CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Marytè

It is a blustery day. The bees do not like it and neither does Marytè. Her skin feels taut and flaky, as if she is moulting, like a dandelion seed-head being stripped in the breeze. It makes her throat tickle too and a phlegmy cough follows. It reminds her of Baltrus in his final months, his throat thick and full of mucus, as though with each cough he were choking on his own fluids. Marytè stops along the forest path, near Aldona’s house, and looks up. White puffs race across the sky. Even the clouds are dry in this wind. Tapping birch leaves, rustling conifers, shuddering aspens: the forest is in movement, but the bees are not. They’ve taken shelter but Marytè cannot afford to hunker down today. She must keep busy.

She wants to remember Baltrus in their happier times, not the months when he was dying. But when were those happier times? A heaviness had fallen over the family when Azuolas passed in the winter before. Her eldest son, her firstborn: she’d felt she would never recover. It is cruel to take children before they have a chance to outlive their parents. Azuolas was a dedicated beekeeper, and even though Baltrus always had a soft spot for Austėja, it was her brother he’d been training to take his place. But when he left, Baltrus’s hefty frame began to hunch and wither and that little tickle in his throat, their gift from Alytus two summers back now, had morphed into something else entirely. She’d known at that moment, only weeks after she’d said goodbye to her son, that her husband would soon join him on the High Hill.

She tried to remain optimistic, as much as her temperament allowed. Even when she could feel him slipping away. But as she nursed his weakening body over winter, she felt her body weaken too. As if she were channelling all her energy into him, willing him to come back to her. The more of herself she gave the more he slipped from her grasp. And, if she is being honest with herself, her mind began to slip too. She began to plummet. Into that scary, dark place where her own mother had once sunk.

She couldn’t risk it. Because then where would that leave her daughters? Alone with an ageing grandmother and no security in their futures. No, Marytè couldn’t allow that to happen. There may have been one moment when she had been weak, confused even, but she was quick to get things back on track. She’d done what she had to prevent further decline.

She urges herself to keep walking. Marytè reaches Aldona’s house, where smoke slithers out of the chimney and is carried away in the breeze. A man stands in the clearing, wielding an axe and bringing it down on a felled spruce tree with skilful ease. Baltrus?

The man turns. Did she say his name aloud? She darts towards him, her heart pounding; she is heady with excitement. When she reaches him, she pauses, reaches out to caress his cheek. ‘Are you real? Is it really you?’

It is Baltrus. Her cheery, handsome husband. He is here. He has returned to her. Oh, how is this possible?

A door closes beyond. The man remains still, a confused expression on his face. Marytè blinks and the blood rushes away from her trunk as if her stomach is plummeting to her feet.

She swallows back the phlegmy lump in her throat. ‘Liudvikas?’

He watches her carefully as she withdraws her hand.

‘Marytè,’ Aldona says, coming to her, clutching her shoulders. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Forgive me.’ She glances at her friend’s husband and sees that this man is not Baltrus at all. He’s large-bodied and strong like him, but Liudvikas is fair-haired and square-jawed and more angular than Baltrus. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I thought for a moment there I saw Bal—’

Her voice cracks and she tries to turn away from them both but Aldona draws her in closer. Marytè stifles a sob. Aldona squeezes her tighter and Marytè sinks into her friend’s embrace as her legs buckle beneath her. Her friend holds her until she finds her footing and she vows not to deprive her children of this feeling. Baltrus was as large as a bear and when he enveloped her it felt cosy, secure. Her girls loved being wrapped up in his arms. Though hers are bonier and not as long, she must provide that comfort to her girls. Or else they will look for it elsewhere.

‘Come,’ says Aldona, weaving her arm through Marytè’s and guiding her to the house.

‘I’m sorry,’ Marytè calls over her shoulder.

‘There’s no need for that. This happens sometimes when we lose someone we love,’ Aldona says. ‘We want to see them so badly that our mind conjures them up all on its own.’

‘I’m pathetic.’

Aldona gasps. Marytè has never been so critical of herself in the company of others before. She really is pathetic.

Aldona sits Marytè upon a bench by the hearth. The fire has recently burned out, but the room is warm and the coldness that has settled upon Marytè’s bones begin to thaw.

‘I will hear of none of that talk, Marytè. I too have experienced this. For many years after I lost my Ignas, my only son to survive birth, he was with us through two seasons, but afterwards, I would see him in the clearing. Not far from where you stood with Liudvikas. Running around collecting insects, living the life I’d hoped he would one day have.’ Aldona sighs. ‘But it was not meant to be. There is nothing pathetic about grieving those we love.’

‘No,’ Marytè says. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t surprise me, though. You hardly said a word at his one-month anniversary yesterday, nor did you shed a tear.’

Marytè takes the mug of honey-tea presented to her. It was true: she didn’t sing, or cry, or say much at all. Senelè more than made up for her silence. Though she wanted to be there, to celebrate Baltrus’s life and mourn her loss, being on the High Hill is like reopening a wound, one that festers and oozes and will not heal. She couldn’t bring herself to lose control, or else end up in that dark place. Instead, she tried to stay strong as her girls wept. Austėja, to Marytè’s surprise, was in quite a state. She has been irritable and distracted since the Hollow Watcher’s funeral and then on the High Hill she turned away from the grave and sobbed into her hands. She is taking the loss of her father very hard. Afterwards, Marytè lifted her from the earth and guided her back home.

‘It is bound to catch up with you,’ Aldona says.

Marytè draws in a breath. ‘I love my husband.’

‘Of course,’ Aldona says, dropping to her knees and squeezing Marytè’s hand. ‘Of course you do, my friend. No one would ever question your loyalty. But we mustn’t keep our pain locked away inside of us.’

‘I just want to stay strong for my daughters. This next harvest is critical for us.’

‘It is. But we are your bičiulystè. We are all here to support you, as we know you would for us.’

Marytè swallows the warm liquid. It is bitter and sweet. ‘I know.’ Her stomach softens with friendship and a warm drink. Would it be so hard to depend on her friends? To depend on other people? But deep within, there’s a voice niggling at her.

Yes, but I’m not sure I deserve it.