The Language of Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  “There were weeks when we did not see her that winter. We were buried in snow. They lived about forty-five minutes from here. I was busy with the children, Nestor with work, but we drove out to check on her one day when we thought Rurik would be at work. We had heard that he had gone to a bar and told everyone that my sister had had an affair and left town. He told everyone he was glad she was gone because he wouldn’t want to be with a slut. My sister would not have cheated on him. I knew he was lying. I was so scared for her, scared for what I would find.

  “Oh, the blood,” she moaned, hand over her mouth. “I will never forget. The home had been cleaned, but not well, and we saw it. Blood in the wood. Blood in their bedroom. Blood on the hearth. We called the police, and they came, but no one could find you, Dmitry, no one could find Rurik. We believed that he’d killed Nelly, kidnapped you, and left.”

  “I would have been there when he killed her,” Dmitry said. “I have always remembered blood in blond hair. I remember blood on the floor. I remember this dark shadow. I remember screaming, it must have been her. I remember saying when I was a child that my mother was in the woods. Now I know it’s where he buried her. My father told me that Rurik told him.”

  “Rurik should have been locked up in the jail, not working as a guard.” Nestor’s face was murderous. “He was more of a criminal than most of the men there. How did your father kill Rurik?”

  “He used his own father’s knife. From the war,” Dmitry said. “It was personal, for revenge, a way for his own father to be a part of killing the man who tortured and killed him.”

  There was no need to hide the truth when we started talking. Dmitry’s family would not go to the authorities. They were glad that my father had killed Rurik. There was nothing to be gained except peace in knowing that Rurik had died years ago.

  “Bless that man,” Lucya said, her husband and sons nodding. “But why did he take you? It broke me, not having my sister, not having my nephew. I missed you, Dmitry. We all grieved for you both.”

  “My father told me that he knew I would freeze out there alone in the house, that I would die, but that he couldn’t bring me to the village, as then it would raise suspicion. We were leaving the Soviet Union immediately and he couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk his daughters, his wife, not getting out. He had been warned by the KGB not to try to leave Moscow. My mother, they believed, was soon to be arrested for her outspokenness against the government, about her Christian faith, so my father took me with him. He said he thought about dropping me off at an orphanage in Moscow but couldn’t because he knew my life would have been ruined.”

  “Ruined without question,” Nestor said. “The orphanages are abusive. Desolate.”

  “My father said he has felt guilty his whole life, that he knew I probably had other family who would miss me. Please.” Dmitry put up his hands. “I know it will be impossible to forgive my father for taking me, but he didn’t know what else to do. He was panicked. He had been jailed, he had been tortured by Rurik, he was trying to get his family out alive. He had a window to escape through, and he took it. He saved his family, knowing he was causing grief to another. If he had more time, would he have done the same? No. I speak on behalf of my father, please try to forgive him.”

  “I forgive your father,” Lucya said. “If you had lived with Rurik, he might well have killed you, too. If not, you would have been motherless and a victim of his abuse. My grief on losing you, and my sister, has never ended, but you had a better life in America than here, and now you are home. Tell me, darling Dmitry, tell us about your parents, your life in America ... you are so fortunate to have these three lovely sisters ...”

  And he did. Dmitry’s family loved his blog, and they treated Valerie, Ellie, and me like well-loved family.

  * * *

  Later, we all went to Dmitry’s childhood home, two cars. We drove down a winding street, then onto gravel, then dirt, to get to the home, small, tucked away, in the woods, isolated. For a young mother beaten by her husband, a sadist, it would have been her prison.

  The home slouched on the land, rustic, ugly. I felt sorry for Dmitry’s young mother. Only twenty-two or twenty-three when she died and she had to live here. The roof was now caving in on one side, the paint was chipping, the shutters hanging haphazardly.

  “Dmitry, the door is blue,” I said.

  “Yes, it is.” He told his family how a blue door kept coming to him in his dreams.

