Boy Lost in Wild

by Brenda Hasiuk

  “I live with the Sullivans at 140 Montrose Street.”

  “Ah,” he says. “A domestic. They couldn’t pronounce Tatia?”

  I don’t know what to say. How would he know such a thing?

  “You must be on your way to church, Tatia,” he says, as if he can read my mind. “That church, it’s always the same, stand up, sit down, sit down, stand up. Eh?”

  I feel I should be angry, but there is something about him, stamping his wet feet to keep warm, that makes me smile. He is like no man I have ever seen. Nothing like Papo, nothing like Mr. Sullivan.

  “We’re having a meeting over there,” he says.

  He puts his hand under my elbow, clutches at the fur, and I don’t stop him.

  I know I am going to hell, and yet I let him lead me away. “I’m Saul,” he says. “Come.”

  Saul Solemen. Saul Solemen. Saul Solemen.

  I’m polishing Mr. Sullivan’s shoes as fast as I can, the sweet-smelling polish flying swish-swash, swish-swash over the leather. I’m washing the floor in what they call the “foyer,” ring and swoosh, ring and swoosh, quick over white tile, then black, white tile, then black. I’m rocking to and fro on the trolley, the red book hugged to my chest so everyone can see, all the way to the deli where Saul is looking at me with his chin in his hands, thin hands covered with fine, curly black hair. When he talks, the cigarette bounces on his lip.

  “I thought it was so cold that you might not come. But I forgot you have your bourgeois coat, Tatia. Warm February, cold March. What a place, eh?”

  He keeps staring, his head in his hands, and I nod. I feel my face flushing and think of my sweaty mamo standing over boiling tomatoes.

  He takes the cigarette from his lips and points at me. “But you, Tatia, you don’t look like a bourgeois. You have an open and honest face.”

  No one has ever said such a thing about my face before. What do you do when you can’t stop smiling? I put my hand over my mouth.

  “And a nice mouth,” he says. Then he takes the book and opens it to the marker. “Ah, our hero is in trouble.”

  I want to grab the book back. It’s so good when he explains it, about bringing the power back to the working people so that no one will ever be owned again, not by man and not by religion. It’s like the sound of his voice, sure and even, makes me forget that my calluses are bleeding and I’ve sent no money home for months.

  But the reading was hard and I haven’t gotten very far. Underneath my sweet, crisp sheets, I fall asleep with the little lamp still on.

  “Any questions, Tatia?” he asks.

  I think hard for one, want to make sure he knows how hard I’ve tried.

  “Salt of the earth,” I say. “The book says salt of the earth and it sounds silly to say the earth is made of salt. What do they mean?”

  He takes my hands, so big and chapped, and brushes once, twice with his thumb.

  “It means you,” he says. He stumps out his cigarette until it’s no bigger than a pencil eraser. “You deserve a real worker’s position, not cleaning up after some overpaid bureaucrat. I’ll talk to some people, don’t worry.”

  I don’t really understand, but I don’t care. He goes to light another cigarette, and I can still feel his hands, thin hands covered with fine, curly black hair.

  Salt of the Earth. Salt of the Earth. Salt of the Earth.

  I’m cutting brown packing paper at the plant. Swipe goes the knife…salt of the earth goes my head…swipe goes the knife…salt of the earth goes my head.

  I’m walking home with Saul and Tereza from the meeting and she is making fun of our shift boss, Mr. Rudy.

  “C-c-c-come on, girls,” she says, “you, you, you j-j-just went t-t-to the, the bathroom.”

  Even though it’s night, it’s warm enough to go without a jacket and Saul keeps grabbing my shoulders like he wants to dance right there in the street.

  Then Tereza is turning for home and Saul’s hand is under my elbow and we’re in the back lane behind the bakery. My back is against the brick wall and he is so close I can hear the whistle from his nostrils.

  “How long, Tatia,” he says, “how long have we known each other? Eh?”

  I try to see his face, but it’s too dark and he is only a warm, whistling shadow.

