Ancient Things We Hold

Chapter 21

A Miserable Love

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Elisentev had become a sorry sight. Hodaya watched the few people that survived wander about their destroyed rye fields with a sense of aimlessness. How could life continue? Their livelihood, land and people had been stolen.

Now they were living like outlaws, sleeping under stretches of cloth in what was left of the synagogue and cooking what little food they could find over open fires they fashioned from scraps of bark. With their agriculture destroyed, they had to hunt and smuggle to survive. However, few of them knew how to after growing up in a village where everyone relied on each other for everything.

With the fishermen, the butcher and the farms gone, how they struggled to survive!

Hodaya often found herself rummaging beneath foot after foot of snow to find frozen acorns buried by animals in the autumn. With no warmth or shelter, she had been unable to wash or change her clothes in weeks. None of them had. However, that was not a true priority. As her hair became more matted and her garments dirtier by the day, she felt her weight fall off her bones. She was starving. Not only that, but she was freezing as well. The fire that the gentiles had threw upon seem soon dwindled to nothing, leaving them shaking in their thin clothes.

They wanted to leave, but for many the journey was too treacherous. It was cold and they had no money or food. Furthermore, some were unwilling to leave for they- by some miracle- still had a loved one to hold dear, but they were had been made ill by the conditions and were hence unable to move. No one was willing to lose anybody else.

However, Hodaya was desperate to go. She was trying to collect as much food and as many coverings as she could for the journey she intended to make to Ealdæ, even if that meant scavenging. Like a vulture, she rummaged through the broken houses and found what little the other men had left behind. Soon she managed to fashion cloaks from torn tablecloths and hats from scattered pieces of a quilt. She wrapped herself up in them tightly, then used garments as bags to carry the old acorns and crisped rye in.

"It won't last us long, but hopefully it will last us enough," she said. "We must learn how to ice fish before we leave. We shan't be able to hunt- that's certain. However, Ealdæ is six days away. The lack of food and the cold could kill us if we're not careful. Here, put this around your shoulders. You look a sight, but it will do,"

How sad Tamar looked. As Hodaya wrapped her up in the quilt, she just looked down and began to cry. "I don't want to go," she said.

"But you must. We shall die out here. We need work and shelter," she replied.

"I know," said Tamar, as begrudgingly as she admitted it. "I wish we knew how to fend for ourselves. We never got taught anything of importance, did we? Not even you with all your lessons. Once our way of life is changed, how have we adapted?" She shivered. "Well, we had better get on with it, then. I shall help you find more food,"

She stood up to join her older sister. The two girls leant their weight on each other, before slowly walking outside together. They bit their tongues to fight against the chilling cold that tore at their skin.

As children, all they didn't particularly like one another. Hodaya was too diplomatic to fall into bitter arguments with Tamar, but they were truly aggravated by their clash of personalities that this silence easily grew into resentment and biting comments. Tamar hated Hodaya's insufferable righteousness and she in turned hated Tamar's obsessive behaviour. 

They had, of course, got on better with each other than with Hadassah who never failed to point out their ignorance or silly behaviour, no matter how harshly she did so.