“Nathan said I’d make a good pastor’s wife.”
Chase looks up at me. “A pastor’s wife?”
See? Even Chase is surprised. “I know. I told him how crazy—”
“Well, you care about people. You always want to help, like wanting to figure out a way to get Olya’s daughter back to her. I think you’d be a great pastor’s wife. The only problem is, you’re already married. To me.”
I stare at him to see if he’s making some sort of joke. “I think he was suggesting you become a pastor.”
Chase rolls his eyes. “Like God would ever use me like that.” He takes another bite of kringle. “But I have to admit, I sometimes wish I was like Nathan—I’d love to get a glimpse at life in the other villages.”
I knew it! I knew it. Paul. Single. I’m trying to figure out how to respond when I hear a knock at the door.
“Hello?”
“Nate!” Chase gets up to let him in.
To be honest, Nathan has been acting strangely ever since Christmas, when he left early, before Christmas dinner.
I hear him stomping his feet and hitting his gloves together. He follows Chase in, his cheeks rosy, his eyes bright. “Happy New Year!” He pulls out from behind his back what looks like…a turkey!
“Where did you find it?”
“A little international-foods store in Khabarovsk. It was frozen solid when I left this morning. I hope it’s okay.”
I know nearly nothing about turkey storage and thawing, but I reach out for the bird. “I’ll put it in the fridge and let it thaw there.” I think I remember my mother doing something like that.
“And there’s something else.” He holds out one of my plates. On top of it sits a pair of pink mittens and a small box.
“You stole one of my plates.”
“No, I found it outside on your stoop. By your door.” He hands it to me, and it dawns on me that this is the plate I gave Olya, with the cookies on it.
She’s given me back a pair of mittens. Homemade mittens, herringbone it seems. They’re soft, made of angora maybe, with a beautiful pattern along the top. “These are gorgeous.”
“Take a look at this box.” Chase picks it up. It’s made of birchbark, overlaid with an intricate design.
“Do you think she made this?”
Nathan takes it from Chase and sits down at the table, turning it over for scrutiny. “I’m sure of it. I’ve seen these at nearly every house in Bursk. It’s one of the crafts the women here do.”
“There’s more of these?”
“I’ll bet that Olya has quite a few more. And if not, she can make them. It’s a Nanais skill from long ago, along with making reindeer mittens and hats. I’ve even seen picture frames made of birchbark.”
A unique, quality product…
Olya’s house is dark when I go to her door, keeping my eyes peeled for Lydia. I hear someone inside the house as I approach. I knock three times before the door opens just a crack. Olya peers out.
I point to the box. “Spaceeba.”
She nods.
“It’s very pretty,” I add, testing the water.
She says nothing, but ducks her head.
“Do you have more of these, Olya? Just like this box? And like the mittens?”
She slowly looks up, frowning at me, and I see she needs some guidance through the labyrinth of my thoughts. “I think I’ve found a way to get your daughter back from Moscow.”
She stands there a long moment, during which I feel the prickle of cold on my nose, weaving through the open collar of my hastily thrown-on jacket, biting at my ears. The sun is low, the late-afternoon shadows creeping into the yard.
As I watch, her eyes slowly start to glisten, filling with tears. She puts a hand over her mouth. Then she starts to nod.
She keeps nodding, even as her other hand covers the first. Finally she steps back, and the door creaks open.
“I have more,” she says softly in a voice that speaks of tentative hope. “Many more.”
I glance at my house next door. The lights are bright, creating a glow of warmth and happiness. I want her to join us.
But first, perhaps, I need to enter her world.
I stomp the snow off my feet, smile and step into her dark home.
Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.
Chapter Twelve
Do You Trust Me?
My mother always said I was an entrepreneur at heart. Maybe it was the way I set up the petting zoo by the side of the road, filling it with the ducklings who’d lost their mother, a bunny we’d found in the backyard, my aunt Myrtle’s deer lawn art, a cat from my uncle Bert’s farm and Sherlock, the dog. I charged admission, and on one hot July day made exactly three dollars and twenty-two cents.
