The smell of roasted coffee woke Oren before Marin opened the door.
She had woken very early this time, earlier than usual, and when he came down he found her standing before the stove wearing her ordinary dress, but with her hair arranged more carefully than on weekdays, as though she’d decided this day deserved something different without naming it.
“You’re leaving today with the convoy,” she said without preamble, pouring him a cup.
“I thought we’d spend what’s left of the time at the market there are things I want to see, and you need better clothes than the ones you wear.” “My clothes are fine.” “Your clothes look like a man who’s forgotten how to look after himself.” She sat before him and took a sip from her own cup.
“We’ll go after breakfast.” It wasn’t a question, so he answered with nothing but a small smile.
He ate in silence, watching her talk about her plan for the day, about a new fabric shop she’d heard had opened near the edge of the market, about her need for certain threads, and about her wish to see if the butcher had brought better meat this week.
Her voice filled the small kitchen the way it had since childhood, and he didn’t realize how much he’d missed it until he heard it again.
The market was at the height of its activity when they arrived, the vendors’ voices mingling with the smells of bread, charcoal, and animals.
Marin walked ahead of him with quick, confident steps, knowing every corner of it, until they reached the new fabric shop, a small stall recently added between two old shops, filled with cloth hanging in different colors on the walls.
She stopped before a dark blue fabric, took its edge between her fingers, rubbing it gently the way someone does who knows what they’re looking for.
“This is good,” she said, more to herself than to him.
“Look the weave is tight, doesn’t tear easily, but it isn’t coarse.” She held it out toward him, and Oren touched it without any real interest.
“It looks like any other fabric.” She gave him a look of theatrical despair.
“Years in the army and you’ve learned nothing useful.” “I learned how to carry a sword.” “Wonderful.
If I ever need a wound sewn shut with your sword, I’ll let you know.” She smiled, going back to examining the cloth, then took another piece in a pale green and set it beside the first, comparing them with an assessing eye.
“This green would do for a summer dress.
As for this blue…” She paused, her eyes lighting with an idea.
“This would do for a coat.
A good coat, one that lasts years.” “For whom?” “I don’t know yet.
Maybe for me.
Maybe I’ll sell it.” She looked at him suddenly.
“Can you imagine?
A whole shop full of fabrics like this, and me choosing from them every day instead of waiting for a single shipment to reach the village once a season.” “The capital.” “The capital.” She repeated the word with a brief dreamy note, then returned quickly to her practical self, and asked the shopkeeper the price.
The man named a figure that made her raise her eyebrows in exaggerated disbelief, and she began bargaining with him eagerly, pointing to small flaws at the fabric’s edge that Oren hadn’t noticed at all, and citing other shops’ prices with the confidence of someone who didn’t know whether those prices were real or simply invented on the spot.
It ended with a satisfied smile on her face and two pieces of cloth folded under her arm, and a tired smile on the shopkeeper’s face.
“You cheated him,” Oren said as they walked away.
“I didn’t cheat him.
I bargained.” Then she added a moment later, in a less confident tone: “Maybe I paid a little more than I should have.
Doesn’t matter.
The cloth is beautiful.” On the way back, they passed a small bakery where Marin bought two loaves and a simple sweet stuffed with dates, insisting Oren eat half of it now despite his protest that he wasn’t hungry.
“You’ll need energy for a whole day of walking,” she said, pushing the piece toward him.
“We’ve been walking since morning.” “Exactly.” There was no room for logic in this argument, so he ate half the piece, smiling despite himself.
Back at the house, Marin sat on the floor near the window where the best light came in, and took out of her wooden box a light gray piece of fabric, the size of a long scarf, and began examining its edges with her fingers.
“What are you making?” “Made, not making.” She lifted the fabric and showed it to him.
It was a simple scarf, carefully sewn, its edges folded with a tightness that showed her skill despite the simplicity of the tool.
“For the cold on the road.
The nights there are cold, you told me so yourself before.” He took it from her and felt it in his hands.
The fabric was warm to the touch, thicker than he’d expected, and stitched with clear precision at the edges.
“When did you make this?” “I started it during the two weeks you were away, and finished it these last few nights after you’d gone to sleep.” She said it lightly, as though not wanting it to seem bigger than it was, but her eyes were watching his face as he turned the fabric over in his hands.
At one end of the scarf, he saw threads of a slightly different color, forming small words embroidered in letters not quite even, but clearly legible.
“The house knows your way.” He read it twice before raising his eyes to her.
“What?” she asked, noticing the expression on his face.
“Nothing.” “Oren.” He hesitated a moment, then pointed his finger at the last word.
“Here.
The letters.
‘Your way’ — you wrote it out of order.” She looked closely at the word, as though seeing it for the first time despite having stitched it herself, then her eyes widened slightly in embarrassment, and she took the scarf from him to check for herself.
“The Archive ruined you,” she said finally, setting the scarf in her lap.
“Four years in the Archive, and you’ve memorized that one letter comes before another and not after, and not everyone spends their whole life among documents and records like you.” “I didn’t mean to…” “The important thing is you understood it.” She cut him off with a smile half annoyed, half amused, folding the scarf again with care.
“And I’m not resewing it.
If you want a perfect scarf, go ask one of the Archive clerks to sew you one.” He laughed, reaching out to take the scarf from her again, touching the letters with his fingers this time instead of only his eyes.
