Maria tried to reason with Teodor that he was punishing his sister and her children for her husband’s betrayal. He rolled over in bed and slept with his back to her. She pleaded with him that he couldn’t let them starve. Think of Lesya, think of the boy.
He screamed back at her: “He didn’t think of my children! Who’ll feed them if I’m not here?” He stormed out and didn’t return until after dark.
Maria didn’t worry, she knew he was in the barn. Every hour she could see the end of his cigarette glowing hot just outside the barn door. In bed, she put her arms around him, her round belly pressed against the small of his back, her legs spooned against his. She breathed into his neck: “Do it because you are a good man.” He didn’t answer.
Before morning broke, Maria slid quietly out of bed and replaced her sleeping form with a pillow. She kept her feet bare, despite the chilled ground. She didn’t stoke the fire for fear of waking the household. Quietly, she navigated the room, her hands groping the darkness, her eyes adjusting to the faint moon shadows. At one point she closed her eyes and searched the shelves with her fingers. She was amazed to discover that she could sense the objects at the end of her fingertips before they touched. When Teodor woke, Maria had finished packing the basket full of food supplies.
“You take it or I will,” she said calmly. Teodor cursed, and Maria slipped her feet into his oversized boots. She clunked over to the coat hook and pulled his coat over her nightdress and five-months-pregnant belly. She wrapped his scarf around her neck and pulled on his mittens.
“I’ll take it.” Teodor got out of bed.
Now every morning he walks down the hill to the forbidden place on the other side of the wall. He approaches the back of the barn. Some days the horse is waiting for him; other days it is mercifully inside. He doesn’t go around front, he enters through the tackroom. He checks that the cow is being milked and fed; that the teats are clean and healthy; and that the stall has been mucked out. He brushes down the horse. If it is an especially cold day, he feeds it extra oats. Occasionally, he drapes the saddle blanket over its bowed back. He rubs its head and promises that soon he’ll take it to its new home.
He peeks out the barn to see if smoke is rising from the stack and that wood is chopped. He is surprised how the pile has grown. He can see the footprints are small. The axe is stuck in the chopping block. The first few days, it was mostly small branches, then a few small logs, but with each day the stack has grown and now the logs are fat and thick, split perfectly down the centre. He wishes he could see his nephew swing the axe.
He sets the basket a few feet from the cow’s stall and picks up the two eggs or the jug of milk offered in return.
Only once did he encounter Lesya, when he arrived an hour earlier to get a jump on the day. Her back was to him as she set the two eggs on a cushion of hay inside the empty basket. The horse’s whinny made her look around. Teodor stood awkwardly with the other basket in hand, self-conscious of the pink embroidered linen cloth covering it. Lesya scrambled to her feet and bolted for the door.
“Lesya …”
She stopped at the door but kept her hand on the latch.
“Is there anything else you need?”
Lesya shook her head and hid behind her long hair.
“Is your mama okay?”
Lesya hesitated and nodded.
“If you need anything, if anything happens, you come get me. Do you understand?”
Lesya nodded again. Teodor set the basket on the ground and pocketed the eggs. “I won’t come by before seven from now on.”
That was the last morning he saw her there.
IVAN TRUDGES after Myron, having successfully badgered Maria to let him help check the snares. She acquiesced, hoping he would expend some pent-up energy and stop tormenting his sisters.
His trouser legs rub together, padded by the extra pair of long johns. He walks stiffly; his arms hang away from his sides, propped out by two sweaters. He feels thick and heavy, swaddled by his mother’s worry. The scarf tourniquets his forehead and winds over his nose and mouth, chokes around his throat, obstructing his peripheral view. Twice he fell in the deep snow, floundering on his back until Myron grabbed him by the scruff and hoisted him up.
“Myron …” His voice sounds muffled and far away. He shouts louder: “Myron.”
“What?” Myron grouches, expecting to find him flailing in the snowdrifts again.
“Can I hold the gun?”
“No.” Myron slings the rifle over his shoulder and pushes forward. The steel light of morning is already greying the clouds. He’s late. He’s usually at the wall before first light, but this morning he had to wait for Ivan to get dressed and now he has to wait for him to catch up. He quickens his pace, forcing his little brother to run.