The thing is, you have to believe in the idea to sell it. And not just believe it, but commit to it. Take, for example, the honey-coated peanuts the school forced me to sell in sixth grade in order to send our swim team to Minneapolis for the regionals. I’m all for honey-coated peanuts. But the thought of going door to door to convince my neighbors that a can was worth their hard-earned cash so we could hang out in a hotel room made me want to hide behind the shed.
And eat the peanuts.
I think my parents privately funded my trip after discovering my stash of empty peanut cans.
But my problem wasn’t salesmanship. It was lack of vision. (Not to mention the tasty crunch of the peanuts.)
I’m getting the impression that the ladies of Bursk lack vision, too, as I finish unveiling my Great Plan to market their handicrafts. The women huddle around the room, wearing their shopkas and knobby wool scarves around their shoulders. January’s icy fist is slowly tightening around our village, the sleet and snow isolating us from the world. The fear of windchill and frozen appendages keep us shut up in our homes. I see weariness on their pale, lined faces and in their tired eyes, and I know that I look the same. I smell coal smoke on our clothes and feel it in my grubby hair. (Here’s a dilemma: heating a second pot of water to bathe in before the first pot cools to the point of uselessness. Sure, Chloe and Justin can take baths in two inches of water, but that ain’t gonna cut it with me and my size fourteen—no, ten!—backside).
Yep, winter has come to Bursk, and even the women’s spirits have been caught in its iron grip. Granted, marketing their handicrafts is yet a fledgling idea, still growing legs, but in my mind, I can see birchbark jewelry cases, picture frames, trivets and even candleholders being bought by craft-hungry Americans. And I’m just getting started. A walk through Olya’s dark house revealed sculptures and paintings, tapestries and table linens, knitted scarves and mittens and painted matrushka dolls.
A supermarket of Russian goodies just waiting to be shipped to the Mall of America.
And with the new speedy postal rates, which I know about thanks to Jasmine’s kringle business, it just might work.
If I can get the ladies to warm up to my idea, that is. Sadly, their faces, like my house, stay rigid and cold.
Although Chase stocked the coal furnace today before heading out with Anton to ice-fish, the behemoth is fighting a losing battle against the below-freezing windchill battering the house and the creep of frost on the inside of the windows. Last night, both Justin and Chloe joined us in bed, and if someone doesn’t get night-trained soon, I might move to the sofa. Our sheets hang outside and I’ll have to thaw them before I can remake the bed.
Siberia is just like Minnesota? Who said that? Chase? Uh, I don’t remember my mother bringing home milk on a stick in the shape of a bucket. And my freshly washed hair solidified into a knot this morning as I took Chloe to the outhouse.
No, I’m sorry, my fellow Minnesotans, but I win the cold-weather war.
I am not going to let the chill in spirit—as well as climate—deter my entrepreneurial passion. After all, I’ve spent the past few days learning a new Russian vocabulary—words like “marketing” and “advertising.” I look around the room and put every ounce of �
�this is a fabulous idea” into my expression.
“Okay, how many of you have items like this in your home?” I hold up the little birchbark box.
Nearly everyone raises their hand.
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.
“What if I told you that I think we could make money by selling your crafts on eBay?”
The hands go down. I must be speaking Swahili.
“Have you ever thought about selling your products before?”
Ulia raises her hand. I again feel like a teacher. “Yes?”
“Sometimes in the summer, we have tourists. We’ve sold some crafts to them.”
Bingo! “That’s right. Only we’d do this year-round. We could use the money to, say—” I cast a look at Olya, who is sitting with her head down, her hands folded on her lap “—buy something you might need. Like a washing machine!”
Yes, I saw the small, intrigued crowd clustered around the newest member of my family before our meeting started. One would think that I’d brought an alien spaceship into the house. Just to set the record straight, it’s not a Maytag or anything. In fact, it’s just a little bigger than a dorm fridge. It has two compartments—the wash side and the spin side—each roughly the equivalent of a three-gallon bucket.
I add clothes and water to the wash side, and it spins the laundry in a circle. After ten minutes or so, the agitator stops, and I drain the water. Then I lift the sopping laundry out of the wash bin and squeeze it into the spin side. The machine then spins the laundry at warp speed, using centrifugal force to wick out the water. The clothes are nearly dry by the time the spin cycle is finished.
