Beneath a gray blanket of clouds, a single bell tolled from the church tower. A raven, startled, took flight from its rooftop perch and croaked its discontent as it flapped towards the distant trees. The next call of the bell sounded as its previous tone faded into silence. A line of mourners pressed their way into the church, driven inside by a dry, biting-cold wind.
Nataliya stood in the back, gently bouncing Luba in her arms. The old wooden floor clacked and creaked underfoot as the people shuffled into place. Vira’s somber face and wide eyes scanned the large crowd as she clung to her mother’s black dress; it seemed the whole village had turned out for the funeral. The rest of the family stood in the front near the casket. White lilies still adorned the icons from the Paschal celebrations. Even the priest wore white for this mournful occasion, still reflecting the joy of the recently celebrated Resurrection in the face of this earthly passing. By church tradition, it is particularly auspicious and beneficial for one of the faithful to repose on Pascha. Funerals during the entire week afterwards continue reflecting the joyous hymns of the Resurrectional celebration.
Ilya arrived late and Nataliya reached out to him with concern as he entered the church. “Where have you been,” she whispered, more in sympathy than in upset. Vira’s face showed none of her usual brightness as she quickly shifted to the security of her father’s leg. His eyes remained downcast and he made no reply. Nataliya took his cold, limp hand in hers and gave a reassuring squeeze.
Three days ago the family had returned from their Paschal celebrations at dawn to find Baba slumped onto the table, dead. The candle had receded into the candlestick, the fire into ashes, but the oil lamp still burned well and bright. While not unexpected, it was still a shock to the family, to the entire village.
Each in the family struggled with their sadness, but Ilya took her passing the hardest of all. He had told no one of their final, heated exchange, nor how he had abandoned her. But the memories haunted and crippled him for the days following her death. He rarely spoke, spending time by himself in the fields, barely acknowledging even Vira’s sweet calls for attention. Today his grief and guilt nearly persuaded him to skip the funeral altogether.
The choir sang a prayer for the reposed: “Make her glad where the light of God’s countenance will visit.” Ilya flashed back to Baba’s accusatory finger thrust back towards the table: “That is not a candle, but the light of God.”
The service continued with its buoyant Paschal hymns, but Ilya could scarce raise his eyes, let alone his heart. The funeral reflected the midnight service that Baba had missed. Here she is in a different context, he thought, experiencing the service now that she had earlier missed in favor of her eggs. Could his cold indifference have contributed to her passing? Perhaps he did, in the end, get her to church, but in the most heartless of ways. The guilt pressed even more heavily upon his bent neck.
As the funeral neared its conclusion, those in attendance filed slowly past the casket, offering their final goodbyes to the deceased. Baba’s family approached last. Tears were shed, sniffles choked back, some leaned on the edge of the open casket and wept. Ilya couldn’t bring himself to watch from the rear of the line. At their turn, Nataliya lifted Vira and her eyes looked out behind the wisps of blonde hairs dangling over her forehead. She snapped her hand open and closed several times as she waved goodbye to her great grandmother.
One of the choir’s prayers caught Ilya’s attention and momentarily stirred him out of his stupor: “As wax melteth before the fire…” Baba’s last words to him. His mind flashed back to their exchange; even the joyful hymns of praise did little to spark a sense of hope and joy within his heart. He failed her. His selfishness blinded him to her urgency, deafened him to her pleas. He persecuted her. He ridiculed that which she most valued. In their last encounter he turned his back on her when she needed him the most, putting his selfish duties above love and prayer. “You build up your dry castles of sand.” Baba’s accusations echoed in his ears even as the choir continued their upbeat melody.
Ilya was last to approach, and he did so with the same sullen, stone face that he wore for the entire service. In but a few moments, the entire scene imprinted itself in his memories. Baba’s unmoving body, clothed in a white Baptismal garment, her covered face, her hands holding a worn metal crucifix, icons propped against the casket’s lid with that of the Resurrection central and most prominent. A single pysanka lay nestled in the crook of her elbow. Ilya blessed himself robotically, then leaned over and first kissed the cross, then her covered forehead as the choir finished their hymn.
He was asked to lend a hand to the casket, and the group of several pall bearers carried her out of the church to the nearby cemetery, followed by the congregants. Father Vasili began the graveside service with the Resurrectional hymn and the people repeated it back. “Christ is Risen;” hope expressed even in the midst of sorrow and loss. “O Lord, give rest to the soul of Thy departed handmaiden Anastasia in a place of light, a place of green pasture, a place of repose.” With a lit candle, he dripped beeswax crosswise towards the head of the casket, saying, “This grave is being sealed until the Second Coming of Christ.” Creaking, frayed ropes slowly lowered Baba’s casket into the ground while the surrounding mourners slowly intoned her final sendoff: “Memory Eternal.” The priest sprinkled holy water into the grave, dug only a stone’s-throw from that of her great-grandparents. Once the ropes were pulled up, each of the mourners filed by one by one to pay last respects and drop a handful of dirt and a flower down to her as their final goodbye in this life.
