A Bend in the Stars

by Rachel Barenbaum

  Miri settled Vanya into bed while Sasha set the fire. Yuri hovered over Miri as she tore sheets to make a sling, peppering her with observations about potential complications, signs to observe and treat. He was so close his watch bumped against her arm. It was how they always used to work, but now she felt crowded.

  “We must let him sleep,” she said. Vanya was already beginning to doze. “I’ll stay to watch over him.”

  “I’ll keep you company,” Yuri said.

  “No. I’ll be fine.”

  “He could have a seizure.”

  “He didn’t hit his head.” Yuri looked like he’d object, but Miri stopped him by holding up her hand and said, “Thank you for taking such good care of him, Yuri. But tonight, we’ll be fine. Please.”

  Sasha nodded and slipped out. Yuri followed. When the door clicked closed behind them, Miri drank the rest of the vodka she’d poured for Vanya and collapsed into the chair. Horsehair jutted out from worn velvet where the stitches had failed. Outside, snowflakes swirled. It wasn’t a full storm, but it meant heavier snow and ice were coming. Sasha was right. If they were going to leave for Saint Petersburg, they needed to depart quickly. Which meant she needed to rest, but couldn’t. As quietly as she could, she paced from the chair to the window. An hour passed and then another. A gentle knock on the door made her jump. She looked to Vanya. He didn’t stir, and so she went to check to see who was there.

  Sasha. He’d washed and shaved. He was trailed by the smell of soap and the scent of sugar. He wore a pressed shirt with creases along the arms, sleeves that were too short and a middle that was too large. Perhaps it came from Clay’s closet, whatever he’d left behind. Miri pulled him to the window where spindled fingers of frost climbed up the glass. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” she whispered.

  “I could ask you the same.” Their faces were so close she made out the tiny frayed edges of the scar under his eye, the one she’d noticed the morning after the fire. “Your fiancé is angry, but it will pass. He’ll be good to you.”

  “He’s still my teacher, isn’t he?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “He’s not wrong. There’s more for me to learn.”

  “There’s always more to learn. But in Podil you were a surgeon in your own right.” Sasha looked down. “If I’d been the one seeing you tonight for the first time in months, I would have recognized that you can work on your own. And I’d be holding you in my arms. Now. I wouldn’t have let go.”

  “You’d be jealous.”

  “Of course. It’s why I’d hold tight.” He was so close all she could think about was kissing him, and she was sure he thought the same. She saw it in the way he stared at her lips, tilted his head. But he stayed where he was. “You’ve put all your hair up again. I haven’t seen those tight braids since Kovno.” She’d done it without thinking. He went on, “I’m leaving. At sunrise.”

  “No.” Her voice was too loud. Vanya rolled over. Miri grabbed Sasha’s arm. She felt his skin sink under her nails, but he didn’t pull away. “Please, don’t go.”

  Sasha took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Kiev, to my grandfather’s friend, Avram Noskov. With Zubov onto me…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Grekov’s coat has lost its power, that’s all. But Avram likely hasn’t. I’ll ask him to help find a way onto a train to Saint Petersburg. I’ll secure passage for you, your brother, and Yuri. And then I’ll go.” Miri leaned against him so her waist was pressed to his, and he came closer so she could taste the sugar on him just by smelling him.

  “Where will you go? How will I be sure you’re safe?”

  “I don’t know. But I can take care of myself.”

  VIII

  Back in the chair next to Vanya’s bed, after Sasha left, Miri watched dawn break in streaks of gray that cut across the scratched wooden floor. She had just finished making a list of the supplies they’d need for the train when something in the hall shattered. She jerked up, checked her brother. He was still asleep. There was a crunch on the other side of the door. “Damn it,” a man said. Yuri. Miri dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling, blue-gray rafters hewn from ancient oak.

  It sounded like he had a broom now. There was the crack of something fragile being swept away. It seemed the shards gouged the floor as he worked. She put her hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and stepped out to the hall. “Yuri.” She said his name quietly. He leaned against the striped, papered wall. A shattered vase was piled next to him. His hands gripped a broom, hands she could draw from memory.

