kitchen knives and paranoia

Halli Zhang (@call_me_halli)

Sonechka drove to Arkhangelsk to pick up Sviatoslav and Vasily because Vasily is too young to drive and Sviatoslav no longer trusts himself in control of anything more dangerous than a spoon. He’s not exactly sure how Sviatoslav is going to go back to carpentry if he won’t pick up any of his tools, but it’s not his problem, and he’s not going to pry.

Vasily is curled up in the back seat, shivering. Sonechka’s car is old and cold, even just at the fringes of autumn.

Sviatoslav looks out the window.

~~~

The house is cold, dusty and abandoned. No one’s been inside in almost two weeks. Dust has thickened in the air, and Vasily pokes absently at a patch of ice that’s formed where the roof dripped onto the kitchen tiles, driven by the unnatural cold in the house. Outside isn’t very warm anymore, but Sonechka has never been inside a house so cold as this one.

Sviatoslav, never watching his feet, trips over his brother and goes down with a crash. He stays there, looking at his hands, as Vasily scrapes at the ice with the sharp edge of a cleaver. Sonechka can see him waiting, recalibrating, comprehending his fall. His failure. That’s what Sviatoslav would call it–another failure, another lapse in judgement, another mistake never to be undone.

Sonechka offers a hand without looking.

He pretends not to see the little tears running down Sviatoslav’s pale cheeks, or the way his silver braid curls around his neck almost like a noose. None of it is his problem.

He’s not going to pry.

~~~

Frost has formed on the windows when Sonechka wakes up in the tiny guest room. He drags himself out of bed, passing the mirror but not looking. He doesn’t need a reminder of how he looks. He already knows he mirrors Sviatoslav’s caution, Vasily’s anxiety, the tiredness they all carry like extra bones. It’s become too much, all the bones.

He ties his hair back with a ribbon embroidered with bees.

Sviatoslav and Vasily live a 45 minute walk away from a tiny, remote village, in a house their parents paid off long before Vasily was born. Sviatoslav is seven years older, and eleven inches taller. Vasily, dear, sweet Vasily, is only fourteen.

Sonechka starts his daily ritual. Hide the knives, make tea, bake bread. Always hide the knives. Sviatoslav doesn’t trust himself to stay away from them.

He’s not going to let them suffer any longer, even if it means hiding the knives forever. Sviatoslav is choking on paranoia already.

This time, Vasily is awake. He’s curled in an armchair under a soft blanket, embroidering something with red thread. His hair, usually unbound, is tied into a messy bun, falling out slightly and framing his soft cheeks. Vasily looks like a doll. Sounds like one, too.

He watches as Sonechka puts the knives behind the rice in the pantry.

‘Is that necessary?’

‘He believes it is.’

Vasily nods, satisfied. He knows what Sviatoslav could do with those knives if he believed he had to.

~~~

‘Slava,’ Sonechka calls from the doorway, ‘Slava, wake up. The bread is fresh.’

Sviatoslav answers only with a soft breath, curled on his side on the bed, half hidden under the blanket, facing away from the door. Sonechka takes a step into the room, taking in the wood carvings, the polished window, the surfaces free of dust. Sviatoslav is not usually so clean. There is always at least one wood shaving in his room. He has never been this clean. Only Vasily is this obsessively clean.

Sonechka sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. Sviatoslav rolls onto his back.

‘Why are you here?’

‘You need me to be here.’ He’s speaking loud, too loud, but Sviatoslav takes a while to comprehend the words.

‘I hid the knives. Come out.’

Sviatoslav shakes his head.

~~~

Sonechka understands, really, why Sviatoslav felt the need to stab his brother.

Vasily is terrifying.

He watches Sonechka as he slices the warm loaves, his eyes never leaving the knife, his body never leaving the chair. Sitting still, like a doll, he never so much as blinks even when Sonechka slams his knife down, wrestling with a particularly burnt loaf. Sviatoslav, with his runaway mind and shaking hands, would easily see that as something to be scared of.

The uncanny valley. Sonechka, a village baker who has left twice in the entire twenty-three years of his life, knows just enough about it to know that it’s what Sviatoslav sees in Vasily. The too-pale skin, the fine, wispy hair, the stillness of his slender form…

Vasily often has his hands plunged in buckets of madder root dye, the appearance of a crazed murderer washing their bloodstained hands with cold water. The dark liquid stains his clothes and leaves only pink spots.

Sonechka was not there when Sviatoslav stabbed Vasily. But he saw the aftermath, the bloodstains being cleaned by the men who came from the city, and he directed them through the remnants of Sviatoslav’s mind to find the cause of such an outburst. A betrayal, they called it, a betrayal of brotherhood. But Sonechka knew it was just a deep, trembling horror that had taken Sviatoslav’s hands. It wasn’t murderous intent, he pleaded, and they let Sviatoslav off the hook with a bottle of meds he promptly threw away.

Sviatoslav had taken one look at the pills and thrown up.

~~~

The nights are getting colder, but Sviatoslav is retreating with the last threads of warmth, bleeding into the walls and becoming a husk, or a doll, or something that Vasily would make out of cloth scraps and introduce as an ugly guy. Sonechka sits by his bedside and ponders buying more of the pills they threw away, but he knows Sviatoslav is too fragile now to take them, and if Sonechka forced him to take them, they wouldn’t work at all.

‘Maybe I’ll take them,’ Sviatoslav says, ‘a little later. But I can’t take them right now. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll take them later.’

Sonechka has no problem with that.

Vasily takes his pills quietly and without a fuss. 