  “I think four months maybe,” he says. “And now we’re friends, no?”

  All I want is to put my fingers in his curls. Would they feel soft and springy or thick and wiry? I reach up and then I can feel his soft curls in my hand, and taste the sour tobacco on his tongue, and somewhere far away, there is the sound of the street.

  He suddenly steps away and grabs my shoulders like when we were walking.

  “This,” he says, “this, Tatia, is what it’s all for. You see? Me a Jew and you a peasant, and all the horrific past of greed and hatred, it will be history. It will be nothing but justice.”

  I touch his hair again and then he is so close I can feel the buttons of his shirt and the heat of his hands and his legs and his breath, so warm compared to the cool, hard bricks.

  Me a Jew. Me a Jew. Me a Jew.

  Swipe goes the knife…me a Jew, goes my head…swipe goes the knife…me a Jew, goes my head.

  I’m standing in the toilet stall, holding up my skirt.

  “T-t-t-times up,” Mr. Rudy shouts.

  I don’t say anything, just stand there holding my skirt, remembering my papo.

  “The Romanians are bastards and the Jews are bootlickers,” he said. “They’re smart, the Jews, they know who butters their bread and they only screw you ’cause you’re a stinkin’ Ukrainian, my friend,” while Mamo mumbled prayers under her breath.

  I run my hands over my stomach and my chest, like Saul did. I think of the spit flying from Papo’s mouth, and then the tickling of Saul’s tongue, and I punch the wooden door of the stall with all my strength. The latch breaks and hangs like it’s dead.

  I think of my mamo and papo with no letter for months. I think of leaving the Sullivans before the sun is even up, Mamo’s precious gift still under the pillow. I think of Saul, who is a Jew, and who put his tongue in my mouth.

  When Mr. Rudy calls again, I say I’m having female troubles and walk out the door.

  Someone touches my shoulder and I jump.

  When I open my eyes it’s too bright and I have to close them again. How did I get into the olive green chair?

  I can tell from your strange fishy smell that it’s you.

  “You want your breakfast here, or downstairs?”

  You know I have no appetite, but still you bring it, the runny eggs and dry brown toast, the weak tea and apple juice. You put the tray down on the round table beside me and wait.

  I turn away, and you cross your arms like you always do when I don’t want your food.

  “How you going to feel better if you don’t eat? Huh? You going to live on peppermints? Is that how you got be so old? Living on the peppermints?”

  You’re smiling now, but I don’t care. What was it that upset you last night? Someone was crying. I told you someone was crying. A boy. But I might as well be talking to a tractor. For months I told you about the dog I watched through the window, the hungry black one chasing cars and making a nuisance of himself. For months, you waved me away, as if I was talking about dancing leprechauns.

  I take the tea from the tray but my hands aren’t just stiff, as they usually are. They’re shaky like yours were last night, and you have to mop up my housecoat with a paper napkin.

  “You want the TV? There’s some repeats on the cable. You like them.”

  You turn the chair so I can see, and more tea spills, but I don’t say anything. On the screen a judge is talking to a young man who looks guilty. The lawyer, a young woman, is walking back and forth in a short skirt.

  I know these are my shows, the ones where they tell a whole story in one hour. The courtroom drama queen, one of the young ones calls me. But now, the bright screen hurts my eyes and the teacup is unsteady in my hands.


  I wasn’t done when you came in. What was I doing? What did I do before I was the courtroom drama queen? There was a time, I know, before the babies came and the endless eggs and the baby’s babies when there were no words in my head at all, when there was nothing to do but sit.

  I close my eyes and try hard to remember. The words from the TV blend together like the great-grandchildren, familiar and forgettable.

  I’m standing in the park in the warm rain. Saul is at the front somewhere where I can’t see him. There is nothing but a sea of shoulders, shiny and wet, so close around me I can hardly breathe.

