After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  He look into my face.

  “I make it,” I say.

  The old man glance up and down the street. Mutter to himself. Chin pressed into his chest.

  “Mmm. You can come back with me and share a few potatoes around my fire. If you want. Nearer than the shelter. Much nearer.Just me and my wife at home. Just the wife. What do you say to that?”

  I don’t know what I think to that. Old graybeard looking at me from under his hood. Eyes don’t look at me hungry—but it been hard to tell.

  I feel the dog spirit. Running through the snow with his pack. Back up into the hills. The dog sleek, his fur shining, his nose wet. He stop. Look back at me over his shoulder.

  Seem like the dog slipping in and out of the dark corners of this city. Never know when he’s gonna be nipping at my heels. He aint been too keen on that girl Mary. No. He aint been to keen on being here at all.

  Out in the cold dark, you’ve got to follow your guts, Willo. Further off the rest of the pack stop and howl. If you don’t come now, you’re on your own.

  The old graybeard look at me. Waiting.

  “You come with me. Come with me. Have something to eat around a warm fire. Mmm?”

  The old man’s voice sound good.

  Follow your guts, Willo!

  But that good warm fire sound too much like home.

  “I aint gonna sell my coat,” I tell him.

  “No! No! You wouldn’t want to do that in this cold. Come on. Yes, yes, a nice warm bit of stew.”

  Old man looking at me kind of reading inside my head. “Quick though. It won’t do to stand around on the streets for too long. It isn’t far. Mmm, not far at all.”

  He start off down the road, beckon me with his hand: “This way, not far, not far.”

  That old graybeard say it aint far but it been a long walk with his feet shuffling slow along the icy streets.

  “Here we are. Yes yes.”

  A great tower stretching up into the sky. The sharp smell of smoke heavy in the air. Outside a group of kids hang around a pile of burning rubbish. They don’t pay us no mind though.

  The old man lead me past them, up some steps. Into the great dark hole that been the doorway. There’s a smell of cat piss and a stench of things decaying under that mountain of brick and concrete towering above us. Just dark steps rising up inside, our feet echoing up them as we fumble along, hands feeling the way on the wall.

  “Be careful now. Mmm, careful on the stairs now.”

  Far above us in the guts of this old-time building a door slam shut. Footsteps echo on the stairs. Every now and then we come to a landing. The smell come right out of buckets of slop standing outside every door.

  He see me stop. “Never mind that, never mind.”

  I aint too keen on coming in this damp smelling building. That’s for sure.

  A cat come hissing out from some dark corner and shoot down the steps in the darkness. A woman snoring on the stairway and we pick around her. Filthy-smelling woman got grog on her breath. And then the feeble light go out. We been in the dark good and proper now. The old man stop. I can hear him breathing ahead of me.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes yes, just be careful. Got to be careful on the dark stairs. But it isn’t far now. No, not far now.”

  Careful not to trip on one of those slop buckets I follow the sound of him struggling up the steps, stooping over, huffin’ and puffin’. Finally he stop and pull a key from his coat and fiddle in the darkness at a door. He open it up with a click.

  “It’s only me, dear,” he say into the darkness.

  The room smell of breath and onions. A huge window along the far wall. Aint got no boards on it or nothing. The night sky look like a picture so bright in the darkness of the room through that window. Cos when your eyes get used to the dark you see the night aint so black like you think it is.

  Up here you can see the whole city spreading out down below. Snow-topped roofs and smoke smudging the buildings and houses that melt out all around til the skyline and the city disappear in the shadows of the clouds with the moon glowing out behind them. Same old moon gets up over the barn on a clear night.

  The old man fiddling around in the corner. I can hear him trying to get a strike on something. He been muttering to himself. From the back of the room come a voice.

  “Jacob. Is that you back already?”

  “Yes yes, my dear. It’s me.”

  “Did you get the potatoes?”

  “Oh, yes, got the potatoes, won’t be long, dearest. Just getting the stove going. Got a boy too. Mmm, a boy.”

