Anna, Like Thunder

by Peggy Herring

  The koliuzhi led us into the gloomy forest.

  “This is the wrong way,” I said to Yakov. “Nikolai Isaakovich and the crew are upriver.”

  Yakov shook his head and said nothing.

  The trees thin out a little and allow the silver light to reach us. The forest floor here is covered with crisp leaves, yellow, orange, and brown, which rustle as we walk through them. The trees are neither as tall nor as imposing as the conifers. A few have silvery bark that reminds me of the birch forests I’d visited often with my parents.

  My father liked to wander in the forest. He’d see something—an unusual fork in a branch or an abandoned nest or freshly dug earth that suggested an animal might have had a den nearby—and he’d wander off the path. My mother preferred to stay on the trails and insisted always that I stay with her.

  “I knew this girl,” she began one day when my father had disappeared on one of his diversions. “She lived in a certain village—not far, not near, not high, not low. She was walking in a forest just like this when she came across a necklace lying on the path.”

  “Where did it come from?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said dismissively, and continued. “The necklace was extraordinarly beautiful. So beautiful that she forgot about the incantation.”

  “What incantation?”

  “I will tell you. I will teach it to you. But you must promise me that you’ll never forget it.” She waited. “Well? Do you promise?”

  Warily I said, “I promise.” I hoped my father was too far away to hear.

  “Good,” my mother said. “Now repeat what I say:

  Earth, earth, close the door.

  One necklace, nothing more.

  Earth, earth, I command,

  One necklace, in my hand.”

  When I was able to recite the whole thing by myself—it was easy—she continued. “Without the incantation, she took the necklace. She put it in the box with her other jewellery. That night, when she was asleep, a voice woke her up. ‘Give me back what is mine,’ the voice said.”

  “Who was it?” I asked. “Voices have to come from somebody.”

  “Ah, you sound like your father. Listen. I will tell you,” she said. “There was a man beside her bed. It was his voice. She was terrified, so she said yes, she would give it back. When she opened her box to get it, the necklace was gone.”

  “The man took it?”

  “I don’t know who took it.”

  “This is not a real story. It’s not possible.”

  “It is a real story. It happened to my friend,” she said. “Don’t you want to know how it turned out?” I nodded.

  “The man was very angry. He said, ‘You’ve taken what belongs to me. Now I will take you.’” I was old enough to know what she meant, but I still didn’t believe it. “He told her never to tell anybody or she would die.

  “Every night, it was the same thing. I know it sounds crazy but—my friend said he would show up as a flying serpent. He’d transform into a man and then—take my friend as though she was his wife. Until finally one day, after a long time and a short time, she couldn’t take it anymore and she told me.”

  “And? What happened?”

  “Anya—she died the very next day.”

  My mother wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close. “That’s what the leshii does if you’re not careful when you go to the woods,” she whispered.

  I knew my mother’s story was untrue. It was absurd. Even when I was young, I knew there were no flying serpents. I knew men didn’t appear in women’s bedchambers unless invited. I knew jewellery didn’t disappear. There were no magic incantations. And there was no leshii. As we continued along the path, her arm tight around my shoulders, I heard sounds, and when something lying on the ground ahead of us glittered, I fought the compulsion to grasp my silver cross through the thin fabric of my dress and apron and cry out, “Earth, earth . . .” as she’d taught me. I refused to give in to my mother’s irrational fear. The sparkle was probably just dew on the leaves where the sun struck. The sounds were probably just my father rustling around with the object that had caught his fancy that day.

  Probably.

  This part of the forest is just like that forest, and I feel the same sense of uncertainty as I did after my mother told her story. This time, I readily touch my silver cross, trying to bring her closer, trying to keep the leshii, in case there is one, away.

  I trudge on, following Yakov, unable to elude my fears. They swarm around my head and refuse to abandon me. Much later, we emerge into a flat valley. We follow a smooth, wide trail that, if our crew had found it, might have cut our travel time by days. Mountains command the land as far as we can see; their tops disappear in the cloud.