The assembly quietly dispersed with hugs and whispered sympathies. Ilya lingered after the rest had gone with Nataliya still at his side. They watched as the grave was filled in and mounded above the ground level. “I’m sorry,” she said with tenderness.
“So am I,” Ilya responded coldly.
The gray sky remained unbroken into the distance. The wind had picked up as the day wore on.
“Luba is stirring; she hasn’t eaten since breakfast,” Nataliya said. “Won’t you come to the dinner?”
“I can’t,” he replied, blaming himself for her loss. “I’ll see you at home.”
“I’m worried about you…” Nataliya trailed off. She leaned her head against his shoulder but he remained motionless. “We’ll let your father alone for a while, dear.” Vira took her mother’s hand and they walked back towards the meal.
Ilya finally roused himself from his lethargy and approached the half-domed earthen mound. Grief overtook him in his solitude and he fell to his knees. “Forgive me!” His hands collapsed onto the grave and his tears watered the dry earth below. Images of her final moments flashed through his mind and prolonged his sobbing.
Her words came again as if she stood over him: “All these years you’ve listened, but never heard. You’ve watched but never seen.”
His sorrow would have overshadowed the sound of the frantic galloping behind him had the man not called out.
“Fire! Fire!!”
The messenger came on horseback. With all the people gathered for the funeral meal, Ilya was the first villager he’d seen.
“Fire!” he shouted again.
“Where, how close,” Ilya shot back.
“The next village over is already burning! It’ll jump to the forest soon. Call your people; time is short!”
With that the messenger turned his horse and galloped towards the center of the village shouting his warnings anew.
The warmer spring temperatures had been unusually detached from the rains that traditionally accompany them. And this on the heels of an unusually dry winter as well; not a flake of snow had fallen for months. Ilya had been concerned about the dry ground and the early planting of their crops, but fire was nearly unheard of in their part of the countryside. He scanned the horizon and saw it: smoke rising in the west, leaning in his direction. His mourning would have to wait; he took off running towards the village center. The horse’s dust-cloud coated the tear-streaks on his face.
The town square was already abuzz when he arrived. He frantically scanned through the frightful scene, searching for his family. People were looking to the forest borderlands and crying out as they watched the pillar of smoke creep ever closer. He spotted Nataliya and they ran to each other and embraced.
“Where are the children?!”
“Your uncle took them to the lake,” she said with breathless trembling in her voice. “The men were going to row people to the center to avoid the flames.”
“And the rest,” he frantically asked as he grabbed her shoulders.
“They’re gathering the horses for escape.”
He looked over her head and saw a flash of yellow on the bellies of the clouds. “You go to the boats; I have to get our horses.”
“Ilya, no! The house is closer to the flames!”
He turned her towards the boats. “Go! There’s no time!” He gave her a gentle shove in the direction of safety and took off running down the road. Towards the house. Towards the fire. “Ilya!” she screamed as he rounded the corner and disappeared.
When he reached the farm, he was unconsciously compelled to first enter the house. He threw open the door and for a moment expected to see Baba still sitting at the table. Being back in the room again flooded him with a flash of memories from their encounter. He crossed his arms and frantically looked around. And his own hands gripping his elbows again brought back Baba’s last words to him:
“As wax melteth before the fire…”
Her egg! Her final egg! Where had it gone?!
The adrenaline and danger had blurred his clear thinking, and his guilt prodded him towards the search. He didn’t even look out the window to see the nearness of the flames as he frantically searched the table. She was nearly done, he thought, it has to be here somewhere. He patted every handkerchief and rag, looking under the table, even opening her cabinet and rummaging through its disheveled contents.
Nothing.
As he turned back towards the table, his foot kicked against a wooden crate. There within were her dyes, each in its own container. He snatched up a nearby spoon and began carefully prodding the darkest, indistinct colors. “Please, where are you?!” He spoke to ghosts.
In the darkest liquid, the wooden spoon bumped with a dull thud against an egg. He carefully fished it out and caught it in a white handkerchief. The black dye soaked in immediately and he gently but rapidly patted the shell dry. Even with its uniform darkness, he recognized in the lumpy wax her final egg.
He sat and removed the glass dome from the oil lamp. His trembling hand struck a match. A quick glance out the window added to his stress: the flames were in view, nearing the first buildings of the village, nearing the church on the border.
He took a deep breath and surrendered to his heart.
