Robert Dinsdale - Gingerbread

He pauses, because seemingly it does not sound right, even to him. The boy cocks his head. This is the same papa who wouldn’t come to the forest, the same papa who would have broken his mama’s dying promise and never set foot here again. Perhaps it is something to do with that fanciful folk tale. The boy looks back at the house, wondering.

‘I think we’ll stay,’ he says, letting his arm fall about the boy’s shoulder. ‘Just for a little while. Just until …’

‘Until what, papa?’

‘Just until the stories are done.’

The boy watches as Grandfather’s face shifts. His eyes seem suddenly far away. ‘Papa,’ he ventures, ‘I thought you hated the forest. I thought you said you’d never come back. We can go now, papa. I don’t mind.’ He thinks to say it again, as if to make sure Grandfather understands. ‘I don’t mind at all.’

‘Oh,’ grins Grandfather. ‘But neither do I. I think … the trees might not be so wicked after all. Come on, boy,’ he grins. ‘If I remember at all, there used to be a stream …’

He lifts his jackboot, and in one simple step goes under the trees.

Watching Grandfather under the trees is like watching a wolf prowl the tenement. His hands light on trunks and his jackboots sink into the frosted forest mulch, and he stops between the oaks, as if to judge the way. They do not find the stream, but it doesn’t matter; Grandfather says there will be other days, and in the dead of winter a stream sometimes does not want to be found. They stop, instead, at a stand of black pine and Grandfather shows the boy how to strip the branches of their needles. A scent like Christmas billows up to engulf the boy, and now he must fill his pockets with them, so that they scratch and prickle against his legs.

‘What is it for, papa?’

‘Aren’t you thirsty, boy?’

The boy nods.

‘I’m going to show you something. It saved my life, almost every single night.’

Once there are enough pine needles in his pockets, the boy follows Grandfather back into the house. He has unearthed a cast-iron pot and balances it in the new flames, adding the needles handful by handful as the snow melts to sludge and then begins to simmer.

‘What do you think, boy?’

They drink it from unearthed clay cups. There is a pleasing smell to its steam and its sweet taste, of woods and wild grass, warms the boy through. When he looks up from his cup, Grandfather is holding his to his face, letting the steam bead in his whiskers, the thatches above his eyes.

‘What’s wrong, papa?’

‘It’s the smell. It … reminds me. There’s nothing like a smell, boy, to put you in another place.’

The boy thinks he understands; it is not so very different when he drinks in the scent of mama’s shawl. The thought of it, lying crumpled by the rocking chair in the tenement, makes him wonder. ‘Are we going back to the tenement today, papa?’

‘Not yet, little one.’

‘I thought you didn’t like it here.’

Grandfather breathes out, expelling pine-needle steam. ‘You wouldn’t want to leave her again, would you?’

This doesn’t make sense, because it was Grandfather who said that mama was fine out there in the trees.

‘Maybe we can take mama back with us.’

‘No,’ says Grandfather, and his tone means he will brook no more questions. ‘We’ll stay with her, for a while. She’d like that, boy. You’d like it. I’d … like it.’

Through the day the clouds are thick, so that night might have already fallen for hours before the darkness truly sets in. With real night, however, comes real snow. Standing in the kitchen door to say goodnight to mama, the boy can barely see the end of the garden. It reveals itself only in fragments, catching his eye each time the driving snow twists and comes apart. At the end of that vortex, crusts grow over the roots where mama sleeps, but Grandfather says not to worry.

‘I once slept in a hole six feet under the ice,’ he begins. ‘Three days and three nights, boy. Every time I closed my eyes, I thought I’d freeze. I didn’t know, back then, that it was the ice protecting me. It was the ice keeping me warm.’

Grandfather turns to tramp back towards the hearth, but the boy is slow to follow.

‘Papa,’ he says, ‘is it a story?’

At the fire, Grandfather bends to feed more wood to the flames.

‘It is,’ he says, ‘but for another night …’

In the morning there is no talk of the tenement. Before the sun struggles into the sky Grandfather leads him off, deeper into the forest.

‘I remembered the way,’ he says. ‘It came to me in the dead of night.’

‘To the stream?’

‘It runs underground but comes to the surface for just a little while …’

It turns out that Grandfather is looking for cattails. Cattails, he says, grow by streams and you can dig them up even in the dead of winter. If you cook them right they can taste just like a potato.

‘But we have potatoes in the tenement, papa.’

They stand by a depression in the land through which Grandfather is certain the stream once ran.

‘Do you want to go back to the tenement, boy? Is that it?’

‘I don’t want to leave her, papa, but …’

‘What’s in the tenement?’ Grandfather sinks to his knees and runs his hands through tall bladed grass. He seems to be feeling their textures, teasing out the occasional one and following its stem all the way to its root. ‘Your mama was the only thing in the tenement that mattered, and now she’s here. In spring she’ll be in every tree, just like baba.’

‘Do you miss baba, papa?’

‘Only every day. Might be I’d forgotten how much, until you made me come here.’

Now the boy understands: it is his fault. His papa pleaded with him not to make him come, but the boy pleaded back. There must be old smells and memories rushing on Grandfather every second. Maybe he remembers how baba smelt, how she spoke, the things that she said.

‘Are the trees your friends, papa?’

‘They saved my life, once upon a time.’

Grandfather plunges a hand through the crust. The earth seems to swallow him, up to his elbow. He fights back, gripping his arm with the other hand as if struggling with whatever cadaver lurks beneath the surface. Finally, he topples back, the cattail in his hand, trailing pulpy white flesh beaded in dirt.

‘It’s for dinner.’

‘What about school, papa? I have to go to school.’

Grandfather’s eyes roam the grasses, searching out another stalk.

‘I never heard of a little boy wanting to go to school.’

‘I haven’t been since … before mama. They’ll wonder where I am. What about … Yuri?’

‘He’s your little friend.’

The boy shrugs.

‘You want to watch out for friends. When I was a boy, a friend was a dangerous thing.’

Grandfather’s hand plunges back through the snow and comes out with another cattail root, wriggling like some poor fish just plucked from the water.

‘Come on, boy. Aren’t you hungry?’

Cattail mashed with acorn is not so very bad a dinner, if it’s been two days since you had hot potatoes and hock of ham. By the time it is done the afternoon is paling and snow smothers the forest again.

Night means a different thing when there are no buzzing electric lights. Now Grandfather is ready for bed as soon as the darkness comes. He rests his feet, still in their jackboots, on a crate and sprawls back in the ragged armchair, tugging the bearskin hat to the brim of his eyes.

‘Will we go back to the tenement tomorrow, papa?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘We won’t see, though, will we?’

Grandfather opens one eye. It rolls at the boy with a taunting sparkle. ‘You need your rest.’