Notes From My Captivity

by Kathy Parks

  I’m getting a bit tired of the Zen riddles of a phantom girl. Does she mean rescue is coming? Or some other stranger from down the river? It doesn’t feel like a warning. More like a present, by the way she smiles. Unless she’s an evil ghost and wants me dead. Which would suck. I almost tell Vanya about it, then decide against. I don’t know how he’d feel about his little sister appearing to me. I know so little, even after all these weeks, about this family and their superstitions and beliefs.

  We wake up face-to-face in the morning, our arms around each other, our lips very close, but we do not kiss. The spell of night and stars is broken. Back in the morning light, I see him again for what he is: a way out of this world. Maybe I should kiss him, get this going, because I probably have only a few weeks before the first frost comes, but something tells me not to spook him, to be a little more patient. It was only yesterday that I tried to ditch him for the rescue copter. I have to reel him back in slowly.

  Don’t get too eager, said Cosmo. Men are hunters. Let them come to you.

  When we finally get back to the homesite, there is a big uproar as the family spills out, yelling at us in Russian. Even Clara seems agitated, hopping up and down and flapping her arms. Most agitated of all, to my astonishment, is Gospozha. The old woman rushes right past her son and makes a beeline for me. She reaches me, puts her hands out, and holds either side of my face. I look at her and I see fear.

  “Ty v poryadke?” she demands.

  Are you okay?

  It was me she’s been frantically worrying about.

  I’m so startled that I don’t answer her at first, and she asks again, in a louder voice, her hands cold against the sides of my face.

  “Ya v poryadke.”

  I’m all right.

  She looks at me for another few moments before the fear leaves her face, and her hands fall to her sides. She looks at Vanya.

  “Durak,” she snaps. I’m not sure of the translation, but the tone is unmistakable. Vanya’s in trouble for keeping me out in the woods overnight, beyond her protection.

  I’m still reeling at the thought that Gospozha would worry about me. Strangely touched by it. This same mothering has been given to me thousands of miles away from a far different mother. And yet, it feels the same. A bit frosty, a bit strict, but the same.

  Vanya’s trying to give his mother what must be lame explanations, but she’s not having them. I stand off to the side, my hands clasped behind my back, being as quiet as possible.

  Vanya talks back rapidly so that I catch only a word here and there—fire and grave and girl—but mostly I read his tone, at first pleading, then defiant, and then back to pleading. I have to admit, he is a bit cute when he gets worked up about something. His eyes get bright, and the part of his face I can see that’s not covered with beard flushes red.

  Guys flush around the world. Families argue. Sides are taken. It feels curiously comforting. My stepbrother has made these same gestures, flushed this same color, when attempting to get the latest version of Call of Duty.

  Clara has calmed down. She comes up and leans against me. I put my arm around her shoulders.

  Marat is also quiet, though still seething. I have noticed his lips turn pale when he is angry, and he tightens his fists as though he’s about to get blood drawn from both arms at once. He glances over at me and meets my eyes, then looks away, and suddenly I wonder if maybe Marat is jealous. Marat must be lonely, too. Marat has no scowly version of himself to hold at night or hump against a tree. He has no one. All of them are alone together.

  Finally Gospozha brings the argument to a screeching halt with a single hand in the air. She’s done with this. Her son and the strange and possibly trampy girl are back and uneaten, and around these parts, that’s a pretty good day. Or at least her expression seems to imply.

  That afternoon, when I’m finished digging potatoes and have just washed my hands in the stream, wiping them on the dirty towel my shirt makes, Clara approaches me shyly. I start to get up but she gestures for me to stay seated on the grassy bank. She hides something behind her back and that, too, is a universal gesture. She has a surprise for me, a gift.

  “So you’re not mad at me, Clara, for running off with your brother?” I ask in English.

  She smiles, because the sound of English always delights her.

  “What is it?” I ask in Russian.

  She shakes her head, laughs.

  “Ya dolzhna dogadatsya?”

  Want me to guess?

  She nods.

  I have some Russian words I learned randomly that I still haven’t found a use for out here. I use them now.

