Zel

by Donna Jo Napoli

  In an instant this has become the most terrible day of Konrad’s life.

  REJECTION

  Chapter 5Zel

  el carries the goose egg inside her smock. Mother is ahead on the trail. The lettuce Zel loves peeks out of the top of Mother’s sack. Zel knows there are gifts within the sack. She smiles. Her birthday is the most luscious event of the year.

  Every few minutes Mother bends to pick up a snail. Mother has already filled both Zel’s pockets with the flaring yellowish mushrooms that abound in the damp woods, among the marsh marigolds. They taste fine, oh, so fine, fried in butter with salt. Now Mother works on filling her own pockets with snails.

  Zel will cook these mushrooms and snails herself and surprise Mother. The youth at the smithy asked if she’d made the bread she offered him. She wished she could have said yes, rather than admitting she’d only helped.

  Zel is not hungry right now, though. Before they left the market, she and Mother bought onion cakes, steaming from the oven, tender and savory. Mother has promised they will have onion soup on Zel’s birthday. Few foods cannot be improved with the onions that grow in unabashed exuberance in this land.

  When they get to the wooden bridge, Zel sees that the goose is not on her nest on the other side. She revels in her luck. It is yet daylight, though it is nearly ten o’clock. The goose must be off feeding before she settles down to sleep. They would have been home more than an hour ago if they had traveled at their normal pace. But Zel insisted on walking slowly for the sake of the egg. Zel moves carefully, carefully over the bridge and places the egg gently, gently in the nest. She is certain that the bird can count at least to five. She selects the largest rock, the one closest to the size of the egg, and steals it from the nest, so that the number the goose sits on will be constant. She looks around. The ground is scattered with goose feathers. She takes a few and rubs them on the true egg. Perhaps they will cover the scent of her humanity.

  Mother nods in approval. “Come, Zel. Bedtime.”

  Zel and Mother enter the cottage. Mother’s kiss is sweet and cool. She unravels Zel’s braids and combs her hair till it’s smooth as water. Zel yields herself to the small bed.

  Mother sprinkles lavender on the foot of Zel’s bed; then she plays the fiddle. Every night of her life Zel has gone to bed on the sound of Mother’s fiddle.

  When Mother is convinced Zel sleeps, she leaves to do chores. Her rapid footsteps cover the kitchen.

  Zel lies with her eyes closed. Her fingers reach under the edge of the bedroll and touch the paper that holds the lettuce seeds she convinced the vendor to give her today while Mother was bargaining with a passing traveler for an exotic fruit.

  Zel tosses and turns. She can’t get comfortable. What would it be like to be balled up inside a shell? Can the gosling hear the world outside? Zel listens.

  Finches, starlings, chickadees, cuckoos. The birds chirp loudly. Birds and waterfalls, those are the sounds of summer. In winter the rage of storm winds and the deafening crack of ice alternate with total quiet. But summer is always noisy. Zel lies in the coverlet of summer noise. Her ears ring with the cowbells she heard on the way to market. And now she hears the pop of the tick at the smithy. It turns her stomach. She hears the almost deep voice of the youth. Something within her lurches.

  She sees him chewing the bread. Rubbing his neck. Shifting his head from side to side. Her skin comes alive as she thinks of him. Her fingers lace together as though combing the mare’s mane. The star on the chest of the mare twinkles in the skies of her dreams.

  Chapter 6Mother

  wake early. It is barely dawn.

  I make a bread dough, kneading extra long so that the texture will be extra fine. I set it to rise. When next I punch it down, I will work in raisins. I think of the small noises of enjoyment Zel made yesterday eating the sweet buns at the market. I will add nuts as well. The chores of the morning satisfy more than usual today.

  I go outside and milk the first nanny I catch. Only a small bucketful today. But no matter. Zel and I are still overfull from market day. I uproot a lone edelweiss, taking care to keep the dirt packed around its roots.

  When I come back inside, I place the edelweiss in a cup on the table. I give a twist to the press on the new cheese I am making. Then I pick the snails from the meal I set them in last night. They have gorged themselves. I dump the bucket, slapping the bottom hard, then put the snails back in. In a day or two they will pass the meal, and their digestive tracts will be empty of all impurities. They will be ready to eat. I can steam them and serve them with chives. I can fry the mushrooms that make Zel smile.