Checking the snares is his job. It’s the only time he can be alone, away from the family. Away from the confines of the house. Away from the unspoken tension between his mother and father. It’s the only time he can breathe.
He has a routine. He wakes up long before the others stir, even his father. He always puts his right foot out first, then his left. He retrieves the pants and shirt he laid out on the end of his bed. He always starts with his right leg in his trousers. He doesn’t tuck in his shirt until the quilt is straightened. That night when everything went bad, Myron had unthinkingly tucked in his shirt before he had straightened the bed covers. He has been much more careful ever since. Before he leaves the room, he glances over to Ivan and counts him breathing three times, then enters the day. He knows the rituals are childish, but it’s all that he can control.
No matter how stealthily he moves or how early he wakes, Maria always gets up to set out a slice of bread with lard or jam and a cup of hot water coloured with a few grains of coffee. Before climbing back in bed, she tousles his hair as she did when he was a little boy. His morning hug. They don’t exchange words. Enough has been said. He stacks his dirty dishes. Then swallows the last mouthful of lukewarm water just before he steps outside.
In the twilight of dawn, when his ears are still fresh to the day’s first sounds, he can hear clearer than at any other time of day. He turns his head back and forth, cocking his ears to each direction. Sometimes, he closes his eyes to listen better. He hears the branches cracking from the frost, the groan of the snow beneath his feet, the rumbling of the lake ice, the timber in the house shrinking and shifting, sometimes he thinks he can even hear the clouds sliding across the sky. This morning, though, when he opened his eyes, his brother’s face was inches from his own. “Can I come with you?”
Myron scans the snow for fresh tracks, but he and Ivan are the only animals foolish enough to traverse snow this deep. He’s only trapped a dozen rabbits this winter and the last two were skin and bone. Maria never complains about the meagre catch, but he feels the shame of failing his family.
The first rabbit he skinned, he tore the pelt and nicked the stomach. The rancid contents and stool poured onto the floor and contaminated the meat. He had said he knew how to do it. His father skinned the next rabbit. He set up a truss in the corner and strung the rabbit up by its rear legs. He began by sharpening the knife, polishing the blade against the grinding stone in smooth circular movements. He showed Myron how to test its sharpness by running his thumb along the razor-sharp edge.
With a surgeon’s precision, he made the first incision, cutting cuffs around the paws, under the tail, over the backside. Then, grabbing the skin, he pulled it down over the belly, carving through the fat, until the entire skin was turned inside out, draped over the rabbit’s head. Its entire musculature exposed, bloody and raw. He opened the chest and stomach cavity next, dissecting the heart and liver for Maria’s stew pot. Then, with one final pull, he yanked away the pelt hooding the head. The animal no longer resembled a rabbit. It had become meat. Teodor handed the knife to Myron and stepped back. Only once did he take his son’s hand and adjust the angle of the blade. Myron didn’t make any more mistakes.
Whenever Myron skinned a rabbit, Ivan watched intently over his shoulders, mimicking every move. Maria lined Myron’s and Teodor’s boots with the pelts for insulation and stitched together a baby blanket for Anna. Ivan added a rabbit skull to his treasure box.
“Can I take it from the snare?” Ivan hollers, the words punctuated by his breathless gasps.
“There might not be any rabbits.” Myron, impatient, stops to let him catch up. Ivan pushes through the snow, lifting his boots high, clouds of white puffing from his mouth like a steam engine. His body is overheated in the extra clothes, each leg weighs ten extra pounds; he kneels in the snow pausing for air. He blinks his eyes, his eyelashes sticky with ice. Myron notices his brother’s smallness and remembers that he’s still just a kid.
“Why don’t you wait here?” Myron suggests.
Ivan struggles to his feet. “I’m comin’.” He trudges past his big brother, determined to get to the rabbit first. Angry that Myron would think that he would give up. He concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. He sinks to his waist; he heaves the other leg over, and sinks to his knee. He pushes his upper body up, his hands disappear to his wrists; icy snow crams under the cuffs. He hits a crusted drift; the snow holds his weight and he scrambles across. He doesn’t notice the tracks leading up from the lake, loping toward the stone wall, but Myron does.
