The Knots

The Knots

The hammer strikes the rail at 04:30.

Pod'yom. Rise up.

The women climb down from the bunks, their breath visible in the cold air of the barracks. It is winter in the colony, and winter here does not ask permission. The walls are concrete. The windows are small and high. The cold comes through anyway.

A woman carries the waste bucket toward the door. Steam rises from it as she walks. Outside, the sky is still dark.

The pregnant woman stands near the washing basin. Seven months along. Her belly rounds beneath the grey smock they gave her when she arrived. She splashes her face with water so cold it makes her gasp. The other women do the same—quick, efficient movements. There is no time for hesitation.

She braids her hair quickly, fingers working without thought. Around her, the other women are doing the same. Braids keep hair out of the way during inspection. Braids are practical. Braids do not call attention.

The bell rings for inspection.

She ties the forty-fourth knot.

The rope goes back into the lining of her coat.

The nursery courtyard is a small rectangle of packed dirt surrounded by wire fence. On one side, a low building with barred windows. On the other, the fence where the mothers stand.

Two toddlers walk along the path, each holding the hand of a uniformed guard. The guard is not young. Not old. She wears the standard grey coat and cap. Her face shows neither cruelty nor warmth. She is simply there, performing her task.

One of the toddlers stumbles. The guard steadies her without breaking stride.

The pregnant woman watches from behind the wire. Frost clings to the metal. When she grips it, the cold burns her palm.

She is not yet a mother in the way these women are—standing at the fence, watching children they cannot touch. But she will be.

The children reach the nursery door. The guard wipes one child's face with a cloth she pulls from her pocket. Adjusts the other child's hat. The taller toddler laughs at something—a bird, maybe, or the way the wind moves the bare branches of the single tree in the courtyard.

The pregnant woman grips the wire.

The child laughed for the guard.

That night, in the barracks, she adds another knot to the rope. Forty-five now. She does not yet know what the rope is counting toward. She only knows that it must continue.

At night, after the lights go out, some of the women whisper.

An older woman, a prisoner from the north, shows her how to tie a different kind of knot.

Seven crossings.

The pregnant woman practices with a thread pulled from her own sleeve. The older woman's lips move in the darkness, whispering something the pregnant woman cannot hear.

The pregnant woman says nothing. Her fingers learn the pattern.

Each knot.

The rope grows longer. She hides it in the seam of her mattress, stitched carefully so it will not be found during the weekly shakedowns.

The guards enter the barracks at dawn without warning.

Shmon.

Inspection.

Mattresses are pulled from the bunks. Bedding thrown to the floor. The women stand against the wall, silent, while the guards search.

One guard finds the rope.

He pulls it from the torn seam of the mattress, holds it up to the light. The knots are small and even. Dozens of them.

He laughs.

"Superstition."

He walks to the stove in the center of the barracks. Opens the iron door. Throws the rope inside. Pushes it deeper into the stove with the poker.

The pregnant woman does not react. She stands with her hands at her sides, her face empty.

But she watches the rope burn.

The knots blacken and curl. The thread becomes ash.

The guard closes the stove door and moves on to the next bunk.

That night, the pregnant woman lies on the bare mattress and stares at the ceiling. The rope is gone. The count is gone.

But the child is still inside her.

The memory must move somewhere else.

Days later, a woman with a sewing needle and soot ink works by the light of the single bulb in the washroom.

The pregnant woman holds out her left wrist.

"Just the initials," she says. "And one knot."

The woman with the needle nods. She has done this before. Her own hands are marked by her own grief.

She dips the needle in the ink—soot mixed with urine, the old prison way. She begins.

The child's initials first. Two letters. Small, neat, on the inside of the wrist where the skin is thin.

Then, below the initials, a single cross knot. Seven tiny lines intersecting. The same pattern the older woman taught her in the dark.

The needle punctures slowly. The pregnant woman does not make a sound.

Blood beads along the lines. The woman with the needle wipes it away with a rag, continues.

When it is finished, the pregnant woman looks at her wrist.

The knot sits beneath the initials.

The child is two years old.

Two years. That is the rule. Children stay two years, then they leave.

Seven hundred and thirty days.

The truck arrives in the morning. Green canvas sides, engine running, exhaust rising in the cold air.

The mothers are told to stand behind the wire fence. Do not shout. Do not run. Do not interfere.

The children are led out of the nursery building one by one. Small coats, knitted hats, hands held by guards.

The mother stands at the fence with the others. Her daughter walks toward the truck. She does not cry. She has been prepared for this by the guards. She has been told she is going on a trip.

The mother grips the wire. Her knuckles are white.

The child reaches the truck. A guard lifts her up into the back. Other children are already inside, sitting on benches. The child sits down. She looks out at the women standing behind the wire.

She does not recognize her mother.

The canvas flap drops.

The engine shifts.

The gate opens.

The child passes through.

The gate closes.

The mother stands at the fence long after the other women have gone back to the barracks. She touches the tattoo on her wrist. The ink has faded slightly but the knot is still visible.

The child belonged to her for seven hundred and thirty days.

Years later, the woman stands outside the colony.

She is older now. Released. Free, though the word feels wrong. She wears civilian clothes—a donated coat, shoes that do not fit well. Her hair is grey.

The colony looks smaller than she remembers. The gate is still there. The wire fence. The low buildings with barred windows.

The woman does not go inside.

She stands at the gate and looks through.

The nursery courtyard is empty. No children. No guards. Just dirt and the single tree, older now, its branches bare.

She touches the tattoo on her wrist.

The ink is faded. The knot is still there.

The knot remains.