The Bone Mother

by David Demchuk

  It was not a curtain, though. In one window at the side of the house stood a boy, a boy who looked just like me—as if instead of a window, I was looking into a mirror. Come, he mouthed to me.

  I ran.

  I ran and ran up the lane, bounding over roots and puddles that I couldn’t recall encountering on the way down. I saw that face, that mouth, Come, and an icy finger ran from the base of my skull down to the bottom of my spine. I ran and ran and ran and stopped at the top of the lane, but my brother Jerzs was gone. So I kept running, sweating and panting yet so very cold, Come, Come, until I reached the school and found my brother standing outside.

  “You were late,” he said. And then asked, “What did you see?”

  “Nothing. A house. I saw nothing.” He looked at me, disbelieving. And then the teacher rang the final bell, and we hurried inside.

  Come.

  The next morning, I woke up early, an hour before sunrise, slipped out of bed and into my clothes and walked up the road and down the lane until I once again faced the house. And the boy.

  He was there again at the window, so pale he gleamed in the fading moonlight. He retreated into the darkness. I stepped up to the door, pushed it open. He was standing on the stair. “Who are you?” I asked. He spoke and I could feel the words curl into a black knot in my mind.

  “We don’t have long,” he said. “I have some things to show you.” He started up the stairs, and I followed him, reached up and took his cold small hand. And when we were done, I came back down, hurried up the path and back home before I was missed.

  Many things died in the village that year, and in the farms around it. Small animals, birds, beheaded and gutted. A dog, a sheep, throats slashed. Two chickens, a foal. A baby went missing, just six weeks old, stolen out of its crib. Then a four-year-old girl, flung in a ditch, struck from behind and then smashed with a stone until her face caved in.

  My brother saw me that one morning, saw me creep up naked and bloodied in the early light, watched me wash myself clean with the rainwater gathered near the back door, stared as I slipped into the house, into my bed, held my finger to my lips. Shhhh. He wouldn’t walk with me that day, ran away from me as soon as he could. I walked along the road towards the school alone. As I reached the lane, I heard the whisper once again in my ear, and I knew the girl had been found.

  I walked up to the house, I opened the door, I closed it behind me. I climbed the stairs, entered the room where the boy had shown me so many things. I lifted the board in the floor where I kept all our treasures. I slipped underneath and pulled it down over me, and I lay there and I waited.

  I’m waiting there still. I’m waiting for you.

  Come.

  Yevgeny

  Some stories need to be told time and again. Every generation forgets. Every child learns anew. These borderlands are contested ground, and have been for centuries. The lines between countries move north, then south, then north, then disappear for decades only to return again. Sometimes the war is at our doorstep. Other times, we do not hear of our new ruler until an army comes demanding payments or shelter or recruits. They take our food, our horses, our strongest boys, leave rubbish and bastards in their wake. Before this land even had a name. It has always been this way.

  From time to time, they come to torture and to kill, to drive some of us out or march us away. Soldiers, militias, secret police. The uniforms change but the intent is the same. Ochistka granits, the cleansing of the borders. The Lemkos, the Rusnaks, the Poles. The Yevrei, of course, forced to hide and flee and renounce and convert, and even then still facing death. For many, these lands, these villages are the last refuge. Or else on the hillsides like the Hutsuls and the Boikos.

  Here is a story that I can tell you. My mother and father met and married in Odessa shortly after the Crimean War, and I was born just ahead of their first anniversary. My father’s family had come from the north village, and it was there that my parents returned for my birth. I went to the north village school till I was twelve, and then worked with my parents on the farm. As my twentieth birthday drew nearer, I realized the time had come to find a woman to marry. My mother was eager for grandchildren, and hopeful that the right bride would bring a dowry. We had little land and few friends except through the church, but the girls my age kept to themselves, behind a circle of frowning mothers and aunts who already had plans for their daughters’ engagements. None would walk with me or speak to me or even sit in the same pew.

