“Stupid girls!”
Ilya angrily collapsed his gangly body into a chair, bumping the table with his foot and startling the old woman from her work.
“Careful!” she scolded, “Girls or not, I’m working here!” She let her angry gaze linger until he turned his face away.
He mustered some self-control. “Sorry Baba,” he grumbled, then went back to staring out the window with his teen-angst scowl.
The old woman already knew what he meant, she knew what had happened, she knew the pain he felt. Yes, she knew budding love and heartbreak like she knew her own breath.
But she waited in silence, working her egg as her man-sized grandson continued to pout like a cranky child. Time and silence can often settle even the most ragged of hearts, the most desperate of troubles.
Outside the snow was melting in the warm spring sun. Drips from roof, drips from trees joined in their arrhythmic percussions. Birdsong, nearly absent in the months of darkness, now stretched as if from sleep, filling the breezes with the promise of spring’s warmth. Even the clouds seemed to dance across the sky to this new symphony of life reawakening.
But nothing could thaw the bitter cold of unreturned affection.
He shifted his weight, slumped farther down into the chair, and let out a long sigh. Baba held back her laughter, knowing that an adolescent’s troubles are of greatest import—but only in the mind of the adolescent!
She finally needed a distraction from his theatrics, “Do you want to talk?”
“Stupid girls!” His deep voice exploded with even more conviction, but cracked a bit on the second word.
At that Baba snorted a chuckle; an admirable resistance she had mounted, but this was more than she could hold.
“Thanks a lot,” he shouted, disgusted, as he sprang up and knocked the chair to the ground. He stomped towards the door when her voice shot darts through his feet.
“You will NOT act like that in this house, Ilya. Back here this instant!”
He had not heard such authority from her in years, not since she caught those village children carving their names into the church doorway. With one vandal’s ear clenched in each of her fists, she dragged them both home to their parents. The boys weren’t seen for months as they toiled through extra farm chores to pay off the repairs.
“No grandson of mine will behave that way! You’ll be lucky if I don’t tell your father!”
He stood frozen in place, afraid to move, afraid not to. “Baba, you laughed at me.”
“I did, onuk, and I’m sorry.” It had been years since she called him that; it softened her tone and he turned back towards her.
“Come, sit down and tell me what’s burdening your heart.” Her gentle invitation dissolved the tension and he shuffled back over to the table.
He picked up the chair, spun it around backwards, and straddled it as he sat once again.
“Stupid girls.” This time spoken quietly as a surrendered defeat.
“Hey, that includes me, too,” she said with barely-concealed jest. She looked in his direction.
“No not you, Baba. It’s Nataliya. We’ve been spending time together, talking, browsing the market, and I really like her. We danced at the last gathering, we talked all night; I thought it was all going well.” His animated eyes jumped from floor to wall to ceiling and back again as his story continued. “I told her that joke about the horses that you always tell me, and she couldn’t stop laughing.”
Baba sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. Her face steadied into a look of focused attention.
“I was going to ask her to this weekend’s dance. And then I saw her with Andriy today. They were walking and laughing together. I saw him pick a flower for her, and she took it, and smelled it, and then they saw me. So I ran away. I ran away like a frightened child,” he groaned.
Baba nodded, expressionless. “Go on…”
“What am I to do?! I really like her! She’s pretty, and she’s fun…who am I going to go to the dance with now?! Oh, my life is ruined!”
His hands hit the table in time to cushion his falling forehead.
“I see,” she sighed after a few moments of silence.
She picked up her egg and began heating the kistka. When he heard the first lines being scratched across the shell, he lifted his eyes, his chin still anchored to his folded hands.
“The orange came out good this year,” she said before he could protest. “The marigold blossoms held their color when they dried. I mixed in some leftover dandelion root too, and even some onion peels: an experiment that went well.” She floated the kistka back to the flame.
“Orange is one of my favorite colors: a mix between yellow’s bright new glow and the deep seriousness of red. It’s like orange is right on the edge of both but can’t yet settle on what it wants to be.”
She continued waxing lines as she spoke, filling in shapes, turning the egg with the grace of youth still in her wrinkled hands.
