“What’s that, Baba?” The boy’s question pierced the night’s silence. He dragged a wooden stool over to the table and his palms smacked the surface as he climbed up and peered at his grandmother.
“Ilya, be careful!” she gently scolded. “Don’t shake the table! You should be asleep!”
“I’m sorry, Baba,” he lamented. “Can I watch?”
Her wrinkled brow smoothed. “Of course, my little onuk,” she whispered as she went back to her work.
A tall, dripping candle stood upright on the table, casting a warm glow on both of their faces. Behind her, the last licks of flame arose out of a bed of red coals in the fireplace, offering still a bit of heat to the bulbous kettle suspended above. The smell of woodsmoke hung light in the rafters as it dissipated through the thatched roof overhead. The rest of the family snored away on their straw beds having earned their sleep after a day of difficult farm chores. A late-season snowstorm covered the landscape and made that day’s herding and milking much more exhausting.
Baba paused her work and stood up to throw a couple of logs on the fire. The child’s eyes never moved as he stared at the candle in front of him. She scraped her chair over the packed dirt floor and cozied back up to the table, adjusting and tightening her head scarf against the chill of the house.
“What is it,” Ilya asked, pointing at the lump of white cloth that she gently scooped into her hand.
“This, my onuk, is a baby egg.”
The cloth slid off the smooth shell and revealed its ivory surface. Even in the dim light, it cast its glow like an oblong moon in the blackness. Thin lines of charcoal ringed the egg and framed out a pattern. She spun the egg in her rough, calloused hands to show the boy the beginnings of her design. His eyes grew wide, his lips parted with surprise, and he reached out to grab the egg from her hands.
“Careful!” she snapped as she pulled back. He recoiled his hands at the reprimand. “It’s so easy to break an egg. You have to be gentle.”
She slowly extended the egg towards him. He shifted his stance on the creaky stool and opened a reluctant hand. “It’s ok. Touch it carefully.”
The tips of the boy’s first two fingers made contact, then his thumb. He pet the shell as he had been taught to touch a newly-hatched chick. She turned his small hands palm-up and placed the egg-in-cloth into them. His eyes widened again and he let out a small gasp. “Be gentle.”
He cradled the egg with inner trembling excitement, yet remained unmoving, scrutinizing every detail, every line, every dent and pock.
“Pascha is coming,” she said as she gestured at the eastern corner of the house where a small glowing oil lamp hung by a chain. Ilya turned his head and glanced up towards the ceiling. Attached to the hewed frame was a long, embroidered cloth—a rushnyk—becoming more visible now as the new wood caught flames in the fireplace. The cloth curved in the center and both ends hung gracefully downward like a tent. Underneath this rushnyk were religious icons, their golden halos and deep eyes glimmering in the dancing firelight: Christ the Teacher with a stern but loving gaze; a tall, upright Archangel Michael with sword and shield; and an older, faded Virgin and Child, darkened by decades of oil residue and woodsmoke. Beneath them on a thin shelf sat a small, triple-bar cross in front of too-many sprigs of pussy willow branches stuffed into an ornate vase.
“It’s time to make the pysanky.”
“Pysanky,” the child repeated in a whisper as he turned his eyes back to the egg. The word itself was like a magical incantation.
Baba lifted the egg from his hands and placed it back on the table. She picked up the kistka and held its metal tip over the candle flame.
“The candle heats the metal so I can melt the wax.”
She scooped the back of the cone tip into a misshapen chunk of blackened beeswax. Back to the flame for a moment, and then making contact with the shell.
Ilya leaned in, tilted his head, and stood now on tippy-toes. Her hands, despite their weariness from the day’s chores, still moved with grace and deftness. The first lines of wax were written and the boy watched as they lost their melted gloss, solidifying quickly in the chilly darkness. He followed her hand, transfixed by the dance of the egg. Lines drawn, egg spinning, back to the candle, scoop the wax, more lines laid down. She moved quickly and efficiently as if she had done this for generations. He looked up at her eyes and the candle revealed her focus as well, following the tip of the kistka with every movement, concentrating her entire being moment by moment into one tiny fixed point as metal gently scratched against shell.
“What are you writing?” He spoke without blinking.
“At this point, whatever I want. A new egg like this can become anything I dream it to be.” Her face softened and her eyes momentarily looked back into her grandchild’s.
“What would you like me to write,” she asked him. The boy’s eyes spoke his puzzlement.
“You want me to pick?”
“Yes, Ilyusha, what would you like this to become?”
He turned his head towards the fireplace and stared into its hypnotic flames. With pursed lips and wrinkled brow he asked, “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I’m writing a prayer, a prayer for our family, for our farm, for our village.” She turned to look at him. “This egg is a story of our lives and our work. This new egg will carry our greatest hopes and dreams through faith.”
The boy’s puzzled eyes met hers.
“Do you like stars?” she asked.
“Yes, Baba,” he said, shaking his head with enthusiasm. “I like stars a lot.” He directed his gaze out the window and saw their pin-pricks of light through the black tapestry of night.
“Stars are so high up in the sky, so close to heaven,” she said with quiet faith. “Let’s put stars on this egg.” She shifted back to face the table and picked up her kistka.
“And do you like flowers, onuk?”
“Yes, flowers smell nice in the summer.” He turned back from the window to look at her and he caught a faint smile spreading across her lips.
“Yes they do. Flowers are symbols of love, so we’ll put some love in this egg.” The kistka had already settled itself into the bending flame.
“I like mama’s bread,” he said now, getting the hang of things. “Can we put bread on the egg too?”
“Hmm. Bread comes from the wheat that we thresh and grind, and wheat is a blessing for good harvest and prosperity. We can certainly put wheat on our egg!”
“Chickens too? I like chickens!” The boy became more animated as the possibilities unfolded before him.
“Whatever you want. This is your egg to create. What we put on it now will guide what we do tomorrow.”
A sleeping relative snorted and rustled in his bed, interrupting the crescendo of excitement. Baba turned back to the egg and they both waxed silent. He watched the white canvas-shell as her lines formed into shapes, shapes formed into pictures, and the pictures coalesced into the symbols that he had picked out for her. Its slow formation was like magic to him, that she could make real the things that he spoke to her. She would occasionally whisper the names of the designs she added, noting their symbolic meanings in ways that his young mind could understand.
As the night continued, the fire retreated into the coals. The candle shrank. They boy’s eyes drooped in sync with his nodding head. “It’s time for sleep, Ilyusha. There’s work to be done tomorrow.”
He knew that he couldn’t force himself awake any longer, so he slid down from the stool and buried a hug into the folded layers of Baba’s dress.
“Goodnight, my love. Sleep well.”
“Goodnight Baba. I love you.” He stumbled over to his bed and fell quickly to sleep.
She stood as sentinel and dropped a misshapen log onto the fire. The cold wind whispered through the door-cracks as mice rummaged through the lingering smells of the kitchen. She glanced through the window at the stars and a single teardrop glistened with candlelight on her cheek. Baba sat back down at the table in the still and silent blackness. And while her family slept soundly, she continued dreaming life into her eggs.
Click for next chapter: Wilderness Temple