Ways to Hide in Winter

  “You don’t have time,” I said.

  He copied my pose, gazing at the lake, and didn’t answer.

  We weren’t supposed to be here after dark; no one was. I listened for footsteps in the sand behind us, the breaking of a twig. But we were alone.

  “What did they ask?” I said finally, twisting the bottle open and swallowing a mouthful of the honey-colored liquid. It burned my throat and traced a warm, slow trail to my stomach.

  “Oh, this and that. What’s my name, where did I come from, how long have I been here. They asked to see my passport, and I showed it to them. They made some phone calls, and then they went away.”

  “They saw your passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “And nothing happened?”

  “No.”

  There were small bits of quartz in the sand, rough, rectangular pebbles that glinted in the moonlight. It had been years since I’d seen the lake at night. I tugged the hood of my sweatshirt over my head until the water, sand, and trees were all I could see. It was cold, and my skin tingled, but the alcohol warmed me.

  “Does that mean maybe nobody’s looking for you anymore? I mean, no one important?” I asked.

  “It means nobody’s looking for the person in the passport,” he said after a moment, tracing a line in the sand with the tip of his shoe.

  The silence descended again. Slowly, I folded myself and sat down.

  The lake was no longer frozen, not entirely. Islands of ice loomed on its surface, looking as though they were suspended in the darkness.

  “Is your name really Daniil?” I asked.

  Looking out across the water, he opened the bottle and took another sip. The whiskey had begun to go to my head, and as I watched him, it felt as though the ground had begun to revolve gently beneath me.

  “No,” he replied quietly.

  I nodded, closing my eyes.

  “Everything else I told you is true,” he said, adding after a pause, “For better or for worse.”

  I waved a hand at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  After a moment, he sat down next to me, and I felt the sand shape itself around our bodies. The shore curved before us, and I remembered the day I had run out onto the ice, tempting fate. Or simply needing the danger in order to feel alive, to feel as if I were still myself.

  “How long is it going to take them to figure that out?” I asked. “That the passport is fake?”

  “The passport is real—it’s just somebody else’s. The people who brought me here, they arranged for that. They put my photo in it somehow.” He touched his forehead and tugged at a strand of his hair. “Those officers said they didn’t have a reason to arrest me. But…I’ve never been very good at telling lies, I’m afraid. I think they could see that. Maybe they’ll forget me, but I think maybe they won’t. They went away, but they never actually said they were finished.”

  I’d lent him one of my other sweatshirts, and his wrists stuck out of the sleeves. I looked at them, the fine black hairs on the backs of them. There was a feeling pressing in on me, warm in the wrong ways, agitating, rising inside my chest. Guilt. I shouldn’t have made that call, shouldn’t have tried to judge what wasn’t mine to judge. But this wasn’t a useful emotion, not now. I tried to press it back down.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” I said carefully, “is why you’ve always seemed to think somebody was hunting for you. From the beginning, I mean. I just don’t see why anyone would be so interested in you, especially if nobody tried to…arrest you, or whatever they could have done, after you went in front of the judge. Unless we just hunt for everyone we think is here illegally, and I don’t know it.”

  He looked down at the bottle he still held in his lap. “Well,” he said, with the same gentle, slightly regretful tone as always, “partly, I worry about people from my own country.” He raised his palms. “But the other thing, the police…I don’t know. It’s a mystery to me, too. I’m Russian; maybe they think I’m some sort of spy.”

  I knew it was meant to be a joke but found it impossible to laugh. I let myself fall back, resting my hands on my chest and nestling my head in the sand.

  The stranger drew a breath, as if he would speak, but stopped.

  I waited. When his words did come, his voice was thick.

  “I wish,” he said slowly, “that things had been different. That I had done things differently. Of course I do.”

  I kept still, watching the back of his head.

  “You know, I grieve about the things I did. That might not be how I should say it, but it’s the best explanation I can give. I grieve as you do when someone dies. It’s…somehow, it’s a loss within me. As if, when I made the decisions I made, someone came and started taking the thing that was me out of my body. I walk around and yet I’m not myself.” He paused, and I heard him exhale slowly. “I’m a coward, I know. If I weren’t, I would go back and face…well, face what would happen. In my country, the authorities don’t look kindly on those who have talked about what happens there. If I went back—if I were sent back—I would be punished. Wherever they took me, I would not walk back out again.” He fell silent for a moment. “But then, there are those who would say I deserve to be punished. And I can’t say they’re wrong.”

  I watched him pick up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers.

  “This will sound absurd,” he said, “but sometimes I feel so angry that…that there’s nothing in human life we can ever take back. I don’t believe in a God, but whatever it was that arranged things so we only experience time one way, moving forward, just forward…there are moments when that seems truly unfair. But I try not to lose myself in self-pity.”

  He stopped playing with the sand and rested his chin on his arms. Then he lay back as well.

  “That’s probably what forgiveness is for,” I said, groping toward an idea that seemed faint but real. “It’s a way of letting other people erase the mistake. Isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure who would forgive me. And I’m not sure I would ask that of them. Just think, if—if it were you, would you forgive someone who had done what I did?”

