Under This Unbroken Sky (29 page)

Stop it
, she orders. She steps down hard on her twisted foot, a jab of pain mixes with the vibrating nerves. She runs to the coop, pulls aside the log pole, and ducks inside. She is greeted by the sweet smell of hay and feathers, tainted by the pungent stench of shit. Her foot rustles the straw. She crouches down, wraps her arms around her legs, but then the rest of her body begins to tremble.

The hens look at her quizzically, unaccustomed to night visits. Only Happiness bobs and coos, overjoyed by Lesya’s surprise arrival. Its feet high-step, up and down, it bows its head and lifts its wings, dancing to music only it can hear. It is roosting in one of the other hens’ nests. The displaced brood hen is perched nearby, clucking its indignation.

“What are you doing up there? Get down.” She swats Happiness off the nest. It jumps to the ground in a tornado of wings. It tries to hop on her. Lesya kicks it off. “No.”

She wants to get the eggs and get out of there. She is so tired. She reaches into the nest; her fingers ooze into a thick, hot slime. Both eggs are broken. Happiness jumps up on the roost, balancing on one foot, the other twisted backward. It softly pecks at Lesya’s hand.

“Look what you’ve done.” The bird cocks its head at the finger waving in front of its beak. “Bad bird. Bad!”

Lesya scoops out the mire of yolk, shell, and straw and throws it on the floor. Happiness steps into the clean nest. Lesya shoves it aside.

“This isn’t your nest. These aren’t your eggs.” Happiness rubs its head against her arm and tries to worm its way back onto the roost.

“No! You think this is funny? You think it’s funny if we starve?” The bird rubs against Lesya’s arm. “You think this is a game? You do nothing. You get fed, get taken care of…”

The chicken lifts its lame foot to Lesya, an offering. She grabs its claw, the bird tries to pull away, but Lesya holds on tight. “Look how fat you are, eating all their food, stealing their eggs, you’re supposed to make your own eggs! You’re not even any good to breed. Look at you.” She holds its foot up. “Look how ugly you are. Useless.”

The bird squawks, frightened by her intensity and her grip on its bad leg. Its wings flap in distress, its coos alarm into squawks.

“You think I’m always going to take care of you?” She shakes the bird, her own leg jittering uncontrollably. “That you’re always going to be safe?” The bird pecks her hand, drawing blood. “You think you’d survive out there alone?”

She wrenches the bird upside down, gripping it by its crippled leg. She carries it outside. “This is what it’s like out here.” She swings it through the darkness. The bird flails and claws her arm; beats her with its wings. “There’s nowhere to hide. Nothing to protect you!” The bird cackles hysterically, its neck and head dangling inches from the ground.

Lesya marches to the woodpile. “You have a job.” Her entire body quakes. “You have a duty.” She grabs the ax. “You don’t get to live for free.” She holds the screeching hen down on the block and swings.

The headless bird teeters around in circles, falling onto its side, its wings flapping, its body tripping over its crooked foot.

A
NNA WAKES TO A SMALL WHIMPER. LESYA AND PETRO are fast asleep. A fire blazes in the stove. She hears the sound again. A soft cooing, like the wings of a bird trapped in the rafters. She looks around the room, sees the soapbox on the floor beside her bed. A nest. She wonders if Lesya has brought her chickens inside. She peers into the box and sees a rabbit squirming.

“Are you hurt?” Anna strokes its fur. Soft, white down.

“Poor little thing.” The rabbit calms to her touch.

“Don’t be afraid.” She picks it up. Cradles it in her arms. “Are you lost?” The rabbit has a child’s face. Wide gray-blue eyes look up at her.

“You shouldn’t have come here. It’s not safe.” The little mouth sucks. Anna offers her a finger and the lips nurse strong and hard.

“Are you hungry?” she asks the rabbit-child. She opens the front of her blouse and lets the creature suckle her nipple. She looks at its feet. Its paws are hairless, the skin soft.

