Love in the Old World

In 1910 Kiev, Ukraine, four hours of chest surgery kills men. Somehow, 17 year-old Aaringa Sutsa survives. But the reason for the surgery, an injury to her right breast, does not. But she is alive and recovering, and life goes on. 15 months later…


The town is medium sized. No building rises more than two stories, except the mill, which dominates the eastern outskirts of the town. It is the reason everything seems gray there. Ash gray, cloud gray, greyhound gray, dish water gray, thousand of shades, every color of gray the mind can think and the eye can see. Whether or not everything is actually gray doesn’t matter; that’s the way everything looks.

The blonde haired, green eyed young woman bounces across the schoolyard, haggard green dress trying to blow in the wind. Crusted dirt and her thick coat makes the attempt futile. Stepping from the graying grass field, she hops to miss a mud puddle, then runs across the street to a waiting friend.

The friend, pudgy body covered in a rough denim shirt and light brown pants, both too big for him, smiles when the girl stops in front of him. She smiles down at him, “Hey Alki.” But her smile slips when she hears the taunts.

“Hey Aaringa, why don’t you find someone not dumb as a bug for a friend?” A boy from the across the school yard yells at the top of his adolescent lungs. The group of boys around him nearly fall over themselves laughing. Another pipes up. “Yeah! Maybe a boy who’s eyes aren’t this far apart!” and holds his arms out wide. The boys laugh hysterics.

Aaringa glares over her shoulder at them, eyes moist. Her head whips back to regard Alki, her curls swinging. “I hate them.”

Still smiling, Alki stands as though nothing happened. Seeing this, Aaringa smiles again, and starts to walk to her left. Alki follows. Harassing voices pursue them, unheard.

Pleasant, simple talk glides between the two as they walk. They laugh, smile, share fears, share wishes. Alki smiles and laughs more than Aaringa. He always does, and Aaringa doesn’t mind.

Alki’s large house looms and the conversation dries up. They walk the remaining hundred feet in silence. As they get closer, Alki’s father stands up from a chair on the porch frowning. Aaringa swallows hard. Alki breaks into a run hollering, “Papa, papa! I’m back!”

A big man, well dressed and built like a tree, with gray hair and small glasses, Alki’s father smiles warm. “Yes, son. So good to see you again.” He wraps his arms around Alki to return his hug. “Did you have a good time in town today?”

Smile still on his face, he looks up and says, “Oh, yes, Papa. I love walking to town. And look,” he turns and points to Aaringa, “Aaringa walked with me back to you!”

His fathers smile fades. His eyes glaze over and he replies, “So she did. Alki,” he steps back, “why don’t you run inside and see if Mama can use your help, eh?”

“Yes Papa.” He turns and waves at Aaringa as if she were a mile away. “Good-bye, Aaringa!” He runs inside.

A weak smile and a small movement of the hand is her good-bye to the absent Alki. She pins her gaze to the ground and quick-steps the rest of the way past his house. Alki’s father crosses his arms over his chest. “Stay away from my son,” he commands. “You are only going to make his life harder. You will hurt him.” Aaringa keeps walking.

Minutes later and a mile on, Aaringa enters her home. Her whole family is already there. In the front room lounge her siblings. The two younger play in front of the fireplace.

“Hey Aaringa!” her youngest sister calls out as soon as she sees her. Like Aaringa, little Kali is blonde headed, but with curls, green eyed, and slender. Her light blue dress is stained as well.

Aaringa smiles, waves. “Hello, Kali. Have you had a good day?”

“Oh yes. I played with Manuel and Gage all day. I think Gage likes me.”

The slightly older boy on the floor next to her pipes in. “No he doesn’t! He came over to play with me. You just wouldn’t leave us alone, so we let you play.” Manuel, also blonde but with blue eyes, scowls in his eight-year-old way.

Aaringa chuckles, then addresses the other boy in the room. “Jin, how has your day been?”

From the chair near the fire place, a brown haired, brown eyed teenager in a drab orange sweater looks up from his book, pauses to think, then replies, “It has been pleasant. School was easy, as usual. Recess was lively. And supper is almost ready.” He puts his nose back into the book.

Still smiling, Aaringa sighs, turns to the back of the house, toward a hardy stew smell. When she enters the kitchen, her parents are there.

“Hello Papa.” She kisses her sitting father on the cheek, goes to the stove and gives her mother a hug from the side. “Hello Mama.” Mama stirs a pot of supper and smiles.

Glancing up from some papers on the table, Papa says, “Hello, Aaringa. You are doing well?”

“All is well, Papa. Couldn’t be better. Except I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the cold.” She sticks her hands closer to the stove.

“Darling, this is Russia. You’d think after eighteen years you would be used to it. You’d think.” He returns to his papers.

Aaringa glances at her father, licks her lips, then says, “I would love to travel, go South, to the sea. Travel on a boat to someplace far. Then return to home, of course.” She doesn’t look at her father. Her mother continues to stir the pot.

A heavy sigh escapes Papa’s lips and the papers again are forgotten. “I think we’ve gotten a new youngster in the home, Mama. Hear her talk of travels and fantasies. Darling, you are too old for talk like this. A woman keeps her feet on the ground and looks for a husband.”

The kitchen becomes very quiet.

Aaringa stops fiddling at the counter, turns and leaves the kitchen without a word. Above the sounds of children, a door closes. Mama looks over her shoulder at Papa. He dips his head, sighs again. “I know. I will go to her.” He heaves himself out of the chair.

