Drude

Marta could hear her son turning in the other bed. The straw rustled; the wooden frame gave its familiar complaint. If she could make him hear her, he would bring the lamp.

Something sat on her chest.

She could see the rafters. She could see the pale strip beneath the shutter. Her right hand lay open on the blanket, close enough to the edge that she ought to have been able to let it fall and knock against the floor. She tried. Nothing moved.

The weight settled lower. She had just enough breath to feel what the next breath would cost.

Across the room, Peter sighed and grew still.

Marta tried his name. Her tongue pressed against her teeth; no voice followed. The thing leaned close. Hair brushed her cheek, and beneath it she glimpsed the shape of a woman’s mouth.

An old saying came back to her, something her mother had muttered over a cradle. Invite the Drude to borrow. See who comes tomorrow.

Tomorrow seemed an absurd thing to offer. She could not reach the next moment.

“Come,” she whispered.

The mouth remained close to hers.

“Tomorrow.”

She worked the word out on the little air she had left. What did she own that anyone might want? A needle. A cracked jug. The blue thread laid ready for a customer’s cuffs.

“Thread. I’ll lend you thread.”

The blanket lifted.

Marta drew breath so violently that she gagged. She rolled onto her side, coughing, and struck the floor with her hand until Peter woke.

By the time he brought the lamp, there was nothing beside her but the blanket twisted into a ridge.

He held the light while she searched beneath the bed. Then he followed her to the door and watched her test the bolt.

“It was a dream,” he said.

Marta touched the wood. The bolt was sound. She wished it had been broken.

The Borrower

Lene came after the morning bread had been taken from the oven.

She stood on the threshold with her workbasket against her hip. There was a split in its wicker rim which Marta knew well; she had caught her sleeve on it the previous autumn. Lene had laughed and freed the cloth with the same neat fingers now curled around the handle.

“Have you a little thread to spare?”

Marta kept one hand on the door.

“For what?”

“A cuff. The seam’s gone.”

“What colour?”

“Whatever you have.”

Lene shifted the basket. Marta looked at her mouth.

The upper lip had a shallow notch at its centre. Last night, beneath the hanging hair, she had seen that notch.

“What is it?” Lene asked.

Marta stepped back. She let her neighbour enter, then closed the door. Peter was outside splitting kindling. Through the shutter they could hear him setting each piece upright before he struck.

“You came here last night.”

Lene’s fingers tightened on the basket.

“No.”

“You sat on me.”

The kindling cracked. Lene looked towards the sound, then down at the floor.

Marta had imagined that knowing would make everything simple. There would be a stranger at the door, or an old enemy, someone whose face would fit the weight in the dark. Instead there was the woman who had brought broth when Peter was ill. Marta could still see the small white scar left by a burn on Lene’s wrist.

“Look at me.”

Lene did, reluctantly.

“Tell me you won’t come again.”

“I don’t know where I go.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I know.”

Marta drew the bolt. Lene flinched at the scrape.

“How many?” Marta asked.

“I don’t know that either.”

For a moment Marta wanted to strike her. The want was so clear that she put her hands behind her back.

Lene lifted the basket as if she had forgotten why she carried it.

“Sometimes I wake tired. Sometimes someone won’t speak to me. I thought—” She stopped. “I hoped they were only dreams.”

“Not yours.”

“No.”

They listened to Peter gather the wood.

On his bed, Marta’s mother had carved a five-pointed star. She had done it while waiting for the child to be born, complaining that the knife was blunt. Marta had never thought to put one on her own folding bed. It had belonged to a travelling peddler; it was narrow, cheap, and could be pushed against the wall when she needed room to work.

Lene followed her glance.

“You could mark yours.”

“And send you to somebody else’s?”

Lene said nothing.

Marta took the blue spool from the table. She held it, then set it down again.

“Come before dark. Bring a blanket.”

“What for?”

“I want to see what happens.”

“I don’t want you to watch me.”

“Neither did I.”

Lene lowered her head. It gave Marta no pleasure.

Outside, Peter knocked with his foot because his arms were full.

Before Sleep

By evening Marta had drawn the star three times on a scrap of board. Five straight strokes, each crossing the others, the last returning to the first. Then she marked the wooden rail beside her pillow.

The bed shifted under her elbow.

Jakob, who had come to look at its loose leg, caught the frame before it folded. He tightened a peg with the heel of his hand.

“That’ll hold until I can make a new one.”

He noticed the star. His hand stopped on the rail.

“Who’s been troubling you?”

“Fix the leg.”

“I have.”

“Then how much?”

He shook his head. He had known her husband. Sometimes he did small repairs without payment; sometimes the payment was being allowed to ask questions.

“Someone comes in the night, you should say.”

Marta rubbed charcoal from her thumb.

“Come in the morning. I’ll tell you whether the bed held.”

He looked as though he meant to argue, but Peter arrived with Lene behind him, carrying a rolled blanket. Jakob stepped aside to let her pass. His glance went from the blanket to the star.

Marta closed the door before he could speak.

