Shandi Mitchell

by Under This Unbroken Sky (v5)

  “You’re lucky I don’t pour it out.”

  She drives the cork into the jug. She goes to the back wall and pushes aside the framed picture of the Virgin Mary holding her beating heart in hand. Behind the frame is the carved-out niche in the log wall.

  “We were just havin’ a drink,” Teodor slurs, the golden glow starting to dim.

  “And what’s he going to do when he goes home? What’s he going to do when he wakes up and there isn’t any more? What’s he going to do to those children and your sister? That man has the devil in him. I want him out of here.”

  She shoves the jug into the hole and covers it back up with the guardian Virgin, hidden in plain view. She turns to see Petro standing in the doorway watching her. The wool cap is in his hand. Blood drips from his nose and trickles into the corner of his mouth. It’s his eyes, though, that pierce Maria’s heart.

  “Petro …” She wants to explain, she wants to pick him up in her arms, she wants to kiss away the hurt, but she can’t find the words and her body won’t do her bidding.

  “Colder than a witch’s teat out there.” Stefan throws open the door, still buttoning up the front of his pants. He staggers against the door frame as he pulls the door shut behind him, a lopsided grin on his face. He stops, feeling the sudden freeze in the house. He notices the absence of the jug on the table; and Maria, her cheeks flushed and her eyes ashamed; and Petro, scrawny and pathetic. His nose bleeding.

  “What happened?” His voice cracks.

  Petro breaks for the door. Stefan grabs him by the collar and wrenches him back.

  “What did you do?” The boy’s blood drips onto his hands. “What did you do?” The taste of hatred for this child, who has ruined everything, biles in his throat.

  “Nothing,” Petro stammers.

  “Ivan!” Teodor bellows, the fire turning hot in his veins. Angry that he has lost something again, something that he can’t even identify, something that was good.

  Ivan skulks into the room, his chin thrust up, his lower lip pouting. His fist clenches his penny.

  “What happened?” Teodor barks.

  Ivan searches for the right answer. He searches through a jumble of images: a penny; a peppermint candy he tried to wipe the dirt off that stained his hand red; a crushed gopher’s skull. One eye caved in, where his new boot stomped it. The bruise under his ribs, where his cousin kicked him; the throbbing of his knuckles when he punched Petro in the face; the red, red blood …

  “Answer me!” Teodor slams the table with his open hand. Surprised by the loudness of the swat.

  “He stole my hat.” He glares at Petro, knowing that it isn’t the right answer, but it’s the only way he can explain everything.

  “I did not!” Petro screams back.

  They look at Petro, the hat clutched tight to his chest, blazing his guilt.

  “This?” Stefan pulls at the ragged wool cap, with its red darned patches and unravelled threads. For a moment, he thinks he can salvage the night, they’ll laugh at the children’s pettiness and pour another drink. “Give it back to him.”

  “It’s mine.” Petro clings tighter, protecting it with both arms.

  “Give it to him.”

  Petro shakes his head. “It’s mine,” he says to the floor.

  Stefan wrenches it from his hands, but Petro holds on, his head yanks backward as his father drags him forward and lifts him off the ground. “Let go.” He shakes him.

  “It’s mine.” Petro tastes the blood in his mouth, salty and metallic. He closes his eyes and hangs on. The wool hat stretches between his fingers. Stefan slams him toward the ground and Petro’s knees buckle, but still he holds on. His new boots drag little trenches across the dirt floor. His arms stretch in their sockets.

  Ivan covers his ears. Teodor is standing. His face twisted and angry. Everyone is screaming. His sisters cower behind the thin blanket shielding their doorway. Sofia and Katya cling to Dania. Their cheeks are wet with tears, their voices screech high and frantic. Ivan looks to his mother. Her mouth wails as she runs toward Stefan. He looks to Petro twisting in the air like his sister’s rag doll. He doesn’t want the hat any more. He never wanted it back. He only wanted Petro to say he was sorry for being mean. All he wanted was for them to have the same boots so they could be brothers.

  Maria grabs Stefan’s arm, but he doesn’t even see her. He sees only the hat and the pitiful defiance of something so weak it doesn’t deserve to live. He yanks viciously back, his elbow slams into Maria’s belly, the hat tears from Petro’s fingers. Stefan lifts it, victorious, high above his head and, as he turns to toss it to Ivan, sees Maria slumped on the floor, gasping for air. Before he can make sense of this image, Teodor is driving him back against the door frame.

