“That’s impossible. You can’t.”
“No? Well, I’m too old to do otherwise.”
“Well, I believe Makee,” I insist.
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. He’s going to get us home.” My decision is sound and well-considered. The prisoners were released—Makee’s sister is free—and we’re going home as soon as a ship arrives. Eventually Nikolai Isaakovich will agree. “I just don’t know how to make my husband understand. He’s so stubborn.”
She’s quiet for so long I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. Then she murmurs, “You seem so certain. Perhaps he doesn’t share that. Perhaps he thinks you’re not seeing the whole picture.”
“What picture? Without Makee, our situation is hopeless.”
If only she would offer some reassurance, perhaps I could rest. I lie still, waiting for a sign. But all I detect from her side of the mat is her breath, so slow and measured. Finally, she speaks. “You say joining that toyon is the only choice. And you might be right. But why are you surprised your husband doesn’t see it that way? Surely he’s ashamed that his own wife forced him to give up command. And perhaps he’s worried about the ones who didn’t surrender. Is your decision going to help them?”
“You don’t know my husband,” I cry. “You don’t know anything about what he thinks and how he feels.”
“Then what about that toyon? He doesn’t seem very happy with you either.”
After she’s spoken, I feel even more confused. Try as I might, sleep evades me all night.
I’m awake in the morning before everyone else, and when I go out to relieve myself, no one follows. After I finish, instead of going back inside, I walk along the river’s edge toward the sea. The sky is clear, and the western horizon indigo blue. As the sun rises, my shadow is thrown out before me, tall and rippling over uneven ground as I walk. It’s like I’m breaking apart.
At the river’s mouth, the sea glitters where the early morning sun reaches it. The waves rise and tumble over themselves, drawing white, lacy lines along the water’s surface. The sea is calm today but, even so, it never rests.
I stop beside several pools of water that have collected at the base of a rock carved smooth by the waves. In one pool, purple and pink sea stars are wedged together, their arms clinging to one another and the rock. Waves wash over them, bathing them in salt water. I climb the rock. An eagle flies into view, swoops over the sea, wings yawning. With a flap and a pivot, it lifts itself and sails over my head, drawing a wide arc that leads it back over the forest and out of view.
I imagine it’s going home.
After Maria and I eat, we’re called to the water’s edge where the canoes sit. My husband huddles with the rest of the Russians. They’re like moths gathered around a lamp. My husband raises his eyes as I approach, and glowers.
Makee speaks quietly with our hosts and does not look at me.
Then, the moustached toyon declares, “Liátsal axwό xabá. Watalik ti asostoό,”38 and Makee’s people move toward the canoes.
No journey ever begins, and no visit ever ends without singing. An older man on the beach delivers a line, everyone responds, and then he sings another. Back and forth, they’re like priest and congregation during Mass. We stand at the edge of the water, where land, river, and sea all meet, but I imagine I smell incense and feel the chill of old stone just as I would if I were in Vladimirskiy Cathedral on a winter day.
Maria lightly touches my shoulder. “You’re going now,” she says.
“Back to Tsoo-yess,” I say. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No. I’ll stay here. I won’t see you until next time.”
I turn my back to the people boarding the canoes. I close myself from the music and the sea and face only Maria. Trying to understand what she means by “next time” is like trying to imagine a Sunday afternoon at home with my parents in Petersburg.
“No. We’re not leaving you here,” I say.
She embraces me. “You’ll need the forbearance of the old trees,” she murmurs and then releases me with a decisive push. When she does, I realize she really is staying.
“We’ll be back,” I promise. “We’ll be back for you.”
“The koliuzhi are waiting.”
I climb into the canoe to which they direct me. It’s not Makee’s. His is already well into the channel, and paddlers are pulling against the surf and inching the vessel to sea. My husband, Timofei Osipovich, and the rest of the surrendered crew are in that canoe, too.
Into the mouth of the river the singing follows us, strong as the sea and the wind, as if it, too, will help carry us home. I wave for as long as I can see Maria on the shore. She does not wave back, but she remains until we pass beyond the headland and I can no longer see her.
