by Rena Rossner
Something is wrong—
the fruit tastes bitter
where it should be sweet
and the arms that hold me
are too thin; they smell
like something sour.
I try to open my eyes but
something is blinding them.
I gag; the fruit tastes bad.
He carries me down
a staircase.
Down down down,
we go, farther and farther
in a spiral
around and around.
He stops,
I feel my head loll.
My limbs are limp—
I have no control
over my body.
What is happening to me?
Mami! Tati! Liba!
Help! Help! Help!
He kicks open a door
and lays me softly on a bed.
I open my eyes and I see
Zusha Glazer,
on a bed:
what is he doing here?
My head lolls to the side,
and I see Hinda Glazer too.
They are both sleeping,
but they look pale.
Hands force
my mouth open,
and the peach
is there again.
I try to suck
at the flesh,
but my lips
are sore
and bruised,
the meat
of the peach
is nearly gone.
My teeth gnash at the pit,
my lips pucker
in search
of more juice,
anything
to keep me feeling
something
something
something.
I force my eyes open again.
Why are the Glazers here?
But I only see Miron
standing above me,
not Fedir.
He ties down my feet.
He grabs my wrists.
I try to fight him
but I have no strength.
The peach rolls
to the ground
and I feel
pain pain pain.
I try to cry out,
but I have no voice.
He punctures a vein
at one wrist
and then the other.
I turn my head and see
the first drop of my blood
drip down a vine-like tube.
This is all
you Jews
are good for,
he says. Your blood
is sweeter than wine.
But your souls
are filthy.
I won’t allow
Fedir to crown
you Queen.
I gasp and writhe
as he clamps down
on my ankles, first one
and then the other,
deep gouges of pain
and pressure,
something sucking
at my veins.
My eyes are wide
and searching.
I feel panic;
my lips try
to form words
but they are swollen
and numb.
I can’t form
coherent thoughts.
I take deep breaths,
struggling to keep
breathing.
When Jennike fell
on the ice,
Bohdan didn’t know
what to do with her.
He feared he’d be blamed.
That’s what Jews are for,
I told him.
But Mikhail,
that pest, was snooping
around here;
he kept trying to stick
his nose in our business.
Blood is blood,
I always say.
But Jewish blood
is cheaper.
I can’t
feel my feet,
or my legs.
It is a blessing
because it doesn’t hurt
but I am scared
and cold
and I feel as if
I am all alone.
I was wrong.
So wrong.
And now I will die
and Liba too.
I couldn’t save her.
It feels like a drug
is pumping
through my veins,
but my veins
are pumping
into other veins.
My blood
feeding tubes
that look like vines.
I asked for this.
I came here willingly.
I should have known
that it would end
this way.
Liba was right.
I’d hoped
that it was all
a misunderstanding,
that Bohdan
had taken Jennike
and killed Mikhail.
But I was wrong.
So wrong.
Miron brings his hands
to my neck;
there is a vise-like thing
with six thorns
crafted out of wood.
It is a crown,
like the one he placed
upon my head
that first day
in the meadow.
It forms
six red punctures
at my throat.
The pain is exquisite,
and I think,
This is how it ends,
this is how I die,
everything is over.
They will blame
the Jews,
everyone in the shtetl
is going to die.
I will never
see my parents again.
He puts his lips to mine.
He tastes like ash,
like rotten garbage.
I try to purse my lips
to spit at him.
But I can’t do anything.
My brother thought
he could outwit us all,
he says. My brother thought
that you were special.
Now he will see
that all Jews bleed
the same.
The roots are thirsty, Laya—
your blood will water them
and you will breed fruit
red and ripe
that we will feed
to all the gullible people
in all these backwater towns.
And one by one
these shtetlach
will destroy themselves
with hatred.
But we will be
long gone.
Soon, the Kodari
will cover everything again
and all you humans
will be gone,
swallowed up
by the earth,
by your own hatred
and stupidity.
I open my mouth
and let out a long,
sharp cry
just before the world
goes black.