  He slams into the wood jamb, the door wrenches open, sucking in the bitter cold. A lightning bolt of pain rips up his spine. Teodor’s hand is around his throat. Choking. Stefan’s tongue rolls back, lungs gulping, as the room reels and blackens. He gropes for the knife in his pocket. His fingers curl around the handle and his thumb pries open the blade. He can’t get a proper grip and drives it upward, blade down, through the jumble of arms and elbows. The dull knife drags across the back of Teodor’s hand.

  Teodor’s hand recoils. The wound welts red, filling with blood thinned from the alcohol. Stefan rasps for air. The two men stare each other down. Eyes wild. Lips parted, teeth bared. They size each other up for the kill. Stefan nimbly flips the knife around, the blade becoming a natural extension of his hand. His fingers tighten around the handle.

  “Come on,” Stefan snarls. “Finish it.”

  A shot cracks their eardrums. Wood splinters from the door frame, inches from Stefan’s head. The world goes deaf and all eyes look past the door into the night. In a split second, Myron reloads and aims the .22 at his uncle’s chest.

  “Get out of our house.” Myron’s voice is low and steady, so contained it might explode. The gun doesn’t quiver.

  “Now,” he says. His lips dry.

  Teodor steps back, his mind sober. He sees his wife holding her belly, tears streaking her flushed cheeks. He sees his children’s terrified eyes. Blood drips from his hand onto his boots. At his feet, Petro kneels before the wool cap splayed on the floor. The boy’s eyes are locked on the end of the barrel pointing at his father. Teodor feels the pulsing pain in his hand.

  “Get off my property.” He chokes down the white hot rage. “It’s over between us. Don’t ever come back here.”

  Stefan calculates the odds of his knife against Myron’s aim. He wants to drive it into Teodor’s smug, righteous belly and twist it. Make him beg him to slit his throat. Mercy. A technique he honed well in the army. But it would take a step and a thrust to reach Teodor, and his back would be to the boy. He looks at the gun’s sights, fixed on his chest, steady. Myron cocks the firing pin. Stefan pockets the knife, straightens his coat, and slicks back his hair.

  “Now I remember why I came by in the first place, Teodor. I wanted to thank you for paying off our land. Not many brothers would do that for their sister.”

  Teodor restrains himself. “It’s my land.”

  “We’ll have to see what the courts say.” Stefan buttons up his collar. “Thank you for the fine whisky. You’re a brave man, Teodor. I wouldn’t want to get caught with it. What’s the penalty now? A year in jail? Another year. No worries, I’m sure you have it well hidden.” He looks at Petro, who is still on his knees. “Get up.”

  Petro reaches for the wool cap. Stefan steps on it.

  “It’s mine,” Petro tries one last time. “I won it, fair and square.”

  Stefan looks to Ivan. “Is that true?”

  Ivan looks to his new boots. His bare feet are stuck to the insoles. The tongue digs into the top of his foot. A blister chafes his right heel.

  “Well,” Stefan considers. “Like father, like son.” He slides his foot off the cap. “Pick up your hat, boy. We’re going home.” Petro pulls the misshapen cap over his ears.
Stefan bends over to dust the dirt from his son’s knees and offers some fatherly advice. “Some people don’t know what’s theirs and what isn’t.” He taps him on the behind. “Let’s go.”

  Petro scrambles out the door. Stefan straightens his back into his best soldier’s posture and tipsily heads for the door, as if he is the one who has chosen to leave.

  Teodor blocks his exit with his arm and leans in close. “If you touch him again, if you hurt any of my family …” he whispers, “I will kill you.” He lowers his arm to let him pass.

  Stefan whispers back with a smile: “You’re already dead.” He turns and bows to Maria. “My apologies for my son’s behaviour. I’ve brought him up to fight for what’s his.” And with that he leaves.

  Myron keeps the gun trained on his uncle’s back until he is swallowed by the night. Only then does the barrel begin to shake uncontrollably.

