Between the driver’s seat and the door, Petya reached back to touch her shin. “We’ll be back as soon as possible,” Eva said.
Natasha got out, too, to let Chegga slide from the car. He hugged Marina before he left. Marina, outside her own body, observed him doing it. Then Natasha got back in to sit again. She left her door open.
This is not real, Marina thought. This could not be her life.
The night was cool, the music loud. Marina checked the time on her phone, then put her head back and practiced making an O of her numb lips. Natasha was turned toward the clearing. She said something.
“What?” Marina said.
Natasha cleared her throat. “Almost the closing ceremony.”
Drums sounded through the speakers. Long research had given Marina one more fact: a body takes ten years to decompose after burial. Alyona and Sophia are buried in that man’s garden, she thought. She had practically stood on top of them an hour before. After Marina’s months of horror spent gathering information, that idea neither distressed nor soothed her now. It surfaced in her like a piece of driftwood. Ten years. It floated along.
“I always wanted what you got tonight,” Natasha said in the direction of the clearing. “An answer.”
Marina looked again at her phone. Two hours, he’d guessed, to call back.
“Any answer,” Natasha said. “I’m glad for you.” Her voice was flat and far away.
The words percolated through Marina. She said, “Thank you.”
The two of them sat in the parked car. The music from the campground beat on.
“My mother believes…My mother was right,” Natasha said. “Someone killed Lilia.” In the dark, she turned toward Marina. “Isn’t that so?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” Marina said. Natasha waited. “It could have been like you thought. Yegor made your sister uncomfortable. So she left.”
“But she would’ve called us,” Natasha said. “At some point. She would have called me.”
Marina had no response. There was nothing to say. Natasha had found her answer.
And should Marina feel glad about that? About at last knowing something, anything at all? Because she did not feel it. Where gladness should be, or despair, or gratitude for Natasha’s presence, or desperation to acknowledge the thing they shared, there was brutal vacancy. Natasha was looking at her without expectation. Marina folded her hands and pictured three small bodies, Lilia, Alyona, Sophia, among the warm dark colors of beets and carrots, with roots winding around them and dirt packed into their mouths.
The music faded and a voice yelled for order over the speaker system. “I’m sorry,” Natasha said. “I can’t just sit here. The ceremony’s starting. Do you want to join? Or—” She faltered. “I’ll leave you, if you like. I can come back to take you to our house when it’s done. I just need to get up, get out…”
Two hours. Or three. Ryakhovsky said the police would come. Didn’t he? They would track Yegor down. They would uncover the girls where they lay. Two or three hours, and after that, an eternity.
And Marina would spend all that time like this. Sitting alone. Thinking about decomposition. Kept waiting, as Alla Innokentevna had been, for the happiness that would never again arrive.
“All right,” Marina said. She heard herself speak and watched herself stand from a distance. “We can go.”
When they got to the fenced border of the clearing, Alla Innokentevna was at the microphone. “We celebrate this Nurgenek on the last day of June,” the organizer was calling out. “We make a circle in a tribute to the solstice sun.”
Natasha clutched Marina’s hand. On Marina’s other side, a stranger reached for her. The whole mass of people was falling into formation. Marina looked for Eva and Petya, though the night made it impossible to spot anyone from a distance. They would have to search the circle to find her afterward. That was fine.
The drums bumped up in volume. “During these long summer days,” Alla Innokentevna said, “the old sun dies, and the new one is created. The gates of the spirit world open. This is a time when the dead walk among us. Those who are living can be reborn.”
Dancers crossed the grass. The flaps of their costumes trailed behind them, distorting their silhouettes. Breaking into the circle, they remade the formation, gripping the hands of tourists, locals, children.
Natasha tugged on Marina’s arm. Their circle began to revolve around the wet lawn. “Repeat after me,” Alla Innokentevna instructed the crowd. “Nurgenek…” Marina let the Even words wash past her. She could not replicate those syllables—soft vowels all in a row. Around her, other Russians tried and failed to catch the sounds. One man was shouting. A few people laughed.
They turned faster. The grass was slippery. “Tell the neighbor to one side, ‘Happy New Year,’ ” Alla Innokentevna said. “Tell the neighbor to your other side that you wish them peace.” Marina pictured the peeling shutters on Yegor Gusakov’s windows. The hanging line of Alyona’s cell phone charm.
Alla Innokentevna’s words rose above the drumbeat. “We pass from one year to the next. You will be given a branch of juniper and a strip of cloth. The branch represents your past worries, and the cloth is your wish for the future. When you come to the first fire, throw the branch of your worries in, and jump across.” Her voice, amplified, carried no hint of irony. “Hold your wish tight as you go to the next fire. You will be walking between worlds.”
Marina listened so that she would not think of the turned earth in Yegor’s garden. She would not think of the likelihood her breath would not last the night. Or the impossibility of waiting hours to hear a helicopter. Or the lie that wishes could change history. She would not think of her girls’ hands, smaller, hotter, of how they would feel in hers at this moment, of how Alyona and Sophia would half-run to keep up with the turning tide. If she could only get them back, how perfect Marina’s life would be. She must not think of that.
