Once
by Laura Davis Hays
Blackstone Island, Denmark 1928
I am mother of seven children, all but one left me, and wife
to one old husband, still here. I have been married forever and always. There
was never any before or after to ease the burden of this life I lead.
Once I waited with my father
under God’s nose, and that was the beginning of it, the first moment I truly
remember, when my life as I know it began. The minister fidgeted with his
robes, his sour breath heaving in and out above us. The church was frigid, the
old stones uneven and rocking under our knees. Beside me, my father seethed his
impatience. I did not know if he would strike me again, but I wished it, for
that would make the moment come alive with something other than my hot fear. We
knelt there, waiting for Svend, his absence growing like a sinkhole in my
heart. Above us, the minister clucked and sang under his breath, practicing
some judgment he’d soon bellow out. I did not know if Svend would appear to marry
me, as he’d promised, as he’d proposed. What I did know, as the moment grew into
a lifetime, was that God was getting ready to deliver his curse upon me.
I am a slow thinker. I knew the
curse was to be given, and that I deserved it, but I did not know how to escape
it until this very moment. I knew only that God meant me to suffer. I have
grown old and stupid from the suffering.
My husband’s absence that morning
foretold more than his scant presence ever has. He is a man of few words who
would do anything to escape his duties, a lazy man, a terrible man.
No, he is not a murderer, he is
not a wife beater. He is a man who runs.
My second daughter, was born strong like me, a worker, an
eater, and though she once followed a worthless man, she returned when he
abused her to the brink of death. Alma lives with me now—she seems as old as I am—as
does my crippled old husband who does not rise from his bed except to kiss a
cow in his dreams.
The first child, named Louise
after a famous Queen, was born frail and in the end, half-blind, kept to
herself, reading her books, fairy stories and the heady thoughts of great men, and
she is gone now. Gone to sit on the steps of some golden library. She described
it to me once, saying it was the most marvelous place you could ever dream of, made
of marble and gold and studded with jewels. Inside, away from the relentless
sun, the volumes glowed and multiplied, with an eternity to read them.
I cannot read. I cannot write.
What need have I for such foolishness?
My heaven will be one of endless
banquets with servants wiping my chin, and always a pleasant companion to help
me wile away the hours.
And then there is Peter. Who
knows if he yet lives? A mother’s devotion, gone unnoticed, for he gobbled his
dinner in a hurry to be off. Only sixteen
years old when he ran away to join the Bolsheviks. His careless goodbye assaults
my good memory. Not even a word or a wave, just a nod as I cleared his plate.
Astrid, yes, the favored middle
one, all imagination and selfishness, for Svend doted on her until she too deserted
us for that wretch of a handsome man, and off they went, their trail no more
than a cloud in the sky.
The fifth,
Ingrid, named after my mother, was hard in coming. I near split with the
bearing of her, and then her little stunted twin, Katya, named for my dead sister,
popped out in a pool of seawater. These two crossed the water to become nurses
in the great war, and once I got a letter from the both of them, which was read
to me.
The last, Thor, was evil through
and through, and he is dead to me.
This I remember.
I was baking one day, and my mother
came in to help me. She was just starting on daft, and there was nothing much
she could do and not ruin. She put her fingers into the dough, and they were
dirty, so I had to give her the glob to eat in her corner. She was still strong
enough to rise from her bed and smack her lips around the precious food she
stole from the mouths of others.
Svend was in his barn milking,
for I needed butter for my recipe, a recipe which many have praised and wanted
for themselves, though I will not give it. Little Thor trailed after his father,
who he loved like a dog loves his master. He did not love me in the same way,
even as a child. He loved my food, that I know, but he did not love me. Thor
listened to his father’s poison, and it took root and grew in him, so an ugly
hatred reflected in his eyes whenever he looked upon me. He might hide behind a
smile, but I could always see who ruled his heart.
That particular day it was warm
for the summer was at its peak. The nights had come back and soon they would
steal the heat and bring the winter cold. I was wearing a cotton dress, my old
favorite from the years when I was pregnant, and I had let it out, filling the
sides in with some curtains Svend found on a junk heap in Copenhagen. I loved
that dress, because it told me just who I was and what I had been and what I
had done.