  The door unlocked with a key that Nestor had, but he and Dmitry and Ruslan had to lean a shoulder into it to get it open. Dust fell down from the rafters. The floors squeaked. The mice scurried away. A larger animal skittered on out. I hoped it was only a cat. We all entered the cramped, bleak house. It was like entering a tomb.

  Inside, everything was covered in dust. It was eerie, unearthly quiet. If there had been anything, ever, of value, which was unlikely, it was long gone.

  Dmitry stood in the center of the living area, turning to see it all. His eyes landed on something. He crossed the room, dusted it off. It was the blue box he’d told us about. There was a woman in a dress from the 1890s or so, a parasol, a carriage.

  “There she is,” Ellie said. “It wasn’t your imagination, Dmitry.”

  “It’s the box you have seen so many times,” Valerie said.

  He opened it, and inside was a brooch. It was the red and purple butterfly that he remembered. He sniffled. “I remember playing with this butterfly, holding it.”

  “I gave your mother the box and the butterfly for her birthday,” Lucya said.

  Next to the blue ceramic box were the carved wooden ducks. Dmitry held them in his hands. “Thank you, Nestor.”

  Nestor nodded. “It was my pleasure, Dmitry, to make those for you.”

  Dmitry didn’t even bother wiping his tears, and Rodian handed him a handkerchief.

  “Thank you, Rodian.”

  “You are welcome, friend.”

  Dmitry held the ducks, reverently, one by one, a tear dropping on each.

  Andon and Artur each put a hand on his shoulders.

  “Take them,” Lucya said. “Take the ducks, the box, the butterfly.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Lucya said. “They are yours, Dmitry. Everything in here is yours. Not ours.”

  “We couldn’t take anything,” Nestor said. “It was too painful. It belongs to you, Dmitry. These are your mother’s things.”

  In the corner of a back bedroom was the rocking horse. “I’ve seen this rocking horse in my mind so many times.” He turned to Nestor. “Did you?”

  Nestor nodded. “I made it for you. I made one for all my boys. You loved it. You were a loving boy. Our fifth son.”

  “Thank you, Nestor, Lucya.” He hugged them both, hugged his cousins, everyone emotional and sniffling. “Was there a garden?”

  “Oh yes,” Lucya said, running her hands over her wet cheeks. “Your mother had one every year. The soil here, the temperature, it’s tough to grow in. But she planted potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, kale.”

  “Were there beets?”

  “Yes, but you wouldn’t eat them. Your father”—she spat on the floor—“when you were a baby, my sister told me that he forced you to eat them, one after another, until you threw up. She had a bruise on her face the next day. She was crying.” Lucya stopped, unable to go on.

  “And potatoes. I hate potatoes,” Dmitry said. “It’s the strangest thing. I don’t know why.”

  “I do,” Nestor said. “Rurik threw them at you when you wouldn’t stop crying as a baby. He knocked you off your feet.”

  “I wish that my father had come to kill Rurik before Rurik killed my mother.”

  “Us too,” Lucya said, taking Dmitry’s face in her hands. “Us too.”

  * * *

  We followed our father’s directions to the graves. We walked east into the woods. We had to walk a long way. No wonder the grave had never been found. We found a large rock. At first we found nothin
g more than that. No cement slab. But the earth shifts, weather changes the landscape, and there it was, overgrown, buried under inches of dirt, further than expected from the rock. Lucya found it.

  We stood around the slab and held hands, all of us. Dmitry, me, Ellie, Valerie, Dmitry’s aunt and uncle, his four cousins. Lucya said a prayer, then said, sobbing, “Nelly, Nelly ... sister, see who has returned. Your beloved son, Dmitry. He is back.”

  Nestor cried, too. Then we all cried, hugged each other, for Nelly, for Dmitry, for his Russian family.

  Dmitry said, “I’m home, Mama. I am home.” We let Dmitry have his time alone with her, the gold locket in his hands. When he rejoined us, he was sadder, pale, eyes puffy, and his cousins surrounded him, arms along his shoulders.

