The Bone Mother

by David Demchuk

  The old woman laughed heartily, her head bobbing on her neck, while I sat baffled. “But that’s not how it’s supposed to end,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “Is that how it ends?” I looked up at her. Was she laughing at the story, or was she laughing at me?

  “I like your version better, I dare say. It has the ring of truth about it. They never could outsmart a fox, and would never work to save each other. They are chickens!” She laughed a little while longer, then said, “Bring your chair over and come sit closer. Take my hand while I sleep a little. My lunch is at noon, my supper at six. You can feed me and then, later, yourself.”

  I pulled my chair into the space between her bed and the windowed wall, lifted the heavy woollen blankets and crisp white sheets, and clasped her hand in mine. It was tiny, and cold as frost-laced glass, the flesh of the fingers shrivelled against their slender bones. I had not seen her move them, and wondered if she could. I considered doing it then, right that second, I wouldn’t even need the injection. There are so many ways to kill someone, especially someone so old. But the company had been clear, the messages explicit: I would have to wait another two days, follow the protocol, then await further instruction.

  She might not even live another two days, I thought. What then? And what of Ruta’s departure? Was that the work of the company, or might she come back in the morning and take over the old woman’s care? What would be so easy now could soon be close to impossible.

  Suddenly her fingers stretched against my palm, their tips running the length of my hand to my wrist, circling there, resting there, against my tattoo. She couldn’t have seen it, how would she have known? I had kept it well concealed. I looked up to her face, to see through it into her thoughts, but she was already drifting off, her eyes closed, her mouth moving slightly, releasing a breath or a whisper.

  “I knew . . .”

  I leaned in closer. “Your grandmother, I . . . knew her at the factory. . . .” And then a sigh, and then she was asleep.

  A moment later, so was I.

  I seldom dream. I sleep like a stone. But as I pitched forward into the darkness, another world opened before me. I emerged in a cold, cavernous room, clapped together out of grey wooden planks, smelling of wet straw and hot sweet blood, and I was smaller, much smaller, and the shrieking—I was a boy, there were three of us, boys, small boys, five or six years old, stripped naked and screaming, and the dark man had come for us—he stood in the doorway with his arm extended, his long sharp silver knife flashing moonlight around us. He seized the youngest of us by the throat, lifted him, and with one swipe gutted him, his insides spilling in a slick black flood onto the dirt floor. The next saw a chance to run through the door but the dark man threw the first aside, grabbed the other in mid-escape, slashed his throat so that his head barely held to his spine, and then brought the blade downward, splitting ribs, slicing innards, filling the room with the stench of bile and waste. In that moment, I looked past the dark man to see my parents, my father and mother—

  —but my mother is dead—

  —no, just my father, standing, sobbing, whispering the rosary in the old language of his father and of fathers before.

  And then the dark man looked up at me, reached for me, lunged for me, and as his face hurtled towards mine—his face—my face—

  —and then that sound, something thudding on the floor and dragging across it—

  The old woman squeezed my hand and gently shook me awake. “My dear,” she said, “I know they say not to wake a man from his nightmares, lest they come true. But you were in quite a state of distress.”

  “It’s . . . all right,” I slurred. My tongue was thick, my brain heavy and slow. “This dream has already come true.”

  “You may want to step into my lavatory,” she confided, glancing downward. “You seem to have had an accident.”

  I pulled the grey vinyl folding door shut behind me. Simone had the only private washroom in the whole facility, and by far the best equipped, with a specially outfitted washbasin, toilet, and walk-in shower-bath. She must have paid for these herself. To one side stood a wardrobe with a selection of uniforms, hanging and folded, in several sizes and colours. “Whose are these?” I called.

  “My previous attendants often kept changes of clothing here,” she replied. “Everything is clean. If you find something that fits, feel free to wear it.”

  I changed out of my soiled pants, used the basin and toilet to wipe myself down, then looked through the wardrobe. Only four of the uniforms were for men, with none of the pants the right size, but one pair of white women’s slacks—Ruta’s, I assumed—fit almost perfectly.

  “Much better,” Simone said as I re-entered the room. “I am afraid you slept through dinner. It is nearly the end of your shift. I did not want to wake you, you seemed so tired, and peaceful until those last few moments.”

  While it must have been there all along, I only just then noticed a covered tray on a trolley beside her bed. “I could feed you now, if you like.”

  “No, no, thank you, I rang for one of the young nurses, she came in and fed me. Somewhat nervous at first, but in the end quite pleasant. Someone will wheel that away later on, nothing left under there but gristle and bones.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was indeed the end of my shift. As I went to open the door, I remembered—then turned to face her, but she was already watching out the window, into the night. “You said something before you fell asleep. You said you knew my grandmother.”

  “Did I? I was very tired. When you are my age, sleep sneaks up and takes hold so quickly.”

  “But, is it true? Did you know her? At the thimble factory?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I remember her well. So much is lost to me now, but those days will live with me always.”

  I sat on the bed next to her, took her hand. She still did not look at me. “Then, you must know who I am.”

