, trying to get away from the spasm splitting her apart; her moan gives way to a scream. Petro covers his ears.

At first, he thinks it is a coyote howling. He wakes bathed in sweat, pinned under the weight of two quilts. He wrestles himself free, dazed by the darkness. It takes him a moment to realize that he is back in his own bed. He doesn’t know if it is early night or deep morning. He doesn’t know if he has dreamed the wind and his father leaving. He doesn’t know if he is dreaming still.

He is naked, except for his mittens. He is holding two smooth stones. He wonders if the heart has split in two, but then he sees the heart stone on the floor. His father’s coat isn’t on the coat hook, and the flask is gone. Lesya looks at him as she runs to the stove for more hot water and he can see a bruise on her cheek. “There’s stew on the stove.” Then Petro knows he is awake, because his stomach growls.

He pulls on his long underwear and new socks that are bathed in the heat of the stove. He climbs down from bed and picks up the heart stone. Ice-cold. Clutching it in his hand, he wanders to the roaring fire and looks inside the bubbling pot. The steaming smell of potatoes, onions, and salted beef obliterates any sounds his mother is making. He fills a bowl half-full and carries it to the table. The broth slops at the sides. He sets down the stone, picks up a spoon, and shovels it in. Cramming his cheeks full, slurping it back, barely chewing. He burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He licks the bowl clean and wants more.

The next bowl he fills to the brim. He gorges until his belly grows round and soft. He watches his mother’s face contort and twist, her mouth stretched wide. The muscles in her thighs shudder from the strain. He fetches the pot and scrapes it clean. He forces down the spoonfuls even though he is no longer hungry. He focuses on the sound of metal on metal, scratching away his mama’s sobs.

He licks the spoon clean as she screams again. The pot is empty.
Petro crawls back into bed and covers himself with the quilts. He peers through a tented peephole.

“Can you see it?” Anna pants, her face glistening with sweat. Her pelvis hinging apart.

Lesya has seen cows giving birth, and cats. She saw her own brother spill out onto the dirt. She’s never been queasy with the sight of blood. In a crisis, that’s when Lesya is the calmest. Everything empties out of her. Her heart slows, her breathing shallows, her voice becomes flat and reassuring in its neutrality. Her eyes betray nothing. Her hands don’t shake. Her body becomes a vessel for the wounded.
Give me your fear.

Lesya looks between her mother’s legs. The skin is pulled open wide, the top of a dome pushes against the crowning flesh like a perfect egg. She wipes away the mucus and blood. A raw yolk.

“I see it.” And then she realizes that soon she will have to catch the baby, bring it safely into this world, and that seems too much to expect from a ten-year-old girl.

“I see its head.” She sees her mother’s back muscle twitch. “Breathe now, Mama. Breathe. Here it comes.” The contraction hits.

“Now push.” Anna strains with all her might. “Push.” A wave of pain slams into her. She is being cleaved in two. The head crests, the contraction subsides. Anna falls back.

“You’re doing good, Mama. It’s almost here. Just a little bit more.” Anna’s body stiffens. “Don’t push yet. It’s coming. It’s coming.” Anna clings to her daughter’s voice. “Now.” The tide rips her away again.

“There’s the shoulders.” Lesya cradles the head. She sees a fluff of wet, brown hair, small pink ears. She holds its shape in her hands, a perfect egg without the shell. “You’re almost done, Mama.”

Anna’s eyes roll back in her head. White light explodes in the back of her mind. Her body disappears, electric. The baby’s torso
drops into Lesya’s hands. Its soft head and loose neck flop back. Lesya grabs to support it with one hand, as the other grapples the slippery body sliding through her fingers.

“Now, Mama, now you have to push!” She can feel the baby’s heart pounding against her hand through its thin, translucent skin. It flutters like a baby sparrow. Its arms are out, tiny fingers. She’s never seen a baby so small; it fits in her two hands. It weighs nothing at all. The skin is blue-tinged. The baby is still.

“Now, Mama, push!” The legs slip out. Two perfect legs and two perfect feet. Straight and perfect. The baby slides into her hands. “It’s a girl!”

She rolls it over, it lays limp in her hands. Its eyes closed. Its lips blue. She wipes the mucus from its face, unplugs its nose. It’s going to die like the bird. She taps it on the back, massages its tiny ribs. She slaps it harder. Wake up! The baby chokes and coughs. A gasping inhale. Her lungs fill. Her skin flushes pink. Her mouth gulps, her face turns red, she exhales a squawking bawl.