“How will you survive?” she asks the strange, magical creature. And she knows that something this beautiful cannot survive.

Its tiny fingers knead her breast. Anna pulls the fur skin over the top of its head. The baby squirms and mews.

“Shhh,” Anna coos. “I’ll take you home.”

MARIA STARES OUT THE WINDOW INTO THE NIGHT. SHE can’t sleep again and this time it isn’t the baby. The baby is quiet. She rocks slightly on the stiff-backed chair, massaging her stomach.
Someday, she’ll ask Teodor to build her a real rocker, so she can pull it outside on the stoop when the long summer nights return. She’ll sit with her baby draped over her shoulder, pressed against her chest. Heart on heart. Rocking in rhythm with the frogs and crickets.

The chair creaks and Maria looks over her shoulder to see if she has woken Teodor. He doesn’t stir. He returned home exhausted. Silent. He ate, rolled a cigarette, and crawled into bed, not even bothering to get undressed. When she prodded him as to where he’d been, he didn’t answer. He told her:
Tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.
He was asleep before the children.

Ever since this morning, she has had a bad feeling. It began when she saw two crows facing the house, their feathers ruffling in the gusts. They stood there so long she thought their feet had frozen to the ground, and when she opened the door they didn’t fly away. They stared at her with black, glassy eyes. Not until Myron clapped his hands did they slowly lift and glide away, swooped up by the wind.

Then Teodor didn’t come home. She tried to convince herself that he was waiting for the storm to blow out, or perhaps he and Anna were finally talking. When she knelt to pray for his safe return, a surging gust shook the house, and the picture of the Virgin Mary knocked against the wall, decrying its sacrilegious use. When Teodor finally emerged from the windswept land, she didn’t feel relief. If anything, her fear increased. Maybe it was just the storm setting her on edge.

Maria shivers, even though the fire is still burning strong. Her fingers worry against her wooden cross. And there weren’t any rabbits today either. Myron checked this morning and at dusk. There haven’t been any rabbits all week; perhaps the coyotes have driven them away. She’ll have to start rationing the food better.
It’s been difficult to estimate how much they need to conserve to allow for Anna’s needs. She worries that she hasn’t been sending enough to her sister-in-law. She worries that she’s been overcompensating and sending too much.

The bacon is already gone. They’ve used a pound of sausage and two pounds of roast. There’s only enough flour to make three more batches of pyrohy, and there’s three months of winter left. Self-pity wells in her throat; Maria prays it away, attributes her rawness to her pregnancy.

Anna’s baby is due in two weeks. She’s had no word from her. If something happens to the baby, she’ll blame herself. She should have gone to Anna, disobeyed Teodor’s decree. She needs someone with her. It’s his brother-in-law that Teodor’s at war with. Wars are always with men. The men fight and the women mourn. Tomorrow, she’s going to see Anna and end this war. They’ll talk as mothers, daughters, sisters. They’ll make peace for their families. This land is too big to be alone in.

It is well after midnight, the day is over, but still the bad feeling nags her. Everyone is asleep. They have food for tomorrow. The fire is burning. They have a house and a barn, and come next summer, she’ll buy more chickens and hopefully a pig. She’ll put the garden out front, facing south, so she can see it from her window. She’ll get the boys to put up a fence to keep out the rabbits and deer…and the pig. She’ll sit in her rocker and watch it grow. There will be a new child. Teodor will break another six acres, maybe eight, and with the harvest money they’ll get a wagon and another horse. Next year everyone will have new coats.

The chair creaks again. The even sounds of her family’s breathing continue undisturbed. She worries too much. She has to learn to trust. Trust that her family will be taken care of. Trust that this is their home now. Maria leans forward in the chair. She cocks her
ear, unsure if she has heard anything. She closes her eyes. She listens past the breath of her house, past the crackling of the fire, through the window’s glass.

“Teodor?” Maria shakes him awake. “I hear a rabbit crying.”

