The Language of Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  11

  A week after Valerie nearly drowned in the Willamette River I had one of the most vivid nightmares of my life. I dreamed of the time when Ellie almost drowned when we were living in Moscow. The Moskva River was filled with snow and ice, snaking through the city.

  Our mother had heard there was bread at one of the shops, so she went to stand in line. She had been gone for three hours.

  Valeria and I were sitting on the couch together, each sewing a pillow. I was embroidering a picture of a cottage in the country. She was embroidering roses. Our grandmother Ekaterina had helped us with our designs. With my hand posed above my cottage’s red door, I heard Elvira in my head. One word: River.

  I looked at Valeria and she was frozen, too, needle in hand above a pink rose.

  I gasped for breath the same time that Valeria did.

  “Where is Elvira?” I choked out.

  “River,” Valeria said. “She said river.”

  Elvira had gone over to play with her friend, Lena. Lena lived closer to the river than we did. We sprinted down the stairs of the apartment complex, to the street, our boots sliding against the ice, the snow drifting down. I tripped over the back of a bike and went flying. Valeria ran into a teenage boy and they both crashed to the ground in a heap of arms and legs. She shouted her apology, and we kept running to the river.

  When we arrived at the river, Lena ran toward us, hysterical.

  “Help! We were playing and Elvira fell in the river and the water took her! She’s in the river! She’s in the river!”

  We couldn’t even see her. The Moskva River was freezing, a wet line of death.

  “Elvira! Elvira!” we shouted.

  “Go get help!” I yelled at Lena, who took off, running and crying.

  Valeria and I sprinted along the bank, following the river down.

  “I can’t see her,” I panted.

  “I can’t, either. Look for her red hat.”

  I heard Elvira in my head. Monster building.

  “Monster building,” Valeria said.

  We called a huge, looming, scary government building the monster building. It sat down river like a cement lump. We sprinted. We screamed her name.

  In my head, two more words. Rock place.

  “Rock place,” Valeria said.

  The rock place was after the monster building. There were rocks on one end that we liked to throw and break.

  We kept running, screaming Elvira’s name, out loud and in our heads. People heard, and they started following us, running along the river. Suddenly, Elvira’s red hat poked up. She was clinging to a log.

  “There she is!” Valeria and I both took off our shoes and our coats and clambered over a concrete wall along the river and jumped in. Vaguely we heard people behind us yelling for us to stop, stop, stop, don’t go in, but we didn’t listen.

  Elvira was crying when we got to her, our little bodies quickly freezing, shaking. I have no idea, to this day, other than sheer determination and sisterly love, how we made it to Elvira. The log was small and slick, and the three of us wrapped our arms all the way around it.

  “It’s okay, Elvira,” I said to her. “We’re here, you’re fine.”

  “Hang on tight,” Valeria said, spitting water out of her mouth. “No one let go.”

  We were going numb, the frost of the river slicing into our bodies, the water dragging us down, our small fingers stiff, legs tingling.

  “Kick,” I cried, and we kicked, but a log in a current doesn’t move as you want it to, and I knew we would have to swim soon.

  “Right there,” Valeria said, still kicking. She nodded to a slight curve in the river, where the land stuck out. The current felt like a steel force, the water an icy grave, but we could make it.

  “Elvira, you have to swim. We’ll be with you, but you have to swim,” I told her. I looked at her white face and I knew she couldn’t swim. She was too cold, too spent, too scared. Her eyes had a dead expression, vacant.

  When we were as close to the bank as we would become, our hands slipping off the log, Valeria and I grabbed Elvira at the same time, one arm each, and lay on our backs, kicking as hard as we could, our bodies sinking into the rolling, merciless river, then back up, the snowy, icy water pooling over our faces. We struggled to breathe, to stay afloat, to not panic.

  We kicked and kicked, the bank closer, then farther, then closer. I looked at Elvira, whose eyes were closing, and across at Valeria, whose eyes were nearing hysteria.

  “Kick, Valeria, kick,” I told her, not having the energy to speak aloud, using the Sabonis family gift.

