Zel (7 page)

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 8
Mother

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.

I close my eyes and dare to see what I fear in anticipation: The goose sits on but four lumps. She gets up now and checks them. I see the white and gray lumps. There is
no doubt: rocks all! The goose has rolled the egg from the nest. My eyes search till they find it. This time the egg has cracked. The goose cannot raise another’s child. The gosling is dead. This is the message the youth gave to Zel—as a gift. Despised gift. Cursèd youth. I would wring the goose’s neck if I could. Oh, had I only left the goose tethered to her nest with the vine!

But geese are geese and people are people. How a goose behaves has nothing, less than nothing, to do with how people behave. Geese are stupid and smelly and hateful. Geese know nothing. Zel will realize this. Zel need not take the goose’s message, the youth’s message, to heart. I open my eyes.

“Mother, what is it?” Zel comes around the table and hugs me. “You look as though you would cry.”

I pull my daughter onto my lap. “The world you know here, Zel, the world of our mountains and waterfalls, of our endless skies, do you love this world, Zel?”

Zel’s head rises slightly higher than mine. I can’t remember when she last sat on my lap. She presses my head to her and rests her chin on top. “How can you ask? You know I do.”

I hug her. “Our alm is the best world imaginable.” As the words leave my mouth, I regret their nakedness. I know in an instant that this is the moment I have dreaded. I must talk to Zel of the most important decision she will make in her life. I must give Zel the choice between
a life with me forever and the ordinary life of stupid people who know no better. I must use the utmost care.

“Perhaps,” Zel is saying slowly. “But I do love new places, new people.”

I work hard to keep my arms from becoming iron like my teeth. As much as I would want to, I must not shackle Zel to me. I love her. That love must be returned freely. I cannot bear anything less. And I have a ready means of persuasion. Zel gave it to me yesterday when I made the cedar branch break and fall on the hedgehog. She wished for the gift of talking with animals. This desire resonates within her spirit. I speak with energy. I dangle the perfect hook. “If you could talk with animals, that would be much. You would give up certain things to have that gift, wouldn’t you?”

Zel leans back so that she can look in my face. Her cheeks are red. Her eyes glow. “Oh, yes,” she says in a half whisper.

I stroke her arms. “It would be worth choosing a life here in the country.”

Zel smiles. “Choosing a life in the country is not giving up much, Mother.”

I am encouraged. She is truly a mountain girl, unlike me. I dare to speak on. “It would be worth choosing a life without a husband.”

Zel stiffens and sucks in air. I watch her eyes fight
pain. Then in an instant, her face clears. “Oh, Mother, I would never abandon you. You must stop thinking that at once. When I marry, I will take you with me.” Zel claps her hands and laughs her relief. “We can all live together.”

I swallow the bile that has risen to my tongue. I was mistaken; my daughter is not ready to choose. But that is no problem. There is time still. If I use enough skill and care, I will persuade Zel by the time her moon blood first flows.

I shut my eyes. The gosling is already deteriorating under the roasting sun. Ants have invaded the shell. The smell of rot attracts them. “Zel,” I say, knowing now that I always knew I would eventually come to this lie, me, who has never allowed a lie to soil the air between myself and my blessed daughter, saddened by the unfairness of the price I have had to pay for this precious daughter, angry at that unholy price. “Zel, I must tell you a horrible thing.”

Zel takes my hands. Her cheeks slacken. “What, Mother?”

I open my eyes. “Death would knock on our door.”

“Death?” Zel squeezes my hands.

“Yes.” I am amazed at the ease with which the lie comes. The ease exhausts me. Evil is heavy, indeed. “There are those who wish you ill, Zel. Who have always wished you ill.”