Changes

Nevestrograd Stories Chapter 6

The Nevestrograd Compendium of Curious Happenings

Entry for 9 June 1848

Great Utterance of the Day:

“Non habemus hic manentem civitatem.”

— Hebrews 13:14

(For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one to come.)

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Changes

by D. Sionann Drevan

Entry the First: The True Thing Being

The tavern breathed like an old sleeping ox—slow, warm, the smell of hops and scrubbed boards lingering after the midday trade. Dust motes turned lazy in the slant of light that crossed the bar and made a small cathedral of the empty room. Somewhere, a rope sign tapped the window glass at the mercy of a fickle draft: BUSTED MULE, its paint flaked to the color of old straw.

Behind the counter, Tatiana worked the washbasin. Her sleeves were rolled, wrists nicked pale from old scrapes, the tendons a quick, definite music under the skin. She set a rinsed glass on the rail with a firm clack; Iliya, perched on a stool like a bright, concerned bird, took it up and dried in gentle circles. The rhythm steadied everything: water, linen, breath.

“Three days,” Tatiana said, not looking up. “Maybe two, if the coach makes the ferry.”

Iliya nodded, solemn for once. “From Göteborg to lanterns of Nevestrograd. Quite the migration.”

“Sweden,” she corrected, though a corner of her mouth twitched. “Cousin Charles. I saw him once when we were small. He had a hat shaped like a melon and eyes like the sky before hail.”

“Blue-gray?” Iliya offered.

“Blue like a kettle before it boils,” Tatiana said, and let another glass clack onto the rail.

Iliya took it, turned the linen inside—around—out, the slow ballet of care. “And now he is… alone.”

Tatiana’s jaw worked once. “Yes.”

“Poor Charles.” Iliya murmured, eyes earnestly damp.

The room held its breath. Far at the back, a chair creaked to settle its old joints; the stove ticked. Iliya set the dry glass upside down, aligning it with its kin as if order could be arranged like soldiers on a shelf.

“Your father will make room,” Iliya said at last. “He always does. He is a—” they hunted for the word and found it with a small flourish, “—magnanimous wall.”

Tatiana snorted. “Wall is right.” She sluiced a wave of clean water over the stack, watched the last soap–bubbles burst. “He will pretend it’s nothing and then go lift a barrel so he doesn’t have to say the true thing.”

“The true thing being…?”

“That he worries,” she said, voice roughening. “For the boy. For the house. For the books my mother buys that do not pour into casks. For me.” Her hand moved in the water—finding, losing, finding the chipped rim of a cup. “He will make room, and then he will sit with his head in his hands where no one can see him.”

Iliya folded the linen once, twice, pressed the crease like a prayer, then unfolded it again. “And your mother?”

Tatiana smiled without showing teeth. “She will brew tea at the same minute she always does and say the house is larger than we remember. Then she will press lemons and make the boy drink them because sorrow eats scurvy if you let it.”

A silence. The sign tapped the glass; the river’s damp breath reached the sill.

“It will be cramped,” Tatiana added, quieter. “Father is building a bed now. I know…he needs us, but it is going to change things.”

Iliya’s eyes softened. “Change can be good too, you know. I change outfits three times a day. Huzzah, it’s like a new me every time, each me more delightful than the last!”

This at least drew a small snort from Tatiana. “You may be the one delightful thing in all of Nevestrograd, Iliya.” She said, half-serious, half-sarcastic.

“But barrels are down this month. Sailors thin as late cabbage. The stove ate half the wood to chase a cold that never left.” Tatiana’s bracelets clicked, an irritated little music. “And now a boy arrives with winter in his pockets.”

“He can help at the tavern.” Iliya chirped, drying a mug. “If nothing else, he can wash dishes.”

Tatiana’s gaze flicked up; mischief glinted under the worry. She gave a small nod, “That’s true. I do hate washing dishes.”

“See, comrade Tollefsen? Perspective makes all the difference.”

Entry the Second: The telling eases the carrying.

The back room held the day’s chill like a kept secret. Wood creaked, the stove ticked, and on the narrow table Irina set two cups, empty still, as if waiting might sweeten the water.

Sivert ducked the doorway. He carried the cold in with him and let it melt from his beard, loosening the fur at his collar. He stood a moment, the way large men do when they mean not to take more space than they must.

“She has told Iliya,” Irina said, not turning. “About the boy.”

Sivert’s nod was more felt than seen. “Good. The telling eases the carrying.”

Irina touched the rim of a cup. “My half-sister is gone.” The words were careful. “It keeps arriving in the room like a draft, no matter how I shut the windows.”

Sivert’s palm found the chair back; he rolled it a finger’s breadth, then stilled it. “A draft means the house is breathing,” he said. “Better than a room that will not take air.”

Irina’s mouth bent. “You are kind when you pretend to be practical.”

He let that pass, eyes on the empty cups. “He will come tired,” he said. “Thin with sorrows he can’t name. We will feed him. Put work under his hands.”

“And a bed under his back,” Irina answered. “Tanya has already started moving the world to make space. She does not ask the house’s permission.”

Sivert’s beard twitched—something like a smile, quickly amended. “She has my temper, your sense,” he said. “In a storm, it is a good boat.”

Silence settled again. Irina reached for the kettle and set it on the stove ring, unlit. Her thumb rested on the iron as if counting a pulse.

“We have lost three,” Sivert said, voice low, even. “Infants, each a winter apart. We learned how to fold that ache and put it on a high shelf. It is still ours.” He swallowed. “A boy comes to us now, not ours by blood, but called by the same gap. I think this is the work set in our hands.”

Irina closed her eyes at that—only once, like a bow, then opened them. “You speak like a priest when you remember,” she murmured. “It suits you poorly and well.”

“I am a tavern man,” he said, gentle. “But even barrels have prayers.”

The faintest smile touched her. “He will look for his mother in the corners. I remember doing that.” Her voice thinned. “She and I shared a father and a handful of letters. There was always a sea laid between us. And now there is a larger one.”

Sivert stepped closer, great care in it, and set two fingers over her hand where it rested on the cold kettle. “Rina,” he said, soft as his size allowed. “We cannot answer the sea. We can boil water.”

She breathed out. “Yes.”

“We are not rich,” he went on. “But we have clean floors, soup, rules. We have a house that forgives noise and a door that remembers names. These are not small.”

Irina’s gaze searched his face, the old scars, the steadiness. “You will take the bench again,” she said, half-accusing, half-knowing.

“Only if the cot will not fit,” he answered. “And even then I will complain in a whisper so you may scold me.” A pause. “I want him here. It is a chance to do good with what the years have left us.”

The words seemed to find a place inside her and sit. Irina lit the stove with a practiced match. Flame took, blue then gold. The room changed temperature as if agreeing.

“We will call him ours on the first day,” she said.

Sivert nodded. “On the first spoonful.”

They waited with the kettle as it began its small, promising noises. When it sang, Irina poured, and the steam rose between them like a thin, blessing veil. They did not toast. They held the heat and were quiet together, as if the silence itself were part of the work.

Кінець.

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