The dogs settle down, each on their own blanket. They will guard Maria’s sleep at night. Drifting into sleep, Maria has a quiet cry in the dark. And even more quietly, she asks her Friend:

“Why the son and not Maria, why the little old dog and not the basket of mushrooms?”

As it starts to rain Maria falls asleep.

In the morning rain has gnawed out paths in the yard. Flood traces. Earth veins. In His hand.

Naģe

The windows inside have fogged over. Cowberries lie scattered on an old writing desk. A light slowly dawns at the edge of the horizon, seeping into Nadezhda Mihailovna’s room.

She finds it hard to get up in the mornings. Blanket pulled over her head, she delays this moment of waking. Then, very carefully, she raises the blanket, forming a tiny gap, letting in just enough light to register that the morning has arrived.

First Nadezhda always senses her legs. They are heavy as logs coursing with an odd current, which drags her downward. Then they start to itch and tingle. She in turn bends and straightens them, then stretches her toes. Every morning her legs feel like the mechanism of an old, rusted-out bell. When moved, it slowly comes to life and begins to rock the whole thickset body.

Glancing at herself in the mirror, Nadezhda Mihailovna has often fantasized what the parents who created her would have looked like. She has a wide face, slanted eyes and a flattened nose. It appears as if somebody has drawn a heavy palm over her face, leaving it – downward-stretched. She is small of build – stocky and thickset. From the back it appears as if she constantly has her head drawn into her shoulders, but from the front one can see that her neck is short.

During her boarding school days, no boys ever looked at her. Or, if they did look, they turned away in disgust. The kinderhearted called her tsarevna lyagushka – a frog princess, while the more callous named her zhaba – a frog. After graduating from school she was fortunate enough to find work in a canning factory in a small town. While meagre, her earnings were sufficient for her to get by. No one particularly befriended her, but they also did not ridicule her. Nadezhda Mihailovna learned enough Latvian to satisfy her daily needs and soon felt like a full-fledged local. Shortly after she also found a room with a kitchen in an old house with the bonus use of a small garden. Thus in the fall she could store enough vegetables for the whole winter. Whatever was left over, she sold at the roadside.

In the nearby woods she came to know every path, each tiny track, bog and marsh. Often, even before she went to work, she managed to do a quick tour of the woods to gather flowers, mushrooms or berries. The chanterelles, king porcinis and orange-capped scaber stalks she sold. Of all the mushrooms she herself liked the honey gilled mushrooms the best, although the locals never picked these. And she loved cowberry jam.