  I check: Zel sleeps still. This is a moment for private work. I will finish the ordinary chores later.

  I shut myself in the kitchen. I can’t remember when the door to the kitchen was last closed in summer. In winter we often sleep in the kitchen with a fire going, our bedrolls on the floor. But in summer that door stands open.

  I spread the materials on the table and smooth them with hands that flutter, I am so excited. Zel has never had a real dress. She has worn children’s smocks all her life. Zel will be stunning in this dress. And it won’t be the traditional dirndl of the land of my childhood. It will be unique, more beautiful a garment than even I have ever made before, though its beauty will never rival the beauty of Zel. Still, it will be befitting of her.

  I sew the skirt first. I am fast at stitching. The kitchen is only just reasonably sunlit by the time I finish. I fold the skirt carefully and set it aside. Now I cut the sleeves. I cut with precision, for the sleeves will be fitted from wrist to elbow, then loose to the shoulder. The click of needle on thimble goes faster and faster.

  I check on Zel; the girl sleeps.

  I add lace to the cuffs. Nothing gaudy, just enough to show the refinement of Zel’s spirit. I cut the bodice. It will have many darts. I stand at the table and plan. I will embroider the bodice in a pattern of wings, for Zel moves so gracefully, it is almost as though she flies.

  “Mother?”

  “Ah, you’re up. Get dressed. Then I’ll open the door.” I fold the three pieces of the bodice. I wrap all in burlap and store it on the shelf. I open the door.

  Zel falls into the room. She laughs in embarrassment at having been caught listening at the door. “Something for my birthday, my birthday, my birthday.” She dances. Her eyes settle instantly on the bundle on the shelf. “What is it?”

  I smile. “Would you like gruel?”

  Zel laughs. “Shall I guess?”

  I fill our bowls from the jar of dried grains and nuts and fruits. It is a breakfast full of energy. I keep this child strong.

  Zel sits on her chair and picks up her spoon. “Papers and inks,” she says gaily.

  I am happy she guesses only part. Secrets are delicious, like plum pudding in water. “If you promise not to guess anymore, I’ll give you your first gift now. But your second must wait till your real birthday.”

  “I promise.”

  I go to the cloth bag and put the stack of paper on the table. Then slowly, dramatically, I place the bottles of ink beside the paper: one, two, three.

  Zel gasps. She holds the bottles up to the sunlight. “They are glorious, Mother. Oh, thank you.” She takes a piece of paper off the stack and smooths it onto the table. “I’ll draw that little donkey. The one with the tall load.”

  I am completely happy. “Finish your breakfast first.”

  Zel eats quickly. Then she dips her quill into the black ink. I watch her deft movements, her eyes intent on the fine lines, lines so much finer than she can make with the charcoal she usually uses for drawing. I know the girl chose to draw the donkey in order to begin with the black ink. The indigo and crimson, the more precious colors, will be savored later. I understand the method.

  I relax now into my own kind of enjoyment. I close my eyes and see a sparrow hawk swoop for the sheer fun of flight, right over our rooftop. Then I allow my vision to wander across our alm, taking pleasure in the curve
of each leaf, the hue of each petal.

  “No!” I drop my spoon in my bowl and jump to my feet.

  “What, Mother? What is it?”

  I race from the room, from the cottage, Zel behind me. I run straight toward the goose nest but halt before I reach it. “You stupid bird.” The words burst from my mouth in small explosions of air.

  Zel picks up the egg the goose has rolled from the nest. She holds it in front of her as though it’s an offering of sorts. She looks at the goose, who fixes the two of us with one eye. “Please, goose,” Zel whispers. “Please. This can be your child.” She licks her lips in concentration.

  “Do it, Zel.” Need almost snaps my voice. The bird must take back the egg. For Zel’s sake. “Make her accept it.”

  Zel takes a step toward the goose. The goose leans her neck toward Zel. Zel takes another step, still holding the egg in outstretched hands. The goose doesn’t move. A third step. The goose flexes her wings. Zel sinks to the ground. She walks on her knees toward the goose.

