Shlomo and Fanya

1.

Shlomo will sleep in the barn the night he proposes to Fanya. He has avoided seven towns, kept to their side paths, followed rows of thirsty creeks around girls beating their brooms, summoning ghosts, pushing ash against the sky.

Shlomo has never met Fanya, but he has a photo. A memorialized gaze in monochrome. Her eyes look light. Maybe blue. Was that a wink? Shlomo is tired.

There is a thin slit between her lips. Fanya’s smile is brave, unaware of its capacity. A matriarch in waiting. A nest of dark curls frame her face that is so round, and smooth, and green. His little grape. Shlomo is starving.

He’s been rationing his rye since leaving home three days ago. A crumb in his mouth, a crumb in his pocket because Fanya is hungry, and Shlomo is cold, so here’s a drop of brandy to keep his bones dry. Shlomo rolls pebbles in his palm, wet from the creek, frostbite cutting his fingertips to keep him awake.

2.

The baker: Shlomo works out of his family home. An assortment of scavenged sticks, slammed close, secured with young fibers. A dome of saplings weaved and multiplied.

His first customer had queued outside. A young girl from the village, humming love, sitting on a wicker chair she dragged out for the occasion. Her hair parted to the side, dark and braided, draped over her right shoulder like a coiled snake. She was pink-nosed in her oversized sheepskin coat, too broad around its shoulders, decorated in small specks of dirt and shadows of lost medals.

The girl did not have any money, but Shlomo was kind. He handed her two slices of apple cake. Warm, heavy, truly what dreams are made of. A year before opening the bakery, Shlomo awoke one night and wrote down the entire recipe.

Above the bakery, the chimney coughed softly. The girl, a matchmaker, asked to see Shlomo’s hand. Reaching from her coat pocket, she pressed a tarot card-sized photo into his palm. His payment, with the town of Ovruch scrawled on the back. No name. He must live to meet her in the morning.

3.

Another unfamiliar village is pocked with bullet holes, shells driven into garden beds. Standing rifles spit their teeth against wooden slats. Shlomo keeps to the forest. He remains low, flattening his body against the bark.

Cannons amplify across the creek. A mass of young birds thrash into the sky. An unannounced break in the atmosphere. Invisible waves stammer forward, splitting pine cones from their mothers. Shlomo runs, elastic through the underbrush.

He stops to catch his breath. Shlomo’s lungs are stiff, his body temperature cut sharply, like drowning. Lingering into collapse. Already lost.

4.

Shlomo has not slept in two nights. Soil and mushroom gills speckle his beard. He finds stale leaves to pad the ground, a large tree to rest against, branches lowering to a cradle. Shlomo runs his fingers along their white-toothed edges. He lifts his head and looks into the tree, searching for a warm star through its tired limbs. Some magic.

The darkness deepens, and there is his Fanya. She sits by a window, sipping on fruit tea, steam wetting her face. Her shoulders wrapped in a gray wool scarf embroidered with miniature purple tulips.

Footsteps. Shlomo opens his eyes. Pushing himself up, he grabs hold of the tree, spots a rough-hewn ladder of branches and scrambles up. Beyond lean birches, a horse stands at the foot of a clearing, a White Army officer dangling over its neck. Blood stains the mare’s back. Her polished coat a heated cinnamon, mane like the fog.

Shlomo descends. He is hesitant as he steps. Pushing the soldier’s boots from their stirrups, Shlomo gently grabs hold of the man’s waist and rests him on the ground. Shot in the back of his head, blood has begun to congeal, his red hair a tangled jelly.

Electric, the horse’s eyes blink recklessly. She dashes into the thicket. Shlomo takes out his paper talisman, his mystery, his future. Follow, it whispers.

5.

Ovruch vibrates with phantoms. Sharp bits of artillery collect in the streets. Uprooted, dusted with gunpowder. Shattered storefront windows threaded with crystal splinters. Crowds of men and their sunken chests, toothpicks between yellow teeth. A constant gnawing. Hands wave Shlomo off, a few grunts, some spits of ridicule.

Three chickens pace around a wooden coop, their feathers glimmer like opal in the late sun. They peck at the husks of sunflower seeds. Fallen stars for this delicate flock. Shlomo offers to help their farmer bundle sticks for firewood, looping strings to keep the twigs in place. Edges already worn, Shlomo holds up his miniature, his no-named bride. The farmer mourns, tells Shlomo to go home, they need time to count the bodies.

The day begins to rest. A purple sky spreads like jam, cooing pigeons on a ledge. Shlomo lifts his collar up, beard tucked into his coat. A young woman kneels beneath an empty window frame, scrubbing the rust from a pot, sweat dripping from her brow. Her silk headscarf untangles and falls to Shlomo’s feet. Returning it, he learns that Fanya’s eyes are green.

6.

The morning field is thick with rumors of faschisten. Fanya breathes in from her stomach. Earlier that week by the river, she found a nest inside a rotted log, eggshells peppered with bite marks, juices lapped up by some hungry creature.

Fanya has left her mother, because who would kill an old woman? The faschisten would. With rope, a slip knot, and a barn rafter, a neighbor would later echo. Shlomo’s headstone split in half. It lies next to that of his eldest daughter, born by Fanya during their second year of marriage.

The forest rushes Fanya in, this is no time for greetings. Two children trail behind their mother. Their older brother claws ahead. A fourth child, an infant, grasps at her breast. Their feet pound the mud, fresh from last night’s rain, matted with leaves which slip as they gather speed. Blowing through fallen branches, cobwebs mask their faces. Their heels keep pace to a tempo the family knows by heart.

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