For Honor!
Fiction by Ava MacBlaneWhen they were five, Mishka put Marjika in the dryer and set her to tumble. Mishka sat outside and watched his sister through the bulbous porthole window as she turned round and round, her hair frizzing, her clothes singeing at the edges. She made satisfying thumping sounds as she spun. The dryer itself emitted a dull, pleasant hum, and one could sit against its front and enjoy a warm heat against one’s back.
This is where Mishka was when their mother discovered them. He was nearly asleep, soothed by the heat, the thrum.
She was angry.
“Mishka!” she shouted, pulling Mishka away from the dryer and opening the door. Marjika fell out and dusted herself off. Mishka had not put the small woolen balls in the dryer with Marjika, so she was staticky, her hair sticking up like a small porcupine, maybe a hedgehog. She was missing a sock, a dainty yellow thing with a ruffle along the top. The blue bow which had been clipped neatly by her right ear was dangling from a strand of her hair.
Their mother clipped the bow back against Mishka’s ear and then put her nose against the top of Mishka’s head and inhaled deeply.
“You did not even wash her first?”
* * *
Mishka and Marjika were borne into the world on the sixteenth of January. The time was 21:03 and then 21:06, and it was exactly 0 degrees celsius, an unusually warm day. Their father could not be there for the birth. He was 13.7 meters below the surface of the water, training.
Out of respect, Mishka and Marjika both held their breaths, too, for three entire minutes until their father surfaced.
When they began to finally take in oxygen, there was a collective sigh of relief in the birthing room, for the doctor and his team of nurses had just delivered a set of stillborn twins hours before. They did not want a repeat of this tragedy. They felt that would be a cruel twist of fate.
Worry not — fate would twist Mishka and Marjika in other ways.
* * *
Mishka and Marjika were exactly the same height. They both had a dimple on their right cheek. They kept each other’s blonde hair trimmed neatly at their shoulders. They liked peas, toads, and sweets. Here is a list of things they disliked:
- Flowers, especially when at bloom
- Small dogs, or really small animals of any kind
- Carrots
- The moon
- Bright lights
- The sound of their mother’s voice
- Other children
- Famine, and murder
* * *
When they were twelve, Marjika cut off the tip of Mishka’s right pinky. It would’ve been his left, except he was holding a bar of chocolate with almonds in his left hand, and he did not want to switch hands because the bar of chocolate had begun to melt, just slightly, and he feared transferring it would cause it to leak. Mishka did not want sticky hands, so Marjika went ahead with the right pinky.
Mishka did not flinch, though the wound bled more than they had expected. They used one of their father’s ties to staunch the flow.
Mishka thought his own blood tasted like worms. Marjika thought it tasted of smooth copper coins and also grass clippings.
It was their father who discovered them this time, Mishka with his hand held high above his head so that the blood would drip less onto the neatly-manicured grass. They knew their mother would not approve of blood on her grass.
He was angry.
“Marjika!” their father said, pulling Mishka’s hand towards him and inspecting the damage. Marjika kicked the sharp instrument she had used out of sight. Mishka had a spot of chocolate on the corner of his mouth, and his father first wiped this away with the pad of his thumb.
“You could not have used the uglier tie?”
* * *
Sovalkezch was at war. One should know these things. Sovalkezch was where Mishka and Marjika lived, and it was at war. Nobody could remember when the war had started or what exactly it was that Sovalkezch was fighting for. They knew only that boys, once they turned sixteen, were required to conscript with the army, for reasons of duty! Of honor!
Mishka and Marjika’s father had been training for an assignment since he had turned sixteen. Three times a week he went to the pool, where he was instructed to swim down as far as he could, holding his breath for as long as possible. Their father smelled of chlorine and chewed gum to keep his inner ears balanced. His fingers were nearly permanently wrinkled, like raisins. Nobody had told him what his assignment was, or when he would be sent to complete it.
War, as you know, is often frivolous. Bodies pile up for reasons one cannot fathom. This war — well, you know.
* * *
At the funeral of an aunt neither of them had ever met, Mishka and Marjika wore the same outfit — black trousers, a fitted black t-shirt, and red shoes. Marjika wore no makeup. Mishka wore no socks, because he found them uncomfortable. At the funeral, Mishka and Marjika’s mother cried. The aunt had been her sister. The aunt had been fat and sent them money
on their birthday each year. The aunt had never left her house, which is why Mishka and Marjika had never met her.
Mishka and Marjika ate four cucumber sandwiches each. Their father had to leave early to hold his breath underwater, and their mother was unhappy. She did not eat any sandwiches. The church where the funeral was held smelled of incense and also sweat. Somebody, another relative Mishka and Marjika had never met, sang a song that reminded them of whales. Mishka peeled a long strip of skin that had begun unfurling near a cuticle, and Marjika took a pen from her pocket and circled words in the Bible she found comforting — throne, simony, maudlin, wrath, sower, whoredom, bury.