  “My mind was elsewhere,” he mumbled. “You did well last night.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You didn’t need my help, did you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  He leaned the broom against the wall. It began to fall but he caught it and set it right. “Your brother is healing nicely. Since the eclipse. He takes baths with witch hazel, thyme, and rosemary, all good for the circulation. At least he thinks so.”

  “A patient’s beliefs are crucial to a cure.” One of Yuri’s first lessons to her. A ghost of a smile flashed and fell across his face. She couldn’t remember a single moment when she’d felt this uncomfortable in front of him. Nor could she recall seeing him so disheveled. His eyes were red, the lids thick and swollen. His belt was cinched so tight the mark on the leather where he used to buckle the clasp was exposed far to the side of his hip.

  He knew, she thought. He had to know she’d shared her bed with Sasha. He could see it on her, just as he saw ailments in his patients. “I’m sorry for being angry. Last night,” he said.

  “I understand.” And then: “I came to marry you.”

  “I believe you. In your heart, it’s your plan. I just don’t know what the future holds.” He dropped his chin to his chest.

  “Is it the rabbi in Podil? The orchestra? You want to stay?”

  “Vanya told you.”

  “He said you come back to the dacha, humming. That you love it.”

  “It’s true. But it’s not the same. We can never go back.” He cleared his throat. “Vanya will make a full recovery.”

  “Thank you. For Vanya, I mean.” She bent to pluck a shard of vase off the carpet, a piece he’d missed. The porcelain cut her finger. Yuri reached to take a look, and she recoiled without meaning to. “I’m sorry,” she said. Embarrassed. She’d never shrunk from his touch before.

  “Is it the soldier? He was good to you?”

  “Very good.” She should have hesitated.

  “He forced himself on you?”

  “No. Of course not. He’d never do that.” She had to steady herself and look him in the eye. “I pulled him out from the riverbank, after you and Vanya left. He said he owed me his life, that he’d help me find you. He risked the firing squad bringing me here.”

  “So did you.”

  “I had no choice. You know I’d do anything for Vanya.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wrapped it around her bleeding finger. “I’d do anything for both of you.”

  “He’s Jewish, your soldier?”

  “He’s not my soldier.”

  “He has money? He’s been wounded? How was he excused from the army?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It never is.”

  “He’ll leave soon,” Miri said. “He can help us find a way onto a train to Peter. I didn’t want to ask for his help, he’s done so much, but now that I’ve seen Vanya, I understand we have no choice. He can’t travel by sledge. Only by train.” She was babbling to fill the stillness between them. Why wouldn’t Yuri say something, or at least touch her? But it wasn’t his habit to touch her. That was Sasha. Sasha who held her hand or draped an arm around her waist. Sasha who could never be close enough. “I’ll go with Aleksandr, secure our passage on the train. If you can take Vanya to your clinic, we can meet there.” She took a deep breath. “Yuri, Sasha will leave when we board the train.”

  “You’re d
ifferent, you know,” Yuri said. “I told you that even before I’d realized. But now I understand. I’ve seen the change before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Miri, I’m no idiot. I can see you’re pregnant.”

  Pregnant.

  The word hovered between them with a weight she’d never truly understood before. “No.” She’d been careful. She’d taken primrose oil. Queen Anne’s lace. She would know if she were pregnant. She was a surgeon. “I’m not.” How many times had she told patients the only true protection was separate beds? And she understood anatomy, the timing of the cycle. It had only been five weeks since her last courses. Yes, she was late, but with the hunger, the travel, the stress, the delay wasn’t unexpected. “I can’t be.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t know?” Yuri asked, his voice rising. “How many weeks? How long since you bled?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to count again, but all she could think about was the smell of the bricks baked into Yuri’s clothing. And his anger. His words coming now had an edge of violence, something she didn’t recognize in him. “Think. How many weeks?” Five? No. Six? Her knees must have buckled. Yuri had his arm around her to hold her up, but he wasn’t strong enough. She was halfway to the floor. He eased her down, next to the pile of broken porcelain. The hall seemed darker.

