Riding Icarus

by Lily Hyde

  Ira and Granny were still sitting in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry,” Ira was saying. “Sveta was my best friend for years; Masha is almost like a daughter. But I have Gena to think of. I don’t know what Sveta has been doing in Turkey; I don’t want to know. I can believe it wasn’t her fault, but she’ll have to keep quiet to protect Masha; Igor’s seen to that. I just can’t get mixed up in anything to do with the mafia, not with Gena. I don’t want to throw you out but you can’t stay here.”

  She saw Masha in the doorway. “What are you doing, eavesdropping again?” she said angrily.

  “I wasn’t! I came to get a drink, that’s all.”

  “Well, all right.” Ira, rather shamefaced, poured Masha a glass of water and ruffled her hair when she gave it to her. “Now get back to bed, there’s a good girl. Sweet dreams.”

  Sweet dreams, thought Masha dismally, climbing back into bed. What was happening? Was Ira, who’d been so nice all this time, going to send them away? Did she believe Igor that Mama was a criminal? No one would tell her what Igor had said her mother had done. Oh, these grown-ups, they wouldn’t explain what was really happening, but they weren’t helping; they weren’t looking after her. It was like living in a house that suddenly fell down, like discovering the roof that was meant to keep off the rain was made of cardboard. She’d waited so long for her mother to come home and take care of her again, and now that Mama was back she was useless and frightened and had done something stupid just as Masha might have done. And even Granny, her beloved Granny. It was all right to play tricks, but that wouldn’t make life go back to normal. Why couldn’t Granny do something to really stop Igor?

  Masha thought about the witchcraft Granny had done for her, back in the village years ago, when she’d had all those bad dreams about snakes. Pouring molten wax into water, she knew, was a way of divining what was frightening a person and then stopping the fear. If she poured wax into water, Masha wondered, would she find out what had happened to Mama in Turkey? There was a small, fierce fire of anger burning inside her; anger that her silly mother had not told her everything and would not tell her. She had to know – wasn’t that what this was all about? Why Igor wanted to take her away to live with him. Where Mama had really been and what she had done.

  She suddenly remembered what Mama had said, when she’d started talking to herself on the island. He thinks if he’s got you then I can never tell the truth about what happened… Even Mama had admitted that it was all about knowing. Masha didn’t understand exactly why, but she was suddenly sure that if she knew the truth about her mother, Igor would no longer be able to threaten them. Knowing would make the fear and uncertainty go away. That was why her grandmother poured wax into water. That was why Igor bullied her and Granny and Ira and even his wife—

  There was one other person who knew what it was all about. That was why she had argued with Igor, and he had hit her. Nice, sad Aunt Anya.

  With these awful thoughts in her head, she’d never be able to sleep. Never ever again. If only she could tell all this to someone! Masha closed her eyes and curled herself up into a ball of angry unhappiness, pulling the sheet over her head.

  But there were other things to talk about, after all. The river was frozen over, a great gleaming sheet stretching away to the island, and there were exploded stars and flattened bubbles like pancakes caught in the ice.

  “If you think about it,” Masha said to the little Cossack girl, “the air inside that bubble is already old. When the ice melts in spring it will be a tiny bit of winter that comes out.”

  “Baaah humbug,” said the goat kid. It was standing on the ice, all four legs splayed out so that it didn’t fall over. “Are you ready for your second birthday yet, Masha? Do you know your heart’s desire?”

  “But we still don’t know when her second birthday is,” said the Cossack girl, turning a graceful pirouette on one red skate.

  “Silly,” said the kid. “Look down there and you’ll see it.”

  Masha lay on her tummy and pressed her nose to the glassy ice. It was like looking through the night sky, past sprinklings of rainbow-edged galaxies, stars like bursting globes of mercury. There was yellow sunlight underneath it, and yes, there was the riverbank, with willow trees and allotments, and the church with its dome, and the old wooden dovecote, but it was all inside out.

  “Go on, pull it up,” said the kid.

