Lapvona(17)

‘This wind, you said, Marek—was it warm or cold?’

‘It was cold, Father,’ Marek said, gasping from the effort of climbing uphill. He had barely eaten more than a handful of grain the day before, too nervous to think of requesting any of his father’s porridge that morning. ‘Like winter, it was so cold it hurt my skin and felt like a burn from fire.’

‘Aha. So it was a wind from the north.’

‘I think so,’ Marek said.

‘This is very troubling,’ Jude said. ‘Very bad. Forgive me, dear boy, but I’m afraid this omen will be the end of me. I never told you the story of my death, did I?’

‘But you’re alive, papa. What are you talking about?’ Marek was alarmed.

‘Do you believe Ina’s visions?’

‘Of course I do,’ Marek said.

‘Ina told me the story. It came to her the day we buried your mother. Just as we were smoothing down the dirt, a cold wind from the north came and picked up one of my babes and dropped it from a great height down on the rocks of the stream. Ina said that there would be three winds such as that. The first would kill a babe. Thank God the wind didn’t come for you next, Marek, or else I would have killed myself with sorrow.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Marek cried.

‘The second wind would kill one of my kin.’

‘But Jacob isn’t your kin, papa. I am. I’m your only kin now. You said so.’

‘Jacob is my kin. Villiam is my cousin. I never saw any point in telling you . . . ’

Marek was happy to hear this. He had always thought of himself as a creature without history, a bloodline blurred by loss, meaningless. If Villiam was his father’s cousin, that meant Marek was a cousin, too.

‘Then why are we so poor?’ he asked his father.

‘How dare you think of money at a time like this?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Marek said, and he was. He was already crying, grateful that he was walking up ahead of his father. He knew that Jude couldn’t stand the sight of his tears.

‘My grandfather committed a grievous betrayal and was exorcised from the family wealth, and so will we be forever and ever. And I am sorry you have suffered so, my boy.’

‘No, I am sorry,’ Marek said.

‘Ina told me that the third wind would come for me soon after the second, and that it would lift me off my feet—just as you described the wind lifting Jacob—and drop me from a great height into a pit of fire.’

‘What fire?’

‘The swidden. The northerners are always cutting their forests and burning them. Great fires, they burn for years. They think they’ll get good earth that way, so that they won’t have to trade so much with us in Lapvona.’

‘The wind would carry you all that way?’

‘Oh, it could carry me to the moon if it wanted.’

‘And would you get hurt in the fire?’

‘I will perish.’

‘No!’ Marek cried.

‘If the wind killed Jacob, it will come for me next. I’m only grateful that it took Villiam’s boy and not mine.’

‘But father, the wind didn’t take Jacob.’

‘You said it did. Don’t lie now just to comfort me.’

‘No, I will tell you the truth.’ Marek stopped on the trail, the sun rising behind him. Was it the glow of the swidden? Could he already feel the fire coming for his father? No. No. Ina’s prediction had not come to pass. Marek knew this for certain. ‘It was I who killed Jacob. I did it. It wasn’t the cold wind. I threw a rock at him and he fell off the cliff. I will show you how it happened. You won’t be swept away, Father. Please forgive me. If Ina’s prediction comes true, it’ll be me that is killed first. Let me jump now and let the wind take me. Anything to spare you from the swidden. Oh God!’

Marek burst into tears, and Jude slapped him across the face. Another tooth broke loose in Marek’s mouth, and he swallowed it and choked.

‘Hit me again, Father!’ he begged. He got down on his knees and prayed. ‘Please, hit me!’

But Jude was too worried about what would come next to raise his fist again. ‘You aren’t worth the wind beneath my hand,’ he said.

Marek lay on the hard dirt and splayed his arms and legs.

‘Then stomp me. Kill me, papa. I beg you.’

‘Get up, you idiot,’ Jude said. ‘It’s not up to me to punish you. We’ll take Jacob to his father and let him decide how you ought to suffer for this.’

Marek fully expected he would be put to death. And part of him was glad—he might finally see his mother in heaven, he thought.



* * *




*

The puddle of blood that Marek had watched seep out of the boy’s head was now pale pink and watery, and it had stained the back of Jacob’s white shirt. His black hair was curly from yesterday’s rain, but dry, and from afar he looked fevered and pale, as though he had slept through a nightmare. But there was no life in his face. His lips were blue. The right side of his face was smashed like an apple that had fallen from a cart at high speed. His right eyeball was stuck to his torn cheek. The left eye was open and still. Jude looked down. Then he turned to vomit, but all that came out was a cry that echoed across the valley.