CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Queen of Lake Ilmen
Ravens and Brothers
Tatiana rowed the boat across the lake. She wasn’t talking much to either Saika or Marina, concentrating on the rowing, listening to them chatting.
It was overcast. Yesterday’s heavy rain did not clear the sky, the clouds hung close over the lake as if threatening rain again at any capricious minute. It was seasonably cool, perhaps 25°C. The girls wore long-sleeved shirts and long trousers to protect their arms and legs from burning nettles and biting mosquitoes. Saika had wanted to wear a dress, but one word of advice from Tatiana and she was changing into trousers and thanking her. Saika didn’t want to rub stinky and stinging alcohol all over her body, still covered with swollen red wounds from the leech attack the other day, but again, Tatiana convinced her that the bug bites would be worse than the smell and almost as bad as the leech bites. Saika listened and was grateful. In the boat under Tatiana’s legs were two wicker baskets, one for the blueberries, one for the mushrooms. She brought a small paring knife, so as not to frighten the mushrooms with a big blade.
Her grandfather—a big believer in the just in case—always counseled her to bring a watch and a compass into the woods. The compass hung around her neck, but truthfully, Tatiana had doubts about it: A fledgling scientist in a Jules Verne mode, she had been experimenting with it a little. The watch, borrowed from Dasha, Tatiana was convinced was running two minutes slow—an hour. Tatiana herself did not own a watch, because she did not keep time.
Perspiring slightly, Tatiana was lost in thought and only belatedly saw a black fast-moving cloud over her head; she looked up and instinctively raised her oar in defense. The cloud was black crows, in a formation of hundreds, swooping too close to the girls’ heads. The birds screeched, flapped in a frenzy and flew away, leaving Tatiana puzzled and troubled. She was already breathing hard from the rowing.
“Hmm,” she said through her panting. “What do you think of that?”
“Is that a superstition, Tanechka?” Saika said with a wide smile. “The birds?”
“Tania is right, I’ve never seen so many either. And so close,” Marina said.
With a laugh, Saika said, “Oh, come on, you sillies. They’re just birds. If they were pigeons or seagulls you wouldn’t be sitting motionless in the middle of a lake, would you?”
“But they weren’t pigeons,” Marina said, with a peculiar glance toward Saika.
“And seagulls over an inland lake might as well be polar bears in Africa.” Tatiana thoughtfully lowered her oars into the water.
“Tania, are you too tired to row the rest of the way?” Saika asked. “Want me to row? I’ll be glad to.”
“What did I tell you, Saika? Tania doesn’t let anyone touch the oars,” said Marina, grinning, when Tatiana shook her head. “That’s just complete defeat, isn’t it, Tania?”
“Complete,” agreed Tatiana. “Good thing Pasha’s not here.” She was still looking up at the sky where the birds had flown. She resumed rowing and Saika resumed her conversation with Marina. They were discussing a place Saika had lived in.
“You think I wanted to leave Oral?” Saika was saying to Marina. “I didn’t. Kazakhstan was very good to us. But we were forced to leave.” Saika spat right into the boat. Her demeanor suddenly changed from affable to angry. “It was those bastards. Late one night, you see, they tried to kill my father.”
Tatiana strained to listen.
“Who? Why did they do that?” Marina asked.
“I don’t know. I was young. Maybe ten. My brother told me Papa was doing his job too well. He was doing what he was paid to do, working very hard, and the sloths, the slackers, the swine he was watching didn’t like it. So they dragged him from his bed in the middle of the night and nearly beat him to death. They had wooden boards and spades and coal in their grimy thieving hands.”
“Oh, that’s terrible! So what happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? They didn’t kill him, did they?” Saika was agitated. “They didn’t kill him, but they opened up his head and broke three of his teeth. They broke his ribs on both sides and crushed his kneecap. They even cracked his breastbone, can you believe it? Do you know how hard you have to hit someone to crack their breastbone? I think it’s the strongest bone in the body, isn’t it, Tanechka?”
“I don’t know,” Tatiana said. “One of them.”
“Why did they stop? Did they think he was dead?” Marina asked.
“No! My father wasn’t lying down, he wasn’t dead. He was an ox and he fought like an ox.” Saika took a stormy breath while remembering. “Then my brother rushed out with a lead pipe and helped him.”
Tatiana stopped rowing. She had been unable to concentrate on the rowing and Saika’s story.
“Stefan and I were yelling for him not to get hurt but he didn’t listen. He wielded that lead pipe as if he meant to kill them all.”
“Who wielded the lead pipe?” Tatiana asked, confused.
“I told you! My brother,” exclaimed Saika. “Sabir, we were yelling to him,” she continued, her eyes glazed as if entranced. “Sabir, get out of the mêlée, save yourself, Sabir! Papa can take care of himself.”
“Who was yelling?” Tatiana said, uncomprehending.
“Me and Stefan! Are you paying attention?” Saika paused.
And then—she blinked, and glanced at Tatiana.
They did not speak. For several minutes there was silence.
“Yes. So? There was another brother,” Saika finally said. “He’s dead now.”
Tatiana’s only response was starting to row again, while Marina, failing to catch Tatiana’s uncatchable eye, haltingly continued the conversation with Saika.
A weakened Tatiana, after sucking in her breath, turned around to see how far it was to the shore. Her arms were tired, and there was no sail and no wind, just Tatiana and her small wooden oars, doing the best she could, rowing as fast as she was able. So how come you didn’t tell us you had another brother, Saika?
Why was that so frightening to think about?
They arrived on the eastern forest shore of Lake Ilmen at eleven. The girls had promised Aunt Rita that they would pick mushrooms and berries until four at the latest, and then start for home to be back by six. That gave them about five hours in the woods. Tatiana had on the only watch, and Marina asked for it to see if she could coordinate the time with the position of the peeking sun. Tatiana kept teaching her how to do it, but Marina was a slow learner. Saika had brought a flask of water and some bread and eggs. Was anyone hungry, she asked as they got out of the boat. Eager to get started, the girls wolfed down the food and then Marina and Saika helped Tatiana pull the boat halfway onto the sandy bank and Tatiana tied it with rope to a fallen tree trunk. She wore Uncle Boris’s high galoshes over her shoes. After wading in the water and pulling the boat onto the shore, she took off the galoshes and laid them back in the boat. Looking up at the sky, she wondered if it was going to rain.
“So what if it does?” said Saika.
“I don’t want the boat to get filled with water,” replied Tatiana, frowning, not remembering if she wondered about the rain out loud. “It’ll be hard to row back. I suppose we can always ladle it out with this bucket.”
“Good thinking, Tanechka,” said Saika. “You’re always thinking. But it won’t rain. Should we take the extra rain bucket in case we find lots of mushrooms?”
“I think we shouldn’t pick more than we can carry,” said Tatiana. “One bucket of mushrooms, one of blueberries will be plenty.”