  There was a hole in the thick ice, one of those round tunnels bored by an icefisherman. Masha put her hand into it. Down, down, until she caught hold of something. It felt like a wooden pole. She pulled, but nothing moved.

  The Cossack girl put her hands round Masha’s waist, and they both pulled together. Still nothing moved.

  The kid took hold of the Cossack girl’s shiny green trousers in its teeth, and they all three pulled – and pulled – and pulled – and sat down with a bump, because the wooden dovecote came up through the hole, and attached to it was the green ground, and out came allotments, and willow trees, and the church with its faded blue dome.

  “Look! You see, here we are!” cried the little Cossack girl. They sat in a round green hollow, like the palm of a hand, and the dovecote curved up on one side, and the church dome curved up on the other.

  “Is this where my birthday is?” Masha asked the goat kid.

  “When, not where,” said the kid, flapping its ears. “Between midsummer and midsummer, what have you got?”

  “Nothing,” said Masha. “Because there’s only one midsummer.”

  “Wrong!” shouted the Cossack girl. “There’s the magic time!”

  The kid blinked its yellow slotted eyes, and there was a chinking sound exactly like a coin falling into a money box.

  “Between the church and the dovecote, what have you got?”

  “Nothing,” Masha said. “Because you can’t see the dovecote and the church dome at the same time.”

  “Wrong!” the Cossack girl shouted. “There’s the enchanted place!”

  Kerchink! went the sound of the coin dropping.

  But a new, harsh voice croaked, “Wrong!” It was a big black crow sitting on the kid’s back. “The proper answer is: Nothing.”

  At the bottom of the green hollow was the icefisherman’s hole. Masha looked through it, and on the other side was a huge white space. No roads, no towns, no trees. It was Nothing. She was tumbling down into it when she felt the Cossack girl’s hand seize hold of her own to rescue her.

  Chapter 15

  Granny had hold of her hand and was patting it gently. “Wake up, little one.”

  Masha lay blinking at the slanting bars of sunlight peering in between the curtains. It took a moment for the feeling of falling to fade.

  “You were dreaming,” Granny said.

  “Yes, I was.” Masha sat up slowly. She wanted to ask her grandmother about the magic time and the enchanted place. But when she opened her mouth, a completely different question came out. “What was Mama doing in Turkey?”

  Granny turned towards the warm stripes of sunshine. Their clear light on her face made her look very old and tired. “I don’t know, Masha.”

  “But what did Igor say? You’ve got to tell me,” Masha insisted. She grabbed her T-shirt, pulling it roughly over her head, and emerged glaring.

  Granny only sighed. “Oh, Mashenka.”

  “I hate it that no one tells me,” said Masha loudly. “Not even Ma—” She stopped. “I don’t suppose even Mama would say,” she went on carefully, after a moment. Granny looked so tired, so worried, that Masha desperately wanted to tell her that Mama was all right; she was in Kiev. She was stuck on an island, true; she was being chased by Igor, true; but she was here and she was all right.

  She almost blurted it out, but she bit her lip and said nothing.

  Granny turned back to her. “Up you get. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

  “Have we? What?”

  “Why don’t you get dressed, and I’ll tell you over breakfast.”

&n
bsp; Granny was already wearing her old faded cotton dress, a headscarf covering up her white hair. But then, as long as Masha had known her, Granny had never bothered to get undressed to go to bed. Masha often thought it must be nice to be old and stop bothering with all those annoying things like having baths, cleaning your teeth, putting on pyjamas and taking them off again. She pulled on her shorts. It was already stickily hot in the flat. Even so, she carefully wound the long Cossack belt round her waist.

  Ira made the best breakfasts; this morning it was syrniky, little fried cakes of curd cheese, with apricot jam.

  “So what have we got to do today?” Masha asked, tucking in next to Gena.

  “We’re going to the village,” said Granny. “Back to my old house to live.”

  “To the village?” Masha stared. She hadn’t been there for a long time. A sudden picture popped into her mind of the dusty road winding through green, green fields, the little low whitewashed houses, the flocks of foolish, officious geese. Oh, how nice to be there, far from anywhere, where it was cool and quiet, and there was nothing to think about except climbing the hill or running down the valley to the river.

