A Bend in the Stars

by Rachel Barenbaum

  “But the soldier, he’s still here.”

  “Yes. And still in a deep sleep. I have a plan.” She kissed Miri again. “We’ll send for Ilya. I think we can still trust him to help with this because it has nothing to do with Kir or Vanya. When he comes, we’ll pay him to say he caught the soldier stealing bread. The man is thin enough for anyone to believe he’s starving. Ilya will be able to make the guards look the other way. Then instead of taking him to prison, Ilya will take him to the woods so he can run. Either way, the soldier will be gone. And you, you will remind yourself again and again. It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault. Guilt will get you caught and killed. Now get dressed and come eat. Tell me more about the man you dragged in from the river.”

  In the kitchen, Babushka had heaped a thick layer of strawberry preserves onto two slabs of bread. The fruit smelled delicious, like candy. Miri had never seen her grandmother be so generous with it before and with a pang she realized the reason for it. They were leaving soon. There was no longer any need to ration berries or sweets for the winter. Miri slid into her chair across from her grandmother. The circles under Baba’s eyes were deeper than they’d been last night. “You’re worried that hiding the soldier will get us killed,” Miri said. “Or are you worried that he might be dangerous?”

  “Tell me, what did you find out about him?”

  “His commander tried to kill him. He jumped into the river because it was his only hope.”

  “He knows Vanya or Yuri? You asked?” Babushka pressed. “Have they crossed paths?”

  “He doesn’t know them. But since I helped him, he says to repay that debt he’ll find Vanya. Bring him to us.”

  “Vanya’s not missing.”

  “We both have a bad feeling, Babushka. We never should have let him go.”

  “But Vanya has Yuri.”

  “And Yuri will need as much help as Vanya.”

  “The soldier knows about Yuri. That you’re engaged.” It wasn’t a question, but a command.

  “Of course.”

  Babushka spread strawberries on another slice of bread. Her knife chafed the crust. “I’ve never seen you let someone in so quickly.”

  “It’s—it’s that I’ve seen him at his worst, and he’s only been kind.”

  “Do you think he’s a spy?”

  “No! Sasha’s not a spy.”

  “Sasha, already? That’s his name? Not Aleksandr? Oh, Mirele. He must leave.”

  “We should let him stay another day. He needs rest, time to heal. What does another day matter? His commander assumes he’s dead. No one is looking for him. No one sees what they’re not looking for. Isn’t that what you always say?” Babushka shook her finger toward her granddaughter. The bracelets on her arms rang like bells, and she opened her mouth to reply but changed her mind. “He’s a good person, Baba. I know it.”

  “We thought the Germans were good people. He could be a German spy.”

  “I’m not a German,” Sasha said in Yiddish, standing at the top of the cellar stairs. He was so quiet even Babushka had missed him opening the trap door. In the daylight, he looked younger. And while he was dressed like any other bedraggled Jewish soldier with long, uneven hair and a uniform that made him look like a beggar, he held their stare. “Nor am I a spy. I’ll swear to that. You can trust me. I owe your Miriam my life.”

  “Sit next to me,” Baba said, making a show of using her dagger to slice the bread in exaggerated swipes. “Debt means nothing in war.”

  “To some, perhaps. But I mean what I say.”

  “Tell me, how do we know you’re not a spy? A commander tossing his own man into the river? I’ve never heard something so ridiculous.”

  “I jumped. If I were a spy, I would be a merchant or working on the barges. I wouldn’t be hiding in your cellar.”

  Babushka nodded. Sasha’s eyes were wide and his shoulders were tight. He was right to be afraid of Babushka. As sharp in her old age as she’d been in her twenties, she might be slow to walk but was as fast with a blade as she’d ever been. “Can you leave today?”

  “I’ll leave as soon as you ask me to leave.”

  “Good, then eat and leave as soon as Ilya comes.”

  “Baba, he’s lost too much blood.”

  Babushka ran her eyes over Sasha slowly. Miri knew she took in every fold and plane, wrinkle and line. “My Miri says you’re true to your word. What do you say?”

  “I say I am. And that I am your guest.”

  “One day under my roof. And then you’re gone.”