Their voices stopped as they came
into my kitchen.
“What was that?” I asked. “What
were you saying about me?”
“Mama?” asked Thor. “Can I have a
breakfast cake?”
“Did you already eat one?” I knew
he had.
“No,” he said.
“Can you count?” I asked,
pointing to the plate.
“One, two, three,” he said,
lifting his little fingers.
“Four, Five, Six,” I answered.
And then I was lost, for I cannot count either, not as much as a plate of cakes.
But he had had one, that I knew from
the sugar shine in his eyes, and the crumb on his collar.
“Give the boy a cake, Ka-aren,”
said Svend.
I turned to see my husband, not
old yet, but not young, either. A man with gray in his hair and a beard turned
scraggly from lack of grooming. He had the smell of the barn about him, and
perhaps that is what made him soft that day. He was like an animal, and he had
said my name.
“Yes,” I said, meaning, yes, I am
Ka-aren.
The boy snatched the cake and ran
outside. Svend and I looked at each other, appraising, judging, shifting in our
discomfort. The heat was high in the kitchen from the summer and the stove. I
felt my fatness, and my dumbness. He was no better than I am, that I knew, had
always known. But standing in the kitchen staring after our youngest child, my
husband’s confusion only confounded me. He was weak and he was waiting for me
to speak.
“Yes,” I repeated. “My name is Ka-aren.”
He has not repeated it, that slip
of the tongue, oh, he would not give me that much. But I see it in his eyes as
he lies dying this day, running to his final reward. He remembers who I am, and
that is enough for me. I have found my own escape at last, one that will be the
salvation of me, my solace against misery, and a shield against the curse I
have carried most of my own life. It is my way to go on without him. It is a
way to go back to before the beginning.
I have remembered my own name. Ka-aren.
I was once called Ka-aren.
“Ka-aren, my mother called. Ka-aren, come inside.” She was
standing at the door, her apron tucked up into the waistband because she was
too short, or it was too long, and she was about her chores which required
bending and climbing, and she did not want to trip. She had on a winter dress
and boots, though it was a warm afternoon and she had been baking, so her face
was flushed and her hair coming down at her ears. I was amazed as I looked back
from my play in the mud, for she was like a picture. So pretty, so round and
pink. Her dress was gray, and her apron white and stained with jam, and she was
smiling. “Ka-aren,” she repeated, “come inside.”
So, I did. There in the kitchen
was a plate of scones and the crabapple jam from the cellar, that we saved for
Christmas. She had opened a jar this very afternoon, and there was butter too.
No one else was about.
Papa and Jach had gone out on the
boat though the sea was rough and the ice still floating and separating and
freezing back together in the evening, so as to make the return treacherous.
Mama had fretted at their leaving, but now she’d seemed to forget all about them,
for she was eating the scones one after the other, smeared with jam and butter,
and she was encouraging me to do the same. “Will there be enough for Jach and
Papa?” I asked. “Oh no,” she said smiling. “We are going to eat them all.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It is my name day.”
Mama was pretty and happy that
afternoon, she had curly hair the color of bread and skin like milk, and her
mouth was red from the jam. Those eyes, so blue, so merry, I could not resist
her. So, we laughed and stuffed the food into our mouths. And laughed some
more. The scones were sweet, and the hot butter rich and comforting, melting
and running down our chins.
I ate the last of the sour jam
with a spoon. After that I had a tummy ache, so I went to bed. I was asleep
when they came back hungry and loud, and I got up to watch them eat. Mama fried
some bacon, and they ate it with bread soaking up the grease and drank milk.
There were no fish that night. “Why are you not eating, Ingrid?” my father
asked. “I am not hungry,” she said, and I answered the same. She poured us each
a little milk.
