I went and buried my penny at the tree, and then I went to the house and stopped near the door. There had been footprints in the road all along the way as I walked. That was not so strange. There were other people who lived along the road. But now I saw the footprints had turned off the road and gone all the way to the door of my house: two men, with leather boots, and that was very strange. It wasn’t time for the tax collector. I slowly went closer. As I came near the door, I heard laughter and men’s voices, making a toast. They were drinking. I didn’t want to go in, but there was no help for it. I was cold from the long walk, I needed to warm my feet and hands.
I opened the door. I didn’t have any idea of what I would find. Anything would have surprised me. It was Kajus and his son Lukas. They had a big jug of krupnik on the table and three cups. My father was red in the face, so they had been drinking a while already. Stepon was huddled in the corner by the fireplace, making himself small. He looked up at me. “Here she is!” Kajus said, when I came inside. “Close the door, Wanda, and come and celebrate with us. Go on, Lukas, go help her!”
Lukas got up and came to me and stretched up to try to help me take off my shawl. I didn’t understand why he bothered. I took it off myself and hung it near the fire, and my scarf with it. I turned around. Kajus was beaming at me all the time. “I’m sure it will be a sorrow to you to lose her,” he said to my father, “but such is the lot of a man with a daughter! And her home will not be far.” I stood still. I looked at Stepon. “Wanda,” Kajus went on, “we have settled it all! You are going to marry Lukas.”
I looked at Lukas. He did not look very pleased, but he did not look very sad either. He was only giving me a considering eye. I was a pig at the market he had decided to buy. He was hoping I fattened up well and gave him many piglets before it was time to make bacon.
“Of course, your father told me about this business with the debt,” Kajus said. “But I have told him he will not have to pay any more. We will put it on my account instead, and you will work it off from there. And every week, you will come and bring him a jar of my best krupnik, so he won’t forget what his daughter looks like. To your health and happiness!” He toasted me with his glass, and moistened his lips, and my father raised his too and drank the whole thing. Kajus filled his glass back up right away.
So my father wouldn’t even get a goat for me that might make milk, or some pigs. He wouldn’t get four pennies a month. He had sold me for drink. For one jug of krupnik a week. Kajus was still smiling. He must have guessed I was being paid in money. Or he thought maybe if I was in his house, Miryem would make his debt less. And if he went and talked to Miryem’s father, he would be right. The debt would all go away. It would be a wedding present they made me. Then maybe Kajus would keep me working for them, but he would demand more and more money from them. Miryem was gone. She could not come and fight him. It was only her father and mother, and they could not fight Kajus. They could not fight anybody.
“No,” I said.
They all looked at me. My father was blinking. “What?” he said, slurring.
“No,” I said again. “I will not marry Lukas.”
Kajus had stopped smiling. “Now, Wanda,” he began, but my father was not waiting for him to say any words. He got up quickly and hit me so hard across the face I fell to the floor.
“You say no?” my father bellowed. “You say no? Who do you think is master in this house? You don’t say no to me! Shut your mouth! You will marry him today, you stupid cow!” He was taking off his belt, trying to, but he could not get the buckle undone.
“Gorek, she was only surprised,” Kajus was saying, putting out a hand, not getting up. “I’m sure she will think better of it in a moment.”
“I will teach her to think better!” my father said, and grabbed me by my hair and dragged up my head. I had a glimpse of Lukas. He had backed away towards the door. He looked scared. My father was a big man, bigger than him and Kajus. “You say no?” he was repeating, again and again, hitting my face from either side, back and forth. I tried to cover my head, but he slapped my hands away.
“Gorek, she won’t look good for her wedding like this,” Kajus said, as if he was trying to make it all a joke. His voice was a little scared in my ringing ears.
“Who cares about her face!” my father said. “He’ll have the part of a woman that matters. Don’t you put up your hands to me!” he shouted at me. “You say no?” He had given up on his belt. He threw me down hard on the hearth and grabbed the poker from next to the fireplace.
And then Stepon said, “No!” and grabbed the other end of the poker. My father stopped. Even half blind with crying I picked up my head to stare. Stepon was still only small and skinny as a year-old tree. My father could have lifted him off the ground by the other end of the poker. But Stepon still grabbed the poker with both his hands and held on to it and said, “No!” again to my father.
My father was so shocked he didn’t do anything for a moment. Then he tried to pull the poker away, but Stepon was holding on to it tight, and he just came along with it. My father grabbed him by the shoulder and started trying to push him off it, but the poker was longer than his arm, and he was too drunk to think of putting it down, so he began to shake it back and forth, just pushing Stepon stumbling all around the house with it, still hanging on to the other end. My father got angrier and angrier, and then he roared a noise that wasn’t words and threw the poker down finally and grabbed Stepon and hit him full in the face with his big fist.
Stepon fell, with blood coming from his face, still holding the poker fast, and sobbed “No!” again.
My father was so angry he couldn’t even yell anymore. He grabbed his own stool and smashed it over Stepon’s back, broke it to pieces. Stepon fell flat to the ground. My father came away with a leg of it left, and whacked Stepon’s hands with it, hard, until he cried out and finally his fingers sprang off the poker and my father seized it.
There was a hot red rage in my father’s face. His eyes were red. His lips were pulled back from his teeth. If he started to hit Stepon with the poker now, he wouldn’t stop. He would kill him. “I’ll marry Lukas!” I said. “Da, I’ll marry him!” But then I looked from my swollen face and Lukas was already gone, and Kajus was trying to creep to the door.
“Where are you going?” my father bellowed at him.
“Well, if the girl doesn’t like it, that’s the end of it!” Kajus said. “Lukas doesn’t want a girl who doesn’t want him.” What he meant was he didn’t want this in his house. He had come with his krupnik and his clever plans and got my father drunk and built this rage in him like a fire, and now it was burning everything and he wanted to run away from it.
And he could run away. He was going, and Lukas had already gone. My father could not make them do what he wanted even if he howled at them. They were rich town men who paid good taxes. If he tried to hit them, they would get the boyar to have my father whipped. My father knew it. He yelled at me, “This is because of you! What man wants a woman who doesn’t know how to obey!”
He was coming to hit me with the poker, and Kajus was pulling open the door, and Sergey was there outside. He had heard us screaming. He ran inside and caught the poker before it hit my head. My father tried to pull it away from him, but he couldn’t. Sergey held on to it. He was as tall as my father now, and he had already gotten a little more weight, eating twice a day at Miryem’s house. And my father was thin with winter and drunk. My father tried again, and then he tried to hit Sergey with one fist, and Sergey pulled the poker away and swung it and hit him with it, instead.
I think it surprised Da more than anything, to be the one getting hit. Nobody ever fought him, not even in town. He was too big. He stumbled back, and tripped over Stepon still curled on the hearth, and he went over backwards. His head banged against the edge of the pot of kasha and knocked the stick loose. He went straight down past it into the fire and the whole boiling thing came down on his face.