  The old man place the candle in front of a cracked bit of mirror and the flame struggle to life. In the corner of the room is a bed piled up with blankets and pillows and in it an old woman, just her head and hands poking over the blankets. Staring at us. Her eyes glinting in the candlelight.

  “A boy, Jacob?”

  “Yes yes. Very kind boy, helped me but with nowhere to stay on this cold night. Cold thin boy. Mmm, very cold night.”

  “Why have you brought him back? He’s going to rob us for sure.”

  “No, no. Not going to rob us, are you?”

  “No,” I say.

  Above the bed is a shelf of books and an old clock ticking.

  The old man Jacob stir up a little fire in a stove by the window. Fishing lumps of coal out of a bucket.

  Every spare inch of wall got basins and buckets hanging off it and bags and bits of rope and old metal wire and all manner of things. Above the fire been a rail, hanging from ropes in the ceiling, a woolen sweater draped over it, just like at home. Jacob take off his gloves and coat all stiff and damp and let down the rail above the fire. He hang up the coat and put on the sweater.

  “Come a bit closer, boy. I can’t see you over there,” the old woman croak from the bed.

  Jacob shuffle over. Push me toward his woman.

  “Look at his coat. Look at it,” he say, holding the candle up.

  The old woman sit up against the pillows. “What are we going to do with a boy?” Her hands all thin, just skin and bones.

  “Now don’t pester him, my dear. He’s hungry as a dog. Aren’t you? Hungry as a dog.” The old man light a candle by her bed and shuffle back to the fire, clanging at pots.

  The old woman look at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Willo.”

  “The coat, Elizabeth. Look at his coat. He says he made it himself.”

  The smell of the stew cooking up on the stove torturing my hungry guts but I pull my coat over my head and pass it to the old woman reaching out with a gnarled hand and I sit down in the warmth of the fire.

  Those two old people got my coat between them. For some reason they been mighty interested in it. Peering close at the stitchwork and turning it inside and out.

  I been looking about their room. Hard to see much in the tatty light of that tiny candle. There’s a door beside the bed. In the corner a chair. A basin hanging on the wall. A little table bashed together from some boards with a scrap of material hanging over it. Same sort of thing Magda do at home. She got to be making any useful place so you can’t go putting a cup or plate on it without a warning that it’s gonna get dirty and she aint got all day for washing.

  “You say you made this coat yourself?” say the old man.

  “Most of it. Got a bit of help with the pattern.”

  “It looks like a hare lining and—dog on the outer layer?”

  “Aint gonna get cold in that coat,” I say.

  “Mmm, I don’t doubt it. Don’t doubt it.”

  He ladle out some food onto tin plates.

  “Perhaps you can tell us what you’re doing here?” say the old woman. “With a fine coat you say you made yourself.”

  I can’t speak cos my mouth been full with hot potato stew.

  “Mmm, straggler coat for sure, my dear, for sure,” say Jacob.

  I swallow. The fire warm my back and my belly been full wi
th hot food, and I feel that my eyes gonna fall shut even if I don’t want them to.

  Don’t reckon these old people gonna hurt me. I hear the old man fussing to his wife.

  “He’s too tired to talk now, dear.” A cushion been put under my head and a heavy blanket over my body. I hear them talking, Jacob moving about the room quietly, but my eyes stay heavy and closed whether I like it or not. Sleep crawling up my body. And it feel good. The floor against my shoulder. Been the first night I been full and warm since I left the mountain.

  “We’ll ask him tomorrow … .”

  It’s the last thing I hear Jacob say. I breathe down deep and heavy with a picture of Mary in my head. A picture of Mary with her tangled hair, pulling the covers up on that old rat catcher with her crooked finger, lips parted, smiling down at me.

  The city been stranger and crueler than the fairy stories Magda tell where Jack climbs up a bean stalk and witches make houses out of bread. Really. And I reckon I fall asleep right then cos I don’t remember nothing more, just wake up with the blanket over me and the fire rustled up new as the light come flooding in through that great big window the next morning.

