A Single Stone (7 page)

“Where’s Mama Dietz?”

He nodded down the hall. “She’ll be along soon. You should go and see her though. We missed you earlier.”

“I know. I–”

“It’s all right. Go on.”

The door was ajar but not wide open. Jena knocked gently and waited.

“Who’s that knocking in her own home? Come on in!”

Though Mama Dietz’s tone was light, it was shot through with weariness. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her nightshirt was unbuttoned and she had one hand at her breast, squeezing. The other hand held a bottle and with every stroke of her fingers, fat droplets of milk fell into its open neck. As Jena came in, her face softened. “I’m glad to see you.”

Jena approached the bed. “How are you?”

“Tired. But well, I think.”

“Was it hard?”

“It’s always hard. It is the way of these things.” She gave one final stroke and then set the bottle down on the bedside table. It was about half full, a creamy yellow tideline circling the container’s transparent perimeter. As the liquid seemed to bead and thicken, Jena felt her stomach lurch.

What Kari had given the baby today was a paler version of this, thinned with boiled water. When a daughter was new it was important she have milk from the breast. It was full of things to make her strong, to turn her eyes to the world and make her thirst for the life it offered. But it was also rich. Too much, too soon, was not good for a daughter. Acquired early, a taste for fat was difficult to unlearn.

Mama Dietz clipped a lid onto the bottle. She shrugged her shirt back across her chest and began fastening the buttons. Jena couldn’t help casting a sideways glance. Even through the coarse material, the outline of her heavy breasts was unmistakable.

Had it been the same for her own mama? She supposed it had. But how strange it must be to have your body swell beyond you like that. First the belly and then the breasts, and things never quite returning the way they had been, even when the baby was long grown.

There was no need to think on such things though. Jena showed no signs of thickening early and people said her mama had been the same. She had tunnelled sixteen seasons before Jena was born, the longest of anyone before or since.

Like mama, like daughter, Jena hoped. Mother Irina had said as much once when she was measuring her at the Centre. She had clicked her tongue as she stretched out the tape.
It comes easy to you, doesn’t it?

At six, Jena had heard only praise in the Mother’s voice. By the time she realised there might have been something else, the day was long past.

“Perhaps you could take this to Irina in the morning?” Mama Dietz slid the bottle towards Jena. “She’ll need more and I wouldn’t mind sleeping in. Actually” – she reached to the floor beside the bed – “you could take this to Berta too.”

It was a different sort of bottle – long and brown, with a cork stopper in the end. There was no milk in this one, just the final dregs of a thick, dark liquid congealed at its base.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Mama Dietz replied. “Just something she gave me yesterday. After a while you stop asking. It seems like every time you turn around there’s a Mother holding a bottle. Something for nausea, or strength, or to help you sleep. I wonder if they do much of anything, really.” She gave a faint smile. “Still, I can’t say I wasn’t glad of a good night’s sleep this morning. I couldn’t believe it when the pains started.” She rose slowly to her feet.

As Jena reached for the bottle, something struck her. “This morning?”

“I thought they were just cramps at first. It was so early I thought they couldn’t possibly be the real thing.” Mama Dietz gave a rueful laugh.

“So you didn’t labour overnight?”

“No, thanks be. This one was short and sharp.” Mama Dietz hesitated. “Is something wrong?”

Jena realised she was frowning. “No. It’s just …” She was thinking of what Luka had said about the Mothers. About how excited they had been last night, thinking a six-moon baby was coming. But if the pains hadn’t begun until this morning, then …

She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

Maybe Luka had simply misspoken. Or perhaps it was just another of those strange things about the Mothers. Sometimes there was no explanation for the things they seemed to know.

Mama Dietz threaded her last button into place. “All right. Shall we eat then?”

Jena took Mama Dietz’s arm for the walk down the hall. In the kitchen, she put the bottles into the cool-box by the door and then followed Mama Dietz to the table. Once they were seated, Papa Dietz set a bowl of soup and a plate of bird and vegetables before each of them.

“Goodness!” Mama Dietz exclaimed. “How many did they roast?”

“Three.”

“Three! Well, it is a day, after all. Forty and forty.”

“She’s so small,” Kari said. “Papa says she’s like me but my numbers were nothing like that. Her nose is different too. And her hair’s so dark.”

“Hair often changes colour,” Mama Dietz said. “Yours was red at first.”

“
Red
?”

Papa Dietz nodded. “Like wickerberry it was. And lots of babies start out fair then get darker.”

Kari reached for the end of Jena’s braid and ran her fingers through the dark strands. “How about Jena? Was she …
oh
.” She flushed. “Sorry.”

Mama Dietz put her hand on Jena’s. “You were never fair. I remember when you were born. You had this serious little face, all wrinkled and puckered, like a tiny old Mother. And dark eyes and dark hair, from the very first day.”

Of course Mama Dietz would know. She and Jena’s mama had been friends since they were children and even though Mama Dietz hadn’t lasted long as a tunneller, they had remained so. It was why Jena and Kari had been so close. It was why the Dietzes had taken Jena in when she had nowhere else to go.

Mama Dietz looked steadily into Jena’s eyes. “Your mama loved you so much, Jena. She would be very proud of you.”

“Your papa too,” Papa Dietz added quietly.

Something fragile seemed to hover between them. No one talked about Papa any more and, somewhere inside her, Jena had come to find that a relief. There was no way of explaining what he had done and no point trying. It was easier to simply forget, to move on and hope others would do the same.

Mama Dietz squeezed Jena’s hand, then released. “I heard it was a good harvest.”

