Lapvona(74)

Ina didn’t care. She wiped her tears away and sat back against the stone wall of the manor, her hands resting across her full belly. Bees and dragonflies and butterflies seemed to dance for her in the garden, buzzing in a harmonious song of spring. Grigor saw that there was wet at her nipples. Her bosoms were swollen.

‘I do all the milk and I hold the Christ and sing to it. I do all of it,’ she said.

‘My, my,’ said Grigor. ‘You must be so happy.’ And he saw that it was true. He wanted to speak with Ina more about how Ivan’s men had dismantled the church stone by stone, how they’d used the stones to build a large well in the village square, with a fountain. He had been hoping to declare his own happiness to Ina, to tell her that he had discovered real freedom of spirit. He wanted to tell her that he felt like a new man. But he realized as she sat beside him that his hope to declare it all was actually a way to stave off the emptiness left by what was now gone. Lapvona was a lonely place. There was no church, and there was no God to speak of. Nobody prayed. Everyone just talked about themselves and each other. If it weren’t for Grigor mentioning it, they would have forgotten about the Christ Child. Nobody believed it was a true messiah, as nobody believed in the meaning of a messiah anymore. Grigor had not given up completely. There was something sacred still. He recognized now that the sacred thing had been Ina herself.

‘I love you,’ he said to Ina, handing her back the pipe.

She looked at him with a soft expression that he couldn’t understand. ‘I would nurse you again,’ Ina said back to him, ‘but all my milk is for Christ now.’

She took Grigor’s hand and delivered into it some divine power. Grigor could feel it leach through his skin and into his flesh and bones. It traveled up through his wrist and arm, his shoulder, crept across his chest, and stopped at his heart. He suddenly felt very hot. He took a deep breath.

‘What are you doing to me, Ina?’ he asked.

‘Open up your heart,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid it’s broken.’

‘If I was knocking at your door, would you open it?’

‘I would, of course.’

‘Even if the door was broken.’

‘I would try.’

Grigor’s whole arm was pulsating now. His heart beat powerfully in his chest. Ina took him by the other hand, too. He could not fight. She overpowered him, and the force of God entered his body like a rash spreading across his skin, and he felt his heart surge, then stop. He waited for it to start again. He looked at Ina in the eye.

‘If you don’t let God into your heart, you’ll die,’ Ina said. ‘That’s what kills people. Not time or disease. Now, open up.’

‘Are you trying to kill me?’ he asked. She gripped his hands tighter.

‘Do you want me to?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Grigor answered without thinking.

Ina smiled. His heart beat again, slowly and steadily. Ina kissed his cheek. It was done now. He blushed. Ina tucked the rosewood pipe between her breasts and stood.

‘Come see the child,’ she said.

She helped Grigor up and kissed him again. They walked hand in hand into the manor through the kitchen door.



* * *




*

Marek was nearly at the top of the mountain. He was surprised by his own strength and endurance. While the baby had at first sapped him of energy, it seemed now to drive him powerfully to reach the top of the cliff. He held it against his heart and scanned the ground, as though looking for his old footprints, but he found none. Then, in the branches of a forsythia bush, he saw Jacob’s old bow, and further still, at the top of the cliff, Jacob himself. It was not his ghost or his grave, but his skeleton. The bones were pure white, lying in a pile. The skull was missing. Marek assumed it had rolled off the cliff, or a vulture had wrenched it off and dropped it somewhere to enjoy it in private. Jude had left the body there as a sacrifice, Marek assumed. He must have felt it would please God.

The baby turned inside Marek’s jacket. He looked down at its face and held it tightly. It was true that the baby was something very valuable. Anyone would be completely hypnotized by its beauty. It was so perfect and small. It would be easy to throw it. Marek unbuttoned his jacket and pulled the baby out into the sunshine. It smiled and reached its hands toward its brother’s face.

‘Don’t worry,’ Marek said. ‘Death is not the end. You shall rise. What are the birds but angels? You will never have to walk among the monsters. It’s much better up there. You’ll see, you’ll see. You will be so happy and free, you’ll sing.’





THE END