  “Zmeya?”

  A snake?

  More laughter. The gap in her front teeth would have been closed with clear braces had she lived in America, but I think it’s charming and even pretty.

  “Oleniy rog?”

  An antler?

  A head shake and a giggle.

  “A Taylor Swift CD?”

  She cocks her head.

  I spread my hands. “Ya ne znayu.”

  I give up.

  Her smile spreads bigger. Her whole body trembles. The Siberian winters evidently preserved her love of surprises. With a great flourish, she whips out some birch drawings and sets the first one down on my lap. It’s Vanya, a new portrait that shows his longer hair. The details are amazing. It’s as though her hands didn’t need her nearsighted eyes and had their own internal guidance system. I look away from Vanya’s face. Look back again. A shiver runs through me that I choose to ignore.

  “It’s beautiful!” I tell her.

  She beams. She has another drawing. She leans down, places it in my lap.

  I look down at it. All my breath leaves me. My heart stops.

  It’s my father.

  Twenty-One

  Clara walks away through the forest. I follow her, the drawing of my father in my hand. In my shock and bewilderment, I’ve left Vanya’s behind on the bank, but I’m not going back for it. I want answers, and the faster I walk, the faster Clara walks. It’s a game to her. I break into a run and she shrieks with laughter and begins to run as well. But it’s not a game to me.

  Of course I have put two and two together: the drawing and the words of her dead sister, He is coming. And this isn’t just some new wilderness riddle I can carry back and write about without ever having to solve. This is my life. This is my heart. This is my faith, so long abandoned, that the world lives on.

  That he lives on.

  That the hours I spent wandering the hills where his ashes were scattered weren’t wasted but simply the beginning part of the trail that ends here, in the other world. If this is magic, I want it. I will pay any price for it. My breath is heaving now as I gain on Clara. It occurs to me that she’s letting me catch her. Suddenly she turns and stops so suddenly that I run into her and we both fall in the ferns. She’s laughing. Then she notices I am crying, and she stops. Her eyes widen. She touches my tears as though to confirm them. Speaks to me in the language she was left to speak alone when her twin died. Begins to cry herself.

  “Vse normalno,” I reassure her, wiping my own tears on my shirt sleeve.

  It’s okay.

  I wait until she’s in the sniffle stage and then I begin, in slow, broken Russian, to ask about my father. I know she understands Russian and speaks it perfectly, but she’s always chosen dove talk with me, of which I don’t understand a word. And I need to understand and I’m not leaving this forest, even if a helicopter lands right on my head, until I do.

  “Gde on?” I ask.

  Where is he?

  Her answer is confusing. She points to above her and in front of her, into the trees, into the sky, then sweeps her arms as if to say everywhere.

  “Did he speak to you? Did he say something?” My Russian is hurried and rough. Verb tenses all wrong, words left out. Clara seems spooked by my intensity, because she draws her knees up close to her body and hugs herself.

  “Please, Clara!
” I beg. But it’s no use. She won’t answer me. She seems distressed now. Maybe in her world, giving me this present is a tiny, simple thing, the Siberian equivalent of liking an Instagram post, and I’ve gone and made a big deal about it.

  I look at the drawing again. Ashes and birch bark have brought my father back to life. I can see so clearly not just his face but his essence. The man he was. The lawyer and husband he was. The father and the friend. His expression is peaceful, contemplative, as one would expect it to be on a stroll in a forest so far from the world.

  And yet, how? Is remote Russia where dead fathers go? I think back to the hand that grabbed my wrist. The large footprints on the bank. Was he the one who saved me from drowning? But how could that be?

  Suddenly I’m no longer worried about bears or freezing to death or bugs or my clothes coming unraveled without a single Forever 21 in sight. This is news; this is big news. This is the biggest story of my life, of anyone’s life. Maybe I’ve come all the way to the other side of the world to learn that maybe our loved ones don’t die. Maybe they are still here.

  Maybe death is not the end.

  Maybe that sorority girl did not kill my father, just put him in a different realm that I can reach somehow out here in the wilderness.

