With the midmorning sun filtering through the leaves of the plum trees overhead, Kazi gently patted the mound of damp earth with his spade, smoothing and rounding the top until the contour was just so. Wystarczy, he thought, appraising his handiwork with a heavy sigh. It’ll do.

The old man had been teetering on the brink of death for as long as Kazi had known him, less than a week by the stars but long enough to grow fond of him nonetheless. Each sunset had become a portent of doom, then each sunrise a stay of execution. Until yesterday.

Kazi had no idea what month it was, much less what day—sometime in late April, possibly early May—and so merely scratched Didko, 1915 on a crude wooden cross lashed together with a bit of twine, then worked it into the soil at the head of the grave.

Resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his woolen underclothes, he hefted the spade over his shoulder and walked slowly back towards the farmhouse, stopping at the well to wash up. He raised his head as she stepped into the doorway, drying her hands with a cloth, and gave her a quick nod. It’s done.

She turned on her heel and returned to the kitchen, and Kazi rinsed the clods of dirt from the shovel before drying the blade on a patch of grass. Splashing some icy water on his hands, he dragged his fingers through his short black hair, then wiped the back of his hand across his mustache.

—

In the upstairs bedroom, Kazi dressed for the funeral in the old man’s work clothes, as he had buried his own tattered clothes at the bottom of the grave. No sense in leaving a signpost pointing north, he reasoned as he buttoned up his vest.

His army regiment had been humiliated during the early days of the Gorlice-Tarnów offensive and many of the survivors had scattered to the four winds. Well, the three winds—certainly nobody was scattering to the east. After crawling off the battlefield, Kazi’s first order of business had been trading his most valuable commodity, his black leather boots, for a full set of civilian clothes. Let this idiot explain the military boots to the police, he snickered to himself as he stashed the remainder of his uniform under a trash heap and dressed in the peasant’s worn-out shoes and spare outfit that had been destined for the rag bag. Not my problem.

He had managed thus far to avoid both the Austro-Hungarian authorities, who would hang him for deserting, and the Russian soldiers, who would likely strangle him with their bare hands. Everybody wants me dead, he thought ruefully as he descended the narrow staircase, but nobody thinks I’m worth wasting a bullet.

“Mariya,” he called quietly as he reached the kitchen. The delicious smell of roast chicken—Mariya had slaughtered the last one that morning—permeated the house, mingled with garlic and onions. She joined him and they walked together to the graveside. Mariya noticed that Kazi had taken care to include the slanted crossbar of the Eastern Orthodox cross. With a tart smile, she leaned down and tilted the crossbar so that its left end pointed upwards, then stood and took Kazi’s hand in hers and gave it a small squeeze.

“Proshchannya, Grigoriy Ivanovych,” she whispered softly. “Proshchannya, Didko.” Farewell, Grandpapa.

“Proshchannya, Didko,” Kazi repeated, holding the old man’s cap in his other hand.

—

They ate their midday dinner in silence; a somber yet comfortable silence, the silence borne of a mismatch in languages, not a mismatch in understanding or purpose. The old man’s bottle of plum brandy was nearly empty, and Mariya had poured the remains into two small glasses, their surfaces etched and hazy.

“Budmo!” she toasted with a bittersweet smile.

Kazi, who had a sprinkling of Ukrainian relatives, certainly understood what that meant. Smiling, he raised his glass and replied in Polish, “Na zdrowie!”

When they had finished eating, Kazi excused himself to prepare the cart while Mariya collected the chicken fat into a small jar, then washed and dried the dishes out of habit. Perhaps the wolves will want to dine at the table, she smiled to herself as she set the last plate back in the cupboard.

Half an hour later, they were ready to go. Mariya had loaded the cart with a few essentials—some scratchy blankets, two lumpy pillows, whatever food remained in the pantry—while Kazi hitched up the old gray donkey and chose a few more items he thought would be useful. When he slid the spade into the cart, she gave him a quizzical look. Planning to bury any more bodies?

Kazi grinned and mimed swinging the spade onto the crown of someone’s head, then shrugged his shoulders. If it comes to that…

Mariya smiled knowingly and pointed out a small hatchet she had slid under the driver’s seat before she hopped up onto the cart and took the reins. Kazi acknowledged this with a tip of his head, then climbed up next to her and tugged the old man’s cap down over his ears. Mariya took one last look around the farmstead before she urged the donkey forward, down the lane towards the main road.