  It’s very late in the day when we finally emerge at the edge of a river too wide and deep to cross. The sky is brighter toward the west, but it won’t be long before it’s too dark to see where we’re going. The koliuzhi walk downstream toward the light until the shape of a few houses emerges.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  Our koliuzhi draw close to the houses and call out, “Yiátsal chi íial xόxwa.”24 A person appears in a doorway, and then another, and another, until many people are watching us.

  We are led toward the doorway of one of the houses. Just before we enter, I look straight up into the darkening sky. Through an opening in the trees, I see Polaris valiantly trying to shine; she’ll be bright and sharp as crystal in a few more hours. I follow the others inside.

  Yakov and I face a row of old men, a crowd of curious koliuzhi, and a routine whose rhythms we know well.

  “Xwasáka, hόtskwa·ť,”25 says a man with a moustache and a sea otter cape that has a hem fringed with plump fur tails.

  It’s not the flickering light.

  “Yakov,” I say. “It’s the toyon. The man who’s speaking. We know him.”

  “Who is he?” he whispers.

  “He’s from the tent. When we were on the beach. Just after we ran aground. Remember? Timofei Osipovich took Maria and me into a tent to talk with him—and then there was that battle.”

  Yakov peers. “I don’t remember him.”

  “That’s because he was in the tent and you were outside. Timofei Osipovich and I saw him again, later, on the beach. None of you were there. That’s him. I know it.”

  We’ve returned to where we abandoned the brig. It’s only been a handful of days, but it feels like years since we were here. Was Timofei Osipovich right about it having been burnt to ash, or is there a chance it has survived? I’d like to go aboard. Would they let me? Could I sleep in my own bed? Change my clothes, comb my hair? Maybe I’d discover my missing shawl pin, fallen between the planks of the deck. What else might be left, what other precious objects escaped our frenzied destruction, and how could it be that I’d never understood how precious they were?

  The toyon begins to speak. Undoubtedly, he knows who we are. How angry is he about the battle? I watch for signs.

  Yakov and I are separated. We sleep at opposite ends of the moustached toyon’s house.

  After we eat the next morning, movement suggests this house is not our destination. We must have farther to walk.

  “Where are they taking us now?” I ask Yakov.

  He shakes his head. He’s weary. Another day on the trail will not do such an old man any good.

  One of the koliuzhi who travelled with us yesterday stands before me. “Ahda,” he says, and gestures.

  We follow a path down to the river. Its mouth seems narrower than it did when we ferried ourselves across with our bundles and released our skiff to the mercy of the sea. Two canoes beaded with moisture from last night’s rain rest on the stony beach.

  These canoes are much bigger than the other tiny canoes I’ve been in. I climb into one. It’s the schooner of canoes. When I sit, unless I stretch I can’t see over the gunwales, which are dotted with bits of luminous shell that have been polished and set into the wood. I don’t know
how it will float—the river is too shallow for its size.

  The moustached toyon is already seated in front of me. His sea otter cape falls in folds before my face, the hair furrowing and bristling as he shifts. Our canoe is boarded until it fills. I’m the only woman.

  The canoe enters the stream, followed by a second canoe. The paddlers flick their pointed paddles as if they’re hens scratching the earth. The sea looks calm, though it still roars and crashes against the beach. The humped island plugs this river’s mouth; the trees are a jagged-edged shadow atop it.

  The bow of our canoe turns toward the island. I thought we were crossing the river. We reach the turbulent place where the river and sea meet. The waves and currents slam into one another; peaks of white water form, merge, and disappear. The paddlers fight against it. Their paddles plunge in unison and they efficiently move us beyond the tumult.