  One Sunday I was called to a neighbour’s farm to help with a horse that was foaling, and ended up staying well into the night to bring the little fellow into the world. Rather than sleep over, I borrowed a lantern and made my way towards home. It was just a short walk, twenty minutes at most, and I would be in my own bed as the sun rose and so prevent my mother’s worry.

  Halfway along, I saw what looked like a bundle of rags piled off to one side of the road. I knew to be cautious, as such things could be a trick of thieves or the sign of an animal attack. As I drew closer, I saw that within the rags was a woman, young and pale, close to my age, curled up asleep. I cleared my throat and she sat up, startled, brandishing a tiny knife that could not cut a pear. With some coaxing, she revealed that her name was Magda. She was one of the hill people and had become lost and confused on her way from the village, and then too tired to continue.

  Her story was not entirely credible, but she seemed convinced by it, and that was enough. I offered to walk her back towards the hills, and added that we could stop along the way at my parents’ house for some potatoes, cabbage, and bread if she could use them. You would think I had offered her rubies and pearls. I snuck into the house while she waited outside and filled a bag for her, and in the bag I also put a proper knife to replace the one she carried. I then walked her to where the hills began their rise beyond our fields, and waved and watched as she began her climb.

  The faint warm glow on the horizon meant I would have to hurry to be home before dawn. I turned and was surprised when off in the shadows, under the trees, someone called my name. “Yevgeny,” she said. Old and cracked and hoarse. I held my lantern out—and only inches from my face there was another. An old woman, but not a woman, a nyavka. A forest witch. I had heard there were such wretches in these woods, but I had never seen one. Few things frightened me when I was young, but the sight of her froze me with fear.

  “Do you like the girl?” she asked. “I know she likes you. She would make a lovely wife.”

  “What do you want with me?” I stammered. “I mean you no harm. I just want to go home to my parents. They will wake up soon and they will be worried.”

  “Oh well, we wouldn’t want them to worry,” she said mockingly, and then leaned in so close that I could smell blood on her breath. “I promise, young man, I am not here to hurt you. I will not touch even one hair on your head. I have come to offer you a choice, knowing that you are eager to marry and have found your bride at last.”

  “What kind of offer? What kind of choice?”

  “She is the woman you are meant to love, but the fates are most unkind. In a few short hours, her people will be attacked and killed. There is nothing you can do to stop it, here or there or anywhere. If you go to her now, and profess your love, she will do the same, and when the murderers come, they will find you in each other’s arms and you will die together. So romantic!”

  “Or?” I asked, now more angry than afraid.

  “Or you can go home to your worried parents and your little feather bed. Magda will escape, but you will never see her again. And until your dying day you will not know a lover’s touch, and will not put life into another’s womb.”

  “What if I go and do not speak to her? What if I warn her people of the danger?”

  “They will not trust you and will not believe you,” she shrugged. “You’ll die, she’ll die, everyone will die. Except for me, I’ll be right here. I am always here.” She pulled an apple from the pocket of her cloak, bit into it, exposing a glistening
worm.

  “There is no choice,” I said in frustration. “I will go home, and she will live.”

  “Such a good boy,” she said as she chewed. “I have a tiny present for you.” She reached into her other pocket, and took out a gleaming gold coin, the likes of which I’d never seen. “Take this,” she said. “Never spend it, never sell it, never show it to anyone. But keep it with you always. It is precious now, but one day it will be worthless, and on that day it will save your life.” She pressed the coin into my palm and backed into the shadows and vanished.

  That afternoon, my father woke me to tell me that the Okhrana, the secret police who were not so secret, had descended on one of the hillside settlements, killed the Hutsuls and burned their homes. He and some of the other men went up to see the smoking ruins, and there he found one of our knives, stained with still-wet blood. He looked at me, and I looked at him, but there was nothing for us to say.