  XIX

  At the hospital, Miri was greeted by Tamara, who told her she’d already heard Miri never made it to see Anatoly’s mother. “I got lost,” Miri explained, shaking her head.

  “Thank God you’re safe. It’s all that matters,” Tamara said. “Two Russians were murdered at the river last night, near the boy’s house. And to think you went without a guard.” She pointed to an empty bed nearby. “The woman who was there last night, with the new baby, she knows his mother. She left already, to see to her other children, said she’d break the news to the family.”

  After that, Miri tended to patient after patient and couldn’t bring herself to do much more than stitching and cleaning wounds. Weighed down by her guilt over Anatoly’s death and her terror that she’d somehow be traced to the drunks’ murders, she couldn’t get her head straight all day. She referred anyone requiring a doctor or surgeon to Dr. Kozlov. Still, she worked until past sundown, wondering if Sasha would be gone before she returned, hoping he was already safe in the woods.

  When she finally dragged herself home with a new, vigilant guard in tow, she found Baba presiding in the sitting room, as always, surrounded by women. There were no smiles or giggles as there had been before conscription. Instead, now they were ashen and still. The house smelled delicious, but strange. The chicken and onions simmering on the stove had a new spice added to them, one Miri didn’t recognize. Baba waved Miri forward. “My cousin’s son, Sasha. He’s made dinner for us, Mirele. That’s what you smell. Who knew a man could cook so well?”

  “Ah, Cousin Sasha,” Miri coughed in surprise. Someone must have caught sight of him. But why hadn’t Ilya already taken him away?

  “Lucky the bullet missed his bone. He’ll stay awhile so he can rest. I already introduced him to the guards. Poor Arkady was so embarrassed to have been asleep last night when he arrived. I am going to find Sasha a good wife.” Baba chattered away as she guided Miri into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. Then she took glasses out, clattering them on the counter to cover her lowered voice. “He’s downstairs. Refused to take Vanya’s room. While the kitchen door is closed, sneak into the cellar and check on him. I understand why you trust him.”

  “Why? What’s happened? What about Ilya taking him to the woods?”

  “Katinka saw him before we sent for Ilya.”

  “She knows his name?”

  “Yes. Sasha Petrov, it’s common enough. You know that. Besides, I couldn’t find Ilya to help us.” She shook her head. “Sasha told me how brave you were. And strong. And that he’s sorry he hadn’t realized sooner you weren’t behind him when he ran. He thinks it’s all his fault, all of it.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Either way. I trust him.” She filled the kettle and went still. “Kir came.”

  Miri stepped back, knocked one of the cups from the counter. The glass splintered across the room. “Why?”

  “He’s after Vanya. He knows he didn’t go south, that he went to Riga. He wanted to know what your brother has planned.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t know anything. You know Kir’s new position. He’s powerful. It was easy for him to find Vanya.”

  “But not powerful enough to fund an expedition.”

  “Enough with that. He has more power than us. That’s all we need to know.” She looked at Miri. “He’s put Ilya on it. Ilya’s going to Riga to bring Vanya home. It’s why
I couldn’t find him, why we haven’t seen him.”

  “Ilya?” Miri stepped back, felt glass crunch under her boots. “We need to warn them.”

  “We’ll talk about this later. Now go. Check on our soldier. He’ll want to see you.”

  “Our soldier?”

  “Yes. He has offered again to help find our Vanya and Yuri so we can go to America. Maybe we need him now. So much has changed since they left. We’ll have to see.” Miri moved toward the cellar, and Baba stopped her. “Mirele, why didn’t you tell him you’re a surgeon?”

  “I…couldn’t.”

  “Sometimes even our best isn’t good enough. But, Mirele—that doesn’t change who we are.” Baba kissed Miri on both cheeks. Then she took the kettle from the stove and made her way out of the kitchen.

  Miri took a deep breath and eased down the cellar stairs, found Sasha asleep under a heap of blankets. The smell of fresh soap mixed with Vanya’s cologne. For a second her heart leapt at the thought that Vanya had come home, until she realized Sasha had simply washed using Vanya’s things.

