It started with a cough.
I watched her shoulders shake as she tried to hold them back, but eventually they overcame her, and a single cough turned into a fit which lasted long after I had fetched her water from the well and rubbed her back in an attempt to soothe her. Tears had begun to stream silently down her face, leaving glistening trails from her downcast sallow blue eyes to her chapping lips. I used the moisture and the hem of my dress to wipe her face, removing some of the grime of living from her features. She pushed my hand briskly away, and wouldn’t meet my eyes as my inquiries of what I could do for her went unanswered. I knew that she expected me to be angry with her, as she seemed to be with herself, and this is what made her so cold towards me this evening.
There had long been a mire of silence between us, but it had never concerned me. Mother had spoken little in the past couple of years, and I had grown accustomed to quiet dinners and days alone. In the beginning, I had tried to bridge it with jokes or comments on the weather, but eventually I accepted our wordless moments together without much thought. Now I wondered how long she had been stepping out of the room or choking back the spasms in her throat as she went about her chores in an attempt to keep me from knowing. A part of me wanted to give in to my emotions, and beg her for an explanation, but there had been a thin veil of foreshadowing hanging over the town for weeks as news had spread, and now the sickness had arrived with it.
There was a long silence after the coughs had ended in which she continued to stoke the meager fire in the hearth and stare aimlessly into space.
“How long?” I asked, my back turned to her as I grabbed our bowls from the shelf.
She was quiet for a moment before she whispered, “Not long,” her voice still hoarse from coughing. I sighed and turned, placing the wooden bowls on the table, perhaps with more force than I had intended.
“Mother, I need you to get into bed now.” I tried to speak kindly to her though distress was building deep in my chest, but I was wary not to coddle her into anger. Too much kindness would only push her further away from me into the pit of quiet and guilt that she had spent so much time in as of late.
“The fire needs to be tended and you know that you always let the stew dry out,” she said in the tone of a mother, standing her ground. I sighed once more and tried to keep my thoughts from catching in my throat.
We ate our meal in silence but for the occasional sound of her swallowing a cough and the continued crackling of the fire. As I ate, a place within me grew more hollow, the warm broth dissipating into my icy core. I wanted to reach out to her, as I had in childhood when fear had come to me, but the distance between us had become too deep in our sorrow, in the swift succession of days that had come and gone, just the two of us.
When the bowls were empty I placed them in the bucket for washing and finally coerced my mother to her low-lying bed. It smelled as it always had—of goose down and the sweet tang of hay beneath the warm sheets– and I felt myself relax at the comforting scent. I tucked her in as she had done for me for many years as we whispered our nighty prayers together like a lullaby. After our amens I arose to stoke the fire once more before climbing onto my own cot on the far end of the room.
In the fickle light of the fire my entire world shifted and danced softly before my eyes. My mother, breathing shallowly on her bed near the fire, the hearth, surrounded by cooking utensils, pots, and extra firewood, the single wooden table that we used for everything from eating meals to saying prayers, accompanied by three rickety chairs. Beside my bed rested a simple bureau for our clothes and our coats hung at the door. Outside, in a small shed beside the house rested the animals, who I could hear breathing through the wall from time to time. There was something about the darkness and the warmth of the small room that calmed me. As I drifted towards sleep, my thoughts caught hold of the past and brought it with me.
When my father was alive life had been brighter and uncertain, much like early summer. It hadn’t felt quite that way to me at the time, but I had been naive. I had been scared when he approached me with talk of marrying me away, though I had known change was coming from the swell of my bosom, the rounding of my hips, and the way my mother’s eyes cut across me like a dull scythe. He had explained to me, in his warm and husky tone, that there was a boy near the town of Cracow, not many miles off, who had agreed to the arrangement while I had been idling away with farm work and childhood. Father had met with his family on one of his most recent trips to deliver his goods afar, and the dowry had already been set. I had lain on my cot then, watching the same shadows play and mourning the loss of my world. I had not been able to imagine any life outside of our humble plot of land.
