The Russlander

by Sandra Birdsell

  The hatchet felt different than one used for splintering wood into kindling. It was heavier, and seemed to hum with meaning. The hen’s neck was no thicker than a stalk of rhubarb, she could do it quickly, without thinking, both hands, one swift chop. No, she was not you people. Justina, nose in the air, Aganetha, reminding the world that she had once been to an opera house and heard Chaliapin sing. She was not Lydia home from a holiday summer at the Azov Sea. Even her young brother Gerhard knew that the pears in the orchard didn’t belong to them, nor did the house they lived in, the furnishings in the parlour; the soup ladle in the pantry drawer, with its scorched ivory handle, was one of Aganetha Sudermann’s cast-offs. But she was not like Vera, either, and taking up the dare would somehow put her on the same side.

  “Nyet,” she said.

  Vera laughed, grabbed the hatchet from her hand, and with one swift movement severed the hen’s neck. Katya saw the crimson spurt, felt the heat of blood against her arm. The chicken’s head lay on the block, its opaque eye blinking, body convulsing in Vera’s grip.

  “You shit-hole of a pig, that’s how meat gets into the soup,” Vera said. And then she glanced around as though suddenly frightened. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  The sound of hammering rose above the music, Katya’s father in the carpentry shop repairing benches for the gathering at Privol’noye. She felt giddy with relief that she hadn’t given in to the dare, and disappointed him.

  The coolness of the shaded north wall of the potting shed, the familiar odours emanating from the manure and soil banked up its sides in bins, had always been comforting. This was where Katya used to come to play as a child, had spooned soil into pots, discovered the pale mushroom knuckles pushing through the earth. She had finished scrubbing the canopy, then she rinsed her blood-spattered apron, put on a clean one and returned several flowerpots to the potting shed.

  There were three jars sitting on the windowsill in the shed holding leeches, Hirudo medicinalis, blood-suckers that left purple marks on a person’s skin when they were pulled off. The leeches were lying curled in a mucousy sediment at the bottoms of their jars.

  When Katya had pointed out the faulty barometer of their classroom clock to Franz Pauls, he’d said they should make one of their own, so she and Gerhard had gone with him to collect the leeches from Ox Lake. What they made was called a “Tempest Prognosticator,” which Franz Pauls had learned about in a magazine showing pictures of exhibitions at a world’s fair in Paris. He’d cut out drawings of the invention, which resembled a large cruet, and they’d copied the illustrations, which depicted the different behaviours of the Hirudo medicinalis, noting what kind of weather each behaviour indicated. When a storm was brewing, the leeches darted about the bottles and caused a bell in the handle of the cruet to ring. Today, their crescent-shaped stillness promised more of the same good weather, heat, and calmness for the upcoming gathering at Privol’noye.

  All the previous autumn, winter, and spring, the live barometers had consistently forecast the coming of blizzards, wind, and lightning storms, calm and clear skies. When school ended, their Tempest Prognosticator had been moved to the potting shed.

  The mouldering and dark interior of the building gave way to the greenhouse, a long narrow room filled with light; in summer it was cobwebbed and piled high with overturned flats; watering cans and tools hung from rows of hooks beneath the windows. A glass room ready for the season when plants would be brought in before frost, a season when she loved to go in and feel the heat of the sun and breathe in the moist air. During all the years that would come to pass, she would always associate greenhouses more with darkness than with light.

  It’s good you didn’t take on Vera’s dare, her mother had said. Leaving a chore unfinished is enough to do wrong in a day. One bad choice is like a single thread, which is easy enough to break, wound around your body. But one leads to another, and then a person becomes bound and can’t break loose no matter how hard they try. And soon, if a person tells you to lie, or steal, you will do it.

  Of course she wouldn’t. She would not steal. Unlike Vera, if she happened upon a jar of candied cherries, she wouldn’t think to take one. She hadn’t mentioned the cherry, although she was certain this was how Vera had come by it. She knew she wouldn’t steal, and yet she had taken Lydia’s cup and thrown it in the butter well. She felt the familiar wash of shame whenever the cup came to mind. Na, Katya, what’s to be done with you? First chore on the list, and you leave it half done. And Vera? Poor Vera. When Dmitri found out his pay would be reduced by the cost of cutting down a tree, and now for the extra chicken Vera butchered as well, poor Vera would feel the brunt of his anger.