Lesya wipes her baby sister clean and swaddles her in a clean blanket, leaving her perfect feet protruding. She bundles her in the rabbit-fur blanket. She’s as small as a mouse, but as loud as a crow. “It’s a girl, Mama.”

“I don’t want to see it.” Anna presses her eyes shut tight.

“You have to hold her, Mama.” She pushes aside her mother’s protesting hands. She lays the baby on her mother’s chest.

“Look at her, Mama.”

The baby squeals and fights its restraints.

“There’s nothing wrong with this one, Mama.” She guides Anna’s hand to the baby’s head, leads her fingers over the face, down the chest wrapped in soft rabbit fur, to the exposed legs, then she lets go. She watches her mother’s fingers hesitantly brush the
skin, glide down the shins, barely touching, to the ankles, over the feet. Her hand embraces the toes.

Anna opens her eyes. The baby’s face is scrunched up in protest. Her eyes squeezed tight. She is so tiny. Yet she is fierce. Her mouth gulps silent wails. Anna is overwhelmed by a flood of familiarity, as if she has known this child forever. She knows her face, her smell. She knows everything about her. She is her. Anna’s skin is splitting open, her heart cracking. She feels all people, all suffering, all hope, all loss, all rapture. She has never felt such exquisite pain. The baby is crying and she can taste the salt.

Her mother’s face is radiant, almost beautiful. Her hand cradling tiny feet. Lesya stands by, wondering when she should cut the umbilical cord.

Neither notices that Petro has gone outside. He is at the back of the house, rubbing his chest and arms with snow, numbing himself inside out, trying to get back to the place of whiteness—where he wasn’t afraid.

ANNA AND THE BABY ARE ASLEEP. LESYA HAS WASHED the linens, burned the bloody rags and afterbirth, tended the fire, and has just finished tearing a sheet into diapers. She checks the baby again. The only crib she could find was a soapbox,
MRS. LEIDERMANN’S BLUEING SOLUTION
. The baby is so small, it takes up half the length of the box and is lost in the folds of the rabbit-fur blanket. Her breathing seems shallow and congested, but she suckled ferociously before sobbing herself to sleep with her lips and tongue smacking for more. Lesya pulls the soft fur up under the baby’s chin.

Petro is asleep too. He wouldn’t tell her where he went and Lesya didn’t push. She didn’t want to know. They stood over the box together, looking in at the sleeping newborn. Lesya slid her little finger
into the baby’s hand. The baby gripped it tight, pulling it toward her mouth. Lesya pulled her hand away, not yet ready to give herself.

Petro didn’t touch the baby. He didn’t see a baby. He saw a blind, bald, wrinkled, tailless mouse gasping for air. “It’s not going to live.” He didn’t say it to be cruel. It was just something he knew deep down inside himself: not to get attached. Lesya didn’t contradict him. He wasn’t sure if she had even heard him. She didn’t speak to him at all. Even when he crawled back in bed, his muscles heavy with fatigue, his eyes already shutting—and called her name, she didn’t come. He fell asleep clutching the heart stone for comfort, willing his tato to come home.

It’s not that Lesya didn’t hear her brother, or that she is angry, she just can’t summon up the energy to care. She watches herself tidy up the house, plan tomorrow’s meal, and assess what supplies need to be restocked. She watches her hands perform the tasks, efficient and assured, and is surprised by how small they are: a child’s hands. Someone else’s hands. She can’t feel herself at all.

She puts on her coat and boots. Her twisted foot aches as she pulls the leather over her ankle. Lesya wrenches the boot on hard, jamming the deformed limb into the straight, rigid shape. She pulls her mittens on and limps outside to do her chores.

The night is blue and still. Drifts cling to the house, a new landscape sketched by the wind. The tops of the fence posts peek from shallow hollows. Barbed wire holds back walls of sheared snow. As she drags her foot over the uneven terrain, her thigh begins to quiver. It shudders down to her knee, gaining strength as it tremors into her foot. She stops and places her hand on her knee to quell the shake. As soon as she touches the leg, it quiets. Lesya steps forward and the quivering starts again, surging upward from her toes, rippling under her skin, flushing her heart with panic. She breathes deep, trying to remain calm.