The Plague Book

She was struck out of the world of the living by a single blow of the bell. It struck at midnight, though the rope had been cut off it ten years before. And old Hanna fell out of the world so cleanly, as if she had never been among the living. In the morning her daughter woke in a house that still smelled of her mother, but did not know who the second bowl was set for. She reached to clear it away. The dog by the threshold growled.

And the bowl, slowly, all by itself, slid back toward the empty place at the table.

That same night Solomiia was sitting in the church, copying the old records of the newborn into a new book. The ancient pages were coming apart from the damp. She had just reached Hanna's name when the bell struck overhead. Solomiia flinched, cut her finger on the edge of a page, and a drop of blood fell straight onto the line. By morning Hanna's name was already fading. The ink was slowly sinking into the paper, as if someone were sucking it out from the other side.

Under the church window a dog began to howl at once. - Hanna... - Solomiia whispered.

The next night the bell struck a second time. Little Petryk vanished. His mother woke from a pain in her breasts. Milk had soaked through her shirt, yet she could not remember why her body was feeding someone. By the wall stood a cradle. Inside lay a child's shirt, warm and crumpled, as if it had only just been taken off. The woman looked at it a long time, and then whispered: - Who brought this into my house? The dog under the cradle whined softly.

The blood in the parish book would not let Solomiia forget. She started a scribe's notebook and every night wrote down the names of the vanished. Hanna. Petryk. Andriy. Marfa. But the letters stirred. They crawled off the lines like black lice and worked their way under her nails. In the morning the pages smelled of a raw grave. On the last sheet a stranger's hand showed through: - You write down your own. And who will write down us?

The village grew smaller every night. In the houses the stoves smouldered, though no one remembered the masters. An old woman opened the gate for someone unseen and held it a long time, while only the wind came into the yard. A man carved a small spoon and wept, not knowing why. On the benches lay forgotten things no one dared to touch. People said all was as always. Only the dogs sat by the empty yards and stared at the bell tower.

Before the third night Solomiia climbed the bell tower with a lantern. The candle flame trembled at her every step. When she raised the light to the bell, wet prints of palms showed on the black bronze - children's, women's, men's. Dozens of hands pressed to the metal from the inside. One palm slid slowly downward. The lantern went out. In the darkness nails scraped across the bronze. And right beside her someone whispered: - Do not erase me again.

When Solomiia lit the lantern once more, the wet prints already stretched from the bell down the wooden stairs. She followed them through the empty church. The tracks broke off by the altar. Behind a pushed-aside board Solomiia found a narrow niche, and in it - the plague book, its pages stuck together with damp. Between the pages lay a scrap with an order scratched into it: "Let no one in." On the first sheet a priest had written underneath: "The nameless do not sleep."

They borrow names from those who are still called home.

In the plague book Solomiia found familiar names, crossed out with a thick black stripe: Hanna. Petryk. And dozens of others. She took from her scribe's bag the little knife she used to sharpen quills and tried to scrape the ink away. But under the blade a thick black wetness seeped through, as if the book were bleeding. Then Solomiia took a quill and a small inkwell from the bag and wrote Hanna's name over the stripe. And below it a new name appeared: Solomiia.

First the book erased a person from memory. Then - from the world.

Solomiia ran home. Her mother opened the door and saw before her a soaked young woman with black fingers. But she no longer knew her daughter in her. - Who is it you want? When the bell struck again, the half-spun thread her mother had been spinning only yesterday for her daughter's shirt pulled itself taut toward the church. The woman touched the thread and wept. - How strange, - she whispered. - My hands remember rocking someone. My body remembers giving birth.

And I cannot recall even the face of the one I must surely have loved more than myself.

In tears Solomiia went back to the church. The plague book lay open before the altar, though she had left it behind the board. Wet tracks led from its pages to a stone slab. The moment Solomiia stepped onto it, the slab sank and opened onto narrow stairs. She took the book and the lantern and went down. Below stood people in wet, frozen clothes. A woman held a child's shirt. An old man clutched a key. A little boy asked quietly: - Auntie, was I ever somebody's son?

Was I ever at all?...

The plague book tore itself from Solomiia's hands and fell open on the ground. On the clean lines, one after another, the names of the living came through. Each time the bell struck above the church, a black stripe crossed out the next one. Solomiia pressed the pages down with her palms. She set the edge alight with the candle from the lantern, but the flame leapt onto her fingers, leaving not even soot on the paper. - I am Solomiia! - she screamed in hysterics.

- I am Solomiia! But the third time, only the dull groan of a bell tore from her throat. The boy stepped back. - Auntie, and who are you?

In the morning Solomiia's mother set two bowls on the table, though she did not know for whom. When she reached to clear one away, a single word showed in ink at the bottom: Solomiia. The woman read it aloud, wept, and a moment later no longer remembered. Under the old bell tower, every night, someone was counting the dead. The voice would reach one empty place, fall silent, and begin again.