  We found Rurik’s grave. We had to return to the house and then walk back into the woods, a straight line from the kitchen window. We found the rocks, still piled up.

  Nestor swore, furious. Lucya picked up a rock and threw it at the grave and swore, too.

  Dmitry said, “I hate you, Rurik, for killing my mother. You are not my father, you never have been.”

  Nestor indicated that Lucya, my sisters, and I were to leave. We didn’t understand why, but then a quick peek back told us.

  All the men were peeing on Rurik’s grave.

  * * *

  That night we stayed with Dmitry’s family. We had dinner. We talked and heard all about Nelly. They gave Dmitry photos of her to take. We sang songs. At five in the morning, we finally went to sleep under blankets on the floor of their home. We insisted on buying the groceries and making lunch for Dmitry’s family the next day. My mother would have been proud of the feast we made.

  We hugged Dmitry’s family good-bye, tears blending face to face. There were promises of a return visit, soon, and we left. Dmitry’s treasures from his home—the box with the woman with the parasol, the butterfly, the wooden ducks, a red truck, the rocking horse, which we would have to ship out—in the car, where they would soon find a new home, with Dmitry, where they always should have been.

  * * *

  We had dinner with Gavriil and Bogdan and their parents, Stas and Irina Bessonov, in Moscow. It was as if we had never been away from each other, except Gavriil and Bogdan were wealthy, which was unsurprising. There had been accusations of their being in the Russian Mafia, but it also appeared they had normal businesses in gas, oil, and minerals. Each had four children. The children were charming. We ate at Bogdan’s house. Formal. White linens. Crystal. Expensive wine.

  We told Gavriil and Bogdan’s children about our exploits as children—although not the pickpocketing. We told them about Gavriil and Bogdan saving Valerie, how their grandparents gave us food and cash. Stas and Irina said, “It was nothing.”

  We laughed and laughed.

  We thanked Stas and Irina for bribing and buying our father out of prison.

  “You saved his life,” I said

  Irina waved her hand. “We loved your parents.”

  Stas said, “I am glad that you all left and built a new life, although we have missed you. From our family to yours, it has been a long friendship.”

  “A friendship that calls for more wine,” Bogdan said.

  “To the Bessonovs and the Kozlovskys,” Gavriil said. “To our friendship. May we all have long and happy lives.”

  We cheered to that.

  * * *

  We had one more thing to do in Russia. Gavriil and Bogdan helped us. There may have been a bribe or a threat involved. Some things you don’t need to know.

  Two days later we were on a plane leaving Moscow.

  Peace, finally, for Dmitry.

  And for our mother.

  * * *

  We met at my parents’ house, in the kitchen, on a rainy afternoon, the rainbow tiles a welcome reprieve from the weather. They always reminded my mother that she was no longer in the Soviet Union. She had made her chocolate fudge cookies and coffee strong enough to give me a hairy chest. The cookies were on the train station table.

  My mother held in her trembling hands the paper that we brought to her, stamped by a Russian prison.

  It told her officially what she had always wanted to know.

  Leonid Sabonis. Entered February 18, 1984. Death of natural causes May 3, 1984.

  The date of Leonid’s death was the day he came to her and told her he was not going to last the night.

  “Natural causes,” my mother snapped, a look of such thundering rage coming over her face, I thought she’d scream. “I hate them. I curse them. They murdered my brother.”

  My father hugged her. “Svetlana, I have spent years of my life, like you, missing your brother, missing our parents. The grief and anger has been a constant for both of us. But we must let it go. We cannot let the grief win, we cannot let bitterness win, we cannot let the KGB or the Communists win for one more minute. They win every time they bring us to our knees.”

  She nodded. “You are right, Alexei. I have cried a million tears for Leonid already. I have raged enough already.”

  All of the Kozlovskys came for dinner that night. We lit candles for Leonid. We turned down the lights, and my mother talked about Leonid, then Uncle Yuri and Aunt Polina spoke, followed by Uncle Sasho, Uncle Vladan, and my father. We turned on his favorite piece, Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, and listened to it, as if Uncle Leonid were there with us. We took a moment to raise our glasses to Leonid. My father said, “To you, Leonid, my brother-in-law who became my brother, my friend, we bless you, we will see you again one day.”