  I must find him. And I’m not leaving here until I do.

  Part Three

  Twenty-Two

  The birch bark picture is hot as fire in my hand. I can’t put it down, so I take it and look for Vanya. Tonight I was going to kiss him. In the morning I was going to make my plea for escape.

  But this can wait. My father is here, somewhere. I approach Vanya while he’s working on the canoe with Marat. They have reached the varnish stage. I have no idea what stinky liquid they’ve siphoned out of the woods and are now wiping into the wood of the canoe with the rough cloth that used to be Sergei’s pants. Now I believe, looking at them, that Sergei wouldn’t mind giving back in this way.

  Marat gives me a dirty look as I approach, but dirty looks can’t stand up to seeing my father again. I ignore him, whisper, “Talk by water,” into Vanya’s ear, and walk quickly away toward the stream, wading in fields of sunflowers, their hairy stalks brushing my arms.

  I sit down by the stream and wait.

  It’s peaceful here. Everyone busy with their chores. I stare at the water and remember all I used to think about was how this water flowed into the river, and the river flowed back to the world. Now I’m thinking about the mystery that lives here, and I’m shivering with excitement and curiosity and wonder.

  I hear footsteps behind me, and then Vanya sits next to me. Splotches of varnish cover his arms and the back of his hands.

  “I have something to show you.” I hand him the picture.

  He says nothing.

  “Vanya, this is my father.”

  His raised eyebrows are the only indication that he’s surprised at all. He studies the picture some more silently, then looks at my face. Back to the picture, back to my face.

  “Your eyes,” he says. “Same.” Gently he touches my brow line, then moves his fingers down my nose. I can smell the varnish on his hands. It’s sharp and bitter and a little sweet. “And here and here. Same.” He touches my lips as an electric energy rushes through me. “But here, different.”

  “I have my mother’s lips,” I say, and I know this can’t continue, Vanya stroking my face and and talking genetics, always hot, but I need to return to the subject at hand. “I think when I was drowning in the river, my father pulled me out. Is that crazy?”

  He thinks about this and then shakes his head. “No. Not crazy.”

  “I never told you this, Vanya, but I see your sister. Zoya. She comes to me at night. She talks to me. She’s not a dream. She’s real.”

  He looks at me steadily. His eyebrows don’t move. Nothing about his face suggests surprise.

  “Do you ever see Zoya? Your father?”

  He looks uncomfortable, suddenly. “They are dead.”

  “I know they’re dead, but do you see them?”

  He takes a piece of grass and twists it idly in his hands. He seems to be weighing something in his mind.

  “Tell me!” I insist. “Do you see them? Do you touch them? How did Clara know what my father looks like? Is your family magic? Are they sorcerers? Is that why your family is afraid of being discovered?”

  He shakes his head at the words, and I’m not sure if he’s denying this or if he doesn’t understand the English.

  “Vanya. Where is my father?”

  The growl comes from behind us, distinct and human. It’s Marat, and he’s none too pleased to see us sitting together alone. He starts yelling at Vanya and waving his arms. I growl back in frustration. He really needs to chill out and maybe smoke a bong. Vanya sighs and stands up.

  “I am sorry,” he tells me, and the two of them walk away together, Marat still lecturing him.

  Since I haven’t run off in some time, Gospozha must be starting to trust me, because she lets me go by myself to look for flint. But I’m not looking for a glint of precious stone. I’m looking for a glint of precious father.

  Straining to hear his voice. Calling his name. Looking up when there’s a shift in the breeze. The flint glimmers. My father stays hidden. Silent. But I know he’s here. There is no other explanation. My reporter’s mind is fading. Reporters don’t chase magic. They chase the truth. And to be honest with myself, I don’t care if it’s the truth or a lie, as long as my father can be as real and present as the little girl who appears at night.

  When the family is off working, I sneak back to the cabin and go through their ancient books. Straining to understand the Russian. Looking for a spell or an herb or an explanation that would help me find him. And yet, I find nothing.