  27

  The room look tired and broke and dusty in the light. The old woman still snoring a bit. On the stove’s a good pot of last night’s stew and I get a plateful.

  There’s a sound from the other room. Old man Jacob sitting at a workbench under the window. The cuffs of his sweater fraying over his wrists. The weak morning light fall across his thinning hair and strong gnarled hands. He got himself bent over. A soft white fur in his hands, his square fingers disappearing in it.

  The shelves on the wall been crammed with tools and rolls of leather and sheets of metal all covered in dust and boxes of nails and bits of wire and pipes and old boots and jars of fruit and pickled vegetables. Just like at home. It aint too cold in here cos the stovepipe come through the wall. Jacob got it tied to the ceiling with bits of wire. There’s a door half boarded over and through the door a small balcony deep in snow, a pigeon making a little dance with its feet on the ice.

  Jacob look up.

  “Look!” I point quiet as can be to the bird.

  “Very good. But, no no, we don’t eat him now, boy. In the spring he’ll build a nest out there and we’ll have lots of pigeons. Not just one. No no, patience is a virtue. A virtue.”

  “What you making?” I say. Still got my eye on the pigeon though.

  “A coat. Mmm. Coat for Dorothy Bek-Murzin.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Certainly, certainly.”

  I come over. Outside the pigeon flap into the air. I get the skins off the table and have a look at the seam. It’s a soft white fur, well-cured. It aint too big, two pieces together look like the pattern for a sleeve.

  “I thought you might like to earn your breakfast. Lend me a hand,” he say.

  “I’ll help stitch it up if that’s what you want. I need a needle. And a sharp knife too.”

  “Yes yes. Got one somewhere.” Jacob start poking about in a small wooden box. I got to lean over and find them for him. He’s gonna be looking all morning.

  I got his work in my hands. Turn it over.

  “See this aint the way I’m gonna stitch a sleeve,” I say. “You aint stitched it close enough.”

  “No, no—it’s my eyes. Bad eyes now.”

  I lay out the pieces, feeling the good fur in my hands like I been sitting at home with Dad.

  First I cut the seams fresh. Stitch them up careful. When I done that, I brush out the fur on the other side and pick it through the threads. It look alright. Won’t be able to see where the two skins been put together when I finish it up. It’s good to be working quiet. I hold it up to him.

  “See? Can’t see the join now.”

  “Yes yes, mmm very good indeed.”

  “But this sleeve gonna be stiff as a board if you don’t slash it,” I say.

  “Slash it?”

  I take the knife. “You got to know where to do it.”

  Jacob grab my arm. “You’ll ruin it. I’ll never afford fur like this again.”

  “No I won’t. I done this before. Watch.”

  I make the cuts careful where they got to be. Then I stitch them up neat in my softest stitch, brushing the fur and teasing it through the threads again.

  “See?”

  Jacob hold it up. The fur fall soft and supple. He play it through his old hands.

  “Yes yes. I see now.”

  I can hear stirrings from the other room.

  “How about you stay here with me and Elizabeth awhile, mmm? Just awhile. You finish this coat and you can sleep here and we’ll feed you. Yes food and a warm fire. Mmm? What do you say to that. You just finish the stitching and you can stay.”

  I look out the window at the cold day and the gray smoking city. My guts filled with food. Warm fire burning in the other room. Good piece of fur in my hands.

  I can hear the old woman awake. Jacob get up. “You think about it, Willo.” He shuffle off into the other room. I hear him fussing about, scraping some of the stew onto a plate for his wife.

  “Bring me a spoon, Jacob.”

  “Yes, my dear, a spoon.” Jacob riddle the fire. The pots clang. “Willo, bring that sleeve in here. Look what the boy did with Bek-Murzin’s coat, my dear. Mmm, as soft as if it was still alive.”

  I come to the door, hand her the sleeve. The old lady feel it and hold it up.

  “Oh yes, very good.”

  Jacob turn and look at me.

  “So, what is it to be, mmm? You stay and finish this coat, and I’ll give you a hundred yuan when it’s finished and food and lodging too. That’s all right, Elizabeth, isn’t it, dear?”