“Oh, you’re right, of course,” said Saika merrily. “Whatever you say, Tania. You lead. Which way?”
The swampy woods began right at the lake. There was a short sandy bank full of conifer needles, some sap, some fallen branches, pebbles, larger rocks, desiccated fish—and the forest. Tatiana grabbed a few large handfuls of pebbles and put them into her pants pockets.
It was peaceful in the forest, it was restful and pleasant.
Saika asked for Tatiana’s compass. What do you need that for, Tatiana wanted to know, but the question might have involved eye contact. After the story on the boat, Tatiana didn’t want to be making any eye contact with Saika. She decided to just give it to the girl, careful not to touch any part of Saika’s hand as she handed the compass over.
“Thank you, Tanechka.” Saika smiled. “I’ll give it right back. I love compasses. Marina, has Tania always been so organized? She’s brought everything.”
“Yes, Tania always prepares for contingencies. She is so much like Deda.”
Tatiana liked that. She strived to be like Deda most of all.
“I wish I were like that,” said Saika. “It’s such a good way to be. Don’t you think, Marina? Better than me. I never know where I put anything. I’m never prepared for a single thing. Everything I do, I do on the spur of the moment. Tania, look, I found a mushroom, and I don’t even have a knife. I’m just plain silly. Can you tell I’ve never done this before? Teach me, Tania. Like, what are you doing? Why are you throwing little pebbles down on the ground?”
“So we know which way we came,” replied Tatiana.
“But we have a compass.”
“It’s always good to throw down the stones. They never make a mistake.”
“Oh, so true.” Saika giggled. “You must have done this many times. Marina, isn’t it good to have a guide?”
“I’m hardly a guide,” Tatiana muttered.
“Yes,” said Marina. “She is good, but it’s also just common sense, a lot of what Tania knows.”
“So true,” agreed Saika heartily. “Common sense is key. Tania seems to have a surplus. I’m sorry I’m so silly and forgot to bring my own, but, Tanechka, may I borrow your knife to cut this podberyozovik mushroom?”
“Of course,” Tatiana said, staring at Saika with incredulity. A small twinge of remorse prickled her chest, but then she blinked again, a small styptic blink, and saw the scars and the lies, and the steady hands, and the faintly foul odor, and the unmentioned brother, and the twinge was gone.
They looked and peeked and picked and wandered. The mushroom bucket was getting filled up, but as they were walking in the dense forest, Tatiana realized that it was not getting filled up by her. She was better at the blueberries, but she hadn’t found a single mushroom. And what was worse, she wasn’t even wondering why she hadn’t found one. She’d been mindlessly picking the blueberries, but for mushrooms you needed steady focus and her mind wasn’t steady. It wasn’t seeing the mushrooms. She couldn’t stop thinking about Saika and the words that came out of her mouth, all sounding like lies or fraud, Tatiana didn’t know which. Did Saika herself know? Lived in one place, Tatiana muttered to herself, or five dozen places? Was she a shepherd’s daughter, a farmer’s daughter, a field hand’s daughter, or an engineer’s daughter? Or just a weeder’s daughter? Saika once told Tatiana she rode horses in Kazakhstan to herd the sheep, yet when Marina talked about a horse chomping at the bit, Saika asked what a bit was. Despite having lived on farms all her life, when she came to Berta’s house, she didn’t know how to shear a sheep or milk a cow. She was a peasant who should barely be able to read, yet she knew everything. She had been so belligerent lately, yet this fine morning was nicer than ice cream. What was Tatiana supposed to believe?
Why had she never mentioned Sabir, her other brother? Why were there no pictures of him in their house, no words about him on her family’s lips? And here was the thing—the effort Tatiana was expending on not thinking about why the brother was dead and why the family never mentioned him made it impossible for her to also concentrate on hidden fungus. Don’t raise your eyes, Tatiana told herself. Bend to the leaves, look for mushrooms, find them and avoid at all costs the dark shape behind you. Soon she was successful and didn’t notice Saika in her peripheral vision anymore.
Tatiana’s thoughts must have spilled out of the pores in her body, because Saika stayed meters behind. Marina and Saika chatted quietly. It was better this way, Tatiana thought, bending to pick off the blueberries. But where were those mushrooms?
In the thick deciduous coniferous forest, Tatiana was crouched next to what she thought were good mushrooms. She was close to the ground, being small, but still she needed to use her magnifying glass, for the difference between a white mushroom and a white mushroom was in the stem only. They both grew under oaks, they were both squat, they were both grey white—only one was a delicacy and one was deadly poison. She was crouching, trying to ascertain whether it was one or the other—since there was no trial by error, she thought with amusement—and as the magnifying glass was pressed against the mushroom with her nose on the other side, she called out, “Marina, what do you think, is this one good?”
The forest was quiet. It occurred to Tatiana just then that it had been quiet for some time. She was concentrating too hard on finding mushrooms and hadn’t noticed.
“Marina?”
She called a third time. And then she looked up.
“Marina!” she called, raising her voice another octave.
There was no answer.
Now Tatiana stood up. Her legs were aching from crouching so long. Everything was quiet and still. She yelled again, good and loud this time.
Her high voice carried through the birches and above the underbrush. It echoed off rock somewhere, off the water maybe, and returned to her, fainter and gone, like a stone skipping on the water, hard, then softer, softer, and sinking.
Yes, there was no answer. But there was something more than that.
Tatiana did not feel their presence nearby. She did not feel another soul even out of earshot, she did not feel Marina bending over her own mushrooms, not responding. She felt Marina not near. But how not near? Could Tatiana have walked so far that she left the girls behind? She spun around once, twice. Which way did she come from?
She had been hearing their voices as they walked, softly laughing, softly talking, softly whispering, softer, muter, mute.
Gone.
“Marina!”
Where were the pebbles she threw down on their trail from the boat? Why couldn’t she find them? How long had she been this absorbed? That was the thing with absorption—it was by definition consuming. Tatiana could not tell how long it had been since she last heard the girls’ voices, and when she looked at her wrist, she remembered with a quiver of frustration that she had lent her watch to Marina when they were still in the boat.
And now she remembered giving her compass to Saika, who had asked and been freely given.
No watch, no compass, and the pebbles were gone. Tatiana looked up at the sky. It was cast with cover. The sun was gone, too.
At a complete loss as to what to do next, she did the only thing she could to prove to herself she was in control. She crouched back down and pressed the magnifying loop to the mushroom to figure out once and for all if it was the Beluga caviar or the black adder of the fungal forest.
She concluded it was the former.
She went to cut it and…“Tanechka, please may I borrow your knife so I can cut this podberyozovik mushroom?”
Tatiana had lent Saika her knife, and hadn’t asked for it back, and was not given it back.
