Читать книгу Kama - Terese Brasen - Страница 13

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The day came when they would take Mother into the wilderness and leave her alone to die, the way they did with all those who had gone mad. Kama hid inside her bed closet. She pulled the cover over her face, hoping to muffle all sound. Why do the weak and small just wait? Could we push back in that quick second before the intruder’s hand punches open the door? Is there a way to stop all time and breathe him away? This was not the right time. It would never be but this was the worst—early and dark, and Mother asleep with her ragged hair.

Monsters are always ready to show off their brutality. They are fulfilled only when there is war or broken laws. They believe only in right and wrong, good and bad and never understand nuance—that a mind can crack, that a heart can break. Any mind. Any heart. Anytime.

Kama heard pots and jars crashing to the floor. Tables and benches overturned. She heard him grab Mother—tiny Mother who was too small to pull herself free and too broken to know why this ugly soldier needed to break her further.

And then there was screaming in the room. It was Mother’s voice.

Why did Kama want to comfort her, this woman who gave nothing and wanted everything from her? Why could Kama never bear the sound of Mother’s cries? Mother and daughter could never truly be separated. First they pull the child from the mother and later the mother from the child. What was this unexplainable connection?

Kama wanted Mother to stop crying.

And then there were more voices. Loud. Louder. Kama had to look now. She pulled back the bed closet curtain. She saw Tova punching the man with the chest wider than any shield. Inga was there somehow, biting him, biting his arm. The man shook her off and threw her against the wall. Inga fell and then bit his leg, deeper this time. And then someone somehow on the man’s shoulders. She was beating his face and covering his eyes as though he were a horse. She poked at his eyes.

Why did men always win? Of course, that thought wasn’t true. Father had lost to Mother. But most men? Usually? All the time? All the women in the townhouses could not wrangle Mother free from the one brute with arms as wide as massive stones and hands like shovels. Why was there never any way to resist and win?

The cacophony ceased, but Kama was not alone. One of the townhouse women, Tova, was there at her side, offering tea, then broth. She stroked her arm and hair and told her she would get through this. She said Kama had strength; no one was stronger than Kama. She let her cry. She told her it was good to cry. Kama had never heard these words before but wanted to believe them. And so she sipped the broth and let the tears fall. The heavens seemed to be opening and the world shaking. Kama wondered if she would still exist after or would the tears flood Midgard, carry her away, and leave her on the shore like washed up refuge for gulls to explore?

Tova stayed, and the tears came and went with memories. She recalled Father telling her what a beautiful princess she was and what a beautiful queen she would become. But Father would never speak again. She would never again hear his stories of Constantinople, city of beauty and buildings and glorious glass. And then sometimes she felt relief that she would never need to leave Mother. Kama had always wondered how she would manage that day when she would need to sail away to Hedeby, leaving Mother all alone, but now that day would never come.

Instead she had this day, the day Mother left her.