Cheese shouldn’t crunch, should it? And it lacked flavor except…the overpowering bite of garlic. With a rush of heat, my whole face started to burn. “Ahhh,” I said, opening my mouth, not sure what to do. Spit it out? In front of the kids?
“Wha is…?” I managed, not wanting to close my mouth. Help, help!
“Sala. Garlic sala.” Chase, my hero, grabbed a piece of paper and handed it to me.
“What’s sala?” I asked, after I cleared my mouth. I could still taste the putty on my teeth.
“Uncooked pig fat, soaked in garlic.” Chase said this softly, not looking at me.
Uncooked…pig…fat.
“And that crunch?” I asked, barely whispering.
He reached out for the kids’ pieces. “Hair.”
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Here’s the final item on the list of things I’ve learned this week:
7. Roaches live in wooden houses, too.
I thought I’d left the land of roaches when we departed Moscow. The roach wars rage on in all Moscow apartments, which are built with hidden passageways for the roaches to hide in while their homes (read: nests under wallpaper and behind cupboards) are regularly bombed.
Never did I expect to bring them with me to Siberia.
Or perhaps they were already here, waiting for me. Like an ambush.
Here’s a little-known fact about roaches—they hate the light. Which tells you something about their character, doesn’t it? Thankfully, Siberian roaches are only, say, an inch long.
But what they lack in size, they make up for in quantity. Every single brother, sister, second cousin once-removed, great-great-aunt and shirttail uncle lives in my kitchen. I know because last night, when Chloe whined for a glass of water, I picked her up and shuffled out to the darkness where our fridge—the kind with a freezer the size of an ice-cream box—hummed. I’ve noticed the opening getting smaller and smaller each day as ice builds up. Not sure what to do about that.
Anyway, I didn’t bother turning on the light. I just opened up the fridge to retrieve the pitcher of water.
And that’s when Uncle Spike peered over the top of the fridge to see who was up at this late hour.
I screamed. He dropped to the floor, next to my bare feet, and Chloe started to cry.
“Chase, Chase!” I hit the light.
And everything inside me sort of melted into a puddle of horror. Across my ceiling, thousands of roaches scurried to safety, some parachuting in from the light fixture, others running for the border along the floor, the rest skittering to cracks in the wallpaper, disappearing under it. Have I mentioned how I love wallpaper?
“Chase!”
I stood frozen, afraid to move, lest I step on one and wedge it between my toes.
“CHASE!”
“What?” He appeared, panic on his face as if I might be fending off an army of assailants.
“Roaches! They’re everywhere!”
Chase looked around, as if confirming my words. What, did he think I was lying? I watched the creatures scurry across the coal stove, along the sink, into the cupboards. Over my bare toe.
I screamed again. Why should Chloe have the monopoly on expressing terror?
“Stop screaming!” Chase said, grabbing his shoe and beginning a systematic yet hopeless attempt at mass annihilation.
Oh, no, pal. The screaming has only just begun.
I’m sitting on a wooden stool in a cold office in the Burr town hall. Chase has arranged with Mayor Anton for us to use the Internet, and I’ve brought my laptop in, used the mayor’s protocol and hooked up. The building is long, made of cement, and echoes like a prison corridor. Like all pre-Soviet towns, it was set up by the government and contains the obligatory post office, police force, mayor’s office and, most recently, communications center (aka the mayor’s credenza, which he’s moved into an empty office for us to use). There’s nothing but me, the rickety wooden side table, a drooping bookshelf void of books and a calendar for 1988 on the wall.
I consider it nothing short of a miracle they have Internet, even dial-up. And the fact that I have found H online (my time: 2:00 p.m., naptime; her time: 10:00 p.m., party time) gives me hope that God still cares.
I’m just being dramatic, of course, but at the moment, that belief is wavering a bit. Yes, I’ve dug out my Bible since our move to Bursk, but I haven’t opened it. It’s akin to Chloe putting her hands over her ears and humming in protest.
This vacancy is why I’m feeling as if I’ve been run over by a dogsled, pummeled and forgotten in the land of the sun-never-rises.
