But damn the stories; it was after her birds. She counted quickly: fourteen laying hens drowsing in the rafters, three speckled geese. These and nine rabbits were all the life remaining in that barn that had once boasted hogs, goats, dairy cows, a draft horse with a braided mane. They were not enough for the coming winter, but she would make do, make them last, along with the tubers in the cellar and the beans and amaranth she would buy at week’s end. No one under her roof would starve. But what if she hadn’t stepped outside? If she had stayed in the kitchen for pleasure’s sake, listening to her son’s lovely tune?
She looked around for the axe but did not find it. She crouched before the chickens’ nesting crates and found an egg. Beside the crates, the grimy rug where her husband’s dog had slept for years. After his death the big animal had spent a fortnight whining and watching the road, then descended purposefully into the ravine and not returned.
“Pussy Willow.”
Majka leaped up, nearly stumbling as she did so. “God damn you,” she said.
Pankolo, the horse breeder, stood laughing in the doorway, his beefy shoulders twitching up and down. The wind tossed his stringy hair forward to tangle in his beard. He pointed at Majka’s hand.
“There’s a waste.”
She had cracked the egg in her fist. She wanted to hurl it at Pankolo, but that would only make him laugh the louder. The big man stepped into the barn and placed a small package on the chicken crates. Majka threw the egg into the yard.
“What in the stinking Pits do you want?”
“Ain’t you nice,” he said. “I brought you a sugar loaf.”
Majka sniffed. “Baked it yourself, did you? Or was it another present from Slager’s girl?”
Pankolo just stood there grinning, and Majka realized that he thought she was jealous. They had been lovers once. Her husband had caught them in this very barn, not even undressed yet, not even touching. After a moment when no one could think of what to say, Pankolo had stepped over to her husband and lifted him from the ground by his shirt. He slept with Majka, he declared, and would go on sleeping with her whenever he liked. “And you, my little scholar: just keep to them rocks.”
Dangling like a sad marionette, her husband had looked down at Majka. He was a scholar; the fact marked him indelibly, as did the fact that he had come here from the lowlands: two unpardonable sins. Majka had stepped forward and touched Pankolo’s elbow, and the big man had shrugged and dropped her husband on his feet. Yet that calming touch had nonetheless ended her marriage. Her husband might have forgiven her for sleeping with Pankolo—he knew his own shortcomings—but that gesture of intimacy burned like a brand.
“If you came for rabbits, you’re a month early; they’re too small to skin.”
Pankolo chuckled. “Ain’t that a shame.”
He liked to pretend it wasn’t over. He brought food, too, sometimes; food he could well afford. He sold twenty or more foals a year, and the occasional full-grown stallion. He was the only man in the village with something to sell.
Which meant that it was not over, entirely. He entered the barn and pulled her near. Majka sighed, put her egg-sticky hand into his trousers, closing her mind to the smell of horse dander and beer. She moved quickly, before he could object, although it meant the brute would only leave her gasping, unsatisfied, not well fucking served like him. Majka’s son never asked for second helpings, but he cleaned his plate like a cat. Sometimes, if the boy stepped away from the table, Majka or his grandmother would scrape their food onto his plate.
“Get them shucks off,” said Pankolo. “Get ’em down to your knees.”
“It’s too cold.”
She worked faster still. He groaned and groped and then was finished, and Majka bit her lips in frustration. She had sworn to herself never to ask the least favor of this man. She had never liked him. It was a very small town.
“Pussy Willow—”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
Pankolo glared. “You got nothing but snarls for me today. Ain’t we friends at least?”
Majka closed her eyes. They were not friends. “I saw a chelu,” she said.
The man froze, then took his hand from beneath her shirt. When he spoke his voice had changed. “What were you doing in the woods, then?”
“Not in the woods. It was here, in the garden. It was after the birds, I expect.”
Pankolo rubbed his hands together. “That’s bad, ain’t it? You ought to hire one of them Shyram witches, Majka. Get yourself a house cleansing.”
“A cleansing. You believe in that old fluff?”
“Not... for certain.” But he was retreating, buttoning his pants. Majka smirked, guided his hand back to her breast.
“Thought you wanted to do it properly. Or is once all you’re good for these days?”
“Too cold. You were right.”
“Not if we’re quick about it.”
“Let go, Majka.”
She put her head back and laughed. “You’re scared. Of a weasel. If only the lads could see you now. Better yet, Slager’s girl—”
Pankolo snatched his hand away and slapped her. Majka staggered, astonished. The birds screeched; the rabbits slammed against the walls of their cages. Pankolo hovered in the doorway.
“Slager’s girl,” he said, hovering there. “Tabitha. That’s right. I don’t need your old cunt no more, do I?”
“Get off my land.”
“It’s you who need me. To keep your brat from starving. Does he know how you pay for them cakes?”
Majka wiped blood from her lip. “No,” she said, “but you do, don’t you? You know how I take care of my boy.”
Pankolo’s face froze; then he turned on his heel and fled. A moment later she heard the gate slam shut. Majka stood in the dark, staunching her lip on the sleeve of her blouse. She put a hand on the sugar loaf; it was still vaguely warm.
THE MANDOLIN HAD fallen silent. Majka swept into the kitchen, already shouting at her son, “You go find that splitting axe! I’ve told you fifty times, never leave things—”
She broke off. Her son and mother-in-law were staring at the open front door. A tall man, a stranger, stood on the threshold, one hand raised as if to knock.
“Forgive me,” he said, “the door opened at a touch.”
It was true that the latch was failing; for some weeks they had relied on a sliding bolt to keep the door closed in windstorms. The stranger removed his hat. Then he bowed and pressed fingertips to forehead: an old and very humble gesture of greeting, rarely seen in those hills. He was middle-aged but very strongly built. And his skin: so pale. The villagers had skin like dark olives; this man was clotted cream.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Majka demanded.
The stranger turned his eyes in her direction: ice-blue eyes, unblinking.
“I’ve walked all day,” he said simply.
The thing to do was to invite him in. The only thing. He bore no weapon, unless a knife were stashed somewhere in that coat of tattered wool. He looked prepared to stand there forever, icicle-straight, the fierce wind gusting about his ankles. Majka couldn’t breathe. The other two might as well have been stone.
“Why are you standing there?” she cried at last. “Come in, sit down. Udi, God’s love, why don’t you bolt that door?”
The man stepped into the parlor—that was what they called it, the parlor, although it was the only room on the first floor beside the kitchen. It had a table, three wretched chairs, a woodstove shaped like a fat man sitting cross-legged, a coat rack, a butter churn rendered useless when the last cow was sold.
The room seemed to shrink around the newcomer. Majka’s son moved towards him sidelong, on unwilling feet. At last he darted around the man and shot the bolt home.
Majka felt ashamed of their behavior. “Pour him some wine, tata,” she shouted at her mother-in-law. “Udi, bring logs, if you’ve split any that is.” To the stranger, Majka said, “We’ll build a fire in no time. You’ll be wanting some bread and soup. They didn’t feed you in Shyram, then? Of course not, they don’t help anyone; if Saint Jal herself came and asked for a sip of water—”