Anna, Like Thunder

by Peggy Herring

  I slide through mud and over the rutted surface of a rock. My dress cinches up around my hips. I slip over a steep edge and keep tumbling. I reach for branches, but whatever I grab snaps off or comes out by the roots. The forest rushes by in a blur.

  Then the ground levels and I come to a stop.

  “Anya?” calls my husband.

  “Are you all right, Madame Bulygina?” Kurmachev shouts.

  “Yes—yes—I’m fine,” I call back. I scramble to my feet and pull down my dress.

  Just ahead, light extends through the underbrush. I part the branches like I’m opening curtains.

  The sand shimmers in the sun. The sea’s blue and green, as sparkly as a gemstone. Far to the right is the flat-topped island that dominates the view out to sea at the river’s mouth. The arc of the beach is framed by rocky headlands around which the sea curls luxuriously as the waves are drawn to shore. There are fragments of shells bleached white by the sun, and driftwood bleached grey. Thick strands of bronze kelp lounge along the waterline. Birds drift lazily overhead or bob gently just a little way from shore.

  The men emerge from the trail to join me at the lip of the forest.

  “Kolya?” I turn to him, my hands clasped. “It’s paradise. I fell down a hill and landed in paradise.” I laugh. He smiles in return.

  I run a little way toward the water then stop short. Should I take off my boots? I do. I throw them aside and dip my feet into the surf. It’s freezing, and I run back up the beach, away from it.

  I throw myself down on the sand and soak up the warmth through my palms. I squeeze the sand in my fist and let it run out like my hand’s a sandglass. I fall back, stretch out, and close my eyes. I’ve been feeling tired the last few days, but it all slips away in the sunshine that laps against my skin and sinks into my cold bones.

  My husband stands over me. “Come, Anya. Let’s go for a walk.”

  I put my boots back on before I take his hand and we wander down the beach, leaving the others lying on the sand.

  “I’ve missed you,” he says when we’re far enough away. His words are carried away in the wind.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” He drops my hand and slides his arm around me. He pulls me close, and I lean into his warmth. The surf breaks and sighs as the water runs back to the sea. Warmth from the sun cuts through the cool ocean breeze, and though it’s much too early, it feels like summer has come to the wedding, too.

  When we reach the end of the beach, there’s a tall stump of a rock we can’t see around. With a quick glance back at the others, he pulls me close and kisses me. His kiss grows deeper when the waves break on the shore, and tapers off as the water runs back out. “Let’s go see what’s on the other side,” he says. I know what he’s thinking.

  The tide is out. If we pass the rock on the ocean side, and time our steps around the breaking waves, we’ll get wet feet and nothing more. If we choose to pass on the side facing the shore, we’ll need to climb some rock before we get to the other side. But our feet will stay dry. Nikolai Isaakovich releases me from his embrace, but holds tight to my hand. He turns and pulls me toward the water.

  I shake loose his hand and laugh. “I’ll race you,” I say, and jump onto the rocks.

  The rock is dry and there are many footholds. I scramble up as speedily as I can, knowing he’s got to wait until the time is right. Every second is to my advantage. There’s a pool of sea stars and other creatures, but I don’t stop to look. I climb over this saddle of rock, picking my way across the protuberances and the hollows as quickly as I can, and start my descent to the sand on the other side. I’m going to get to the beach before him.

  Then, ahead, movement catches my eye.

  A wolf on the beach stares. Its ears lean forward, its neck extends, its head tilts. I hold my breath. I don’t dare move. If I call for help, the wolf may attack. Would anyone even hear me? And what could they do anyway? The wolf is huge, its legs disproportionately long, and no one’s armed.

  The wolf also holds its position. Its manner is so reminiscent of Zhuchka’s. Except for the eyes—two cold, polished opals set beneath a heavy brow. I never saw such a predatory expression on my sweet dog’s face.

  Old stories recount the risk of being the first to look away from a wild animal. It must not be me. Eventually my husband will come around the rock and see the wolf, too. Let him also have the wherewithal to stand tall before the wolf.