It sounds distant,
but clear
like the crooning
of a bird,
but really,
it is the sound
of my heart
breaking.
he betrayed me
he betrayed me
he betrayed me
77
Liba
I pace the cottage again. I can’t tell Dovid about the swan-man, and I don’t know how long I can wait for Dmitry to come back. Time is running out. “Let’s go back to the Hovlin lodge,” I say. “Come back there with me. Help me take her away from them. She’s being held against her will.”
“Liba.” Dovid shakes his head with exasperation. “There is no lodge.”
“How do you know
that for sure?”
“I saw nothing.”
“That’s because it’s an enchantment.”
He shakes his head again.
“Dovid, I’m not crazy!” I yell. “She was locked in. And she was not herself. I can’t wait anymore. Tomorrow will be too late!”
“Liba, stop. Please. You aren’t well. Think about it. You went there already and she chased you away. Listen to reason. Maybe this is the choice she made.” He grabs my shoulders and I struggle against him. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
“You don’t understand,” I say to him as I pull away. “How can you possibly understand when you can’t even see what I’m talking about?”
“Laya, do you hear yourself? Okay, listen to this. What if your roles were reversed? What if you’d agreed to be my wife?” He blushes and wets his lips with his tongue. “And you’d come to live with me in a cabin I built just for you.” He pauses, as if the words he says hold physical weight. “But I locked you in because there were creatures in the forest that I wanted to protect you from.”
“You would lock me in from the outside?” My heart hurts.
“But what if Laya came to you, to our house—” He swallows. “—and demanded that you leave me? That I’d enchanted you?” He puts his arm out to touch me, but I turn away from him.
“How do you know that she’s not happy?” he says. “What if she claimed that you’d lost your mind to marry me? What if she didn’t approve? And your parents didn’t approve? What would you do then? Would you still choose me?”
I stare at him, frozen in place, because his words ring too true. Would I? I don’t know the answer.
He shakes his arms at the sky in frustration. “Do you even know what you really want? Because if you don’t, then don’t presume to think you know what she wants. Don’t make a decision for someone else when you’re not even brave enough to make one for yourself!” he shouts. There are tears shining in his eyes as he gets up, walks out of the house, and slams the door behind him.
I choose you, Dovid, I want to say. I’ve already chosen a hundred times. If I could, I would choose you … But I can’t. What man could ever love a beast?
It’s clear to me I need to end this now. The swans haven’t come back. They won’t help me. Dovid won’t help me. Laya’s life hangs in the balance. I know what I must do.
I follow him outside. “You don’t understand,” I say. “I’m going to go get my sister, even if I have to kidnap her and fight my way out of there. Are you with me or against me?”
“Liba! Please—see reason!” he cries.
“Then you’re against me,” I say. “Goodbye, Dovid.” And I walk away, tears wetting my cheeks as I set out for the Hovlin glen again.
I’ll threaten Fedir and his brothers. I’ll force them to confess. And if all else fails, I’ll call the beast within me. I’ll become the very thing I fear, once and for all. Laya is worth it. She’s worth everything.
I get as far as the old oak tree and start to make my way into the pine forest when my foot snags on what feels like a root and I tumble and fall. Someone grabs my hands roughly and something else tugs at my feet. And suddenly my hands are bound. I gasp and take a breath to scream just as a rough rag is shoved into my mouth and a dark cloth goes over my head and face. The world goes black.
78
Laya
I dream that I’m
with my mother again
in the glen behind our house.
She looks at the sky
and waits, watching silently.
What are you doing, Mami?
Wait here, she says.
I wait wait wait,
and squint at the setting sun.
I hear the flapping of wings
before I see them.
A dozen birds descend,
surrounding us.
As their webbed feet
touch the ground
they grow and shift,
turning from white
downy feathers
into pale fuzzy skin.
I cannot look away.
Mami cups her hands to my ear
and whispers:
Terpinnya, dochka!
she says.
Listen to them.
The swans raise their arms
up to the sky and feathers
fall like rain.
Nmaye! Mami cries.
Twelve sets of swan eyes
look upon her.
Tears fall from her eyes.
My heart beats so fast fast fast
I think it will grow wings
and fly away.
The time has come
for her to know,
Mami says.
Laya, look upon them, Mami says.
This is the brother
of Aleksei Danilovich,
who was your father.
His name is Dmitry.
What is Mother doing?
