The Snow Song

by Sally Gardner

  ‘I agree. Our father shouldn’t be marrying again, especially not to…’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it,’ said Vanda. ‘What choice does Edith have? None. The elders, our father, the priest, all want this match. That shit, the cabinet maker, wants this wedding because our father will pay all his debts. Our father wants it because… because…’

  ‘Sister,’ said Una, ‘this is terrible talk.’

  ‘Is it? And what about Sorina?’

  ‘What about her?’ said Una.

  ‘You turned your back, looked away, did nothing to protect her. She’s just a child, Una, a child.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The hunting party – the young men that came up from town. Sorina told me what happened and you don’t…’

  ‘Oh, that,’ interrupted Una, laughing. ‘That was months ago. As I said, a young girl and her imaginings. It was nothing more than harmless fun.’

  Edith wondered what had happened since yesterday to make Vanda more sympathetic to her. It must have been something serious but Una refused to hear what her sister was telling her in the space between her words. Edith thought about Sorina. It was true she was no longer a silly, fun-loving girl. She didn’t laugh so much, she looked… defeated.

  ‘Well,’ said Una, ‘I’ll have to do it myself.’

  ‘Yes, scuttle away,’ Vanda called after her. ‘Harmless fun.’

  There was no reply. Vanda put a pile of potatoes on the table and started to peel them. They sat in silence, Vanda tutting under her breath.

  Una came back with the logs, a martyred expression on her face. ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I told you, nothing happened to Sorina.’ Vanda let one peeled potato plop into the pan. ‘And quite why Sorina is telling you such tall stories, I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Vanda laughed. ‘You must be the monkey that sees no evil. My son can hear none and Edith can speak none.’

  ‘No harm done, maybe a little more wine was drunk than should have been.’ Una laughed a forced laugh. ‘Men will be men.’

  ‘You foolish woman,’ said Vanda. ‘Do you really not know?’

  The question hung unanswered and just then, to Una’s relief, Flora arrived with Lena. Edith saw from the looks on their faces that they must have heard what Vanda had said.

  Una put on her Sunday good deeds smile, determined now to be gracious. Edith made coffee. The cabinet maker emerged unshaven and half-dressed into a kitchen of women. He turned and went back into his bedroom. No one said a word.

  The seamstress took the toile for the wedding gown from her basket and hung it on the doorframe, a ghost of white calico. It spoke of a future that didn’t belong to the traditions of the village or these women’s lives.

  ‘It isn’t proper,’ said Una. ‘It’s indecent. There’s hardly anything of it. She will freeze.’

  ‘It’s going to be made in velvet,’ said Flora.

  ‘Such a dress as this can – and I am sure will – bring a curse on the wearer,’ said Una. Then, as if she needed to be told again, she said, ‘Whose idea was it in the first place?’

  ‘Your father’s,’ said Flora. She put the tape measure round her neck. ‘He usually gets what he wants, doesn’t he?’

  Edith went into the bedroom to undress and stood in her camisole while Flora transformed her into a creature of unearthly beauty. The women stopped what they were doing and moved close to each other to look at Edith. She was slight, almost fragile. They watched, mesmerised, while Flora pinned and tucked the calico, altering the shape to fit.

  ‘Is this what grand ladies in town wear?’ asked Lena.

  ‘Yes,’ said Flora. ‘And even not so grand ones.’

  ‘Do they have curses on their heads?’ asked Vanda, looking at her sister.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Flora.

  A silence fell over the group and Edith could almost hear their thoughts.

  If I lived in the town that’s what I would wear.

  What would my daughter look like if she wore such dresses?

  This will be the end of our world.

  By late afternoon the parlour had been made ready and the candles lit. Edith went into her bedroom, closed the door and opened her hope box. Every girl in the village had one. When she was five, her father had made hers and her grandmother had painted it with figures from a circus. She remembered them arguing over it, her father insisting it should have been painted in a traditional pattern not decorated with a load of vagabonds.