  The wolf breaks eye contact. It turns its lanky body to the sea. It trots to the edge of the water, dips its head and laps, its pink tongue lolling out. Then it enters the sea, delicately lifting its heavy paws until it’s slowed in the surf.

  Where’s Nikolai Isaakovich? Can’t he see the wolf?

  The wolf keeps going. It begins to swim. Its muzzle points into the waves like the prow of a ship, and its tail is a rudder trailing behind.

  Where’s it going? There’s nothing but open ocean ahead.

  It advances through the first line of surf. It swims and swims. Why isn’t it turning back?

  Where’s my husband?

  Then the wolf goes under. It bobs up for an instant, then submerges again. Only a ripple on the surface indicates it was ever there before it, too, disappears.

  “Kolya?” I call. “Kolya!” Has he seen it? He must have.

  Then the sea is slashed open. A dark, glistening object, hard and curved like a scythe, sails along the water’s surface. It’s the fin of a whale. It sails straight for a short time and a long time, before it’s swallowed by the sea.

  My heart pounds in my head. I can’t move.

  “Anya! Where are you?” My husband appears from around the stump. He looks up at me and beams. “I won!” he cries.

  “Did you see that?”

  “What?”

  “That—wolf,” I say. “There was a wolf here a minute ago.”

  He looks around. “Where?”

  “It went into the ocean.”

  “Oh, Anya,” he cries, “don’t be such a poor loser. I beat you fairly. Now, come on down.”

  I climb down, keeping an eye on the sea. What just happened? Did the wolf drown? Did the whale eat the wolf? There was no struggle. As an enlightened woman, I know what’s possible. There is no vodyanoy. No spirits exist in the sea or anywhere else. I also know what I saw. How could a wolf become a whale?

  My husband helps me down the last two steps onto the sand. “Now that I’ve won, where’s my reward?”

  He pulls me close and kisses me, but I’m distracted. He slides his hands under the hem of my cedar dress and pulls it up around my waist. I watch the sea, I watch the forest. He bends and lowers me to the beach.

  I’m afraid the wolf will reappear—and equally afraid it won’t because it’s no longer a wolf.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “What’s wrong?” my husband asks.

  I woke feeling ill and uncomfortable. My insides churned, my mouth was dry, and my tongue rose against the back of my throat. It was the second morning. Yesterday, nothing came up. This morning, I retched into the moss behind the bushes, hoping no one would see, knowing that many would hear.

  After the nausea had almost passed, I went to the shore and breathed in the salty air. I rinsed my mouth with salt water and then returned to the house refreshed. But by the time I arrived at the edge of our mat, the salty taste had thickened and brought on a new wave of queasiness.

  “I don’t feel well again,” I say.

  “Are you feverish?” He sits up and pushes away our bedclothes.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know what it is.”

  “You should rest.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. Look—everyone’s getting up. Come on. It’s a beautiful morning outside.”

  At the wedding feast, Makee brought my husband and me together again. He negotiated with the other toyons, and as soon as they finished distributing the baskets and boxes, the hats and shoes and dresses, the tools and utensils, the whale grease, the fish and food wrapped
in fern fronds and cedar boughs, and as soon as the final dances were completed, he called over Nikolai Isaakovich and me to announce the good news. I’m disappointed we’re not part of Makee’s house—I already miss Inessa and the other girl—but at least I’m with my husband.

  We’re staying with the Quileutes, in the house of the moustached toyon. This is where I belong. How could it be otherwise? I love Nikolai Isaakovich.

  Makee reassured me. “When the ship arrives, you’ll all go. I promise no one will be left behind.”

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  “Anna, this is not Boston. You must remain patient.”

  The negotiations were complicated and, up until the last minute, uncertain. The Tsar wanted nothing to do with us, Makee said, because we’d brought nothing but heartache to the Chalats—we’d stolen their fish, battled them and shot one of them, and then kidnapped three people. The only babathid he’d consider welcoming was Maria. At least she knew the medicine and could care for the sick.

