Mama smoothed the wrinkles in the fabric. ‘No. Not this.’
I followed Mama to the Eichenwalds’ cabin and it was as if Thea was expecting her. The sacking cloth was drawn aside and Thea regarded her for a heavy moment. ‘Frau Nussbaum.’
‘Take this, Thea.’ My mother’s voice was clipped. ‘For your wedding.’
Thea was sombre. ‘I don’t know. Are you . . .?’
‘I’m sure,’ said Mama, handing her the material. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’
My mother and Thea stood there for a long moment.
‘Well then,’ said Mama, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I’d best be –’
‘I miss her terribly.’ Thea pulled the cloth close to her chest and folded her arms about it. ‘I hope you know that.’
Mama’s lips twitched.
‘I wish she were here. I think about her every day and I keep her in my prayers.’
‘Well. That is why I thought you might like the cloth.’
‘Yes. She told me you had brought it.’
Mama looked down at her empty hands.
‘Thank you,’ said Thea softly.
Mama stepped forwards and quickly, briskly, kissed Thea hard on the forehead, leaving a red mark. ‘Congratulations,’ she said, already turning away, the word thrown over her shoulder.
Thea unfolded the black cloth on her parents’ bed, smoothing the fabric out over the mattress. I watched her lay down upon it. Against the black of the fabric, she was golden.
‘Hanne.’
I drew nearer. She was so beautiful. Already I could imagine her in the black dress, myrtle leaves against the pale smoke of her hair.
‘I am to be married,’ she whispered.
It was the first time she had spoken to me since she had accepted Hans’s proposal.
I climbed onto the bed with her and placed my head next to hers. She turned towards me, our foreheads touching, our bodies mirrored. For one hallowed moment it was as it used to be, the two of us only, the entirety of the universe ending at the periphery of our curled limbs.
The banns were read at the following two services, and each time I declared that it was impossible. I loved Thea. We had already given ourselves to one another, had sealed that covenant, had made witnesses of trees. We have married ourselves, I told the congregation. Ask the forest. Ask the ship lumber. You’ll find our signatures in the bruised gills of mushrooms. In the salt air above the sea.
No one said anything. The ocean claimed me each time.
I woke here, where I sit now, in the bush, amongst the scrape of fallen stick and undergrowth. I placed my hands on trees so vast they seemed at once to encompass time itself and, standing under their certain weight, I wept for myself.
They were cragged and beautiful and defiant. You know nothing, they said, and they meant it kindly. They were not indifferent.
A few weeks before the wedding, Hans told the Eichenwalds that his father had agreed to slaughter a pig to ensure a decent feast for the congregation. ‘The farm is doing well. The days are cool enough now,’ Hans said to Friedrich and Anna Maria. ‘We’ve fasted one. We’re hoping for tomorrow afternoon, if it does not rain.’ He smiled at Thea. ‘Please come. All of you. You too, Anna Maria. Rosina complains at a lack of stepdaughters.’
I looked at once to Thea, whose face had taken on a pall.
‘Of course,’ Anna Maria replied. She smiled at Thea. ‘Bacon and Wurst and fresh bread and Sauergurken. Oh, it will almost be as it was back home.’
Hans grinned. ‘No more parrots.’
‘No more parrots! Oh, Friedrich, remember the bird with white feathers?’
‘Der Kakadu?’
‘It was like eating string.’
Friedrich gestured at Thea’s pale face. ‘You know, Hans, Thea doesn’t much like a Schlachtentag. Hasn’t got the stomach for it.’
Hans’s face fell.
‘It’s the squeal,’ Thea offered. ‘It’s –’
‘She’ll come.’ Anna Maria frowned at Thea. ‘Tell Rosina we’ll help, of course. Thank Elder Christian for his generosity – Thea doesn’t mean to be rude.’ She nudged her daughter. ‘Won’t be long before you two will have pigs of your own.’
I lay beside Thea that night, watching her as she stared up into the thatch, following the curve of her eyebrows, tender lines branching out from her eyes. I was trying to imagine her as an old woman, the wrinkled face and white hair.
We will see each other every day of our lives. We will sit next to each other in church.