Helen Oyeyemi - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“…. OR these things just happen in their own time,” Dornička told her, partly to annoy her and partly because it was true.

—

ALL SOULS’ DAY came and the three women went to the churchyard where so many who shared their family names were buried. They tidied the autumn leaves into garland-like arrangements around the graves, had friendly little chats with each family member, focusing on each one’s known areas of interest, and all in all it was a comfortable afternoon. There was a little sadness, but no feelings of desolation on either side, as far as the women could tell, anyway. In a private moment with Tadeáš, Dornička told him about the “wolf” that had punched her and the lump that had grown and been buried, and she told him about Klaudie going on and on about a delicious smell and then suddenly shutting up about the smell, and she told him she’d found telltale signs of interrupted digging beneath her ash tree.

Tadeáš’s disapproval came through to her quite clearly: You shouldn’t have promised that creature anything.

But she couldn’t regret her promise when it had been a choice between that or the “wolf” waiting for the next one.

But how are you going to keep this promise, my Dornička?

Don’t know, don’t know…

Tadeáš relented, and it came to her that the very least she could do was dig the lump up herself and put the new wooden chest to use. That night Alžběta took Klaudie to visit old school friends of hers and Dornička did her digging and held the lump up to her face, looking for nibble marks or other indicators of consumption. A dead earthworm had filled the hole she’d poked into the lump, but apart from that the meat was still fresh and whole. In fact it was pinker than before. Klaudie had described the smell as that of yeast and honey, like some sort of bun, so Dornička did her best to think of it as a bun, locked it up in the chest and put the locked chest on the top shelf of the wardrobe beside the hat box that contained her wedding hat. In the days that followed she would often find Klaudie in her bedroom “borrowing” spritzes of perfume and the like. A couple of times she even caught Klaudie trying on her red cape; each time brought Dornička closer to a heart attack than she’d ever been before. But the key never left her person, so all she needed was a chance to build a little bonfire and put the lump out of reach for good.

—

THAT YEAR it was Klaudie who chose the St. Martin’s Day goose. The three women went to market and Klaudie asked Pankrác the goose farmer which of his flock was the greediest—“We want one that’ll eat from morning ’til night…” All Pankrác’s customers wanted the same characteristics in their St. Martin’s Day goose, but Pankrác had his reasons for wishing to be in Dornička’s good graces, so when her goddaughter’s daughter asked which goose was the greediest he was honest and handed over the goose in question. The goose allowed Klaudie to hand-feed her some scraps of lettuce and a few pieces of apple, but seemed baffled by this turn of events. She honked a few times, and Alžběta interpreted: “Me? Me…? Surely there must be some mistake…”

“Thanks, Pankrác… I’ll save you the neck…” Dornička spread newspaper all along the backseat of her car and placed the caged goose on top of the newspaper. The goose honked all the way home; they’d got a noisy one, but Dornička didn’t mind. When Klaudie said she felt sorry for the goose and wished they’d just gone to a supermarket and picked a packaged one, Dornička rolled her eyes. “This city child of yours,” she said to Alžběta, and to Klaudie: “You won’t be saying that once you’ve tasted its liver.”

The goose quieted down a bit once she’d been installed in Dornička’s back garden. She would only eat from Klaudie’s hand, so it became Klaudie’s job to feed her. It’s well-known that geese don’t like people, so the companionship that arose between Klaudie and the goose was something of an oddity. Klaudie spoke to the goose as she pecked at her feed, and stroked the goose’s feathers so that they were sleek. Dornička harbored a mistrust of the goose, since she pecked hard at the ground in a particular patch of the garden — the patch where Dornička’s infernal lump had been buried. No wonder Klaudie and the goose got along; maybe they had long chats about all the things they could smell. The goose was extraordinarily greedy too, Dornička’s greediest yet: “Eating us out of house and home,” Dornička grumbled when Klaudie knocked on the kitchen door to ask if there were any more scraps.

Alžběta was more concerned about Klaudie’s fondness for the goose. “She might not let us kill it,” she said. “And you know I like my goose meat, Dornička!”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Dornička said. “Trust me, that goose’s days are numbered.”

She caught Klaudie in her bedroom again and almost fought with her.

“For the last time, Klaudie, what are you doing in here?”

Klaudie fluttered her eyelashes and murmured something about scraps. Any scraps for the goose, Dornička…?

That gave Dornička an idea.

Again, let’s not dress anything up in finery, let’s speak of things as they are: While Klaudie and Alžběta were sleeping, Dornička fed her lump to the goose. The flesh was gobbled up without hesitation and then the goose began to run around the garden in circles, around and around. This was dizzying to watch, so Dornička didn’t watch. She dropped the key inside the empty chest and poured herself a celebratory shot of slivovice . Good riddance to bad rubbish.

—

THE NEXT DAY Klaudie was bold enough to bring the empty chest to Dornička and ask what had been in it.

“Kids don’t need to know. Please feed the goose again, Klaudie.”

But Klaudie didn’t want to. She said the goose had changed. “She doesn’t honk at all anymore, and she seems aware,” she said.

“Aware?”

Dornička went to see for herself; she took a bucket of waterfowl feed out to the back garden.

The goose appeared to have almost doubled in size overnight.

Her eyes were bigger too.

She looked at Dornička as if she was about to call her by name.

Dornička threw the bucket on the ground and walked back into the house very quickly.

“See what I mean?” Klaudie said.

—

IT WAS THE EVE of St. Martin’s Day, November 10th. The first snow of the winter was close by. Dornička abandoned reason for a few moments, just the amount of time required to switch on her laptop and order another red cape. Child-sized this time. Express delivery. When it arrived she left it in the back garden with the waterfowl feed and said prayerfully: “What will be will be.”

—

SHE LEFT THE BACK door open that night, and when the St. Martin’s Day goose came up the stairs and into her bedroom, she wasn’t taken by surprise, not even when she saw that the goose was wearing the red cape and had Dornička’s car keys in her beak.

“Thank you, goose,” she said. “I appreciate you.”

She drove the goose to the foot of Mount Radhošt’ and watched her waddle away up the mountain path, a bead of scarlet ascending into ash.

Thank you, goose. I appreciate you.

Alžběta the goose-meat lover didn’t even complain that much in the morning. She just glared at Klaudie and told her to forget about choosing the Christmas carp.

As I was saying, I’m an inadequate son. I didn’t really notice this until I reached the age my father had been when he was imprisoned for repairing the broken faces of clock towers without authorization. He’d incurred the wrath of those who require certain things not to work at all. That’s what the broken clock towers had been designated as: remembrances of a civil war that stopped time at various locations scattered across my father’s country. Fixing the mechanisms seemed political, though it was impossible to agree on the exact meaning of the gesture. When my dad saw his first splintered clockface he just thought it was a proud and beautiful work that, if restored, would take the mortal sting out of being told how late you are, or how long you’ve been waiting, or how much longer you’ll have to wait.