The Snow Song Read online

  Edith understood that she needed to keep her expression blank, that any sign of emotion would be fuel to her father’s fire. When she had the power of speech there had always been rows. Arguing made him no better. He would shout and threaten, his sudden rages would drown out all she had to say. There are two people in a conversation, one person in an argument. Her father argued with the dead as if by shouting at the past he might bring back another chance, not just another bottle.

  ‘Do you have no feelings for me?’ he roared in her face. ‘I built this house – with a staircase – for you and your grandmother.’ At the word ‘grandmother’ he paused. ‘It wasn’t my fault what happened to her. I know you blame me. I did nothing. Do you believe me? Speak!’ he yelled, his hand held high. ‘How dare you not answer me. I am the head of this household.’

  A king of small things, thought Edith as she backed away, knowing well the weight of her father’s hand.

  It was then that the door opened, letting in a sudden draught. The cabinet maker, fearing the butcher had returned, moved away from Edith.

  ‘I didn’t touch her,’ he shouted at the unseen visitor.

  Misha stood in the doorway. Edith took his hand and brought him into the kitchen. There was no doubting whose grandson he was. He looked like the butcher, but a kinder version of him.

  ‘What do you want?’ said the cabinet maker. ‘Did your grandfather send you?’

  ‘I’ll come with you tomorrow and help you bring back the fish from the market. That’s all.’ He turned and left.

  The cabinet maker followed him out into the yard. ‘What time?’ he called after the lad.

  The following morning the air was freezing and the day had yet to find light. Edith was up. She had her father’s snow boots waiting for him, fresh bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth. Yet she could not rouse him from his bed. Misha was already there with his grandfather’s sleigh, waiting to begin the journey.

  ‘Where’s your father?’ he said. ‘We must start.’

  Edith led him into her father’s bedroom.

  ‘Go away,’ shouted the cabinet maker. ‘Away. I’m not going to get out of my bed for a fish. I need my sleep. I’m not a well man.’

  Misha shrugged. ‘Leave him. It’ll be faster if I go alone.’

  Edith shook her head.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Misha said and Edith handed him the food wrapped in the cloth, and one of her father’s small bottles of plum brandy. ‘Flora has asked me to collect a parcel from the draper’s, he added.

  Edith wished she could say this betrothal is not worth the fish, not worth the fabric. Please don’t go. But no sound came from her. After he had left, the house settled back into its silence.

  I can’t marry the butcher, she thought to herself. The inevitability of her fate sent a shiver through her. She would escape even if it was into the arms of death. She’d rather death danced her into the grave than let the butcher steal her youth, her life from her. She wondered if the walls of houses remembered conversations. If walls could speak they would tell the truth of what they recalled of the day she found her grandmother lying at the foot of the stairs.

  Chapter Twelve

  Beyond the Forest

  Misha loved Edith, not as someone to marry, but as a sister and a friend. She alone of all the children he’d grown up with had never thought him an idiot. That was more than could be said for the rest of the community. Their perception of him as the village simpleton had not changed since he was small. Even his love of the mountain was taken as a sign of his mental inability rather than seen for what it was: his courage to make a pact with and survive in an inhospitable realm. The older he became the more he realised that it was his grandfather who was mostly responsible for this misunderstanding. He had terrified Misha since he was a child. At night Misha would still wake in a cold sweat, certain that the butcher was in his room.

  Misha was five when he was caught taking an apple from the orchard, a crime that no other child in the village had ever been punished for. His grandfather had lifted him up as he would a squealing piglet, stripped the boy and taken his belt to Misha’s tender skin. The beating had been of such severity that for a while no one was sure if the child would live. It was the only time he remembered his father being furious with his grandfather. He threatened to report him to the mayor. What surprised Misha even more was how angry his father had been with his mother.