  “Yes,” she sighed, and faced me at last. “We all do, we knew from the moment you arrived. Who you are and why you are here.” Her hand turned mine over, her fingers pushed my sleeve up, exposing the sword and crescent tattoo. “You have come to kill me.”

  “How do you know I won’t kill you now?” I asked.

  “Because those are not your orders,” she replied, turning my hand over and patting it gently. “Two more days.”

  I stood up, smoothed the bedclothes. “Very well then,” I said as I moved towards the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “I know you will.” She turned her gaze back to the window. “Pleasant dreams.” And then the whole of the nightmare rushed into my head, and I vomited on the floor.

  And then the coat, the night, the cold. The parking lot. The screaming. The shadowed face in the sleek black car. And the light snaps out.

  I’m telling this story in circles, I know. This is all I can do anymore. The words are twisting, tangling on my tongue. Or they would, if I still had a tongue.

  That night, after my long walk home and my thoughts of finding a boy, I barely slept, if I slept at all. I tossed from side to side in the hard hotel bed, aching, sweating, teeth chattering, mind racing. Could I have picked up a virus from work? Could it be food poisoning? I thought about going to the hospital, but then a voice like an alarm sounded from the back of my brain: no—no hospital—stay away—it’s not safe. I cleared the idea from my mind and lay among the clammy sheets, pulling them up, pushing them down, counting the minutes until the morning light crept into my room. My eyes had just started to close, the darkness about to envelop me, when I was startled awake by my buzzing phone. ONE MORE DAY, read the message.

  I typed back. SHE KNOWS EVERYTHING. WHAT DO I DO?

  No response.

  It was 8 a.m. I was already late. I peeled back the covers and pulled myself out of the bed.

  When I arrived at the nursing home, the main floor station was deserted, the others already on their rounds or in the break room or elsewhere in the building. I went directly
into Simone’s room, my coat and boots still on—and was surprised to find her bed empty and unmade. I looked over towards her washroom, and there she was, seated in a wheelchair, watching me intently. She wore a blue velour dressing gown, faded and worn, embroidered with flowers around the collar and sleeves. Her hair was down, and long, and steely grey with streaks of white at the temples.

  “There you are,” she said. “Come, it is time for my bath.”

  I took off my boots, draped my coat over a chair by the door, and wheeled her into the washroom. I had bathed elderly people before, including my father, who at the end of his life had retreated into a dense dark fog from which he had rarely emerged. I was familiar with withered bodies, hollowed sagging breasts, skeletal arms and legs, shrivelled genitals. But Simone—well, already I had spent more time alone with her, had spoken longer with her, than with all of my previous targets together. The thought of undressing her, touching her, helping her, made me uneasy. She already knew too much about me, and I about her. And despite her fragility, something about her intimidated me, perhaps even frightened me, which was absurd, and irritating in its absurdity.

  “Do not be afraid,” she said. “I will not bite you.”

  “Maybe I’ll be the one to bite you,” I replied, and she laughed.

  I wrapped her hair up in a thin white towel, turned on the bath water, let it run till it was just slightly warmer than the inside of my wrist, then pulled the dressing gown away from Simone’s body. She was fine-boned and small-jointed, like a ballerina, or a marionette, a web of fine lines over her otherwise taut skin. I felt as if I could hold her in the palm of my hand. I lifted her from the wheelchair onto the stool in the tub, drizzled some soap onto a sponge, dipped it in the warm water, and began to wash her back and neck.

  “How many people have you killed?” she asked. “Do not worry, no one can hear us. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  “I don’t know, thirty, forty,” I replied. “I don’t keep count.”

  “All for your current employer?”

  “No,” I said, squeezing a stream of water onto her shoulders. “I was discharged from the armed forces after an accident, then hired as an independent in the Middle East. That did not go as planned, but in the aftermath I was engaged by a contractor in Kiev.”

  “Spadok,” she said. She sensed my surprise to hear the word. “In English, the word is Legacy. They are known by a number of names. They have existed on several continents, for more than two hundred years.”

  I shrugged. “I know only as much as they tell me. I do what they tell me to do.” I added more soap to the sponge and gently washed her chest and belly, her arms and sides.

  “You have killed four of us. For Spadok.”

  “You will be the fifth, yes,” I said. “Be careful, the seat is slippery.”

  She pulled herself back onto the stool while I again rinsed the sponge and filled it with water, let it cascade down the front of her body. “Five of us, all of us old, all of us close to death. Do you know why you are killing us?”

  “Something to do with the war, I assume. Something about the thimble factory.”

  “Yes,” she said, “something about that. If you hand me the sponge, I can wash the rest myself.” Relieved, I soaped the sponge and handed it to her, and she lightly scrubbed along and between her thighs.

  “Any other questions?” I asked. I sounded more impatient than I had intended, and immediately regretted it. I had no one to talk to about my work for Spadok, or about the events that had led me to join them. She had asked, and she had listened. I knew I had crossed a line from my very first answer, but it felt like a line that I needed to cross.

  “The water is cold now,” I added, “and I should see to your lunch.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your honesty. I knew this day would come eventually. You are very kind to humour an old woman.”

