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“Aniki.”
“What is it, Isabel?”
Opening the back of the canopy a bit to let the evening light come in, Levi glances inside the wagon. The sliver of light cuts across the heap of blankets lying on the wooden floor. They give a slight bounce with every bump of the wagon’s wheels on the road, but the body underneath stays motionless. For a while there’s nothing more than the clap of horse hooves and the occasional cough from the old driver.
Without turning, the sleepy voice croaks, “Tell me when we get to the surface.”
Levi doesn’t bother responding right away until he realizes that the sheets have tensed, the girl underneath actually waiting for his reply.
“Sure,” he offers up, “Now go to sleep brat.” Not surprisingly, she starts up a slight snore.
They gradually ascend up the long curving road. Levi tentatively watches the path behind them. It’s all dirt, stone, and near blackness. Their shapes play with his eyes, morphing into stalking creatures and then into stagnant forms as soon as Levi blinks. He won’t trust them to always be rocks though. He keeps searching for any sign of a human limb or the faintest whisper of an unknown voice.
As the hour goes by and the threats lessen, his attention diverts to the cavernous ceiling. He waits for the lethal spikes to shrink in size and for the walls to close in, the path becoming more straightforward and smooth, to remove the canopy from over the wagon. Some meters ahead he can already see spots of light that have snuck in through holes in the rocky ceiling. Soon the entire of it is gone and a new mass of blackness greets them high in the sky.
“We’re here.”
No more words are needed to wake up the girl. Grumbling angrily she tries to nudge off the bandage over her eyes with a wiggle of her nose. Wistfully, Levi scoots next to her and props her red head on his lap. He ignores her wines as he wipes her face with his handkerchief, determined to clear off the dirt on her cheeks before prying the bandage over her forehead. With expert precision he plucks bits of dried blood from her lashes and dabs away the new blood that seeps from the gash on her lids. He works on it until she can open her eyes on her own.
Isabel giggles up into the open air, a joyous ring that keeps on going minute after minute. Her body instinctively tries to reach up but with all her broken bones it only slumps back down. Her eyes dart from one point to another, not knowing which twinkling light to admire. The pupil of her left eye shrinks, making her sage iris even larger. It glimmers with the reflection of a thousand stars. On the other side, her right eye has turned into a crimson orb.
“Aniki.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t they pretty?”
Keeping his gaze on her, Levi answers, “They are.”
Although Levi has seen the bare night sky on more than one occasion, this is Isabel’s first. Here, there’s no need to peek through a hole. Here, she didn’t have to be satisfied simply by watching from underneath the shadow of the earth. If she could stretch her hands out to the stars above right now, she would be closer to them than she ever has in her entire life.
“Which one do you like?” Levi asks. It’s a silly question, for they’re all nearly identical, but he can see that her wounded eyes have settled on studying a single one.
With one hand twitching at her side and tears welling in her corners of her eyes, she whispers, “That one.”
“Ah.” Levi eases her good arm up by her elbow. “Show me.”
With what little energy she has she sticks out her finger, holding it straight despite her quivering muscles. “That one,” she repeats, sounding much more satisfied this time.
Grey eyes follow the length of her thin arm, her hand, her fingertip, to the starry sky. Levi holds his breath expectantly, but he can’t identify her special star. He looks down at Isabel’s smile, listening once more to the chime of her amused voice, and again at the sky, challenging himself to find the star all on his own. Hopefully she can remember it for another night. Her shoulders have begun to shiver and her face flushes with an oncoming fever. It’ll be a few more hours before they arrive into town.
“Go to sleep,” Levi orders.
“What about the sun?”
“I’ll wake you up when it rises.”
The sickly girl keeps shivering despite Levi’s efforts to wrap her in the sheets. The weight of her head bobs from side to side, the movement scaring her awake every few seconds. Like the stubborn child she is she fights the weakness in her body, attempting to ward off another slumber just to be able to admire her special star.
“You need to sleep,” Levi tells her again.
“Ani…” Her eyes have lost focus. The stars must be melting into blackness. And she’s afraid.
“Shhh.” He pulls the bandage back over her eyes. They slowly soak through.
Through ragged breaths Isabel asks, “Can- can you sing me a song?”
His pale thumb rubs her cheek lightly. “Of course.”
He sings her words which he memorized long ago. At a time when he’d been much frailer and smaller. Back then when it was enough just to listen to his own mother’s familiar voice.
Die Stühle liegen sehr eng
Wir reden die ganze Nacht lang
Dieser niedrige Raum ist nicht schlecht
Wir können uns gut verstehen
Despite not knowing what his words mean, Isabel’s lips clumsily mouth along. Perhaps, somehow, she’s already deciphered it. After all, she’s heard it over a hundred times and she’d hum its melody flawlessly.
So ist es immer, under Licht ist nur das
Trinken und singen wir, begrüben morgen
So ist es immer, unterm riesigen Himmel
Leben wir zusammen, die Nacht ist lang
The driver peeks over his shoulder, unbelieving of the voice and its foreign tongue. Levi pays him no attention, letting his usual thickly voice thin as he keeps on singing.
Da die Sterne nicht leuchten
Kann der Mond auf diese Stadt nicht scheinen
Schauten wir das Licht selbst an
Singen wir unter dem Sternenmeer
This time the bumpy ride doesn’t bother the young red head as she’s lulled into sleep. The air is strangely empty without her laughter. Cradling her in his lap, Levi hums the song again and again until the vibration in his throat also sends him to sleep.