Notes from My Captivity(35)

I’ve heard prayers before. There seems to be no love in this prayer. Instead I hear a tone of grudging obedience, as though God were a father that the son secretly hates. I bow my head too, in case someone might glance over at me and take offense if I did not.

Thou shalt not kill.

As I listen to the grating Russian prayer, I whisper prayers of my own. I have to admit that my belief in God took a giant hit when my father died, but now I send out a prayer to that vague being out there to please let me live until the morning. When I finish, the brother is still praying, his voice full of resentment. I imagine his god getting tired of the prayer, rolling his eyes.

At last the older brother falls silent. His mother passes a tiny plate over to him with a tiny white packet on it. He breaks a small white packet over the plate as the family murmurs. I realize it’s one of the salt packets from my backpack. They are using this to flavor their meat. Will they use it to flavor my meat? I shudder. Whatever hunger I had earlier is gone now. I wouldn’t be able to take a single bite, even if they offered it to me.

They pass the tiny plate around, each of them gathering the smallest amount of salt with their fingers and sprinkling it on their stew, the rest of the family watching. I never thought much about salt or going through a lifetime deprived of it, but it seems to fascinate them.

Finally they are ready to eat. My hands unclench a little. Their focus is on the food for now at least. Clara, though, is not eating. She stares at her bowl. Suddenly she rises from the table with the bowl. The family stops eating. Her big brother calls to her sharply, but she ignores him.

To my horror, I realize that she is walking over to me to offer me her bowl of soup. A kind and honorable gesture, except when directed at someone who wants desperately to keep a low profile and not make a fuss. And apparently, this is making a fuss, because the entire family now is arguing some point I can’t understand. The older brother is especially angry. He jumps to his feet.

“Clara!” he calls sharply.

But she doesn’t pay him any mind. She’s reaching over to me now, handing me her bowl of soup, although I am shaking my head. “No, no, no, no!”

But she’s insisting with dove talk, pushing it on me so that finally I reach to take it, an action that so outrages the older brother that he barks out something suddenly just as my fingers touch the warm bowl.

My hand shakes. The bowl tips and falls to the floor. China shatters. Hot soup flies onto my bare feet and I shriek and jump out of my chair.

Silence falls for a second. Clara’s mouth hangs open. The family’s eyes are wide.

“I’m sorry!” I cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

I turn around and run out the door. My body’s gone rogue on me; it’s running away before I can stop it. I slam the door behind me. I know I have only a few seconds before that door flies open and I’m caught. In my desperation, I hurl myself at the nearest hiding place: the grave.

I lie, there, face to the night sky, the stars very sharp above me, as the door opens and the shouting family pours out. I hold my breath and curl my hands into fists, waiting and praying. Sweat pours down my face despite the chill in the air. Up in the sky, the same Big Dipper looks down on me as it did during my nights camping in Colorado.

The older brother’s voice gets louder as he comes closer to me. I shiver, every muscle in my body tense, willing myself to put off no heat or sound. I want to be an object, a mold of something plastic, a baseball bat—anything but a living human being.

His voice gets louder. He’s almost here. He calls out something to his brother, then moves on. Their voices fade into the night.

“A-drum! A-drum!”

It’s Clara’s voice, calling to me from near the open door. She sounds wistful at first, then concerned, then sad. Her voice breaks. She sniffles. Then I hear the voice of her mother. Soft, reassuring. As though consoling her over some kind of dead or missing pet. I haven’t yet heard a sound this maternal coming from this woman, and it intrigues me even as I remain frozen, letting my breath out through my nose and then drawing back in so as not to draw attention.

Finally the voices cease. The door opens and closes. I wait another few moments. This grave fits me perfectly. An inch of room at my head and my feet. It fits me at the shoulders and the hips. It fits me so well that it could fit me forever.

I definitely need to go.

Cautiously, I raise my head out of the grave and look around. I gulp. Clara is nowhere to be seen, but her mother is still standing outside, her back to me. She’s taken off her kerchief and let down her long gray hair. A cool wind moves it as she stands there in her burlap dress, looking up at something in the trees.

I’m not sure whether I should wait or make a dash for the stream and the path beyond it. I decide to wait. I watch her as she raises an arm.

A sudden fluttering of wings. A winged creature dives from a branch and alights on her arm. I stare at it in wonder. It’s an owl.

She begins to murmur to the owl, something calm and friendly, a string of Russian words that have the cadence of a chant. The owl watches her and I lean forward, fascinated.

Just then the owl swivels its head and stares directly at me.

The mother swivels her head too. They both stare at me as I half crouch in the moonlight.

“Podozhdite!” she shouts.

I bolt out of the grave and run as fast as I can past the circle of stones, plunging into the field of sunflowers.