  I stare. My daughter moves like a supplicant before the host. Where did she learn such behavior? I have never taken Zel to any church. I cannot enter churches.

  The goose spreads her wings more, though she remains on folded legs. Zel bends over so her elbows touch the ground. She crawls.

  Now my daughter seems the penitent. I recall scenes from my childhood. I stood in the crowds and watched penitents on hands and knees, throwing ashes backward over their heads, calling for mercy and forgiveness. As if there really were mercy and forgiveness in this world. Will the goose yield? Is her heart as much rock as the eggs she gathers to her nest each summer?

  She must yield. She must not be so merciless. Zel needs to see that the goose can love this foreign egg, this borrowed egg, with as much fervor—no, with more fervor—than its own mother. Zel needs that.

  I need that.

  I can barely breathe. Zel’s hands move closer and closer to the nest edge. The bird must not attack Zel. If it does, Zel could drop the egg.

  A morning glory vine creeps up the slope by the stream. It has almost reached the level of the bridge. I concentrate on that vine. The vine, energized and strong, twists and lengthens and curls itself across the ground and into the goose nest from behind, where neither Zel nor I can see it. It twines around the goose’s feet, her folded legs. It holds the bird fast. I stumble back a step from the effort of growing the vine.

  The goose spreads her wings full width. She opens her mouth, and her blue-gray tongue stands isolated, trilling the loud hiss. But she cannot rise.

  Zel sets the egg on the inner curve of the nest. It rolls over once and rests against the goose’s exposed side. Then Zel crawls backward and finally stands. She and I turn and walk toward the cottage.

  I close my eyes. The goose gives up struggling. The morning glory shrinks away to the slope from which it came. I open my eyes.

  Chapter 7Zel

  el stands at the window and watches the goose rearrange the sticks of her nest. She is as wordless as the egg. Zel knows much about birds. She has spent whole days watching them. Birds accept each other’s eggs all the time. And geese, they love anything round. Zel cannot comprehend the goose’s behavior.

  But it is not the goose that matters. All Zel can think of now is the egg, this blameless egg that would have been a hatchling soon if Zel had not asked the youth to bring it to her, this egg that Zel may have doomed in her stupidity. Mother gives Zel too much credit. She told Zel to make the goose accept the egg. But Zel doesn’t know how to coax this goose. Still, the goose allowed Zel to return the egg to the nest. There is room for hope. Please, goose, Zel begs in her head, know this egg. For all that is good and beautiful and true, please.

  The goose rocks herself, settling deeper into the nest. Zel is encouraged. If only she could speak to the goose with her mind. Goose, she says in her head in easy rhythm, goose goose goose. The goose stretches her neck out to the heat of the sun. She seems to sleep.

  Zel turns and goes back to the table. The urge to draw seizes her more ferociously than before. She bends over her work. A skinny donkey dances in the center of the paper. He has knobby, hairless knees, as though he knelt often. She draws a second donkey extending his muzzle to gladioli in a market stall.

  Now she draws a boy who selects a flower for the donkey, his head cocked, his eyes teasing. Zel remembers the youth of yesterday, the clean curve to his jaw. And he had a dimple on only one cheek. His left.

  Mother goes outside, carrying the egg basket. Zel lifts her head to watch her go. Normally the chore of gathering eggs falls on Zel. But Mother does it now. Zel knows Mother will also feed the rabbits. Whenever Zel is sad, Mother bustles about in this way. Mother does these chores now as a comfort to Zel, for she knows the fear Zel feels for the gosling.

  Mother fears, too. Zel heard it in her voice. Zel leans over the cup with the edelweiss and gently brushes her cheek against the delicate petals. Then she walks over to the bowl of rising dough. She punches it down. There is a daring in her action: Normally she would ask Mother before interfering in something Mother had begun. Raisins form a pile beside the dough. Zel’s hands are reckless today. She works the raisins in. Then she uses all her weight to force a twist to the press on the cheese Mother is making. There: Zel now comforts Mother as much as Mother comforts Zel.