  ‘Who are they?’ Edith had asked.

  ‘Clowns and acrobats from Zamfir’s Circus.’

  ‘What’s a circus?’

  Her grandmother had told her about the summers before Edith was born when she would travel with the circus, telling her stories.

  To Edith, the hope box was magical. She dreamed of this mythical world and was sad to find the box was only for her wedding trousseau.

  Now she took out the petticoats, the hand-embroidered skirt, the blouse and the bodice that she would wear for the betrothal supper. Once, when there was hope in her stitches, she thought she would marry a man she loved. Now she dressed knowing it was for nothing. Only the painted circus figures held a memory of when the world was full of possibilities, a hopeful place.

  Lena knocked on the bedroom door and asked if she could help.

  Edith’s hair was tumbled down her back and Lena said, ‘You always had such beautiful hair. I remember, I was so envious – no, I still am envious – of how thick it is. Your grandmother would call it Rapunzel’s hair. I want to thank you for listening. I hope tonight that there might be a chance for me to talk to Misha.’ She wound the two plaits round Edith’s head and threaded evergreen and winter roses through them. ‘There. You look beautiful.’

  ‘Where’s my wife?’

  Lena jumped when she heard her husband’s voice. ‘I have to go – the guests have started to arrive.’

  Edith closed her eyes.

  Be with me, my love. Stay close beside me for this should have been our betrothal supper.

  Look for him to the right,

  Look for him to the left.

  Look for him straight ahead,

  Look for him in the air.

  And bring my shepherd back to me.

  When she opened her eyes she saw him in the middle of the room, holding his violin with its strings of light. He wore a hat with an eye at its centre. Demetrius smiled at her and one by one the strings of light disappeared into her.

  Even if I’ve imagined you, it’s enough to give me strength. In your face I see my home.

  And the ghost of the shepherd vanished.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Let the Devil Take the Consequences

  ‘What is it, Grandpa?’ Sorina asked when the butcher gave Edith his betrothal present.

  The word ‘Grandpa’ visibly jarred the butcher. Vanda found the scissors.

  ‘Here,’ she said to Edith.

  Edith took them and, in no hurry, cut the string and undid the wrapping paper.

  Before Edith had taken her present out of the box, the butcher, unable to contain his excitement, said, ‘It’s a cuckoo clock,’ and held it up for the assembled guests to see.

  There followed much talk as to where such a handsome clock should be hung.

  ‘Of course,’ said the doctor, ‘it will only be here for a short while as Edith will soon be taking it to her bridegroom’s house.’ The butcher smiled. The doctor, only half laughing, added, ‘I can’t make up my mind who is the most fortunate – the bridegroom for having such a beautiful bride or the bride for having such a generous husband.’

  This is what the butcher has worked for, thought Edith. She saw his fingertips dipped in the blood of slaughtered animals, dipped in the blood of her shepherd. She had no proof that the butcher was his murderer; she had no doubt of his guilt. She saw the workings of his mind as simpler than the cuckoo clock’s. What if she was wrong, she wondered, and he
r love wasn’t dead? She looked up with such hope when the door opened, letting in the snow.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said the mayor, stamping the snow off his boots and taking a basket from his wife. He handed it to Edith. ‘A small offering,’ he said.

  Georgeta stood beside her sickly son, the university student, an earnest young man who had probably looked forty when he was four. Their arrival caused a flurry among the guests and annoyed the butcher. He wanted no one upstaging him at this important moment when a decision had to be reached.

  ‘There,’ said the butcher, pointing.

  And the cabinet maker, with one unsteady blow of his hammer, drove the nail into the wall. A thin stream of plaster fell to the floor. The cuckoo clock was placed just above where the bride and bridegroom would sit. The butcher had already set the clock at his house the night before to make sure it worked. He turned to the guests.

  ‘On the hour,’ he said, ‘the cuckoo comes out from here—’ he pointed to a small door at the top of the clock, ‘flaps its wings, opens its beak and speaks. Then a dancing couple go round and round and a man chops wood.’