But Papa recognized the jam jar,
which Mama had foolishly filled for herself, a pretty glass with the bubbly
pattern on it—how she liked pretty things! “Where did that come from?” Papa
asked. “Oh, I’ve had it in the cupboard since Christmas,” she replied. “I just
thought I’d use it tonight to celebrate. Your safe return,” she added and curtseyed
from her place near the washtub. “Then what is that?” he demanded. He snatched
the glass away and reached his thick finger in to a lingering glob of jam in
the bottom, still soft to the touch. He smelled, then tasted, yet there was no
delight in his face. He found the crumbs next. They were on the floor, for she was
a poor housekeeper, and perhaps she’d gone to sleep after our feast, like I had.
He turned on me. “Ka-aren?”
What was I to say against the
booming, the slapping, the threats, and the sniggering of my brother, but lie
as long as I could, then resort to the truth? That we had eaten a whole
plateful, a whole jar of jam, and saved none for the two of them. “Butter, was
there butter too?” he asked.
“No,” I shook my head, no butter.
“Is this girl a liar, Ingrid?
Ingrid!”
The two of them, freshly incensed
from their battle with the sea that we learned about in the days to follow,
their loss of not only their catch, but the net and lines as well, advanced
upon us. My mother did not retreat, but I did. I hid behind her skirts and tugged
at the white apron until it unraveled limply in my hands and fell to the floor.
After that night, Mama could not
work as well as before until her arm healed, though it never did entirely.
There was always a bump at the elbow that never straightened all the way. And
she was changed too. She did not talk anymore of babies, even to replace the two
she’d lost—the one dead, never right after almost a year at her breast, the
second, my sister who’d married and gone away when she was pregnant and
half-grown—and she was grim, not smiley. But she was still greedy, maybe more
so than before. She became secretive in her eating. She did not share with me,
so I began to resent her girth, her gnarled arm, her piggish appearance to which
my father constantly referred. I did not carry such a physical wound. No. But I
was shamed none-the-less. After that day, my father did not speak my name, only
talked of getting rid of me, of the mouth to feed that he would one day be rid
of, and even though I was only ten, I knew exactly what that meant.
I did not believe it would be any
good to be married, even at that age.
You see how this all came to pass? I was running from that
family, Svend running from his, so we came crashing together like two waves in
the sea. For all those children I bore, I did not become a mother, rather a
cook and a slave.
Not long after I was married,
Father and Jach left together, and good riddance to them. So high and mighty that
little Jach, though he was no better than me. That I knew even then. He is gone
from my memory as though he never existed. My mother came to live with us,
then, and so spoiled any chance I had with Svend. She settled into our little
house with all her bulk, and from that day forward began to shrink.
I had little to give her, as I believed
she did not deserve much from me. After all, she had married my father and
birthed that mean brother and that scrawny sister of mine, and she had not much
else to her credit. She was a force in our household. She sided with him when
it suited her, and with me when it suited her, and she liked to remind us both
of our duty and our debt. She did not care much for the children as they came
one by one and two by two, though she was of some help. She had a way of taking
a crying baby and squeezing and rocking it to sleep. She was aggressive in her
rocking, so the chair sometimes tipped over sending her and baby sprawling. And
she liked to tell them stories that weren’t true.
I remember once she had Peter in
that chair. The twins were just born, and the little one so weak that I feared
for her life at every turn. I was in the bed nursing them, one on each breast,
and Peter was crying because he did not like to see me do it. He said I was
like a dog. She had called him to her, and he’d climbed up into her lap, though
he was already too big. The chair was still in the bedroom then, as were the
babies, so I could watch her, and she could watch me with my dripping nipples.
Sometimes she called Peter Jach,
and he would correct her, for he was a clever babe, clever with talking and
with understanding his place.
“No Grand Mamma.” he would say. “I
am Peter.”
She would come a bit out of her
fog, the chair would stop for a moment, and she would smile at him with those
pale eyes and wipe her mouth.
“I will tell you a story of Jach,”
she would say.
“Once, when he was as little as
you are, and your Mama was a very big girl, she gave him a snail to eat. The
garden was full of them that year. Do you know what a snail is?”
Peter solemnly nodded, for he did
not like to be caught out as stupid.