The door creaks open and the tall man fills the opening. All in brown clothes, with perpetual suspenders and large eyes, Papa bows his head and enters the chilly room. Aaringa is sitting on the bed, not looking at him.

He speaks first. “Jin returned home before you did again.” No response. “You walked with that Alki boy home, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she says in a small voice.

“Aaringa,” he pleads, “you are a beautiful girl. Skin so fair, and you have legs that make my friends heads turn when you do not see. Why do you have feelings for this boy? You can do so much better.”

Aaringa turns to him, tears on her cheeks. “He is kind to me. No one else is. He needs someone, to treat him normal. And I feel so wonderful when I am around him.”

“Darling, the boy cannot provide for you. He is slow. He will always be.” The girl’s tears trickle still, her eyes full of need. “If this is about settling because of the surgery, I bet you…”

Aaringa draws in her lips, her face reddens. “No!” she bursts. “It isn’t about…that. It’s about my feelings.” Softness enters her voice again and she leans toward him. “Please, Papa, let this be.”

At the request, it is his turn to be angry. “I will have no more of this nonsense, Aaringa. No daughter of mine is going to love an invalid. It will never be.” A moment passes, Aaringa crying, not responding. He turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

The day wears away. Aaringa stays in the room until supper. She leaves, eats in silence, staring at her bowl, then returns. Night falls, the rest of the family goes to bed, Kali crawling into bed with Aaringa, just as they have always done. But Aaringa doesn’t sleep. As the moon rises, so does her determination.

When Kali’s breathing deepens, Aaringa counts to one hundred, then slinks out of bed. Still wearing the same clothes she did earlier, she slips on her coat and out of the room into the moonlit hallway. The fire in the front room burns low into a pile of glowing embers, giving no light. She is silent as death.

As she approaches the front door, a creak from the front room freezes her blood, roots her to the spot.

“Aaringa,” a voice whispers.

Ever so slowly, Aaringa turns to her left. Standing in the dark, less-black on black, is Aaringa’s mother. “Aaringa, please, do not go to that boy. I know Papa was not kind about it, but he is right. You cannot be with that boy. He cannot provide for you.”

Silence answers her. If she could see through the blackness, she would see a line of a mouth, a hard brow, iron resolve on the face of her daughter. Mama steps from the black into the moonlight of the window next to the door.

“Think of your family; think of us. The two of you will make this family outcasts. Your sister and brothers, they will be mocked at school. Papa would lose his job at the mill. You do not want that for us, do you Aaringa?”

There in the silver light, her mother’s pale blonde hair shone. She wore still the clothes from the day, a light green skirt and red blouse, even the apron. Sorrow and pleading could not flow from her more strongly.

With a whisper, “It’ll be alright, Mama,” Aaringa leaves. The clicking shut of the door echoes in her mother’s ears.

Dream-like, the mile between the two houses passes. Aaringa doesn’t run, but in an instant she is standing, Alki’s second-story window above her. She looks around, sees many small stones. She throws one, clacking it off his window, and waits. Nothing. Again, a little harder. Nothing. The third pebble hits, and a round, wide-eyed face presses against the glass. Aaringa waves, and Alki’s lights up in a smile. She points to the right, the front of his house, says, in a half shout, “I want to talk to you.”

Alki nods and his face disappears. Aaringa goes to the front of the house. Minutes pass. She is shivering when Alki opens the door, fully dressed, with a coat, and smiling. “Hey Aaringa! What are you doing?”

“Hello Alki. I was going down to the river. Would you like to come?” she says through chattering teeth.

Alki’s smile slips. “I don’t know. I better go ask Father.” He starts to turn.

Aaringa grabs his hand. “Please, Alki. I would love it if you could.”

His smile returns, large as ever. “OK!”

“And Alki, could you please get us a blanket, to keep us warm? Thank you.”

The walk to the river is unspoiled by speaking. Aaringa wraps the blanket around her shoulders as she walks. Alki waddles next to her, looking at the moonlight-bathed landscape as though for the first time. They arrive at the river.

The stars gleam pure platinum down on Kiev. The trees stretch their bare branches, trying to collect the rays, to save for other, less perfect, nights. The slick gray of the river glides without a sound, seeming to soak up all sound and idle it away with itself. Aaringa and Alki sit of a rise overlooking the river, one with the still night.

“Alki, thank you for coming with me tonight.”

“You’re welcome, Aaringa. I like being with you.”

“I like being with you too.” She glances at him. He’s looking up at the stars with a broad smile. “What are you thinking, Alki?”

“Just looking at the stars. They’re pretty.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

He looks at her. “Yes. You’re real pretty. The prettiest person I see.” He looks back up. Aaringa smiles, sighs, looks up also. She places her hand on top of his, and he looks down at them, smiles, and grips he hand, squeezing it. She returns the pressure.

“I’ve never kissed anyone Alki.”

“I have. I kiss Father and Mother every night before I go to sleep.”

Laughter floats down the hill to the waters edge. She turns to him, takes her hand and turns his face to hers. Their eyes lock. “I want to kiss you, Alki,” she whispers, leans in, and does.

The gray and silver world becomes yellow, orange, and red.

Their faces part, eyes sleepy. He turns his face back to the stars, smiling as ever. She does too, and rests her head on his broad shoulder. The night skims by them.






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