My Swordhand Is Singing Read Free Page B

got enough to do here.”
    Peter muttered to himself, but did as he was told. His father was in a mood. A mood that told Peter to keep himself to himself. It seemed to Peter it had always been like that, the two of them living in the same single room, but like leaves that fall from the same tree, always spinning ever further apart.
    Peter muttered again. There was always something.
    Always something to do. Somewhere to go.
    Something he was told to do. Something he was told not to do.
    Something like the box his father owned, that Peter was never allowed to open.

    After two days’ digging, Tomas’s hole had become a trench, and Peter began to have an inkling of what his father was doing. Two more days and the trench was four feet wide and stretched very nearly from one arm of the river to the other. Only a small gap of maybe three feet lay between the hole and the gurgling water at each end.
    “Careful,” Peter said, unable to keep quiet. “If you dig any closer the bank will give way.”
    Even as he said it he saw that that was just what his father wanted.
    Tomas laughed, and swung his spade into the top of the last plug of earth. Water gushed into the trench, filling it more quickly than Peter would have believed possible. Tomas ran to the other arm of the river and breached the soil there too. He had dug the channel on a slight slant, so that water was already flowing in from the arm of the river nearest to the village, through the channel, and away to the other arm.
    “I always wanted to live on an island!” Tomas, suddenly full of joy, and laughing like a young boy, called to his son. Soaked to the chest, he climbed out of the water and went inside to dry his clothes by the stove.
    That night he got drunk on rakia, while outside the flowing water did a good job of cleaning and widening the trench, removing the last clods of soil from its two mouths. As he sat by the fire, his arms ached from the work, and through his tiredness something stirred within him. His muscles remembered working that hard. Years ago, he had swung his arms, but not with a spade.
    Not with a spade.

    Now Peter and his father made their way over the same bridge of trunks they had laid a year ago and onto their little triangular island.
    Their horse, Sultan, whinnied softly as their footfalls sounded on the bridge. He pulled at his tether, a simple rope from his bridle to a tree stump.
    “Put him in, Peter,” Tomas said.
    Peter nodded.
    He patted Sultan’s flank and led him into the tiny stable.
    “Hay again, Sultan,” he whispered. “One day I’ll bring you some beet. You’d like that. One day soon, I promise.”
    Sultan flicked his head toward Peter, but it was a gentle gesture.
     
    By the time Peter got inside, Tomas had already poured himself a mug of rakia.
    “Have some?” he asked.
    Peter shook his head.
    “For God’s sake!” his father shouted, without warning. “For God’s sake have a drink with me for once!”
    Peter stood, shaking a little, trying to stay calm and be friendly, as he always did at these moments, though his heart felt as if it were in a vice.
    “I will, Father, I will.”
    He went over to sit by the stove with Tomas. The lamp glowed; a lone moth flitted about against the smoky glass. His father fumbled for another mug and poured a thick finger of rakia into it.
    Peter forced the firewater down, trying not to shudder as it burnt its way into his belly. He knew that would irritate Tomas further. But his father seemed placated, and began to hum tunelessly. Peter looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again. He could see that his father’s eyes had glazed; his mind was elsewhere, miles away. Years away, maybe. Peter tried to think of something to say, something that despite the drink would reach out to his father, make a small bridge across to his island.
    But it was Tomas who broke the silence.
    “We haven’t heard that tune for a while, have we?” he said.
    Peter shook his head. “I