Notes from My Captivity(29)

I never could do anything about my father’s story. How unfairly it ended. And the press made it less about him and more about the drunk sorority girl who killed him, whose name I won’t say because she doesn’t deserve to have it said out loud. But I can do something about Dan’s story. If I can only survive it.

The sun shows through a blanket of clouds and then disappears, leaving a chill on my face. My heart is still pounding and I know I will never stop being afraid until I am back in the civilized world, but I’m going to be afraid while moving, not standing still like a target or an animal of prey. My shoes are waterlogged and heavy, but I elect to keep them on to protect my feet. I start walking down the bank, putting distance between myself and the dead, my body tense against some kind of attack that might come at any moment from the trees around me, or for that matter, from the river or sky. Everything is so foreign to me that I don’t even know the rules of nature anymore. A bird flies over the river, captures a fish, and is gone. I’m still shivering from cold and fear, and by noon a knot of hunger has formed in me.

As the afternoon wears on, rain lightly sprinkles, and the chasm of the river darkens. I hear the drops splatter against the broad birch leaves. When I reach the next turn in the river, I see that the bank is gone, and the forest grows right to the edge of the river. I will have to force my way through the trees and try to follow the river by sound.

“Great,” I mumble, trying to take comfort in how casual that word sounds when I say it out loud. Great. Like I’m talking about traffic on Route 36 or having to scrape a layer of snow off my car windshield. Great. How inconvenient.

“Stupid Siberia,” I say aloud, and listen to my voice. I feel a tiny bit calmer. Encouraged, I keep going.

“Stupid boat.”

“Stupid Osinovs.”

“Stupid life or death.”

I shiver and shut up. I’ve gone too far. That word, death, is now outlawed in any tone of voice.

I push inward through the forest. The roar of the river is still audible, but it’s exhausting to try to make progress through the thick foliage and uneven terrain. If I think about it, I’ll be too scared to go on, so I try to think of something else, anything else, other than what might be waiting for me in the gloom. I’m making a racket, stepping on old branches and blundering through brush, with not much ground covered to show for it. Finally I collapse under a tree. My legs hurt and so do my feet. I feel a ravenous hunger now, and remember that in my pocket I carry a square of wrapped chocolate I’d found in my room at the hotel in Abakan. Miraculously, it’s still intact after my swim in the river. I fish it out, unpeel the shiny golden wrapper and eat it. It’s bitter and gone too soon.

I lean back against the tree and close my eyes. I’m not sure what time it is. Noon? Three o’clock? I can’t tell. The tops of the trees block the sun. It’s not only hard but borderline ridiculous to imagine that, this time yesterday, the biggest problem was navigating the river and trying to find a good place to camp.

The rain patters against the leaves but barely touches me. Exhaustion blunts my fear. Frogs around me begin to croak and I make note of one other class of familiar things that I join to the others: Frogs, trees, rain, chocolate . . .

I sleep. Or I must be sleeping, because the same little girl from my dream comes to me again, moving barefoot through the forest. She is easier to see now, wearing a dress of plain muslin, her shoes of the pelt of some wild animal, showing crude stitching. She is beautiful, with large green eyes and a perfect nose and a bewitching smile. A strawberry-shaped birthmark on one cheek. Still smiling, she kneels in front of me, although her dress doesn’t get damp in the rain.

Privyet, she says, and I answer her back without understanding what the word means.

“Privyet.”

Ty boish’sya? she asks, and I don’t understand, so I shake my head. This seems to perplex her. She bows low, tilting her head to look up at me, raindrops on her face and lashes and yet her clothing and hair completely dry. She seems friendly, curious, as though she had no desire to harm me. But what is she telling me? My Russian-English travel guide was in my backpack and, with the rest of my earthly possessions, has found some wild and useless resting place, pages pulled apart and caught on branches, there to dry and be taken by birds and tucked into their nests.

Ty boish’sya? She emphasizes the phrase, then repeats it again slower, louder, as though that will make me understand. Ty boish’sya?

“I don’t know!” My voice is a shriek now.

She shakes her head sorrowfully, her smile slipping a little. She leans in close, her face inches away. On idyot! she whispers. And the words suddenly come to me. They leap off the page of the travel guide.

He is coming!

I jerk awake, finding myself in a cross-legged position under a tree and the rain now stopped, the entire forest dripping and fresh, as though summer itself was a stalk freshly cut and leaking sap. Fatigue courses through every bone in my body, but I scramble to my feet and begin to run.

On idyot! Branches scrape my face. My heavy legs bog down and fight their way out of mud, my lungs heaving for breath. I finally have to stop, bracing myself against a tree, panting hard. Then suddenly, it comes to me, distinct and certain.

A footstep.

I freeze and listen.

Another.

I move back against the tree, fighting the urge to scream, my heart racing again. I can’t decide whether to bolt or stay still. I elect to stay still, and keep my breathing shallow, although every nerve in my body feels ready to explode.