  CURLED UP under the feather quilt, the box of treasures safely back under his bed, Ivan breathes in the green scent of his straw mattress. His boots and long underwear are warming by the fire. His mind is already washing away the night. He plays his father’s song in his head, making up the words he didn’t catch, drowning out the gunshot, the crushed gopher skull, the blood-red candy, the howling voices. He is spinning, his arms crossed, his legs kicking high. He is dancing in a twilight sky. He falls asleep, wondering what time tomorrow Petro will come out to play, not even caring that his heart-shaped rock has disappeared.

  KATYA PADS quietly through the kitchen, past her sleeping mama and tato to the orange flickering glow escaping around the wood-stove door. Its light licks at the walls. The stove roars and the pipe tinkles from the heat. Its belly is full of wood. She wraps her hand in her nightie and slides the flue open. She opens the door. Heat blasts her face. The flames twist and reach for her. She tosses in an extra large piece of the doughy Christ. Amen.

  It bubbles and shrivels into a blackened lump and bursts into flames. The fire is angry, like her tato and her uncle. It wants more. She feeds it the last bits of newspaper lying nearby. It grabs hungrily at the paper. Katya looks around the room to see what else it wants. The shelf of preserves glows in its light. She sees another piece of paper.

  Katya stretches on her tiptoes and grabs it with her fingertips. Brown paper for wrapping meat. She gives it to the fire. The edges curl and the fire licks at the pencilled words on the other side.

  TWO DAYS LATER, the police arrive to search the premises. They look under the beds, the mattresses, the pillows, and inside the children’s blanket boxes. They rifle through the tin cans, preserves, bags of flour, sugar, and salt. The tall officer with the walrus moustache and a bandoleer strung across his crimson chest pulls the straw mattresses from the beds.

  Teodor sits at the kitchen table rolling cigarettes, licking the papers with slow measure and winding the tobacco tight. He sets the finished smokes on the table in a careful, straight row. Maria kneads bread dough, sprinkling in extra handfuls of freshly ground wheat flour. She mistakenly adds an extra cup of water.

  Outside, the children sit crowded on the stoop. The cold seeps through their long underwear; their bums mould the snow. Their leather soles freeze to the ground. They don’t brush away the light snow dusting their shoulders.

  Only when the door opens and the two officers step outside empty-handed do the children part. All except Myron, who remains seated and makes them walk around him.

  They watch the officers slip and slide down the hill to their car, mired in snow on the far side of the stone wall. The engine sputters and growls. Black smoke belches from its tail. The tires spin. The passenger gets out and makes his way to the rear of the car and pushes. The tires whir, the vehicle rocks. The officer waves to the children to come and help. No one moves. He pushes again. The car jitters forward and fishtails down the hill. The officer chases after it; scarlet arms and black-trousered legs windmilling against the white expanse, he jumps inside. The children watch until the car is a black speck.

  As does Maria. She waits until she is certain they are not coming back. Then she goes to the Virgin, which has been bumped crooked by the man with the thick moustache when he brushed past her to look in the pots. She slides away the frame to retrieve the jug.

  “What are you doing?” Teodor watches her fumbling to uncork the jug. “Maria …”

  “I won’t have this in my house.” She grabs a knife and pries into the cork. He stops her hand. Maria wrenches the jug away.

  “Give it to me.” Teodor holds out his hand.

  “No.”

  Teodor squeezes her hand that clutches the knife tight. “Let it go.”

  Maria lifts the jug above her head with her free arm. “I’ll drop it.”

  Teodor easily reaches over her and grabs it. “Let go.” He presses her hand against the table, forcing her to release the knife. She struggles to smash the jug against the table. Teodor holds it steady. They stand locked in a twisted dance.

  “Is this what you need to prove that you’re as good as them? That you’re not a peasant who can be kicked and ordered to bow?” She pleads, “Are you willing to risk us?”

  Maria sees his eyes cloud with disappointment. He speaks gently, as if to a child he doesn’t expect to understand. “A man should be able to have a drink in his own house.”

  “I won’t wait for you.”

  Teodor coaxes the jug from her hand. He sets it back in the niche and straightens the picture.

  THE CHILDREN GATHER around Teodor at the kitchen table. He lights a cigarette from the oil lamp. The smoke curls around them. He speaks to his hands, the nicotine-stained fingers, the greyed linen bandage that dresses his wound. He forbids them to have any contact with the people in the house on the other side of the stone wall.