“This is a powerful time,” said Alla Innokentevna. “Dreams come true. You will jump past the second fire to enter the New Year. And when you tie up your cloth on the other side, your wish will be fulfilled.”
No longer pulled in a loop, Marina was instead drawn straight ahead, toward the edge of the clearing, where the woods began. The trees were lit orange at their bases by twin fires. A choir of voices sang in the recording.
The line of bodies in front of Marina headed for the glow. On the far edge of the clearing, from a tangle of smoke and trees, an unbroken line wound back out onto the grass. Marina saw the first fire—a campfire, really, no taller than her knees. They were getting close. A teenager in beaded leather passed out juniper and cloth.
The air smelled spicy. Freshly snapped branches. It smelled like childhood summers, her grandfather’s lessons, and rivers waded years before with her children. Natasha dropped her hand to take the two objects. Then Marina, too, grasped them, the fabric thin and swinging, the juniper scratching her palm.
Common juniper. “Your worries and your wish,” the teenager called over the noise.
Her worries. Her wish was simple—Alyona, Sophia—and for a terrible moment she allowed herself to believe it, that she and Natasha and Chegga and her friends could actually make them come home, that the major general and his detectives would succeed at last, that her family would be restored. That Lilia’s family would track down their daughter, their sister. That they, too, would be healed. Jump the fires, tie up the fabric, and trust in your power to shape the coming year. But no. Alyona, Sophia, and Lilia were murdered. No amount of ceremony, no prescription or intervention, no big black car could alter the truth of that. Missing children, Marina reminded herself, do not return.
She was up to the first fire. She held her false beliefs in two fists: the juniper, that she could leave suffering behind. The strip of cloth, that her daughters would come back to her.
What was she walkin
g toward? The next year would be like the last. So would the next, and the next, and the next—there was no chance of change. The phone charm would not really be Alyona’s. Or the detectives would let Yegor slip away. Her girls could no longer be rescued. Lilia was years gone. Marina would learn to close her ears to strangers; she would return to the newspaper; she would sedate herself with pills; she would continue to survive. But if she had the choice, she would not do any of that—she would go backward. To her children, her best work, her happy fact of a childhood. Where the whole world waited to be discovered. Where everyone had something to teach her and no one had ever been lost.
She turned around. The woman behind her shouted, “Jump over.”
Marina could no longer speak. The attack was on her.
The teenager stepped toward her and pointed at the flames. “You jump over. It’s the fire of the old year.”
Marina’s hands were full. She could not press them flat to her chest, and she knew how much she needed them there, how soon she would choke without their comfort. What was the point of all this? She was trying to push out of the line but people kept coming. Eva and Petya were in the woods without her. Natasha was gone. The teenager was calling out instructions. Alla Innokentevna’s voice was everywhere, booming over the loudspeakers. They were making her keep moving.
No one near Marina understood. Without her girls, all she had was this breathlessness. Terrible as it was—and it was, it was—it was all she had left to mother. She jumped.
JULY
Don’t cry. Listen. Do you want to hear again about the girl with the golden slipper? Or the two identical palaces? Did I ever tell you there was an orphan kid in the south who was raised by a pack of wolves? Yes, she was. It’s true! They found her when she was a teenager and she couldn’t speak human words. She ended up getting married, living in the city, and raising a family, but for the rest of her life, she ate nothing but raw meat.
I saw it once on the news. She grew up to be one hundred years old.
Don’t cry…
Sophia, look at me. What do you want to hear to go back to sleep? How about the story of the villagers, after they washed out to sea?
Yeah? You’d like that again?
Do you want to say it yourself or do you want me to? Okay.
So.
The wave scooped everyone up from the ground. It carried them, their houses, their cars, over the cliff. If the villagers hadn’t been shut in on all sides by water, they would’ve been hurt, but they were, so they weren’t. They were just locked in place like bubbles in ice. They were in the center of the wave holding their breath. Their eyes were open, and their arms and legs stuck out by their sides.
Like this. Puff out your cheeks—there you go. Like that.
This wave pulls them five hundred kilometers from where their town was. There’s nothing but blue wherever they look. Only a minute’s gone by since they were first picked up, but they’re already halfway to Alaska. The wave slows, and then it stands still, and then…it collapses. All around them. The people were frozen, but now they’re free.
Well, right, they’re still out in the ocean. But they can swim around.
They’re swimming and coughing and pushing their hair back. All the heavy things that washed out with them—their homes, the sidewalks, whole trees—sink away. Everything that was light, though, is floating. Groceries. Toys. Remote controls. What else? Pillows, blankets, and books. The people can’t believe it. There are even cribs floating with babies inside.
They spend the whole first day and night just gathering. The ones who aren’t as strong—the old people and the really little kids—tread water, and shout directions to the ones swimming after their stuff. Like “There’s my hat! My favorite hat!” Or “Don’t forget my hockey stick!” Or—
Exactly. “Two cartons of orange juice over there! To your right!”
