and alike in good and evil days keep thee only unto him as long as ye both shall live? If so, answer I will.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Then I pronounce you husband and wife.”
The crow flies up from the willow tree and cuts the sky with black and glossy wings.
On the first Monday in November the sky darkens, the wind takes on a hollow, whistling sound, and the people of Stone Creek wait for snow. They wait in the Chinese café at oilcloth-covered tables beside steaming windows, coffee mugs cupped in their hands. They wait in the Golden West Hotel in a room, dimly lit, where one more drink will warm the winter already in their bones. They wait in the Stone Creek School. Restless in their desks, the pupils twist their bodies this way and that, stretching their necks toward the high windows, watching the sky darken, deep, deeper still, now a dense heavy grey. And the wind, sharp and mournful, slapping at the glass.
And then it comes. Icy flakes spinning in the air, sweeping across the roads, under telephone wires, into ditches. It blows against the café and post office, the furniture store and undertaker’s parlour and the schoolhouse windows. It swirls about the elevators and across the pasture and the quarry and over pebbles and stiff clumps of thistles and all around the empty chair creaking back and forth beside the frozen pit.
Inside the trailer, Nettie peers out the small window over the sink and watches the flakes do their jagged dance in her small yard. She breathes content in the knowledge that now Eli will never leave her.
She goes into the bedroom, opens the closet door, and reaches behind a pile of blankets for the package. She removes the yellowed paper, lifts out a small black autoharp, and carries it into the kitchen where Eli is sitting. She places the instrument on the table.
“Here,” she says. “Play.”
“Wherever did you find this?”
“Never mind. Just play.”
Eli examines it, fingers the knobs to tighten the loose strings, then plucks the strings with his thumb.
“No,” Nettie says. “Use this.” She plunks a thick piece of worn leather into his hand. “It’s what Mama used.” And Eli strums a few chords.
Outside, snow drifts around the trailer, clicks and swishes against the kitchen window. And the wind, blue and hollow, seeps under the door in chilly strips.
“Sing,” Nettie says. And Eli opens his mouth to an old song.
Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
“Speed it up,” Nettie says. “You’re too slow.”
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.
“Oh, well,” she says.
Home, home... Eli sings.
“Home!” Nettie shouts.
Sweet sweet home... he sings.
“Sweet home!” she shouts.
There’s no place like home, oh, there’s no place like home.
Nettie sighs. “That is so true,” she says.
On the seventh of November Annie Levinsky dies.
Jacob and his pupils tromp through snow down the hill to the Russian church. Inside, they cling to the wall by the door. The church is crowded, everyone stands, there are no pews. Elizabeth Lund stays close to Mary Sorenson. She has never been in this church before and she stares at everything. In front of her, men in shiny black suits and white shirts, women in black skirts and lace shawls, and children, too, hover around a wooden box that Elizabeth can barely see. And all around them are candles. Purple candles in tall stands that rise above their heads; pink candles in little glass cups set in cubbyholes in the church wall; candles in thick silver candlesticks on the table of the altar. Hundreds of orange flames. And she sees the pictures too, painted on the walls and on velvet banners with red tassels – pictures of old men with beards and of Mary and the baby Jesus. And the ceiling! She gazes up at the blue dome high above, where saints and angels fly in and out among the
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Then I pronounce you husband and wife.”
The crow flies up from the willow tree and cuts the sky with black and glossy wings.
On the first Monday in November the sky darkens, the wind takes on a hollow, whistling sound, and the people of Stone Creek wait for snow. They wait in the Chinese café at oilcloth-covered tables beside steaming windows, coffee mugs cupped in their hands. They wait in the Golden West Hotel in a room, dimly lit, where one more drink will warm the winter already in their bones. They wait in the Stone Creek School. Restless in their desks, the pupils twist their bodies this way and that, stretching their necks toward the high windows, watching the sky darken, deep, deeper still, now a dense heavy grey. And the wind, sharp and mournful, slapping at the glass.
And then it comes. Icy flakes spinning in the air, sweeping across the roads, under telephone wires, into ditches. It blows against the café and post office, the furniture store and undertaker’s parlour and the schoolhouse windows. It swirls about the elevators and across the pasture and the quarry and over pebbles and stiff clumps of thistles and all around the empty chair creaking back and forth beside the frozen pit.
Inside the trailer, Nettie peers out the small window over the sink and watches the flakes do their jagged dance in her small yard. She breathes content in the knowledge that now Eli will never leave her.
She goes into the bedroom, opens the closet door, and reaches behind a pile of blankets for the package. She removes the yellowed paper, lifts out a small black autoharp, and carries it into the kitchen where Eli is sitting. She places the instrument on the table.
“Here,” she says. “Play.”
“Wherever did you find this?”
“Never mind. Just play.”
Eli examines it, fingers the knobs to tighten the loose strings, then plucks the strings with his thumb.
“No,” Nettie says. “Use this.” She plunks a thick piece of worn leather into his hand. “It’s what Mama used.” And Eli strums a few chords.
Outside, snow drifts around the trailer, clicks and swishes against the kitchen window. And the wind, blue and hollow, seeps under the door in chilly strips.
“Sing,” Nettie says. And Eli opens his mouth to an old song.
Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
“Speed it up,” Nettie says. “You’re too slow.”
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.
“Oh, well,” she says.
Home, home... Eli sings.
“Home!” Nettie shouts.
Sweet sweet home... he sings.
“Sweet home!” she shouts.
There’s no place like home, oh, there’s no place like home.
Nettie sighs. “That is so true,” she says.
On the seventh of November Annie Levinsky dies.
Jacob and his pupils tromp through snow down the hill to the Russian church. Inside, they cling to the wall by the door. The church is crowded, everyone stands, there are no pews. Elizabeth Lund stays close to Mary Sorenson. She has never been in this church before and she stares at everything. In front of her, men in shiny black suits and white shirts, women in black skirts and lace shawls, and children, too, hover around a wooden box that Elizabeth can barely see. And all around them are candles. Purple candles in tall stands that rise above their heads; pink candles in little glass cups set in cubbyholes in the church wall; candles in thick silver candlesticks on the table of the altar. Hundreds of orange flames. And she sees the pictures too, painted on the walls and on velvet banners with red tassels – pictures of old men with beards and of Mary and the baby Jesus. And the ceiling! She gazes up at the blue dome high above, where saints and angels fly in and out among the