  Two days pass. My cast is off, revealing pale skin and an arm that feels weak but serviceable. I’m not sure bones heal that fast out in the world, and I wonder if Gospozha’s potions, or her prayers, should get credit.

  The canoe is finished.

  And yet, I’m not ready to go. My seduction plan is still in place. But for now, the goal is not escape. I need Vanya to tell me the secret of where my father is.

  I find him leaning up against a tree in the forest, reading Fifty Shades of Grey. He’s halfway through. I dread what this has done to his vocabulary and his perspective on women. He hears the sound of my footsteps and looks up wild-eyed, like I’m going to make him lash me with an elk tail or something.

  “How is your book?” I ask in English because, let’s face it, he knows English much better than I know Russian.

  He looks at me suspiciously, as though wondering why I’m talking to him now. “Good,” he says. He’s searching for a word. “Weird.”

  “Yes, it’s not quite Cinderella,” I answer.

  “Cinderella?”

  “Never mind.”

  He looks back down at the book. “Some words don’t understand.”

  “Like what?”

  He points a fingertip to the middle of the page and sounds it out carefully. “Cock ring,” he says.

  “Oh, boy,” I answer.

  He looks at me, “Oh, boy?”

  “It’s jewelry,” I say at last. I reach around in my shirt and hold out my necklace. “Jew-will-ree. Only it’s for . . . for . . . oh God.”

  “God?” His eyes brighten.

  I have to redeem my culture here. I mean, I’m all for free love between consenting adults, but all love in America isn’t like this. “No. Listen, Vanya. This is not how all couples act, do you understand? A man and a woman . . . sometimes very sweet, very gentle, yes?”

  “Gentle,” he repeats, nodding as I stroke the air. I come up close to him and stroke his arm. “Gentle,” I say. “No hit woman.” It’s now or never, Adrienne. I’m still stroking his arm. I move up to his face. “Gentle,” I say.

  He drops the book. He touches my cheek. “Gentle,” he says. Our faces are moving closer and closer. It feels so natural, after all this time,
just a sweet, gentle thing a girl and a guy do when they are standing alone in the shadows and the time is right.

  My lips touch his.

  Gentle.

  Sweet.

  I kiss Vanya again. It happens by the plank table when no one is around. It happens in the forest. It even happens one night in the darkness of the hut while the family sleeps. It’s risky, to be sure, with Marat in the same room, but also exciting. Vanya has started to give me more passionate kisses. There is some tongue action.

  I ask him, again and again, about my father. At first, he won’t tell me anything. Then finally he says: “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I want to show you something.” His grammar is getting better than my stepbrother’s. He takes my hand and leads me down to the river, and we walk up the bank, past where Dan drowned. We visit his burial site, where the cross is still standing. We pull some flowers—orange and white—and drop them on his grave, then we continue on. The rains have not come; the water is calmer and shallow enough to cross over to the other side before we get to the bank where the others lie under the branches. It’s been almost six weeks since they died, but the slight odor of death still drifts across the river, real or imagined. If I couldn’t see Dan’s grave with my own eyes or those bones scattered on the bank, I could almost think it never happened at all.

  I hold Vanya’s warm hand and let him guide me around rocks and over tree limbs, watching my footing, making sure that I am safe. Occasionally we stop and kiss, and he brushes my hair away from my face. I wonder if I look half-savage now. My hair is tangled; my skin feels dry. My hands are thin, the knuckles pronounced. My fingernails are chewed. My eyebrows, overgrown.

  “I need a mani-pedi,” I say.

  “What is—?”

  “Nothing.”

  I’m so tired of waiting. So tired of going hungry. So tired of hoping. I’m going to make him tell me today if I have to wring it out of him with my bare hands. He knows the secrets of this world. Of the afterworld, and I’m not going back to the cabin before I know them, too.

  Hours pass. Vanya finally leads me away from the river, up the hill. The leaves on the trees are turning yellow. They must still be green in Colorado. My mother loves the colored leaves of fall. It’s hard to picture her face. She seems caught in another dimension. When I imagine her voice, it is vague and ghostlike. Maybe it’s a trick of the mind but here, in these woods, my father is more alive than she is.