“I’ll take it as it is.” “You don’t have another choice,” she said, but her voice was calmer than it had been a moment before, watching him fold the fabric carefully and set it aside with the things he would take with him tomorrow.
In the afternoon, they went out to walk with no particular destination, as they had since childhood whenever one of them needed to escape the walls of the house for a while.
They passed the great tree at the edge of the field they used to climb as children, and stood by it a while without climbing it this time, only looking at it.
“I remember when you fell from it and broke your arm,” Marin said.
“You’re the one who pushed me.” “I’m the one who tried to catch you.
Big difference.” “It didn’t feel that way at the time.” She laughed, and they continued walking, until they passed Koren’s shop, its doors shut, the place quieter than usual.
Marin’s steps slowed a little, and she looked at the closed door without saying anything, then continued walking, and suddenly asked him about the capital.
“What’s it really like?” “Crowded.
Loud.
Everything faster than here.” “Did you see fabric shops there?” “A few.
I didn’t have much time.” “If I ever go, I’ll need a whole week just for the shops.” She said it with her eyes gleaming with that old dream that had never left her in years, the dream of a small shop bearing her name, where she could make whatever she wished instead of waiting for fabric to reach the village once a season.
“You’ll go one day,” he said, with more confidence than he actually felt.
“Maybe.
When this cursed war ends, and when it stops taking all the strong men to the front and some of them come back to guard caravans to the capital instead.” She said it lightly, but something in her tone was entirely serious.
As evening approached, they returned home, and Marin began preparing food for him to take on the road; two extra loaves, a carefully wrapped piece of cheese, slices of salted meat that kept for days, and a small piece of the same date sweet she’d bought that morning.
She put everything in a cloth sack she’d made herself years ago, with a simple tie that could be fastened to his belt.
“Don’t eat everything on the first day,” she said, tying the sack.
“I know you.” “I’m not always this hungry.” “You ate half the sweet this morning even though you said you weren’t hungry.” He found no answer, and settled for a smile, while she set the sack beside his bag, then stood a moment looking at the things arranged on the table, as though making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
At midnight that day, they said their farewells to the village on their way to the convoy’s gathering point, where men and young men had begun to assemble little by little, some with their families, some alone.
They stopped at the edge of the road, where almost no one else stood, and Oren felt that the words he’d wanted to say all day had now become harder to let out easily.
“Write to me,” Marin said, straightening his coat collar with no real need, just a movement of her hands needing something to do.
“Whatever you can.” “I’ll try.
I don’t know how often the mail will reach.” “Just try.” She finally raised her eyes to him.
“Even if it’s a short letter.
Even if it’s a single line.” “I will.” They stood in silence a moment, the noise of departure filling the air around them, until Marin extended her arms and wrapped them around him with more force than he’d expected from her, her face buried in his shoulder.
She didn’t cry aloud.
He only felt a faint trembling in her shoulders, and an uneven breath near his ear, before she pulled away quickly and wiped her face with the back of her hand in a swift motion, as though wanting to finish the matter before he could see it clearly.
“Go,” she said, with a slightly trembling smile.
“Before you miss the convoy and end up staying here eating my food for the whole month.” “That’s not a bad reason to stay.” “Go, Oren.” He smiled, and held her hand for a moment before letting it go and stepping a few paces away, then turned back one last time to find her still standing where she was, waving one hand and wiping her eye with the other.
At the gathering point, he saw Daren standing beside his father, the great blacksmith with his cracked hands and the smell of metal that never left him.
They weren’t talking much, only standing side by side, until the father said something about a piece of iron he’d been working on before Daren left, and Daren asked if he’d finished it, and the father answered that it could wait.
When the convoy finally began to move, and Daren raised his hand in farewell, Oren saw a single tear roll down Daren’s cheek, which he didn’t wipe away, and perhaps didn’t even feel, while his face remained calm as always, as though nothing had happened.
Nearby, Silen was saying goodbye to his family with far more commotion; embracing his mother, then his younger brother, then returning to embrace his mother once more, talking quickly about many things at once, until Oren noticed a large sack hanging on his shoulder, giving off a pungent, familiar smell.
“What’s that?” he asked, approaching.
“Onions,” Silen answered proudly, as though displaying a treasure.
“Army food’s tasteless, remember?
I won’t spend another month eating that empty soup without adding something to it.
My mother packed me a whole sack.” “A whole sack of onions?” “You won’t understand its worth until you try their soup without it.” He said it with utter seriousness, as though speaking of a matter of life and death, while he tied the sack securely onto his pack.
The convoy finally began to move, carts and horses and men walking beside them, and the village began receding behind them little by little.
Oren sat at the back of one of the carts, and looked at the village shrinking before his eyes; its market, its bakery, Koren’s shuttered shop, the dirt road whose every stone he almost knew, and finally, at the edge of the road, Marin, who stayed standing, waving her hand, until she became nothing but a small point among the houses.
He kept looking at her until the bend in the road swallowed her entirely.
He reached into his bag, and touched the edge of the gray scarf, his fingers tracing the embroidered letters without looking at them, knowing every mistake in them as well as he knew every correct letter.
He didn’t take it out of the bag.
He left it there, close to his hand, as the cart continued on its way and the village disappeared little by little behind the hills.