Notes from My Captivity(38)

It’s hard to see in the gloom in front of me as I move through the trees. I inhale groups of bugs, exhale mist. Claw vines away from my face. Step on the sponginess of the forest floor, breaking through every few steps and sinking up to my ankles in wet ground. My progress is slow and painful, but finally I reach the edge of the forest and the great dark expanse of the giant sunflowers, their heads lit by the starlight. Half a moon shines nearby. Lowlying dark clouds make monster shapes. I stop, listening for footsteps or voices or breathing. I look up, watching for that deranged owl to swoop my way again on orders of the witch.

The hut is out of sight, farther down the slope. My fervent hope is that the family sleeps inside, surrendered to the possibility that I’ve escaped forever, content, at least, with their clothing and their salt.

The sunflower heads tickle my fingers. My wooden cast bumps against my thigh. I feel like a ghost girl, invisible to the naked eye. Every few feet I stop and swivel my head around, listening. But there seems to be no intrigue tonight beyond the swirl of the usual Siberian nightlife: little things being hunted by bigger things, wind in the trees, the clouds releasing rain and the sky waiting for the new light of dawn.

I reach the stream and cross the bridge, my feet silent on the wooden boards. The path is a welcoming rectangle of gloom, and I enter it and begin slowly moving down the mountain. After fifty yards or so, I start to hear the roar of the water. That seemingly endless river that shows the way back.

Just keep breathing. Just keep moving.

Maybe I can catch fish from the river. Unlikely, I know, with a broken arm, but maybe I can trap them. Or eat cattail tubers. People can survive on plants. . . .

Just keep breathing. Just keep—

I freeze.

I jerk each time I hear a gunshot.

It’s far away, somewhere in the darkness. I can’t tell which direction they are coming from, but the sound is unmistakable.

They’ve got Sergei’s gun. Somewhere, they are using it. On who or what, I don’t know.

I fight the temptation to curl into a ball. The rain has stopped. The mosquitoes have found me again, but I don’t move. I just let them feed on my face and the backs of my hands as I hold my breath. One more shot—that makes five—and all is silent. At last I slap the mosquitos away, clawing my face until the itch excites itself and then subsides.

Oh, Adrienne, my father used to say. The things you get into.

I force myself to smile at the memory, only because I need the smile. I need something, anything, to force myself to keep walking down the path instead of just giving up right now, letting them find me and doing with me what they wish.

I keep moving toward the water, reaching out to touch the tree trunks to help guide my path. Finally I reach the gravel banks of the river; its familiar sound drowning out the birds and the crickets. Even water isn’t the same in Siberia. In Colorado, you float down it in the summer and keep your lawn green. Here, it breaks boats and drowns stepfathers. Even water is not a friend here.

And yet I kneel at the bank, the gray stones hurting my knees, and scoop it up in my palms as best I can, as it soaks the cords of my cast and chills my hands. It tastes clean and cold and I don’t stop until I’ve quenched my suddenly rabid thirst.

It’s still dark when I begin to make my way down the river again, holding my arms out for balance, stumbling over the rocks, trying to find the stable footholds. I force myself to keep going, counting my steps through chattering teeth. Hundreds of miles down the river, past a few dozen impossibilities, exists the hope of rescue. My arm feels heavy, and my entire body aches. I round a corner and stop.

I gasp.

Woody saunters toward me, rifle cradled in his arms, several dead rabbits slung over his shoulder. I’m so shocked that I just stand there as he catches sight of me, and an expression of anger and surprise crosses his face.

I turn and begin running down the riverbank, feet sliding, trying to get away from him, and he’ll be on me before I can try to run uphill into the shelter of the forest. I hear the pounding of his feet closing on me fast. I do the only thing I can do. I flounce into the river like a fish.

The shocking brace of it closes over my face, and the current grabs me and rushes me along as I try to keep my mouth above water. In a matter of seconds I slam into the branches of a fallen tree. They snap in all directions and I am pinned there fast, trying to extract myself one-handed but helplessly trapped by the current. I struggle and kick my feet in the freezing water, my lungs on fire, screaming, “Go away go away go away!” as he drops the rabbits, sets down his rifle and picks his way down the bank.

His face has turned beet red; he’s shouting back at me in anger something I can’t understand.

“Glupaya devchyonka!”

He wades out to me, bracing himself against a boulder until he can reach my foot and pull me toward him. I can’t do anything but allow myself to be fished out of the water and thrown like a rag doll over his shoulder where I dangle, the eyes of the rabbits staring at me blankly, as he continues up the bank.

Woody says nothing. I say nothing. What is there left to say?

I ride on his back and try not to feel like one of the dead animals across his shoulder. I smell sweat and blood, hunter and hunted. The arm holding me is shockingly strong. He could have given even Lyubov a run for her money. I have a quick flash of memory about her tossing supplies from the boat to the campsite. If a woman that strong and that capable cannot survive out here, what does that say about me? I decide not to think about it. Instead, I name the dead rabbits. Benjamin, Jared, Gaga, and Kanye. They dangle and turn. Water drips out of my clothes and taps on the rocks.