Notes from My Captivity(63)

There is Vanya’s birth, which was difficult and almost killed her. There was the time Clara wandered away as a little girl and was not found for two days and yet was smiling, curled up somewhere, living on berries. And the terrifying tale of the time a white wolf jumped at the old man and would have landed on him had Marat not killed him with a spear through the heart. She is obviously revered and adored by her family. Marat is the leader, but she can cancel that leadership anytime she wants and put him in his place, take his car keys, so to speak, and show him who’s boss.

Marat is still scowly and unfriendly to me. Also, he’s super opinionated. When Clara reads aloud from the Bible, Marat will correct her from across the room. Evidently there are right ways to harvest and pray and hunt and whittle, and Marat is certain he knows them all. And yet, he is tender with his sister. He never goes to sleep without kissing his mother good night. And I have seen him fish meat from his own bowl with a spoon and dump it into one of the women’s bowls. He even puts up with Clara’s playfulness. While the rest of the family, heads bowed, listens to one of his interminably long family dinner prayers, Clara will open one eye and spider her fingers down the table and up his arm. Eyes still closed, he will patiently catch her hand to stop it and hold it steady, his prayer never missing a beat.

It is clear he still doesn’t like me and considers me a danger. Sometimes he’ll point at me and then point out the window into the sky while spewing in Russian. They’re going to come for her and discover us. His meaning is clear even if every word is not.

And Vanya. I woke up last night and sat up against the wall. Saw that he was awake and looking at me across the dark room from the floor where he lay next to his brother.

And we just looked at each other over the the sleeping bodies of the family. And a warmth went through me, down my arms, into my hands. All this time, I’ve been pretending I like him. Using him to get back to Colorado, back to my father. But what if I do really feel something for him?

Three days now, until the moon is full.

The nights are getting cold. In the daytime, the sun fills less of the canyon by the river, and fishing is a shadowy business. I’ve learned to cast nets, a chore that both the men and women share. Nine times out of ten, they are empty when I bring them up. Vanya communicates to me—in that hybrid language we call Vandrienne, Russian and English and gestures and expressions, a language choking on the dust of trampled grammar but in which meaning is miraculously preserved—that in the old days, the fish were plentiful but somehow they went away. They are like ghosts now, and their silvery fins are greeted with joy and respect. Every bit of them is eaten. The head and the flesh and even certain organs. The skeleton and fins are boiled into a soup stock.

I am growing even thinner. My clothes hang on me. Gospozha gives me a length of rope to hold my pants up. One day, I open the door and find the women sewing something at the table. Clara spies me and shrieks, and they quickly put the item away. I’m guessing they are making me a dress, and though it doesn’t seem like it would be very warm, I’m touched by the gesture.

I can’t talk to the women about the usual things: What kind of purse goes with a belt, the annoyance of the shampoo always running out before the conditioner, the folly of trying to find a hunter-green shirt when it’s not in fashion this season. The fact that the aluminum in deodorant might kill you but it just works so well. Music, movies, politics, global warming. How could they know that in the thirty years since their vanishing, the population has doubled again?

They don’t know that Princess Diana has died or about 9/ll, the rise of the internet, the stock market crash, the housing market bubble. The world as I know it is outside their understanding and experience.

But basic things join us: the need for food and warmth and stories, appreciation of flowers, the craving for salt when salt is scarce. The need for love. The habit of making work go faster by singing. The desire for solitude and for company. The appreciation of summer beauty. Reverence for the dead. And occasionally, laughter. Once in a while, I do something that makes them inexplicably laugh, or they do something that makes me laugh, or someone laughs and it spreads fast. At those times, we need no language. Everyone understands it. People laugh when they are safe. And that’s how I suppose I’m beginning to feel here. It’s the real world that seems dangerous.

Clara and I have wandered far from the hut, looking for a certain wildflower that her mother likes to boil into a poultice that seems to ease the stiffness in her knees. I’ve seen the wildflower from time to time, but now the season seems to be fading, and we walk farther and farther downriver in search of them. We reach a meadow covered in white flowers, with apparently nothing to offer except the beauty of blooms, because Clara doesn’t pause to collect them. Clara takes my hand as we wade through them. She’s not very talkative today. She seems content just to be out in the woods with me.

I’m thinking about Vanya. The way he looks at me. Studying me up close. The thought of him is still confusing, half-formed. Like other things. Maybe I’m not getting the right vitamins, because my mind is playing tricks on me. Shadows move, take vague human shape and disappear. Last night when I was drawing water from the river, I thought I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked around and no one was there. I’m not sure what is real and not real, and that includes my attraction to Vanya. I’ve been away from everything so long, zero communication, no email, no text. No nothing. Have I gone crazy out here?