Zach Powers - First Cosmic Velocity

They did not know him here, not the adult version. The news of the space race, it seemed, declined to make the long trek to the valley. Mykola the boy had not understood the things Tsiolkovksi had said, and Mykola the man seemed not to remember them.

“I’m a soldier,” said Leonid.

“I thought so,” said Mykola. “There’s something about your posture. It’s the same as the men who returned from the war.”

“I’m not sure if that’s due to being a soldier or to coming home after a long time away.”

“And your brother?”

“He is…”

“I’m sorry.” Mykola strode forward and pulled Leonid into an embrace. He had grown a fat belly in the years Leonid had been away. It was hard to imagine anyone in the village being fat. Leonid wrapped one arm around Mykola’s back.

“God, it’s good to see you,” said Mykola. “Sometimes you don’t know what you miss until you see it again.”

THE HEART of the village was at once exactly as Leonid remembered and entirely different. The tree still grew in the center of the main square, and near it rose the gravestones, plus new ones he supposed. Which one was Oksana’s? He could not remember where it had been placed. No one had carved her name at the time. Did anyone come later to name the nameless? Even stillborn babies deserved that much, a name itself a sort of monument.

The arrangement of cottages was the same as in Leonid’s memory, but almost all of them looked rebuilt. The old style of construction, hand-hewn panels and roofs pinched into jagged peaks, had been replaced with manufactured boards and fresh black shingling. Glass windows filled the holes that had once been covered by shutters alone. Instead of dirt, the main path through the village was packed with crushed white stone that shifted beneath Leonid’s feet with every step. The gravelly sound bothered Leonid, as if he was walking on bones.

Villagers moved around like actors on a stage, miming the actions they were actually performing. Leonid had not seen a water pump since he left the village. He had not needed firewood for just as long. There was always someone to wash his clothes for him, prepare his meals. Indoor plumbing. The village was like stepping into the forgotten part of history, a collection of the little tasks that would never be included in textbooks, but that for almost everyone who had ever lived made up the bulk of their existence. Wars, after all, were the exception. Like the launching of rockets.

One question had plagued Leonid the whole time he waited with Mykola by the station, during the short ride down the mountain, and now as they walked. The words of the question felt too heavy. His Ukrainian had stopped developing when he left the village. He worried that he spoke it now only at the level of a child. The question required some small degree of eloquence, an arrangement of words that would give weight to it, endow it with the proper seriousness, respect. He forced himself to ask the question, but it came out as only a single word.

“Grandmother?”

Mykola stopped walking. The gravel crunched beneath his feet.

“She lived for many years after you left,” said Mykola. “When the train started coming again, she met it every time, even when her knees started to ache. She never complained about that, but anyone watching could see the way she favored them. She also never explained why she met the train, but anyone with a heart knew. She was hoping her boys would return. And you did!”

“Too late.”

“I visited her every day.”

“Thank you.”

“She wasn’t sad. She missed you, but she was absolutely convinced that things were better for you outside the valley, even after conditions here improved.”

They caught up with Nadya at the far side of the village. She crouched by the side of the stone path and pinched a fallen fir needle between her thumb and finger. Leonid introduced her. Nadya dropped the needle and stood.

“Forgive me for wandering off,” she said. “I’ve spent my whole life in cities, inside buildings. This place is like another planet. I get lost in places like this. The Chief… my uncle once said I have the heart of an explorer. That’s why… that’s why he always favored me over the others.”

Leonid wasn’t sure if Mykola would understand Nadya’s Russian, but he turned to Leonid and spoke in Russian himself. “I’m an uncle now! My first nephew was born just last month. By marriage, of course. I didn’t have any siblings. I guess I should start by saying I’m married. There’s too much history you’ve missed to share all at once.”

“Married!” said Leonid. “Who is she?”

“Lesya. You knew her, but she was only five or six when you left. Oksana’s little sister.”

“Of course I remember her, though I can’t recall her face.”

“I doubt the face is much at all like the one you would remember, anyway.” He turned back to Nadya. “So, you like our valley?”

“It’s glorious. I could imagine living here. Not that I ever plan to settle. The only life I’ve ever known is one of motion. I could linger here, though, most definitely.”

Ahead of them, the path diverted to the right, and then curved back behind an outcropping of trees. On the other side was the plot of land where Leonid and his brother had lived with Grandmother. When he left, the trees were dry and bare, the cottage visible at a glance. Now the green grew so thick that it was as if nothing at all existed on the other side.

“Is it still there?” asked Leonid, pointing through the woods.

“It is. One of the few that hasn’t been rebuilt. And it’s occupied. I believe you know who lives there.”

Leonid tried to think of who from the village might still be alive. One of the other children? He barely remembered them. Sometimes he could not remember if a particular childhood friend had lived or died. For years he had dreams about people from the village dying. Some were dead before he left, others not. Sometimes he believed the dreams more than his memory.

“To be honest,” said Mykola, “I haven’t seen him in so long, he might have finally died.”

“I’m familiar with that feeling.” Leonid started down the trail.

“Wait, don’t you want to know who it is?”

“I’ll know soon enough.”

Kasha flashed by. Instead of following the path, she entered the woods, dodging around trees like obstacles on a course. Her mother, the other Kasha, had once done the same. Only this Kasha’s tail, always curled up and over, let Leonid tell the two apart. Nadya followed the dog into the woods, brushing her fingertips across the bark of the trees as she passed.

By the time Leonid and Mykola rounded the bend, Kasha and Nadya had already passed through the woods to the other side and sat together in a patch of high grasses. Beyond them, Grandmother’s cottage. Leonid did not recognize it at first, even though it was in the right place and was the right shape and could be none other than the home he had known. He had never expected to see it again, and he could not overcome his expectations so quickly. Finally, it was the pile of firewood beside the front door that convinced him. Knowing that the wood was still stacked in the same spot gave him a feeling of permanence more profound than the unchanging cottage behind it.

“Is it as you remember?” asked Mykola.

“The firewood, yes,” said Leonid. “We never had glass windows.”

“They still have your kitchen table. I remember it being old even before you left.”

Leonid crouched and scratched Kasha behind her ears. A bird sang in a tree. Another bird, more distant, replied. He scanned the canopy. No birds in sight, but a squirrel tightroped down a thin branch and leapt to another limb. Leonid had to search deep into his memory to recall a time when there were squirrels in the valley. Kasha followed the motion of the squirrel with her eyes.