On Monday afternoon, when I was walking back to Panova Mandelstam’s house after the collecting, I met two boys from town playing in the woods. I was not big the way Sergey was, but I was still bigger than them, so they didn’t try to fight with me, but Panov Mandelstam was right anyway because they didn’t want to play with me either. One of them yelled at me, “How does it feel to have killed your own father?”
They ran away into the trees and didn’t wait for me to answer, but I thought about it the rest of the way. I wasn’t sure if I had killed my father, because I had only wanted him to not hit Wanda with the poker; I hadn’t wanted him to fall over me. But he had fallen over me and that was part of why he was dead, so maybe it didn’t matter that I hadn’t wanted it. I didn’t know.
I did know that it felt good to be living with Panov and Panova Mandelstam. I had stopped feeling hungry even a little bit. But anytime I thought about Sergey and Wanda, even if I was sitting at the table, I felt like I had swallowed stones instead of food. I would have felt very good if Sergey and Wanda and me were all living with Panov and Panova Mandelstam. The house was small, but me and Sergey could sleep in the barn. But we couldn’t, because Sergey had pushed my father and he was dead.
Then I thought whether it was better for me only to be living with the Mandelstams or for all of us to be living with my father. I decided it would be better to be living with my father after all, if Sergey and Wanda were there and all right. Only we could not have been doing that, either, even if my father was not killed, because he was going to make Wanda marry Kajus’s son. Then I had to think whether it would feel better to be here with the Mandelstams or better to be somewhere else that might not be as good, but with Sergey and Wanda. It was hard to think about that because I didn’t know what the somewhere else would be like, but after I thought about it a long time, I decided slowly that still I wanted to be with Sergey and Wanda. I could not be happy with stones in my stomach.
The nut from the white tree was in my pocket. I had kept thinking about planting it in the Mandelstams’ yard, but I still hadn’t done it. I took it out and I looked at it and then I said out loud, “Mama, I cannot plant the nut here, because Sergey and Wanda cannot come here ever again. I will not plant it until I find a place where me and Sergey and Wanda can all live together and be safe.” Then I put it away again. I was sorry not to be able to plant the nut, because I missed feeling that Mama was near, but still it felt like the right decision. Sergey and Wanda had given me the nut to plant, but Mama would want them to be able to visit.
I got back to the house with the basket. While Panov Mandelstam was carefully writing everything down, I asked him, “Does anyone know where Sergey and Wanda are?”
He stopped and looked up at me. “The men went out to look for them again today. They did not find anything.”
I was glad for that, but then I thought about it and I realized it was bad, too. “But I have to find them,” I said. If no one else could, even a lot of big men, then how was I going to do it?
Panov Mandelstam laid his hand on my head. “Maybe they will send word to you when they are somewhere safe,” he said, but he said it too kindly, the way you say nice things to a goat when you are trying to get it to come so you can tie it up. It did not mean he wanted to hurt me. He only wanted to keep me in a good safe warm place so I wouldn’t die in the snow somewhere. But if I stayed in this safe warm place, I would never be able to see Sergey and Wanda again.
“They cannot send word,” I said. “If they did then everyone here would know where they were, and they would go and get them.”
Panov Mandelstam did not say anything back, only looked up at Panova Mandelstam, who had stopped her spinning and was looking back at him. So I knew I was right, because if I was not right, they would have told me so.
I said, “Sergey and Wanda were going to go to Vysnia. They wanted to ask someone for work.” I had to think about it because he was someone’s grandfather, and I didn’t know who the someone was, which was strange. But I did know the grandfather’s name. “Panov Moshel.”
“That is my father,” Panova Mandelstam said. Then she said to Panov Mandelstam, “Basia’s wedding is on Wednesday. We could go. And…” She trailed off frowning in a puzzled way. “And…” she said again, as though she expected something to come out of her mouth, only it wasn’t coming. He was frowning at her, puzzled too. She stood up from the spinning wheel and walked around the room with her hands gripping each other, looking out into nothing, until she came to a stop in front of the shelf over the oven. She stared at a little group of carved wooden dolls standing there. “Miryem is there,” she said suddenly. “Miryem is visiting my father.”
She said it like she was pushing against a wall to make the name come out. Panov Mandelstam stood up so quickly his pen fell to the ground, his face going pale. I was going to ask them who that was, but by the time I opened my mouth to ask, I couldn’t remember the name she had said anymore. Panova Mandelstam turned, putting her hand out. “Josef,” she said. Her voice went up and down. “Josef—how long—?” She stopped talking, and I didn’t like looking at her face. It made me think of my father on the floor making noises and then being dead.
“I will go hire a sleigh,” Panov Mandelstam said. It was already getting late, but he was putting on his coat anyway as if he meant we would go right away. Panova Mandelstam hurried to the secret jar in the fireplace and counted out six silver coins into a bag to give to him. He took the bag and went out.
Panova Mandelstam snatched up a sack and went into the bedroom and started packing as soon as he left. I was glad that we were going to go look for Sergey and Wanda, but I didn’t like the hurry. It felt like she was afraid something bad would happen if she stopped moving. She knelt down and started taking clothing out of the clothing box. I helped her by holding the bag open for each piece to lay inside, but then she stopped putting things inside. She was sitting on her heels staring into her box. There were some dresses in there that were too small for her, and a pair of small black leather boots. They were worn and had some patches but they were still mostly good. She touched them with her hand and it was trembling.
“Were those yours?” I asked her. She didn’t say anything, only shook her head. She put a few more things in the bag and closed the box. I thought we were finished but she kept kneeling there with her hands on the top of the box, and then she looked at me and opened the box again. She took out the boots and gave them to me. I tried them on. They were a little big on my feet but they felt so soft. I had never had leather shoes before.
“Put on another pair of socks,” she said, and gave me a pair out of the box, knitted and thick, also small. The boots fit so nicely afterwards. My feet were very warm even when I went outside to take care of the goats. I could walk right through the snow and not feel it.
“Who will feed the goats and the chickens while we are away?” I asked her, when I came back in.