  The canoe turns parallel to the shore and heads north. We’re in deep water, and I feel nervous. A flock of birds rises from the ocean’s surface. After only a few minutes, I’m positive this is the place we ran aground. I recognize the stumps and stacks. But where’s the Sviatoi Nikolai? There’s nothing here. Not a mast, a plank—nothing. Not even debris washed up on the beach. Did the tides push it against the rocks until it broke apart and then pull its remains out to sea? Perhaps Timofei Osipovich was right after all when he said the koliuzhi would have burned it to ashes.

  “Yakov?” I turn my head, wondering what he thinks. But he isn’t here.

  I look to the other canoe. He’s not there either. Is he still on the riverbank?

  No. He’s not there either. He’s gone.

  “Yakov!” I shout. But no one pays any heed to my cry. The paddlers maintain their rhythm.

  The canoe’s bow slices through a cresting wave. Seawater cold as a winter night sprays my cheek.

  * * *

  21I helped the white men. This is my own cloth.

  22I helped them, and my father said that I could have this for my own.

  23This is not our way!

  24Hello, the house (lit.)

  25You’ve returned, drifting village people.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sea lifts and tosses us, while the wind whistles and buffets our canoes. The paddlers struggle to find a rhythm. In each boat, the men slide long, smooth poles from the bow where they were held in place in a notch that looks like the pointed ears of a dog. They fix the poles in slots midship, and attach sails made of cedar bark—another use for the woven mats—and rigging made of bark rope. The sails swell in the gusts, just as though they were canvas, and send us careening over the choppy surface.

  On one side, the ocean opens to infinity. On the other, vague features of the shore are shrouded in mist: the beaches, arced like half-open eyes, delimited by rocky headlands, and the velvet black forest outlining the land, dark as kohl on a dancer’s eyelid. We’re heading north.

  We’re going away from Yakov, Maria, and Kotelnikov. Away from Nikolai Isaakovich and the rest of the crew. Away from the Kad’iak. We’ve been divided as if we were a measure of wheat or a bushel of apples.

  We’re returning along a shore we passed so long ago when we were aboard the Sviatoi Nikolai. We sailed around this headland and past that white beach. We saw this tiny cluster of stacks topped with scraggy growth against which the sea now throws itself in a tantrum.

  Ahead lies a foam-capped ocean. We’ll drown if the canoe should capsize. We slide up a wave several times the height of the boat and slam down on the other side. Water splashes into the canoe. I have no cape—it was left behind. But there’s no time to dwell on my wet clothes. Looming ahead is another monstrous wave.

  We surge to its crest and plunge down the other side with a thud. Another fan of water sprays me. It’s so cold, it bites.

  Water begins to accumulate in the boat. Around my feet, rivulets stream back and forth along the length of the canoe as we climb and descend the mountainous waves. From behind, I hear the rhythmic scrape of somebody bailing.

  Then a paddler starts to sing. “Wála hiiiiiii!”26 he cries.

  Without hesitation, others join in. “Wála hiiiiiiii! Tikwotsláli.”

  Music slides into the bowl of our vessel, then curls up the other side, and is pushed overhead where it hangs for an instant before the wind takes it away. But the “wála hi” refills the boat again and again, and eventually it seems like the canoe itself is singing. The voices of the koliuzhi in the other canoe rise faintly above the sound of the storm as they, too, join in. The men match their paddling with the cadence of the music.

  Abruptly, the canoes are steered out to sea. The bow of the canoe is pointed directly into the waves and it slices through them, opening a path for us. The men continue to sing and dig deep with their paddles, taking us farther and farther away from land. When we’re directly across from a distant headland that resembles a fortress, the paddlers pull the nose of the canoe sharply toward shore. Within two strokes, everything smoothens. The waves flatten. Instead of fighting us, the wind pushes us along. The singing ends as suddenly as it began. The paddlers drive us, like an arrow, toward the shelter of a long and shallow bay.

  On shore, four totem poles overlook the cove. Like the ones outside Novo-Arkhangelsk, they’re immense. The silhouette of one pole, with open wings near its top, resembles the Holy Cross. Dwarfed by the line of poles and nearly lost in the trees, a dozen low buildings squat. They’re well above the sand, well away from the sea, merging with shadow.