  “How long will it take you, boy?” she ask.

  “If you got the skins cured already and the pattern fixed I reckon a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks, my dear. Did you hear that? A few weeks.”

  Jacob bend down. Get down on his knees slowly, kneel on the floor and pull a wooden chest out from under the bed. I help him get it out. Inside the chest wrapped in oiled paper are the cured skins. All soft and white, small skins, some of them with a black leg or streak of brown I reckon got to be cut out if he want this coat all white. I aint never seen this sort before.

  “What are they?” I say.

  “Cat. Fine white cat for the most part, mmm. You’ve nearly finished the embroidery on the collar, haven’t you, my dear? Mmm, yes, Willo. My wife still makes fine embroidery.”

  There’s a little parcel tucked down the side of the chest. Jacob lay it open. It’s a scrap of stuff, soft and fine, like nothing I seen before—the color of the sky on a clear day. And all over it that old woman stitched a sea of snowdrops. I can’t believe her old hands gonna be so able. The snowdrops been done so clever they look like they just stuck their heads out of the snow. Better stitching even than Magda do. Flower heads and blades of grass bending and twisting as they catch in the light. Threads so fine they shine out.

  “This is the lining for the collar. Snowdrops are Bek-Murzin’s favorite. Oh, yes, her favorite. She’ll pay a fortune for this coat if you can make the furs fall softly without a seam in sight. We won’t go hungry this winter. Not hungry this winter, my dears. What do you say, Willo? Eat some stew, stitch up this coat for a week. It won’t hurt you to stay a bit.”

  “What else is he going to do?” say the old woman. “Have you got papers?”

  “No. I just come off the hill then I got a truck ride here. I aint got no papers.”

  “You just came down from the hills. How did that happen?”

  “They took my dad away.”

  “Who?”

  “Government trucks. Up on the mountain.”

  “Well, I don’t know how you got into the city with no papers. It’s been such a cold winter, hasn’t it, Jacob? You won’t get out in a hurry, boy.”

  “That’s what I been worrying about,” I tell her.

  “Worrying won’t
help you much,” she say. “Everyone’s got something to worry about. You’re not the only one.”

  She’s got a point. There aint nowhere else for me to go. Don’t know no one in this city except Mary. And I don’t know where Mary is.

  The old man pull out the skins from his trunk. Carry them into the workroom and lay them out on the table, muttering to himself. “Now. I’ll cut the pattern. Yes yes. I can cut a good pattern. Come on, boy. I’ll show you.”

  I look at the old woman sitting up in the bed.

  “Help him. It won’t hurt you, will it?” She put out her weathered little hand. Hold it out. “Please.”

  So I get to stay with that old couple. It’s good to get my hands deep in some work with Jacob spouting on like the grown-ups around the fire giving a Tell back home. It been hard to think that those two old people aint been old people all their life.

  They show me a picture they got of themselves. Jacob standing in a garden of flowers and it must be the old woman beside him—just she got lots of dark hair then and look pretty happy. So I know they been young once.

  The way I understand it, when Jacob get all fired up rattling on to me, is that in the old days, people been too busy to know how lucky they been. He sound a bit like my dad when he go on like that about how people just got to get back to making things with their own hands and thinking with their brains.

  I don’t say much, same as when my dad spout on. And working on the coat stop me thinking too hard on all the bad things rattling in my head—the snow and wind blowing cold outside and the words of my dog. Can’t forget them either. You’re on your own now, Willo.

  Slowly over the weeks that coat come together. Jacob cut the pattern out of old paper first. He say he know what he been doing, but I tell him, it aint practical what he been cutting out. Aint gonna keep the snow out. Jacob say Dorothy Bek-Murzin aint so worried about practical—it’s just got to look good. He say I got to go with him when he brings it to her. Says she’s gonna give me money to make her lots of things when she sees how fine my stitching been.

  Jacob keep forgetting that I got to get back to the mountain. I aint staying here to make coats forever, I say. “Well, you aren’t going to be going anywhere soon, are you?”