  There were gasps of wonder that such a thing was possible.

  ‘Aren’t you lucky,’ said the mayor, ‘to have such a thoughtful husband?’

  It surprised Edith that people waited for her to speak, as if the notion of not speaking was an affectation that could be put away when the occasion demanded. Such as now when rings were to be exchanged.

  The priest, a man who looked as if he could pass unseen through the cracks in a wall, puffed himself up.

  ‘Before we sit down to dine on what I’m certain will be an excellent meal,’ he said, to a low mumbling from the guests, ‘there is the important matter of the exchange of rings. I call forth the bridegroom.’ The butcher stepped forward. ‘I call forth the bride.’

  The cabinet maker came up behind Edith and pushed her towards her bridegroom. The butcher was wearing an embroidered coat that had fastened when he was a younger man but now gaped over his belly. The sight of what appeared to be a grizzly old bear taking a faun to be his wife made the company uneasy. The priest took the rings from the cushion on which they’d been placed and blessed them.

  ‘Do you take this woman to be your wife?’

  The butcher, impatient for it to be over, took hold of the ring. ‘I do,’ he said.

  ‘Do you, Edith, take this man to be your husband?’

  Only the ticking of the clock could be heard.

  ‘Edith,’ said the priest, ‘do you take this man to be your husband?’

  The room held its breath.

  ‘Cuckoo cuckoo,’ answered the clock.

  The little bird flapped its wings, the dancing couple went round and round, the woodcutter chopped wood and the butcher stared at the priest.

  How many men, thought Edith, are in the pocket of my husband-to-be?

  ‘I take that to be “Yes”,’ said the priest and the guests clapped, eager for their supper.

  ‘But she didn’t say anything,’ said Sorina.

  ‘Quiet,’ said her mother.

  The butcher put the ring firmly on Edith’s finger. It was too loose. The one she put on his finger was too small. Make of that what you will, she thought.

  ‘They will be altered before the wedding ceremony,’ said the butcher. Then, spreading his arms wide, he invited them all to the wedding in two weeks’ time.

  Edith sat next to the butcher. The butcher demanded more wine.

  ‘Why are you women so slow?’ he said.

  The men laughed, the women didn’t. The fish was brought in.

  I can’t do this, thought Edith. I will not do this.

  As the meal progressed the butcher manoeuvred himself closer to the priest and the mayor to talk business and to make sure that everyone knew he was the head of the elders and that not even a wedding dress was going to make him relinquish the position.

  Edith had seen the relief on the faces of both the butcher and her father when the rings had been exchanged. At least this part of the contract had been upheld. Sitting alone she felt an unbearable sadness at what might have been. If it were Demetrius seated next to her this would have been the happiest moment of her life. She felt herself to be inside her coffin in the vestibule of the church, the congregation milling round her, waiting for the lid to be nailed down. For a moment the room spun.

  After supper a small band of musicians – not one of whom had an ear for music – started to play and the tables were pushed aside for dancing. No one could quite put a finger on when or why it had begun but an undeniable sadness mingled with regret hung over the party and as soon as it was considered polite the guests began to leave. Before Flora left she asked if she could bring the dress in the morning for a fitting.

  The cabinet maker was asleep in a chair and Edith saw no point in waking him.

  ‘You liked your present?’ said the butcher. She never took her eyes off him and under such a bright glare he felt ill at ease. He brushed the thoughts from his mind. ‘I think it was a great success.’

  He moved to kiss her and Edith stepped away.

  ‘We have enough time,’ he said and picked up his hat.

  When the last guests had left, Edith took down the cuckoo clock, pulled the cuckoo free from its cage and affixed her ring to it. She found a small box, and placed the cuckoo and the ring inside. Her father raised his head to see his daughter at the door in her coat.

  ‘Going to the butcher’s house?’ he asked. ‘Good… good…’ and he fell asleep again.