  The mayor’s wife, Georgeta, had paid a visit to the invalid only when he was on the road to recovery. A tall woman, she said nothing and held a handkerchief to her nose. He had been lying on his front, unable to move. The room was hot and he had been impressed when with one flick of the handkerchief she had stunned a fly so that it fell to the floor, buzzing on its back. With a quick movement of her small boot she had squashed it. Then she bent down and gave him a book. As no one else had seen it happen, Misha hid it under his pillow.

  ‘Very wise,’ said the mayor’s wife quietly.

  It was from this book of fairy tales that Edith taught him to read; three years older than him, the little girl patiently spelled out the words as she had learned to do herself. Misha’s mother never knew. Her conviction that he was an idiot was unbreakable. He had only the vaguest understanding of his mother’s utter dislike of him. His father always excused her, saying that Misha had come too early and with his feet first. Misha, as children often do when there is nothing else to be done, accepted this irrational explanation as fact.

  After the beating he felt that half his head was in the clouds. But worse than the beating was the bullying, the taunts of the other children who at the village school sang the word repeatedly. A leech of a word. Idiot. It sucked away all hope of anyone seeing him in a different light. The lack of love isolated him and because of his inability to hear he lived half in his head with his own thoughts for company, refusing to listen to the storm of words. Misha wondered at the God who had created this world and then put such an imperfect species on it as man.

  Whenever he could, he would escape to the mountain, climbing through the birch forest to where the mighty pines stood tall and straight, guardians of the mountain range beyond. From sunrise to sunset he would wander without meeting another living soul. In the time he spent on the mountain he became accustomed to the daily companionship of eagles. Here, near the clouds, the air was so sweet – a heady wine – and he was free of the pettiness that whirled around his ferocious mother in the village below.

  It had been late summer when he’d met the shepherd again.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Misha had said when he’d come across him, high on the mountain one fine evening.

  ‘Yes, Misha,’ said Demetrius. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  He’d greeted him as if they were old friends.

  ‘I’ve read the book you gave me – fourteen times.’

  Demetrius laughed. ‘Then you need another.’

  Misha would not forget that night. They talked about everything: about God, the mountain, and about Demetrius’ love for Edith. He said he counted himself richer than any prince to have found her. When he played his violin, Misha was entranced. How could such a heartbreaking tune come from this instrument? The violin in the village band grated even his poor hearing. Played well, it was the music of the angels.

  He asked Demetrius if there were words that went with the melody. They were sitting round the dying fire, the moon shining brightly, the sky still starry as the ghostly green light of dawn crept across the horizon. Not a sound anywhere, the flock quiet, the air alive with phantoms. The silence was almost unbearable. Nature held its breath and the heartbeat of the world stopped for an unimaginable second. The shepherd whispered into the birth of a new day:

  Full moon, high sea,

  Great man thou shall be.

  Redding dawn, cloudy sky,

  Bloody death shalt thou die.

  Before they parted Demetrius had given Misha a letter for Edith. That day was the only day in Misha’s life that he fel
t that the word ‘idiot’ was his to wear.

  The mist still clung to the mountain in ribbons and Misha, walking down the path, was taken aback to see a huntsman coming towards him. The young man was out of breath. He stopped and, mopping his forehead, asked Misha if he had seen a shepherd this way.

  Misha didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he’d heard him right for it seemed a strange request. He felt certain that Demetrius would have said if he’d been employed to help with a hunt.

  ‘A shepherd,’ the huntsman repeated, ‘you fool.’

  Misha shrugged and walked away. He heard and didn’t hear the young man shout at him again. He went on, imagining how happy the letter would make Edith. The sun was bright, the mist had disappeared, the day was already hot.

  The more he thought about the huntsman, the more Misha realised something was wrong. Where was the rest of the hunting party? The few huntsmen that came this way always hunted in twos or threes; some had dogs, some didn’t, but they never hunted alone. He turned round and set off to follow the huntsman. Misha was fast on his feet and soon he saw the huntsman just above him, near where he and Demetrius had spent the evening.

  Misha called out to him.