  I should also tell you: I fought in the Great War years later, as so many did, in the field army, at the Battle of Sarikamish. I always kept the nyavka’s coin with me, inside my sock, where no one ever saw it. My right boot was old and worn, and the coin neatly pressed against a hole in the sole, close to the arch of my foot. As the battle neared its end and I was on patrol, I felt the coin crack inside my sock. I looked down and saw that I had stepped on a pipe mine and that the coin had broken off the trigger, so it failed to explode. I marked the mine with my helmet and then stepped well away from it—took off my boot, and then my sock. The coin was smashed to pieces. Worthless, you might say. But it did indeed save my life.

  Gregor

  I had been working at the nursing home for nearly three weeks before I saw her. She was one of only a half-dozen residents with a private room and her door was always closed. She had her own nurse, not on staff but from outside, who spoke to no one and answered to no one. Ruta. A large plain woman, brisk and efficient and unknowable. I overheard the nurses at the station near the elevators giggling, calling her Rutabaga, and I glared at them. Ruta arrived at eight each morning and she left at eight each night. I tried the door once shortly after she left for the evening. Locked.

  I knocked and asked, “Hello? Are you all right? Is there anything you need?” Silence.

  “Leave her alone,” the head nurse barked. “She’s not our concern. She’ll ring if she needs to, she’s old but she’s capable.” I blushed and stammered that I had heard a noise, which was true—it sounded like something had fallen to the floor and was being dragged across it. The head nurse was not interested in what I had heard. She just stood there and glared at me until I gave a short sharp nod, excused myself and hurried away.

  Simone, the old woman’s chart said. A pretty name, but not her real name, this I knew. Not the name she was born with.

  Two days later, Ruta was in the room with Simone, the door shut tight, when a faint metallic chirping could suddenly be heard. The door abruptly opened and Ruta rushed out talking into her cellphone, her voice low and urgent. She left the door wide open and I could see inside. I could see Simone, sitting up in the bed, staring out the window, watching the sunlight filter through the breeze-brushed leaves of the trees beyond. Then she slowly turned her head in my direction and she stared at me. And the corners of her mouth curled into a faint sly smile. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, glanced at the screen. SOON, it said. Unknown number. A message from the company.

  Ruta hurried back down the hallway, her phone still pressed to her ear, stomped back into Simone’s room, and slammed the door shut. Still, I had seen her, aged and frail, alert and amused, and she had seen me.

  The following day, just after dawn, the nursing station received a call. Ruta was dealing with a family issue, and the agency had no one available until after the weekend. The others seemed nervous, frightened even, so I volunteered to look in on Simone as part of my rounds.

  “No no,” the head nurse exclaimed. “This resident is difficult and requires undivided attention. I will distribute your regular duties among the rest of the team.” The others nodded, relieved at this decision. It seemed odd that they would each rather take on another hour of work than tend to a woman who could barely move, who likely could barely speak, who probably ate little and slept for hours on end.

  One of them, Carlita, came to me after, in the kitchenette behind the station, and thanked me. “We had a sudden storm one night,” she explained, “and I had to go in to shut the window, which was rattling with the wind, keeping everyone awake. I had nightmares for weeks after.” Why, I asked, what did she do? What did she say? “Nothing,” said the nurse. “She just sat there in the bed, staring and smiling. But the whole time, it was as if cold fingers were being pressed around my throat, I thought I would pass out and fall to the floor. I just couldn’t get warm after that, in the middle of the hottest summer. I hope it’s better for you, but I couldn’t bear to go through it again.”

  I finished making my cup of tea and went to Simone’s room, tapped on the door, unlocked it and entered, closing the door behind me. As before, she was seated on the bed, staring out the window. A grey day today, not much to see.

  “Hello,” I said. “Your regular nurse is away for a few days. I will be taking her place.”

  “Good,” she said, still looking away. This one word was heavy and hoarse, thickly accented. I recalled my grandfather, pouring me a dram of medivka to help me sleep when I was small. “Good,” he would say, patting my head. It was one of the few English words that he knew.

