Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

KATYA PADS QUIETLY THROUGH THE KITCHEN, PAST HER sleeping mama and tato to the orange flickering glow escaping around the woodstove door. Its light licks at the walls. The stove roars and the pipe tinkles from the heat. Its belly is full of wood. She wraps her hand in her nightie and slides the flue open. She opens the door. Heat blasts her face. The flames twist and reach for her. She tosses in an extra-large piece of the doughy Christ. Amen.

It bubbles and shrivels into a blackened lump and bursts into flames. The fire is angry, like her tato and her uncle. It wants more. She feeds it the last bits of newspaper lying nearby. It grabs hungrily at the paper. Katya looks around the room to see what else it wants. The shelf of preserves glows in its light. She sees another piece of paper.

Katya stretches on her tiptoes and grabs it with her fingertips. Brown paper for wrapping meat. She gives it to the fire. The edges curl and the fire licks at the penciled words on the other side.

TWO DAYS LATER, THE POLICE ARRIVE TO SEARCH THE premises. They look under the beds, the mattresses, the pillows, and inside the children’s blanket boxes. They rifle through the tin cans, preserves, bags of flour, sugar, and salt. The tall officer with the walrus mustache and a bandoleer strung across his crimson chest pulls the straw mattresses from the beds.

Teodor sits at the kitchen table rolling cigarettes, licking the papers with slow measure and winding the tobacco tight. He sets the finished smokes on the table in a careful, straight row. Maria kneads bread dough, sprinkling in extra handfuls of freshly ground wheat flour. She mistakenly adds an extra cup of water.

Outside, the children sit crowded on the stoop. The cold seeps through their long underwear, their bums mold the snow. Their leather soles freeze to the ground. They don’t brush away the light snow dusting their shoulders.

Only when the door opens and the two officers step outside empty-handed do the children part. All except Myron, who remains seated and makes them walk around him.

They watch the officers slip and slide down the hill to their car, mired in snow on the far side of the stone wall. The engine sputters and growls. Black smoke belches from its tail. The tires spin. The passenger gets out and makes his way to the rear of the car and pushes. The tires whir, the vehicle rocks. The officer waves to the children to come and help. No one moves. He pushes again. The car jitters forward and fishtails down the hill. The officer chases after it; scarlet arms and black-trousered legs windmilling against the white expanse, he jumps inside. The children watch until the car is a black speck.

As does Maria. She waits until she is certain they are not coming back. Then she goes to the Virgin, which has been bumped crooked by the man with the thick mustache when he brushed past her to look in the pots. She slides away the frame to retrieve the jug.

“What are you doing?” Teodor watches her fumbling to uncork the jug. “Maria…”

“I won’t have this in my house.” She grabs a knife and pries into the cork. He stops her hand. Maria wrenches the jug away.

“Give it to me.” Teodor holds out his hand.

“No.”

Teodor squeezes her hand that clutches the knife tight. “Let it go.”

Maria lifts the jug above her head with her free arm. “I’ll drop it.”

Teodor easily reaches over her and grabs it. “Let go.” He presses her hand against the table, forcing her to release the knife. She struggles to smash the jug against the table. Teodor holds it steady. They stand locked in a twisted dance.

“Is this what you need to prove that you’re as good as them? That you’re not a peasant who can be kicked and ordered to bow?” She pleads, “Are you willing to risk us?”

Maria sees his eyes cloud with disappointment. He speaks gently, as if to a child he doesn’t expect to understand. “A man should be able to have a drink in his own house.”

“I won’t wait for you.”

Teodor coaxes the jug from her hand. He sets it back in the niche and straightens the picture.

THE CHILDREN GATHER AROUND TEODOR AT THE kitchen table. He lights a cigarette from the oil lamp. The smoke curls around them. He speaks to his hands, the nicotine-stained fingers, the grayed linen bandage that dresses his wound. He forbids them to have any contact with the people in the house on the other side of the stone wall.

Maria kneels before the Blessed Virgin and prays.

Cook two pounds of well-washed wheat until soft. Drain.

In earthen crock, pour five gallons of boiling water over wheat, then add ten pounds of white sugar and one yeast cake broken.

Drop this in when mixture is lukewarm.

Cover with cloth. Let sit behind stove or in warm place for 3–4 weeks.

Strain through pillowcase into creamery can.

Pillowcase with solids can be placed in can and tied off, so long as it doesn’t touch the bottom.

Fit creamery can with wooden block for lid. Drill 1 ½″ hole in bottom of block and ½″ hole in side of block.

Insert copper pipe through hole on side. Make sure fit is tight. Coil pipe through tub of ice, snow, or cold water. Heat can on stove for 1–2 hours. Use half-gallon jugs or jars. First jars nice and strong.

Keep pouring until just water. Test by throwing some on the fire. If it flashes, keep pouring.

Makes 1 gallon. Adjust recipe for quantity needed.

THE TEMPERATURE DROPS TO BELOW TWENTY IN THE days and minus forty below at night. Night steals away the day by suppertime. A hoary frost coats the exterior of the log cabin. Inside the house, even with the fire burning, the family wears long underwear, sweaters, socks, and boots.

The four-mile walk to school has been deemed too dangerous. The children aren’t allowed out for more than ten minutes before Maria herds them back inside to check their raw cheeks for frostbite. The crusted snow groans beneath their feet. The dry, cold air sucks the breath from their lungs. Tears freeze on eyelashes. Scarves and mitts grow stiff from condensation and sweat.

Each day Myron chops through the lake’s two-foot-thick ice to fetch water, only to find the hole frozen again the next morning. There have been stories in the newspaper about people losing their toes and fingers. Cows and horses have been found frozen solid, still standing in their paddocks. Bodies are piling up in the shed behind the church waiting for the ground to thaw so they can be buried.

In some places the snow has drifted four feet. The mice and rabbits are scarce, already starved or frozen, unable to reach the prairie grass. Coyotes have been spotted in the town’s streets. It is the worst winter on record and it’s only November.

Teodor planes a long strip of bark down a ten-foot log. For the last two weeks, he has been building a barn with two stalls, a small room for the tack and one for the grain. He has to get the horse out of Anna’s barn before Stefan claims it as his own or worse. Teodor knows he’s capable of hurting the animal to get back at him.

The walls are up. The rafters are in. He is hewing the boards for the roof now. He brushes away the ice clinging to his scarf, obscuring his vision. It is wrapped twice around his head, leaving only a gash for his eyes. He wears two pairs of mittens. The palms are bound in burlap. Once, he removed the mitts to better control the plane and his hands stuck to the metal handle. He had to breathe on the steel to thaw it with his breath, but it still ripped away a layer of skin. He knows now how long he can push after losing feeling in his fingers and toes before he is forced to hobble into the house and let the fire warm his blood.