  She seemed unconcerned about going by herself.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have somebody else from the crew with you?” I asked. “Who are you going to talk to?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps Yakov is still there. Whatever happens, I accept God’s will.”

  “We’ll come back for you,” I promised again. “That’s God’s will.”

  “I already told you—you needn’t fret. They’re good people,” she said. “Good enough for me.”

  I held her hand in both mine. I smoothed the wrinkled skin with my thumbs. I thought of my mother and wondered whether I’d ever hold her hand in mine again. Maria tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t release her. Not until I said what I needed to say.

  “Maria—I must ask you something.”

  “What is it?” she said suspiciously.

  “A few weeks ago, I made a promise to Makee. I said we’d stop fighting, and that we’d try to respect the way the koliuzhi live and help out where we could.” I lowered my voice. “But I don’t feel confident. Sometimes, the promyshlenniki make trouble. Even my own husband.”

  “Don’t expect me to do anything about that,” she said. “No one’s going to pay me any heed.”

  “Maria—please. You said the koliuzhi were good people. So, do it for their sake. Do it for mine. I’m indebted to Makee. If you have the opportunity, please make sure they don’t hurt the koliuzhi anymore.”

  “I don’t know how anybody could stop them.”

  “Try to find a way. If you can. Please.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind.

  “Will you promise?”

  She studied my face then gave a quick nod. When she did, I let go.

  She left with the Tsar and the Chalats after the festival.

  We’re scattered now among different houses, in different communities. Timofei Osipovich, his devoted Kozma Ovchinnikov, and the Aleuts remained with Makee, and Timofei Osipovich gloated about it.

  “I have your Makee right where I want him,” he boasted. “We have a mutual understanding.”

  “What understanding? You mean that you take advantage of Makee’s good nature.”

  “I’m moving into the hut your husband helped me build. I’m going to live there. Hunt my own game. I’m going to trade with the koliuzhi. Don’t think I can’t do it.”

  I thought of my promise to Makee. What could I do to stop this stubborn man? “That’s not the way people do things here. Why should Makee do anything for us if you behave so selfishly?”

  “When you want to know how it’s done, let me know. I’d be happy to provide instruction.”

  “Please. Think about the rest of us. And what about Makee? Don’t you care for Makee? If you don’t like him, why are you always talking to him?”

  He smirks. “I’m gathering information.”

  “For what? The chief manager is never going to listen to you after he hears how you’ve behaved.”

  “For the book I’m going to write.”

  They left the next day in the canoes. I watched them paddle into the fog. Except of course Timofei Osipovich wasn’t paddling.

  In the house of the moustached toyon, my husband and I were given a mat, a rare woolen blanket, musty smelling, but thick enough for the Tsarina, and we laid them in a place away from the draughty door. The carpenter Ivan Kurmachev and the American John Williams were to stay with us.

  We started work the day after everyone left. The young man who’d lost the rope-climbing competition at the wedding came for us.

  “Adidá! Hiolíka. Siyamalawoshísalas xwόxwa. . . . wáki wisa ho! idílo awí. Kitaxásdo xabá,”41 he cried, and gestured dramatically. It would be different living here with neither Makee nor Timofei Osipovich to translate. We’d be on our own to figure out what was being asked of us, and to ask for what it was we needed.

  Eventually we understood that he wished us to go somewhere with him. He led us along a trail that wound through the trees, climbing, and then we followed a low ridge until we heard the surf and the gulls. We descended along a muddy path dotted with puddles. Then, light appeared through the trees and we emerged on a stony beach in a sheltered cove.

  The sky was exploding with screeching gulls. They looped and dipped around one another, drawing circles and spirals overhead. One plummeted to the surface of the sea, and veered up again with a glittering fish jerking in its beak. The gull swung away, pursued by a dozen members of the flock eager to steal its catch.

  Many people were already on the beach, while, out in the cove, canoes bobbed and clattered against one another.

