Natasha had not ever noticed the similarity before. They had completely different coloring, and Anfisa was much taller, but there was some angle of the eyes, some bend of the neck, in common. Lilia, too, had been skinny, high-cheeked, funny. “How old are you?” Natasha asked.
“Talk about rude. Twenty-six,” Anfisa said. She drew her head back and the overlap melted away. When Anfisa lifted her mug, Natasha raised her own, remembering. “May we get the answers to all our good questions,” Anfisa said.
Natasha toasted to that.
The spiked tea spread through her. It tasted like pine and honey. Walking back across the lot in the black evening, snow crystals crunching under her feet and traffic passing in a hush on the other side of their building, Natasha felt loose and beloved. Yulka and Lev chattered alongside. Out in the Pacific, Yuri was going off watch, going on maintenance, and Natasha did not envy him his lonely holiday. A person needed company. She carried a sense, wrapped in whiskey, that someone once more understood where she was coming from.
Over dinner, the kids told their grandmother about Misha’s gaming system. Lev raised his arms to mimic the hold of a weapon in Call of Duty. Still warm inside, Natasha scooped mashed potatoes onto everyone’s plates. She looked up to find Denis staring at her. Nothing in her was against him. Thanks to Anfisa, that necessary outlet. Natasha met his eyes and smiled.
* * *
·
The next morning, Natasha drove her mother and brother to the city ski track, where a cousin who moved to Petropavlovsk decades earlier had agreed to tour them around the cross-country trails. When they parked, Natasha’s mother swiveled in the passenger seat to look at the kids. She was covered in nylon and fleece so she rustled. “Are you sure you don’t want to come along?”
“They’re going to their friend’s house,” Natasha said.
“To play that game again? It’s not right to stare at a television set all day. You need some fresh air.”
“Don’t you keep saying this air isn’t good for them?” Natasha leaned over her mother’s lap to open the car door. “Bye, Mama.”
“The harbor air isn’t good for them. This is mountain air,” her mother said. But she was already getting out of her seat. Denis, in the back row, climbed out in his snow boots.
“I’ll pick you up at four,” Natasha called.
Back in Anfisa’s kitchen, the whiskey out, they talked about men. Like Yuri, Misha’s father had been a military man, Anfisa said. She brought a photo album from her bedroom: he was a teenager, really, with buzzed hair that revealed big ears and a neck rising too skinny out of a student uniform. Anfisa turned the album’s pages tenderly. All the photos had that yellow fuzziness that came from film. “Is that you?” Natasha asked, pointing to a pigtailed girl in a knee-length skirt. Anfisa said, “Fifteen when I got pregnant,” and spun the album in place so Natasha could take a better look.
They talked about raising their kids on their own. Anfisa’s parents still lived together, but Natasha’s mother had done it herself, too. “I shouldn’t even try to compare my situation to…I’m not really alone. Yuri’s here for half the year,” Natasha said.
Anfisa shook her head. “Tasha, are you joking? You do it all yourself. Yuri is a good man, but if he’s not here all the time, he doesn’t take care of the children the way you do.” Natasha liked that—both the words and the way Anfisa said them, which was cozy, self-assured. Sisterly. Anfisa insisted, “I’m serious.”
They talked, too, about their jobs. Natasha was one of a few doctoral students at the oceanographic institute. She and the other researchers spent their days in the laboratory, projecting the coming season’s catch limits and complaining about their dissertations.
“You’re so smart,” Anfisa said. She wore less makeup today, and her cheeks were already pink from the alcohol.
Anfisa worked as an administrative assistant for the Petropavlovsk police. “So you know all about the Golosovskaya girls’ kidnapping,” Natasha said.
Anfisa shrugged. “As much as anybody does. Which isn’t much.”
“Well, what’s happening?” At Anfisa’s rolled eyes, Natasha said, “You must be able to say something at this point.”
