Notes from My Captivity(4)

My heart steadies. I look around us. We’re alone.

Dan shakes his head. “I’m telling you, there was a little girl standing in the middle of the road.”





Two


By some miracle, there are no other incidents before we arrive at the terminal, although I’m still a bit rattled from the near-accident we had on the way to the airport at the hands of some jaywalking phantom. And I’m feeling a little whiplashed, not the best condition to be in when you’ve got such a long flight ahead of you.

Dan saw a ghost in the road, almost killed us, I whisper into my Dictaphone. Good times already.

Dan and I get out and Mom tells us goodbye. “It’s so hard to be a parent,” she whispers, holding me tight.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Dan says, glancing at his watch. “There might be a line.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I reassure her, extracting myself from her grip. “I’ll text you when we land.”

I watch her kiss Dan goodbye. He’s dressed up in Anthropology Geek activewear: chino pants, flannel shirt, a Gore-Tex upland field hat, and Birkenstocks. He’d wear Birkenstocks to the moon. It’s still hard to see him kissing her when my dad should be there instead. The two men have different kissing styles. Dad turned his head a certain way, used his hands more. Dan still looks awkward doing it, like he’s on a first date.

After some final, tearful instructions, Mom takes off and we breathe a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad that’s over with,” Dan mutters. “For a minute there I thought she wasn’t going to let you go.”

“Thanks for helping me calm her down,” I reply, trying to keep the guilt out of my voice. He wouldn’t have been so eager to help me if he’d known the working title of the article I’m writing: “Wild-Goose Chase.” Intriguing subtitle: “Crazy stepdad drags long-suffering girl into the Siberian wilderness in pursuit of the legendary hermit family.” What journalism program could resist me?

Speaking of journalism . . .

“What did the little girl look like?” I ask.

“Little girl?”

“You know. The one in the road.”

He shrugs. “It happened so fast. Maybe it was, I don’t know . . .” He searches for the words, two fingers of his right hand spinning as though turning the wheel of his brain. “I barely slept last night, and the malaria pills gave me nightmares.”

“Makes sense,” I say. Dan does have a habit of believing in things that aren’t there. He takes off for the ticket counter, and I hurry to catch up with him. I checked in this morning on my phone, but Dan is back in the twentieth century when paper tickets were all you used. I stand in line behind him as he fumbles for his itinerary. He’s rising on his toes again. Kind of a perilous habit when you’re wearing Birkenstocks. I’m hoping he doesn’t topple over. I’m excited too, because I really feel that this last doomed trip of his obsessive quest will make a good story. Maybe even a great story. Maybe even a story featured in the New York Times.

Sydney Declay once said: “A great reporter can really feel a story in the air, know it before they even meet it. It’s this intuitive response to what will be fantastic on the written page that distinguishes the pros from the amateurs.”

And I’m going to be one of the pros.

My phone buzzes. It’s a text from my best friend, Margot. Good luck finding that family. I’ve located the daddy. A picture of bigfoot appears on-screen. My thumb, which holds much of my sarcasm, locates a photo of Jim Morrison on the internet. Not the early Jim Morrison but the late version, hairy and bearded and wild-looking. I text Margot back.

No, this is the daddy. He was last seen doing heroin in Paris.

Just before we get on the plane, I make one more phone call.

“You’ve reached William Cahill,” the voice says. “Please leave your message at the sound of the beep.” I loved the way my father said his own name. He used to take me to his law offices when I was a little girl and he’d answer the phone: William Cahill. So authoritative and calm. My mother got rid of his clothes and his books after he died, but she let me keep his phone, paid the fee every month to keep it going even though money was tight. I’ve got to give her that.

This is my first trip ever out of the US. My first trip out of Boulder. My father would have been the first to cheer me on.

Dan glances at me. “Who was that?” he asks.

I click my phone off.

“No one.”

Ten hours later, our Boeing 747 still has a way to go before we land in Moscow. From there we will fly to Abakan and then drive to a tiny settlement, pile into a boat, and travel up the river into remote Siberia. We’re meeting the crew in Moscow. There are two of them. A man and a woman, both Russians. Dan has gone to Siberia twice before with them. I’ve heard all about this crack crew: Lyubov and Viktor. How smart and dedicated and knowledgeable they are, and how close they all thought they’d come the last expedition, until bad weather had slowed them down and their supplies had dwindled and they’d had to return. Lyubov, the woman, especially intrigues me. She sounds completely badass. I wonder if she and Viktor really believe in the quest or if they’re just doing it for money or adventure. I figure I’ll have plenty of time to ask them.

Dan thoughtfully got us seats side by side, so I can’t use my trusty digital recorder. I’ve spent the last hours studying my English-Russian travel guide. I’ve been learning words and phrases the past couple of months and can now ask, “How much for salted herring?” or say, “I think I missed the bus.” Essential communication in the Siberian wilderness. And if I am kidnapped by the Osinovs, I can say: “Please don’t eat me. I am from Boulder and my flesh is inferior.” Well, not that eloquently, but I can get the point across.