Zoya's Dream

Zoya dreamt about the night she married Daniil.


There had been a candlelit procession, Daniil at the front. He was resplendent in his white shirt and brown pants. Hs thick hair pushed off his forehead and his shoes reflected his shy smile. He had made such an effort for her. She almost loved him for that. He kept his eyes straight ahead, gazing up at her family's house. She could see them coming around the curved bend of the street for miles; torches alight and voices mingling with the birch leaves. She stood at the window with the curtain pulled so only her eye was looking out. She was denying the processions existence by refusing to allow the rest of her body to acknowledge that there was life outside her room. 
Her mother came up behind her, "Zoya, darling, he is almost here. We must hurry." She lifted a white dress from deep within a pine chest. She slipped it over Zoya's head and arms. She buttoned up the eleven buttons that stretched from Zoya's lower back to the nape of her neck. Then Masha, kissed her daughter on top of her head. She took a pair of pearl earrings from her pocket and she snapped them into Zoya's ears. Zoya had never loved her mother more in her life.


She closed her eyes. Rada brushed her hair off her face with her fingers. Rada's gold rings snagged in her hair but she didn't mind. Rada plaited her hair into a single braid. She twisted Zoya's the braid into a coil in the middle of her head. Rada knitted white flowers in her hair in front of the mirror.

She remembered seeing all three of their faces reflected in it's polished glass.

"Rada, who brought these flowers-they look fresh?"

"Why of course Domovi brought them."

"Domovi Wolowitz?"

"Yes of course. You know he grows the most beautiful roses." Rada touched her sister's shoulder.

"He was here?" Zoya breathed. The yellow glow of candlelight cast pale shadows on her cheeks. Her eyes moved toward the door. Then out to the yard and the fields and then to the road leading from her house to town. She ran to the window and threw back the curtains.

"Don't be a fool," Masha grabbed her eldest daughter's face between her hands, "He is a Jew," and then she left the room.

The light from the wedding procession grew closer. Zoya's bedroom was almost entirely bathed in the glow of thousands of lanterns. Light flooded over her body. 

Rada stood in the doorway, watching her sister gaze at her reflection in the mirror. She watched as Zoya smoothed her dress with her hands and tucked in a fly away behind her ears; expressionless. Her eyes were wide and her mouth flat. She wore her sadness like a crown. She was so proud. "It is time to go."

Zoya spoke without turning around, "I know." 

The silence stretched between them. Their was no need to say anything else but Rada grabbed Zoya's arm as she brushed past her, she pressed her lips next to Zoya's ear. Zoya could see her sister's face was red and blotchy. Why hadn't she noticed before? "Since you know so much, perhaps, you should know this too: if I could take your place, I would" Rada's eyes were closed but tears slipped through the lashes, "You are not the only one who is losing what you love most. Remember that as you see me in the crowd just as I will remember your loss when I see Domovi watching you from the woods."

That day he slipped the string around her finger was the first and only day she believed in love. He had taken her out into the fields behind their village. He had placed a hand over her eyes and guided her through the streets of the city.
He was her eyes; it was the first time she had ever seen the world so completely and so beautifully.  He had told her, "We are passing Valentin and he is still sitting in his rocker with War & Peace open on his lap. He waved to you."
Zoya waved to him.
Passing the fountain, "Don't the fountain's drops feel so good on the skin?" His fingertips slipping up her arms, "Kinda like this?"
"Yes, just like that." She had said. 
He kissed her in the back alleys and in the doorways of shops. Pushing her up against cold stone walls and lifting her off the ground all in the same motion. Laughing into her hair as an old woman walked by clicking her tongue. 
"You're not missing much, Z," as they strolled past the place he called home. 
"Just wait a little while longer," He crooned into the shell of her ear.
She eased her hands around him, "I just want to make sure you are real."


"Do you trust me?" His hands were beginning to show glimpses of some foreign place.
"Always." She never lied to him, even if she could have, she wouldn't have.
He lifted his hands and the only thing she saw was beauty. 
The sky was orange, the moon was an afterthought and below it she saw fields of white blossoms. Domovi walked a few steps in front of her and pulled back the edge of the wildness. The thorns of white roses pressing into his palms. He asked a question he already knew the answer to: " Ti viydesh zamuzh za menya? Will you marry me? 


My grandmother didn't answer she just stood there at the edge of the world she hated. The breeze picked up the hems of her purple dress. Her hair blew into her eyes. Dust stung her cheeks. She stood there at the edge of the world she hated and she ran into his world, a world she loved. 


"The roses will be our chuppah," he whispered as he pulled her slowly down into the thicket. Thorns pulled at their skin, spilling drops of blood onto the white petals. Slowly the colors mixed and red and white roses bloomed up all around them. Slowly, so slowly, they unfolded into each other and slowly, so slowly, she forgot everything that mattered. 


She turned her face towards Domovi. She ran her skeletal fingers through his black hair. Her velvet dress slid up over her hips as she stretched her young body against his. His hands held the small her back. He spoke into her ear, "Don't you know that someday we will judge angels? They will write our story in cloudy cursive up in the sky. Someday, we will be there and we will tell them our story and it will be the greatest one ever told. It will not be the happiest or most beautiful, perhaps it will be the saddest but it will be the greatest. It will be so simply because it is ours. It is only for this not for any other reason." 


The only thing they longed for was time. They wanted to enjoy the arrogance of being young together, all the wasting of seconds, all the languidness of doing nothing. Every moment of  was made the most of, every moment was lifetime of love. They wanted to have the unique luxury of being able to tell each other, "Love me less." They wanted to mold each other like clay. Gradually smoothing out edges, and filling in spaces with their fingers, sculpting their bodies until they could fit exactly together. Every day was gift. They wanted to be able to grow tired of each other; to be able to fight and scream and leave. They wanted some of their pain to come from not being enough for the other person rather than it being an uncontrollable product of chance. They wanted the endless joy of slamming doors and making up. But they had no time for such things. 


Something about the way "Forever," felt as it rolled off their tongues didn't feel right. They knew it was out their reach. And so they lived a life that was equivalent to a small child on a swing who calls, "Higher, higher! I want to touch the sky!" But then turns to look at the person who was pushing them only to find that they have disappeared or perhaps (as in some rare and fragile cases) were never there at all.