Notes from My Captivity(67)

According to my original plan, now is the time to go to Vanya and ask him to secretly take me back down the river in his new canoe.

But I am done with secrets. Maybe because of all my work trying to gain the family’s trust—the help in the garden, the searching for flint, fighting alongside them to defeat the fire—I have a place at the table now. I have a voice, and I’m going to speak for myself.

That night, after dinner, whatever dinner it was, there and then gone in a few moments, I speak.

“Ya khochu chto-to skazat.”

I want to say something.

My voice is calm, but my heart thumps. The family looks at me, surprised. It’s still strange that I’m sitting with them and not off in a chair. And now I want to actually speak. What next, my own room?

I go on, in broken Russian, hoping the words are in the right place, in the right tense. Knowing they probably are not, but hoping the family will understand.

I used to be afraid of you. I didn’t understand you. But now you’ve become my family, and I love you.

The family is motionless around the table. No one says a word. Vanya’s eyes blink when I say, I love you. I look at him when I say it. Hold my gaze on his face.

Then I go on.

I have another family that I love. A mother. A brother. They are looking for me. And I must go to them. Winter will be here soon. There is not enough food for all of us. I might die. You might die.

Vanya and Marat exchange glances.

I need to leave here. I need Vanya to take me back down the river.

“No!” Vanya cries suddenly, but his mother holds up a hand to him. A tear suddenly darts down Clara’s cheek.

You are my family. You are my secret. I will never tell the secret. I will protect you. I am a reporter, but I will lie for you. I promise you. I swear to you. They will never find you if you let me go.

No one says anything for a long moment. Finally Vanya reaches across the table and takes my hand. Clara cries silently. Gospozha nods. I look at Marat, expecting an outburst of anger and disapproval.

He looks at me and shrugs.

It’s the closest thing to a smile that he will ever give me.

I’m leaving. Not under the cover of the night, not breathing hard and looking over my shoulder. I’m leaving because my new family wants the best for me, and for them. So why am I devastated?

I look around the faces at the table and burst into tears. I get up and rush from the cabin, run through the field of dying sunflowers, find the creek, shiver under moonlight, hugging myself, still crying.

Vanya comes up behind me.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

It’s time for the truth. He deserves it. I turn and face him.

“Vanya, I love you.”

He looks absolutely stunned.

I reach out and touch his face. “Love is a very easy thing in America. Because you already have enough food and enough clothing, and you’re not about to burn up in a forest fire or be eaten by a bear. So I guess I didn’t recognize I loved you at first. I was too busy surviving. And you know what, my grip on reality is definitely slipping. Or maybe reality itself isn’t all that real. But yes, I love you and that’s the truth.”

I’m not sure how much he’s followed, but he leans forward. Our kiss increases my shivering.

“I love you, too,” he says when we pull away from each other. “Adrienne, don’t go.”

“Well, if you love me, you have to understand that I need to go home. I have a mother. I have a brother. I have a life. Winter’s almost here, Vanya. And you know what I said at the table is true. There’s not enough food.”

He is silent. I think I hear a faint growl moving in his throat as though what I just said is an animal he can scare off.

“Vanya, do you understand?”

“I can keep you alive,” he answers stubbornly. “I see moose tracks. I see deer tracks. . . .”

“I don’t care!” It’s our first fight as a couple, on the subject of my very survival. “Vanya, touch my arm.”

I offer it to Vanya. “You feel the bone, don’t you? When I came here, there was no bone. Now I’m skinny. More bones will show.”

“Okay,” he says at last. “I will help you go back.”

“Thank you.” I put my hands on the sides of his face, draw him forward, and kiss him tenderly. That particular combination of soft lip and scratchy beard seems suddenly impossible to replicate, even among the hipster baristas of downtown Boulder.

“Adrienne,” he whispers. “I want to go with you.”





Twenty-Five


We speak about it far into the night. It makes no sense. And yet we can’t let it go. Of course, we tell no one about this new twist in the plans. His family would never agree for him to go with me. And I can’t really blame them. What sense would it make to send their brother and son out into the world that had been so cruel to them?

We’re leaving tomorrow.

Clara and I work the garden alone. Since Gospozha is out of earshot, we sing a forbidden song. A little number by Adele. Vanya and Marat are off hunting, trying to make up for in meat what we lack in starch. I unearth a large potato and let out a shriek of joy. Clara smiles, claps her hands, and goes back to digging and singing. Her interpretation of “Someone Like You” is truly an original. The words, of course, are incomprehensible, but she’s got the tone down. She knows heartache. She knows loss.