The Silence of Trees (17 page)

I started to shake my head, but he reached out and gently put his hand on my forearm.

“Don’t worry; my intentions are honorable.”

I watched his face for signs of insincerity, but there were none. How could he care so much?

“I would always make sure that you were taken care of,” he said.

A wave of nausea, sharp pains. I put my hand on my side.

“I can’t,” I said, although his offer held more promise than any dream I had dreamed since I left Ukraine: a family. I already loved his mother. But I could never return there. What if they found out about Stephan? And Pavlo, I could not leave him—

“Why not?” he asked. “You don’t love him.”

I inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled long and heavy. I stared at my feet and said, “I think I’m pregnant, Andriy.”

It was the first time I had said the words out loud.

Silence. Then he took my hand again.

“I’ll marry you, Nadya,” he said. Again the sincerity. Again the kindness.

I laughed again, this time bitterly. “You don’t know me.”

“I believe I do,” he answered.

***

How different my life would have been had I gone with Andriy. I would surely not be here in Chicago, in a backyard sitting against a garage with peeling blue paint. I stared at the tomato plant in Pavlo’s garden, watching the thick worms crawl on the stalks.

I heard the screen door slam against the side of the house, and Pavlo walked toward me, his face red, troubled. He didn’t look right. I panicked and began to rise. Pavlo stretched out his hand, motioned that I stay seated. I looked up at him,

"What’s the matter, Pavlo? Don’t you feel well? Are you having chest pains?"

He walked over to me and sat down. His knees creaked. He let out a groan as he leaned back against the garage, next to me.

"Nadya," he said, "I’ve been thinking about something. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s because you look so pretty sitting here in the garden. Maybe it’s just the games our minds play with us when we get old."

I gazed intently at him. "What is it?" I asked. I was getting angry. Was he gambling with the old men in the bar again? I was saving that money for a new coat. "What have you done now, Pavlo?"

"I never told you," his voice cracked.

Pavlo was not an outwardly emotional man. As I looked away, staring straight ahead, I heard him take a deep breath.

"I don’t know if you remember that night back in the camp when we got into a fight, something about an American soldier. I was angry and drunk. We fought. Back then I was always afraid, afraid of losing you. I had nothing else. I loved you so much—"

What triggered this memory for him? I looked at his face, but he avoided my eyes, staring at the grass while brushing his hand along the surface.

"I’m sorry we fought," Pavlo said looking at his fingertips.

I said nothing and watched Khvostyk hitting the screen with his paw. Pavlo continued, "I left you crying in the barrack and went to drink, but I had no more money. So I went to the garden to think. To sleep. I couldn’t face you. I fell asleep there, and then I dreamed that I heard your voice, and you were crying. I thought I woke up, but I must have been dreaming. I heard you talking to someone, a man. First I was angry again, but I kept listening.

"You said you hated me. You said you cursed the day you met me. Nadya, something inside my heart was squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. I promised that night never to hurt you again. I promised God. I promised to make you happy. I promised—"

He stopped talking. I looked down at the grass. I couldn’t believe Pavlo was there. Couldn’t grasp the possibility.

"I’m sorry. Nadya, I loved you. I knew the first time I saw your face that I would marry you. I knew." He reached for my hand. "I just wanted to tell you."

For a few minutes we sat in silence. Then Pavlo looked at me, as if there was something more he wanted to say, then shook his head and kissed me on the cheek. He let go of my hand as he stood up and reached for the side of the garage for support. Flakes fell apart under his hand as he looked down at me and said, "Maybe tomorrow I’ll buy fresh paint."

How like him to change the subject. How like him to stir me up, then back away.

"Another shade of blue," he continued. "I know it’s your favorite color." He smiled. "Remember when you told me you always dreamt of a blue barn with a brown speckled cow named Zorya. Well, we never did get that cow, but we have a nice brown car." He walked back to the house.

So quickly the seasons changed, the wheel of life turning. Sometimes I cannot believe that I have surpassed my grandmother’s age, that I have lived a lifetime and am closer to the end than the beginning. Sometimes I feel as if just yesterday I was five years old sitting in my Dido’s garden. Just yesterday, I held Stephan’s hand as we walked through the woods, naming our future children. Just yesterday, I buried my secrets under a grove of dead trees. The closer I get to the end, the more I turn back to the beginning. Just waiting for tomorrow to become yesterday.

I missed Ana. If only she were here, I could talk with her. She would have known exactly the right thing to say and do. I waited, but all I heard was a cat in the neighbor’s trashcan and a siren in the distance.

Just as I thought my life had reached a calm, a peace that comes with age, that cursed envelope arrived to haunt me with thoughts of what might have been. Still, I had no answers. I continued to wait for something to happen, for something to change.

My Baba always told me that when you needed a teacher, the Universe would send you one. When you needed an angel, you needed only to look around. I keep looking and listening. I suppose I had been lucky in my past, blessed with many angels in my life. If Andriy was one such angel, should I have gone with him? Americans say "Hindsight is 20/20," but even looking back, I didn’t know if I made the right decisions.

***

I collapsed at Andriy’s feet, exhausted and heavy with pain and guilt and confusion and regret and shame. Andriy knelt down beside me and extended an arm, which I pushed away. Rushing at me were the events of the last two years, they raged inside like wildfire. I felt again the deaths of those I left behind: Mama, Tato, Laryssa, little Halya, Stephan, Miriam. I felt again Pavlo’s cruel accusations. They were like a fist around my heart, squeezing. Yet, I could do nothing but cry and pound the earth. I thought nothing of the child in my womb, nothing of my own health, nothing of the future.

I wanted to die.

I awoke, having cried myself to sleep, my face in the grass, my hands still in fists. Andriy sat beside me, hands folded in his lap, watching me. The sky was still dark; I could not have slept for long.

