Kris (2 page)

The morning sun glanced off the crystalline snow and sprayed a glaring light upon our ragged and weary group.

In such a harsh light as this, we now found ourselves illuminated, our desperation exposed as our sleigh moved forward across the powdery snow.

The devil time now became our enemy, waiting for us to falter, watching with glee as we drifted onward in hope of finding yet another way station or sheltered hostel in which to deposit one more piece of our hearts.

As we moved ahead, I noticed feral shadows peppering the snow, interrupting its glaring whiteness in slinking, threatening movements. Wolves, I thought. Or was I so tired that my mind now birthed twisted imaginings?

Vicious wolves, I imagined, marking time, waiting for us to hesitate or pause, so they might strike. This was their land, their hunting ground, their home, not ours.

Wolves know the value of time and how quickly it passes and changes us. They know the value of patience and of waiting for opportunity.
They surround their prey and paralyze it with fear while they stalk and distract and close their ranks in anticipation of the moment when they might spring.

The whole world can feel full of these savage predators, always advancing, always stalking, always ripping away at our youth. But sometimes the world offers salvation, and sometimes the wolves are imagined.

Another modest cottage. Another chance to dispense a desperate and hungry child and save him from the wild and release him to the vagaries of fate.

Bread. The sweet scent of bread. Hot loaves placed upon a windowsill to cool by the mistress of the house. Hot loaves of bread calling to me, making my mouth water, coating my wind-parched lips.

We all smelled it. Our forgotten hunger now pulled at our rumbling bellies. And again our mother chose, another boy, a twin, my brother Tamas.

“I am torn,” my mother said to him, “by wanting to know what kind of man you will be when you are grown up and wanting to keep you, my child. I cannot imagine a time when you will not be my little man. You were so excited to be six and with the toy whistles and bells your father hid about the house. So very frustrated with your sister for taking forever to find the gifts and then to play with each one before she moved on to the next treasure hunt. You are stubborn and bullheaded, and I love that about you. I hope you keep those qualities as you get older. I look at you and I see such possibilities. How excited I am for you and your new life.”

As my mother kissed and held him, he reached for our sister Talia. I pulled my brother Tamas toward the house and the scent of freshly baked bread. He began to fight me, screaming. I placed my hand across his mouth to silence him and held him fast, though he kicked and lashed out at me in his desperate anger. I was so afraid I might hurt him as he fought. But what could hurt him more than tearing him from his family? He would hate me for leaving him here alone.

He struggled. I walked.

I told myself over and over this must be done. “This must be done!” I said aloud.

I ignored his tears. I ignored his pleas and his struggles. Then, suddenly, he stopped fighting. The tension released from every muscle in his body. Talia's fingers intertwined with his. She stood there holding his hand, their look sharing what only twins could possibly understand.

For a moment they glanced up at me with tears in their eyes, then turned and walked to the cottage.

How brave they were, how trusting. How beautiful they were, like lost angels filled with grace walking hand in hand as they approached the cottage door.

Who ever could have dreamed when they were born that such a day as today would arrive? My mother's glorious twins, her pride, now pushed aside and sent out into the world alone.

I rushed to the windowsill and snatched one loaf of bread for the others, then ran back to the sleigh, nearly breathless in my desire to flee. The twins knocked upon the cottage door.

Of all the pain I had ever felt, none was so savage as the misery of separation. When my father died, I felt a wound that would never heal. He did not mean to leave us, I now know. But as he died, I was filled with rage.

“How can you leave us?” I demanded to know as he lay there dying. “How can you go and not think to take us with you?” I shouted when he was gone.

I wanted to walk with him no matter where he went, in worlds dark or distant. I wanted him to be strong and take my hand or caution me away from dangerous dispositions. He was my heart.

It was not so much the pain of loss but its permanence that echoed again and again for me—loss that could not be reclaimed in this world, or maybe even in the next. Everything I counted on was gone. Every memory. Every hope. Every small achievement measured by this man whose death left me abandoned one winter day. I was not ready to take on this world alone.

This is how my brothers and sisters must have felt. They had trusted that our parents would be there. That I would be there as an older brother should be. But that too was denied by my mother. I blamed her. However wrongly, I did blame her.