As we disembark at Tsoo-yess, we’re received into song. Women, children, and men have gathered on the beach to welcome us home. Others are drumming on the rooftops, the thunderous sound shaking the ground beneath our feet. White down that, from a distance, looked like snow has been strewn plentifully for our arrival.
“Wacush! Wacush!” the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts cry.
The festivities that mark our return spin around us like a whirlwind crossing a field of dry grass. The gulls shriek, disrupted by our arrival. In the chaos, my husband is nudged over until he’s at my side. “How was your journey?” I ask. He looks me up and down before allowing himself to be swept back up into the throng.
Makee’s family has prepared a feast—fresh halibut and clams and roasted potatoes. Everyone’s wearing their finest clothing and jewellery. Makee’s wife wears a white dress with a beaded bodice—korolki in the pattern of a star. Inessa has a woven band of bark around her head and a new fringed and beaded belt around her waist. She smiles when she sees me, but immediately turns back to her work.
Hours later, everyone retires for the night. In my old corner, I lay out a new, larger mat that will accommodate me and Nikolai Isaakovich. The cedar mat walls are erected around the house, and the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts settle. The edges of the bedclothes of the people I can see are illuminated by light from the dying embers. Conversations are muted, children are hushed, and even though he’s turned away from me, I wait for my husband to say something.
When I can wait no longer, I say in a low voice, “You’ve misunderstood. You don’t know my side of it.”
He burns with rage—I can feel it—but he says nothing.
“Makee is going to save us.”
Tension presses against the edges of our contained space.
“Kolya, there are two ships on the coast. Two European ships. The koliuzhi have seen them. They could arrive any day now.”
My husband rolls over and thrusts his face close to mine. His breath is sharp, like rusty metal. “Anna Petrovna, there are no ships. That’s why the Tsar sent us. So we’d be first.”
“But the koliuzhi saw them.”
“And have you?”
Grey sea, grey sky, a grey horizon, all merged together, one single flat expanse that stretches as far as the eye is permitted to go—that’s all I’ve seen offshore. The only two ships I have any certainty about are the Sviatoi Nikolai and the Kad’iak—they’re ours—and one is wrecked.
“A ship will come. Makee promised we’ll be rescued.”
“Rescued? We’re slaves. Thanks to you,” he says in a voice too loud for this quiet house.
He doesn’t realize what he’s saying. What he knows of slavery and the serfs is what happens in Russia and in Russian America. He’s not given the koliuzhi a chance. Besides, we’re going home.
The fire pops.
“Kolya, please,” I say softly. “You don’t understand. Makee already arranged the rescue of an American. He told me all about it.” I remember the metal cheetoolth, and his sister’s silver comb. “He’ll do the same for us.”
“How dangerous of you to believe a toyon who calls himself Poppy Seed.”
“Makee’s virtuous—and kind—and there’s plenty t
o eat. There are cabbages here, Kolya. Cabbages!”
“You would value our freedom less than a cabbage?”
“And you would value mine less than four muskets?” He seems to have forgotten the botched rescue on the riverbank, the intractability of the crew, and his own failure to take command.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve betrayed not only me but the entire empire. We’re doomed because of you.”
But he’s wrong. We were doomed from the moment the Sviatoi Nikolai ran aground. Good fortune has allowed us to make it this far, and now there’s a way out. Why can’t my husband see the truth?
“Kolya, please stop quarreling. It gets us nowhere. We have to be strong and stay together.” I lift my hand and though he flinches, he lets me touch his face. With my thumb, I caress his cheek, what little of it shows through the even wilder tangle of his overgrown beard.
His eyes grow wide. I understand his apprehension. But when he gives Makee a chance, he’ll see. Nikolai Isaakovich is an enlightened man, capable of acting practically and decisively. He will see the sense of our surrender.
Suddenly, he grabs my hand. He squeezes hard.
“Anya,” he murmurs. The sharp odour of sweat wafts out from his armpit. He kisses the tips of my fingers. “I’ve missed you. You don’t know.”