“Marina,” Tatiana called, feebly this time, and then tore the white mushroom from the ground. She tossed it on top of the blueberries in the bucket, and took a deep unrelaxed breath. Saika had the mushroom bucket.
What now?
She decided to stay put until Marina and Saika came looking for her. Otherwise, they’d be looking for her, she’d be looking for them, and they would all get lost.
So she stayed in the small clearing. She found three more mushrooms. Minutes went by? She couldn’t tell. She counted once—to sixty, but it was interminable, so she stopped.
“Marina!” Tatiana kept shouting. “Marina!”
Sabir
Marina and Saika were sitting on the ground, hidden by bushes, behind two boulders. Marina said nothing at first, still heavily panting. She had gotten very out of breath as they ran. A fully relaxed Saika giggled. “Don’t you just wish you could be two places at once?”
Marina grumbled something in return, something like, “Yes, if one of those places was dry.” The ground was waterlogged after continual rain. While walking you couldn’t tell you were in a swamp, but planting down your behind notified you with all deliberate speed. Your trousers, and then your underwear were soon damp like the raw cold earth. This did not make Marina relaxed or giggly.
“Saika, I’m uncomfortable.”
“So crouch. Just make sure you stay hidden. Crouching will make your legs fall asleep, though. I hate that feeling.”
“I hate the feeling of being wet,” Marina said, pulling up to crouching.
“I’m not uncomfortable. I’ve got plastic in my trousers. Just in case.”
Marina glanced sideways at Saika, and something bitter rose up in her throat. “You put plastic in your trousers?”
“Well, doesn’t our Tanechka say prepare for every contingency?”
Marina winced from irritation. She wasn’t brave enough to say: you knew we might get wet, why didn’t you tell me to put plastic in my seat? She said nothing, wondering how long it would take for Tatiana to come looking for them. They had run fairly fast. Marina didn’t know how far they had got from her cousin, but she did know that once Tatiana was absorbed in something, she could remain in a trance indefinitely.
“So how long are we planning to sit here?”
“Till she comes looking for us.”
“That could be forever!” Marina was petulant. “Come on, how long? Let’s just do it for five more minutes.”
Saika didn’t reply.
Time crawled by.
Then Saika spoke. “Did you see her on the boat? How she couldn’t stop herself from judging me when I was telling the story about my father?”
Marina shrugged. “I don’t think she was judging. I think she was just listening.”
“I tell you, Marinka,” said Saika, “there is a world out there that Tania will never understand. She is very narrow-minded and has such a small view of the universe.”
Marina nodded with a sigh. Where was her narrow-minded, judging cousin?
“She thinks that just because she can’t see herself doing something, that it’s wrong for someone else to do it. Well, I hate to be judged. Simply hate it!” Saika’s voice rose. “She doesn’t do a whole mess of things that the rest of the world does, what does that prove?”
They were supposed to be quietly hiding. Marina held her breath. Then: “I don’t judge you, Saika,” she said.
“Oh, I know,” Saika said dismissively and quieter.
Marina thought Saika did not care a whit for her approval. Marina could have cursed her, and Saika wouldn’t have cared.
Carefully Marina said, “I think Tania was surprised you had another brother. You never mentioned him. That’s why she got quiet.”
“He’s dead. We don’t talk about the dead. They’re gone, as if they never existed. What’s to keep going over?” Saika said, her eyes blinking coldly into the distance.
She said it so casually. Her brother was dead. “Well, I know,” Marina said slowly. Could Tania be so cavalier about her brother? “But the dead leave something of themselves behind, no? A trace? The people who loved them talk about them, remember them, tell stories about them. Their photographs are on the walls. They live on.”
Dismissively, Saika waved her off. “Maybe in your world. But…my parents weren’t happy with Sabir. He disappointed them. They weren’t going to be keeping his pictures on walls.”
“What did he do?”
“You really want to know?”
And suddenly Marina said, “You know, I really don’t.”
“It’s all right, Marina. No secrets between us.” Saika paused. “What can I tell you? I didn’t think things through. My brother and I played some childhood games that got a little out of hand.”
Her breath stopping in her chest, Marina wanted to stop this conversation, hiding out behind boulders. Shuddering, she tried to shut her mind to the imagining. Had Tatiana already intuited as much? Is that why she—Oh my God. “Please,” Marina said, “don’t tell me anymore. We should go.”
“Sit down. We’ll wait a little longer for her. Where was I? Oh, yes. I know Tania, who thinks she knows everything, thinks my father had dealt with me too harshly. But what do you think? Harshly, or not harshly enough?”
“I don’t know,” Marina said faintly. “How did he find out?”
“It was Stefan who found out, seeing us one day, as he said, up to no damn good. He told us to run. He said Papa would kill us if he found out. So we ran.”
Marina wasn’t looking at her. “Don’t tell me anymore, Saika,” she said. “I mean, really. I don’t want to hear another word.” She stood up.
“Marina, sit down!”
Frowning, troubled, Marina crouched down.
Saika continued. “I guess after we ran away, Papa forced Stefan to tell him where we were headed. And then he went after us. After catching us near the Iranian border in the hut of a Tadjik man who let us stay with him, he took Sabir and me into the mountains.”
Cursing herself, wavering on her haunches, Marina said, “Saika, please…”
With her eyes not even lowered, Saika continued. “He took us into the mountains, took off his rifle, put us up against the rocks and asked us to tell him whose idea it was. We weren’t sure what he was talking about. To run away? Or…? I said, it was Sabir’s. Sabir was Papa’s favorite, and I didn’t think Papa would hurt him. I thought he would just beat Sabir, who was a boy and used to beatings. So I stepped up. I said, ‘It was Sabir’s idea, Papa.’ My brother raised his eyes to me and said, Oh, Saika. And Papa raised the rifle and shot him.”
Marina choked on her gasping.
“After he shot him,” Saika went on tonelessly, “he took off his horse whip, and beat me, it’s true, until I was half dead, and then slung me over his mule and brought me home. We left for Saki two months later when my back healed.”
Saika fell quiet. Marina was mute.
“So what do you think? Too harshly or not? Just punishment or not? Appropriate to the crime committed? Was there virtue in the gravity of the retribution?” She smirked.
Marina half whispered, half cried, “I don’t know what you’re telling me, Saika! Why are you telling me these things? No wonder Tania…”
“Tania,” said Saika, “is a witch. Personally,” she added with a shrug, “I think my father was too harsh. I didn’t see the big deal myself, still don’t. Do you know what he said to me before he flogged me? Since you don’t seem to be sorry on your own, I will make you sorry.”
Oh. Marina emitted an inaudible gasp. What would Tatiana make of this—that despite the one and all-good universe in which the Kantorovs lived, the father still thought there were some things that required absolute justice. Yet Saika did not think so, and didn’t seem to understand—or care—about one crucial thing: That there was no forgiveness for the unrepentant.
Marina put her hands over her face. “What time is it?”