—

As they rode along, he thought back to when he had sprained his ankle on the road. Nothing special, simply a rut in the mud that he failed to navigate. Dupak! he swore at himself with each painful step as he slowly made his way, leaning on a stick. Jackass!

The sound of hooves and wooden wheels approached from behind. He edged over to the side as he limped along, and soon a proud young woman driving a donkey cart overtook him. He needed a ride; maybe she needed something he could offer. Playing a hunch, Kazi called out in Ukrainian.

“Dvoyuridna!” Cousin.

She stopped the cart and considered him for a long moment.

“Dvoyuridniy,” she smiled at last. Cousin.

He shambled over and clambered into the back of the cart before she could change her mind. “Spasybi,” he exhaled. Thanks.

“Tse nichoho,” she tossed over her shoulder as she signaled the donkey to move on. It’s nothing.

He became Cousin Kazyk for those next few days, helping to comfort his new grandfather on his deathbed once he could put weight on his ankle again. Kazi was never sure whether Didko realized they were in fact strangers to one another. Cousin Mariya had introduced him as long-lost Cousin Kazyk, and the old man simply accepted the explanation with a nod. In any event, the old man clearly had grander questions weighing on his mind.

Now that grandpapa had passed on, there was no reason to stay any longer. A straggling, mud-spattered column of refugees had been moving north on the main road for weeks, and it was only a matter of time before something worse followed, nipping at its heels: bandits, partisans, the Russians… A young woman, alone, wouldn’t last long.

They were on Austro-Hungarian soil, and the police force was wholeheartedly dedicated to the pursuit and capture of army deserters. If only the police and the army could swap places, went the joke in the Vienna coffeehouses, we’d be summering in Moscow this year. A young man traveling alone would get picked up immediately upon entering a town of any size. But a brother and sister traveling together in a dusty old donkey cart, living off a jar of pickled eggs? That might just work.

—

The successful refugees knew how to blend in. To appear harmless but not weak. To have food enough to eat but not to share. To have nothing worth stealing yet something worth trading. To avoid drawing attention while having nothing to hide.

Mariya Ivanyvna and her dim-witted brother Kazyk traveled with a different group each day, never getting too close to anyone, especially anyone who asked prying questions. They each kept an old bloody handkerchief tucked in a sleeve, and a theatrical coughing fit was usually enough to encourage any new acquaintances to bid them a hasty goodbye and move along. 

One particularly tenacious little gnome had tagged along with them for an uncomfortably long time, then hurried ahead when they reached the outskirts of the next village. Once he was lost to sight, Mariya retraced their tracks to the previous crossroads and took the long way around town.

Yes, the successful refugees had elevated their interactions to an art form worthy of the Budapest Opera House Ballet. And the unsuccessful refugees? They could be found all along the road as well.

Face down in the ditch.

—

At some point, they passed from Hungarian-administered Poland into German-occupied Poland. There was no border guard, no official checkpoint; one day, the patrol that questioned them happened to be wearing field gray instead of blue.

“Wohin gehst du?” A question as old as time. Whither goest thou?

Kazi had spent a few desultory years in school under an Austrian schoolmaster; although his performance in most subjects had been decidedly underwhelming, he had displayed a remarkable talent for talking himself out of trouble in German. The soldiers searched the cart, appropriating the hatchet and shovel as war matériel, then paused for a time, weighing their options. Mariya flashed Kazi a sly smile, then produced a ceramic flask of slivovitz from beneath her shawl. The corporal popped the top, and his eyes bulged with excitement as the fierce sweetness assaulted his nostrils. He took a healthy bite before passing the bottle to his colleagues.

“Geh nicht nach Osten,” he advised ominously, waving them ahead. Do not go east.

—

It was the middle of May—Kazi had worked that out because he recognized Mariya’s Ukrainian words for April and June but not the month between them—and warm enough at night that they could sleep under the stars in the back of the cart while the donkey grazed nearby. The Great Wagon—Velykyi Viz to Mariya, Wielki Wóz to Kazi—wheeled above them in the sky, its two leading stars always pointing the way north, as the other constellations waited in the wings, then rose and fell during their allotted time on the stage.

Sometimes he watched her as she slept. At times her brow creased and her lips murmured wordlessly. Other times she slept with her mouth curled into a small smile. When she rolled onto her side away from him, he made sure to lie on his back so that her bottom pressed against his hip, rather than, well…

Kazi had always been fascinated by astronomy, not only the celestial mechanics but also the myths and legends. He especially appreciated the fact that the word planets—Planeten in German, planety in both Polish and Ukrainian—was derived from the ancient Greek word for wanderers. Each of the past few mornings, just before dawn, he had observed a faint rusty pinpoint in the eastern sky being quietly pursued by a brilliant white beacon. Every night, she crept a bit closer, threatening to take him in her arms, envelope him, consume him.