Myron veers off the path to check their freshness. They are large prints, dog tracks. The gait is long and bounding. Coyote. It came through a few hours ago at the most. Myron scans the horizon. There’s no sign that the animal returned the same way. He drops the gun to the crook of his elbow. “Ivan, wait up.”
But Ivan doesn’t hear him through the scarf and hat muffling his ears. He is running now. He’s only thirty feet from the wall. He scans the whiteness for any sign of a rabbit. He shoves the scarf away from his eyes. The cold numbs his forehead and he pulls it back down too far, covering one eye. Myron chases after him. The snow grabs at his legs and ankles, slowing him down. “Ivan!”
Ivan hears the crying first. He thinks it is a baby. He turns his head, peering through the slit, trying to locate the source. Stone/wall/grey/snow/white—Help, help, help, it cries.
“I can’t see you.” Ivan runs blindly toward the wall. Help. Help! He looks to the east and to the west. White on white. Suddenly he is afraid that he is all alone. He turns, searching for Myron, terrified he won’t be right behind him. Myron rushes past, gun in hand, nearly knocking him over.
The rabbit twists and lurches; the snare is caught around its hip, tightening with each frantic lunge. It throws itself at the end of the line, flops back spinning, wrapping the wire around its torso. It wails. Myron lunges for the rabbit’s head and presses it into the snow. The flailing animal kicks and writhes. Its back feet claw Myron’s arms, and it breaks free. It runs, until the wire tether slams it to the ground. Myron grabs it by the waist and wrestles it down. He tears off his mitten and fumbles for the club. He hits it once behind the ears.
The rabbit thrashes and leaps away, dragging the wire around Myron’s ankle. It circles around and slams against his leg. Again and again. Myron tries to free his foot from the tangle of wire, but the rabbit’s frenzy cinches the snare tighter. The cold metal strangles his leg, cuts off his circulation. With his other foot, he steps on the rabbit. Its head wrenches backward, its eyes roll back looking up at him. Guilty, they say, guilty. He takes aim and fires.
Ivan wishes he could have closed his eyes. White on white. Red on white. Red on red. The rabbit’s feet twitch, its body convulses, but Ivan knows it is dead. It has stopped crying.
Myron untangles the snare from his leg and kicks away the rabbit. He can still feel its feet thumping against his shin. He still sees its eyes accusing him. He keeps the rifle trained on the animal in case he needs to use another bullet. He hears the soft, whistling exhalation of its lungs. He hears the gurgle of blood. When he finally stops hearing the swish, swish of its paws against the snow, he turns his back to Ivan and staggers to the next snare twenty feet away. With each step he fights to control his breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Grateful that the cold is numbing his insides.
He approaches the snare warily. Empty. But he sees signs of a struggle. The log pole that anchors the snare is yanked sideways. Flecks of blood speckle the snow. It sprays across the stone wall. The snow has been trampled by something larger than a rabbit. Coyote. Its chaotic prints obliterate the path. A coyote got this one. He is relieved there won’t be another rabbit. He digs the wire out of the snow and follows the line.
He yanks the snare free of the ice and snow. A paw dangles from the noose. The wire has cut deep into the flesh, sawed into the bone. Above it, the limb has been chewed through. Torn flesh, encrusted with ice, haloes the crushed bone. Myron gently loosens the wire and gingerly holds the coyote’s foot. The tendons are taut, the hair coarse. The pads are rough and hard, criss-crossed with scars, the nails are long and splintered. Tufts of fur curl between the toes, caked with snow and ice. The end of the savaged limb has already frozen, congealing the blood.
Myron follows the bloody trail to the end of the wall. Three paw tracks groping forward. Drops of red. A front paw missing. He looks across the vast expanse of field toward the bush surrounding the lake. He half expects to see the coyote crumpled in the snow. But it’s not. It’s hiding somewhere, licking its wound, dull to the pain. Slowly dying. He considers leaving the paw there or burying it, but instead he pockets it, disregarding the fleeting unease of possessing something so fierce.