“Two fifteen.”
“Come on!” Marina exclaimed. “Two fifteen! Give me that watch!”
Saika handed it over. 2:15, the watch said.
Marina shook her head in disbelief. “We have to go back, Saika. She was supposed to find us right away. Something obviously went wrong.”
“We’re not going back. If we go back, we lose.”
“Well, this is supposed to be a joke. What’s fun about this?”
“Be a trooper. It’s still fun. And she’ll find us. You’re the one who told me,” said Saika, “that she is like a bloodhound.”
“I didn’t say bloodhound. I said hound. And even the hound first has to know it needs to look for something.” Marina fell silent. “Why haven’t we heard her calling?”
“How should I know?”
“Were the pebbles easy to find?”
“I hope so,” said Saika noncommittally.
Another half-hour crept by.
The sky was overcast and had acquired a decidedly gray shade. Not just gray, Marina thought, but slate.
The white nights didn’t quite reach Lake Ilmen—one too many degrees south from the Arctic circle. Dark did come here.
Hadn’t Saika said they’d hide only a few minutes? They were going to play a prank on Tatiana because she always played pranks on other people. “It will be so funny.” Marina had thought it would be funny, too. Tania yelling, yelling for them, and then they’d jump out from the bushes to scare her; oh, to see Tatiana’s face. Everything had seemed so funny.
Except they had been crouching for nearly two hours! To Marina it suddenly began to seem that the joke was no longer on Tatiana. What had tempted her to agree to such stupidity? Marina was damp, and Tatiana wasn’t coming. She climbed out from their covering and brushed the mud off her trousers.
Saika looked up. “What are you doing?”
“She’s obviously not coming. I’m going to go find her.”
In the same calm voice, Saika said, “No, you’re not. Sit down.”
“Forget it, Saika. It’s not funny anymore.”
“It’ll be funny when she comes.”
“She is not coming! Maybe she went another way, maybe we didn’t hear her, but it’s pretty clear, after two hours, that she’s not coming.”
“She’ll be here any minute.”
“Well, then, you sit and wait.”
Saika stood up. “I said sit down, Marina.”
Perplexed, Marina stared at Saika, who stood stiffly, the twinkle to her eye gone. Maybe it was too gray in the forest to see twinkles of any kind. Marina couldn’t tell if there was anything pleasant in her own face; she didn’t think so. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Why are you getting angry?”
“I’m not angry. Who’s angry? I’m not raising my voice. I just want you to sit down, that’s all.”
“She’s not coming!”
“Marina!”
“Saika!” Marina was not afraid.
Saika stepped forward and pushed Marina down on the ground. Marina raised her eyes to a hovering Saika.
And then Marina was afraid. “What’s wrong with you?” she said in a thin voice. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I don’t like to be thwarted,” said Saika. “We’re playing. You said you were going to do it, and I don’t like my friends to go back on their word.”
“My word?” Marina said slowly, getting up off the ground. “What about your word? All the words out of your mouth are lies. I didn’t care before because I thought we were friends, but don’t stand in front of me pretending there’s something about words that has meaning for you.”
“Talk all you want, you’re not going.”
“Oh, yes, I am. What are you going to do, push me again?”
Saika didn’t just push her. She shoved her on the ground, and Marina staggered and fell back, crying out from landing on a stick. She tried to get up but Saika wouldn’t let her. She forced Marina to remain down. “Loyalty in my friends is very important to me,” Saika said, bent over Marina. “You are going to be loyal to me.”
“Loyalty is important to you, is it?” Marina said, ripping away, reeling up. “Tell that one to your brother, will you? You sold him out in half a breath when you thought it would save your sorry skin!”
Saika went for Marina who ducked. Saika’s fist glanced her temple; staggering, she hit Saika in the stomach. They fought, getting covered with leaves, with mud. They scratched each other’s faces, they pulled each other’s hair. They screamed.
When they separated, Marina was crying and panting. “I deserve this,” she said with gritted teeth. What had Blanca said to her? You are susceptible, because you can be swayed. Now she knew the old woman had not been talking to Tatiana. Marina could hear Tatiana’s mild but iron voice in her head. Marinka, couldn’t you have given at least a whimper before you handed yourself over? Did you have to be such a willing accomplice in your own corruption? “I so f*cking deserve this.”
But before Marina could turn and run, Saika, also panting, reached down into her boot and pulled out Tatiana’s knife. She said, “You’re going to do as I say, and you will be quiet.”
Marina stared in stupefaction at the knife. The sprinting short distance between the feelings of fuzzy friendly affection and naked hostility had been crossed so rapidly that Marina felt as if she had not taken the necessary long walk for such a quantum leap of heart regarding her friend, her intimate. She blinked in disbelief, but the knife blade remained in front of her, glinting, menacing, a meter away, held with intent. Marina simply could not comprehend the eyes filled with black malice that regarded her—it was as if Saika had been snatched and replaced.
She said faintly, “Saika, I don’t want to play anymore.”
“Marina, you think you decide when the game is over? That’s like the mouse saying that’s it to the cat.”
“But I’m not the mouse…”
“No?”
“No.” Marina frowned in her shaking confusion. “I thought Tania was the mouse.”
“You know nothing.” Saika shook her head. “Tania only pretends she is the mouse. But she is…forget it. I’m not going to explain these things to you. You’re too small to understand.”
Marina started to shake. “But she is not coming.”
“No?” Saika smiled. “Perhaps you’re right. And you know, it is getting late. It’s three, and we told your mother we’d be heading back at four. We’re still kilometers from the shore. I’ve got the compass. It’s cloudy. It’ll take us a little while, but you’re so right. We really should head back.”
“Head back where?” Marina whispered.
“Back to the boat, Marina. Where did you think?”
“Without Tania?”
“Well, I don’t see Tania here, do you?”
Saika’s face was shrouded in dusk. Marina could barely make out the shiny eyes. Trying not to get hysterical, Marina gasped, “You want to go back to the boat without Tania?”
“If we call for her, she’ll win. How do we know it’s not her pride that’s keeping her from calling out for us?”
“What pride?” And before Saika could move toward her, Marina opened her mouth and screamed with all her strength: “TANIA!!!!”
Saika’s hand went roughly around Marina’s mouth.
Marina bit Saika’s hand.
“Bitch! What did you do that for?”
Marina pulled away and continued screaming. “Tania! Tania, Tania, Tania!”
Saika slapped her. “Don’t ever do that to me again or I’ll slice your tongue out of your mouth with your Tania’s knife, do you hear? Now come on, are you coming? Because in one second I’m going to go without you.”
There was one thing Saika did not know about Marina, that Marina had no intention of sharing with Saika at this precise moment, and that was: Marina was terrified of the woods. The thought of being in the woods alone at night was more than Marina’s heart could take. She was scared of Saika, but not as much as she was of crushing black terrors. Saika had the compass, the knife, the watch, and the matches. Saika was a paralyzed Marina’s only path out. She had to follow Saika.