"I’m so sorry," I said, my throat raw from crying.

"I would do anything for you," He said.

"How, Andriy?" I asked, angry and suspicious. "How can I believe you? You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about who I am." I looked at him.

"You have a choice," Andriy whispered in darkness.

"No. It’s not that simple." At least the pounding in my chest had stopped.

Then I remembered. Choice. I did have a choice. Mama Paraska knew all about herbs. If I didn’t want this baby—

"You’re right Andriy. We need to go see your mama." And I leapt to my feet.

After I explained to her my plan, Mama leapt shook her head. Andriy stood behind her, his right hand on her shoulder, his left hand tugging at his eyebrows. They looked like a biblical icon, standing there together. The angel standing behind the saint. If only I had the patience for painting. Or the freedom.

Mama Paraska just stared at me, eyes unblinking, and said, "Kill your child?"

She looked up at her son, "Kill her child? You can’t approve of this."

Andriy said nothing. He just kept tugging at those caterpillar eyebrows. He hadn’t said anything since we left the gardens.

"Mama Paraska, I don’t want a child made in hatred—"

"It’s a child!" Her eyes bright, her voice even stronger, "A human child, Nadya." She stood up and rushed at me, placing her strong arms on my upper arms. Her cheeks were white, her hands shaking, she brought her face right up to mine. Standing up on her toes a little, she glared at me, and I could feel power from this woman. I could feel it like heat coming off her body.

"Above all else, life is sacred," Mama Paraska continued. "Have you learned nothing in this war? How can you ask this of me?"

I looked away. "Will you help me?" I wanted no child conceived in War.

Silence. I walked over to where someone had left a fire to burn itself out. I stared into the embers, feeling glares on my back. The snap and pop of the fire called to mind Miriam from the train, whose lovely hands had been burned by the German soldiers. Why create more children for this horrible place? To die at the hands of cruel men, or worse. To live lives filled with pain, suffering, deception, death. I thought of Halya, of Mama, of Baba Lena. Or worse yet, to give birth to a son who could someday treat women in such a way. No. A child conceived in hatred would only live out that hatred in his life.

I looked over at mother and son. Mama Paraska stared at me. Andriy stared at me. Waiting.

"I will not give birth to this child. I will not. If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will."

Mama Paraska walked closer to the fire and again reached out to touch me. I shook her away. She reached up and grabbed my chin, pulling it down so I could not help but look her in the eye.

"If you kill this child, I can never again call you daughter. If you kill this child, I can never again call you friend. You kill this child, I can never speak to you again, Nadya. Never."

"Thank you," I said.

"Do not ever thank me, not for this." She walked away, and I went back to the barrack.

An hour later, Mama Paraska walked to my door with a cup of warm, dark liquid and said, "Eat nothing. Drink this and go to sleep. The pain will wake you." She slowly handed me the cup, and as I took it, she said, "Nadya, you can still change your mind. Listen to your heart."

She held both of her hands out in front of her, palms facing upward, and took a step toward me. As I stepped back, she reached out and cupped my cheeks in her warm hands, holding my head still so she could peer up into my eyes.

"Nadya, know this: there is balance in the universe."

But I shook her hands off. "Paraska, I can’t birth this child. I can’t."

She let go and took a step back, her cheeks flushed, her eyes tearing.

"At least bury him," she said, "and give him a name." Mama Paraska wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "I put in a little milk of the poppy to help you, to dull the pain a little." She looked up at the sky, crossed herself, and walked away,

I closed the door, then lit a candle beside my bed to protect me from any evil spirits who might smell death and come to call. The other couples who shared the barracks were still out dancing, drinking, and enjoying this, one of the last warm nights of summer. Pavlo was undoubtedly passed out somewhere, so I had the room to myself for a few hours. I drank down the warm liquid, tasting honey and a hint of mint, then closed my eyes and lay down to sleep.

Crying, not pain, woke me from a dreamless sleep. A soft whimpering from the darkest corner of the room, and a tiny voice: "Mama, why is there no love for me?"

I sat up in bed, suddenly shivering, and looked around for my blanket. Seeing it on the floor, I reached over the edge to lift it up and felt a cold breeze brush against my arm. I quickly drew my hand back and pulled my knees up to my chest. Nothing moved in the room, and for what seemed like hours, I sat there. My eyes grew heavy, I must have drifted back to sleep. Again the voice: "Mama, why did you take away my breath?"

"Who-who’s there?" I asked, afraid. Only silence.

A breeze must have burned the candle out, so I reached for matches. I felt a tight cold grip on my wrist in the dark, and for a moment I hesitated, afraid. When I finally lit the candle with shaking fingers, the light cast no shadow on my arm. Still that icy pressure around my wrist.

"Leave me in peace," I cried out. "Leave me; I have no choice."

Tears were forming in my eyes. Pain, like a deep throb in my belly, forced me to lurch forward on the bed. I was chilled except for the fire beginning to burn in my womb. I rested my chin against my thighs, trying to rid myself of the chill, but still that icy pressure on my wrist.

"Leave me in peace, please." I begged. I wept. No longer in control.

"Mama, why? Why is there no love for me?" Again that sweet voice.

"I have no love," I said aloud. "I have no love left. It died inside of me, and there’s nothing I can do."

I sat back up and shook my hands, trying to rid myself of the grip. Then a stab, like nails scraping against the inside of my belly.

I fell over onto my side and wrapped my hands around my stomach, my eyes squeezed shut.

"Mama." A whisper, closer to my face.

I refused to open my eyes, the pain intensified.

"Mama?"

I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to picture myself anywhere else. Still, the ripping. Still, the stabbing. Still, the feeling that I was not alone.