“No, Kolya.” Even though the mats are up and the fire burns low, there’s enough light to put us on display. “We can’t. Not here.”
“If not here—then where? I can’t live without you anymore.” He slides closer and brings his lips to mine.
I turn my head. “But everyone will hear.”
“We’ll be quiet.” He slides his lips down to my throat. The sound of the kiss he places there fills this quieted house.
I refused him that night in the tent in the forest, and I was successful only because he fell asleep. What’s to be done this time?
“Kolya—I love you—but—”
He lays his fingers on my lips, then brings his mouth to my ear and moans softly. “I love you, too, Annichka, you can’t imagine—”
He wraps his arm around my hips jerking me to his groin like I’m nothing more than a feather pillow.
“Please. I’m too tired,” I whisper. “Tomorrow.”
“No—today—right now—”
I could push him away now my hands are free. But I don’t. Instead, I wrap my arms around him and hold on. I hold on not because my heart is in it. I hold on and pray that God may help him to lower his voice and that I’ll have the strength to show my face in this house tomorrow morning. I hold on because if this passion is the form his forgiveness has taken, then it would be a mistake to push him away.
It hurts when he enters me. But not as much as it would hurt if I had to tolerate more of his punishing silence.
In the morning, Inessa comes to the edge of our cedar mat and stands a respectable distance away. A basket dangles from her shoulder, but I don’t want to go. I look away. Inessa hovers in silence.
“I’ll come back soon,” I finally say to Nikolai Isaakovich. He grunts. Last night has, I hope, brought us closer to a resolution of our differences.
Outside, Inessa gives me the basket. I follow her, and she stops at another house where she gets her own basket, and, for the first time, another girl joins us. She’s no older than me or Inessa. Her cedar bark dress has long fringes that reach just below her knees. She tilts her head as she looks at me, then says something to Inessa, who responds briefly.
Then we head down the trail that leads to the sea.
All the way along the path, the girls talk and laugh. I don’t know what they’re saying but I think the new girl is teasing Inessa. She says something, Inessa cries out in horror, and the new girl shrieks with laughter and runs away. Inessa chases her, waving her basket high and wide as though she intends to hit her. I follow them but, since I soon lose sight of them, I don’t know how their joking ends.
The path turns, and around the corner I see them again. They’ve stopped next to a tree trunk. They’re picking off the gum, putting it in their mouths and chewing. When I draw close, Inessa says, “ku·, yaii·k aitbis.”39
She offers me a golden dollop. Gum is already smeared over her knuckles and the little scar on her hand.
I take it from her. It’s very sticky and covered with bits of bark and a fly. She says something and gestures for me to put it in my mouth. I dig out the fly and flick it away, but I can’t do anything about the bits of bark.
The gum tastes like the smell of the tree itself, like medicine, like a certain tea one of my mother’s elderly friends used to drink in the winter. It’s all crumbly but after only a moment, it turns soft and starts to stick to my teeth. I poke it with my tongue and suck using my cheeks. Inessa and the other woman laugh at the funny expressions I’m making.
But they’re no different. They open their mouths to show each other, and then urge me to open mine. The gum is stuck to all our teeth. I laugh, too. With our mouths gaping open, we look like a nest of baby birds.
We take our baskets and continue down the trail, each of us sucking at our teeth.
We go much farther than I’ve ever been along this trail and finally take an abrupt turn and emerge from the trees onto a shoreline I’ve never seen before. It’s rugged here, and much wilder than the coast near our houses. Tangled ropes of kelp are strewn about the slender beach that’s covered with small stones the size of quail eggs. At one end, there’s a reddish-brown headland with the sea churning at its base. At the other end, there’s a smooth rock that bulges up out of the beach.
The girls throw their baskets down and run along the shore, kicking water at each other. Their shrieks rise over the sound of the sea. Seabirds float nervously offshore and watch them. Then, as abruptly as it began, their game ends. Panting and smiling, they lead me to the end of the beach where the bulging rock lies. A gull, startled by our approach, takes flight and disappears into the grey. The girls remove tools from the bottom of their baskets—some sharp, others blunt—and then they point. We’re here for mussels.
cries the girl and waves her hand across the rocks.