  Zel returns to the table and takes up her drawing again. She hears Mother enter and set the eggs in a bowl. Her cheeks are taut with anticipation. What will Mother say when she realizes Zel has worked the raisins into the dough? Will she notice that the cheese press is tighter? Zel hears Mother take down the burlap-wrapped package from the shelf and go outside. That’s all right. Mother will notice later.

  Zel draws until the paper is full, well past midday.

  “Mother.” Zel stands respectfully in the kitchen and does not look out the window. She knows Mother sits outside working on a secret. “I’m ready for lunch. Won’t you come in?”

  Mother comes inside and puts the burlap-wrapped bundle on the shelf.

  “Let me help,” Zel is saying before Mother even has a chance to talk about what they will eat. Zel washes two kinds of lettuce—the small-leafed lettuce that is special to her and their own garden lettuce. She separates the leaves into two bowls. “My mouth waters already.”

  Mother laughs. “Your inherited love of that lettuce grows stronger every year.” She slices a carrot.

  Inherited? Zel’s heart speeds up. “You never eat it.”

  “I like what we grow.” Mother now shells peas. “Raw peas make a salad into a meal.”

  Zel moves very close to Mother. She makes the plea she has made many times. “Tell me about my father.”

  “I know nothing of him.”

  Zel is accustomed to Mother’s answer, but this time she can prove her wrong. “He loves this lettuce; that much you know.”

  Mother opens her mouth, then quickly shuts it.

  “Is that why you named me after the lettuce?”

  Mother peels an onion. “You are clever, Zel.” She hands Zel a tomato.

  Zel slices, wishing she were clever enough to find a way to lure Mother into a real conversation about Father. Father. A name without an image. Zel doesn’t even know if she ever saw her own father. “Do you want to see what I drew?”

  “I was hoping you’d offer.”

  Zel wipes her hands on her smock and holds the paper up by the top corners before Mother’s eyes.

  “Who is the child?”

  “No one, really. Do you like the donkeys?”

  Mother sets the two salad bowls before the two chairs. She brings the dark loaf to the table and sits. Her face is quiet. Her voice comes out level and cold. “Do you know that boy?”

  Zel shakes the paper insistently. “Don’t you care about the donkeys? Look at them.”

  Mother looks dutifully at the drawing. “The donkeys don’t act like donkeys.”

  Zel drops the paper on the table and puts her hands on her hips. �
�We don’t own donkeys, so how do we know? Maybe when donkeys are all alone, they dance and sing.” The idea is so absurd that Zel can’t stay mad at Mother. She laughs.

  The edges of Mother’s mouth twitch. “They aren’t alone.”

  “No, I guess they’re not.” Zel sits and munches salad. The slight bite of the green juice excites her tongue. For supper she can soft-boil two eggs and eat them with this lettuce. She thinks of the folded paper hidden under her bedroll that holds the lettuce seeds. Zel hasn’t told Mother about the spring garden she will have. Her own garden.

  These are her seeds. Her secret.

  Chapter 8Mother

  have no appetite. The child Zel has drawn is more handsome by far than the handyman’s son. Who is he?

  Zel looks at me and speaks slowly. “The child does look a little like a youth I met yesterday.”

  Her words come as if in response to my unspoken question. Did my question enter her head? I didn’t will it to. I would be alarmed at this new possibility, but there is something more tangible to be alarmed at: “You met a youth.” How old is this youth? Is he married? Has he set his eyes on Zel? Time grows swiftly short. Panic teases my skin. My arm hairs stand on end. “Was it he who gave you the goose egg?”

  “How did you guess?” A look of pleasure spreads across Zel’s face. She leans forward, as though revealing a puzzle that I can help her decipher. She begins timidly. “I did nothing for it. I merely gave him a bit of bread.”

  Zel fed him? I know what feeding means. An animal fed comes back again and again. A man fed is no better.

  “And I held Meta’s head. . . .”

  “Who is Meta?”

  “His horse. I held her head while the smith took a tick from her ear. I did nothing. But the youth said he owed me something.” Zel stops, lost in thought. She looks at me shyly.

  I look away. I can tell from Zel’s eyes that she has not told me something. The youth is already causing her to be furtive with me. Oh, how did so much happen so fast? Zel knows his horse’s name. She tamed the beast. That youth must have been impressed with her. My blood swooshes, loud and insistent.