“Let’s see.” Anfisa sipped from her mug. “We took surveillance tapes from every gas station in the city. We tried to trace the older girl’s phone—nothing. We searched all the abandoned cars at the dump. Did you hear that? We took dogs through to sniff for bodies.”
“Oh, God.”
“We only found a few old drunks who had to be escorted back to their wives. What else…Did you know our detectives were after the girls’ father for a while? The man lives in Moscow, and we actually had officers there take him in for questioning. They acted like the whole thing was some kind of joke.”
“It wasn’t the father?”
“It was humiliating. He hadn’t seen his girls in years. He never paid alimony, let alone the bribes it would take to arrange a kidnapping by private plane. Anyway, it would’ve been impossible to leave Petropavlovsk without anyone seeing.”
“I don’t know…” The empty, dusty roads around the city. The endless tundra. Natasha’s sister had traveled that territory without a witness.
“Think about it. The alert for the sisters went up within four hours. Where could someone drive in that time? You can’t show up in a village with two strange children in tow. And any other way you might want to take those girls—a dock, an airport—people would notice.”
Lilia had told their mother she was sleeping at her friend’s house the night she left, so she got a head start of two days. She went quietly, with only her purse. Later they discovered there never had been a friend she stayed with. Lilia had been leaving the house at night for her own reasons for years. “See, you’re the smart one,” Natasha said. “You’re right.”
Anfisa smiled at her. “The only answer that makes sense is that the girls must have died here that same day. Before their mother even notified us. The major general thinks they may have gone swimming in the bay and drowned.”
Natasha edged closer to the table. “But didn’t the police think someone took them? What about your witness?”
“That’s what happens when you get your information from city rumors,” Anfisa said. “The so-called witness…she saw a man, she thinks, with some kids, she thinks, in a nice car, she knows, for three seconds. The dog she was walking would’ve made a better witness than she did.”
“She didn’t actually see anything?”
“She admits as much herself. But the girls’ mother is involved with United Russia, she works for the party, and our senior staff was terrified in the beginning about intervention from the governor. There was so much pressure to find some person responsible. They needed a big, scary kidnapper, so they made one up.”
Natasha clicked her tongue. A made-up kidnapper—if only her mother could hear. “We can’t trust a thing they report. I’ll have to get my news from you from now on.”
“Don’t I sound authoritative?” Anfisa said. “When actually most of my time at the station is spent pretending I know nothing so the officers won’t bother me.” She sat up straight, laced her hands on the table, and arranged her features into placidity. Above blushing cheeks, her forehead was smooth. Incorruptible.
“Looking good while avoiding work? Really, you ought to be our major general,” Natasha said. Anfisa unfolded her hands to pour them both another drink.
“Mama,” Yulka said, making Natasha jump. Anfisa laughed. The girl stood, fidgeting, at the border where the living room carpet met the kitchen tile.
“What is it, bunny?”
“Can we go home?”
“What’s wrong?” Yulka had her brave face on. Her eyes were wet but her chin was firm. Even this far into motherhood, Natasha found it extraordinary that she and Yuri had made two creatures who were so odd, so pa
rticular. During her practice run as a parent, tending to nine-years-younger Lilia, Natasha had been dazzled by the same thing: the raw dough of an infant shaping into a determined child.
These days Natasha pushed herself to see that quality fondly. A person’s early sharpness. That insistence on being themselves. When their father died, Lilia was only five, and during the few days his body lay for viewing in their home, Lilia sat on Natasha’s lap and asked questions. Is he uncomfortable? Can he hear us? If we opened his eyes, what would we see? “He’s dead,” Natasha told her, which was an answer that did not satisfy. For hours, Natasha rested her head on Lilia’s back, in the space between her spine and the fragile wing of her shoulder blade. Natasha’s arms circled Lilia’s waist. Heat rose from her little sister’s skin. There had been so much life inside her.
“The boys are arguing,” Yulka told them.