  The young man swept his arm across the scene and said, “Asái xwόxwa. Wáli adá’dalásalas ti’l.”42

  Kurmachev offered me his hand and pulled me atop a rock from where I could look down on the scene. The cove was a strange shade of blue—cream and turquoise—and its surface quivered like aspic.

  The cove was filled with fish. There were so many, I could have walked on their backs and not even wet my feet.

  The canoes, I noticed then, were heavily laden. Their gunwales were barely above the water’s surface. But they weren’t loaded with fish. They were heaped high with white branches. The men in the canoes were pulling the branches out of the ocean.

  The deep-sea forest of the vodyanoy is a myth—not even my mother would believe it—and I wasn’t silly enough to think trees grew underwater. What were these branches? They weren’t driftwood. Why were they white? Two loaded canoes separated from the group, and paddled away, back toward the houses. The youth who had led us called to us and waved. We followed him back along the trail through the forest.

  Near the houses, we waited on the beach until the two laden canoes appeared from around the point. Before they reached shore, unloading began. Men, who’d walked into the ocean to meet them, filled their arms with branches. Water streamed down their limbs and chests as they waded in. One of them approached me. I opened my arms and he spilled the branches into them.

  I staggered under the dropped weight. I licked the drops of seawater off my lips. As I tried to settle the pile comfortably, I looked down at the branches. They glistened with white, nearly translucent globules that were stuck everywhere on the needles of the branches.

  Fish roe.

  I recognized it. We ate it in Petersburg. It was herring roe.

  The Quileutes must have put these branches in the water to give the herring a place to deposit their eggs. The Quileutes must have figured out where and when and how to submerge the branches so they could harvest all the roe without having to kill the fish.

  I wondered what they’d say if they saw how we harvest caviar—the monstrous ancient sturgeon we hook or net, then kill for a few spoons of roe—female and male, we kill them both, for there’s no way of knowing for certain until their bellies have been slit open. What would they say if they knew how sometimes the flesh is thrown to the dogs because it’s too tough and it’s only the caviar we want? For all our ingenuity and our en
lightened thought, we still haven’t found a way to harvest caviar that comes close to what the Quileutes have developed with the herring.

  I turned and, lugging the wet, awkward load, followed the others toward the houses.

  We suspended the white branches on the fish-drying racks attached by strong cords to the back walls of the houses. We passed the branches to children who carried them to the highest crossbars. When we’d emptied our arms, we went back to the canoes for another load, and another, until all the branches were hanging from the drying rack. It took most of that day.

  After I urge my husband out of bed, he eats, but I don’t. I don’t feel like eating. The food, its aroma—just watching others chew—repulses me.

  A woman brings me a huge ladle of liquid cloudy with particles of something. There look to be wood shavings floating on its surface. She says, “Akw, tόlilol, hítkwolt’sa ťaxíit. Yix ťόwa kiyatilwoxshí i axáa. Híat w ibíti choόťs”43

  I accept the ladle and bring it to my lips. It’s warm and reeks of a bedchamber badly in need of airing out, so I just hold it under my chin and let the steam warm my face.

  After breakfast, Nikolai Isaakovich and the two promyshlenniki are led away from the house. I don’t know where they’re going, but neither do they. For a few minutes after they’ve left, men’s voices rise, fall, and then fade away in the direction of the forest.

  Before long, I, too, am led out of the house with a group of women and younger men, including the young man who took us to the cove for the herring roe harvest, the one who climbed the greasy rope at the wedding. We follow a trail upstream for a long time and a short time. It forks, and we leave the main trail and begin to climb. Our path rolls, up and down, but mostly up. My thighs ache and I regret that I didn’t eat before we left. I fall behind, but the youth stays with me. He murmurs, “Hahitsíliks. Piákiliks.”44 Although I don’t know what he’s saying, I hear encouragement.

  Though slow, I maintain a steady pace until we come to a rock fall. The shale that spills down the slope is not stable. I step on a flat, oval rock. It slips. I struggle to stay upright while it clatters down the slope. Once I regain my footing, I try again to focus. By the time we reach the opposite side of the fall, I must rest.