“God help me,” he said as he crossed himself, “and forgive me.”
“As wax melteth before the fire…”
His breath seemed to echo in a chamber, his heartbeat a pounding drum as he fell into the eternity of the moment. His hands seemed moved by another power, a deeper knowledge that had been buried somewhere inside the neglected corners of his soul.
He held the egg to the light. That blackened, deformed, wrinkled egg. The same way he had seen his grandmother make these motions dozens of times before. The wax glistened. He danced the egg back and forth. And the first wipe with the cloth revealed blue dots; “raindrops” he remembered her once calling them. They were blue! Baba had done it: she had unlocked the elusive secret of blue dye! Ilya’s mouth dropped open in celebration, panting in joy, panting in fear. Deaf to the distant rumble of thunder.
Back to the flame, back to the handkerchief. This time a swath of deep red saw-teeth, a symbol of fire. Had she known?! He next uncovered a band of orange hen’s feet, then yellow curls on the next wipe: “protection and defense for the people,” he could hear her voice speaking to his childhood ears. There, held up to the “light of God,” as she called it, the egg transformed into a spark of beauty. All of her work, all of her love—the egg’s entire journey—finally revealed in its fullness, emerging like the light of a spring-dawn sun. He wiped away the last blob of thick wax to reveal a central square, framed by ladders, filled with a cross whose bright whiteness nearly glowed atop its black background.
For a moment he forgot about the disaster, forgot about danger and toil. He sat dumbstruck, rolling her final masterpiece in his hands. He hastily carried it to the kitchen as if in escort, and rubbed it with goose fat exactly how Baba had taught him. As it glistened in his hands, a tear rolled down his cheek. “Glory…to…God” he said slowly, lingering momentarily on each word.
He turned toward the window and saw the wind picking up, the glow of fire ever closer. And with that he burst out the door, running towards the church, towards the incoming fire, the egg cradled gently in its handkerchief. There was no time to go back, no time to escape. He held in his hands—literally—the last hope for him and his entire village.
The fire had whipped itself into a fury, eating up the borderland forest as it progressed. Ilya arrived at the church, out of breath, just as it approached the road. He felt its heat through his clothing, and the skin on his face flushed from its intensity. There, standing on the edge of the road, church behind him, inferno in front, he whipped the handkerchief into the air and held the egg in outstretched hands.
“The fires of evil will not rage here!” He spoke Baba’s words to the fire with unwavering faith.
The wind shifted. The wall of fire roared its discontent as it was forced to retreat from the road. Ilya took a step forward and the wind blew harder. “Here bends the ear of God,” he spoke in defiance. The flames receded as the clouds opened and drenched the landscape. The flames sank closer and closer to the earth as if melting under the waters of heaven, back into the depths of hell. Ilya took another step forward, crossing the road and stepping into the hissing, charred forest. And there he stood, soaked to the bone, the egg still outstretched and untouched by the rains through its protective layer of goose fat.
Spent and out of breath, Ilya staggered back to the church. The fire had retreated before it ever entered the village. He walked over to Baba’s grave and gently place the egg on its mound of dirt. “Forgive me, Baba,” he cried. The winds carried one word to his ears: “Onuk.” And with that he collapsed to the earth.
It was Vira who found him soon after the rains had stopped. She ran over and gently tugged at her father’s shirt as he began stirring on the ground. “Mama,” she cried as Nataliya came running, baby Luba in her arms.
Ilya sat upright, shaken and cold, but unharmed. He pulled Vira in for a hug, holding tightly to her soaked white dress. Nataliya fell to her knees and embraced them both, the whole family sobbing in reunion. “Thank God you’re ok,” Nataliya cried.
“Yes, I’m ok,” he said as he lingered a kiss on her head. “We’ll all be ok.”
She helped him to his feet and supported his shakiness. There on the ground, like the boundary between good and evil, was the blackened line of char where the fire had stopped. They stared in horror and awe at the sight.
“What happened,” Nataliya asked breathlessly.
“She was right…she was right,” was all that he could say.
Vira called out behind him.
“What’s that, Tato?”
She pointed at the egg perched on the mound of earth. Ilya staggered over and kneeled on one knee to retrieve the egg.
“This, my dear Virochka, is a pysanka.”
He held it out to her and placed it gently into her outstretched hands.
“How did it get there?”
“Your Baba left it for you.” Ilya paused, understanding now the responsibility he had inherited.
“How did she make it?”
Ilya gently cupped the side of her head with his hand and looked deep into her wide, blue eyes. “I’ll show you as soon as we get home,” he said with a tear rolling down his cheek and mixing with the rainwater in his beard.
At that, Ilya smiled.
And Baba smiled.
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