Who are these people?
I close my eyes.
A cold hand
touches me. I gasp
and lurch back,
but there’s
another hand,
and another,
the hands
pull me forward.
They turn me around.
I bring my hands up
to cover my face, but someone
takes them, holds them;
there are cold fingers
in mine.
Ne biytesya,
the voice croons.
Open your eyes.
I shake my head.
Tears fall.
Shhh … do not cry.
Open your eyes;
look straight into mine.
I open my eyes a slit,
enough to see that it is
the youngest of the swans
who holds my hands.
I shiver as his feathers
brush my skin.
Just like I shivered
the first time
I touched him.
This is Sasha,
my cousin’s son, Dmitry says.
He sees things that others
cannot see.
He is your mate.
You are family, sim’ya,
he says to me,
and this swan
will be your King—
vash lebid—
when the first sign of wings
begin to bud on your back.
Mami is crying,
but they are tears
of joy.
Aleksei would choose you still,
dorohyy, Dmitry says to Mami
and dries her tears
with his thumbs.
Come with us.
Mami shakes her head.
It’s too late, she says.
He puts his fingers
beneath her chin
and tilts her face up.
He kisses her cheek.
Mami shakes her head again
and says, It cannot be.
Take care of her? she says,
and looks at me.
Dmitry puts his hand out
and touches my forehead.
Sasha takes my hand in his
and squeezes it.
I feel my eyes close.
One day you will be Queen,
daughter of my brother;
one day you will rule in my place,
and people will worship you
as they worship all of us,
the swans of the cross,
the children of Saint Anna.
My head is spinning.
You will rule in the way
that your father
would have wanted
you to rule.
I feel myself falling.
But you will not make
the same foolish choices.
79
Liba
I groan as I come to, head throbbing. I try to open my eyes, expecting da
rkness. Instead I find myself bound to a tree, with nothing on my face. I see that I’m in a clearing; by my feet are two bedrolls, a smoldering fire, and a makeshift campsite.
“The prietzteh awakens.”
I look around. Where did the voice come from? A princess? Me? Was I wrong about the Hovlin men? Are these the men who killed Jennike and Mikhail? Is their fate to be mine?
Two men come out of the woods. Ruven and Alter. Breath leaves my lungs.
“Why did you do this to me? Who are you?” I scream. I feel my temper flare, a rumbling ball of fire in the pit of my stomach.
The men walk over and stand in front of me.
“I demand to know who you really are!” I try to claw at the tree and the ropes that bind me.
Alter elbows Ruven. “The zaftige moid is getting heldish.”
“Shut up, idiot,” Ruven says.
I shout again in what sounds almost like a roar. “I’m going to scream until you let me go.”
“Did you hear that, Ruven? Only fools rely on miracles,” Alter tsks.
“Give me some answers or I’ll scream again and the whole village will come running,” I say.
“She has a point, Altisch,” Ruven says. I hate the look on his face, the smirk. I hate every hair on his head.
“Don’t call me that,” Alter says through his teeth.
“Let’s spare ourselves the agony and get right to it, eh?” Ruven says. “Where is your father?”
“I told you I don’t know!”
“But he left. Where did he go?” Ruven’s eyes are cold steel.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth. “I told you. They went back home. To Kupel, to the Rebbe.”
“But that’s not possible!” Alter says.
“What? Why?” My heart drops into my stomach.
“Because the Rebbe went to his oylam. He passed away. And we didn’t see your parents on the road,” Alter says calmly. “So tell us the truth now.”
“The Rebbe’s dead? Baruch dayan ha’emet. Why didn’t you say so the first time we saw you? Does that mean that my parents never made it to Kupel?”
“Maybe they walked a different way,” Ruven suggests. “Perhaps we crossed paths in the woods.”
“Or maybe something happened to them …” I whisper. I feel my skin go cold.
“We came to get your father,” Alter says, “because your father is the Rebbe now.”
“But Yankl came here a few weeks ago to tell us. Why did you have to come too? And why the secrecy?” Nothing makes sense.
Ruven and Alter exchange a look. “There are politics at work that you don’t understand,” Ruven says.
“And perhaps your father should have been a bit more forthcoming with you,” Alter adds.