  A horrid smell seared her nostrils. Smelling salts. She tried to wriggle away but couldn’t. She put her hand on her stomach.

  “Babushka said our women take years to get pregnant.” How could she have been so stupid, so thoughtless? “I—I’m sorry.” She couldn’t lose Yuri. She’d promised him. And they had a plan. They’d find Babushka. They’d marry. They’d sail for America. What would her grandmother say? Or her own parents, if they were alive? How could she admit she’d given herself away before she was married?

  “A million apologies won’t alter what you’ve done,” Yuri said. He turned now, away from her, so they both sat with their backs against the wall.

  How long did they sit that way? An hour? A minute? Miri had no sense of time. Eventually, Yuri pulled his knees up and used the wall to push himself to his feet. “It’s war. Much happens during war, much that shouldn’t but does.”

  “It was only one night. I’ve come for you,” Miri said.

  “You’ve come for Vanya.” He stood over her now. And where he’d always been soft, around his eyes, in the curves of his mouth, he was hard—sharp lines and angles. “Mirele, I’ll ask you only once. Tell me. Do you love me? Or your soldier?”

  “I love you both.” It was true.

  “But whom will you be with? Please. Tell me only once and I’ll accept the child. I’ll raise him as mine. Who do you choose?”

  “How can I choose?”

  “Then you know. You know and you’re afraid to say.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “If you love us both, it shouldn’t matter whom you choose.”

  “Yuri, I can’t decide like this.”

  “Then marry me. Marry me.”

  “But…”

  “Exactly. You hesitate when it comes to me. But not when it comes to him. I saw it last night. The way you spoke to him. Even when you took something from him, his hand brushed yours and you smiled without even realizing what you’d done. Marry your soldier, Miri.” He spit the words at her, then turned and paced across the hall. “I knew it when I saw the photograph in the newspaper,” Yuri said. Suddenly, in one awful motion, he pulled his foot back. For a split second Miri cowered, convinced he’d kick her, but he pounded the shattered porcelain instead. Pieces skittered and exploded against the wall far away from where she sat.

  Miri held her hands to her face. She was more ashamed than frightened. She was being honest when she said she loved them both. She didn’t want to hurt Yuri. She never broke promises. If she could only go back, she’d take it all away. She’d never go to her room after the fire, never take the train with Sasha, never even go to the river. It was a string of smaller, poor decisions that brought her here. She couldn’t let them alter her entire future. Not when she’d planned so meticulously, worked so hard and made larger, smarter decisions with Yuri. Her future had always been, and would always be, Yuri.

  “Go, take your soldier with you,” Yuri said. His watch swung wildly from the pocket in his vest. “Are you afraid he won’t marry you once he knows? Have you chosen so poorly?” Yuri stepped back. Even his hair was disheveled now.

  “What happened?” It was Sasha. He stepped off the top of the stairs. His boots crunched over shards. He dropped to his knees next to Miri and took her bleeding finger into his hand, covered it with his palm. “What did you do?” he asked Yuri. His voice was quiet but there was a fury behind it. A fury she’d heard before, with Zubov. “You hurt her?”

  “No,” Miri said.

  “I thought you were leaving,” Yuri replied, and pulled his vest down with a swift jerk.

  “I forgot my cap. Miriam, why are you on the ground? Tell me. Why are you bleeding?”

  Yuri walked toward Sasha with his fists raised, challenging him, but Sasha didn’t stand to face him. He stayed down next to Miri with his arm around her. The silence in the hall was sharper than any blade.

  Pregnant?

  “I’ll follow your plan. I’ll take Vanya to Kiev while you and this soldier go to his friend. We’ll meet at my clinic and then we’re done. Done,” Yuri said. He turned and disappeared down the hall. Sasha bundled Miri into his arms and stayed there with her, on the floor, while she cried.