  The sun was higher and blinding him. A shadow came in the shape of a giant.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ said his grandfather.

  ‘I’ve just seen a huntsman,’ said Misha. ‘I think he’s lost.’

  ‘He’s not lost, he’s with me,’ said the butcher.

  ‘But there’s no good hunting up here,’ said Misha. Remembering the letter in his hand, he tried to slip it into his pocket.

  ‘What have you got there?’ said his grandfather. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘No,’ said Misha. ‘It’s not for you.’

  His grandfather slowly took his gun off his shoulder and aimed it at Misha.

  ‘I’d say it was a hunting accident. The sun was in my eyes and I thought it was…’ He stopped. ‘Give me the letter.’

  Misha felt the blood drain from his face and lips, every bone in his body ready for flight.

  The barrel of the gun hit him as he started to run. As he passed out he heard a single shot.

  He had woken in the dark, blood in his mouth, his head whirling and a strange roaring in his ears. Instinct took hold and he crawled into a cave and slept. It was the sound of the rain that woke him, flooding his senses. He’d never heard the music of rain before, not like this, an orchestra of droplets of water falling on the rocks, dripping into the cave.

  Misha went back to the village and never told anyone what had happened.

  Like Edith, Misha had waited for the harvest supper and Demetrius’ return. He would explain about the letter and by then it wouldn’t matter. When Demetrius didn’t appear, Misha felt sick to the pit of his stomach and implicated in the shepherd’s disappearance in some way. Now it was too late and he couldn’t explain what had happened even to himself, just as he couldn’t explain why he could hear better than he had before being hit with the barrel of a gun.

  The noise of words and the lack of quiet disturbed him. He found his own thoughts harder to hear and try as he might he couldn’t remember the order of what had happened that morning on the mountain. Was it the huntsman or his grandfather he’d met first? The letter and the guilt he felt for those unread words sat as heavy as lead on his conscience.

  The butcher had shown no surprise when his grandson had returned to the village, his face badly bruised.

  ‘Accidents happen on mountains,’ he’d said.

  Since then Misha hadn’t spoken to his grandfather and had done his best to avoid him. It had taken courage to ask if he might borrow his sleigh for the journey to town. He had stood a while at the butcher’s door, his body twisted with nerves, his leg shaking beyond his control.

  ‘What do you want?’ The butcher filled the doorframe.

  Misha backed away.

  ‘The sleigh. I’m going with the cabinet maker to bring back the…’

  He hadn’t finished when his grandfather said, ‘Come in.’ Misha hesitated. ‘Come in,’ said the butcher again.

  The house was untidy. Food from his breakfast was still on the table and a sea of things, half put away and half forgotten.

  ‘This is why I need a wife,’ said his grandfather as if reading Misha’s thoughts. ‘Neither of my daughters think it fit or proper to come and help me. Why one has children…’ He stopped, then said, ‘The blacksmith…’

  Misha’s heart sank further. He would not discuss his employer with his grandfather. He braced himself for a cross-examination about the blacksmith’s business. There was not much liking between the two men. Misha waited.

  ‘He has a cuckoo clock.’

  Misha had just seen it. ‘A cuckoo clock?’ he repeated. He waited for the word ‘idiot’. It didn’t come.

  Instead the butcher said, ‘I want one.’

  Misha looked as stupid as he could without much difficulty, and said, ‘Why?’

  ‘For Edith. I want one for her. Not small, big. Bigger than the blacksmith’s. Here.’ And he gave Misha a bag of coins. ‘I don’t know how much such fandangled things are.’ He stopped again. ‘But fancy and in a box. Wrapped up. A gift.’

  Misha took the bag and had reached the door when the butcher said, ‘Misha.’

  Misha slowly turned.

  ‘Here,’ said his grandfather. ‘Take this for your trouble.’