  “I’m trying. The water’s killing me,” Valeria said, her broken voice in my head.

  “I can’t breathe,” Elvira said. “Too cold.”

  We kicked harder, until we couldn’t, gasping, struggling, the river pulling us down, swirling us down to its black depths. Valeria cried out, Elvira closed her eyes, I kicked one more time, frozen.

  “I love you,” Elvira said, her voice weak, her mouth closed against the water.

  “I love you, too,” I said, as did Valeria, their words a good-bye in my chilled, slowing mind.

  “I’m sorry,” Elvira said, her head almost completely under the water. I tried to pull her back up, a sob in my chest.

  “Grab my hand. Please, Elvira, grab my hand.”

  “I can’t. Too cold. Help Valeria.”

  Valeria was hardly moving, the river taking her away. “Valeria! Don’t give up. Keep going.”

  “I can’t, Antonia, I can’t move my legs.”

  Crushed, choppy ice hit us, and soon we were going in three different directions. I screamed, terrified, my sisters’ heads sinking under the water, their arms flailing about. I could feel their panic alongside mine, their desperation.

  We heard splashing beside us, yelling.

  Hands reached out to grab us.

  We were carried out of the churning river by many people, then dragged up to the sidewalk to a crowd. One man picked Elvira up, completely limp, in his arms. He put his hand on her chest to make sure she was still breathing. “Where do you live?”

  Two women and two men pulled Valeria and me along, our feet barely touching the sidewalk. They admonished us as only people of the Soviet Union can. “What was that all about? Why were you in the river? Good girls do not jump in the river in the middle of winter. Where are your parents? Did they know you were here? Your mother will beat your ears ... your father will get the belt ... your poor parents, wait until they see you. Are you all right? You’ll be fine. Keep breathing. You’re a bit blue, breathe in with me, come now, dear. Breathe.”

  We burst through our front door. My mother’s face drained of all color as she stared at Elvira, head back, unmoving, Valeria and I half drowned, mostly frozen. “Oh, my Mother of God, help me.”

  My father, white as the snow in the Moskva, leaped over to Elvira. Explanations were hurried, as were the actions. All three of us found ourselves unceremoniously stripped by my parents and five strangers. We were dumped in the tub—we had hot water that day—tea was made, soup was heated, the women later toweling us try, quite vigorously, all while continuing to tell us that what we had done was “silly ... dangerous ... you’ll be in such trouble ... there now ... all will be well ... soup is almost done ...”

  My father asked us, later that night, all of us tucked into bed, Elvira coming back to us, her eyes not filled with the hallows of death, “How did you know, about Elvira?”

  My mother didn’t ask. She shook her head. She knew what had happened, she knew.

  Valeria answered for us. “Elvira told us.”

  “You heard it in your ...” My father paused. “Your mind?”

  We nodded.

  “We talk through our brains sometimes,” Elvira whispered.

  “Once again, the language of sisters,” my mother said proudly. “The language of the Sabonises. It comes down the line, like genes, and our widow’s peaks. Mother to daughter. Father to son. Then th
e sisters and brothers, we hear each other. It comes through right here.” She pointed to her widow’s peak.

  My father patted my mama’s hand. “It is God’s gift, girls. A gift. You can talk to each other without talking.”

  “We are Kozlovskys and Sabonises.” My mother sighed. “We are odd. Mother of God, help us all.”

  “Let us pray,” my father said. “Thank you, God ...” It was a long, long prayer of thanks that his daughters were still alive. We were asleep long before he was done.

  * * *

  I went to Svetlana’s Kitchen on my lunch break, about two o’clock.

  My mother and father joined me for lunch. The waiters and waitresses only came over to say hello. My mother had already ordered what she wanted me to eat.

  Charlie was playing T chaikovsky, staring at the ceiling, in his own world, and Ralph came over, said hello, saluted, and went back upstairs.

  “You too thin, Antonia.” My mother glared at me, then patted my hand and said, “I give you some fattening up. Lunch coming.”