HAVING FALLEN ASLEEP SO EARLY, TEODOR NOW FEELS that it should be morning. But it must be only three or four o’clock. A million stars curtain the sky. Teodor finds Pivnichna zoria, the midnight star. One of the guardian trinity, along with Rannia zoria, the morning star, and Vechirnia zoria, the evening star, that guard the chained dog from eating the little bear. If the chain ever breaks, the world will end. Teodor wonders if all the stars have names. He can’t imagine anyone spending their entire lives looking up, mapping, and categorizing all the seeds of light. He searches for recognizable shapes—the bear, the dog, the three leaps of the deer—but the star animals elude him.

He shifts the rifle from his shoulder to the cradle of his arm. He yawns, though he feels wide-awake. The brisk cold fills his lungs. He pulls the warmth of his leather jacket closer and hunkers deeper into the sheepskin lining. He tried to convince Maria that she had imagined the sound, that it wasn’t possible to hear anything that far away. But she wouldn’t be dissuaded, even after he took her outside and they stood on the stoop and heard nothing at all. The more he pointed out the improbability, the more distressed she became until she was on the verge of tears. He told her he would check.

He still hasn’t told her about Stefan or Petro. What will he tell her? That the son of a bitch is gone? For how long, this time? Until next month, the spring, next harvest? He won’t be back until winter is over. He’s like a magpie chasing after shining bits of rubbish, feeding on the carcasses others fought and died for. Teodor spits. At least it’s one less mouth to feed.

Maria will want to bring Anna to their place until the baby is born, but Teodor doesn’t want her in the house. She signed the letters, even if she didn’t write them. He stops and lights a cigarette. Inhales the strong tobacco. He exhales to the sky. Above him, northern lights flicker. Ivan says it’s star people. Katya says it’s God. Teodor doesn’t know what it is. A reason to look up. He breathes in deep and the answer comes. It is freedom.

The word makes his throat tighten.
Free.
Of everything they did to him, it was the walls that nearly drove him mad. Not being able to see the sky. They tried to break him by breaking his body. Animals can be broken that way. They become husks of skin and bones. He saw it under Stalin. He saw it in prison, so many hollow, empty eyes. But some beaten animals become fiercer. Their eyes burn wild. They die before they submit. But still, they die. Staying alive requires remembering what it means to be alive. Still, he almost broke. It was the walls. When they left him alone. When he had nothing to fight; nothing to hate; nothing to defy. Five steps—wall, five steps—wall. They took away the sky.

But look at it now.

Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh.
He smiles at the sound of his boots on the snow. He is not counting his steps. He loves being the only one walking through the night. The snow catching the moon’s reflection casts a blue-white sheen. He doesn’t feel small in this vastness. He feels as if he can expand as far and wide as he can see. He breathes deeper out here, walks taller. This is where they’ll bury him. Under this unbroken sky.

He can see the outline of the stone wall, gray-white, slashing the night. The dividing line, his and hers. This stone wall will stand for a hundred years and a hundred more after that. Long after the buildings rot and the scrub grows wild. Someday someone will walk through this field and see the stones worn and pocked with
time, sunken into the earth. They’ll walk the line, run their hand over the rounded stones, and wonder,
Who put these here?
Maybe they’ll pick up a rock and marvel at its weight. Try to imagine how long it took to build. Wonder,
Why is it here?

Teodor chuckles. It was just a place to pile the rocks. He listens to his footsteps. Maybe, if he’s honest with himself, he was marking a line, but he never thought he’d need it.

He sees the moon shadow of the first snare. Sixth rock in from the east end. The stiff wire loop propped tight against the base of the stone wall. Empty. No tracks mar the snow’s crust. He shakes his head; he knew there’d be nothing here. The gun swings at his hip, loose and casual as a walking stick. One bullet in the chamber. One more in his pocket, as an afterthought. He runs his hand over the stones, plowing a cap of snow, following the line west. Now that Stefan is gone, Anna will do the right thing. In the spring, they’ll go to the land office together and she’ll sign it over in his name. That will be the end of it. If the weather breaks earlier, they’ll go sooner. It’s not right, them fighting.

