Sour Cabbage Memories by Christy Hartman
The sulphur reek of road-kill skunk stirs my sleeping daughter. In the rear-view mirror, I watch Lily’s nose scrunch, lips puckering against the smell. I sing her favourite lullaby as the sun dips below the canola fields.
Nani, nani, your mother’s little baby
Tiny baby of thy mother
I wish you to be strong.
My eyes water from the familiar acrid smell and the fleeting glimpse of my grandmother in the furrow of Lily’s brow. I try to imagine Baba as a little girl in Romania, a world away from the Saskatchewan farm where she ended up. I wanted to hear stories of this mysterious place, but she’d wave me away saying she was too old to remember.
Kelly, the pack leader of my feral cousins, once sent me to ask Baba to play with them when no one wanted to be the Wicked Witch of the West. Baba clicked her tongue and said she had no time for foolishness. But later she brought them a picnic lunch to eat in the grove behind the old barn once they reached Oz.
I stayed at the farmhouse with her. The cousins ran too fast, whooping and hollering in the trees like chimpanzees. I spent my time with Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls in a patch of yellow and orange daffodils under the giant oak tree, or shucking peas with Baba on the porch. In a brave moment, I asked her why she never helped our parents and Grandpapa in the fields. Each summer evening they’d pick peas, peppers, and cabbages until the Qu’Appelle Valley hills blocked the sun.
Baba tugged one of my braids. “I’ve picked five lifetimes’ worth of cabbage, Mititica. It’s someone else’s turn.” She expertly inserted her nail into a pod, spilling five peas into the Pyrex bowl between us. When the bowl was full she made us cucumber sandwiches, singing the Romanian lullabies of her lost childhood while buttering the bread.
Nani, nani, your mother’s little baby
Cute and strong
Proud as a young oak
She would curl gnarled fingers around my hands as we formed balls of ground pork, onion, and rice. We wrapped them in the sour cabbage leaves fermented in Baba’s cold room, the pungent smell stinging my eyes. She taught me to arrange the sarmale in perfect rows. Bravo, Ingeras! Well done, little angel.
Lily’s too young to form the cabbage rolls with me, but she watches with my grandmother’s eyes, and I tell her stories of my childhood.
Today, Lily picked cemetery dandelions while I scrubbed the summer dust from Baba’s headstone. I wish she could’ve met her golden-haired great-granddaughter.
Lily wakes again, jostled by the valley’s rough country roads. The lines blur as I sing.
Nani, nani, your mother’s little baby
Baby of thy mother, tiny baby
Sleep my baby, peacefully sleep.
Author's Note:
My self-care practice has changed a lot since entering menopause. I allow myself space to be alone and recharge by doing the things that bring me joy. This includes solo camping where I indulge in long naps, watercolour painting, and journaling. This new era of self-care means letting go of the guilt around taking time for my passions and learning to say no to toxic people and things.
Christy Hartman pens short fiction from her home on Vancouver Island, Canada. She writes about the morsels of magic in life’s quiet moments. Christy has been shortlisted for Bath and Bridport Flash Fiction prizes and is a two-time New York City Midnight winner. She has been published by Sunlight Press, The Good Life Review, Sky Island Journal, and others.
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