  “I’m not sure what your regular routine is,” I continued. “There are very few notes in your file. Are you able to tell me how we should spend our days together?”

  A few seconds passed and then she spoke, softly and deliberately. “I hear the sound of my home in your voice. It touches your words like smoke.”

  I nodded. “My parents were from Ukraine. My father from Grozau, my mother . . .” I let myself trail off. There was no need to go into all that now.

  “I know Grozau,” she said, and for a moment I imagined she could see it out the window, across mountains and ocean, snow and trees. “You must tell me a story, with this voice of yours. Something from Grozau, or from your childhood.” And then she turned to look at me as she had that one time before—less like a woman would, more like a doll. Her chest and arms remained still, while her head turned on her neck as if a small child was holding and forcing it. “It need not be true. A fairy tale will suffice. But I do like a good story.” And then she smiled that smile.

  And so I did. And as the words came out of my mouth, my whole world fell away.

  When I finished that night, just after eight, I put on my coat, walked past the usually chatty and cheery women at the nurse’s station. They kept their distance, murmured to each other as I walked past, averting their eyes. No goodbyes, no goodnights, no see-you-tomorrows. I let the door swing shut behind me, I walked to the centre of the parking lot. I stopped. I lifted my head up, clenched my eyes and my fists, my fingernails digging into my palms, and I screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Tell me a story. Something from your childhood.

  Across the lot, a light flickered on inside of a sleek black sedan. A man was seated behind the wheel, black overcoat, blood red scarf, black hat shadowing his face with its brim. I could not see his eyes, but I felt his gaze meet mine. I stood very still.

  The light snapped off.

  As I walked home, I thought about finding a boy. I hadn’t had such thoughts in months, the medication was meant to prevent this, but with every block, at every streetlight and bus shelter, with every step, the impulse grew stronger. The last had been three years before. Then, like now, I was new in the city, in for a job, just four weeks, this time in a hospital: a mute old man, a simple injection, no suspicions aroused. The company placed me there, as they had before. A week or two to establish myself, learn the rhythms, find the quiet moments, each placement is different. Then make the kill. Then another few weeks of cart-pushing,
sheet-changing, bedpan-dumping, making sure no loose ends, and off to the next.

  The night I put the old man down, another good night for a walk, I decided to treat myself. I knew where the boys were, I always know where they are. This one, Danny, twelve at the time, in the back of an unlocked rental car, eyes, tongue, delicious. Pelvis disrupted, intimately damaged. But alive. I never read or watch the news, but oh he was everywhere. Relieved of the burdens of sight and speech, requiring constant assistance. Thinking of me, my face over his, every time strange fingers and instruments entered his body to construct a new way to shit.

  And then, afterwards—four days? Five days? I could scarcely believe it. Transferred to my hospital, onto one of my floors. It was late, dead of night, I was on my last round, I turned a corner with my cart and there he was. Light on above his bed, a light he could feel but that could not pierce his darkness. He was alone, awaiting his morning procedure, and there I was,

  at his door,

  at his bedside,

  leaning in,

  he could smell me,

  he could feel me,

  touching him,

  his bird-like chest,

  his bandaged face,

  leaning in close and whispering,

  “I’m still hungry. . . .”

  —then him keening and spluttering and thrashing in his bed, while I was back out the door, up the hallway, in a supply room, door locked, pitch dark, gasping, heart racing, cock hard and leaking. I left that night, left that city, so close, nearly caught, so foolish, not tonight, not ever, what was this, what was happening, what was happening to me?

  A fairy tale will suffice. It need not be true.

  I had decided to humour the old woman with a story that one of my aunts had told me, certain that she would know it as well, The Fox and the Three Hens. But something happened in the telling, it twisted on my tongue so that instead of outwitting the fox and escaping, the birds fell one by one, gutted, consumed, leaving shredded flesh, stripped feathers, heaps of bones in the nests, the impoverished farmer and his wife standing outside in tears.