She spread Lene’s bedding beside the cold stove. Peter wanted to stay awake with them. Marta made him show her the star on his bed instead, tracing it with one finger while she held the lamp. The grooves were deep and unbroken.

“Stay there tonight,” she told him.

“Even if you call?”

She looked at the little shelf where he had found the lamp the night before.

“If I call, light it. Stay in the bed.”

He did not like the answer. He climbed in without another question.

For a while the women sat on either side of the table. Lene mended the split basket with a strip of willow she had brought. Marta tried to sew a cuff, but twice she put the needle through the wrong fold. Her hands shook whenever she stopped working.

“Did you tell him?” Lene asked.

“Jakob? No.”

“He’ll ask.”

“Yes.”

The willow creaked as Lene drew it tight.

“Will you tell him?”

Marta put down the cuff.

“I haven’t got that far.”

Lene nodded. She looked more frightened by this than she might have been by a promise or a threat.

At last she lay down beside the stove. Marta kept the lamp burning. She meant to watch Lene sleep, but her own eyes closed while she was still sitting upright. She woke with the needle caught in her skirt.

She put it away. Then she took the charcoal from the table and laid it in the shallow hollow of the bed rail beside her head. In case the mark needed darkening. In case there was something else she had forgotten.

Lene was breathing quietly. Peter had pulled the blanket over one ear.

Marta lay down with her hand on the rail.

The Broken Line

The bed gave a small wooden click.

Marta opened her eyes.

The lamp had burned low. Across the room she could make out Lene’s blanket beside the stove, the curve of a shoulder beneath it. For an instant she thought the sound had woken her in time.

Then the weight came down.

Her mouth opened. Her chest would not rise.

A woman’s knees pressed the blanket against her ribs. Hair hung between them, parting just enough for Marta to see the notched lip. The face was Lene’s, but no recognition moved through it.

Marta stared past her towards the stove. A pale cheek still rested on the folded end of the blanket there.

Both. Here and there.

She tried to pull her hand from the rail. Her fingers scraped the wood and caught in a gap.

The joint had opened.

She felt one cut edge, then the other. She had drawn across it in the afternoon without noticing: one of her five strokes ran over the place where two pieces of the folding frame met. Now a narrow black space separated them.

She tried to push the wood together. The frame answered with a creak. The gap widened.

The Drude bent lower.

Marta could no longer see the stove. She could see only a strip of Lene’s brow and the darkness beneath her hair. Panic drove her to wrench her whole body against the weight. It spent what breath she had without moving her an inch.

From Peter’s bed came a sleepy question.

“Mother?”

She could not answer.

“Mother?”

His straw rustled.

Marta forced her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“Lamp.”

He fumbled on the shelf. She heard the clay dish knock the wall, heard his sharp intake of breath as he steadied it. Then light moved across the rafters.

The charcoal lay against Marta’s smallest finger.

She rolled it towards her palm. It slipped, and she trapped it beneath the side of her hand. She could not close her fingers around it. She could only bear down and drag.

There was no strength to shut the joint. She slid her hand towards the pillow, away from the broken star. Here the wood was smooth and whole. There was room for another mark, if she could make it small enough.

She pressed the charcoal down and drew the first stroke. Upwards for the second. Across for the third. Her hand trembled so badly that she lost the end of the line.

She stopped. Found it again.

The weight forced a last thin sound from her throat.

One stroke down. One back to where she had begun. The charcoal broke as she dragged it to the meeting point.

Her hand jerked free.

Marta sucked in air. The lamp lurched in Peter’s grasp; she saw his face beyond it, white and wide-eyed. Nothing sat on her chest. She turned so fast that the bed began to fold beneath her, and thrust her foot against the floor to hold it open.

“Stay there,” she gasped.

Beside the stove, Lene rolled onto her back and began to cough.

Marta held the bed with her foot. She breathed. She counted neither breaths nor moments; she waited until she could bear to look at the rail.

Beside the broken star was a second, scarcely wider than her thumb. Its lines were thick and ragged, but all five points met. Below it, the charcoal had left the print of the side of her hand.

Morning Thread

They did not sleep again.

Lene sat against the stove with her blanket around her shoulders. Once she opened her mouth, but Marta raised a hand. She could not listen to an apology yet.

When the shutter grew pale, Peter fell asleep with the lamp extinguished beside him. Marta watched him for a little while, then got up. Her legs shook. She moved to the table by holding the backs of chairs.

A knock came at the door.

Jakob.

Lene drew her blanket tight. Marta looked at the bed, propped open now with a stool. The fresh charcoal on the rail had marked her pillow. She would need a proper repair, and a star cut into sound wood. Tonight would come whether she was ready or not.

“Did it hold?” Jakob called.

“No.”

His hand struck the door again.

“Let me in.”

Marta picked up the blue spool.

Lene watched her unwind a length of thread. Marta wound it around two fingers, broke it, and held out the little coil.

“For the cuff.”

Lene loosened her blanket enough to take it. Their fingers touched. Marta had to resist the urge to pull away.

“Bring your work tomorrow,” she said. “In daylight.”

Lene closed her hand on the thread.

Marta went to the door and lifted the bolt. Behind her, Lene rose to her feet.