  “Antonia!” my father said. “I no see you for six days. What you do? Start on Sunday ... yes? Okay, now Monday, what you do? Tuesday ...” This went on as they asked about my new job and how the bridal shower planning was going for Ellie. Which was: It wasn’t. I was not going to plan a bridal shower unless I knew this wedding was going to take place, and I had my doubts, as I had faith that soon Ellie would recover her full brain power and shut this thing down.

  Then we came to the matter that I needed to talk to them about. “Dmitry will be coming home for the wedding.”

  “He tell me last night! I be so happy to see my son.” My mother smiled at me, sitting straight up in her wraparound black dress and heels. Her hair was back in a bun, her white streak so elegant.

  “I cannot wait one more day,” my father declared. “I want to hug my son, hold him in my arms, tell him I love him. I tell him on the phone, but that not enough.”

  My mother shook her head. “That right. Not enough. We want him here, in our arms.”

  I put my hands together on the table and took a deep breath. “You need to tell him the truth about how he arrived in our home that night. Where he came from, who his parents were, anything and everything that you know.”

  My father’s face fell.

  My mother’s shoulders caved in.

  They both slumped, as if on cue. My mother never slumps.

  “I know he didn’t come from an orphanage. He arrived in the middle of the night. He had blood on him. Was it your blood, Papa? Someone else’s? You were beaten up again.”

  “No,” my father said, switching into Russian, as if we were there, in Moscow, in our freezing cold apartment. “We told you then, we’re telling you now, never tell, Antonia, never, ever tell. It is best for Dmitry to believe what we have already told him. He came from an orphanage.”

  “There are some pasts that are best left, forever, in the past. His is one of them,” my mother said, also switching into Russian.

  “Dmitry does not need his truth.” My father choked up. “Trust me, Dmitry doesn’t want to know. He is better off without it.”

  “The truth is that he is our son,” my mother said, her voice cracking. “We love him as we love you and your sisters.”

  I pressed again, though I knew I had caused my parents, especially my father, deep pain. “Dmitry needs to know. It’s hurting him not to know. He knows there’s a secret about him and his life. He can’t move forward because he doesn’t know who he is, where he came from. His memories from the past used to come up only now and then, rarely, and now they’re coming up more and more, in dreams, nightmares, flashbacks, even during the day.”

  My mother rubbed her temples.

  My father ran a hand over his face.

  “Maybe it’s because he’s older and feels safe,” I said. “His mind isn’t traumatized anymore, so it’s opening up the door that was shut down when he was a child. Maybe it’s because he keeps digging for the truth, trying to remember what he saw as a kid.”

  “That door should never be opened,” my father said.

  My mother swore in French, then went back to Russian. “Antonia, he will have to live with these”—she waved a hand—“memories. Let it lie. Let the past lie.”

  “By not telling him what you know, you’re denying him his own reality, his own life.”

  “It is better that Dmitry is denied his own reality than to know what I know,” my father said, slapping the table with his hand. “If he ever finds out, he will be devastated. It will hurt worse than what he believes about himself now. It will be more than most men could stand.”

  That made my throat constrict. What was in Dmitry’s past? “Papa, please.”

  “No. That is my final word.”

  And that was that.

  My favorite waitress, Dez, brought our meals. My mother had ordered me soup with meat, sausage, and cabbage; a salad with tomatoes and vinaigrette; and chicken Kiev with rye bread. Later, I knew, I would be drinking her bitter coffee, strong enough to grow hairs on my chest, and chocolate fudge cookies. I would have relished the meal if my parents didn’t look as if they’d aged five years during our conversation.

  “I’m sorry for hurting you,” I said as I left, hugging them both.

  “Antonia, you are not hurting us,” my father said, still in Russian. “The past has hurt this family, the KGB hurt this family, the Communists hurt this family, but you are a loving sister who wants to help her brother.”

  My mother kissed my cheek. “Eat more. You are too thin.”

