Notes from My Captivity(56)

His face doesn’t change. It’s hard to say whether I’m forgiven or that Vanya’s concentrating solely on the task at hand. He arranges a few big sticks so they fan out from one another, then places the smaller sticks in the same pattern on top of them, until they form a structure about a foot high. He sprinkles the center of the contraption with a measure of twigs. His movements are easy, effortless. Vanya wears a sack around his waist that seems to function as a mini tool kit. He removes from the sack a tinderbox containing a piece of steel and a shard of flint. He finds a flat, dry leaf and sprinkles some dry moss on top of it, then gently lays it between us.

“Come,” he says, holding his hand out. I move over next to him. Sit really close. Lean in. I feel the heat of his body. I smile very close to his face. Look him in the eyes until he lowers his own, embarrassed.

He demonstrates how to strike the flint against the steel until it produces a spark, then shows me how to catch the spark on the moss, stoking it with his breath until a flame rises, tender and fragile like a prayer from an unbeliever. He breathes on it encouragingly until it becomes a busy little flame, then suddenly blows it out, leaving the masterpiece to live on in a puff of smoke. He gathers some more moss, places it on another dry leaf, and then hands the tinderbox to me.

I like the perfection of the story he’s telling me, one about the birth of fire that I understand from beginning to end without the use of words. I never knew that in silence, intentions could be made so clearly and simply and eloquently, and it’s with this sense of wonder that I take the items from him and try to build a flame with what I’ve learned.

Clumsily, I take the flint and try to strike it. Nothing happens. I might as well be clicking two marbles together. Vanya laughs, the corners of his mouth turned up flirtingly. Making a fire, like the pottery scene in Ghost, must be sexy the world over. He adjusts my fingers and the angle of the strike, nods at me to try again. This time I produce a series of sparks that die in the wind. Vanya mutters something encouraging in Russian and shields the operation from the wind with the shell of his hands. I try again. Finally one catches, and Vanya helps me breathe on it. Gently, the flame so small, spreading, smoking, our faces close, the crosswind of our breaths encouraging the blaze to grow. We feed it slowly and keep breathing. His eyes meet mine. Slowly he leans forward and so do I, feeling the warmth of the tiny fire on my chest and under my chin.

Our lips are moving closer. In a moment they will touch.

“I like to bite those lips,” he murmurs.

I pull back, shocked.

“What?”

His eyes fly open wide. He looks confused. He touches his lips. “Bite . . . lips?”

I let out the breath in my lungs. “No,” I say pointedly. “You don’t bite on the lips. You kiss on the lips.”

“Yes!” he says, his eyes lighting up. “Kiss.”

But suddenly I feel cold and annoyed. The moment is gone. Fifty Shades of Grey reached out its long, long paw and ruined it. When we get back to camp I’m going to burn that novel.

I’ve never slept in the woods before, not this way, without a tent or even a blanket. After we eat our dinner (some berries that Vanya scavenged), I close my eyes and stretch, the universal signal for I’m done with this night. The fire is strong and warm on the front of my body, the woods cold and dark on the back. I gather some ferns and pile them together for a homemade pillow, then lay my head on it, drawing up my knees. Vanya watches me, says nothing. He’s seemed hesitant ever since our epic almost bite/kiss. A breeze comes up and I shiver. Vanya adds more kindling to the fire, but it’s no use. The back of me is cold.

“Vanya . . .” I begin, but sigh. The concept of platonically spooning might take hours to describe, so I motion him over and make gestures and throw out words until he finally gets it. He lies down beside me and puts his arms around me. Immediately I feel the heat from his body.

“Good?” he asks.

“Yes, good.”

I have to admit, lying in Vanya’s arms could not be used as a torture anywhere in the world. I hear his breathing.

“Cold?” he whispers.

“No, warm.” I wonder if he’s searching through his mind for some more Fifty Shades of Grey pillow talk. You’re here because I’m incapable of leaving you alone. Well, that’s true.

All things considered, it feels good to be here, in the arms of an obscure Russian hermit, under the stars, crickets sounds, and wind through trees.

I hear a rustle out in the dark. Immediately my muscles tense, and Vanya’s arms tighten around me.

“Medved?” I ask.

Bear?

He giggles. “No,” he says. “No bear. Belka.”

“Belka?” I ask. “What is a belka? Never mind, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

Just before I fall asleep, I remember belka means squirrel.

My eyes flutter open. I jerk in Vanya’s arms, my heart racing. The little girl kneels in the cold ashes of the fire. She smiles at me and says my name again.

“On idyot.”

He is coming.





Twenty


I’m getting a bit tired of the Zen riddles of a phantom girl. Does she mean rescue is coming? Or some other stranger from down the river? It doesn’t feel like a warning. More like a present, by the way she smiles. Unless she’s an evil ghost and wants me dead. Which would suck. I almost tell Vanya about it, then decide against. I don’t know how he’d feel about his little sister appearing to me. I know so little, even after all these weeks, about this family and their superstitions and beliefs.