  Misha looked at the money he had been given and knew what he would buy. A gun.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Weather of Words

  Edith’s grandmother believed that everyone was born with a secret number of heartbeats. Perhaps, thought Edith, it’s the same with words. Once you had used them up, they were gone. All she could do now was listen. Even if she wanted to speak the only sound that would come from her would be an unbearable wail.

  Grandmother had told her a story when she was a child. A long time ago, every man knew how many heartbeats he had in him, knew the hour of his death. So it was that God came to a village and saw a farmer mending a fence badly.

  ‘That’s sloppy work,’ said God to the man.

  The farmer shrugged. ‘What’s the point of building it well,’ he said, ‘when the fence will outlive me? In two days, I will be dead.’

  God, being a tidy man, thought this was the wrong way to go about things, so he took away man’s knowledge of heartbeats. Not knowing the day of his death improved things and man began to live his life with more purpose. It was a story that made Edith smile, the notion of God being tidy.

  Misha was expected back from the town in two days. On the morning of the first day, the butcher arrived at the cabinet maker’s house unannounced. Edith couldn’t think what he wanted, standing on the verandah with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

  She showed him into the kitchen where her father sat at the table. He choked on a mouthful of bread when he saw the butcher.

  ‘I want to talk to your father,’ said the butcher. ‘Alone.’ He steered her out of the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She didn’t move from the hall and the walls were thin enough to hear what was being said.

  ‘She hasn’t seen the doctor,’ said the butcher. ‘About her voice, I mean.’

  ‘I can’t afford the doctor,’ said her father. ‘Anyway, I thought you said you liked a silent woman.’

  ‘There’s something she must say if the betrothal is to go ahead.’

  ‘That hadn’t crossed my mind,’ said the cabinet maker.

  ‘Of course it hadn’t,’ said the butcher.

  Edith thought that if the matter wasn’t so serious it would be comical. She imagined Demetrius finding it so.

  She answered a nervous knock on the front door. The doctor was a well-rounded man with a cushion of a face, his features almost lost in its puffiness. He followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘Good,’ said the butcher as the doctor took off his hat and coat and rolled up his sleeves.

  �
�Sit here, Edith,’ said the doctor. ‘And open your mouth wide.’ He held her tongue down with a metal spatula.

  Edith stifled the urge to gag. She refused to give the men the satisfaction of seeing her body’s utter revulsion at this invasion, at this pointless search for her words.

  ‘Say “Aah”.’

  Silence.

  Watched intently by the butcher and her father, the doctor felt her neck and took her pulse.

  ‘Well?’ demanded the butcher as if there might be something visible only to a doctor’s eye that prevented Edith from speaking and might just as simply be cured. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Edith could see the doctor carefully choosing his words.

  ‘It may well be she has aphasia, a condition that…’

  ‘I’m not interested,’ said the butcher. ‘Give her one of your tonics. And it better work.’

  He strode out of the house, hitting the wall in frustration.

  The doctor’s cushion face was embroidered with beads of sweat. He rummaged in his bag and gave Edith a bottle of tonic.

  ‘I sincerely hope you find your voice – for all our sakes,’ he said as he left.

  There is no medicine that could cure the pain that is frozen in me, thought Edith as she poured the tonic into the slop bucket.

  It was on the evening of the second day that Lena came to visit Edith. She had been Edith’s best friend since childhood. She came to her with a heart full of words that she longed for someone to hear; all of them a surprise.

  Two years ago, autumn, the time of romance. The miller’s son had come courting to the cabinet maker’s house, his coin wrapped in ribbon, a token of his love. He asked Edith to be his bride and, being refused, went straight to Lena and on St Catherine’s Day they had married. Lena’s mother was a widow and both families were pleased with the match. Since then, there had been a distance between the two girls. Edith suspected that the miller’s son, a dough-faced youth, hadn’t hesitated to tell Lena that his first choice had been Edith. And now without a voice to ask if it was so, Edith had no way of knowing. She had hardly seen Lena since the harvest supper. Like many of Edith’s friends, she stayed away, embarrassed by a silence they feared they might have contributed to.