* * *
Two days before they turned sixteen, a letter arrived for Mishka. They knew what it would be, and they were right. Mishka had an assignment. Mishka was to go to the Eastern edge of Sovalkezch, where he would learn to pilot various machines and build various objects. He did not know what kinds, or for how long.
To give him a proper goodbye, Marjika cut the tip of her left pinky off. Mishka was touched by this gesture. Their mother and father did not notice the blood on her wrist or that she was pale — both children were unusually pale, and strangers often asked if they were ill. They had never been separated before.
One should know that separation from a loved one is quite difficult to bear, and may result in confusing and painful side effects. Missing fingertips do not make up for the loss of an entire person, though it is a nice memento to remember one by.
“You will be dutiful,” Mishka’s mother said, and his father plucked a loose thread from Mishka’s coat.
* * *
One should know that they were good children, Mishka and Marjika. Marjika and Mishka. They were good and kind and perhaps a little strange, and they loved each other and their parents fiercely. They dreamt of lives that to us may seem a bit plain — they wanted to grow up and have children and mow their lawns. They did not want to have to send those children off to far-off assignments in far-off places. But they understood that there was an element of loyalty, of patriotism. They understood. You understand too, don’t you?
* * *
Seven years after she was separated from her brother, Marjika met a man named Peter. Peter was very kind and very smart and wore very shiny leather shoes. She met him at a laundromat, where she went sometimes to sit up against the dryers and think, even though there was a shiny new washer and dryer in her shiny new apartment two hundred miles away from where she grew up. She liked the heat of the machine and to listen to people pushing quarters into the slots.
Peter was at the laundromat to find his mother, who was always stealing his laundry and taking it to the laundromat even though Peter also had a shiny new washer and dryer and was, as he told his mother, perfectly capable of doing his own laundry at home. But Peter’s mother liked
to do things for him, liked to feel useful. Later Marjika would let Peter’s mother cook for her even though Peter’s mother was objectively a very bad cook.
Peter was kind to Marjika, though he never offered to put her in the dryer and he seemed very confused and upset when Marjika explained what had happened to her missing pinky.
* * *
It turned out that Mishka was very good at the building objects part of his assignment. He was very good at threading thin wires through various holes in the object and he knew how to calculate measurements of various powders and substances that were put inside. This made him valuable to the war effort, and this meant he would not be able to return home for a long time. The other men liked his company, for Mishka was kind and told wonderful stories and gave the younger soldiers blocks of chocolate. This, too, made him valuable. Day after day, Mishka woke up, took a cold shower, twisted wires and measured powders and sometimes thought of home, which was not allowed. Mishka did not know where the objects were going or still who or what it was that Sovalkezch was at war with. He only knew the work, the smell of dust and metal, wires.
* * *
Once, asleep in bed with Peter, Marjika was awoken by the sound of the Earth splitting open. When she went to the window, the land outside was on fire, orange flames licking the small yew tree outside. She thought she would wake Peter up, warn him, but the air was warm, the cracking of the flames comforting, and so Marjika crawled back into bed and fell back asleep.
In the morning, the yew tree stood in the front yard, unharmed.
* * *
Peter and Marjika had a child and Mishka built more objects and Marjika and Mishka’s father died in an accident and the pool and Mishka was not told of his death or permitted to go to the funeral. It is sad, I know. You may be outraged. You may demand to know why nobody told Mishka, why he could not see his father in his grave. These are the rules in Sovalkezch. You may not like them, but the rules are the rules, and the truth is the truth. I do try to tell the truth, even when it is hard to explain or strange or even when it makes me look bad. It can be hard.
* * *
Once, asleep in his bunk alone, Mishka was awoken by the sound of the Earth splitting open. Outside the cabin where he and his comrades slept, there was a large crater in the dirt. Particles of dust hung suspended in the air, stirring with his breath. He thought he should wake his bunkmates, but the air was so still, the quiet comforting, so Mishka crawled back into bed and fell back asleep.
In the morning, the ground outside was flat and undisturbed.
* * *
Let’s see.
Marjika would see Mishka again. She would be in a cafe, and she would be drinking a coffee with just a little bit of milk and a lot of sugar. Mishka would be missing more than just a fingertip, and she would recognize him by his scent, grass and mushrooms and salt.
They would embrace and speak for nearly six hours, of Marjika’s husband and child, of Mishka’s work, of their father, of war and duty and lawn mowers. In the cafe, Mishka would order a whisky, and the man at the front of the counter would frown, because it is morning, and one should know that ordering whisky in the morning before the sun has really had time to settle is considered inappropriate.
Or.
Marjika would see Mishka again. She would be in a church, wearing black trousers and a black shirt and red shoes.
Wrath, bury, war, destroy.
Biblical, no?
Ava MacBlane is a writer and creator currently living in Virginia.