  Something deep in my body constricted. I started to speak, but my throat was dry from the liquor, and I coughed. Rocking forward, I rose slowly and walked to the edge of the lake, stumbling as my feet sank into the sand. Where the water met the shore, I bent down and cupped my hands, raising them to my face to drink. The water numbed my fingers; it tasted of leaves and stone. Looking up, I saw myself walking out onto the ice, my head high, so angry, so proud. So obviously distraught, as I understood now.

  “No,” I said when I sat down again. “I don’t think I could. And in fact, I would probably be tempted to want to hurt you.” I pulled my sleeves over my wet hands. “But I don’t think anyone deserves that, either. You know, all our lives, we get told there’s some person or some group of people out there who deserve to be killed or put in pain, because of what they did or how dangerous they are or whatever. And some people think other people are just…lower. Like they can be hurt, and it doesn’t matter.” I let out a breath, shaking my head. “There was a point in my life when I saw through all that. I’m not saying I’m especially smart; I’m not. Things just lined up in a way that let me see it. And I was pretty furious when I did. I felt like…like we were all getting tricked. Or even like we were made to become just like the thing we all thought we hated.” I hugged myself tighter. “It’s hard to keep sight of that, sometimes. Believe me. But I do think it.”

  The chill from the ground was reaching up into me, making my body feel as if it were gradually turning to stone.

  “So, no, I’m not much for forgiveness, really. I think things should be fair. But hurting people isn’t fairness. And I know that.” I raised my shoulders, then dropped them. “Maybe that’s what forgiveness means—maybe it’s just that you’re able not to want to hurt someone anymore. But I’m no priest. What do I know?”

  I took a long swallow of whiskey.
<
br />   “I think you know a lot,” he said.

  A twig fell into the water, creating ripples. Together, we watched them.

  “Tomorrow,” I said then, “we’re going. You can decide where. But we’re going. You can’t stay here. In fact, I don’t think you should even stay in your room tonight.” The surroundings were beginning to spin, and my thoughts seemed to be running together, but I pushed on. “I’ll take you as far as I can and then I’ll—I’ll see what I can do.”

  He opened the bottle and drained the last of it, wiping his mouth with his hand.

  Looking out, it was still possible to see the ripples spreading.

  “All right,” he said.

  We sat together, looking into the darkness side by side.

  “Thank God,” I replied after a moment. “I was getting sick of arguing with you.”

  His lips twitched, almost a smile. He planted the empty bottle back in the sand.

  An owl called softly in the woods, its sound reaching us once, then twice.

  “I would say ‘thank you,’” he said. “But that wouldn’t really be enough.”

  “You can thank me by picking a place to go. That’s one thing I can’t do for you. Believe me, I tried.”

  He looked down at his fingertips. “Whatever you think is best,” he said eventually. “Just not a city. I don’t want—it wouldn’t be good for anyone to recognize me.”

  “Recognize you?” I looked at him, unsure whether to laugh or yell. “I don’t understand how to get through to you. If you don’t want to be recognized, then a city is exactly where you want to be. Not a place like this. You have no idea how much you stand out by hanging around in places that have a population of basically zero.”

  He laughed, although it was somehow a sad sound. “I do have some idea. And yes, I’m aware that you disagree with my current choice of residence. Maybe you’re right.” His gaze swept over the silent tableau around us. “Still,” he went on, “there are many things about this that I don’t regret. I have felt, in these past weeks—I don’t know. There’s something about being in such a place that reminds a person he’s alive, in a way I probably couldn’t explain.” He rose to his knees, pushing against the sand. “And of course, I could never have imagined I would be shown such kindness.”

  I shook my head.

  He stood and dusted the sand from his palms, bending over to brush off his jeans and extending a hand to me. I felt the ground tilt beneath me, and he caught my elbow as I stumbled forward.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I think maybe you shouldn’t drive anywhere.”

  “Probably not. It’s okay—I’ll sleep in the car. I can check on things at home in the morning.”

  We left the beach and followed the path to the parking lot, the trees hovering over us and blotting out the sky. I concentrated on following the faint trail, lifting my feet over roots that suddenly seemed to be moving and shifting deceptively. It was several minutes before I realized that he seemed to be slowing behind me.

  Finally, just as we reached the end of the trail, he stopped.

  I sensed that he was gathering himself to say something, but for a long moment, he kept still. We both stood at the edge of the parking lot, the small clearing hemmed in by the pines that towered so steeply on all sides.

  He looked at me. Putting his hands in his pockets, he seemed to pause, as if he were unsure of something. It wasn’t until I heard the breath rushing in and out of his lungs that I realized he was shaking.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  Even as I said it, I knew. His fear filled the air around us, surrounding us in something metallic and cold.

  “Come on,” I said softly. “Come on. You’re all right.”

