Chapter Text
If you chase two hares, you will catch neither
-Russian Proverb
Little Johanna learned a valuable lesson about trees that summer evening. During one of those days where the air couldn’t get any more muggy; she’d wandered from the stuffy house in a heat-soaked daze. Hair stuck to her sweat-drenched shirt. The sun beat down through latticed leaves that canopied their miniscule hut. Amidst the grove’s Poplar saplings were other residents. Similarly waiting for a breeze that never came. Some respite from the dank air that appeared to just stand still. Stale and motionless and intensifying a sticky heat which paralyzed everyone this time of the year.
A familiar clinking noise filtered through the pine scent. Merely background stimulations for a girl who’d grown up surrounded by trees and watching men depart and return to the logging camps each day. She staggered from her squatting place by a puddle. Plodded over to the leaf-strewn track just hoping that the passing breeze from sweaty men returning home to their families would alleviate a modicum of her own suffering.
Lost in her sweat-logged delirium, Johanna’s eyes drifted to the trees. A cluster of white flowers had bloomed on a low-hanging branch. Magnolia. Beneath the green canopy the flowers appeared as stars in the night sky. In the sweltering heat, they resembled snowflakes. Already, Johanna could imagine their cool petals upon her face. The flower called out to her clumsy feet and mocked her once she reached it. Laying just beyond reach for her petite eight-year old frame. Stubby little hands that’d one day reach out to an ax, today - stretched toward a flower. Frustration set in between Johanna’s knitted brows. One more disappointment in a day filled with disappointments. She swore she would reach it. Looking around for a fallen log to stand on. Or god help her she was going to climb the tree even though mother had explicitly forbidden her to while unsupervised. But Nonna Katya sitting on the porch in her rocking chair having a smoke. Watching her with narrowed eyes. Surely she would snitch to Mom.
All the breath emptied from her lungs as rough hands closed round her waist. Lifting her a full foot clear off the ground. “Dad!” Johanna squealed. A full second before she’d heard his sandpapery voice. Or inhaled his old man scent, pine and leather.
“Go on, then!” Oaken chirped, “You’ve been staring at it so long it’s going to catch fire.”
Up close, the Magnolia blossoms appeared larger than life. Petals like angel’s wings. She picked the largest one and left the younger blooms intact. Only relaxing when her feet were back on the ground.
“I know you’ve told me not to pick flowers from the trees,” Johanna cradled the delicate petals in her hand, the heat already forgotten in its cool touch, “b-but I couldn’t help it - it’s beautiful.”
Oaken’s sweat-glistened mustache twitched in time with his almighty laugh, before he plucked it out of her hands and tucked it in her fringe.
“Now you are too-”
“Dad!”
You’re making me look silly in front of the other kids. Was what she meant to say. But here was the promise of a few short minutes she could spend in his reassuring stature. How safe she felt with her small hand in his. Mother’s pea soup and Rye bread waiting back at the hut. Little lessons about trees and ferns amidst the short walk home before he’d disappear into the forest after sundown again. So she kept quiet until they passed another Magnolia tree. A larger one - blooms tucked way up high beyond reach.
“You see, if you waited a little longer you could have the pick of the crop,” Oaken chortled, kicking the tree’s base, “little roots though.”
Pretty flowers, little roots.
“Are all Magnolia trees like that?” Johanna looked at him.
“Yes - people too, hah!” Oaken coughed, “Sometimes the prettiest people have the shallowest brains. And vice versa. Which was why I married your mother, because at least a smart brain lasts a lifetime.”
Johanna burst into a fit of giggles, “Oh, I’m gonna tell on you!”
“Nothing she doesn’t already know. Besides, if she wasn’t beautiful - how could she have produced someone like you?”
The apple never falls far from the tree. Johanna looked up at her father. Wondering whether, if she were born a boy - if she’d already have a big bushy beard and huge shoulders like dad. Brain full of tree facts and a heart brimming over with love. But before she could say anything of the matter - Oaken had already wandered off the path towards another tree. Spruce. Gnarly, knotted rough bark covered its exterior like porcupine spines. She’d remembered standing under this tree during the winter depths. Frosted with snowfall. Looking like a powdered sugar donut from the bakery she could only stand outside and salivate at.
“Look at this,” Oaken braced a foot against its impressive roots, “big tough tree looks like a huge meanie from the outside. But look what happens when I peel the bark off.”
It took a few tries with a whittling knife to get through the bark. They’d forbidden open carry of axes outside logging camps and workshops, but Dad still carried around whatever small knives the Peacekeepers turned a blind eye to. Afterall, they were his biggest customers. Often showing up in the dead of the night. No knocks. Mysterious packages exchanged for coins.
“Are you looking?” Oaken beckoned her closer. Beneath the thorny bark, the Spruce wood appeared white. Like the fluffiest clouds in the sky. Calloused hands placed the knife in her hands, still warm with his touch. She gawked at how easily the knife sank into its softwood.
“Hard on the outside, soft on the inside,” Oaken motioned for her to continue digging - until golden sap seeped through. Amber-gold. It resembled the impending sunset that hung low over the woods. “And if you dig far enough beyond its armour - you might be rewarded with something sweet.”
Apprehension clouded her, before daring to put a bead on her fingertips. Woody-tasting sap flooded her mouth. Like chewing on a twig. Until it coated the tastebuds’ entirety and she detected its aftertaste. The taste of gold. Still, Johanna feigned an extraordinary cringey face at him.
“Aquired taste I see, maybe you prefer straight-up honey,” Oaken pointed at another tree, “look at this beauty.”
Johanna took one callous look at the Birch tree. Beauty? She scoffed. Whitened bark peeling off in layers. Like a shaggy stray dog on its last legs. Even her lil’ fingers could make short work of its bark. And to prove it, Johanna raked her nails down the trunk. Soft fragments fell in a shower of dried flakes.
“I meant, try cutting into the wood,” Oaken held the knife out to her, handle-first.
It was impossible to; she already knew that without trying. Hardwood birch. She’d seen stacks of birch logs carted through their village. Tied together like slain prisoners on the back of a tractor trailer. Ostensibly to end up in Capitolite homes as chairs and tables. The thought gave Johanna the strength to press Oaken’s knife into the birch. As expected, it barely budged.
“It’s hardwood, Dad,” Johanna rolled her eyes, “what’re you trying to prove?”
Sunlight barely registered through the canopy now. The murky darkness lit only by mothers’ voices calling their children in for supper. Soon, Laurel would be calling them in too. Giving Dad a bollocking for staying out with her too long. And he’d have barely enough time to hovel down Mom’s soup before heading into the woods with a lantern for whatever nefarious activities he had in store. But all that mattered was now. The lesson behind every experiment he had. That attentive look in Oaken’s deep-set green eyes that spoke to the chord in her soul. The one that thrummed each time he came near. Waited in bed awake each night just to hear him return safely from the forest.
“Some people are like Spruce, Pine or Fir - hard and nasty on the outside, but soft and sweet inside,” Oaken led her by hand off the roots, “some are like Birch. Who appear weak, flakey - but strong as steel. Indestructible.”
Laurel’s image swam behind her eyelids. Who had nothing but angry words but still rocked her to sleep each time she cried and kept her belly full with bread and soup.
“What’re you saying?” Johanna sneered, “That Mom’s a Spruce tree?”
“I’m saying that everyone presents a different side of themselves to the world, and carries another one deep within themselves,” he paused on the dirt track. She could see Laurel now, standing outside their hut. Chimney smoking. Hands on her hips as she glared at them. But all Johanna wanted to hear was the rest of dad’s lesson.
“In time to come, you will choose which kind of woman to be.”