  But what about Mama?

  “We can’t go,” she said. “We need… I mean…” She stopped. It was so hard not to tell Granny about Mama. But she knew she couldn’t just disappear off to the countryside without telling her mother.

  “What about your leg, Granny?” she asked instead. “How will we get there?”

  “Ira is going to find someone to drive us.”

  “How long will we stay?”

  “We thought for the summer,” Ira said, and Masha suddenly remembered what she had said yesterday, that they had to leave. So Ira really was throwing them out.

  “The old beekeeper is living in my house,” said Granny. “Do you remember him, Masha? There’s plenty of room for us too. Wouldn’t you like to be back there?”

  Masha thought about the dim inside of Granny’s house with its hanging bunches of herbs and reeds. She thought about pouring hot wax into water, into the cold hard shapes of nightmares. The village was far, far away from Igor, from Icarus, from everything – and from Mama.

  “Yes, I would,” she said slowly. “When are we going?”

  “This afternoon, if we can find a driver.”

  “Do we have to go so soon? There’s something I have to do here first. Can’t we go next week?”

  “No. Today or tomorrow.” That was Ira. “I think it would be so much better for you in the village,” she went on, putting more cakes on Masha’s plate. “Don’t you?” She sounded pleading.

  The village. A blaze of excited hope was kindling in Masha’s mind. “Who’s going? Will there be room in the car for me and Granny and – and one other person?”

  “Who?” Ira asked. “Gena’s not going, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, just – it doesn’t matter. I’m only wondering. I mean, I’ll be able to stretch out and sleep, won’t I?”

  “If you want.” Ira was still puzzled. “It’ll just be you and Granny, and the driver.”

  “Good,” said Masha. “Good!” She knew she wasn’t making any sense. She could hardly stop herself grinning. It was going to be all right. She would tell Mama, and they would go together to the village, and Igor would never know where they were, never.

  “If we go today we’ll be in time for the night of Ivana Kupala,” said Granny. “How about that? You’ve never seen a real Ivana Kupala festival, have you, Masha? They’ve forgotten all about it here in the city. Not in the countryside.”

  Masha chewed distractedly. She only vaguely knew what Ivana Kupala was. An old Ukrainian festival, something about flowers and fires. Wasn’t it … wasn’t it … midsummer?

  “Is it today?” she demanded.

  “Of course. St John’s and midsummer’s eve.”

  Masha nearly choked on her mouthful. “But my birthday was on midsummer’s eve, and that was almost two weeks ago.”

  “It’s the new calendar,” said Gena with the warm pleasure of making a discovery. “Remember, Masha? I looked it up in the encyclopaedia after you asked me. It is to do with calendars, like I said. There was an old calendar, and it got a day longer every one hundred and twenty-eight years, because people thought it took the earth three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours to go round the sun in a year. But then they discovered that it actually takes three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours and forty-nine minutes. So the old calendar got all out of sync because the year was just over eleven minutes too long.”

  He paused, trying to remember the rest. “England and all of Europe changed to a new calendar centuries ago, to bring the year back in line with the sun. But Russia and Ukraine didn’t, not until 1917, and by then the old calendar had got a whole thirteen days behind the new one. And the Church here still hasn’t changed, so holidays like Christmas and Ivana Kupala are all thirteen days later.” He stopped, blushing. They were all staring at him in astonishment.

  “What did you say?” asked Ira.

  “There was an old calendar that got longer—” he began again patiently.

  “Yes, don’t repeat it all,” his mother cried. “But where on earth did you learn all that?”

  “In the encyclopaedia. I told you.”

  Ira still looked amazed. “Aren’t you clever! Why can’t you follow up on your schoolwork with the same dedication?”

  “But this is interesting,” said Gena. “You see, in a way, Masha is right – we have all got two birthdays. According to the new calendar, the one based more accurately on the sun, Masha was born thirteen days ago on midsummer’s eve, June … June—”

  “June the twenty-third,” said Masha impatiently. “Go on.”