  When she came out of the shed, she heard the Wiebe sisters chattering in the summer kitchen, her mother calling after Sara. As she crossed the compound, she was met by Kolya, who had come up from the cellar stairwell balancing a table on his back. He carried the table through the garden and into the orchard, where another table had already been put down under the trees. She went to the summer kitchen – Sara, Sophie, and the Wiebe sisters sounding like a bush of sparrows before a rainfall – glad that she’d put on an apron trimmed with embroidery. That she had taken the time to fix her hair, as usually faspa eaten in the orchard meant there would be something special, sliced melons, freshly baked schnetje to dip in jam and honey, and not the everyday faspa of buns and cheese. Sara had come offering to help Mary and Martha make plautz, but she was eating more than helping, Martha said, greeting Katya with a soft smile. The smell of the sugared fruit and pastry was exciting the flies, which were thick and knocking against the window screens.

  “Mama is asking, where is Greta?” Gerhard called as he came across the yard leading the goats Sheba and Solomon, who were hitched to a cart.

  “If you want to know where the goose is, go looking for the gander,” Sophie said, and Katya saw the Wiebe sisters exchange glances.

  “Nanu,” Mary said, to change the direction of the conversation. “Now you have Katya you can manage without us.”

  Katya thought of Greta, who had gone for a walk to the forest early that morning, running back through the meadow, her straw hat in hand like a bird flying alongside her. She saw Greta come from the back door of the Big House now, carrying two pails, which she took through the garden and into the orchard, where Kolya had set up the tables. Helena had found another chore for Greta, and one that wasn’t on the list.

  “What goose, what gander? What kind of story were you saying?” Sara asked and wrinkled her nose.

  “You want a real story? Then I’ll tell you one,” Sophie said. “Guess what? The witch has left the forest.”

  Katya saw how Sara’s eyes had grown, and so she held her tongue.

  “Someone recently saw her in Lubitskoye,” Sophie said.

  “What does she look like?” Sara asked.

  Sophie set a pinch of flour on Sara’s palm, and blew it away. “Like that,” she said.

  “How did they know they were seeing a witch?” Sara asked.

  “When a person sees a witch, they know they’ve seen one, and won’t easily forget it,” Sophie said. She put on her storytelling voice, became the old Sophie, the swan girl, yellow hair streaming out behind her as she flew across a dark sky, strings of rain falling from her apron.

  Gerhard tethered the goats and unloaded the straw he’d brought for the oven. Then he sat on his haunches near the door to listen.

  “A widow in Lubitskoye saw the witch looking through her window,” Sophie said. “That night, the woman had a most terrible dream. She dreamed of a giant grasshopper coming near to her house. The grasshopper made a noise like thunder, and lightning spurted from its head. When her seven sons came running to see the insect, its lightning struck each of them dead. She woke up from her dream when it was still dark outside, but she went into the yard and built a kneading trough. She wanted to make the largest paska that had ever been made in the village of Lubitskoye,” Sophie said.

  “
Why would she do that? It’s not Easter,” Gerhard said.

  “Because she heard the voice of God telling her to do so,” Sophie said. “If the woman made the largest and most perfect paska, then her dream wouldn’t come true. When she finished building the kneading trough, she mixed the bread. She worked the dough from the time the cock crowed until the sun reached the centre of the sky. She grew very tired, and so she went to the tavern where her seven sons spent most of their waking and sleeping hours, and she called them out, and said they should come home. She made them wash their feet and take turns tromping on the dough.”

  “With their feet,” Sara said in disapproval.

  Gerhard laughed with relief, convinced now that Sophie’s story was not real.

  You have to take what a Russian says, divide it by ten and subtract it by two thirds of its sum, sprinkle it with salt, and somewhere near to the middle, you may or may not find the truth, their father liked to joke.

