‘Yes.’
‘And if . . .’ I paused. ‘If God will not allow us to remain together . . .’
Thea leaned towards me. ‘It won’t happen.’
‘But if it does?’
‘I’ll leave something else. I’ll tie my headscarf at the same place.’
I took the stone from her, felt the comfort of its weight. ‘And then I will know.’
We fell back into silence, passing the river stone back and forth between us.
‘You will come, won’t you? You will leave a sign telling me if we are to remain together? In this new place . . . this new life . . .’
Thea rested against me. I could feel her breath against my neck and felt rather than heard her response. ‘Yes.’
I could not fall asleep that night. My body took up my mind’s anxiety and I could not keep still, rolling in my blanket until my bedclothes were twisted, fingers worrying at a hole in the mattress until husks spilled out across the sheet. Hermine, perhaps sensing my restlessness, woke often, and when my mother came in to feed her, she placed a hand across my forehead and asked if I was unwell.
‘No,’ I said.
‘You feel warm.’
I leaned into her palm. Part of me wanted to confide in her, but I had the feeling that she already knew of my distress and did not entirely understand it.
‘You picked at your dinner.’
‘I wasn’t hungry.’
Mama sighed in the darkness over the sound of Hermine swallowing. ‘It is a great change,’ she said. ‘It is natural to be nervous about the new life that awaits us.’ She paused. ‘And the journey, too. So long.’
She pulled her hand away to adjust my sister and I lay down, my legs pressed against her warmth. When Hermine fell asleep and Mama carefully laid her in the crib, her hand sought out my forehead once more. I breathed in the smell of baby, of sleep and the caraway seeds that had studded our evening’s bread.
‘Come sew with me,’ she said. ‘We can have some milk.’ When I hesitated she bent down and kissed me. ‘Have faith,’ she whispered. ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’
That night, relieved to have something else to focus on, I finished the last details on a tablecloth. I shook it out across my lap, noting how the beauty of the pattern only revealed itself at an intimate distance. ‘There is something secretive about whitework,’ I murmured.
Mama shook her head. ‘No, not secretive. Modest.’
‘Why else embroider white thread upon white cloth?’
Mama scraped the ash back into the fire with her clog. ‘It befits the godly woman,’ she said.
We were cocooned against the darkness of the house by the orb of our lamp, absorbed in our work and our thoughts.
‘Thea is like whitework,’ I mused.
‘How so?’ asked Mama. ‘Because of the colour of her hair?’
‘Because you have to draw close to notice her beauty,’ I said. ‘She has little flowers around each pupil, little yellow petals, but the rest of her eye is blue.’
Mama said nothing. When I glanced up, she was giving me a peculiar, searching look.
‘Have you noticed?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said, eyes returning to the work in her lap.
I remember wanting to say more to my mama. I wanted to tell her that there was a small freckle on the side of Thea’s index finger, quite hidden from view. That she had a scar under her ear. I knew it was a burn, a splash of hot oil. I remember realising, in that moment, that I wanted to tell Mama all the strange, small things I found pleasing about Thea, and simultaneously understanding in some deep, un examined way that I must never tell her, that I must hold these tiny things under my tongue and keep them to myself. I did not know what it meant that I had noticed the deep beds of her fingernails, the downy hair that always escaped at her neck. But I knew it meant something. Why else did I stop myself?
I know what it means now.
Thea was as a chink of light in a curtain. When I put my eye to her, the world beyond blazed.
When I finally fell into sleep that night, I dreamed of clothing. Christening gowns and embroidered collars and blouses. Sunday shirts and stockings and aprons, all strewn over our orchard, across the shingles, in the lane. I dreamed I wandered the empty village, wondering at it all. There was no one left, everyone had gone. They had gone to seek new freedoms, and these clothes belonged to them. It was a graveyard of garments. I made my way to the sty across from my bedroom and saw, with a sinking heart, a great pile heaped across its gate. I pulled the clothing off, at first gently, one piece at a time, and then in a great hurry until, finally, under them all, I found Thea’s headscarf knotted neatly around the top rail. As I untied it, a lock of pale hair fell into my palm and, just as quickly, was swept away by the wind.
I woke suddenly, my throat tight, chaff and husks from the torn mattress sticking to my hands. My bedsheets were tangled about me. It was morning; the light was grey and thin. I got out of bed and looked out the window.
There, perfectly balanced upon the gate post to the sty, was Thea’s river stone.
the kiss
Summer was truly upon us, each day longer than the last. All living things wrung the worth from every hour of daylight: trees twitched with leaf, wildflowers wrestled heads clear of uncut grass. No one bothered to cut down the dandelions and sow thistles that grew tall against fences. There was an understanding amongst the departing families that arrangements must be made as soon as possible so that we could leave before the ground shifted once more. The very real possibility that the passports would be revoked, permission rescinded on a whim, licked the days with urgency. Thea and I saw each other only at worship in the forest. It felt like coming up for breath after a week of drowning in chores.
Papa gave notice and a new family was found to take over our lease. I walked in the orchard and when I saw the growing fruit, I thought to myself, I will not be here when these pears bend the branches. The rye and ripe fruit and oats will all be cut and threshed and plucked by different hands, different families. We will be gone. We will be on the sea when the stalks fatten with grain.