“It’s a tricky color, though,” she continued, “Finicky, even belligerent at times. Sometimes too bold, sometimes too weak. I’ve spent more hours over the years trying to get the orange just right. Impetuous dye! But oh, the fiery spark it adds! The life, the energy! Such an exciting color, I’d never go without it.”
He blinked once, hypnotized by her words and the glowing egg in front of him. He listened, but couldn’t really hear what she was saying, his mind gradually drawn back to his dilemma du jour. She sensed his agitation returning, and before he could say a word, she said, “Go get me the jar of goose fat.”
His eyebrows raised at the random request, all in an instant before returning to his scowl. “Goose fat, Baba?! What am I supposed to do, smear it on myself and let the vultures pick me to bones?!”
He stood up and turned towards the door again. “That might be better than facing her again.”
“Goose fat! This instant!” Her strong words had less effect this time.
“Baba, I don’t have time for this…”
She stood up with greater determination, her small, thin frame somehow dominating over his height and broadening shoulders. “Do you want my help or not?!”
They stood staring at each other for an uncomfortable eternity. He didn’t know whether to stomp off in anger and despair, or to fulfill the request of this crazy old woman. He glanced down at the egg on the table; it really was a beautiful shade of orange this year. He looked back at her, then with a huff he turned towards the kitchen to retrieve the jar.
Her commanding eyes never left him, and when he returned to the table, he couldn’t bear to look up, shamed and humbled by his behaviors.
“I’m sorry,” he said nearly in a whisper, eyes diverted and head hung low.
“Sit down.” He placed the jar on the table, twirled the chair around rightside, and collapsed into its hard seat.
Baba turned and walked to a small, wall-mounted cabinet: her one area for private storage in their home. The latch clicked open, the hinges squeaked, and she reached inside to retrieve a round, ratty basket filled with lumps of cloth. His eyes followed her movements; he felt obligated now to see this through to the end.
Baba’s old hands fingered through the basket, opening bits of cloth here and there, peeking in, and shaking her head with an inaudible whisper. Coaxing another to the top, another unwrapping, another rejection. Ilya couldn’t see beyond the wrappings, nor did he know what she was looking for.
Finally she unwrapped one and drew in a short breath. “Yes, this one will do quite nicely.” She smiled and lifted a completed pysanka, its dazzling colors in stark contrast with the basket’s lumpy whiteness. She walked it to the table and laid it next to the candle. For a moment, Ilya forgot his drama in the presence of its beauty. How did she do it?! Year after year, egg after egg, her determination was relentless, her artistry like no other’s in the village. And this egg—this egg—was the most incredible he had ever seen. The flowers danced, the bands hugged tight, the symmetry flawless, each line of netting thin and straight as an arrow. And the explosion of colors—especially its shade of orange—marked it as one of this year’s creations.
“Baba, that’s so beautiful,” he said, sounding again like the grandson she knew.
“Glory to God,” she replied, as she always did with compliments.
She poked the cloth down around the other eggs in the basket and returned them to the latched cabinet again.
She sat back down. “I want you to take the goose fat and rub it all over the egg.”
He gingerly picked up the masterpiece, not wanting to add even more destruction to his already-broken heart. With a dip of his fingers, he scooped up a dollup of fat. “Is this too much,” he asked.
“That’ll do nicely,” she said calmly.
He smeared the lump over the matte design and slowly massaged it into the shell; fingers and heart both softened with the work.
“Rub it in good,” she said as she went to retrieve an old rag from the kitchen.
It was rare for him to join her at the table anymore, rarer still to help the master at her craft. Even in the midst of his troubles, he knew that this was a special moment, one that he would hold in his memories as carefully and as mindfully as he was now holding this egg.
“Now take this cloth and rub it off. But don’t push too hard; let some of the grease sink in and remain on the surface.”
He followed her instructions, and as he wiped off the excess, he saw that the grease had given the shell a glistening surface. “The fat gives it a shine, and it protects the delicate dyes from water.” He rotated the cloth, wiping smooth the lumps and blobs of grease until the egg had an even coat throughout.
“There, now doesn’t that look better?”
It did. Much better. How could such a simple substance, such a simple act make her perfection even more perfect?! He rolled it around in his hands, transfixed by its shine. The colors had deepened. The designs leapt from the shell. Something subtle yet powerful had changed, and it had changed through his hands. The egg finally, somehow, looked more fully itself. He searched for words but his silence said everything.