  Katya judged by Sophie’s eyes. When their pupils became small, she knew Sophie was holding something back or not telling the truth. But as Sophie told the story of the woman and her paska, her eyes were wide and clear.

  “At last the time came for the woman to set the bread to rise. While it rose, she lit candles and prayed. ‘Oh Lord most high. Here I am, an entirely miserable creature not worthy of Your kingdom. I beg You, O Almighty One, look upon my paska with favour. Most Holy of the Highest! Redeemer of the Lowest!’ ”

  The woman prayed with much groaning and rolling of eyes, according to Sophie’s enactment.

  “ ‘Grant to this humble and undeserving servant, one who is the lowest among the lowly, that in Your infinite wisdom and mercy You may see fit to spare my seven worthless sons,’ the woman prayed.”

  The secret to a perfect paska were the words Bogu na pomoshch, Sophie stopped to explain, and made Sara repeat after her, Bogu na pomoshch.

  “The woman chanted ‘God help me,’ and crossed herself many times over until the paska had at last risen high enough and was ready for the oven. The fire roared in the chimney and her face shone from the heat of it. She cut willow branches and dipped them in water and sprinkled the oven until the temperature fell just so. As the paska bread baked, she chanted and sang so loudly that the villagers grew curious and gathered around her gate. The woman believed that if her paska baked high and perfectly round, God had hearkened to her prayers, and would spare her seven sons.”

  Sophie leaned towards them as she told the story, gestured with her hands, crept low to the ground to the left, and to the right.

  “Finally, the bread was ready to come out of the oven. But as the widow opened the door, she was amazed to find that the paska had risen so tall, it couldn’t come out.

  “What would she do with a paska bread too big to come out of the oven? the villagers wondered, and crowded into the yard to watch. When the oven cooled, the woman began knocking away its clay covering. Brick by brick, she dismantled her pech’ until, at last, there stood the bread, bigger around than a wagon wheel, and just as tall. People sighed in amazement as they made room for the woman’s sons to carry the paska through the garden, and up and over its gate to the street, where they set it on a wagon. The woman brought her best shawls and tied them together and put them around the paska. Then she sent one of her sons for the priest to come and bless it.”

  “And so now she doesn’t have to worry about her dream coming true,” Sara said.

  “I wish that were so,” Sophie said. “But there is some doubt, because of the eggshells.” She didn’t wait for the questions tumbling behind Sara’s face to surface, but continued telling the story.

  “As the widow sat on a chair beside the wagon, waiting for the priest to come, the villagers began to wonder aloud. How much flour had she used, lemons, sugar and butter? The woman smiled at each of their questions, and replied that the answer was a secret between her and the Most Holy One.

  “By and by, someone began to guess at how many eggs she’d used. Twelve dozen, they supposed, and when everyone agreed yes, it must have been twelve dozen, the woman set aside her willow switch. She got up from her chair, and went into the house. Soon after, she returned wearing a necklace of eggshells. She looped the garland of shells around an olive hedge growing near her door, and returned to her throne beside the wagon and paska bread.

  “ ‘One hundred and sixty-five eggs,’ ” a woman declared when she had finished counting the shells on the bush and divided the sum by two. There came a great sigh from all the women. Never before had one hundred and sixty-five eggs gone into making paska.”

  “Not here, either,” Sara announced, and Sophie rewarded her with a look of gratification.

  “Where did she get so many eggs?” Gerhard interrupted.

  “From here and there. She must have borrowed them,” Sophie explained.

  “But you said it was dark when she made the dough. Everyone would still be sleeping,” he persisted.

  “She likely had hens. And that was likely why she stayed up late in the night and saw the witch looking in the window. She was washing eggs. She was going to take them to the bazaar at sunrise,” Sophie explained.

  “You didn’t say at first that this was a bazaar day,” Gerhard said.

  “Well, I’m saying so now. Should I finish the story, or not?”

  Sophie asked.

  Gerhard blushed and nodded.