Mars and Venus.

Man and woman.

The war-torn and the lovelorn.

—

One evening, as the barest fingernail of a crescent moon hung low in the west, they reached a lonely crossroads where a faded wooden sign stood visible in the gloaming.

↑ Gdańsk   330 km
←  Łódź  35 km
→ Warszawa 150 km
↓ Kraków 165 km
 

“Woodch,” she pronounced confidently, pointing west. Łódź. Her explanation was simple. “Moyi titky.” My aunts.

Kazi assumed that her aunts were among the many who had migrated to the textile mills when the farms failed. “Gdańsk,” he replied, pointing north. “Morze.” The sea.

She stared at him. The sea? And then what?

“Ni, Woodch,” she insisted gently, slackening the reins. The donkey, sensing an opportunity, began munching on some weeds.

He shook his head. “Nie, Gdańsk.” With a hapless shrug, he added, “Policja.” Police.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Vidpochynok?” she proposed eventually, raising her eyes from the ground. Rest?

“Wypoczynek,” he agreed, grateful for the reprieve.

Mariya parked behind a stand of birch trees, out of sight from the road. Kazi tied the donkey’s rope to the cart wheel so it could graze, then collected water from a nearby stream while Mariya prepared their meal of dried plums, which she had brought from home, and rye bread, which they had acquired from a farmer’s wife the previous day in exchange for a sewing needle.

During the daytime, their bedding served as packing material, protecting the glass jars of preserved food so they wouldn’t jostle against one another. Every evening, they set the jars to one side, taking care not to disturb the squares of waxed cloth tied over their mouths, and laid out their coarse woolen blankets and rough striped pillows.

After dinner, Mariya slid between the blankets, then Kazi wearily settled beside her.

“Dobranoc,” he said quietly. 

“Dobranich,” she replied. Good night.

—

Kazi awoke with a start. It was well past midnight, perhaps closer to dawn. Mariya was facing away from him, and his erection was nestled against her rear end.

He attempted to back away from her, bumping a jar of brined mushrooms with a faint clink, but she pressed her advantage, shifting to maintain contact with him. Kazi’s penis twitched involuntarily.

Sighing softly, Mariya leaned back until her shoulder blades touched his chest, then groped around until she found his hand and squeezed it.

“Viz’my mene,” she breathed, moving his hand to her breast. Take me.

Kazi’s throbbing cock strained against his woolen long johns as she slowly ground her bottom against him. After a moment of this, she rolled to face him, searching for his eyes under the moonless night.

Their first kiss was gentle and exploratory; the second, less so. And the third?

Bożeż ty mój!

Bozhe miy!

Oh my God!

She guided his prick to her wetness, and he plunged in with a strangled cry while she moaned her encouragement.

They fucked tenderly, accompanied by the nocturne of the wind sighing in the trees, the stream tippling along, and the donkey snuffling nearby, occasionally contributing a dissonant creak or clink to the musical score themselves.

After a time, Kazi felt an unfamiliar heat rising in him and quickened his pace. Mariya cinched her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, silently urging him on. He shuddered and shot his seed inside her with a long groan, pulsing repeatedly until he was spent.

He rolled off her and stowed his limp penis away, then lay on his back and exhaled a breath as vast as the cosmos.

She settled her skirt, then cozied up to him and draped one arm across his chest as he idly stroked her hair. His gaze wandered across the sky, first to Arcturus glowing in the west, then to the Great Wagon trundling along its northern path, and finally to Mars and Venus rising together in the east.

“Dobranoc, Marichka,” he wished her goodnight once more, then kissed her forehead.

“Dobranich, Kazychku,” she echoed softly, listening for the cadence of his breathing to slow as he drifted off to sleep.

Mariya lay with him for a time before carefully easing herself from under his arm. The eastern horizon was faintly visible in the long hour before dawn as she gathered her shoes and her shawl. She tucked a small dog-eared photograph into his vest pocket, then stole away, turning her back on the heavenly pair that had finally joined one another but would soon disappear from view, overpowered by the light from the east.

“Proshchannya, moya lyubov,” she whispered into the fading night as she struck out upon the western road.

Farewell, my love.

—