Biting her lip to keep herself from screaming for Tatiana again, tears rolling down her face, Marina slowly moved behind Saika as they began to make their way through the forest.
There were no sounds, just the occasional shrill whir of the large-winged cicadas.
From her pockets, Saika pulled out a handful of muddy pebbles and threw them on the ground. “Make my load a little lighter.” She smiled with an easy shrug. “I thought the pebbles would make it too easy for her to find us.”
The Second Largest Lake in Europe
Tatiana worried about them at first. She waited for them, yelled and yelled for them, not moving from the clearing where they left her. Soon the forest had lost the saturation of daylight. It didn’t have that much to begin with, with so much cloud cover. The brush was broken in many places, every spoke out of the wheel of that clearing looked exactly the same, and the pebbles to help her find her way back were gone. She didn’t know which way the three of them had come.
Belatedly realizing they were playing a prank on her, Tatiana finally left the clearing. She walked in one direction, calling for them, then in another. She did not hear them, not an echo, not a stirring of the lower branches. How far could they be? She walked and called for them. Then Tatiana started to worry. What if they were lost? The pebbles were gone for them, too; what if they tried to find their way back to her after they saw the joke had misfired, and couldn’t?
Marina had fears about everything; if she was lost, she’d be scared, especially as evening was falling. But how far could they get from her? Tatiana called for them so loud and so long, she got hoarse and had to stop.
It got darker.
She started to hyperventilate. She had to sit down.
Night fell.
And now Tatiana was on the ground in a fetal position, afraid to move, to open her eyes, to unclench her hands. She heard noises in the forest, she couldn’t see the sky, the stars, nothing. She imagined all manner of life around her, every nocturnal creature sending out signals that there was a member of another phylum among them. She tried to focus her thoughts away from the darkness, away from the forest.
When would Aunt Rita and Uncle Boris notice they weren’t back? Let’s say they weren’t fighting; how much time would have to pass before they became worried?
And what could they do even if they did become worried? It was late now and dark. They’d say, we can’t do anything tonight. We’ll look for them tomorrow morning.
Oh, but to get through this night.
Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains.
But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night.
To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out?
Was it worry over Marina? No…not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika…
Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong…the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning…who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she…
What if…?
What if this was not an accident?
Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming.
Saika took her compass and her knife.
But Marina took her watch.
And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this?
Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow.
Could Marina have betrayed her?
Tatiana failed to imagine the morning, with sunshine perhaps, with flowers. Tomorrow, there would be sun, and she would find the lake. How hard could it be to find a large lake that has swamps around it, that smells so strong of freshwater, a lake 27 miles long and 21 miles wide, the second largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga?
What if they had run, run gleefully through the woods, picking up the pebbles, run back to the boat, and rowed back home? Could the hapless Marina have agreed to lose Tatiana in the Lake Ilmen woods?
A womblike coil wasn’t enough to hide from the black betrayal.
Honor Among Thieves
“Well, now what?” Marina and Saika had been walking for what seemed like a long while. Marina heard no other sounds from the woods. “Where’s this lake, Saika?”
“Oh, be quiet. Can’t you see I’m trying to find our way out?”
“Saika, you didn’t pick up all the pebbles, did you?”
“Shut up with your pebbles already. Of course I didn’t pick up all of them. They’ve disappeared.” She paused. “Maybe Tania took them.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Maybe the rabbits took them.”
“The rabbits,” said Marina, “took the pebbles?”
“I don’t know. Can we just keep walking? I’d like to find a rabbit now. I’m hungry. And so thirsty.” Saika tipped her flask, but there was nothing in it. A few drops dripped into her mouth.
It was impossible to tell how long or far they had walked. Saika kept glancing at the compass, which Marina might have found amusing under different circumstances. The tall pines and spruce obstructed the sky, and the underbrush was severe, slowing them down. There were fallen trees and rocks and uneven ground, but there was no break, and there was no lake, and there was no Tatiana.
“I don’t understand,” Saika muttered. “The compass is pointing northwest, which is the direction we should be heading, and I’m sure we walked as far as we did when we came this way, yet there is no lake. I just don’t understand.”
Marina laughed softly. “Are you relying on Tania’s compass to get us out of here? What about the pebbles on the ground?”
“Oh, will you quit with the f*cking pebbles!” yelled Saika.
Marina continued to laugh. In a minute she thought she would roll into hysteria. “There are two idiots in these woods,” she said. “Give me that.” Roughly she ripped the compass from Saika’s hands. Turning it over, she grabbed the small steel square that was adhered to the bottom and yanked it off. The girls stared at the compass needle that turned sharply east, then sharply west, then spun around, stopping in a quiver between northeast and north. It did not move again.
“What is that?” Saika said.
“That,” said Marina, “is what Tatiana thinks of your little directional.” She flung the compass to the ground. “The compass is useless. Don’t you remember Pasha telling you Tania spent last summer trying to make gunpowder?”
“What does that have to do with the compass? And what do you mean useless?”
“I don’t know how I can be more clear.” Marina laughed. “And now…” she said, more subdued but trembling, “I give you the rest of your evening, Saika and Marina. It’s nearly eight o’clock. You have no compass, no rocks, no way out, no food, no light, no matches. And no Tania.”
Short of breath, Saika said in a seething voice, “She did this on purpose.”
“Did what?”
“Handed me the compass without saying a word, knowing it wasn’t working.”
“You didn’t ask! You said, give me the compass. She did as you asked. How did she know you were going to ditch her? Perhaps had she known that, she would have kept her stupid broken compass. She would’ve been able to find her way out with it backwards and forwards, no matter which way the needle was pointing.”
“Well, then perhaps she already did—even without it. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t call for us: she ran straight to the boat. Perhaps she rowed home,” Saika said. “Left you here in the night woods by yourself.”
Marina shook her head. “She got the leeches off you. She touched you when no one else would come near you. Tatiana would never row home and leave me in the woods.”
“As a prank? She’d do anything.”
“No, she wouldn’t. That’s not Tatiana.” Marina stopped talking. “That’s not her,” she whispered after a moment.
“I’m glad you’re so sure,” Saika snapped. “All I know is, she was supposed to come looking for us, and she didn’t. And you and I have a broken compass that she gave us. I think she’s playing games with the mouse, Marina.”
“Whose idea was it to hide? Hers? Oh, let’s hide, Marina, let’s hide, it’ll be so funny!”
“Well, if you didn’t think it was going to be funny, why did you do it?”
“I did it because I thought we would hide for a few minutes!” Marina exclaimed. “Because I thought we ran along the pebbles! Because I thought we were close to Tania, because I thought she’d find us, that’s why.” Breathing hard, she said, “I hid because I thought it was a joke. Because I trusted you.”
