The Sky Unwashed by Irene Zabytko

lines for stingy scoops of warmed-over food. Later, after the people had eaten hurriedly, rushed by the nurses who wanted the plates and utensils returned, a pall descended over the evacuees. In a far corner of the dank room, some of the men gathered and played cards. One man lulled his children with a mandolin and a soft voice. Women tidied up their small territories, ingeniously draping long scarves and skirts over the bare hanging lightbulbs to shield the light from their children’s eyes as they tried to sleep. During the course of the night, old men rose and stumbled over the cramped bodies to relieve themselves in the pails; men and women lowered their voices and argued about what would happen next.
    The room was still, and Marusia fell into a deep sleep. Since her arrival in Kyiv, she had dreamed often about the cow she left behind in her village. That night, the cow didn’t appear. Instead, she saw herself walkingin a fog toward the abandoned cowshed, where several mice were eating the hay. Marusia awoke with the certain knowledge that her beloved cow had died.
    She sat up, wiped her eyes, coughed, and then looked around to see if she had disturbed anyone. Zosia was asleep on the other mattress with Katia cradled in her arms. Tarasyk was gone. She inched over to where Marta Fedenko lay across her thin mat, her scarf pulled low over her eyes to keep out the light. She was snoring, as were several other people surrounding the small space where Marusia and her family slept.
    Marusia struggled to get up. She did not want to wake anyone. Her babushka had slipped off to her shoulders, and she felt the sting of electricity crackling over her thin, messy hair when she pulled the paisley woolen scarf back on her head. She stepped over the sleeping bodies and looked around the room in the dim light.
    “Did you see a little boy with blond curly hair?” Marusia frantically whispered to a man propped up against a wall, smoking a cigarette.
    He grunted an obscenity and turned away from her.
    A woman’s voice loudly ordered Marusia to shut up because she wanted to sleep. But another voice, also a woman’s, coming from the same direction said kindly, “I saw some children go out into the corridor.”
    Marusia blindly thanked the second voice and hurried down the badly lit corridor. There was only one direction to go, and Marusia glanced into each of the tinywindows set in the doors to unknown rooms. She saw beds, and patients, and a group of doctors playing cards, but not Tarasyk.
    She followed the L-shaped passage and heard high-pitched voices. A dog yelping. Marusia sighed out a loud “thank God” when she saw three children huddled around a small dog. She grabbed Tarasyk’s hand.
    “We saw the doggie, so we followed him,” said the little dark-haired girl whom Marusia recognized as Katia’s new friend.
    The dog was mottled brown and black. Its fur was clotted with burrs, and its pink tongue hung limp from its mouth. It looked at the old woman with calm brown eyes and wagged its stub of a tail.
    “Where did this dog come from?” Marusia asked.
    “We saw him in the hall. He must be hungry. Then we chased him down here,” said another girl.
    “Tarasyk, why did you leave us?” Marusia scolded. Her grandson snatched his hand away, but she grabbed hold of it again.
    “Let’s go back, children,” Marusia said. “Don’t leave like that again. You’ll worry your parents.”
    “What about the doggie?” the dark-haired girl asked.
    “He’ll go back where he came from,” she said. “He has a home, too. He’ll find his family. Now, let’s go back and find your parents. Come on.”
    The children followed the old woman. They had little trouble finding their way back to their mattresses.In her own area, Marusia tripped over Zosia’s outstretched legs on the floor. She laid Tarasyk down on their mattress and let him snuggle into the crook of her arm. She peered into Zosia’s face: Her mouth was wide open, her face