Pickled Radishes
The clack of freshly polished leather on the stone
The following short story is part of The Flying Jib, our creative writing tab at The Broken Binnacle where we share poems, short stories, and other fictional pieces. Please be sure to check out more of our creative writing here.
We hope you enjoy today’s short story in the meantime.
Pickled Radishes
The clack of freshly polished leather on the stone could be heard like a child screaming in agony and it split the midmorning air.
A mother of four heard steps and knew they were coming. She heard them from her kitchen window coming down the road. She knew by the insidious laughter of men at war it was them. This sparked urgency in her, not fear. She had learned the difference.
She immediately got up from the kitchen table and threw the toy from her infant’s hands onto the floor by into the next room. Naturally the infant started to wail. She walked into the next room and found one of her son’s favorite books, coveted by his brother and tore it in half. She tore more pages from the book and scattered them around the room for good measure. Her boys had been warring over this book for some time. Peter, the elder of the two, was just getting old enough to read. She called upstairs louder than her infant was wailing from the kitchen, “Peter! Time for reading!” She heard plodding of feet upstairs and went back into the kitchen.
The pain from the cries of her infant were becoming unbearable to her, but she knew what she was doing, even if it meant making a war in her own home.
They lived neither in a farmhouse nor in the city, but about half-way. Her husband had been a cobbler and handyman before, and he was sent away the year previous. It afforded them to live close enough to the town to know everyone’s business but far enough away that no one knew theirs.
The infant kept wailing and wailing. Peter thundered down the steps into the next room and a furious, “Where is he?!” erupted from the other room when he saw his favorite book shredded. He sprinted out the back door to find the culprit.
Edith looked once more out the window and the Nazi’s were almost close enough for her to smell the typical liquor, blood, and cologne – all to dull or mask one liquid from the other.
She messed her hair up a little, grabbed the infant and stomped her foot twice, braced herself, and waited for the knocking. It came.
Infant wailing in her ear, she flung the door open and in even parts exasperation, anger, frustration, and desperation, exclaimed, “What do you want?”
“We are here on government authority in search of enemies of the state. Are you harboring fugitives?”
“Yes of course,” she subtlety pinched her infant’s bottom which sent him into another volley of raucous wailing. “They are right next to the pickled radishes in the basement. Hold him.” she said, passing the wailing infant to the officer who had made the initial inquiry. He held the child as if the antithesis of his existence was screaming back into his face. The mother stepped just out of view in the other room and grabbed her infant’s food and a new diaper quickly and darted back.
“Madam, take this thing from me this instant.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, “One moment.” And she checked her infant’s diaper and then took him back and put food in his mouth which only quieted him for a moment. Just then, heaven could not have planned it better, the two boys came screaming around the side of the house amidst a skirmish of their own. They were already at fist-to-cuffs and the younger was running with the older in quick pursuit.
“Get over here!” Edith ran over and smacked Paul and grabbed Peter by the collar. The younger, Paul, stood speechless at having been struck by his mother and immediately let loose a flood of tears while the elder only began yelling because his mother was dragging him back into the house.
There was screaming and shouting and crying. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Edith threw Peter onto the couch in the room where his book had been scattered across the floor and screamed, “Stay there until I can figure out what these ninnies want!”
She stomped back to the front and said, “That one right there is an enemy of the state, feel free to take him. What is it you fellows needed again?”
“Perhaps a different time is more suitable?” the officer replied.
“This is typical for family life; now is the best time you’re going to get. Like I said, check next to the pickled radishes, but if you find any chocolate hidden upstairs let me know and remember it does NOT belong to the boys!”
The officer hesitatingly stepped inside and the mother gave one last pinch one the bottom and the infant, who had been reduced to sad whimpers at having been given food, burst into another round of all out mayhem.
“What NOW?!” Edith exclaimed as she stomped into the kitchen leaving her house totally unguarded.
“We will come back another time,” the officer said slinking away.
“When you do, please remember to bring my husband with you! He was supposed to be back by now!”
The officers could barely hear her because they had already moved along. As soon as she no longer felt like hell was on tour inside her home, she immediately began dispelling the storm.
She rocked her baby until she had soothed him. Edith did this while also hugging her son Peter who had lost his favorite book.
“There, there now,” she said as gently as possible, “we can get you another copy. It will be better, and I bet they make them in green now!” This seemed to calm him as she held him. Then Paul came in and beamed up the stairs in a fit of rage and loathing at his mother.
Oh lord, what have I done? She gave the baby to Peter and instructed him to hold on. She went into the other bedroom on the second floor (there were only two) and saw her son reduced to a weeping lump under his covers. She sat down at the foot of the bed and hoped she could find the words to explain what had happened.
“Paul, are you there sweetie?”
“No, go away. Monster!”
“Well that’s not very nice Paul! What I did was something not very nice, but you will understand one day that what you did today was brave. Can you trust me until you are older that what I did to you was for someone else? I know its hard to understand right now, but I promise you will one day. Please little one, you are big and strong, and you were protecting me today, really. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but you were protecting me.”
A small head with tear stained eyes emerged from underneath the covers.
“Was I really being brave?”
“Yes my dear, very.”
“But you hit me!”
“Can you forgive me?”
“Yes I can! But Peter thinks I hurt his book! I didn’t Mama I swear!”
“I know that, we will get him a new one. There are a lot of them out there.”
Paul came out from the covers and hugged his mother. There they sat for a few moments.
“You know,” Edith began, “I have been saving some chocolate in the kitchen. I can go chop a few pieces if you would go help Peter clean up the living room.”
A smile grew across his face and plodded down the steps to tell his brother. She rested a moment on the bed, almost in tears herself for what she had done. Before tears began to pour, she picked herself up and went into the kitchen and opened the cellar door. Down she climbed into their pickling room and next to the pickled radishes was a sack of potatoes. She moved them out of the way and tapped on the wood panel. It creaked open and the dirty face of woman appeared behind it.
“It is safe for now, I sent them away. You must stay in there till dusk. I will get you food at some point, but stay hidden. They are still around.”
“How did you do it? I heard the men, and your children screaming! They never scream! And you were yelling too. I have never heard anything like that.”
“And I hope you will never have to again. The war at home can sometimes frighten men more than the war abroad.”
“What did you tell them when they asked if you were hiding anyone.”
“The truth. Now back inside with you,” and she closed the panel and moved the sack.
Her husband had been killed for telling the truth. He told them not to go to war; he told them it was evil. She would be damned if she honored his memory with a lie.
 | A guest post by
|