“Why did you do that? Tania’s been telling and telling you, I’m not to be trusted.”
“God, I should’ve listened to her.”
“Yes,” said Saika, “you should’ve. But I am unrepentant. I don’t care about her or you if you stand in my way. All I want is to get to the boat before it gets completely dark. Now are you coming, or are you going to stay here and rot?”
For a few moments Marina stood in front of Saika, motionless, haggard, hungry, thirsty in the coming of night.
Then Marina said, “I’m going to stay here and rot.”
“Great,” Saika said, and she turned around and began to walk away.
Marina pressed her trembling body against an oak, hoping to get some courage from the sturdy trunk.
A few minutes later Saika came back. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “Come on. Two in the woods is better than one.”
“There are two in the woods,” said Marina. “Me and Tania.”
“So clever. Stop it and come with me.”
“No.”
“Come, I said.”
“What are you going to do, drag me with you? I’m not coming with you. You don’t know where you’re going. Wherever you’re headed I don’t want to follow. Go ahead. Go, find the lake, row just yourself across, and then explain to my mother and father how you left Tania and me in the woods. You go on and be reconciled with your universe, Saika.”
Saika stormed off. Huddling against a tree, Marina tried to focus on the feel of the bark, on the sifting leaves in her hands. The forest had gone dark. There were no human sounds in the woods.
Behind her she heard a voice again. “Come on, don’t be stupid. Don’t just stand there. Let’s walk together, let’s move forward.”
“Saika, we’ve been walking for hours and have not found the lake. It might as well have vanished off the globe.” Marina started to cry. “We have no matches. Do you even know how to start a fire so we can stay warm?”
“Without matches?”
Tatiana would know, Marina thought. She wished she were lost with Tania. There was a constant crackling, occasionally an owl hooted—and worse, there was a flutter of wings through the air.
Bats.
Marina shuddered. “What about a cave somewhere?” she said uncertainly. If there was a cave, there would be cover, and she wouldn’t have to lie down in the dead leaves and spend a night on the damp ground in the open forest. Were caves safe for human beings? Marina didn’t know. She wished she had read more. Tatiana would know.
“You want to go into a cave, Marina? What if there are bats there?” Saika smiled. “Flying rodents?”
Even with flying rats, thought Marina, as long as it was away from you. She groaned. If it weren’t so dark, she would have covered her eyes. As it was, she remained stationary, the darkness of her clothes no longer discernible against the whiteness of her palms. She heard the flutter of wings again and a screech, and the fear of night became so intense she lurched forward.
“All right,” she said in a lifeless voice. “I give up. Where to? Lead the way.”
They found a small opening in the bedrock in the low part of the forest. Marina had been so brave talking about it, but when Saika motioned her to go in, Marina lost her nerve. Was it safe? She just didn’t know. Who lived in caves? Robinson Crusoe. Who else? “You know what? I’d just as soon stay here.”
“You wanted to find this damn cave!”
What was there to say? What if bears slept in caves? Or bats swung upside down? Bats and Saika in one small dark space? “No,” is what she said.
“Fine, stay here by yourself.” Saika crunched through the underbrush to the cave. Marina listened for noise. But Saika wasn’t screaming, there were no flying objects, there was no flapping screeching. Saika’s voice carried out muffled. “It’s warm here,” she said. “And it’s quiet. It’s fine. Come. There’s nothing here.”
Marina sank down against a tree. Night fell. The forest became black so suddenly once the last light left the sky. She could not see Saika, she could not see anything. Maybe morning would come soon in June. Maybe in a few hours Marina would be able to see again, and then they would get up and find the lake.
“Saika?”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m trying to get some sleep, that’s where I am.”
“Why don’t you come out?”
“Why should I? It’s warm here. It’s nice.”
Marina swallowed her fear, from the tongue to the throat where it remained lodged and prevented her from breathing and prevented her from sleeping.
She didn’t know how much time passed. She was half asleep when she heard someone sink heavily down next to her.
When she opened her eyes, the silhouettes of the forest were marked in blue shadows. Morning had come.
Saika was slumped next to her. Daylight brought little relief for Marina. They could not find a clearing to see the overcast sky. They could not find a stream, or a meadow, just kilometers of tractless forest covered with underbrush and leaves, and lichen, and—
“This is ridiculous,” she said as they wandered, miserable to the bones. “Wait until I tell Mama and Papa what you did. Just wait till I tell them, and they’ll tell your mama and papa, and if you think you were punished before, just wait till this time.”
Saika laughed. “You think this is worse than what I’ve been through? You think my father is going to care about this?”
Marina knew that Saika was right.
They spent a day in despair. Marina could have sworn she had seen the same felled tree several times in a row. She could have sworn she had seen the same clearing with the same pattern of white birches, black pines, taupe poplars. There were rocks and pebbles and debris from the forest, life organic to the forest, indigenous to the forest, essential to the forest. Marina and Saika were not essential, and as they meandered or sat to rest, it became very clear to Marina that the forest didn’t particularly want them there, nor had any use for them. Certainly it was not going to give them clues as to how to get out.
She was cold. She was dirty, drained. She was hungry. She was thirsty. The blueberries she kept eating to quench the thirst irritated her stomach; she had to stop eating them.
Saika irritated Marina’s whole soul. She had to stop listening to her. But Saika, seemingly having forgotten much of the past twenty-four hours, seemingly having forgotten showing Marina her true colors, nattered incessantly to an unlistening and sullen Marina. She was friendly, cheerful, indifferent to being lost, indifferent to not finding the lake. It didn’t seem to Marina that she was even looking particularly hard. Saika just kept on and on, a barrage coming out of her mouth while Marina’s chest wanted to claw out, Help me! Help me! Please…
“My parents must be going out of their minds,” she said as the sky was darkening, another day coming to a close. “Tania’s too.”
Shrugging, Saika leaned over to grab a handful of blueberries. “How often do you stay overnight in the woods?”
Marina stared at Saika coldly. “Never.”
“Oh. Well, if they’re not too busy trying to kill each other, they might’ve noticed then.” But she said it skeptically.
“What about you? Won’t your parents be looking for you?”
That stopped Saika from eating blueberries for a moment. “How do they know I’m missing?” That’s all she said.
Unbelievably, they spent another night in the woods. The mushrooms, so lovingly collected, had been thrown out long ago. The woods were noisier the second night and darker, and less inviting, if that were possible.
The Tundra and Taiga
The morning was cold and gunmetal. As it turned out, finding the second largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga proved difficult.
There was no sun. The sun meant Tatiana could tell time, could tell direction, could make a fire and cook mushrooms, and stay warm, and send smoke signals into the air. The sun was everything. Everything. Without the sun and without a compass and without a wind through the trees, with just a cloud cover and a chill to the air, Tatiana had nothing.