“Boys argue,” Anfisa said. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”
Yulka waited for her mother. Natasha sighed, stood, and hugged her daughter to her side. “Go tell Lev to get ready.” Yulka hopped away with the news, and Anfisa sipped her tea. Inspired, Natasha leaned down to kiss her friend’s cheek. Pink and smooth and comforting. Anfisa grasped her hand, smiled up, and let her go.
At home, Lev announced, “I hate Misha.”
Natasha was filling a glass from the sink tap. She had an hour to sober up before she was due to retrieve her mother and brother from the ski base. “Don’t say that.”
“I do. He turned off our game because he was losing, and then he told me it was an accident.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” Natasha said.
“It wasn’t,” Lev said. “He did it. It was obvious.”
* * *
·
On Thursday, her son refused to go back. “But they’re expecting us,” Natasha said.
“I don’t care,” Lev said. “I don’t like Misha. He doesn’t play fair.”
They were sitting on their couch in front of the television. Yulka was the only one paying attention to the screen. In the armchair, Natasha’s mother held a book but was clearly eavesdropping. “You’ll hurt Misha’s feelings,” Natasha murmured to her son. He was too grown-up now to carry places. She could not make him go anywhere he did not want to go.
“Lev, honey, do you want to spend this afternoon together?” Natasha’s mother asked. Natasha frowned.
Looking like Yuri in miniature, with the same round lower lip and black eyebrows, Lev pushed his body back against the cushions. “No.”
“Tasha, don’t make that face,” her mother said. “Shouldn’t we be together? We aren’t down so often, are we?” Speaking in Russian so the children would hear.
“You’re right,” Natasha said. “You’re right, you’re right.” Deprived of the release of Anfisa, she was tipping into nastiness. Natasha’s daughter, lying on a pillow at their feet, turned up the volume on the television set. The screen showed a redheaded soap-opera star.
“What should we do, then?” Natasha’s mother asked the room. “Our holiday’s already half over. How about downhill skiing instead of cross-country?”
Denis said, “Where would we go?”
“Have you looked out the window?” Natasha asked. “Do you notice any hills in Petropavlovsk?”
His chin pushed forward. To their mother, he said, “You can take the kids out on your own.”
Their mother pinched the pages of her book open. Her forehead was creased. “Denis, try not to be so sensitive. You know your sister doesn’t mean to hurt you.”
Natasha was trapped in this apartment with these family members. That truth was stunning. All the people she wanted to see were far from her. Even one day when their mother died, Natasha would remain stuck. No confidantes. Barely half a husband. She would have to look after Denis and hear his looped stories and nag her own children until they scattered.
Lev leaned forward. “Uncle Denis,” he said, “if you’re home today, I’ll stay with you.”
Denis turned in his direction. “Did I ever tell you about Travis Walton?” Lev shrugged. “An American. When Travis Walton was abducted, in 1975, his friends were witnesses. They were in the forest and saw a golden disk. The disk took Travis Walton and he was missing for five days. Finally he was returned to a gas station. When he came back, he described the Greys, who are short, with enormous heads.” Denis touched his lower eyelid. “Big brown eyes with no white in them. Five times as big as normal. Travis Walton told investigators they look right through you.”
Natasha stared ahead at the screen.
“That’s not true,” her son said.
“Lev,” Natasha’s mother warned.
“It is true. Travis Walton passed a polygraph test,” said Denis. “They don’t land in cities. But when you’re not a threat to them, and there aren’t many other people—I saw them the same way. In the wilderness. When I worked in the herds, the year before Lilia.”
“Enough,” Natasha said. Too loud. “Lev, I told you, they’re waiting for us over there. If you don’t want to come, don’t, but understand how cruel you’re being to your friend.” Her son made a face, and she knew Misha wasn’t his friend, not really. She got up anyway. “Yulka?”
Her daughter propped herself up on her elbows. “I’ll stay here, too, Mama.”
“Fine,” Natasha said. “Fine.” She went to the foyer for her coat. On the other side of the wall, the television squawked.
