Notes from My Captivity(44)

I drop my armload of wood. I recognize that tent. It was Lyubov’s. The brothers look up and notice me. Clara appears confused.

Lyubov was proud of that tent. It was brand-new. Something to stand up to the weather and the chill of the Siberian mountains. She died before she could spend her third night in that tent.

It’s true, I can’t prove the Osinovs—or at least Marat—are killers, but the evidence is pretty damning: the missing salt packages from my backpack and all the booty from the campsite are now here, the clothing of the dead cut up and sewn onto the tattered dresses and trousers of the family, technology shattered, tools appropriated, and I am here helping them, and this tent seems obscene to me, and what they did to get it.

“That’s not your tent,” I say, pointing. “That belonged to Lyubov. She had a name. They all had names.”

Marat and Vanya exchange glances.

“Lyubov,” I say. “Her tent. Not yours.”

I walk away, wading through sunflowers, and keep walking to the place where the birch trees grow in a circle. I stand a respectful distance from the graves and say their names.

Zoya. Grigoriy.

Whatever killed them is the worst story of this family, and this family, in turn, is my worst story. I will try to keep my wits about me, try not to make waves, but I will never forget who they are.





Sixteen


Today marks a week with the Osinovs. I have learned to walk past the tent full of firewood. I have watched Vanya and Marat try on the dead men’s boots. I’ve seen Clara carefully shatter the lenses of Sergei’s tinted sunglasses with a rock and then arrange the jagged shapes into the irregular petals of a flower. They have also taken apart the knapsacks, except for the one which they use to gather nuts.

I learn to avert my eyes. Think of other things. Breathe. Smile. Now is no time to avenge their deaths. Now is the time to join. To make myself useful. I’ve taught myself to put wood in that tent as though it were any other shelter in the world. Wood-gathering is something that I can do to help. So is sweeping the area in the front of the house. So is clearing dishes. So is grinding pine nuts under a stone.

And so is working in the garden.

The garden amazes me. It’s about the size of a large dance floor and crawls up the side of the mountain in neat rows. Potatoes, hemp, carrots. Onions and parsley and peas. Every day, the women go into the garden, tilling and turning the soil, fussing over the sickly plants, expressing happiness over the healthy ones, and pulling weeds. Every morning, there are more weeds. Weeds are universal pests.

I have one good hand to pull weeds and I have gotten pretty fast at it, but not even close to how fast and efficient the others are. I really miss my recorder. Now all the notes are in my head and that is not a very reliable machine. I do the best I can to observe and remember. If by chance I survive this ordeal, this is going to make one hell of a story.

Gospozha uses a hoe that consists of a carved wooden stake tipped by a bit of iron. She turns the earth, singing. Clara joins in. I can’t understand the words, but the reverence in them leaves me no doubt it’s a hymn to their god. I hear the same song so much that I learn the sounds. Finally, on the seventh day, I decide to sing along, joining in lustily.

The women stop singing and stare at me. I never was much of a singer. My off notes may have killed something vital in the garden, or maybe they are just astonished at my attempts at harmonizing. My voice trails off. Now there’s just quiet. Birds calling in the distance.

“Sorry,” I say. “That’s what Auto-Tune is for.”

They exchange glances. We all go back to work. They have stopped singing, maybe afraid they’ll encourage me.

Early that afternoon, Vanya ambles into the garden. He kneels next to me and silently starts pulling weeds. This seems to be a source of great merriment to his sister, who immediately begins laughing at him and speaking to him in a teasing voice. My guess is that the men never usually work in the garden. At first he ignores her, shaking the dirt off the roots of the weeds before throwing them to the side. Finally the torment becomes too much and he snaps something at her angrily, gets up, and stalks away as Clara laughs merrily.

“Perestan,” Gospozha admonishes Clara as Vanya disappears into the sunflowers. Stop it. She shakes her head. I see a hint of a smile. Sometimes I think the old lady actually likes me. The way she gently checks my homemade cast and presses upon me some kind of milky substance in a birch bark cup, all the while tapping my broken arm lightly and repeating, “Sil’ny, sil’ny.” Strong, strong. And yet, other times she gives me a look of sadness and fear. I wish I knew what she is thinking.

When the garden work is done, I go farther into the meadow, following the scraping sound to find Vanya hard at work hollowing out a canoe from a section of thick log. He’s taken his shirt off and I’m amazed at the shape he’s in. The chiseled muscles of the chest and arms. I imagined Russian men as hairy all over and am surprised to find he just has a small dark patch on his chest. He looks up at me and drops his tool. He scrambles to put on his shirt.

“Sorry,” I mumble in English, and turn to go.

“Nyet, ostan’sya,” he says. No, stay. He looks at me a moment, picks up his tool, and begins to scrape the wood, hollowing out the log.

I watch as long shavings curl and fall away. He’s perspiring, sweat running down his face. His hair is wet. His motions are careful and methodical. I can’t help thinking, This is the boat that will someday bring me home. And here is the man who will take me.