She waited what she thought was hours for the sun to come out but finally decided she couldn’t stay in one place. She had long stopped shouting; she had lost her voice after yesterday’s prolonged yelling. As Tatiana walked she looked for water and couldn’t find any. She ate blueberries instead, which quenched her thirst a bit, making her wish for black bread and sunflower oil, and hot tea.
As she walked she kept getting the feeling that wherever she was, she wasn’t in the right place. When she got that feeling, she would make a quarter turn and walk in a new direction. After getting nowhere, she would make a quarter turn again.
And again.
Tatiana tried to keep the turns in her head, but after hours and hours, the morning gone, the gray afternoon going, she thought she was closer only to nothing.
Nothing changed either in the trees or on the ground, or in the smell. The conifers, the birches, the elms, the larch, did nothing to help her, to quell the alarm inside, the disquiet of being not just lost, not randomly lost, not accidentally lost, but lost on purpose.
As Tatiana made her way through the woods, she broke branches and threw them down in patterns—to leave a deliberate trail of herself behind, in case someone came looking for her. Aunt Rita and Uncle Boris—they might come across the twigs and realize the wood patterns were not random brambles.
She tried to think of poetry to comfort her. She couldn’t think of a single verse. She tried to think of books she had read where the hero was lost. The hero or heroine was never lost alone. The heroine was always lost with someone, a friend, an enemy who became a reluctant friend, a family member with no mettle or too much mettle. Together people braved the South American jungle only to end up in an African slave village. Together with her friend, Dorothy braved dark wet tunnels only to find herself not in Kansas but under the Land of Oz. Maybe Tatiana could brave the Lake Ilmen jungle to end up—to end up where? Where did Tatiana Metanova, lost in the woods, want to end up when she came out on the other side?
Slowing down, she stopped walking, unable to take a step further, afraid it was in the wrong direction. What did Blanca Davidovna teach her? She said, no matter how far you’ve walked, if you’ve walked down the wrong path, it’s always better to turn around, head back, and start all over—but this time in the right direction.
But what good were those words to her here? Every trail seemed to be the wrong trail. Every direction seemed to be taking her farther from the lake. Tatiana ate some more blueberries, the damn blueberries! She called out hoarsely for Marina, and she tried to remember how deep the Lake Ilmen woods were. She didn’t know. She’d never seen a map of the area. She had no idea what was behind the woods to the south, to the east, to the north. Byelorussia, maybe? Without the sun, where was she?
Once she had read that taiga, the subarctic coniferous forest east of the Ural Mountains, was hundreds of kilometers long and when it ended, the tundra of the Central Siberian Plateau began. Maybe the Lake Ilmen taiga ended there, too, in the Siberian tundra.
But who said she was heading east? She could be heading south to Moscow, or north to the Baltic Sea. Who knew? She was heading nowhere because she had stopped walking. After a while sitting on a fallen tree made her cold, and Tatiana got up and, with a sigh, began to walk again. It was so painfully slow getting through the woods.
Forgetting once again about shelter, she continued to struggle through the forest until night fell and it was too late.
Who am I near to, in the night? Tatiana thought, lying covered by twigs, by leaves. Do I feel alone? Am I alone? Where are the stars? The moon? Where is the sky, even the sky reflected in the lake, where is the mirror that contains plants, and algae and minerals and life? Where is life besides mine? My family? Marina? She is probably home right now in bed, looking up at the ceiling, giggling, thinking of me. What does she think happened to me, the second night alone in the woods? How far can I walk tomorrow under the cover of nimbus, of cirrus? If I walk far enough, will I be in Estonia? Will I be in Poland, in Prussia? Back in Leningrad, maybe? In the Land of Oz? Can this forest empty out into the Gulf of Finland and if I walk far enough, will I empty out into the Gulf of Finland, too?
How far will this forest take me?
How could the woods be so empty during the day, yet so not empty at night? They felt infested with living creatures, all waiting for the dark to wake up and begin their living while Tatiana tried in vain to sleep to shut them out. The hooting, the howling, the whining, the crying, the whingeing—the scooping. She heard bats, she was sure she did. Time, distance, it all seemed to lose its meaning here. She could have walked twenty kilometers, but what did it mean if she were just spinning in one place, keeling over on her tilted axis?
Walking in circles, around the same stone, the same willow, the same cloud-capped clearing?
Yes, Tatiana thought, curling up—senseless, but not without purpose. There was always a purpose: to get ahead, to beat the night, to get to the lake, to a cabin, to another human being, to yell for help. The purpose was always to life. Because without life, all other values ceased to be. Blanca Davidovna said that, too. She said the earthly vessel was the temple in which resided the immortal soul. Life was the first principle. And so you walked. Perhaps even in circles, painfully retracing your steps, but moving inexorably toward something.
If only she could find a small stream. Eventually it would lead her to a larger body of water, maybe a river, maybe even to the lake itself. If she got to the lake, she was saved, but she couldn’t find even the smallest stream! Two days of blueberries, two days of no sun.
Tatiana tried to look on the bright side. At least it wasn’t raining.
Honor Among Thieves Slightly Thinning
The next morning it was raining.
At first the rain was a blessing. Marina raised her face and opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue and let the droplets collect before she swallowed. Not very efficient. She got a large green leaf, held it slightly folded into the rain, letting it fall inside the groove and then when enough water collected, she drank it. Better. She did that until her thirst was slaked, and then she looked at Saika who stood under a tree, covering herself from the rain.
“Why aren’t you drinking?”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“How can you not be thirsty? We haven’t drunk in two days!”
“So? Camels don’t drink every day.”
“Yes,” Marina said impatiently. “But you’re not a camel.”
“I don’t need to drink every day, obsessively like you,” said Saika. “Besides, the blueberries I ate yesterday have water in them. And lastly, look at you, you’re getting soaked.”
Once Marina became wet and stayed wet without hope of warmth or of drying off, without hope of food, or rescue, she became so dispirited that she stopped walking and lay down in the wet leaves. “That’s it,” she said. “You go. Maybe if you find the lake and get across, come back for me. Try to remember my spot, will you, the way you remembered Tatiana’s.”
“Come on.” Saika pulled on her. “It’s just rain. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Oh, it is,” said Marina. “It most certainly is.”
Wiping her mouth constantly, Saika sat down on the ground and stayed close by Marina’s side.
“Why are you wiping your mouth like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that.” Marina pointed. “All the time.”
“I just don’t want to drink, that’s all.”
“Are you afraid of rain water?”
“What the f*ck are you talking about, afraid? Who’s afraid, miss? Unlike you, I go into a cave by myself. I’m not afraid. I’m just not thirsty.”
Marina had the feeling that if Saika knew the way out, and where the lake was, she would not hesitate to leave Marina in the woods. But Saika herself had nowhere to go. Marina hated her. She wished Saika would leave her alone, the way they had both left Tatiana, thinking the lake was just a couple of kilometers that way.
