Notes From My Captivity

by Kathy Parks

  As I watch him, I take the time to mentally go over all the blogs I’ve read on Tumblr about how to make boys notice you.

  Always look your best! Okay, let’s see, I’m half-drowned, half-starved, in the same clothes I’ve worn since two days ago, my hair has dried funny, and I just pulled a tiny leaf out of it. Hmmm, next.

  Show an interest in the things he likes! I look over at the Bible. Other hobbies: hunting, gathering, kidnapping. Okay, I’ll try.

  Don’t forget to play a little hard to get! Right. Well, since I’m a prisoner in his hut, I’d say he’s got me.

  By now the past twenty-four hours have caught up to me. Later, I watch through heavy-lidded eyes as the family prepares to turn in for the night. Scowly and Woody bed down near the front door. The women throw down blankets near the stove. The mother drops something made of animal fur and points to a space on the floor by the wall, no more than two feet wide, where I suppose I am to sleep. I quickly obey.

  The candle flickers, putting off a musky, animal scent, and the mother reaches up, takes it off the table, and blows it out, leaving everything dark around me. I hear some prayers, some of them guttural and sullen-sounding—Scowly nagging his god—and then all is quiet except for the breathing around me. Through the paneless windows, I can feel a cool breeze and see the stars in the sky. As my eyes adjust, I can make out shapes in the dark.

  I wait, listening to the breathing deepen. Before I know it, I’m asleep.

  I awaken with a start, sometime in the night, minutes or hours later. I’m in a hut with the same family who were once part of the darkness around me, tantalizing and frightening. Now they are more real, and I am less. Stripped of my possessions, my family, my friends, and my world. Unable to speak and be heard. Made mostly of shadows and fear. My broken arm heavy in its clumsy cast. I know the dark Siberian woods are full of danger, but dark Siberian huts don’t seem like day care centers, either.

  I glance over at the sleeping figures. Woody is closest to me. The glow of the moon lights up his face. The light accentuates his high cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw. Give him a haircut and a shave and a week of hot showers, and he might be Instagram-ready.

  It’s time to put my plan into motion. Very quietly I crawl across the floor toward him, being careful not to rest too much weight on my broken arm. I just need to get him to like me—as a person or an object of intense desire or whatever—and then have him get me the hell out of here. I’m amazed at my own courage as I approach him and whisper in his ear.

  “Menya zovut Adrienne.”

  My name is Adrienne.

  Yes, I know his little sister already announced my name to the family, but it wouldn’t hurt to say it again. I have a name. I am a person. I am an object of desire.

  His eyes pop open and I jerk instinctively. He moves his gaze to me, stares at me.

  “Menya zovut Adrienne,” I say again.

  He shakes his head. I’ve scared him. Maybe I’ve been too aggressive. Came off like those girls at parties you find draped all over the football players. The ones the other girls talk about. I start to crawl back to my place on the floor, but suddenly he grabs my arm.

  I stifle a shriek as he pulls me toward him.

  “Menya zovut Vanya,” he whispers in my ear.

  Fifteen

  The next few days pass in relative peace. Clara seems delighted to have me around. Vanya is openly curious with short-lived stares and then bursts of shyness, his face flushing red. Scowly grumbles and growls. Silently I experiment with new variations of his nickname. Scowletariat. Scowl Doggy Dog. Oscar Scowlarenta. My presence is clearly not a pleasure to him, and I remember how I once treated my new brother when he appeared in my household so long ago. Fifty Shades of Scowl has the same long-suffering stare. Maybe he liked his family just fine before I came along. And it’s hard to know what the mother is thinking. She neither smiles at me nor talks to me directly, although sometimes I do catch her looking at me and then looking away when I notice. It’s strange. She seemed so ferocious at first—what with that severe expression and disgruntled owl friend of hers—but from time to time, there’s something soft in her gaze. I’m not sure what it means.

  In the following days, I watch and learn and try to stay out of the way as I plot my strategy with Vanya. I’ve got to figure out his movements during the day and night. How I can catch him alone without his scary big brother around.