Everyone is kind to each other. Nobody gets hurt. No. Sophia, not that. Because that can’t happen there. They’re taking care of each other. They pull mattresses together, so people can rest. They even find some fishing poles. It’s summertime, a nice warm summer. The water isn’t too cold. It’s the perfect temperature. This far out, the ocean looks so clear that the villagers can see to where whales pass under their feet.
Did you hear that?
Be quiet for a second. No. You hear that, don’t you?
You’re okay, right? So hold on one second. One second. Hold on.
He isn’t…it doesn’t sound like him. Does it? Is he coming back up already? No—I’m sorry, shh, I’m sorry. He’s not. Listen.
It’s not her, either. Definitely. It came from downstairs. I don’t…Just stay quiet until we hear her knock back.
Hold on.
Come over here. Please come over here. I know, I know that’s her now. I don’t know why she’s banging like that. It’s not for us. It’s not our wall. Please don’t cry. We’re going to get under the bed, okay? She’s yelling for no reason. We’re just going to get under the bed and listen.
Shh. Good. I know. It’s dark.
You’re doing a great job, Soph.
You hear it? She’s yelling and she’s banging but there’s something else, right? From downstairs.
Like people. Like a lot of people. No, I don’t think it’s burglars. He might have brought…What I want you to do is keep very, very quiet. Are your feet under the bed?
I’m staying next to you. Don’t worry. She’ll get in trouble, like before, but we won’t get in trouble with him. We’re not the ones making noise.
Come closer. I’m going to whisper, okay? And you don’t pay attention to anything else.
In that place, way out, the water is warm. Whales and dolphins and a friendly octopus. The people wait and wait and wait for someone to rescue them. Then somebody says, “It’s time to start swimming.” But the people are scared. Aren’t they? Of course they are. They’re more scared than they were at any moment since they first saw that wave coming.
Somebody says, “What about our groceries and toys and pillows?”
Somebody else says, “What if there’s danger out there?”
But they decide they have to try. They can’t wait in the water forever.
She’ll stop soon. She’s just screaming like she does but she’ll stop soon. Hold my hand.
I know. I hear them. Try not to be scared.
Are you listening to me? We’re going to be brave if our door opens. Even if it is burglars, or if it’s other people, friends of his, we’re going to be strong.
Okay? Do you remember the end of the story? What the villagers say? No one helps them but they help each other. Even though their town is gone, and all they see is water in every direction, they swim for land. We can make it, they say. We’re going to help each other the whole way.
Will you remember that? We have each other. No matter who opens the door. Remember that Mama’s out there. She still loves us. After they go away, we can knock to Lilia, she’ll knock back. She’s just on the other side of the wall. Yes. I’m here. I promise. We’ll stay together. We have each other. We are not alone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the hospitality, generosity, and guidance of the people of Kamchatka. I am especially grateful to Tatyana Oborskaya for bringing me to Kamchatka, Denis Piculin for taking care of me, and Anastasia Streltsova for being my friend. Thanks to the United States Fulbright program and Kamchatka State University for supporting my 2011–2012 research year. During that time, the collectives at the Beringia and the Kronotsky Reserve offered invaluable help and insight. My 2015 trip back happened thanks to Elena Lepo, Aiva Lāce, Lilia Banakanova, Martha Madsen, Bystrinsky Nature Park, OOO Olenevod, and Esso’s Herd 4. Meeting these people and seeing these places changed my life.
Disappearing Earth was inspired by Russia and written in America. My t
hanks go to Alizah Salario, Claire Dunnington, Boo Trundle, Brittany K. Allen, Leigh Stein, Alison B. Hart, Mira Jacob and the Resistance, Jennie Baird, Mika Yamamoto, and Lena Tsykynovska for reading and believing in this novel. The space and support to write it came from Brooklyn’s PowderKeg workspace, Chinelo Okparanta and the Tin House Summer Workshop, Christine Schutt and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Dionne Brand and the Banff Centre, VCCA, Hambidge, Ragdale, and Yaddo.
Thanks to Jean Kwok for being a guardian angel. Suzanne Gluck, Tracy Fisher, Andrea Blatt, and the whole WME team have given me the happiest moments of my whole life. Rowan Cope and Jo Dickinson at Scribner UK nurtured this book’s growth from across the Atlantic—I am so thankful. At Knopf, Annie Bishai, Lydia Buechler, Pei Loi Koay, Josie Kals, Kathy Zuckerman, Sara Eagle, Rachel Fershleiser, Paul Bogaards, Nicholas Latimer, and Chris Gillespie guided me through every step of the publishing process and made my dreams come true. And enormous thanks go to my brilliant, kind, unfailingly patient editor, Robin Desser. There aren’t words in English or Russian that can express what she has meant to this book and to me.
So many people helped bring Disappearing Earth to life. I will never be able to thank them all sufficiently. Let me then dedicate this last line of gratitude to the most important one: to Alex Eleftherakis, for his love, his faith, and his suggestion ten years ago to consider Kamchatka.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia Phillips is a Fulbright Fellow whose writing has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Moscow Times. She lives in Brooklyn.
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