The Fifth Doll(3)
Frowning through his long beard, Matrona’s father folded his arms. “I’m not one to question the work of a Maysak, but it may need to be replaced.”
Her mother’s eyes brightened. “Oh yes, it should be. Look at those cracks! And don’t worry yourself, Feodor. Matrona will see you a new one right away. Won’t you, Matrona? My daughter looks after her own.”
She punctuated the statement with another sharp glare.
Breathing in a sigh that desperately wanted to escape her lips, Matrona set the pail down. “But of course, if you wish it, Feodor.”
A smile spread on Feodor’s mouth, but it did not show his teeth. “That would do well for me. I can see already the dedicated wife you will be.”
Matrona smiled; her mother beamed. With a slight curtsy, Matrona said, “If you’ll excuse me,” and slipped out of the house, the conversation between betrothed and parents resuming before she’d even shut the door. A busy day she’d have, for her father would certainly push her to finish the chores despite the time it would take to procure a new jug. She’d likely be the one to fetch it once it was kilned, as well.
Outside, she allowed a sigh to pass through her lips. It mixed with the warm breeze as she started down the dirt path that wound through the village, making her way to the pottery. The late-morning sun twinkled between the leaves of the oaks and aspens that formed the nearby wood, dotted occasionally with twisting hornbeams and thick linden trees. The wild grasses grew thick between the trees and the other izbas that housed Matrona’s neighbors, scenting the air with green. Roksana’s voice called out her name, and she turned to see her friend taking a fork in the path behind Matrona, heading toward her own home. Matrona offered an apologetic wave. With the distraction of the jug, she’d forgotten Roksana was in her room.
As Matrona passed the cooper and the path that led to the glade where the children so liked to play, she heard faint peals of laughter echoing from the wood. She walked around the Grankins’ small potato farm and the knitting shop owned by the Demidov family. The church bell rang; Alena Zotov, Roksana’s mother-in-law, must have been starting her women’s scripture meeting.
The path stretched long and straight for a ways after that, and Matrona lifted her eyes when the tradesman’s home came into view. Though it had sat in its little nook against the wood all her life, Matrona never tired of admiring it.
Slava Barinov’s home was by far the grandest in the village, and most certainly the brightest. Its yellow siding was heavily trimmed in blue, complemented by blue shutters and blue cornices. Twisting columns of wood held up a small, ornate portico over the door, and the two steps leading to it were vivid red brick, perhaps purchased during one of Slava’s expeditions. The nalichniki around the attic windows, for the home stood two stories, curled about themselves like bubbling candy. Small blue tiles scaled the roof, making it look almost dragon-like. The edges of the tiles glimmered in the sunlight. Matrona almost expected the portico to rise from the earth and turn to look at her, blinking at her with sleepy glass eyes, but the home remained rooted as it was built, and within a few breaths, Matrona had left it behind.
Matrona’s path soon curved around the second half of the village, for Slava’s home sat at its midpoint. It wasn’t until she saw the smoke puffing from the pottery’s chimney that her stomach clenched within her, and her fingers grew clammy around the cracked jug’s handle.
She pressed fingertips into her belly in an attempt to calm it and raised her chin a little higher to convince herself of her nonchalance. The Maysaks were a large family who ran both the brewery and the pottery, and more than one of its sons molded clay for the village. It was frequently Viktor who ran the pottery while his sisters tended to old Mad Olia, their mother. It would be Viktor she’d see, she assured herself, and the exchange would be brief. Before she knew it, she’d be on her way home to do her chores and speak soft words to Feodor in exchange for his—and her mother’s—favor.
The pottery sat behind the Maysak izba, where Afon Maysak, head of the household, sipped at a bottle of some sort of spirits, as he always did. Pulling her eyes from him, Matrona focused on her task. The pottery was built like a barn, with two wide doors that opened into the workshop, not so different from the barn in the cow pasture. As Matrona approached, she could feel the heat of the kiln tickling the air. The scent of clay clung to her nostrils and the back of her throat.
Viktor was there as expected, his hands gloved as he shoved a long-handled paddle into the kiln burning in the back of the shop. Yet so was he. Her eyes easily spotted the youngest Maysak brother, Jaska, closer to the front of the pottery, his hands and arms stained up to his elbows as he separated a mound of gray clay from a bundled chunk and threw it down onto the center of a potter’s wheel. Bits of clay stained his long apron as well, and a smudge traced one side of his shaven jaw. His hair, which always looked unkempt, stuck to his temples with perspiration.
Matrona found her gaze measuring the broadness of his shoulders, and she forced herself to look away, pressing the thoughts back into the dark spots of her mind, calling herself silly and odd, even a little sick in the head. Matrona was an upright woman, and engaged to be married to a fine man. Not only that, but Jaska Maysak was seven years her junior, only nineteen years of age. She needn’t have reminded herself that she used to tend him when he was a child and his mother’s illness had left her bedridden. By all means, Matrona was more an elder sister to him than anything else. It was foolhardy for her to notice him the way she did. The way she had for nearly two years.