Notes from My Captivity(24)

It was shocking how much more you were punished in Siberia. Try to take a photo, you get screamed at. Look down, and a branch hits you. Flirt with someone, and an expedition falls apart.

Not like in Boulder, where you can kill someone and get off scot-free.

I wait as the argument finally fades. The flap of my tent opens. Dan’s red face appears. He’s breathing heavily. I’m not sure whether he’s mad at me or Sergei or both of us.

“Adrienne?” I’m surprised at the way he says my name. Not angry after all but gentle. Concerned.

“Yeah?” I try to keep my voice flat, but I’m still shaking.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

He crawls in and crouches beside me. He smells sweaty from our day on the river, or maybe from his fight with Sergei.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

“It’s okay.”

“He was right. I flirted with him. I kissed him at the bar at the hotel.”

He shakes his head slowly. “That doesn’t give him the right to insist you kiss him again. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. The tent is silent. I remember how strong and ferocious his voice sounded. You get your goddamn hands off my daughter!

Daughter. No “step” before that word. No distancing himself from me the way I do with him.

“What’s going on out there?” I ask.

“Believe it or not, they’re all drinking again.”

“Russians,” I say.

“That’s a cultural stereotype,” he warns me. Then adds, “But in this case, I kind of see it.”

We both snicker together, a rare moment indeed.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“Don’t be. The truth is, I shouldn’t have taken you here.”

“But . . .”

“No.” He holds up his hand. “This isn’t about anything you did. It’s on me. First of all, I underestimated how wild that river would be this time around. And you’re not a little girl. You’re seventeen, and I was an idiot to take you out here around young guys in the middle of nowhere. An absolute fool.”

“No you weren’t, Dan.”

“You were your dad’s little girl, and you’ll always be that. But you’re my girl too, and I’m in charge of you.” He keeps his voice low. His hands aren’t moving around crazily. All the exuberance of his quest has been drained out of him, and it hurts me to see him like this. “I think we should call this off.”

“No, no, please don’t do that,” I stammer, my heart sinking. “I’ll be perfect from now on, I promise.”

“But will our guide? Will the river? Those are my questions.”

“But we’ve waited so long to go on this trip. What about the Osinovs? We’ll never know the truth.” I feel terribly guilty as I say these words, remembering the intent of the article I’ve been writing in my head, the disbelieving one. And at this moment, I honestly don’t know what I believe.

“I have a family, too,” he says. “And you’re in it. My first job is to make sure you’re safe.”

He’s got me cornered. And he’s right: How can I say it’s safe out here? But I have to try one more time.

“Just sleep on it,” I tell him. “Decide in the morning.”

Silence. He’s thinking, and I don’t want to interrupt him. Finally he says, “Okay, I’ll decide in the morning. But I’ve pretty much decided.”

“All right,” I say at last. “That’s fair.”

“I’m gonna turn in. I’m beat.” He presses something into my hand. I look down. It’s the bear spray.

“Bear spray?” I ask.

He nods grimly. “For Sergei.”

I almost laugh. “I don’t think Sergei’s gonna come back and get me or anything. He’s basically a cool guy. And besides, are you sure bear spray works on drunken Russians?”

“Says here right on the side,” says Dan. I’m confused for a heartbeat, then I realize that Dan has actually told a joke, and it’s actually funny.

“That’s a good one,” I tell him.

He nods, smiles tightly, and crawls out. All is quiet for a while. But strangely, the sound of voices outside grows louder, less angry.

They are laughing. Playing music.

One of them has an iPod turned way up, and the sound of the Doors fills up the clean mountain air.

When you’re strange,

Faces come out of the rain.

I listen as Jim Morrison sends his warning out to bears and wolves and owls and crickets and wild people, and us.





Eight


I’m having that dream again. The dream I’ve been having for seven years, where I’m in the back seat of the sorority girl’s car, watching her run down my father. The girl is going fast, the headlights pick him up, he doesn’t see her, I scream, and suddenly the tiny smiling girl from the tent is standing in the road.

“Ya tebya vizhu,” she says, holding out her hand, and the car collides with her in a burst of white light as I bolt from my sleep, sides heaving. I don’t know what time it is. The camp is dead quiet.