  The lines of pain and worry were gone in the soldier’s face, but he was pale and the bruise on his cheek had flowered purple. She didn’t want to wake him. Still, she needed to check for fever. She reached down to ease the blanket away. In the next instant, he shot out of bed and had a knife at her throat. She reeled back into the bookshelves. He followed, on instinct, the way an animal tracks prey. Texts fell at their feet. “I won’t hurt you,” she gasped. She grabbed his arm, wrapped her hands around the fist holding the blade. “It’s me,” she said. “Miriam. I won’t hurt you.”

  Both stood holding their breath, staring, and then he dropped the knife. “I’m sorry.”

  “I came to…” She couldn’t remember. A small slip and she would have been dead. He looked from her to the knife in horror.

  “You just wanted to check on me, didn’t you? I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s right.” She remembered. “To see if you have a fever.” She didn’t dare reach to feel his forehead now. “How—how do you feel?”

  “I don’t know. Could you leave me?”

  Miri backed up the stairs slowly.

  XX

  Thirty days to the eclipse. Seven hundred twenty hours. Forty-three thousand two hundred minutes. Time was running too quickly, Vanya thought, perched on a hill overlooking Riga’s port. At least he would be able to see the eclipse here. And he and Yuri were safe, far from the front. But where was Russell Clay?

  “Any sign of his ship?” Yuri asked. He sat on a stump next to Vanya, near the edge of the woods high on a stone ridge where they could look down at ships and across at the sprawling, glittering rise of the city. Every few seconds Yuri swatted at the mosquitoes. He leaned as far forward as he could, peering through a pair of binoculars down at the motley collection of boats. His uniform was pressed and clean, his hair slicked back under his cap. Why bother so much with appearance, anyway? Vanya might look rumpled in comparison, but he didn’t care. If anything, he was proud that his priorities were with science, not appearance.

  “It took us too long to get here,” Vanya said. He kicked the brown bag at his foot, the one he carried as Yuri’s medic. At least they’d made it.

  In his mind, Vanya partitioned the port into a grid with twenty squares and scanned each section. The docks were rank with soot, covered in a layer of coal grime, but no matter. Under all that dirt, he saw only gold; in this city, thirty days from today, he and Clay would make history.

  Clay’s ship would be a three-funnel monstrosity, impossible to miss. “They’re all too small, damn it,” Vanya said.

  “Then we should go.”

  “Go where?” Vanya asked. “Back to our unit? We have leave for another few hours. Besides, I’ve already been in trouble too many times.” Punished for a sloppy uniform, for being late. He’d lost meals and his cot. “I’m done.”

  “You can’t say that. Being a medic is keeping you alive,” Yuri said.

  “Nonsense. Being a medic, it got me here. That’s all I needed. Now I have to focus on my work.”

  “That’s too dangerous. You of all people know that. We must stick to our plan, not take any risks until we’ve found Clay, or we’ll regret it.” Just that morning, a young recruit named Evgeny had been lashed after being caught outside of camp. He said he was looking for food, that he was simply hungry, but their commander assumed he’d been trying to desert. Vanya didn’t know which was the truth. They certainly weren’t getting enough food. Either way, the beating Evgeny took was brutal. He’d likely live, Yuri said, but he’d lost a huge amount of blood, and no matter what he’d be disfigured.

  “Evgeny got caught. I won’t,” Vanya said. His voice wobbled and he hoped Yuri didn’t notice. “I won’t let Clay slip past.”

  Yuri put the binoculars back into their case and tucked them into his bag. “You’re sure, absolutely certain, Clay is due here, in Riga?”

  Vanya reached into his pocket. He pulled out a frayed piece of paper. It was the translation he’d cobbled together of Clay’s announcement, the one Eliot sent him. “Cloudiness factor,” Vanya laughed to himself. Miri was right to call the measure, the number, absurd. But it brought Clay to Riga. That’s all that mattered. Vanya read a passage out loud. “‘Albert Einstein’s hypothesis on relativity puts scientists into two sections: one opposed to breakthrough and one favoring. Come hell or floods, I plan to be in Riga on August 21, 1914, to photograph eclipse and settle matter once and for all days.’”