They already left one world and one family behind. That’s enough to lose. The day he left Ukraïna, he shook his father’s hand. As he walked away, they both waved a farmer’s wave. A slight, friendly gesture—the universal code for
don’t make a fuss, it’s been good to see you, see you around
. “Khlib i sil’. Bread and salt.”

He doesn’t even know if his father is still alive. There are no letters and no one from the village has made it to these parts. He can’t remember his father’s face or the color of his eyes, but he remembers his hands. Gnarled and wrinkled, every cord and artery revealing the man. The short, thick nails, the moons ridged with dirt. The crooked left index finger, missing the tip and half a nail. The gouged scar on the left forefinger, beneath the first knuckle. The roughness of his callused palms. He remembers the strength of those hands,
crushing his own, as they shook one last time. That was another world. Ten thousand miles away. Now the mile between him and Anna seems so much farther.

The second snare is empty. He is about to turn back when he hears a low grunt and sniff. He listens. Hears a snuffling. He steps closer to the wall and looks over. Not twenty feet on the other side are two coyotes, nosing the ground. They haven’t heard or smelled him, too intent on rooting at something on the ground. Teodor pulls off his glove and slips his finger into the trigger. A decent coyote pelt is worth a dollar. He has two shots. He can get a clear bead on the larger one. Just behind the left ear. The shot will probably scare off the other one.

Teodor quietly, carefully raises the rifle and takes aim. The larger coyote paws at the snow. It sidesteps, exposing its flank but blocking a clean kill. Both dogs sniff curiously, timid. Teodor can see a dead rabbit at their feet. He steadies his arm, his eye. He has a clear shot on the smaller coyote. He cocks the trigger. The click is earsplitting. The coyotes rear around, teeth bared. But they don’t flee; they hunker their heads and close ranks. The larger one snarls a warning. Hackles ridge their backs and bristle around their necks.
Back off
, they warn.
This is ours
.

Teodor takes aim between the larger dog’s eyes. It spits a fury of threats, its teeth gnashing with each snap. The smaller coyote grabs the rabbit and tries to drag it off, tearing the pelt. It grabs again, tugging at the weight. It hops backward, its right front leg slapping the air, a stump where there should be a foot.

Teodor takes a step forward, trying to get a better shot. The larger coyote whips around, grabs the carcass, and jerks it up, grasping for a better hold. The pelt slides off as if it’s been skinned. Teodor sees a limb. His mind grapples with the shape. The hindquarters? The hare’s leg? Pink, blue…a hand. Tiny, perfect fingers.

Teodor fires, not aiming. The shot explodes in the snow. He is screaming, lunging over the wall. The small female with the missing foot clamps down on the bundle and drags it over the snow. The large male charges after her, unhinges its jaw, and shovels the carcass to the back of its throat. They race for the woods. Teodor ratchets the bolt, emptying the spent shell. He fishes for the bullet in his pocket, jams it into the chamber. He flounders through the snow, drops to his knees, takes aim, unable to steady his hands. Fires.

The crack of the gunshot ricochets across the prairies. The coyotes keep running, Teodor’s howls chasing them relentlessly.

AT THE FIRST SHOT, MARIA IS ON HER FEET. SHE HEARS Teodor’s shouts and she is racing for Myron’s room. By the second shot, she has shaken him awake and is pulling on her coat. Her children file out of their rooms, frightened by their mother’s flurry. Katya and Ivan are already sniffling. Myron pulls on his pants and sees that the rifle is gone. They can hear a coyote howling, howling. Katya starts to cry, wants her mama not to go. Maria yells at them to stay in the house and she is out the door, running across the field, not thinking what she will do when she gets there. Myron chases after her, his fingers fumbling to fasten his coat.

“ANNA!” TEODOR SCREAMS, HAMMERING THE DOOR WITH the butt of the rifle. “Open the door!” He kicks at the latch. The door shudders and heaves. “Anna!”