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Like Honey

By Abigail Jones

On a typical day, the crunching sound of leaves would have annoyed Farko. But, on a typical day, Farko would be passing Presveta Bogorodica at 90 km/hr, half way to Bitola with a car full of passengers. Yesterday was a typical day — until the police intercepted Farko’s typical route and impounded his car for life.

Farko stood on his back stoop smoking a cigarette against the normal morning backdrop of rattling trucks and humming trackers. He was halfway looking for the red dog that had been making daily appearances in the apple orchard behind his house. She was shy, but he was patient and he wanted to earn her trust.

Maybe if his route had been less typical, Farko thought, he would still have a car. He watched the smoke and condensation swirl under his nose. Of course, if there were more than one way from Resen to Bitola, maybe his route would have been less typical. At any rate, today he didn’t mind the sound of dead leaves under his boots.

Farko looked through the window at the piece of bread his wife had left him for breakfast. Under the bread, he could see a capital H and half of a lowercase a. He knew the plate. It said “Hawaii” with a pineapple exclamation mark. It was a souvenir — someone else’s. He and his wife had wanted to go to Hawaii since they saw Girls! Girls! Girls! at American movie night in Skopje fifteen years ago. The plate was as far as they had gotten. They had not used it in years.

Farko wondered if the red dog had eaten today. Maybe she was scavenging now. For the first time in a week, she was not waiting near the fence when he stepped out for his morning smoke. He wished she were there and he took an extra long drag of his cigarette.

His wife had been washing dishes when he came home last night.

“Hello,” he had said.

She pulled the drain and they waited while the sink emptied. Her back looked rounder than he remembered. They waited. At the last gurgle, she turned around and he saw that her eyes were pink around the edges. Farko wanted to speak, but his words got stuck somewhere just above his chest. His wife made a valiant effort to swallow her words. The few that escaped came out in a whisper.

“We should have bought honey this weekend,” she managed. The wrinkles on her forehead overcame her less-than-valiant attempt at a smile and she retired to the bedroom, leaving Farko standing in the sweet stickiness of the word “honey.”

After two quick puffs, Farko flicked his cigarette into a puddle. His brother had a goat. Cheese was not honey, but it had a similar air of decadence. And, his brother owed him a favor.

Farko stepped inside the house, aware of the kitten crotched behind the door, waiting to pounce on his loose shoelaces. He took care to move his boots gingerly but purposefully as he looked for something to wrap around the bread. He settled for putting it in his pocket and left the house without tying his shoes.

Farko had never noticed the honeycomb pattern of the pavement outside his brother’s house. He chuckled at the irony. The cheese felt heavy in his chest pocket and smelled divinely sour. He gave it a pat. It was nearest to his heart here, he thought. It was also nearest to his nose.

Farko walked home against traffic. On a typical day, the harsh fumes and unmuffled engines would have made him want to stick his fingers in his ears and hold a scarf over his grimace. But today, he was wound up in the winter sun and the enchanting smell of fresh cheese. It was the perfect moment to expect something unexpected, like the red dog appearing in his path just ahead.

He stopped and they stared. Farko had never seen the red dog outside the orchard. Her coat looked different against the asphalt. It was less natural, but more majestic. They stared. It was as if the aroma of the cheese had coalesced into her form.

The cheese.

Farko wondered if she could have possibly smelled the cheese. In that moment, it seemed realistic that its fragrance could have preceded him. He wondered if the red dog had ever smelled cheese before. He wondered if she had ever tasted cheese. He smiled at the thought of her smacking as it stuck to the roof of her mouth. He thought of how her tail would twitch as she delighted in the new flavor and how she would lick her lips and look at him with her sweet eyes, begging for more.

Sweet. Like honey.

He thought about honey. He thought about his wife. He thought about her sad eyes and how the cheese was for —

Farko put his hand around the bread in his pocket. It felt dry. It was not what he would give someone whose trust he wanted to earn. (He wanted desperately to win her trust.) If the red dog knew he had cheese and he gave her bread, she might not forgive him. (She might never forgive him.) The red dog tilted her head and let out a whimper.

“I only have bread,” Farko shouted. He was surprised that his words came out with such force and he wished he had kept them bottled up inside. The red dog responded with a clipped, high-pitched bark and a playful whine. Farko lowered his head and placed the bread on the ground. “I only have bread,” he said again, more softly this time, to convince the red dog — and himself — that it was true.

Farko did not want to watch the red dog eat bread. He crossed the street with his hands in his pockets, the leftover crumbs digging into his knuckles. He did not look both ways before crossing and deliberately slowed his gait when he heard a semi barreling towards his back. He only challenged thirty tons of metal on occasion, and today was as good as any.

The truck hissed by while Farko had one foot on the street and one foot on the curb. Close calls were bigger victories. He felt a release. He had a change of perspective. He was alive.

Farko turned to watch the red dog eat the bread. The bread was where he left it. The red dog was not. He did not look both ways when he ran to the red heap in the road. He reached for his heart, but he only felt the cheese.

Farko claimed a corner of the apple orchard for the red dog. She looked at home in the brown leaves. He was only religious on occasion, and this moment was as good as any. He planned to cross himself three times, but he stopped the second time through, somewhere between the “holy” and the “spirit.” The motion of his hand wafted the odor of the cheese in the direction of his nose and he couldn’t bear the stench any longer. He took the cheese from his pocket and felt its weight in his hand. He placed it under the red dog’s paw and stared at her until he could no longer tell the difference between her fur and the leaves. He cried.

For the first time, Farko saw his house from the other side of the fence. He looked at the used tires he had bought for his car. He looked at the wheelbarrow he had built last fall. He looked at the flat tires on the bicycle he had bought for his son before he left the country and swore he would never return. On a typical day, the sight would have made his blood turn blue. Today, it looked peaceful.

He could tell from the absence of light that his wife was not home. It crossed his mind that she had left the house extra neat this morning and had not told him where she was going. That seemed peaceful, too.

Farko wished he had a cigarette. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and then searched for a way through the fence. He listened to the leaves crunching under his boots. A bicycle and a wheelbarrow, he thought. His cousin had a bicycle shop. A bicycle wasn’t a car, but with new tires and a wheelbarrow, it was close. And, his cousin owed him a favor.

The kitten attacked the newspaper as Farko turned the pages. He remembered reading about a new law requiring all bicycles to have baskets. The kitten dragged the paper out of the room before he found the article and Farko used the opportunity to tie his shoes in peace. He felt anxious to visit his cousin before he closed shop for the evening. Maybe he would look for the article later, but probably he would take his chances. A basket would undermine his professionalism he thought.

The hours of the day when the winter sun felt warm had passed. Farko approached the place where the red dog had died. He thought of her lying in the orchard with the cheese under her paw, and he felt cold. The asphalt was still wet where she had lain and he imagined left-behind bits of her red coat merging with the grit of the road as each truck passed. He stopped and stared. The late-afternoon sun gave the spot an amber hue…just like honey.