The Silence of Trees Read Online Free PDF Page B

Laryssa, and Halya? And now, again, the Russians. Now they took away Stephan.
    Time. Where was my past? My future? The vorozhka was right. What are we in war? Things. To be used. Broken. Thrown away. I had no more time. I had nothing. I couldn’t even feel anything. Just dead inside.
    "Shut up, Bozka. She should know the truth. She is alone now." Jan stared at me.
    I looked down at Stephan’s coat. Why did I let him leave it with me? He would need it out there. I was warm in this little house. I pulled at my ripped blouse trying to bring the two sides together.
    "I’ll sew that for you, dear," the old woman said, noticing my efforts.
    "Don’t interrupt me, wife," Jan said. "Listen to me, girl. The soldiers will order them to strip. Then tell them to turn around and face the ditches—"
    Feeling the ache in my right eye, I gently touched the bruise on my cheek. There was a little blood on my hand when I pulled it away.
    "Then they are shot. They have dug their own graves. Unless the soldiers use their swords. That is how they killed our son. But he was one of the Hlinka Guards."
    I looked under the table and realized what a tiny spot it had been for Stephan to hide in. He must have been cramped, especially with his bad knees. How could we have thought they wouldn’t find him there? Even with the tablecloth, it would be the most obvious hiding place. Poor Stephan.
    Jan pounded his fist on the table, "Listen to me, girl. Listen to me because I know about war and death. The man you love is gone. Forget him now, or he’ll haunt you forever."
    He shook his finger at my face, "You can sit there silently for now, but you better let that pain out. Cry if you have to. Scream if that’s what’s inside. Don’t let those bastards take away your voice."
    He glared at me, then reached out for his wife’s hand. Bozka walked over and took it.
    "War brings death too soon," he said. "Get used to it. You are alone now."
    I rested my elbows on the table and buried my face in my hands. I had been alone since I left Mama and Tato to see the vorozhka. Even on the long road here to Slovakia—even with Stephan walking beside me—I was alone.
    Bozka whispered, "Jan, enough."
    I saw the spilt coffee on the ground, coffee the soldiers had spilled when they ripped the cloth off the table. I reached over to lift up a rag from the corner. After carefully hanging the overcoat on the back of the chair, I knelt down beside the table and dabbed at the small puddles.
    The cottage air suddenly seemed too thick, the tobacco too heavy, the voices too familiar. I stood up, reaching again for Stephan’s coat.
    "I need to go outside." I said, aching for the openness of sky.
    "It’s the middle of the night; you shouldn’t go alone," Bozka said in protest.
    "I am alone." I unlocked the door and walked outside.
    I spread Stephan’s coat beneath the silver fir and lay on top of it, curling into the fabric, the smell of him mixing with grass and raspberries. It was all I had now, all that was left of him. We had shared our final kiss in that spot.
    Out of the old couple’s cottage came the smell of boiling raspberries and coffee. I watched a black griffin fly overhead, toward gray branches on the hillside, standing out against the sky like poetry. Baba said that Mother Earth gave us messages in her work, omens in her creation. Most people just didn’t read the signs, she said. But what of those gnarled letters against the night? I looked longer and they spelled my mother’s name. Or was it mine?
    I lay my cheek upon the earth, listening. Around me grasses whispered, winds exhaled through leaves, bushes shook off heavy sighs. The gentle hush . . . a lullaby. Like the songs my Baba used to sing. To make me feel safe. To chase away my night frights. To remind me that death could have a gentle face.
    When Baba Hanusia was dying, she came to stay with us. I was young and didn’t really understand. I knew Baba was sick, but I thought she would get better. One