At the time there had been more of everything in our lives, and perhaps that was why I had so feared losing it all. More laughter, more wheat tilled, more sunshine, more chairs and more food to fill our bellies. That was not so very long ago. Had it only been two years since he had passed? My father had been a blacksmith, a well-built and strong man with a temper but a humor to match. He was the sun to me, warm and dependable, a source of love and life that I could not bear the thought of parting with. It had been a sickness that had taken him too. On one day he was crafting the strongest metals, bending them to his will, and the next he was bedridden, unable to lift his hands at his sides. His passing had come quickly, as a wind blows out a candle’s light, so did he disappear. The clergyman had come, saying a prayer that was drowned out several times by the sound of my mother’s wailing and my silence. For a time, I had thought that she would die too from grief alone, destroyed by the cold wind that swept through her heart in his absence. For the first time, I had truly had to consider a life alone. As she lay in bed for days at a time, unable to leave the place from which God had taken him, there was a time when I saw no light. I tended the fields, and the beasts, and delivered goods to town, but it was all done in darkness. And even when mother began to rise from her bed, and returned to her chores, she was no longer the moonbeam that she had once been but a shadow, and I was no longer her child as much as a reminder of what she had lost.
The flighty dreams of marrying and starting a family—if they had been my own or not—were dashed on the rocks of loss. I had word delivered to the faceless young man who would have been my husband, and the dowry became no more than a fund for our survival. My mother tried to convince me on occasion to go, once even threatening me with the hot iron poker to leave her. She knew that I wouldn’t leave, and we knew that she wouldn’t make it on her own. She was too old to remarry, and the fields and animals would only suffer from neglect as she too wasted away, unable to leave the place that she had known as home. I knew that a large part of her was thankful for my stubbornness, though the other part surely suffered from a broken heart and added to her nightly prayers. I did my best to take on my father’s share of the work, as my mother continued to dole out the taxes to our lords and the church, and life continued on, if only marginally the same as it had once been.
For these two years we had made it by on selling eggs, the occasional piglet, and the wheat that we tilled. In hard times—when taxes were raised or we needed something the farm couldn’t provide– we went into the shed, where beside the animals we hid a small and valuable stash of things that father had made before he had passed. Such visits had become more and more common as of late, and I had done my best to hide my concern from mother, but she knew as mothers always seem to know things. And so we had lived, aware of our lives dwindling away but unable to stop the flow of time.
The next morning I awoke to the soft beauty of a sun not quite awakened. I walked quickly across the dirt packed floor, my feet numbing with the cold, and rebuilt the fire. Slowly, the room filled with light and warmth. I opened the shutters, allowing the fragile sunlight in and couldn’t help but to think, Everything will be alright. I could hear my mother’s shallow breathing hitch, and as I turned to her, my eyes caught the sight of blood. It was splattered daintily across the sheets and glowed a dark and vile color on her lips. I was frozen for a moment, unable to breathe, before I rushed once more to the well. The early morning air stung my flushed cheeks as I fetched the water and rag with which to blot her face. When I returned to her bedside a fever radiated off of her, a foul heat that terrified me.
I cursed myself for my selfish irritation the day before as I upended our supply of spices and medicines, mixing her a tea that had been recommended to us when father had been ill. I put the kettle into the flames and sat at her side, dipping the rag in a bucket of cool water and dragging it softly across her forehead, cheeks, and lips. Why wasn’t I more forceful with her yesterday? Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten this bad so fast. This had never happened to father. A fever had gripped him and he had slept for days before Death took him. This cough, this blood… I didn’t know if the tea could help such a thing, but I did not know what else to do. As I finally poured the steaming water into the bowl of herbs my thoughts turned back to her. Why didn’t she tell me? How long has she been feeling the sickness? Despite my scrambled thoughts we both knew that there was nothing truly to be done other than this. Still I panicked and brewed her the tea, and still she sipped down what she could between the spasms in her throat. Still we looked into each other’s eyes and tried to find hope.