I ponder H’s question a moment, while the cursor blinks at me. Have I lost my mind?
Let’s see. I’ve got no running water, a cow in my backyard I must learn to milk, a neighbor who gives me pig fat, roaches as pets and, best of all, my very own outhouse. I believe the answer would be yes.
Oh, no, that almost sounds like a dare. Don’t do it, H!
Now, I’ve never understood why H named her band the Sugar Monkeys. Yes, it’s a punk band. Yes, I understand there’s a deeper meaning to the name that I, as a non-songwriter, can’t possibly understand. But it’s never really made sense to me. However, I can grasp the concept of having a piece of your identity stripped away through no f
ault of your own. So I’m appropriate in my dismay.
I have to admit, picturing H as a mom pushes my imagination into Never Neverland. H is the last holdout, the woman most likely to cover her body with tattoos. But, hey, if I can go from being a Gull Lake Party Girl to a Missionary in Siberia, then maybe…
The cursor blinks and blinks as I wait for a reply, but I get nothing. It takes me about five minutes to realize I’ve been kicked off the Net.
In the other room, I hear Russian voices, arguing. I rub my hands together and blow on them a bit. Although the temperatures have plummeted to just above freezing at night and a little lower than fifty in the daytime, the heat for the central offices of the village has yet to be turned on. We may be on the backside of the planet, but this little town is heated exactly the same way every other Russian town is—via a central heating source that runs pipes through the village and into public buildings like the tentacles of an octopus. I’m suddenly—and who would have thought it?—thankful for my little coal furnace that Chase keeps chugging away.
Here’s a thought. If they can have centralized heating, couldn’t they also have indoor plumbing? Isn’t that just pipes running through the village? Maybe it’s a little more involved, but still. I’m just saying.
I’m already wearing the leather boots—they’re just over the ankles—I picked up for a song in the open market in Moscow. I purposely got them big enough to fit my wool socks. I’m also wearing my pea coat, which I rustled up last time we were in Gull Lake.
I am definitely thinner. Probably all those hiking trips to the outhouse.
I hear a knock at the door and turn.
“Vso?” Anton says in his non-cheery voice, asking curtly if I’m done. One would think that, as mayor, Anton would have to be at least moderately friendly.
“Da,” I say. Even if I wasn’t done, I’d have to be because apparently, I’m getting the boot. “Spaceeba,” I add, thinking he’ll disappear.
He stands there, watching me, his dark eyes holding a thousand private judgments as I pack up my laptop.
So he’s not the warmest coat in the closet. His silent grief demands I give him grace. I smile at him.
“Be careful of your health,” he says quietly in Russian, eyes not leaving mine. I frown at him. Then, abruptly, he turns away.
I was feeling fine until this moment.
Then again, the Nanais talk with a bit of an accent. He might have said, “Be happy you have your health.”
Which I am. Very. It just may be the only thing I have at the moment.
I slide my laptop into my bag.
On the walk home, I notice the leaves have already begun to turn to jewels in the scattered poplar and oak, and for a second, I am in Gull Lake.
The homey scent of bread baking drifts from a nearby house, reminding me of Jasmine, and of Mom baking Saturday-morning rolls.
Children, laughing behind a fence, fill me with memories of Chase and me in the sandbox, fighting for Hotwheel track space.
As I step on fallen leaves, the smell of decaying loam from the ground stirs my senses. I expect to see a football.
I lift my collar as the wind finds my ears, digging my chin into the wool for warmth.
Nearing my house, I see a trickle of dark smoke from our chimney against the gray pallor of the afternoon sky. The house next door, home of Lydia the Killer and Olya, is dark and quiet. Not a hint of life.
Not unlike Olya.
Shuffling toward me up the muddy street is a tall, gaunt man. He looks old at first glance, but then I realize he is weathered by environment rather than time. His face is sallow and covered with a grizzled brown beard, and he’s wearing a pair of deerskin Cossack boots, a dirty and torn army jacket and a misshapen fur hat, worn so thin that the shiny surface of the hide glints through. He lifts his eyes to me, and even from ten feet away, I see emptiness there.
