The Shape of Pain

Pain has a shape. But no one knows it can settle into a rag and start eating it from the inside... Maryna woke to a wet squelching under the bench that stood by the bed. There, in a pile of old rags, a faceless motanka doll was thrashing in convulsions. Its thread sides swelled, as if it were swallowing fever, and thick yellow foam oozed from its seams. It gathered on the rag belly, crawled down and dripped softly onto the earthen floor.

The sour stench stung the nose. And beneath it stood another smell - warm, cloying, the kind that lingers by a bed after a long illness, when the candle has already burned down, the water in the bowl has gone cloudy, and everyone in the house is afraid to say aloud that the child is not getting better. Her daughter Olenka lay on the bed straight, cold and mute. Maryna reached for the doll, but the girl opened her eyes and whispered: Mama, don't touch her, she's choking.

Have you forgotten? She does the hurting instead of me now. Three days earlier Olenka had burned so hot that the water in the bowl by the bed grew warm from her breath. The old women whispered over the cradle, but the prayers wouldn't take - they bounced off the child's forehead like a pebble off a wall. Maryna could bear it no longer and went to Domakha. The healer's house smelled of candle smoke and old wormwood.

Under the ceiling hung bunches of herbs and faceless motanka dolls that seemed to turn their heads slowly whenever anyone came in. Threads lay on the table, and in the corner stood a heavy oak chest, from inside which someone seemed to be quietly scratching at the wood. Domakha did not look her in the eye when she took a scrap of Olenka's shirt. Her needle did not gleam - it darkened after every knot, as if rusting from blood.

Whatever burns in the child will go into the cloth, the old woman whispered. The motanka dolls under the ceiling shuddered when Maryna spoke her daughter's name. I do not take the soul, said Domakha, I only lift off what is tearing a person apart. When she pulled the last knot tight, the woman suddenly felt heat wafting from the doll. She carried the motanka home wrapped in a kerchief, and the kerchief steamed in her hands.

That night, for the first time in a week, Olenka fell asleep quietly. And from under the bench, where Maryna had hidden the doll, came a dull, barely audible knocking. The fever broke, but Olenka stopped laughing. She did not reach for toys, did not cry when she fell, and looked too often at the corner where the motanka lay. Maryna asked if she was in pain. Not me, the child answered, she is.

At night there came a child's sobbing and a crunching, as if someone were gnawing on bones. Exactly the same as during the fever. And in the morning a wet stain seeped through on the motanka's chest. The faceless doll sweated with someone else's fear, and the calmer Olenka grew, the harder the cloth breathed in the dark corner of the house, as if getting ready to scream. Maryna began watching the others.

The widow whose grief Domakha had taken did not weep, but neither did she remember how her husband used to laugh. The old man no longer feared death, but he had stopped crossing himself. The young lad did not flinch at thunder, but he looked at another man's blood as if it were merely spilled water. All of them calm. Too calm. People were becoming lighter, but empty, like burnt-out pots.

They felt no pain, but along with it there drained out of them the ability to love, to pity and to fear, leaving only cold indifference and empty eyes in which no light was reflected. One morning Maryna glanced into the corner - and the motanka was gone from among the clutter. She ran to Domakha. Under the ceiling there already hung a good dozen new dolls. One was quietly coughing blood, another whispered curses in a man's voice.

People bring, of their own accord, what they do not want to carry, said the old woman. What did you take from my child? Maryna screamed. Only the pain, the old woman answered. From the big oak chest came Olenka's thin voice: Mama, I'm not alone in here. And the lid of the chest knocked softly from inside, as if someone were begging to be let out.

Maryna had barely touched the lid when Domakha struck her with her shoulder and shoved her so sharply that the woman nearly fell onto the bench, but with one hand she managed to fling the lid back. Domakha lunged to shut the chest, but Maryna had already gripped the edge of the lid with both hands. First she heard coughing, a child's sobbing and a very loud laughter that made her want to cover her ears.

Inside lay dozens of motanka dolls, and torn-away pieces of people: a scrap of a wedding shirt, a child's tooth, a lock of grey hair, a button, a red thread... They whispered: give me back, untie me, without me she cannot love. Olenka's motanka lay on top. It had no eyes, but Maryna felt with her whole body that the doll had recognized her and was reaching for her with its thread arms...

Domakha shrieked: Don't touch it! Olenka's knot is special, it holds the chest! But Maryna had already tugged the loose thread. The motanka fell apart in her hands, and every doll in the house began to wail. Somewhere in the village Olenka cried out with a living child's cry. After her the others began to weep.

Pain was coming back to people - terrible, heavy, but their own. Domakha's eyes flooded with black. She fell and did not rise again. And under the roof beam her motanka remained, whispering: "What hurts you? Give it here, I'll carry it a while."