The day passed slowly. I had to tend the beasts and our field, doing my best to carry the extra load that mother was unable to do. I tried desperately not to think, but I could not truly concentrate on the work, having to rush back into the house every time that I thought I might have heard a sound from my mother’s lips, or even at times when I felt there had been too much silence. I was once again facing the possibility of a life alone. I had stayed, maybe just because I had so feared being alone. Have I done the wrong thing? Should I have gone while I had the chance? The thought struck me with such force that I blushed to myself. Shame washed over me. It was the sickness that had me worried, surely. I had never questioned my decision to stay with my mother before, and I did not feel comfortable thinking about it now. You cannot allow this fear to change you, I chided myself. I began to gather firewood and picked the little purple flowers that mother had always loved before I brought the animals back into the shed and the sky went dark.
In the evening I made her tea once more and fed her stew, one spoonful at a time. I’d been particularly careful not to let it dry out. Her eyes were sunken and her jaw slightly unhinged at all times, as if closing her mouth fully may leave her unable to breathe. Her eyes shifted slowly from place to place, sometimes focusing on my face before sliding to the ceiling or the floor. I wanted to speak to her, but I had no words worth speaking. I had abandoned questions and had said my prayers a thousand times. I simply held her hand in mine, listening to her voice crack and her breaths draw in sharply. As the fire started to die I climbed into bed beside her, feeling her heat and smelling the familiar scent of her, tinged with blood. The tears came to me then, as unwelcome as the sickness for they seemed just as pointless and painful to me.
“I’m sorry.” The voice was nothing like my mother’s and yet it came from her lips. I held her close and pleaded, “Mother, please don’t speak. You are weak, and there is no need for apologies.”She swallowed hard and blinked her eyes, trying to gain the willpower to continue though I tried to shush her.
“You are here because of me.” She paused as she took a deep breath, which rattled in an unnerving way. “I brought you into this world to love you, and instead… I have held you.” My tears were hot and thick, but she continued.
“God knows what I have done… You know what I have done. I have been greedy… for you, and for your father. I hope that He can forgive me, and so I will not fear death… as black as it may be.” She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths before the peace of a clean conscience carried her into sleep. I laid there for some time, watching her sleep and drying my tears.
What am I to do now? I wondered, almost a whisper on my lips as sleep took hold of me and pulled me under its merciful wings.
When I awoke, mother was dead. The raging heat of her fever had dulled to an unearthly coldness. Her eyes glinted in the early morning light like dawn through a frosty window pane. Her mouth was slightly agape, signs of her last coughing fits apparent there. I closed my eyes and tried to forget the world, but even the smell of her bed was different now without her truly there—muddled with blood and death beyond recognition. I opened the shutters, started a fire in the hearth, and pulled the sheet over her face as the sun rose on another dark day.
For the first time in weeks, I made my way into town. Upon hearing whispers of the sickness, we had attempted to distance ourselves from people and the crippling fear that it stirred, but it had found us just the same. I wondered about the words that my mother had spoken. Did she truly feel that she had forced me to stay? And did she regret it? Did I, really? Before I crested the hill that dropped into town I could smell it—the smoke. Looking ahead, my eyes almost unwilling to take in the sight, I could see the sickly spires of black smoke penetrating the sky. Then the smell came, worsening as I continued forward, mumbling a prayer under my breath, asking for a clear path to the church.
Bodies lined the streets, waiting patiently for pick up by the carts and the weary souls that stacked them, stiff and cold as firewood, one upon the other, a dozen faces but all faceless in death. I could hear women wailing nearby, asking their savior for mercy, and asking Him to return the dead. I silenced my prayers; they clearly would not be heard here. Rumors and whispers had suddenly turned into a reality which I could hardly bear to believe with my eyes. At mid-morning the streets should have been busy with the living, but instead the shops were as dark as the streets. Though the sun was undoubtedly in the sky, it kept its face hidden in a veil of mourning behind the clouds.