“Kluchab,” I repeat their word for mussels. They both laugh and Inessa nudges the girl with her shoulder. The girl beams. “Kluchab!” I cry and nod my head. They look pleased with me.
We clamber over and around the rock, collecting some large mussels, some small ones, but never stripping a patch bare. I watch them. They mostly don’t use the tools. There’s a way of twisting the shells that makes them snap right off, and I try it too.
After managing a few mussels, I cut myself. Despite all the work I’ve done with Inessa, my hands are still too soft.
What have I done with my hands all my life? There were the years of writing and reading at my father’s side. The telescopes and the infinitesimally small moves needed to focus them. There was the needlework. Washing and beautifying myself. Eating. I’d held hands in a dance. Rubbed balm into them to keep them soft. I’d cut my fingers from time to time on sharp edges and thorns I didn’t expect to encounter. My hands could tell a story of a life filled with pleasure and indulgence.
The white scar on Inessa’s hand has stood out for me ever since the first time I met her. I’d felt sorry for her, as I knew how carefully all girls try to maintain a flawless appearance. But perhaps her scar, that perfectly shaped crescent moon, as pale against her skin as the real moon is in the night sky, might be an indication of her physical strength and evidence of all the things she’s done with her hands during her lifetime. Perhaps her scar is precious to her. Perhaps she pities me my hands and the small, cramped life they reveal.
We leave many mussels behind, and yet we easily fill all three baskets. They help me once their own are filled. Then, it’s time to head home. They slide the baskets onto their backs and slip the bands over their heads. I try to do the same, but because my basket is much heavier than I expect, it spills. The mussels clatter onto the stones, the entire morning’s wor
k lost among small rocks. Inessa and the other girl laugh, but they help pick up all the mussels, and then hold the basket on my back while I slip the band over my forehead.
When we reach the houses, I follow the girls down to the sea. We place our three baskets in sheltered waters near the shore, immersing the mussels. The baskets lean together. We bring some of what we collected to the women crouched over the cooking boxes. Perhaps for supper I’ll get a taste. Perhaps by supper, the last of the tree gum will have dissolved from my teeth.
Nikolai Isaakovich returns to the house long after I’ve come back. His hair is straggly, his cheeks ruddy, and he smells of the ocean.
“They took us to hunt seals,” he says. “You can’t imagine how many were in the cove—floating, swimming, sleeping on the rocks—they were everywhere.”
“Did you catch many?”
“My God, you could almost pluck them from the sea like they were pansies. They tied their canoes to the kelp, right in the middle of a herd. All we had to do was lean over the gunwales. They wouldn’t let us use the harpoons, but they sure were happy we were there to help lift the carcasses into the canoes.
“Anya—a child—a little boy—he killed the fattest seal I’ve ever seen in my life. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers and lowers his voice. “If the chief manager could see it. He’d have a schooner here in a fortnight and we’d fill its hold in even less time. The koliuzhi can only take a fraction of what’s available. They don’t realize what they’ve got.”
Don’t they? I think of Nikolai Isaakovich’s seals—and of the number of mussels we left behind. What would happen if the schooners were to come? This is what the Imperial Decree tells us is our purpose. We’d become rich. We’d give the koliuzhi a fair trade—beads and cloth and iron tools and perhaps even a few muskets. What then?
Everyone thought sea otters were as countless as the stars. All along the coast that stretches from Russia to Novo-Arkhangelsk, they certainly seemed to be; then they disappeared from around Petropavlovsk. Next, they vanished from Kad’iak and all the other tiny islands. They’re almost impossible to find along the shores around Novo-Arkhangelsk. Our own mission is to discover the next place where they’re still to be found in abundance—and to take them before that place is as bereft of sea otters as the rest of the coast has become.
Anna, Like Thunder Page 22