  “They shall not build, and another inhabit,” a voice says from far away. “They shall not plant and another eat. For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

  The words wash over me like the rain, clear and warm. Then there is nothing but a blast of fists in the air, and the shoulders begin to shout, almost all together. It’s nothing like the voices at mass, tired and sniffly. It’s a giant wave of sound, terrible and wonderful, and when I touch my face, I don’t know if I feel rain or tears.

  For the first time in my life, I’m doing nothing but sitting. We’re on general strike, all of us, the telephone operators and the policemen and the stonemasons, the whole city and me, and I’m wasting time placing a red seven on a black eight. I’m counting the cards, one-two-three, one-two-three, searching for the ones that I need until there’s no choice left but to shuffle the cards and start again and again and again.

  I’m sitting out on the fire escape in my slip, waiting for the breeze, but all it brings is dirty diapers and other people’s greasy supper. Why am I so tired? For ten hours I slept and still didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s as if my body weighs one thousand pounds.

  I’m shuffling the cards, trying not to think of how many days it’s been since he’s come, how many days with no money, counting the cards, one-two-three, putting ace of hearts up top, when I hear someone at the door.

  I climb through the window and he hands me a jar of crabapple jelly. His white shirt is stained dark around the collar and his fingernails are black with ink.

  The jelly makes me hungry. “There’s no buns left,” I say.

  He takes the cigarette from his mouth and throws it across the floor. “No buns, Tatia? There’s going to be arrests. That’s what they’re saying, there’s going to be arrests.”

  I can’t believe this, as if I’m still asleep and dreaming.

  He makes a gurgling sound, puts his hands together as if he’s begging for spare change. “The strike is over, Tatia. When the powerful are bastards and the weak are buffoons, what can you do?”

  There’s small bubbles of spit in the corners of his mouth. “Eh, Tatia, can you tell me? I bet you can’t.”

  I can feel my blouse wet beneath the armpits. Who is this Saul with black fingernails and bubbles of spit? I walk over to the smouldering cigarette and stomp it with my bare foot.

  But he’s looking somewhere else, somewhere out the window and far away.

  Look at me! I want to scream. Tell me that it doesn’t have to be this way!

  What do you do when you don’t understand?

  I kneel down and take his hands. I put them against my chest. “It’s me, Tatia,” I say.

  He makes the gurgling sound again and then is on his knees.

  “Tatia, you are so good,” he says.

  Suddenly the slip is at my waist and there’s a sharpness that I don’t understand. How could it be with his pants still on? But it’s his finger, moving in and out of me while he whispers into my hair, over and over.

  He picks me up under the arms and I lie back on the cot with the bruising springs. I close my eyes and feel the movement again, but this time the pain is worse. No worse, I think, than slamming your finger in a door or spilling boiling water.

  Then his tongue is tickling my neck, my cheek, my ear, while he whispers and I’m not thinking of anything. There’s only the pain and his tongue and the whispers, so good, so good, and it’s all so close and so awful and so good that I can hardly stand it.

  When he pushes hard, drops his chest down onto mine, I don’t want it to stop.

  Please, I want to say. I don’t want it to stop, so awful and so good, not for the Jews or for the Ukrainians, or for justice.

  He laughs at how I’m trembling. He covers me with a blanket, then his clothes, then mine. He puts all his weight on top of me, and still I tremble.

  You take the teacup from my unsteady hand, but I don’t want it to be a teacup. I want it to be crabapple jelly. He took it from me as he knelt and let it roll noisily across the floor.

  “You not talking to me today? You not watching your shows?”

  Not now, I want to say. Please. This is too important.

  I want to know what happened to him. I am Tilly, a hardworking stonemason’s wife for fifty years, but what about him? I was sleeping and then he was gone.

  My chest feels heavy, like he’s still lying on top of me. I put a peppermint on my tongue but it doesn’t help. Every breath comes long and hard.

  You, I want to say, standing there playing with the cross around your neck, you wouldn’t understand. It’s not good to be old and to never have believed enough.

  I could never believe enough in the Virgin, never believe enough in justice.

  My young ones have moved far away from here, have foyers of their own, but no matter what, no matter how long I’m on this earth, I know these streets here still smell like the poor. I know you wear my mamo’s cross but you still smell strange and fishy and I can’t pronounce your name.