He feels the cold nails pressing against his leg as he walks back to Ivan. His baby brother squats beside the rabbit, stroking its back with a mittened hand. The other hand he has over its face, where there were once eyes. He speaks quietly into its long ears. He looks up at Myron.
“He’s okay now,” Ivan reassures him. “He was scared because he was all alone.”
Myron doesn’t try to understand. “You can carry it back,” he offers.
Ivan declines. “He wants you.”
Myron picks the carcass up by its hind legs and heads home.
“Aren’t you going to set the snares?”
Myron doesn’t look back. “Not today.” He’s had his fill of killing today.
Ivan remembers the reason he came, the reason he got up so early, why he lied to his mother, why he couldn’t sleep last night, why he kept it secret all these days, why he’s disobeying his father. He runs to the stone wall and finds the two white rocks. He pulls down the layers of pants and long johns, pulls off his mitten, and pees. He pees in a widening circle, not wanting to miss the spot. The white snow bleeds yellow and dissolves away.
He pulls up his pants, his exposed skin already tingling from the cold, and looks over his shoulder, but Myron has forgotten him. He unballs two wool socks from his pockets, the socks he won last spring. He leans over the stone wall and stuffs them in a crevice. The socks unfurl like flags, proclaiming their newly darned red heels. Ivan waves to the house at the bottom of the hill and imagines Petro waving back.
PETRO IS YANKED from an uneasy sleep by the crack of a rifle firing. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and blinks at the dim grey light. Beside him, Lesya breathes soft and even. He lies rigid on his back, straining to hear. It sounded far away. His heart beats rapidly, he licks his dry lips. It sounded like the shot he heard that night.
He pushes aside the blanket curtain separating his bed from the kitchen and searches the murky light, uncertain whether to be afraid. Across from him, he sees the lump of his parents buried under the quilts. His father is snoring, loud and gurgling. His mother is on her side, her legs curled toward her belly. He can’t see her face. She is hiding behind her pillow. Her arm covers her mountainous belly. Perhaps he dreamed it again.
He reaches under his pillow and finds the heart stone. It is cool to his touch. He curls up with it warming in his hands. Soon Lesya will wake, stoke the fire, prepare breakfast, and head to the barn. She doesn’t sing him lullabies any more. She
barely talks, unless spoken to directly. Even then she almost coos her answer, and you find yourself leaning in to hear her. The louder Tato shouts, the quieter she gets. She bows her head like she’s willing herself to disappear. You can’t see me. I’m not here.
Since Mama went to bed two weeks ago, Lesya is the mama. She serves Tato his food. Washes his clothes. Warms his water for baths. He likes to watch her brush her hair with Mama’s silver brush. He makes her brush it a hundred times, until it gleams. When she reaches one hundred, she sits perfectly still as he touches her hair. He twirls a tress around his fingers, slowly slips down its length.
His breath is always deep and laboured. After a moment, he pulls back as if she has burned his fingertips. His face is flushed. His eyes shift around the room not wanting to see her. His confusion quickly fires into anger. He snaps at her to go to bed, as though she’s done something wrong, and he stomps off into the bitter night. Petro tries to console his sister, but she yells at him: “Stop looking at me!” Then lifts her crooked foot into bed and cloaks herself with blankets.
Once Petro followed his father, with the excuse of needing to use the outhouse. He found him at the back of the house, scouring his bare arms and chest with snow like he was washing off lice. He knew not to ask what he was doing.
Lesya comes to bed fully dressed now in her stockings, undershirt, skirt, and blouse. She sleeps like a corpse, with her arms over her chest and her ankles crossed. She makes Petro sleep on the edge of the bed, exposed to the room. She prefers to be sandwiched up against the freezing wall.
Petro presses the heart stone against his chest. It is already warm. He glides it across his skin. Undulating along his ribs, up his shoulder bone, down his forearm over the bump of muscle hardened from the weeks of chopping wood, down the skinny wrist to his palm, callused and cracked. He wraps his hand around the stone. Mama’s dreaming again. Her foot jerks, she whimpers.
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