  IX

  Sasha held Miri so close there was no air between them. She was pregnant. She’d ignored all the signs. Pregnant and unmarried. What would Babushka say? Vanya? How could she have been so thoughtless? Shame and guilt twisted together into a bolt that pinned her to the floor.

  “How much did you hear?” she asked.

  “I heard him say he won’t marry you. Did you tell him you have feelings for me?”

  How could she answer? She couldn’t bear to walk away from Sasha any more than she could bear to break her promise to Yuri. And if she told Sasha she was pregnant, there was no question he’d marry her. But Baba said marriages made during war were never strong. They hadn’t known each other long, not the way she’d known Yuri.

  Yuri. She’d never thought about a future without him.

  Pregnant. The longer the word sat with her, the heavier it felt. Its meaning sank below the layer of shame. How many women had she seen in her position, had she pitied? Her grandmother would look down on Miri in disgust. The surgeons in Kovno would, too. They’d believed she was only good for what any woman was born to do—to marry and have children. She should be begging Sasha to take her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. No marriage should start in shame. Or was that an excuse? Baba had patched together many marriages that started this way, many that led to happy lives. And some that didn’t. Yuri had said he would accept the child as his own. All she had to do was say it.

  Pregnant. As the word fell even deeper, she faced another reason she hated it. She didn’t want a child. Not now. Maybe not ever, but especially not now. She wasn’t ready. They weren’t safe. They had to escape. She had to find a way to Babushka, to America.

  Pregnant. Deeper still, she closed her eyes and below it all reached an even more raw truth: She didn’t want to die. Not giving birth. Not running from Zubov or Kir. She wanted to live—to make it to America with her brother and grandmother. She wanted to live. Could she run, could she make it if she were pregnant?

  She was spinning in circles. What she needed was time, time to think and plan, but there was none. She should tell him. Sasha. She should tell Sasha she was pregnant, only the moment she did everything would change between them, and she didn’t want that, either.

  They needed to leave the dacha. That was the only thing that was clear. Sasha wiped a tear from her cheek. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Miri stumbled to her knees, to her feet. “I shouldn’
t be sitting with you like this.”

  “What happened to your hand? Why did Yuri walk away?”

  Miri pictured Yuri at the hospital in Kovno, the smile on his face whenever she walked in. “Yuri saved Vanya for me,” she said. She fumbled with the door to her brother’s room. Her hand was slick and she couldn’t turn the knob. She had to bundle her skirt around the brass to grip it tight enough to open it. Finally, she slid through, leaving Sasha on the other side.

  X

  Vanya sat in the chair by the window. He was playing with the horsehair breaking through the seams, with a notebook on his lap and a pencil in his sore, scarred hand. He had dressed himself. His curls were brushed and his arm was in the sling Miri had made. She leaned against the door and stared at him. “You’re feeling better,” she said.

  He didn’t move. Miri heard Sasha’s footsteps in the hall, his retreat down the stairs. “I heard it all,” Vanya said. What was in his voice? Anger? Disbelief? Miri wished the house could swallow her whole. Her brother leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was working, struggling for an answer.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? For being pregnant? For breaking Yuri’s heart?”

  “For all of it.”

  “A baby with a soldier you barely know?”

  “But I do know him.”

  A door somewhere in the house slammed. The glass in the window shook. “Will you tell Sasha about the child?”

  “I don’t know.” The words came quickly because they were true.

  “Why not? What you have done to Yuri is done. The soldier loves you, Miri. And you love him, much as I wish it weren’t so. I can see it on both of you. Tell him before he leaves.”

  “Aren’t you ashamed?” Yuri could walk away, but Vanya would have to bear the burden of this illegitimate child with her. It was their family, their future. The sound of someone crunching across the snow made its way into the room. Only a snow with frost on top was that loud. It meant the weather had changed. Raw cold was setting in. A horse whinnied.