I knew I could not end our reckless journey until each of my brothers and sisters was given some chance, some place of shelter. So on we went, our sleigh glancing across the rugged terrain.

After we traveled for so long that it felt we might soon come to the world's end, the music of mighty axes and the singing of lumberjacks floated out from a distant stand of trees. I reined in Gerda and slowed our pace, listening to the rhythm of the axes as I planned our next engagement.

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

A lumberjack's life is a worrisome one, though some call it free from care
.

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

It's the ringing of the axe from morning till night in the middle of the forest fair
.

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

While life as a jack can be bleak and cold while the wintery winds do blow
,

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

As soon as the morning star does appear, to the wild woods we must go
.

Then came a mighty and thunderous CRACK, and a giant tree surrendered its majestic form to the earth.

Garin did not wait for my next thought. He never seemed to need the rest of us. That is not to say he wasn't part of us. He loved us, and we him. Sometimes he would play with the rest of us, and sometimes he was a kind of loner. It amazed me how independent he was at nine years old.

He leaned his tired frame across the bench and kissed my mother on the cheek. The kiss held for just the slightest moment, and as he leaned back my mother spoke words to him that rang in my ears for years to come, “Don't ever let them know where you are from.”

Before I stopped the sleigh, Garin leapt out onto the snowy ground and began his trek toward the lumberjacks. I loved that he struck out on his own without looking back. He got that from our father.

He was strong and embraced his new calling with resolute purpose, like some tragic champion of old. My deep sadness and regret was that he might someday forget us all in his effort to cut away the painful past, forgetting all the happiness that once lived there.

The sleigh came to a stop, and I watched as he walked across the snowy expanse. He didn't look back.

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

Some would leave their friends and homes and others they love dear
,

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

And into the lonesome pine woods their pathway they do steer
.

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

Into the lonesome pine woods all winter to remain

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, THWACK,

A-waiting for the springtime to return again
.

A snap of the reins and Gerda was off again, leading us forward into evening and tomorrow. Garin's old wooden bear, left behind, collapsed onto its side as if felled by one stroke of an imaginary axe. And it rolled to the rear of the sleigh, where it came to a halt as abruptly as Garin's childhood.

My mother coughed behind me. It was clear her time was coming to an end. I struggled with confusion. She was stern in the demands she placed on us and especially on me, but she always had watched over us and protected us in whatever ways she could. Now she was determined to see us scattered to the wind with only the smallest hope we might again take root. At the time, she seemed to me without feeling or compassion for our young lives as her own began to drift away.

I did not know what else to do, except to carry out this task as she demanded. I was helpless to change the path we were now upon, so I executed her dying wish because I could think of none to surpass it.

I became determined to take what little control I could in my effort to find real shelter for my brothers and sisters. It would be their only opportunity for survival. That my mother wanted me to leave them by the roadside or wandering alone in hopes some stranger would discover them only added to my frustration, deepened my anger, and left me feeling weak and pitiful. It would be years before I uncovered the simple truth that facing your own death was almost inconsequential compared to losing a child.

In the evening light I spied a modest country inn and set it as the next destination on our quest for gentle refuge.

My mother stroked Jess's hair. “You're beautiful. So, so pretty and red is your hair and your long, long lashes. Our neighbors would stop us to tell me how beautiful you are. I wish I could say it was embarrassing, but I never tired of it, because not only are you beautiful on the outside, you are even more so on the inside.”

Jess had a sweetness, a kind of rosy glow around her wherever she went. She also had her own world that she lived in all the time. She loved to dance and sing and would make us call her by her name of choice for the day and would not respond to any other. Penelope was her best friend, though none of us could see Penelope. Jess was a joy.

With Jess in hand, I walked to the inn and sent her inside. I found a slightly open window through which I could see and feel the raging fire radiating from the hearth within.

A buxom bar matron busily served patrons and travelers, men and women that had gathered inside for warmth who ate and drank in great measure. They shouted raucous songs and engaged in playful banter in the spirit of holiday revelers and were so occupied with their merriment they failed to notice Jess as she entered through a swinging tavern door. I watched from outside and could see Jess make her way curiously through the room until she stumbled and fell in a carpet of scraps and sawdust. All eyes turned to Jess, but no one came to her rescue.