Homesick for Another World(68)

“You don’t want those marks,” Waldemar answers. “You’ll end up like Mother, always angry. She only has bad dreams.”

“But I have bad dreams already,” I say. “All my dreams are about this place here and all the boring, stupid things and people.”

“You take it too hard,” Waldemar says. “Things here aren’t so bad. Anyway, what if the other place is no better? You could go back there and be just as troubled.”

“Impossible,” I say. But I wonder. “What do you think Jarek Jaskolka did to the woman? How did the marks get there?”

“There are things men do. Nobody knows. It’s like a magic act. Nobody can solve it.”

It doesn’t sound so bad to me. Magic acts are easy to solve. There is an old man in the town square who eats fire and makes the crows that mill under the big tree there disappear in a puff of smoke. Any fool can see that they’ve just flown up into the branches to hide.

“Will you help me find Jarek Jaskolka?” I ask Waldemar. “I really want to get out of here. Even though I’ll miss you when I’m gone.”

“I’ll try,” he answers and frowns. He is angry at me, I can tell. When my brother is angry, he plucks the poison berries from the bushes on the road and puts them up his nose. Everybody knows that’s where the brain is, up the nose there. Waldemar likes to poison his brain that way. It makes him feel better to do that. I myself like to swallow the poison berries like tablets. So because Waldemar is plucking berries, I pluck berries, too, and swallow them one by one. They are soft and cold. If I snag one on my fang, goop spills out and tastes bitter, like the poison that it is.

At school we sit at different tables. At chorus I can see Waldemar’s mouth moving, but I know he isn’t singing the song. When we file out of the big stone church, I ask Waldemar again. “Will you help me find him? Not just for me, but for the woman. Maybe if I kill him, the woman won’t be so angry all the time. It seems she holds quite a grudge.”

“I won’t help you,” says Waldemar. “And don’t try to cheer me up. You’d better think of a way to kill him when you find him. I’m not going to help you do that.”

Waldemar is right. I’ll need some kind of knife to kill Jarek Jaskolka with. I’ll need the sharpest knife I can find. And I’ll need poison. The poison berries from the bush make our brains just a little sleepy, but that is all they do. If I make Jarek Jaskolka eat many poison berries, maybe he will fall asleep, and then I can kill him with the knife, step into the hole, and go back to the place at last. This is my plan.

On the walk home with Waldemar that day after school, I fill my skirt with poison berries. I look like a farmer girl holding my skirt up like that. I tell Waldemar to fill his pockets with berries, but he says they will get squished, and anyway, I have picked enough to kill Jarek Jaskolka already.

“Really? This is enough to kill him?” I ask my brother.

“Oh, I don’t know. Don’t ask me.” Waldemar is still so angry. I don’t blame him. I try to sing a funny song as we turn the corner and cross the town square, but Waldemar covers his ears.

“Sorry, Waldemar,” I say. But I don’t feel sorry. Sometimes Waldemar loves me too much. He thinks it is better I stay with him on Earth, rather than be happy in the other place without him. “When you die, we’ll be together again,” I say, trying to console him. “Or maybe you’ll find your person to kill. Don’t give up.” My legs are cold as we walk the rest of the way home. But I have so many poison berries. I am happy. “I’ll make poison berry jam,” I say. “I’ve seen the woman do it with cherries.”

“She will never let you use her pot,” Waldemar says. He looks at me. I know I could persuade Waldemar to help me make the jam, but I don’t want to. When he is angry with me, I feel he loves me even more, and that feels good to me, even though it also feels so bad.

? ? ?

When we get home, the woman is outside hanging wet clothes on the line of rope between the trees. I imagine the marks on her thighs again. They are like welts, like slugs crawling up her leg. My thighs are like my arms. They are just skin and flesh with no marks. They are clean blank skin and flesh. Nothing is ever going to crawl up them, not ever, I decide. I’d die before I let anyone give me marks like the woman’s, I decide. Even if they are just marks of magic. I hide my skirt of poison berries behind Waldemar as we pass and wave to the woman. We go inside the house. I pull a big black pot from the cupboard and fill it with the poison berries.

“How do you make jam, Waldemar?” I ask my brother.

“Add sugar and cook it for a long time.”

“Oh, I love sugar,” I say. “I’ll do it tonight while the woman is sleeping.”

“You better not taste too much of it. Don’t forget, when you cook it, the poison gets stronger.”

“Will you help me remember, Waldemar?”

“No,” he says and puts a few more poison berries up his nose. “I have to sleep at night. If I don’t sleep, I feel sick during the day. I don’t like feeling sick at school.”

“Oh, poor little Waldemar,” I say, mocking him. I swallow a few of the berries and drag the pot into our bedroom and hide it in the closet.

When the woman comes back in from hanging the clothes, she says, “Go play outdoors, children. Waldemar, go run around while the sun is still shining. Urszula, go and be energetic. You look so serious. You look like an old lady. Go out and have fun. It’s good for you.”