  Maria kneels before the Blessed Virgin and prays.

  Wheat Wine

  Cook two pounds of well-washed wheat until soft. Drain. In earthen crock, pour five gallons of boiling water over wheat, then add ten pounds of white sugar and one yeast cake broken.

  Drop this in when mixture is lukewarm.

  Cover with cloth. Let sit behind stove or in warm place for 3–4 weeks.

  Strain through pillowcase into creamery can.

  Pillowcase with solids can be placed in can and tied off, so long as it doesn’t touch the bottom.

  Fit creamery can with wooden block for lid. Drill 1½” hole in bottom of block and ½” hole in side of block.

  Insert copper pipe through hole on side. Make sure fit is tight. Coil pipe through tub of ice, snow, or cold water. Heat can on stove for 1–2 hours. Use half-gallon jugs or jars. First jars nice and strong.

  Keep pouring until just water. Test by throwing some on the fire. If it flashes, keep pouring.

  Makes 1 gallon. Adjust recipe for quantity needed.

  Winter

  The temperature drops to twenty below in the days and forty below at night. Night steals away the day by suppertime. A hoary frost coats the exterior of the log cabin. Inside the house, even with the fire burning, the family wears long underwear, sweaters, socks, and boots.

  The four-mile walk to school has been deemed too dangerous. The children aren’t allowed out for more than ten minutes before Maria herds them back inside to check their raw cheeks for frostbite. The crusted snow groans beneath their feet. The dry, cold air sucks their breath from their lungs. Tears freeze on eyelashes. Scarves and mitts grow stiff from condensation and sweat.

  Each day Myron chops through the lake’s two-foot-thick ice to fetch water, only to find the hole frozen again the next morning. There have been stories in the newspaper about people losing their toes and fingers. Cows and horses have been found frozen solid, still standing in their paddocks. Bodies are piling up in the shed behind the church, waiting for the ground to thaw so they can be buried.

  In some places the snow has drifted four feet. The mice and rabbits are scarce, already starved or frozen, unable to reach the prairie grass. Coyotes have been spotted in the town str
eets. It is the worst winter on record and it’s only November.

  Teodor planes a long strip of bark down a ten-foot log. For the last two weeks, he has been building a barn with two stalls, a small room for the tack and one for the grain. He has to get the horse out of Anna’s barn before Stefan claims it as his own or worse. Teodor knows he’s capable of hurting the animal to get back at him.

  The walls are up. The rafters are in. He is hewing the boards for the roof now. He brushes away the ice clinging to his scarf, obscuring his vision. It is wrapped twice around his head, leaving only a gash for his eyes. He wears two pairs of mittens. The palms are bound in burlap. Once, he removed the mitts to better control the plane and his hands stuck to the metal handle. He had to breathe on the steel to thaw it with his breath, but it still ripped away a layer of skin. He knows now how long he can push after losing feeling in his fingers and toes before he is forced to hobble into the house and let the fire warm his blood.

  Maria unwraps his scarf, pulls off the mittens, removes his coat, and hangs them over the stove to gather heat. She unlaces his boots and slips them off his feet. His feet are so numb, he can’t feel the floor through his socks. They are like stumps, the toes fused together. Maria sets hot rocks in his boots and wraps him in a blanket. She rubs his feet as he sips hot water. The blood starts to melt and the nerves scream on fire. He tries to rock away the pain. His face contorts in agony; he stuffs the blanket in his mouth and bites down to suppress the moans. The children retreat into their rooms. They sit, wiggling their fingers and toes, unable to imagine not having ten of each.

  After twenty minutes, Teodor gets dressed again and returns to his work. In another week, he should be finished.

  IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS and the families haven’t spoken. Each night Maria prays for them all. God bless Anna, God bless Lesya, God bless Petro, God bless the unborn child. She has to reach deep in her heart for God bless Stefan. No one utters their names out loud. In the first few days, Ivan cried himself to sleep, demanding to be told why he couldn’t play with Petro. After the third night of Maria’s whispers and empty consolations, Teodor barged into the room and threatened him with a strapping. After that, Ivan covered his head with his pillow and learned to cry without sobbing.