“Well,” she said, “a snail is a
disgusting mouthful, and if you don’t cook it (who would) it can squirm around
in your mouth and slither down your throat of its own will.”
“Ugh,” said Peter, just what she
wanted him to say. But his eyes were shining with delight.
“Do you want to know what Jach
did?”
Peter nodded.
“He pretended to eat it right up,
and maybe he did too. And he convinced Ka-aren that it was the best thing in
the world, so she went out into the mud and ate one herself. Of course she got
sick and made a mess in her bed, so I had to punish her for it.”
This story was not true, except
the last part. I did once mess the bed, and it was him, not her, who gave me
the whipping.
But she wished it had been her,
because she got meaner every day that was left to her, and she was less and
less help. I had nothing to give her. I had only little Ingrid, her namesake,
and she took that baby up like it was a cake to eat.
Long gone and good riddance, and
the old man, my husband gone soon, too. The price of my freedom, his death. Was
it worth it, all of it?
This, I will never know, I am
sure.
What I do know, is that this day,
perhaps his last in the world, I will go to him and once more gaze upon his
face to see what he is.
I see the hallway, cold and white
and wooden. I see the bed, white also, and the blowing curtains. I see the
strange lights in the sky, for it is the endless day. I see his blue hand on
the cover, his fingers scrunched in a gentle claw. I see his spotted brown arm,
his bony shoulder, his withered neck. There is his mouth, parted to let out a
single breath. There is his nose, flaring and beautiful. His eyes are closed,
but I know them. Blue as the sky in his white face. He will not look upon me,
this I know, so I am free to look upon him and imagine. I imagine his children
waiting to be born, crowding together on the other side, each taking a feature
from me or from him—those eyes, the nose, the skinny shoulders. A tendency to
roundness. A disdain or a love for food. An upturned nose that some have described
as piggy.
I look closer to see him
squirming below the skin, dreaming with his whole face. I know that he is awake
now, feigning sleep. But the fear is real. What would he have to fear from me?
I think he would fear that I know him, that I know his cowardly soul. All the
blows I delivered were not of consequence compared to that. Would he fear that
I look upon him? Would he fear to look upon me and see what I have become?
Once, he did look. I was my
prettiest then, and so young. I was meat in a market of flies. My father had
said as much at the Friday meeting. “She is ready,” he declared in public. “She
has bled this whole year.” He did not say that he beat me the first time when I
stained my mattress so badly that he had to buy new straw to stuff it with.
Well, my father was mean, and Jach was bad, so what did I expect of a boy soon
to be a man?
Svend and I met at his special
place, the place where he often took refuge. The place was a little cave in the
black cliff at the end of our island and hard to get to except by a rope that
he carried. Carved by ancient sea storms the cave is usually dry, except at the
highest tide. I found him there and he let me, maybe even planned it. This is
the sudden insight I have now as I watch him working it out. Svend was singing
in the cave that I knew was his, that everyone knew was his. He was singing
something out of tune, and I laughed at him and sang it right, and after his
first shock he tugged on the anchored rope to test it, and invited me down. He
let me share his perch and look out to sea with him. You can see the mainland
from there on a not too foggy day. The sea was wavy and cold that day, but
beautiful too. The mainland seemed so far away with its wreath of tall trees
that came right to the water’s edge. We dreamed together that day and on many
days, subsequent, and now we dream together this day.
My eyes are closed against the
sun that streams through and blows the curtains this mid-summer day. The breeze
brings the breaths to him one by one. He is dying one breath at a time. So I do
him the courtesy and do not look again at him until he is done. Have I learned
anything in my long life, my motherhood, my wifely compromises? Just this. To
let him have his escape this one last time.
* * * * *
Laura Davis
Hays lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband and two cats where she works as an
accounting consultant, writes fiction, and composes and performs music. Her
first novel, Incarnation (2016), a past-life thriller, is set in Santa
Fe, Belize, and antediluvian Atlantis. Laura is currently completing a
collection of stories and novellas, and a related novel set on a fictional
Danish island in the early part of the 20th century. Laura
recently published stories in Fiction on the Web UK, Persimmon Tree, and
The Centifictionist.