“That’s for you to give to Nataliya.”
Like the crack of a whip, his attention snapped back to his woes, back to his adolescent infatuation, and then back to Baba’s face. He suddenly realized the gift she was giving.
“But Baba, this is so beautiful…”
“Yes. And so is she.” She smiled and winked and gazed through to his deep, youthful longing for love. For a moment she wished she could go back and lose herself again in those same feelings. And then she thanked God that she didn’t have to.
He carefully laid down the egg and hugged her, bending over his teenage lankiness to meet her embrace.
“Do you really think this will work?”
“Trust your old Baba,” she said with a bit of swagger. She looked out the window and gestured with the raising of her chin. “Better hurry though; looks like this may be your chance.”
He squinted through the window and saw Nataliya and her girlfriends walking down the road, passing by his house.
Ilya scooped up the egg with youthful excitement, made it half-way to the door, then loped back to squeeze his grandmother one more time.
“I love you, Baba.”
“Yes, yes, get out of here you fool! Never keep a woman waiting!”
He turned and darted out the door, leaving it full open on its rusty hinges.
“Kids,” she rolled her eyes and mumbled to herself as she closed the door behind him.
She returned to the table, then raised her neck a bit to look out the window. She could barely make out the silhouettes of Ilya and Nataliya facing each other on the road; her old eyes were too blurred to see the details and she was too far away to hear the awkward declarations of affection. As she watched the scene unfold, she knew not whether she was eavesdropping on the present or reliving the tender memories of the past.
Their torsos twisted back and forth with youthful awkwardness as they talked, his treasure still behind his back. Hollow greetings, uncomfortable pauses, anticipation with every breath. When he revealed the pysanka, her hand rushed to her open mouth and both of them stood, frozen in the moment. She stared at the egg, looked up into his eyes, then back to the egg again. “For…me?” She could barely squeeze out the words through her misty breathlessness.
Without a word, he placed the egg and its protective cloth into her cupped hands, his other hand under hers for support. All four hands lingered in the touch, and their gazes met briefly before diverting eyes and hands from the electricity of the moment. With his toes shuffling in the dirt, he asked if she would go with him to the weekend’s dance. Her yes came as a leap, throwing her arms around his neck and pecking a lingering kiss on his cheek. Smiles and flirtatious glances exchanged, she turned to skip back to her friends, pysanka carefully cradled in the folds of her blouse.
He stood, dumbstruck, his fingertips gently touching the feeling of her lips still lingering on his cheek.
Baba pushed open the heavy window. “Go!” she rasped as she gestured towards his love. He jerked his head at the command, gave a goofy, teen-in-love smile to his old Baba, then took off running down the muddy road, belt and shirt tassels blowing in the wind.
Baba smiled too and shook her head as she watched him go. With a satisfied sigh, she closed the window and returned to her cabinet. Click, squeak; she rummaged through, moving items here and there to free up those buried in the back. She eventually retrieved a birch-bark box, its etched designs worn away with age and affection. She walked it back to the table and dusted off the top. “It’s been a long time, my dear.”
She opened the box, parted the cloth stuffings within, and gently lifted out an egg. It, like the box, had long ago seen its day. Its lines and patterns were mere whispers, the colors faded to translucence, part of the shell was broken away to reveal the dried contents inside. She hunched ever closer and rolled it between her hands like a precious memory.
Her eyes drifted up to the beautiful corner, settling on a dusty photograph of her late husband and lingering there in reverie. “You old fool,” she spoke to him with a tear forming in the corner of her eye. Baba gently kissed the egg, longing for his arms, his cheek, his dances again. “I wonder when I’ll get to meet this Nataliya,” she thought. She gently folded the pysanka into its container, pausing, and looking at the back of her weathered hand: they’d be together again, perhaps sooner than expected.
She closed the box and lovingly reburied it into the recesses of the cabinet. The orange egg beckoned. Back at the table, she crossed herself and lifted the egg. “Back to work, you old fool,” she whispered as she filled in a stylized rooster’s comb with molten wax.
Click for next chapter: Helen