  Taking a lantern she set off, the snow whirling about her.

  In the darkness of her thoughts, she said, ‘Oh my love, walk beside me.’

  ‘I’m beside you still.’

  At the butcher’s house she knocked on the back door. The butcher, who had taken off his coat and unbuttoned his trousers so he might breathe more easily, was shocked and excited to see Edith standing there.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  Edith shook her head and handed him the little box. He made a move to take hold of her but Edith was faster and before he had opened the door wide she was gone. He had to admit he was too drunk to go after her. Anyway, he told himself as a mouse scuttled across the floor, best she doesn’t see the house in this state.

  He took the box into the kitchen and cleared a space on the table with the back of his hand. He poured himself a plum brandy, wondering if it was a piece of embroidery she had given him as a thank you for the clock. He opened the box. The ring and the broken cuckoo lay there, a metal hairpin stabbed through them. He gasped for air. Only then did he realise what a fool he was, that this marriage was an old man’s fantasy. He looked up to see the ghost of his mother sitting at the table.

  ‘She will never love you,’ said the ghost of his mother.

  ‘Go away and leave me be,’ said the butcher.

  ‘You know what you want to do,’ said the ghost. ‘What you would love to do. It would be so easy.’ She put her long fingers to her neck. ‘Just press here.’

  ‘Mother, go,’ said the butcher.

  A graveyard grin crossed her features. ‘All I am saying, son, is you’d better make sure she doesn’t run away before the wedding or you will never have your little pleasure.’

  His mother was right. She knew what it was he wanted, always understood the devil within him. He shuddered at the thought of the untold satisfaction it would give him to strangle the life out of Edith just after he’d taken her virginity.

  ‘And the devil,’ he said, throwing his glass across the room at the ghost, ‘the devil can bear the weight of the consequences.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  A Different Pair of Shoes

  Demetrius stood at the end of Edith’s bed.

  ‘We can travel in these hours of sleep to the realm of otherness.’

  ‘Then take me there.’

  In the yard the walnut tree was in blossom. Demetrius was beside her, which was strange as this had happened a
long time ago when her grandmother was alive and she had been small. It was in this tree that she had first seen one of the bloodless, an old woman with a shawl wrapped round her head. Her hands were big, her nails long, her eyes black. In the midnight hour she used to call to Edith to come to her.

  She sat in the branches now among the walnut blossom, saying the same words as she had before, words that frightened the child in Edith because she hadn’t understood them.

  The woman told her that her son had sold her to the filth man. The filth man had terrible breath and rotten teeth and talked about his dead dog. The filth man made her sleep in a coffin with a stone on her chest. She was waiting to take her son to hell.

  ‘Someone must go with him for he can’t take you,’ she said.

  As is the way with dreams that fail to connect, Edith found herself once more alone, waiting in the dark for the dawn. She wondered if there was a road that would lead her to that other realm, where she would be able to walk with Demetrius to another end, to a new beginning.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m too early,’ said Flora as she shook the snow from her skirt. ‘It’s truly treacherous out there. I can’t remember a winter when it’s snowed as much as this.’

  Edith stoked the stove, put on the kettle to boil and waited for some warmth to return to the kitchen. As if she was a magician producing a rabbit from a hat, Flora took from her basket a creamy-white velvet dress. Edith couldn’t imagine being dressed like that every day. How would you do anything other than stand still and eat nothing? Flora told her about her clients, these women who belonged to a different world.

  ‘After this fitting,’ she said, ‘it’s just a matter of adding the finishing touches. I had some of these left over from another design…’ she showed Edith a box of shining white gems, ‘I thought I’d sew them onto the bodice.’

  Edith was transfixed by the dress that had so little to do with her.

  There was no mirror in which Edith could see herself, only the reflection in the window and the look in Flora’s eyes. Her body seemed different in the dress. It held her tighter, more upright, and she felt powerful. A dress like this was a suit of armour.