His shoulders are hunched, and as he draws closer, the odor of alcohol hits me like a two-by-four. I stiffen, and he nods, curtly.
Then, as I pass, he stops. I can’t help a glance over my shoulder. I’m ready to swing my computer or maybe just my bag (after all, a laptop is a laptop).
But he’s not coming after me. He’s opening the gate next to mine. Then, with another glance my direction, he enters, and the gate swings shut behind him.
The wind on my neck raises gooseflesh.
Unless I’m mistaken, I’ve just met my neighbor.
Olya’s husband.
I remember our first year of marriage as a long, dark tunnel, during which I ballooned to twice my body size and eventually gave birth to replicas of the childhood sweethearts I once knew and loved.
Chase remembers this time as the year life slid out from underneath him and he nearly lost me. (Not true.) We’ve since found our equilibrium, and the last three years have been as smooth as they can be with twins in a one-bedroom flat…
As I sit on our double bed, a cotton duvet tucked around my legs, I listen to the Siberian wind howl over the sound of Chloe singing herself to sleep. I am waiting for Chase to return home from his late-night council meeting and wondering if we are veering off course again.
What are we doing here?
I understand all about the suicide issues—the tidbit of grace I extended toward Olya has expanded exponentially since I saw her husband. I also believe in the divine providence inherent in all of life’s less-traveled roads. It’s something I learned during my first year in Russia, having made what I thought might have been a rash life decision, only to discover that God knew exactly what He was doing. In fact, He’d planned for me to be doing exactly what I was doing.
Then.
But I’m getting a little panicky now. I mean, after all, I am in Siberia.
I pull my Bible from the meager, well-read stack of books I’ve lugged from Moscow. I’ve been more or less faithfully plowing through Ephesians. It’s only taken me four years, but listen, I have twins—cut me some slack.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Did anyone else notice the word prisoner? I just have to circle that. A few times.
Maybe I should focus on something else.
Worthy of the calling I’ve received. What calling? I’m familiar with this word, having grappled with the hidden meaning of it when I first came to Russia, as a missionary. A calling is that soul-deep passion that God puts inside us. A faith that compels us to do what some might call stupid, like moving to the backside of Russia with two preschoolers to change the world.
Apparently, by Paul’s standards, a calling is supposed to be a privilege, something I need to be worthy of.
Maybe I’m looking at this thing entirely wrong.
I mean, how many women have the opportunity to learn how to kill roaches, milk a cow and cook on a coal stove?
Okay, most of our nation’s pioneers and probably two-thirds of the world, so don’t answer that. But I’m realizing that it’s all perspective, and that perhaps God doesn’t send just anyone to Siberia.
So what does it mean to be worthy? When I was a missionary, I purchased a study Bible that came complete with a word-study section. It’s helpful. Take, for example the word humble, which is in the verse. It also means lowly and comes packaged with phrases like “compassion for the downtrodden.”
Can anyone say
Olya? I think of her now, in that dark house beside mine. Connected to me, in a way. Part of my world, whether I choose it or not.
Or how about gentle? My word study mentions “meekness,” and stepping aside to let God fight your battles.
I can’t even begin to list my battles. Maybe I should start with p for plumbing.
I think I can figure out patient, but when I look it up I find “fortitude.” That makes me think of a fortress or a castle. Our home is a castle. Outside, the battle rages. Maybe if I can provide a fortress, instead of a battlefront, Chase will have a place to rest.
Maybe God can use me to protect and nurture Chase as he rests inside our castle.
Yeah, see, I’m really good at this word study! Too bad understanding the words is only the first step in the process.
Peace. “Prosperity. Quietness. Rest.”
It strikes me that I’ve just looked up the attributes of Christ. Humble. Gentle. Patient. Peace, as in Prince of Peace.
Is that what it means to be worthy? To be like Christ in this chilly world?
Maybe I am here for a reason. Of course I already know that I have a purpose, but it helps to be reminded. Especially when one is waging a constant (and often losing) battle against roaches.
Get Cozy, Josey! Page 8