This is my punishment, Marina thought, closing her eyes, turning away from Saika. “My just punishment,” she whispered, “for following you.”
“And who is punishing you?” Saika laughed lightly.
“I betrayed my flesh and blood,” said Marina. “I lied to her, I turned my back on her, and now what goes around comes around. Serves me right.” She started to cry.
“But why am I being punished? I owe Tatiana nothing.”
“You’re not punished. Why would you be?” Marina said. “You’re living in your own world. In your world there is no wrong, so how can there be punishment? In your world you thought your father was overreacting to your little childhood games. If you didn’t feel remorse for Sabir, certainly you aren’t going to feel remorse for my Tatiana. But you know what I think?” Marina jumped up. The thought was too terrible to contemplate in a position of even fraudulent rest. “I think you did this on purpose. I think you wanted to lose Tania, you wanted her to be lost. You removed the pebbles deliberately, you led us another way, off the trail, deliberately, so we couldn’t find her, and she wouldn’t be able to find us.”
“You think so?” Saika said casually.
“I think so now. But this—being lost yourself—that didn’t figure in your plans, did it?” Marina laughed a little. “You sure make a lot of plans, Saika, for someone who can’t control a single minuscule thing, or as Tania would say, when you can’t change a single black hair on your own damned head.”
“You’re delirious. I want to control nothing. I want to change nothing. I just want to get out of here.”
“You’re not getting out of here. Get it through your head. Even if someone did come looking for us—it’s the deepest woods. No one will ever find us. Tell me—was that part of your grand plan?”
“Oh, shut up already, it’s getting so old.”
“You’re such a freak.”
Marina fell silent. There was no more bedrock, no water table, no caves. The remains of the day’s rain were dripping off the soggy leaves onto the sodden girls. Saika kept her head down as she sat against a tree; she would not lie down and would not raise her head. Marina had noticed that Saika too had become quieter. Her incessant pointless chattering had stopped.
It fell dark again, their third night in the woods. The light had left Marina’s world, which now consisted of damp and gray cover and a pervasive blackness next to her heart, walking step in step with her, her guide, too.
Marina listened to Saika’s breathing. The girl was holding her breath. She would hold it for a few moments, then breathe, then hold it again.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you fooling around with your breathing?”
“I’m not fooling around. I’m trying not to swallow,” replied Saika.
“By not breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you trying not to swallow?”
“My throat hurts. I think I’m getting sick.”
“Do you have a fever?”
“How should I know? Do you want to touch me and see?”
Marina did not. “Is that why you haven’t been drinking? Because of your throat?”
“I told you already,” said Saika. “I haven’t been drinking because I’m not thirsty.”
Marina thought about something. “You stopped eating the blueberries.”
“So did you. I’m sick of blueberries.”
“You’re not thirsty, you’re not hungry.”
“I’m getting sick, I told you.”
“Does anything else hurt?”
“No.”
In the middle of the night, Marina, who had drooped on her side, woke up; rather she was woken up by Saika, who was fidgeting as she lay next to her. Marina said nothing at first, waiting for Saika to quieten down, but minutes passed during which Saika rubbed her back against the ground, and scratched her head, and tossed from one side to another, and finally Marina couldn’t take it anymore; she moved away. And though she had finally managed to fall asleep, the sleep was restless and disturbed by the awareness of an uncalm and unquiet body shuddering close by.
I
It wasn’t the rain in the morning that worried Tatiana. What worried her was knowing how impossible it would now be to smell fresh water coming from Lake Ilmen. What worried her was another day eventually turning into night again and her not having shelter, or food, or fire, or protection, or a way home again. Throwing the wet broken branches behind her, Tatiana resumed her trek. The ground was covered with twigs and rocks. It wasn’t easily going to reveal her tracks if someone were looking for her. Though she didn’t have a knife, she thought of making a mark on the trees, leaving her tracks on them. After judiciously looking, she found a rock with a sharp corner and managed to etch a small fine line in the tree bark, one small purposeful line to let another human being know she was here. And while it was easier than breaking branches, it was also harder to spot. Someone would have to be looking for the small scratch. Should she draw a ring around the whole tree?
Tatiana drew one. It took too long.
Though she certainly had the time.
Time.
It was just a human invention. Like numbers. Like measuring things. Just something humans invented to make life a little easier, to order life into manageable blocks, to ease their minds around unmanageable things, to help them with infinity. A minute, an hour, a day, a year, half a century, a millennium, two millennia since the dawn of man, five thousand years since the drawings in the caves, and fourteen years of a young girl’s life. All divided neatly into little blocks. Tatiana went to school for nine months of the year, including Saturdays. She went to her Luga dacha for the other three. She lit the Bengal lights every New Year’s Eve, at one minute to midnight, and counted down, and then counted up into another year, three hundred and sixty-five days of organization. And regardless of what Tatiana was doing, the sun relentlessly moved from east to west 360° in 24 hours, 15° an hour, a quarter of a degree a minute. Sun moved, man named. Degrees, hours, minutes, all to help himself to decode the workings of the universe. But what if you couldn’t see the sun? What if you didn’t have a man-made watch, or had no milk to get from the cows after pasture, and no potatoes to peel for dinner, and no dentist’s office to be at by 9, and no Saturday night public bath to go to at 7? What if the libraries didn’t close at 5, and the sun didn’t set at a man-made-up 9:30? What if all of that fell away into chasms? What was left?
Infinite space left.
Tatiana kept time in the woods. She laughed at herself counting, and thought, I’m counting now in my desperate minutes to remind myself I’m a human being and not a beast. I’m counting to make sense of the nonsensical. To make order, so it’s a little easier, even for me.
Oh, but this was perfect, just perfect for the girl who couldn’t keep time, who didn’t know the time to anything! Not when it was time to wake up, or stop reading, or milk the cow, or get ready to set the table for dinner. Tatiana didn’t know what time the libraries closed, she didn’t know when the cows came home. In Luga, in childhood, time had no meaning for Tatiana. She never counted, indifferently looking up at the cycles of the moon, at the arcs of the sun. She just did what she did until she started doing something else, or until someone yelled at her. To live as a child in a world without time—not in infinity, but in eternity, what joy. To never count your minutes. To just be—in the eternal present. What bliss.
And now she was counting—and growing up. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty. Was it one hundred and eighty, or one thousand and eighty, or one hundred thousand and eighty? How many blocks of her dying childhood did Tatiana count her third day in the woods?
It had rained all day and she had been unable to dry off.
I haven’t been leaving enough of a wake behind me, she kept thinking as she etched Is around the trees. She stopped with the rings long ago and now left her initial behind. A purposeful man-made line in the sand. A symbol for herself. Like time was a symbol for order. I for Tatiana. Still walking, still hoping, still believing, still living.