Herbs tied in thick bundles under the porch roof. Red tomatoes, thinly sliced and placed on netting. The smell of salt and smoke drifted down to the village on the wind. The children dared each other to sneak up behind them.
The women shook their heads and said it wasn’t healthy to cling to the past.
The men laughed louder than anyone else. Yet Martan never answered them. He worked from dawn till dusk, his boots moving steadily across the hard-packed earth.
Each jar he sealed he carefully placed inside the cabin. Every bale of meat was counted, every pound of salt measured and stored.
She bought more salt than anyone else in town. She didn’t buy sugar, she didn’t buy coffee, she didn’t buy flour, only salt. The shopkeeper joked about it. She didn’t smile because four years earlier laughter had filled that same valley in winter.
And then the snow came. It arrived without warning on a clear December night. The sky had been calm. The air had been still. By morning, 90 cm of snow covered the cabins. By afternoon, 1.5 cm, and it didn’t stop.
For three long weeks, Marta, her husband Samuel, and their two children were sealed inside their home.
The firewood ran out. The food ran out even more. Her husband went out once, just once, thinking he could reach the woodpile before the wind picked up.
He returned half-frozen, his boots stiff with ice. He never fully recovered.
They burned furniture to keep warm. First the chairs, then the table Samuel had built with his own hands, and then the shelf that held Marta’s small poetry collection. On the 12th, the oats ran out.