~~~

Sviatoslav steps on all the leaves outside instead of sweeping them away. Sonechka, cradling Vasily in his arms on the porch, can’t be bothered to tell him to stop. Sviatoslav seems content, lost in the crunch of the leaves beneath his boot, the bright colours and earthy smells. The crunch is soft; gentle, even, and Sonechka knows he can’t hear it. It’s been a while since Sviatoslav was able to hear Vasily’s soft voice, and he flinches when Sonechka comes up behind him without announcing his approach. He’s stepping on the leaves without experiencing the best part of them.

Vasily watches, curled up in Sonechka’s lap, as his brother stomps around outside.

Sonechka isn’t quite sure that Sviatoslav can hear his own footsteps.

~~~

It’s just Sonechka and Vasily in the house, and neither of them can move.

Sonechka opened Vasily’s door and saw a body sprawled on the floor. Vasily, his limbs seized by a weariness beyond his control and a deep seated paralysis, simply asked to be picked up. Now they sit on the couch, and Vasily has his head in Sonechka’s lap, his arms arranged gently around a pillow. His chest rises and falls in a gentle rhythm.

Sonechka turns on the television, waiting for the boy in his lap to use his body again. Vasily has fallen asleep, his hair spread out like a halo. A soft, golden blonde compared to Sviatoslav’s striking silver. Sonechka runs his fingers through Vasily’s hair, navigating the Netflix interface without much thought.

He settles on The Makanai, Vasily’s favourite show. He likes seeing the food. Sonechka made the cream stew the other day and Sviatoslav actually ate a whole bowl instead of random fragments.

‘Braised eggplant, Vasily?’ Sonechka asks, knowing that Vasily can’t hear him. ‘Maybe I’ll make medovik. Do they go together?’

Vasily only huffs, immersed in a dream.

The front door opens and a shadow comes inside. Sviatoslav has a leaf perched on his shoulder and doesn’t seem to notice, preoccupied by the leaf in his hand, holding it gently like it’s going to shatter any moment. Sonechka presses a button and turns to look at him.

In his lap, Vasily stirs, but does not wake.

Hello, he signs, and Sviatoslav merely blinks at him. He holds out the leaf like an offering. With his steady hands, Sonechka cradles it over his lap, freeing Sviatoslav to press his hands back together within his scarf. He’s always cold, Sonechka knows, yet he refuses what warmth they offer.

‘Why should I have it?’ he asks, ‘I don’t need it. I don’t need it.’

Nowadays, his words hardly carry the weight they used to, edged by the accent of his deafness and a softness Sonechka can’t name.

~~~

Sviatoslav touches a block of wood, then a knife, then looks to Sonechka. His eyes hold something deep and sweet. A question? Asking permission? Sweeter than that.

Sonechka sits beside him as he sketches out a fat little frog on the side of the wood, doing three sketches for the three views he needs for a carving. Then, slowly, slivers of wood come away from the sharp corners, rounding it off, leaving space for tiny legs. Sviatoslav’s hands shake but his mind stays firm, and he nicks himself only twice before he has the rough shape of a round thing in his hands.

Sonechka cleans the wounds and offers a caramelised smile, red at the cheeks like a candied apple. Sviatoslav smiles back with his sticky honey sweetness, sandwiched between layers of cake like medovik, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

The frog is on its way.

The silver braid Sviatoslav used to be so proud of has since come undone, and he hasn’t redone it since coming home because his fingers haven’t been listening to him until now. The strands are clean, Sonechka made sure of that, but they’re not bound back. A silver waterfall down to his waist. Sonechka makes three sections and lets himself fall into the pattern while Sviatoslav’s frog grows tiny legs and eye sockets. He ties off the braid with a ribbon and lets it hang down Sviatoslav’s back, a familiar weight in the cold.

The frog is smiling.

~~~

Needles go in and out of thread.

Vasily has always been an artist with tiny strokes of colour, not broad sculptures of wood like his brother. He has learned to coax thread into shapes Sonechka can’t fathom, and tame the peaks of his oil pastel strokes into something beautiful. Loops of thread make flower petals of the Monet paintings he is obsessed with. Sonechka sees those green leaves everywhere now.

Vasily makes a stitch, part of a leaf, precise and perfect.

‘This is not for me,’ he says.

‘Who is it for?’

‘Him.’ A name not spoken, yet understood implicitly. Sonechka knows why.

Across the room, Sviatoslav holds sandpaper in his hands and makes small, smooth strokes with the grain of his frog. Soulless eyes look up at him as he sands away every imperfection.

Sonechka is worried he’s going to sand away himself.

~~~

Sonechka does not see the exchange, but he sees how Sviatoslav’s hands are a little less shaky when he sketches out an acorn on the wood in front of him, and he sees how Vasily’s eyes flick from his embroidery hoop to his brother almost like clockwork.

The knife shines on the wall as Sviatoslav carves sharp corners away from his acorn.

Dough yields under Sonechka’s palms.

~~~

Once upon a time, Sonechka had tried to learn the language of flowers.

He had failed. Such symbolism was beyond him. The florist taught Vasily easily, and Sviatoslav knew the basics, but Sonechka came to resent it with every fiber of his being. He baked compassion into his loaves with the elderflower the florist grew for him, yet he didn’t understand why Vasily cried when he handed him a loaf adorned with white petals. Compassion, Sonechka knew, was not his domain.

But the knife had driven him to learn.

The knife had led them here. Paranoia and a broken mind had coaxed him to live in this house with a deaf man and a terrifying brother, to bake loaves for them and mediate in the silence. The compassion in his signature bread now says what he never could.

Behind him, Vasily exchanges a drawing for an acorn, and the smile he gets in return sticks to his hair like honey, never to be lost again.

Halli Zhang writes prose alone at night and decides it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. Somehow, her friends seem to share the sentiment.