  We clinked glasses.

  Then we did what Kozlovskys do best.

  We ate, we laughed, we had a couple of shots of vodka. Leonid would have approved.

  26

  “The other day Ailani called me from school,” Valerie said, as she sewed a pillow at Ellie’s house. Her pillow was for a young boy. It would have a green dinosaur on a blue background.

  “And?” I said. I was making a furry pillow in the shape of a blue teddy bear. It would have a huge, pink plaid bow around its neck and paws made from leather.

  “Did she get in trouble again for detailing a crime scene?” Ellie asked. Her pillow was a patchwork quilt in blues, greens, and browns.

  “No. She heard Koa. Koa had crawled up on the bookshelf when he was at home with Kai, and the bookshelf tumbled down. He cut his head open.”

  “And Ailani heard that?”

  “She said he told her, in her head, ‘Blood on my face.’ ”

  Wow.

  “It’s the Sabonis line,” I said.

  “Through our widow’s peaks,” Ellie said.

  “And it’s on to the next generation,” Valerie said.

  “Are we ready to cart this load of pillows to the children’s hospital soon?” Ellie asked, later that night. “I got a call from the director today... .”

  * * *

  You Are Toast Day started with a bang.

  I could feel the buzz at the newspaper when I walked to the third floor. People were laughing, chuckling, staring at computers, and pointing.

  “What is it?” I asked Ricki. She was in a red wraparound dress and black heels.

  “This is the reason I get up in the morning.” She put her hands out, palms up, her rings glittering under the lights. “For glorious moments such as this. Ball-banging moments. Rip-your-spleen-open-laughing moments. Momentous moments on a grand, gossipy scale that resonate with you forever.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Shantay was laughing so hard, she was bent over. Zoe was leaning over her, cackling like a witch.

  “Look here, my friend, feast your eyes. I believe you know these fine feathered people.” Ricki sat down at her computer. “Behold YouTube.”

  I pulled up a chair. “What in heck ... is that? ... Yes, it is, isn’t it? ... Oh, this is ripe.... There’s another video? Such a surprise ... a hilarious surprise.... Who knew the truth about those two?”

  So that was it. You Are Toa
st Day.

  I started to laugh. Ricki laughed, too, then laughing Zoe hobbled over, her legs crossed, followed by laughing Shantay, who handed me a Kleenex for my laugh-tears. I crossed my legs and had to run to the bathroom. Ricki was right behind me.

  “I’ll need a diaper to get through today,” she yelled, still laughing. “A diaper!”

  * * *

  Lindy had told us “not to worry,” repeatedly, that she had Tweedle Dum Dee and Tweedle Dee Dum “handled” and the dock would not close.

  She certainly did have things ... handled.

  Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee, otherwise known as Shane and Jerald Shrock, were “new” clients of Lindy’s. She had propositioned them both at a bar they frequented. They came to her houseboat and told her what they wanted. She told us that they came in disguise, as we would have recognized the two Tweedles.

  Tweedle Dee Dum, for some reason, wanted to act out his fantasy of being a woman with long blond hair, a velvety red dress, and sparkly red heels. He was heavy, paunchy, balding.

  He wanted to be spanked and ordered around. Lindy dressed up as a dominatrix with brown hair and tons of makeup. She was unrecognizable as they acted out his fantasy. She filmed him dancing, kicking up his heels, and twirling. He didn’t know the camera was up and rollin’.

  Tweedle Dum Dee had a fantasy of wanting to dress up like a medieval knight. Lindy was supposed to be a young male knight. She dressed up in the outfit he brought, hair tucked beneath a hat—as a young man. They jousted with their swords, they rode their “horses,” they fought in battle.

  The videos landed on YouTube with an untraceable URL, or something like that. Lindy used another client who was a computer whiz to set it up. She also had him add entertaining music and songs.