He opened his eyes.

And what about your father? Even if we had the money. If I had the slightest promise of a job is he well enough to travel?

Her eyes searched the floor and she said, I’ve thought of that too. Father will have to stay here. We’ll get someone to look after him, Mrs. Asterova will look after him, and then after we’re settled we’ll send for him. Send someone to bring him.

Who, Alena? Alena, Mrs. Asterova is older than your father.

Dita will help her.

Dita has all she can bear with Mrs. Asterova.

She stared at him on the couch. Stared so long and blue that he looked away to the radio, to the carpet. His hands in his lap. A long time he heard her breathing. 

Why do you always have to paint the devil on the wall? she said. I see leaving this country as our only hope.

I don’t see that’s a hope. It’s a dream.

The squares of parquetry cracked under her steps. The dress flounced toward him, stopped, the flat voice said, Another man would do something, and the dress passed on. The door to the bedroom shut, the key rattled and clicked. He knuckled his eyes. Since he was not another man.

Her prettiest dress, his favorite. He hadn’t forgotten. Bleached for the occasion.

***

            When Aleks was finished with his breakfast they asked but Alena didn’t want to go and Miroslav said he didn’t feel quite up to it today even though the sky looked fair through the window. With a hand the old man discomposed the boy’s bangs and told him to enjoy his holiday and Aleks set them right again frowning. They followed the street and the path that left the street and went into the high weeds that stalled under the pines. The ground dropped steeply and they held to roots and striplings to slide down the clay and then the slope gave way to flat ground again and they were on the valley floor, the sound of water not far. Crows overhead cried into the cool of the morning.

            Look, Daddy. Aleks flung a stick whapping through the air. Just like a tomahawk. He smiled and Trn smiled down.

School will be out soon won’t it, Daddy?

            Not too long. Ten weeks or so. A little more.

            And then we can do this every day.

            Every day but let’s not be too loud. We’ll scare away the creatures we want to see.

            Will you have summer holidays then too, Daddy? Aleks whispered and Trn nodded.

They parted hands round an old oak and joined on the other side. The weak sun gleamed off needles, broke among the branches to dapple the leaf meal, the soft straw. They heard a dove’s coo and stopped to listen but its thin neck went silent. Others moaned unseen in distant trees. A black beetle stumbled over a dead branch and they knelt to watch the legs strive with the air. Just as Trn reached it righted and disappeared without a sound they could hear beneath a crumbling log.