“Better than good,” Papa Dietz said. “Perhaps we’ll be all right this year.”

We.
It was the slipperiest of words. Was it the family he meant, or the village? For most of the year they were nearly the same thing, everyone pulling together, making things work. But when the snow came, the world narrowed to four walls and a roof, to a “we” that spoke only of those within arm’s reach.

“Thanks be.” Mama Dietz finished the last of the soup and set her bowl to one side.

Kari slid hers across the table. “Here, have this.” The bowl was still close to half-full and she had scarcely touched the plate Jena brought.

“I’ve had enough.” Kari sat back, one hand patting her stomach.

It was an old gesture, a carryover from the past that had become something of a joke. People used to do this after meals, they said. Only instead of saying
enough
, they would say
full
. They would rub their stomachs, declaring,
I’m full
, as if it were something to be pleased about. As if taking more than you needed were something to be proud of.
Oh, I could just burst.
Sometimes they would loosen their belts so they could stuff more in.

“Enough?” Mama Dietz said gently. Even this was a word not often heard in the valley.

“I’m fine, Mama.”

“All right then.” Mama Dietz took up her spoon gratefully.

Kari exchanged a look with Papa Dietz. He leaned forwards, sliding his arms towards Jena across the table. “We thought to name her.”

Already?
Jena didn’t need to say it. To name a daughter barely a day old was an act of great faith or great folly. Perhaps both. Giving someone a name might pull them towards you, into the world. But if it did not, it would make their loss more difficult to bear.

Kari’s eyes met hers. “She’s strong, Jena.”

“Ailin,” Mama Dietz said. “That’s what we were thinking.”

Jena caught her breath. “It’s beautiful.” It was, but it was risky too, if risky was the right word.
Little stone.
It was a name that made a girl part of the mountain. She would have to be a tunneller or live at odds with herself for the length of her days. It would be a cruel thing, with such a name, to spend your life baking or ploughing fields. But still, not so different perhaps from the many girls given names meaning “slender” and “slim” who grew far beyond their family’s hopes, and ended up doing the same.

She looked around the table.
We
, Papa Dietz had said. That word again.

“It’s perfect,” she said finally.

Mama Dietz reached for her hand once more. “I’m so glad you like it.”

Papa Dietz and Kari put their hands in too, placing them on top.

“Ailin.” Papa Dietz gave the name a finality, as if something that had been shifting had now settled, taking on its final shape.

“Ailin,” Mama Dietz repeated softly.

Jena imagined her saying it thousands of times in the years to come.
Ailin, breakfast is ready. Time for bed, Ailin. Ailin, this needs to be tighter. Just one more mouthful, Ailin.

Keep your head down, Ailin. Follow. The others will show you the way. It is a day. Thanks be. The rock has allowed it.

“Ailin,” said Jena, and the word sounded right and good on her tongue. “It’s perfect,” she said again, and prayed it would be so.

Jena is four, perhaps five.

No, she is five.

Her birthday has slipped past unremarked upon. Unnoticed.

There has been no present – no doll stuffed with dried beans or straw. No rough-cut chunk of rabbit roasting on a spit in the hearth.

It is all right,
she tells herself. She doesn’t need a doll, because she has something better – a tiny sister, all her own.

Priya. Alana. Sian.

She has so many ideas but when she tells Papa, he shakes his head.

It is too early,
he says.
The baby is weak. The weight of a name will be too heavy upon her.

Still, they tumble through Jena’s head, weave quietly through her dreams.

Ilona. Caren.

Some are pretty and others strong. It has something to do with the way they end – some are open, reaching into sky, while others are sure and steady, like stone.

Give my sister a strong name,
she thinks.
Give her a name that will keep her here with us.

It is two moons since Mama went in the ground. There is a chill in the air and a ring of white on the tips of the mountain’s fingers.

Sometimes Papa takes Jena to the place where she lies. Jena strokes the pebble they have chosen from the spring. Rollers are allowed too, and crumblers – stones the mountain has released from itself. But water stones are the best. They are cool and smooth. They come from a quiet place and that seems right for Mama, for this.

Papa sits there too long, the Mothers say. She has heard them talking while she lies in the Centre. It will be Wintering soon; he should be climbing across roofs with his hammer and nails, plugging holes, crisscrossing planks of wood one upon the other.

I’m five,
she says to Papa one morning. It is important that he knows. She may not get a doll or a rabbit, but nothing can stop the numbers. She is glad to be five. It is one year closer to seven and seven is what everybody wants. Seven is when you start training in the maze, then the shallow tunnels. Seven is one year away from taking your place in the line, if they choose you.

They will choose her. Jena knows it as surely as spring follows even the longest of winters. As surely as the numbers that move upwards year upon year.

She has been good about her wrapping. She has lain still at the Centre without squirming or complaining. And when she is out, she has been keeping her muscles strong, doing all the exercises the Mothers say she must.

But when she tells Papa, his face is blank. He looks through her, his eyes somewhere else.

Later, he comes to the Centre. She hears his voice and turns her head but there are beds in the way, and cribs after that. She can’t see anything but she knows it is him. She strains her ears towards the sound but a baby is crying and it is hard to hear. There is something strange in his voice, something Jena has never heard before. It sounds like he is trying to whisper but he is shouting.

A door flings wide and there are footsteps heavy in the room, stamping up and down the aisles between the beds.

Arms reach out but they are not for Jena. A baby cries and then another. He is picking something up, a small bundle.

No. He mustn’t. A new daughter needs to lie still, to learn to be only with herself.

Then the Mothers are there. Different arms reaching now. Reaching and taking. Soothing and settling.