  He nodded with a jerking motion, biting his lip, but the short, jagged breaths continued. He raised a hand to his face. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s just the whiskey. We’re going to get you out of here—you’re going to be fine.”

  He was looking at the ground, rubbing his wrist briskly across his eyes.

  I reached out and touched his sleeve.

  “It’s all right,” I said again.

  He didn’t answer. Slowly, he let out the breath he’d been holding, wiping his face with his fingers.

  “Here, come on.” I gestured for him to follow me, leading us toward the path that ran back to the store and the hostel. “Can you find your way back? If not, I’ll walk with you.”

  “I can find it,” he said. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry. But listen. We’re going to get you out. Tomorrow, I promise. I’ll open the store so nobody notices anything, but the minute I’ve done that, we’ll go.”

  He swallowed. “Yes. Okay.”

  We looked at each other. The terror seemed to be draining from his face, leaving exhaustion in its wake. The gravel crackled under his feet as he shifted his weight.

  “You know,” he said, “if anything ever happens to me, I…”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you. Go on, you just need to sleep it off.”

  We stood together, looking down the path, its entrance barely visible in the dark. Then he said goodnight and set off. I watched him walk into the woods, my eyes following his stumbling figure until it was gone.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, I walked into the house to find my grandmother sprawled next to the sink, her lips parted, unconscious. A shattered glass sparkled at her fingertips.

  “No,” I whispered.

  I called the ambulance and sat next to her, holding her hand and brushing the hair out of her eyes, talking to her even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, rocking back and forth as I held her. She opened her eyes briefly, looking at me without recognition, then closed them again.

  I leaned against the cabinet, pressing my head against the wood, praying for the scene not to be real until the ambulance came and bore us away.

  3

  The hours passed with a torturous slowness. At the hospital, the nurses and doctors moved efficiently around my grandmother’s motionless body, like insects that swarm over an object only to lose interest and be replaced by other insects. She’d had a stroke, they told me—something I’d already known without putting it into words. To all my other questions, including the most important one, they would only answer “maybe.”

  By the time I tore myself away from the gray cube of the building, the sun was high overhead. I stopped at the lights and made the turns automatically, moving like a machine, doing everything I could not to think or feel. Crocuses had begun to raise their heads through the snow, a scattering of violet along the roadside, but I barely noticed them. I barely noticed anything, even the through-hikers who had suddenly shown up at the hostel, the first of the season. They lounged on the porch and took it over, drinking the warm beer they’d lugged with them, but I didn’t actually see them, not really. They were just a strange sort of human furniture.

  Martin, I learned, had hidden the stranger in a kind of hole in the hostel basement, a bizarre crawlspace beneath the game room. I’d never seen it or even had an inkling it existed; it was accessible only by passing through the maze of the old root cellar and pushing aside some rotten boards that led to creaking steps, an airless room. The darkness there was absolute.

  “What is this place?” I asked Martin as I followed the beam of his flashlight, taking in the damp earth of the floor, the moldering bricks of the walls.

  “Underground Railroad,” he said shortly.

  “Oh.” My eyes roamed over the dank, close space, the long cracks running through the ancient bricks. “Right.”

  “Either that or an old icehouse that got filled in. At any rate, it’s nobody’s idea of a good time, but it’ll keep him out of sight until I can find a way to get him out of here.” He looked more closely at me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. No. I’ll tell you later.”

  Hearing us, th
e stranger emerged from the space in the wall, brushing dirt and cobwebs out of his hair.

  “Welcome,” he joked feebly, blinking in the light. “It’s not the Ritz, as they say, but I suppose it will do. I’m afraid I’ve gotten spoiled by the first-class accommodations upstairs.”

  I tried to answer, but the words caught in my throat. Standing in front of the crevice in the wall that led to the crawlspace, his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, he looked like a hunted animal.

  Quietly, Martin left us, handing me the flashlight.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is—it’s—”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he interjected. “I’m fine.”

  A hollow pain rose within me. “We’ll still go,” I said. “I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can.”

  “Really. It’s all right.” There was a tension in his voice, an echo of the previous night’s fear, but he did his best to hide it, smiling. Even as I watched his face, I couldn’t bear to see it.

  By the evening, there was no change. My grandmother seemed to be losing her shape, fading into the bed, but the doctor—a new one—talked about her “vitals” and said she was hanging on, if only by a thread. I pictured her unconscious form caught in a spider’s web, coming loose, dangling over space.

  There was a cheap restaurant in the middle of town, the Greek place, and I took refuge there that night, hunching over oyster sandwiches and French fries I barely touched. The dining room was jammed, waitresses nearly running up and down the aisles, couples and families jabbering in the booths while the man at the grill sweated over rows of hot dogs and hamburgers. I watched them from my table in the corner, stupefied; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been around so many people, all of them talking at once. The laughter, the noise, the tumult wrapped themselves around me so densely I kept staring around and blinking. I must be getting strange, I thought, but couldn’t stop watching these unfamiliar people with their unfamiliar voices and gestures, finding myself astonished that the world still had so many other human beings in it.