  “But according to the old calendar, it’s June the twenty-third and midsummer’s eve today. Happy birthday, dear Masha,” he sang, “happy birthday to you!”

  Granny gave an indignant snort. “Newfangled nonsense. You young people believe far too much of what you read in all those books. Ivana Kupala is tonight and always has been.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s not that they changed the day; it’s just that they changed the way of counting days.” Gena broke off. He thought there was no point in trying to explain to an old woman like Babka Praskovia.

  But Masha was looking at him with big, shining eyes. “It’s today,” she breathed. “I found it. So now will I find my heart’s desire?”

  “You need to be careful of that,” said Granny. “Be careful what you wish for on Ivana Kupala.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it might come true, that’s why. If you find the magic fern flower.” Gena and Masha looked blank. “Don’t you learn anything in school?”

  “No,” they answered in unison.

  “What is the magic fern flower?” asked Masha.

  “The flower that grants wishes. You must remember the beekeeper’s story. He heard it from his grandfather, who heard it from his grandfather.”

  Granny’s voice dropped low and mysterious, so that they all leant closer instinctively to listen. “There was an orphan, Petro, who wanted to marry the pretty daughter of the village headman. In our own village it was, Masha. The headman said no, because Petro had no money. So what did the poor love-struck boy do?”

  “What?”

  “He sold his soul to the devil, that’s what. He plucked the magic fern flower that blooms only on the night of Ivana Kupala, and wished for riches. As if money can buy happiness! To find the flower he had to do what the devil told him: murder his own true love’s little sister. An innocent child, all for a pot of gold. Much joy he got from it.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “Went mad, didn’t he. Drove his poor lovely wife to misery and distraction. The devil came for him in the end, took him down to hell. And what was left of the gold?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Nothing but a sack of old rubbish.”

  “That’s a true stor
y?” Gena said disbelievingly.

  “Oh, you city children.” Babka Praskovia took hold of his chin in her strong, gnarled old hand and looked closely into his face. “You don’t know a thing, not a blessed thing. You come and stay with me in the village, and I’ll tell you stories about Ivana Kupala that’ll make your hair stand on end.”

  “No thanks,” said Gena as the old woman let him go. Was Babka Praskovia really a witch? He thought she quite possibly was.

  “What a grim tale,” Ira commented with a faint shiver. “If the moral’s about the evil of riches, perhaps someone should tell it to Igor.”

  “Oh, he already knows it,” Granny said.

  “How?” Masha asked, puzzled.

  “He grew up with it, like Sveta.” Granny was massaging her hurt leg again. “From our village, isn’t he. Although he’d rather pretend that he isn’t.”

  Chapter 16

  Masha raced along the sunny street past the garages on Gena’s rollerblades. She was on her way to let out the goats. The poor goats: who would look after them now? Ira had promised she would find someone.

  It was far too hot to hurry, but there were so many things to do. Her mind was in a whirl. She had to get over to the island and tell her mother about going to the village. Masha had planned that Mama would come with them and everything would finally be all right. No one, she had thought, not Igor, not anyone, would be able to find them deep in the countryside, in the whitewashed house at the end of the dusty, unpaved road.

  And now it turned out that Igor was from the village too. Masha was furious that she had not known this. When Igor had first appeared in their lives about three years ago, Mama had said he was an old friend. Exactly how old, or where they had met, Masha had never enquired – or perhaps Mama had told her but she had not listened. She hadn’t listened, she realized now, because she hadn’t wanted to know. She had never liked Igor; even though he had a family of his own, it had always felt as though Mama was somehow trying to replace Papa with him.

  Why did Igor have to spoil everything? Now he’d even spoilt Masha’s dream of the village as a safe haven. How could Mama have been so stupid as to trust him and let him send her away? And what was this strange power he had over her now, which meant she was hiding on an island talking to herself and wouldn’t come home? If only I knew what happened in Turkey, Masha thought in a kind of enraged anguish. If I knew the answers, perhaps everything would be all right. It’s like my second birthday, and my present—