As I approached the church I heard the sounds of sharp screams. I reluctantly entered the square, my heart beating heavily in my chest. I noticed five men huddled in a line before the church, the first living people that I had seen since I entered town, but I knew better than to reach out to them. Each of them was on their knees, shockingly shirtless though the air was crisp. As I neared, warily and at some distance, I saw each of the men lift an arm, in which they all held a whip. Before I could avert my eyes they brought the whips down upon the open flesh of their backs, where blood was already glistening from recent wounds. Another round of cries arose from the group and I shuddered. Could this possibly be what God wants in return for our souls? I rushed up the steps of the church, and entered softly and quietly, another round of screams muffled by the closing of the door behind me. The pews were empty and there was not even a cough to be heard in the cavernous room of stone.
“Are you among the sick?” Called a deep voice, familiar from services passed. It came from a tall man who stood below a relief of Jesus on the cross, apparently screaming in agony, though his screams were silent. He wore long white robes, unsullied with grime, and his face was cast in shadow.
“No, Father.” I said, eyes downcast. “I’ve come to seek a priest, to preform my mother’s last rites, and perhaps a cart, to take her body.” I said this with head bowed, feeling the wood of the door pressed up behind me. I had heard many times in whispers of his nights of gambling and his taste for young women that set my soul on edge. As I looked upwards I caught something resembling pity in his severe eyes for just a moment before he began to speak.
“It cannot be done. I am the only one remaining, and so it has been left to me to guard this holy place.” He touched his hand to one of the carved wooden pews, delicately, as if it were the head of a child.
“But Father, my mother has been taken by the sickness…”
“This sickness,” he shouted, standing firmly between the rows of pews, “it is a curse, sent to tame the unholy.” He said this with vehemence, trying to wield the power of his position. His eyes flashed with passion. “Now you must leave. I cannot help you now. If it is His will, you shall perish as the others have. And if you live, then you may be welcome back here to the House of God.”
The door closed heavily behind me as I exited the church and my tears began to fall anew. I rushed from the square and the repentants still gathered there, trying to understand life and death, and God. It was fear, the sights and smells and sounds of all of this suffering that turned even the holiest of men into sheep. He had said that this sickness was sent to punish the unholy, and yet a priest of broken vows lived to see another day. Men of extravagance all their lives bled in the streets and hard-working people lay day in gutters and pits. All had paid their tithes to the church, as we had. I was consoled by the fact that my mother had spilled her own sins before God had taken her soul, but how could all of the dead be sinners? I followed the road back through town, trying to avoid the sight of the pits at its outskirts, those into which they cast scores of bodies before they were set ablaze, like firewood in once contended homes. Surely God would not have them burn twice. And what of me? How do I still live when all that I have loved in this life is dead? Is this not more of a punishment than death itself?
I did not stop walking until I caught the sight of home, the field of wheat billowing in the breeze and the cottage that I had always considered the world, now so empty and small. Weeds had begun to grow abundantly at its edges and there were visible spots in the patchwork where rain would soon begin to leak through. I had never seen it the way that I did now. As I walked inside I once more stooped to feed the fire, trying not to look at the sheeted silhouette of my once mother. I looked about the room, into every other corner and wondered what was really left for me there. A couple of pots, a goat, a pig, a field, a cot, a coat… Not a thing that I would mourn the loss of. All of those things that I had felt I could never live without had been taken from me.
When father had passed, we had prayed at this table, mother and I, for what had seemed like hours. Now I could not bring myself to form the words. Too many thoughts crowded my mind, too many memories and questions huddled inside of me, trying to break free. And one thought came to me, rising above the rest: Had I worn the guise of sacrifice while harboring my own selfish ends all this time? Had I allowed my mother to think that she was all that kept me from leaving? Surely I could not be any less sinful than my mother for such a thing, and yet I still walked the earth and saw the light of day. The guilt that she had felt should have fallen upon me. If I could see this, how could God not?
I watched the fire for a long time, wishing vainly that I knew the answers to the questions that haunted me. I no longer had any excuses to hinder me. My world as I had known it had finally crumbled around me, and I thought that perhaps that was the punishment that I deserved. It seemed to me that I had always needed to be left with nothing to try to understand my place in the world, and so perhaps God had made me with loss in mind. I began to ponder how much I could sell the beasts for, the last of the items that father had made, and where I would possibly go when I was gripped by a cough.