  “You never told me it was a picture you were after, aside from math,” Yuri said.

  “What else would I need?”

  “Measurements.”

  “Measurements that can only be taken from a photograph. The eclipse will happen too quickly for me to record what I need in the moment.” Vanya sighed. “And other scientists will want to see the pictures to check and verify my work.”

  “What will you measure exactly?”

  “The position of the Zeus star cluster. We can observe it at night and know its actual position, but what happens when it passes closest to the sun? According to relativity, that’s when we can observe Zeus’s light bending to gravity. To observe that, I need something to block the sun’s light, so we can see past it—that’s the eclipse. I’ll measure Zeus’s apparent position, compare that to its actual position. The right equations will have been able to predict exactly how much gravity shifts light.”

  “But didn’t you say Clay’s been chasing eclipses, recording them for years?” Vanya nodded. “Then surely if it’s photographs you need, he has them.”

  “The images he has are all muddled. He didn’t have the technology we have today.”

  “Brother, we have nothing. No cameras. No instruments.”

  “No, but Clay does.” Vanya shook the translation. “Clay listed the instruments he’s bringing, and he wouldn’t come this far without them. Once he has a photograph, understands my work, I’m hoping he’ll share it with me. Maybe he’ll even let me help him. I don’t know. If not, I will buy a copy from him. Take it with me to America.”

  Yuri shook his head. “If you’re right, that he’s coming to Riga, then he’s late. Didn’t you say he was due here last week?”

  “Yes, but the date was an estimate. Given expected weather and the distance he wasn’t exactly sure when he’d land. Besides, boats are often late.” Vanya reached for his cigarette case, the one etched with equations. He’d spent hours, months, carving each line and symbol. Every time a new theorem was published, he studied the proof, and whenever he found something undisputedly new, he engraved the math in the silver. He offered a cigarette to Yuri. They smoked together, listening to the sound of ships creaking against the docks and men calling out orders below. The cigarettes tasted like sawdust. Vanya missed the sharp tobacco from Kovno. He missed smoking with Miri. She’d have an explanation for Clay’s delay. Something that made sense.

  “I miss her, too,” Yuri said.

&
nbsp; “How’d you know I was thinking about Miri?”

  Yuri smiled at Vanya’s surprise. “You lit my cigarette for me. You only do that for her.”

  “I never knew you were watching my family so closely.” A foghorn blared. A narrow ship eased out of port. Its progress could only be tracked in relation to other ships. If he were on a boat below, Vanya thought, its speed would appear faster than it did from above.

  “Vanya, come. We can’t be tardy. Not after Evgeny.”

  Vanya stubbed out his cigarette. “You’re right. Clay is overdue. Or we missed him. And we’re too close to the eclipse to sit here day after day.” Yuri nodded and offered Vanya his hand, to help him stand. But instead of clasping the outstretched palm, Vanya scrambled to his feet and took off down the hill at a run. He yelled over his shoulder, “Waiting won’t produce answers.”

  “Vanya! This is ridiculous,” Yuri called after him. “And dangerous. Please, come back.”

  Vanya went faster, ignoring Yuri’s frustration. He wasn’t going to miss Russell Clay. Eventually he heard Yuri’s creaking shoe behind him, following all the way down to the ships. The closer they got, the louder the port became. Thick smoke from engines made it hard for Vanya to fill his lungs. He picked out men yelling in Russian, but the rest of the languages were a blur. The boats that had looked so small from above turned into massive beasts below. Wood moaned. Sails rattled. How much force did a ship have? Now there was a question with an answer, thanks to Newton. A problem easier to solve than finding Clay.

  Yuri caught up to Vanya and grabbed his arm. “We must go back, brother,” Yuri managed. He was out of breath. “These sailors, they’re watching you. No good will come of it.” Vanya ripped his arm away, but Yuri pointed to a group of men standing over a coil of rope. They’d stopped and indeed were staring. The czar had threatened to seize ships for his war, and if he did, these sailors would be forced to serve in the navy. Vanya couldn’t blame them for hating Vanya and Yuri’s uniforms, for despising them as servants of a ruler who cared nothing for his people.