  “All right. Here’s the end of the story.” Sophie took a deep breath. “And God said to Zinfonia – which was her name, I forgot to say – Zinfonia Golubonski. God said, ‘Oh, thou lowest among the lowly. This was supposed to stay between you and me.’ And Zinfonia said, ‘As I stand here and breathe, it is between You and me.’ God said, ‘That’s not the truth. Look at what you’ve done with the eggshells. Can you say you haven’t made the paska the entire world’s business? Because of the eggshells, I must now think over our arrangement.’”

  “Because of the eggshells?” Sara asked, puzzled by the ending of Sophie’s story.

  “I know. Because she made a show of them, yes? She was boasting over how many eggs she used,” Gerhard said.

  “Yes, and God doesn’t like boasting,” Sara said, pleased that she at last understood.

  At that moment Mary and Martha came from the back door of the Big House, followed by Helena, carrying baskets which, Katya knew, held faspa. And then Aganetha Sudermann came from the front of the Big House across the grass, her billowing taffeta skirts a dove-coloured fabric which became pale blue and then slate grey as she moved through sunlight and shadow. Justina came behind her mother on her husband’s arm, her husband a tall, quiet man wearing a white linen suit, followed by Lydia.

  “Zinfonia Golubonski was showing off with the eggshells,” Gerhard said, reluctant to let the story come to an end.

  “Yes, she was showing off in the same way some people like to show off with their big fat stomachs,” Sophie said.

  Abram came last of all, round and dark, rolling from side to side as he poked the ground with his walking stick. Then they all stood still and watched as a carriage turned in at the gate posts.

  Sara whooped and took off on a run, but Katya hesitated. As the carriage emerged from the front of the Big House and came to a stop at the parade barn, she realized that Dietrich had brought Michael Orlov for faspa. The two young men doffed their caps and bowed dramatically, and the ensuing laughter somehow made the distance between them and Katya seem greater than it was. A small man dressed all in black got down from the carriage. She knew he was Konrad, the man they had once seen tending the fire when they’d looked through a window at the Orlov house. He scurried to unload Michael’s camera equipment, a tripod and a scrim which Michael then directed him to set up near to the garden wall. The dwarfish man had been part-time tutor to the workers’ children until Abram put a stop to it. He was also the Orlov’s confectioner, whose only tasks in their household – other than making pastries, sweets, and cakes for special occasions – were burning incense on
a shovel in the fireplace, and trimming and cleaning the lamps.

  Katya joined Sara, who stood apart from the group, balancing on one foot as though, with this trick, she hoped to gain their attention. Konrad finished setting up the scrim and returned to the carriage, taking from it two chairs, which he set in front of the scrim. Then he went to the carriage to fetch a cake, presenting it to Abram with a little bow and a flourish.

  “Abba, Mama. Come and see what this man has brought for faspa,” Abram called loudly. Everyone went to admire Konrad’s cake, Mary finally taking it from him and into the orchard, where she set it on the table.

  “Oh ho! Look at this. Lots of money, cost lots of money,” Abram said as he shook his walking stick at the camera and scrim.

  Michael Orlov began to arrange the Sudermanns for the photograph; Abram and Aganetha were to sit on the chairs, their children to gather around them. When the grouping was as he wanted it, Michael Orlov crouched behind the camera. He was about to take their picture when Dietrich suddenly broke away and looked around the yard. Michael groaned and raised his hands in mock impatience.

  “What’s the delay?” Abram called, twisting awkwardly in his chair to glare at his son.

  “Where’s Greta?” Dietrich asked Sara, who pointed to the orchard where Greta stood in the shadows, watching.

  “Come and be in the picture,” Dietrich called.

  “Yes, yes, Greta, come, hurry. Come be in the picture,” Lydia said. “What are you doing, hiding there? Don’t be so suddenly shy.”

  “All, or none at all,” Dietrich proclaimed, which Sara took to mean her and Katya as well, and she began tugging at Katya’s hand. They should wait for Greta, Katya said. But for some reason Greta wouldn’t come, and so Dietrich went to get her. Moments later they emerged through the garden gate, his arm wound about Greta’s waist, and Justina glanced at her mother, at the sky, at her feet.

  They were all looking at Greta and Dietrich, Katya and Sara obviously forgotten, and so Katya held Sara back, saying, “They just want grown-ups.”