“Don’t go,” her mother called in Even. Natasha was sick of hearing her childhood language.
If aliens really had landed, they would have taken Denis, not Lilia, away. And didn’t Natasha wish for that? An interplanetary exchange? “I’ll be back soon,” she shouted in Russian toward the living room. They were no longer children, happy to swim together in warm water—Natasha and Denis had no bond to each other anymore.
He wanted to talk about his spaceships. Tell them, then, and see.
* * *
·
“Denis claims he’s hosted visitors from outer space,” Natasha told Anfisa. The neighbor raised her eyebrows. Anfisa had not shown even that much surprise when Natasha turned up without Lev, although Natasha had not said she was coming, had instead wasted the short walk over on calling Yuri’s out-of-service cell phone. He was somewhere off the coast of Canada. He would call on Sunday, if the sub stayed on schedule. For now, Natasha had to accept the rise and fall of their cell provider’s recorded messages: The number cannot be accessed. Hang up and try again…
Anfisa rested her head on one fist. Their mugs were topped off with so much liquor that the tea in them was already cool enough to drink. Natasha said, “He worked one season in the reindeer herds.” She explained it: the period in Denis’s twenties when he kept losing jobs. He was briefly employed as a daycare attendant, a cook, a shop cashier. All that was before he found the position he held now, as a night watchman for the village school. Their mother had arranged a herding apprenticeship with another Even family that lived near them. Denis accepted it without fuss. He left that year in June, when the herders swung close to Esso, and returned in September sun-darkened.
Lev entered kindergarten that fall, and Lilia started her final year of high school. The week he came home, Lilia called Natasha to report Denis’s experience of extraterrestrials. Her voice came through the phone amused. One night, out in the tundra with the herd, Denis saw a purple light overhead, she said. Simply spotting that light froze him in place. Meanwhile the deer kept grazing. The glow got bigger, filling his vision, and then creatures from outer space were on the ground beside him. They stroked his arms. They sent messages telepathically. When he thought how worried he was about losing the herd, that the deer might wander off into the tundra during this visitation, they told him not to worry, his paralysis was temporary, they had already put all the animals and the other herders back at camp to sleep.
The grasses rustling in the night breeze. The deer, barely a meter tall at the shoulder, hunkered down together to make a low, dark field of fur. The world so quiet that Denis could hear his own breath in his ears. The sweep of stars and satellites above.
“How considerate of them,” Natasha said.
Lilia laughed. Natasha should have asked more questions, probed for Lilia’s coming escape plans, but back then it seemed there was no other family sorrow to discuss. They turned the subject instead to Lilia’s classes. Which kids planned to leave Esso after high school graduation to study. Lilia said she’d do that, too, but not right away. She talked about coming down to visit Petropavlovsk. Eleven months later, she was gone.
Returning home after her sister’s disappearance was the only time Natasha ever heard that story direct from Denis. The same details: purple light, resting deer, alien mouths fixed shut while alien words in his head were echoing. He told her and their mother in the kitchen that first night. He was nervous. His breath came short. And he tacked on a new ending. “They told me they’d come back for me, but they came for Lilia instead,” he said. “She’s taken.” Pointed up. “Lilia’s safe,” he said, in a promise that stemmed from a vivid dream, a promise neither he nor anyone else on this peninsula was capable of proving.
“Phoo,” said Anfisa and shuddered. “So what really happened to her?”
“She ran away,” Natasha said. Anfisa waited. “It was hard to figure out at first because she didn’t take the bus out, she didn’t have a car, and she never mentioned leaving permanently. But afterward we put it together.”
They sat in quiet. The air around them was sticky with that pine smell, wet from steam. “My sister had secrets,” Natasha said. “She dated people I didn’t know about. She had a reputation our neighbors only mentioned after she left. Everyone at home says they saw this coming.” Even Yuri, with his hands pressed to Natasha’s back as reassurance.
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