  It is Clara who serves as my tie to this strange family. She is the one who leads me to the outhouse and stands patiently outside. She is the one who pulls green, moist shoots out of the ground, takes a bite first, and then offers to me something that tastes very much like celery, nodding approvingly when I swallow it. She’s the one who loves the words from me she doesn’t understand. And so I give her words. I’m glad to.

  My own voice comforts me as I tell her a story of my father from our camping days, of how he accidentally set the tent on fire, pantomiming the action while I describe it, and she suddenly lets out a peal of laughter and claps her hands together. She shouts out a word that is lost on me. She repeats it in a pleading voice, the same word, over and over, even clasping my hands, and finally it dawns on me that she wants to hear the story again.

  So I tell it once more, to her great delight. She makes me tell the story three more times, and then she gets up out of the grass, motioning for me to stay seated while she wades away, first through ferns and then sunflowers, leaving me there with the sun shining bright in a sky that has one drifting cloud.

  I wait for her. It’s almost pleasant out here, considering the circumstances, the air so warm it could be the same degree of sunshine they’re enjoying right now in Boulder. I think about my mom. Dan told her that since we had no cell signal out in the wilderness, not to expect any messages from us for two weeks unless we ran into trouble, so she’s going on about her life right now, completely unaware that her husband is dead and her daughter is a captive. In that part of the world, the civilized part, it’s a Saturday—if I’ve counted the days right. I can’t imagine it being a Saturday here. It’s way too wild and exotic for that.

  And yet I can smell honeysuckle. And yet I can see butterflies. And yet the breakfast I was given this morning, something of a cross between Cream of Wheat and mulch, wasn’t entirely terrible.

  Clara returns, a stack of birch bark in her arms, each piece the size of a postcard. She flops across from me, breathing heavily. She wipes her face and smiles brightly, then hands the top sheet of birch bark to me.

  I look at it, shocked. It’s a drawing that looks like it was done with a stick dipped in the ashes of a fire, and it is a perfect image of her, down to the eyebrows and the curve of her face.

  “Clara,” she says, pointing.

  I wonder how she did it. I don’t recall seeing a mirror around the hut, but maybe the mother has one stashed away that she borrows to study herself. The girl has talent, that’s for sure.

  I smile big at her. Dig around in my mind for a word I know that will convey how impressed I am.

  “Potryasayushche.”

  Incredible.

  And it is. It’s her face, her expression, her nose and eyes and mouth. She carefully sets the self-portrait aside and shows me the next one.

  Why, if it isn’t Luke Scowlwalker.

  She’s captured her moody older brother exactly: the broad face and the large thick lips. The stern and world-weary expression, the disagreeable brow line. The shading gives dimension to his scruffy beard, the shape of his nose. Once again, it’s an amazing reproduction.

  “Marat,” she says, pointing. I don’t understand at first, but she points at herself—“Clara”—then back at him. “Marat.”

  “Marat.” I repeat it several times. It sounds slightly menacing, the name of a killer who hunts by night. I guess I was hoping for Bobby or something equally tame.

  Then it’s Vanya’s face I see, perfectly rendered. It’s as though he’s staring at me from the birch bark canvas, and I stare b
ack at it a long time. Yes, his beard is slightly thicker on the jawline. Yes, the front of his hair does curl that way. Yes, his eyebrows have that slant, and yes, that stare is open and that smile is polite and embarrassed. There’s a certain hopefulness about his expression that is hard to put into words, but his sister has captured it with ashes and bark. I give it one last look before handing the drawing to her, nodding my approval.

  “Vanya,” I say before she can speak.

  Her eyes widen in wonder. How can she have known he’s already introduced himself? She nods. “Vanya.”

  Then it is time for the drawing of her mother captured in her quiet and mysterious stateliness. It is just as detailed and meticulous but reveals nothing new. Even her mystery is captured by the girl who must know her so well, or maybe her mother confounds her, too. I can’t get her actual name; Clara keeps calling her Mama, the closest thing to English I’ve heard since I’ve been out in the wilderness.

  “I can’t call her that,” I say in English.

  “Maaaaa-maaaa.” She draws out the word in case I’m not following.

  I shake my head, frustrated, then say the Russian word for Madam.

  “Gospozha.”

  Clara stares at me as though she’s never heard this term in her life, and that makes sense. It’s not like she’s probably ever met any woman outside her family. At any rate, I decide that a little formality couldn’t hurt around the older woman. Gospozha it will be.