Notice I said “nearly.” They’re still wet enough to freeze on the line outside.
Each bucket only holds about five items of clothing—less if I’m washing jeans. So I get to repeat this process about five times a day.
All the same, gone are the hours of wringing the laundry manually, and the skin on my hands has actually begun to grow back.
I was feeling like a queen until the village women—after scrutinizing the machine—looked at me as if I had just told the peasants to fetch my scepter.
Does anyone see a mink hat on my head? I’d just like to point out that I’m still wearing a puffy down jacket while the rest of the women in Russia wear fur head to toe.
That’s all I have to say about that.
“Listen, ladies, I think this will work.” I hold up the birchbark box. “This is beautiful, and with the right marketing, I think we can really make some money here. We can buy food and medicines for your families.” And plumbing. Maybe we can even put in plumbing!
Okay, Josey, settle down. But the whole idea has me buzzing. For the first time all day I can feel my toes.
Ulia is looking at me hard, with an expression I can’t read. For a moment I can’t miss, her gaze settles on my appliance. Then to my astonishment, she stands up, digs into her bag and produces a key chain, braided with what might be deer hide. “Will this sell?”
I take it and look it over. The leather is soft, with a stamped design on the flat surface that holds the ring. “Yes. I think so.”
She nods. “Ladna. I’ll be back.”
She glances at the others and without smiling, gives a nod.
Olya looks up and briefly meets my eyes. Again, I get the smile. See, it’s all about vision.
And the occasional washing machine.
I hate to say it, but I could give her great advice. Because I’m a wife who submits. Who flings herself into the arms of God with abandon. Who is the most popular woman in Bursk, the entrepreneur of Secrets of Siberia.
We in America have birthday parties backward. At least, according to the Russians, we do. See, in Russia, the birthday girl throws the party—cooking her own dinner and baking her own cake—and invites her friends to celebrate with her. I see a number of positives to this. For one, you get to invite only the people you want. For another, you get to eat only the foods you love.
In the Russian tradition, if you’re invited to a birthday party, it’s a big deal. You attend.
Even if someone’s scary husband is going to be there.
“How do I look?” I ask Chase as I emerge from our bedroom wearing a jean skirt and a sweater. Yes, it might be early-millennium fashion, but anything other than my yoga pants makes me feel like a human again. And the fact that they’re two sizes smaller than the clothes I was wearing when I got here, well, you know I’m doing a wild jig. I even wrestled myself into panty hose. I’m not sure why—I won’t be taking off the wool leggings I’m wearing over them. Maybe it’s simply the knowledge that I’m wearing panty hose. That under the jean skirt and the long johns, I’m dressed up.
Chloe runs out wearing a similar getup—her sweatpants and sweatshirt under a frilly summer party dress.
You have to use your imagination in Siberia.
“You look fabulous,” Chase says, leaning over to kiss me. He doesn’t look too bad himself in a pair of blue wool dress pants and another red sweater my mother sent him for Christmas. He’s a regular elf.
Justin is crawling out of the bedroom, zooming a car along the floor. He’s wearing a pair of blue corduroys and a red sweater, looking every inch a min
iature replica of his father.
He’s going to break hearts from one end of the globe to the other, too.
“Let’s go,” Chase says, scooping up the kiddos. We don’t bother to bundle them for the quick dash to Olya’s house.
I check for Lydia as we approach her door. She’s penned up in the back and strains at her leash, barking frantically. Good dog, good dog.
Olya opens the door decked out in a black sweater and a gray skirt, valenki on her feet. She’s swept her raven-black hair back into a clip and has even put on makeup.
Chase gives her a kiss on the cheek. Olya hugs me.
Their house is the mirror image of ours without the fresh coat of paint. Same fraying brown furniture, same black-and-white fuzzy television picture (finally, I get to catch up with Santa Barbara!), same gargantuan coal furnace in the middle of the room.
The kitchen has a festival feel. The table has been pushed out from the wall and set with beautiful—albeit chipped—china, and bowls of Russian delights like winter salad, pickles, cutlets, brown bread and, yes, even a cake.
Get Cozy, Josey! Page 14