Jakob’s Colors by Lindsay Hawdon Page B

“I’m cold.” She moved closer to Andrew. “Lor and I have dined on honeysuckle. We shan’t want a thing for dinner.”
    He looked at her then. Seemed about to say something as his eyes wandered over her face. His hand shifted. Seemed almost about to reach out to her. But then he stared back down at his empty glass, let his hand rest on the stem. The shadows on the lawn lengthened. Starlings were descending, pecking at discarded crumbs, their wings tucked by their sides like folded handkerchiefs.
    â€œI’d better get on,” he said eventually. “Got some things to clear up before tomorrow.” He flicked his cigarette stub onto the grass,ground it out with his shoe, and walked briskly across the lawn and into the house.
    â€œMommy’s pretty, yes, darling?” Vivienne whispered.
    â€œYes,” Lor replied.
    â€œOops, too much to drink,” her mother mumbled. “Everything’s giddy. Come on, let’s make tea, sober the old gal up a bit,” and she pulled Lor by the hand across the lawn and into the house.

This Day
AUSTRIA , 1944
    A s he runs, his tears cut against the cold wind. Jakob—a half-blood gypsy boy of Roma and Yenish. Barely eight years old. He moves fast, pushed by fear that keeps him running, night after night. Pushed by loss that slips into the raw meat of him, into the pulsing of blue veins, the slab of his liver, the sponge of his right lung, stabbing there with a pain that is the only thing he recognizes. He can smell the woody scent of fallen pine needles seeping up from under his feet, and the stale heat of past days released from the soil’s dampness. Forest moss softens his steps in places and cloves of garlic spit scents upward with his tread, stinging his eyes. He runs through a blur of tears and hears the sound of his own breath in his ears.
    When he rests he makes his smokeless fires, warms his hands and feet and heart, and sleeps under layers of leaves. Dreams again of clawing at the warm earth, his mouth clogged with clay, his eyes with darkness. He never sleeps long. Fear wakes him. Loss wakes him. At intervals he hears the trickle of a shallow stream, the song of water rushing over smooth pebbles that is familiar, soothing. He tries to keep the sound of it in his right ear, for want of some direction, for the certainty that he can quench his thirst should he need to. All streamslead to the river. All rivers to the sea. Would the sea save him? Could he walk forth into the choppy waters, until his eyes filled and blinded? Would he be forgiven if that was his choice? To run and not stop until the waters found him?
    Not yet. Not yet. In the past they had buried their dead in these forests, buried them along the way, laid loaves of bread upon their chests, sprinkled berries over their heads. People grew old beneath the ancient trees. They said prayers and heaped earth upon them.
    When you burying the people you love, the earth changes , his father had taught him. You could hold, in a single handful of soil, sun warmed, damp with precipitation or silver with frosted ice, all the love you ever felt for that person. There were scattered pieces of so many lives beneath the turf. He should not be so afraid. He sees the shine of two eyes glinting out of the blackness; a hare perhaps, a bullfrog?
    He listens for the croak and sporadic whine. Hears something indecipherable. A cry. Strange forest noises that will remain nameless in the black of night. Stay with me, he wants to cry. Stay by my side. Simply the light of another’s eyes, the companionship of it, even if the only existence shared is the experience of sight. Is there comfort in that? If not, then what? Then what?
    â€œ Nie lekaj sie —Don’t be afraid, Jakob,” his father had said, his voice weak and wavering. “See the colors. Tell me what you see, Jakob, my boy?” he had whispered.
    Jakob looks, seeing movement everywhere, shadows where there are no