  Finally she recovers enough to show me the next drawing. It’s of an older man, wearing a tall fur hat. He looks nice. He must be the father that Yuri described, the dreamy and kind one. Unless he lives in a tree, he must be dead or missing.

  “Papa,” she says sadly. Then she hands me one more drawing.

  I gasp.

  It’s the girl. The one who appeared in my tent and, later, in the woods. That sweet little girl with the tiny body and the knowing smile.

  “Zoya.”

  I look at Clara. “I saw her,” I say, too excited to think through translating the words into Russian. “She talked to me.”

  Clara looks at me intently, then shakes her head. Of course she doesn’t understand me.

  I point to the pictures of the older man, then the girl.

  “Gde?” I ask.

  Where are they?

  Clara gathers up the drawings in a loose pile, takes me by the hand, and urges me to my feet. She leads me to a place, high in the meadow, that is sheltered by young birch trees growing in a circle, as though planted that way. Inside the circle are two graves. Upon each grave is a six-sided wooden cross, upon which each name has been carved.

  Zoya. Grigoriy.

  “Chto sluchilos?” I ask.

  What happened?

  The light leaves Clara’s face. She tries to smile, but just as suddenly, the smile crumples and her eyes fill with tears. Suddenly I feel like crying myself. I never had a sister, but I had a dad.

  “Prosti,” I tell her.

  I’m sorry.

  Just then Vanya approaches. He doesn’t look happy. He and Clara argue for a moment in rapid Russian, his voice getting louder, her voice getting softer until she’s quiet. Whatever the argument, Vanya has won.

  He glares at me, gestures me away from the grave.

  “Idi!” he orders.

  I know what that means.

  Go.

  The tips on seduction I’ve read on the internet never warned me not to approach the sacred graves of my crush’s family. Apparently I’ve offended Vanya, because he doesn’t speak to me or even look at me the rest of the morning. But later in the afternoon, he catches my eye and smiles.

  So perhaps I’m forgiven.

  I’m still amazed at Clara’s drawings.

  How could it possibly be that this girl—Zoya—appeared to me in my tent and was as real and alive as any other person I’d ever met but at the same time was dead and in the ground? And had Zoya been the one whose apparition appeared to Sergei’s father? It was a wonder, this land where the living and the dead mixed so easily. And yet I was totally, completely unable to share the miracle.

  No internet. No phone. No mail. No texts or Twitter or Instagram. Here the air is completely clear of any kind of voice that could add to the discussion of what is real and what is a dream. I have to get out and share this story with the world. Make them believe me. Make them understand that I had met the strangest family in the universe, alive and dead, primitive and polite, considerate and terrifying. Make them understand that my stepfather, Dr. Dan Westin, was not only strong and brave and protective but was right all along, and those who doubted him should be ashamed of themselves.

  I should be ashamed of myself.

  Later that day, I try out the names. Vanya. Marat. Gospozha.

  Vanya smiles, and Marat snarls at me. Saying his name is like stroking a bushy dog’s pelt the wrong way, tail to head, and I retreat as fast I can with my legs tied like that.

  When I address the older woman simply as Gospozha, she looks at me in surprise and then flashes a grin that fades so fast I think I imagined it, and I can’t figure out whether I’d mispronounced the term or she’s found it funny in its formality, hearing it for the first time in thirty years or so. At any rate, I am happy that at least I’m serving as some kind of amusement and decide to call her that from now on.

  I wait for a chance to be near Vanya, to talk to him, smile at him, flip my hair with my good hand, ask with interest how he skins a deer: do all the things you’re supposed to do to make your magic on the opposite sex—though I’ll admit to being only an apprentice sorcerer. After all, my mother never took me aside and said, By the way, you’ll have to make a boyfriend really quick before you starve or freeze to death someday when you’re being held captive in Siberia.

  Late in the afternoon, I see Vanya and Marat chopping wood on a large stump in the back area of the cabin. Vanya holds the logs while Marat splits them. I hobble closer, watch from a short distance. Try to catch Vanya’s eye. Finally he looks at me. I smile my best I’m-not-interested-in-survival-just-you kind of smile. He blinks, looks away, then back at me. Just then Marat swings. Vanya’s hand jerks and the unchopped wood goes flying.