  As we draw closer, I see people gathered on the beach. Are they expecting us? The wind shifts and carries music out to us. The people on the beach are singing us onto their shore. Are they celebrating? The other canoe heads toward them, but we stay at sea beyond the line where the surf breaks, and bob in the water like a dry leaf.

  A basket-laden man from the landed canoe follows a line of koliuzhi into one of the houses. The rest of the men from the canoe remain on the beach with two watchmen, one holding a bow and arrow, the other a spear. Despite their appearance, their weapons are at rest and they converse with their visitors. After a long time and a short time, a crowd emerges from the house and returns to shore. The basket-laden man is among them, but he’s left behind whatever he was carrying. My canoe is beckoned to the beach.

  “Wacush! Wacush!” I hear the koliuzhi shout as the canoe scrapes against the beach.

  After I disembark, I follow everyone up the sand and over the rocks. We pass between two of the totem poles. They’re each as high as six men, and, astonishingly, for I’ve never before seen any totem pole closely, each is made of a single piece of wood. Carved by whom? Erected how? The eyes, hands, and feet, the paws, claws, toothy mouths, and nubs of rounded ears or peaks of pointy ones, all flowing into one another, follow the grain of the wood. Why are they here, facing the sea? What do they represent? Everyone enters the shadowy doorway of a house, and I have no choice but to follow.

  Upon entering, I’m again blinded by darkness. A fire burns in the centre of a sunken floor. When my eyes start to adjust and my surroundings emerge, I see how similar this house is to the Tsar’s house: wooden plank walls that stretch between heavy, carved posts; the entire perimeter ringed with imposing benches; the rafters garlanded with fish, skeins of dried grass, ribbons of bark, coils of rope, and bulging baskets. The only difference is in scale. There are ten carved posts and the ceiling soars like in a great hall in a royal palace. This house is mammoth.

  I hear giggles and whispers in the shadows. When my eyes have finished adjusting, I see the people. There might be two hundred of them.

  The man who must be the toyon stands beside the fire. He has a rattle in his hand. But everything else about him is unlike any koliuzhi I’ve ever seen.

  Shaven and short-haired, he’s groomed like an Englishman. A fashionable beaver hat is perched atop his head, tipped back, exposing his young face. His shoulders are covered by a sea otter cape that reaches to his knees. Through its opening, the rest of his clothing
is visible: a red broadcloth jacket, double-breasted, with long tails. And trousers. He wears trousers.

  “Good day,” he says, in English.

  I don’t know English, but I recognize these words. In the mansions of Petersburg, I’ve heard them often enough, mostly in the funny anecdotes meant to contrast the fine breeding of the French with the coarse manners of the English. “Good day,” I reply awkwardly.

  I look down. His boots are made of soft hide, just like the Tsar’s, and seem out of place with the rest of his clothing.

  He speaks to me in English, the way the English do, barely opening their mouths and slurring together all their words, softening the consonants until they all sound the same, so unlike my language. He arrives at a question, asks it, and waits for my response.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand.” Is there any point? “Russian,” I say, though I know it useless. Our conversation is finished. “I speak Russian.”

  “You speak Russian?” he says in Russian. “Fine,” he continues. “My Russian is tolerable. However, you must pardon me when I make an error.”

  He speaks with an accent just like Yakov’s, but he appears more like an English nobleman than a worker for the Russian-American Company. I shouldn’t be so surprised. The koliuzhi who gave us the halibut knew the Russian word for fish. And what about the lamestin woman speaking French? Still, I never would have imagined hearing my language spoken here. “How could you know Russian?”

  He laughs. “I like different languages,” he says. “They interest me. But your people—I think you do not. Long ago, I decided it would be best if I learned some words.”

  Some words? He makes mistakes but he’s conversant.