  * * *

  Lindy and I watched about twenty women in a dragon boat row down the river from the bedroom deck of my tugboat. Their ferocious dragon’s red mouth was wide open, white teeth ready to bite. The purple and blue tail rose like a rainbow off the back.

  “I can’t believe Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee want to dismantle the dock and kick us off,” I said. “I’d like to tweedle their necks with my bare hands.”

  “I can believe it.” Lindy was wearing a blue skirt to her knees, tennis shoes, and a pink blouse buttoned to the top button. Her hair was back in a ball, her glasses perched on her nose.

  “Men take what men want,” she said. “If they have to run over someone to do it, a hand tucked around their own balls for protection, they’ll do it. They’re interested in money, power, and sex. Not in that order always. And with this dock, they think they can make more money if they transform this whole area into condos. The sewer system is having problems and they don’t want to fix it. Same with the electricity lines. Men are like containers of sweat and body fluids with brains that only limp toward competence.”

  “You don’t like men, do you?”

  “I find them silly. Ridiculous. Sometimes dangerous and violent, but a species that has not evolved at the same pace as women.”

  “Given your career, how do you hide your disdain?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I smile and stand in a negligee. They can’t see past that because their dick is straight out.”

  “Business seems good.”

  “It is. I have a long waiting list. One man offered six hundred dollars an hour. He’s at the top of the list now. I’m kicking out one of my clients tomorrow.”

  “He probably won’t be happy, will he?”

  “I’m going to tell him that I’m going back to school to become a librarian.”

  “Will he believe it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s too fat.”

  “Ah. I’m always worried you’ll get hurt, but I wonder if you ever worry you’ll be arrested.”

  She laughed. “My dear friend, Toni. You’ve heard of a little black book? Let’s just say I have a little black computer with a long list. If I’m arrested, five names come out a day until I’m out of jail, charges dropped. Too many high-powered men have been on my houseboat for hanky-panky-spanky for me to be arrested.”

  The dragon boat flew by, the women laughing and c
hatting. We waved. They waved back. Lindy opened the lid of a pink box. Two huge cupcakes were inside. “I went out to that bakery in Trillium River for these. Bommarito’s Bakery. Best cupcakes on the planet.”

  “Oh, yum. Sometimes I drive all the way out there for their cupcakes, too. Pretty drive.”

  We ate in silence. The cupcakes were oversized. Mine had huge daisies on it and Lindy’s had a dalmatian.

  “I do not want to lose my home, this dock.” I didn’t want to lose Nick.

  “You won’t, Toni.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know.” She licked her fingers.

  “You’re not worried about this at all?”

  “Nah. Here, let me have a bite of your cupcake and I’ll let you have a bite of mine.”

  We leaned over and took a bite of each other’s cupcake.

  Lindy’s a true friend.

  “I love cupcakes and I love books, Toni. You know I visit different libraries in town and hang out among the stacks.”

  “Yes, you strange book nerd.”

  “I love the feel of books and the smell of them. I’m rereading East of Eden now. Want to read it together?”

  “Sure.”

  Lindy had to leave at two o’clock for her appointment.

  “See you at the meeting Thursday, Toni, where I will tell people we don’t need to do anything, because I can save the dock, and they won’t listen and will immediately go back to their useless plotting.”

  “Got it. See ya then.”

  * * *

  That night I opened the door to the kayak house and dragged out our double seater and sat in it on the deck. I pretended to row, like the oddity that I am.

  Marty said to me, after our fourth kayaking date, on the Rogue River, “I love kayaking with you, Toni, I do. But how about dinner? I’d like to take you out. Now, don’t say no again. Not right away. Think about it.”

  I thought about it at home, called him, and said yes. “This doesn’t mean we’re dating, Marty.”

  “No, it doesn’t. If we were dating, our parents would have a huge and embarrassing party. They would make an announcement at church and ask for a group blessing. Your father would offer up a long prayer of thanks. Your mother would make a dessert called ‘I Want Toni and Marty To Get Married,’ and put it on the Specials board at the restaurant. No, we’ll keep this between us.”