  Marat screams a long string of words at Vanya, so harsh and run together I don’t understand a thing. Then he turns on me.

  “Ukhodi, ukhodi!”

  Go away, go away!

  I stumble backward, fall into a nest of thistles. He’s still screaming at me so I crawl away through the weeds as fast as I can with my broken arm and hobbled legs.

  There is no lovelorn advice Tumblr that I know of on the web that describes what to do when a boy’s possibly murderous hermit brother cock-blocks you.

  Back to the drawing board, I guess.

  Before dinner, when the women are peeling potatoes and chopping onions and green herbs on a plank of wood, I approach them, make gestures that I can chop up things as well. Chopping exists in Boulder, Africa, Thailand, Antarctica, and possibly Mars. Chopping is as universal as smiling.

  Clara looks surprised and turns to Gospozha, who regards me skeptically but finally nods.

  I’m actually good at chopping potatoes. I mean, not a master of the art like they are, but I can hold my own. Usually. Except when I have a broken arm. I try to hold the potato with one hand and steady the knife with the other. The knife slides off. I try again and gouge the potato in the time it takes Clara to expertly chop a whole one. Gospozha rolls her eyes. I didn’t know the eye-roll was the universal sign for You are lame, but here it is, in deepest Russia. Clara tries to help me, steadying my hand, but Gospozha interrupts her with a burst of Russian that sounds like, Indulge the idiot American girl and we won’t eat tonight. Just accept that she is utterly useless. Finally she sends Clara and me outside to the cellar to fetch some kind of strange vegetable I can’t identify. The cellar is dark and cold, just basically a hole in the ground we crawl into. I can’t wait to get out of there, but I manage to gather some of the strange, twisted shapes
and follow Clara to the stream, where she quickly washes hers. I’m washing vegetables one-handed when I sense a presence on the other side of the stream. It’s Vanya, spear in hand. I’m not sure whether he’s returned from target practice or an unsuccessful hunt, since he doesn’t have anything dead draped over his shoulder.

  I drop the wet, clean vegetables in the bucket and stand. Vanya and I look at each other across the stream.

  Clara pulls on my arm. “Poshli.”

  Come.

  “Podozhdite!” Vanya calls.

  Wait.

  Clara looks startled, and slightly annoyed. She calls to Vanya in singsong Russian but he ignores her, wading across the stream until he is close to me. He looks into my bucket.

  “Ya moyu,” I say.

  I wash.

  He nods. I nod. We both stare at the wet vegetable whose name I don’t know. Clara grabs my hand and tugs on it impatiently. Coos something in dove talk, yanks harder. Reluctantly I hobble after her to the hut. I wonder if I made any progress with Vanya. At least he crossed the stream to talk to me. That must mean something.

  I’m not invited to the table at dinner, although they do share some precious salt with me. They go outside, leaving the door open so I can see them sitting on the circle of stones under the stars. There are two empty stones. It’s not as if there’s no room for me. And yet no one calls me over.

  It’s weird. I’m not sure what I mean to this family. No banishment. No acceptance, either, just some kind of uneasy peace in which I am somewhere between guest and captive, enemy and pet.

  Later that night, we bed down on the floor. The breathing steadies around me. The family is asleep. But I am not leaving tonight. I’m biding my time. Becoming familiar to them, harmless, even helpful, all the while seducing their son and brother behind their backs until the hour and the moment come when they turn around and I’m gone, and they will wonder if I ever existed at all.

  The next day, I renew my efforts to try and contribute to the family. After all, Vanya is obviously a family man, so getting close to him means getting close to them. I hobble after Clara into the woods and help gather firewood. With my bad arm and tied legs, I’m not as fast as they are, but I do a pretty good job, and Clara rewards me with a smile. I have to admit, this morning is glorious. Butterflies are everywhere, mostly yellow but also orange and blue, different colors and shapes like the patches on the women’s dresses. Purple flowers grow from the base of the trees and the air smells of spice. We both collect an armload of wood and start back toward the hut. I stop. In between the garden and the hut, Vanya and Marat are setting up a tent.