  I pulled a towel from the rack and placed it around her shoulders, helped her dry herself, and then wrapped her in the dressing gown. I wheeled her back to her bed and helped her into it. The bath had refreshed her, brought some colour back into her cheeks, but it had exhausted me. “You look so unwell,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down and close your eyes for a moment. Lunch will be here soon, and then we can have story time.”

  I sat in the bedside chair and again my eyelids descended as if under they were under a spell. I heard someone singing—Simone? I couldn’t be sure. A lullaby from the first land, ancient even in the time of the Tsars. The words and the tune were familiar but I couldn’t think why or from where. I felt a warmth all around me, as if I was drifting in spring water, gentle hands cradling my head and neck, lovingly guiding me out into the middle of a midnight lake under a sky full of stars. And then the hands, so many hands, reached up from under the water’s surface, and clutched at me and pulled me under.

  I awoke to the sound of a scream, and the scream was my own.

  “Oh, I am sorry, I startled you,” Simone said, setting the metal cover down over her lunch tray. “I was trying to be quiet. I have just finished my meal—but I asked for some soup for you and the nurse very kindly obliged.” I looked and saw there was a second tray closer to me, at the foot of the bed, with a steaming bowl of broth and dumplings. The trolley was parked along the wall by the door.

  “I think she was worried about you,” the old woman added. “I told her you were fighting something off.”

  “I’m not sure that I’m hungry,” I sighed. I still felt oddly queasy. Perhaps it was a virus after all.

  “Please, for me.” She held out the spoon. “You must keep up your strength. Tomorrow will be a difficult day.”

  I reluctantly took the spoon, and sipped a bit of the broth. It was salty and earthy and smoky, and its nourishment seemed to go from my mouth to my throat to my stomach into my veins. I raised one of the dumplings to my lips, and took a bite: varenyky filled with what seemed to be pork and green onion. I chewed slowly and let the flavour flow over my palate, then looked down and saw, just for a moment, a half-eaten eyeball perched on my spoon and I gasped and dropped it onto the tray with a clatter.

  “Be careful, my dear,” Simone said, reaching over to hand me a napkin. “You would not want to burn yourself.”

  I finished the rest of the dumplings and broth, and went to place my tray on the trolley. I looked over and saw that the iron grate on the floor had been moved, leaving a large square hole in the floor. “Someone from the building came in earlier. Looking for mice. I have never seen a mouse in all my years here, and I told them so, but still.”

  I nodded, went to pick up the grate but it was too heavy to lift, so I dragged it across the floor and pushed it into place with a thump. I could see from the marks in the wood that it had been moved many times before, though obviously not by Simone. Once or twice a year, I surmised, to put down poison or traps.

  “Now it is my turn to tell you a story,” she said, “one you may know from your childhood. It was told to me by my mother, and I am sure that mothers still tell it in the town where I was born.” She must have seen me shift in my seat, for she reached over and gave my cheek a squeeze. “Do not worry, it is short, and after I have finished you can go home to rest. I have already arranged for dinner alone.” I nodded and sat up in my seat, and she collected her thoughts and began.

  “In a neighbouring village, when I was a child, there was a girl somewhat younger than me—we will call her Rosina. She was a good girl, obedient and helpful, but she was a solitary soul and would sometimes go off by herself in the barn or the fields or in a small grove of trees halfway to town. One day, her mother called her in for supper but she didn’t come in. Her father called and called, and went to the barn and searched through the fields but he could not find her. Dusk had turned to darkness, so the mother and father dressed in their warmest clothes and brought their brightest lanterns, and an old dog they once used for hunting but now was nearly blind and deaf, and went to the grove of trees hoping to fin
d Rosina there.”

  I felt another shudder of nausea. This story was oddly familiar, but something about it was inside-out, or wrong-way-round. Where had I heard it? Who would have told me?

  “As they came closer to the grove, the dog began to bark and bark, so the father left the mother standing with the dog while he went to investigate. And there he found his daughter, Rosina—she had been attacked by a beast and nearly torn to shreds but, even though hours had passed, she was somehow still alive. He bundled her up in his coat and ran to his wife and together they hurried back to their house. They cleaned and dressed her wounds and cooled her burning fever, all while the old dog continued to bark and howl outside. They took turns staying with her through the night, and by morning Rosina was nearly healed, her wounds and scratches almost gone. The mother and father decided not to tell anyone what had happened, as they did not understand it themselves. From then until her wedding day, and until she and her husband had a daughter of their own, Rosina was always healthy and happy, and the dog never came back inside the house. It lived out its days in the barn and died there at a ripe old age.”

  The nausea was coming in waves now, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop listening, I had heard this story, I knew this story, but I still did not know how or why.

  “The day after Rosina’s daughter was born, an old woman from the village came to the farm to visit. Rosina’s father had long since died but her mother was still alive. The old woman was a healer, and sent Rosina’s husband off to pick mushrooms so that she could speak to the two women alone.

  And when they were alone, she said: “Many years ago, Rosina, you were attacked in the grove by a beast. Ever since that day, you have carried the blood of the beast within you, and you have passed that blood to your daughter. You must watch her as she grows, for if that beast emerges, your daughter will have to be killed. As will her children.”