  I know those shows on the television, with beginning, middle, and end, they’re not real.

  I know I will never know what happened to him. I didn’t care to ask where he lived, as long as he came to me.

  “You don’t eat, you don’t talk, you don’t watch the TV. You going to at least have a bath? Huh? A nice bath?”

  “A boy was crying,” I say. “Outside. When I was outside.”

  You walk away, shout above the rush of water in the tub. “Why you keep on about that? You don’t worry about that. They said a nice policeman help him. What he doing out that late? That’s what I want to know. Why they let their kids wander out so late?”

  I remember it’s the Indians who live here now. It was an Indian boy who was crying, maybe six years old, hugging himself in his T-shirt. He was standing near the glass doors that open onto the dark lane. The doors slid open, just like that, the overhead light popped on, and the boy appeared at the mouth of the lane, crying.

  “I don’t know which way,” he shouted. The snot was running into his mouth. “I got the cherry ones but I don’t know which way now.”

  When I stepped out, the steamy air was like a blanket and I almost fell down in surprise. How long had it been since the air wrapped around me like that? With his blue-black hair, he almost disappeared into the dark. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  But he wasn’t listening. “I don’t know which way,” he shouted.

  Then your little brown hands were pulling me back, back into the safe and cold room, but you didn’t know that the words were already there.

  Never got found, never got found, never got found.

  I’m walking in snow so deep that it’s filling my boots. I can feel the cold metal of the shovel and the lantern through my mittens, and the cow and the oxen are somewhere behind me, making low noises in the dark. I hate this, oh how I hate it, but Mamo is coughing and Johnny is coughing, and the others are too little.

  Though I want to be done, I stop because the snow in my boots is melting against my legs. There are lots and lots of stars, but no fireflies. There are fireflies only in the summer, but why is that? Why can’t they be there in the winter too, when it’s so dark and you have to go out so early and your legs sting so bad?

  Never got found, never got found, never got found.

  I’m walking again
through the deep snow, thinking of Papo’s story.

  “You remember this,” he would say, “you remember the little one, little Mary from not far from here. It was spring planting, and this is true, because I worked the lines with her step-uncle and he wasn’t a liar. She left her work and went off to pick some wildflowers and at sundown, her people couldn’t find her. Three days go by and all they find is an Indian camp somewhere close and then some people start seeing a bunch of them with a little white girl, but they never got found.”

  Then Papo would get the big jar from behind the flour sack and pour some into a cup. He’d drink it in one big gulp and his face would turn bright red.

  You could feel the heat just standing next to him.

  “You see,” he’d say. “You work hard or the Indians, they’ll snatch you away and you’ll go to live in the teepees.”

  I hang the lantern on a wooden post. Then I hold the shovel far out in front of me and bring it down with all my might.

  Crack goes the ice…never got found, goes my head…crack goes the ice…never got found, goes my head…slush goes the ice…never got found, goes my head.

  There is a small hole, with black water inside. I step back, one, two, three, and then there is nothing but the sound of the animals, lapping and grunting.

  They could still come, I think. I’m alone, and they could come. They could come and steal me away to live in the forest, to wander with pots and babies on my back, to sit high on a horse and laugh at nothing.

  The animals are finished drinking, but I stay put. I am lost, lost, lost, but I’m not afraid.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” I say.

  But I must’ve said it out loud because now you’re over me, poking at me, upset again.

  “You all right? You breathing all right? I can call an ambulance. We go back to the hospital.”

  Leave me be! I want to shout, like the boy had shouted. Leave me be! Don’t ruin it!

  I’m with the wild Indians, who have swept me up into the tall poplars to laugh at nothing. I’m with curly-haired Saul, who whispers “so good” and makes me bleed until my bulky body falls away and there’s nothing but that feeling so deep inside, painful and fine. I’m lost, lost, lost, where there is no Tatia, or Tilly, or stupid cows that need a drink.