‘I don’t know.’ Mother’s voice was listless.
Immediately I blurted out, ‘Will I be sold one day too?’
There was such a long pause; I thought she might not answer me. ‘Yes,’ she said suddenly.
I stared at her. ‘But, Mama, if we all go away who will protect you from Father?’
Her answer stunned me. ‘When you are all gone, I will leave this world.’ The words trembled like a candle flame in a draft. At that moment she reminded me of a precious china bowl. So fragile. It felt as if I was holding my mother in my hands—one careless move and she would shatter. And a flash of fully grown, burning hatred for my father overwhelmed me.
‘I hate Papa,’ I whispered vehemently.
For a moment it was as if I had not spoken or she had not heard me. There was no discernible reaction. And then her eyes flared and she grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard my teeth rattled.
‘Never let anyone else in this house hear you say that about your father again!’ she whispered fiercely.
I was so shocked I could only nod.
‘Good,’ she said quietly, her fearful eyes darting toward the door.
‘I don’t ever want to leave you, Mama.’
Her face crumpled. ‘When your turn comes you will leave.’
My immediate concern and fear was for my brother. ‘Will I be parted from Nikolai?’
‘Yes.’
Her answer was like stone falling into my soul. I stared at her, horrified. ‘But…’
‘That’s enough now. Don’t tell Nikolai. Don’t tell anyone else. Be strong and brave, little bird. You were born under a lucky star. Somehow all will be well for you. I don’t know how it will be for your brothers and sisters, but for you the sun will shine brightly.’ She gathered me in her arms and kissed me on my forehead.
She tried to hide it, but I had always known that Nikolai and I were her favorites. She loved us the most. We were the golden ones, the ones that took after my father. We were the only ones with gray eyes, fair hair and long limbs.
‘I love you, Mama,’ I said softly.
Her eyes welled up with tears. ‘I don’t deserve your love,’ she said. ‘But I cling to it because the shreds of my sanity are hung on it. I look forward to the day I leave my cowardly deeds behind and pass away.’
That night I woke up in the middle of the night and leaving Nikolai’s warm body went to Sofia. She was awake. She opened her arms and I burrowed into them. Around us my sisters slept peacefully.
‘Sofia,’ I asked. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘No, I’m not. I’ll go and get help. I’ll come back one day and save all of you.’
‘Anastasia didn’t come back.’
‘But I’ll come back. Somehow I’ll find a way to come back.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘When you have your feast tomorrow, I want you to eat. I want you to eat a lot. For me, OK? Because I’m just going for a while. I’m definitely coming back.’
‘Should I tell Nikolai to eat a lot too?’
‘Yes, tell him to eat a lot too.’
‘I love you,’ I whispered, and felt a heavy weight in my heart.
‘I love you too,’ she said, and held my hand. Hers was trembling uncontrollably, but she managed to give mine a weak squeeze.
*****
But Sofia did not come back. Her chair joined Anastasia’s. Then Ivana’s chair joined theirs. Alexandra’s and Danilova’s chairs followed. I was eleven years old when my two sisters, Nikolai and I sat around my mother’s bed as she lay dying. Her bedroom was thick with the sick-sweet smell of deterioration. For the first time ever I heard my father ask my mother if he should call a doctor for her, but she shook her head gently and turned her face away from him. She wanted to go. She wanted to leave him. And exit the terrible world she was trapped in. He walked out of the room. I watched him walk out into the living room and simply stand there, immobile and dazed. He looked like the stags he shot.
Her descent was startlingly fast.
Who knows what disease ate her insides or for how long it had lived inside her? It looked as if she had been sucked out from inside. Her face became a solid yellow. She was only forty, but inside her body, all her organs were shutting down one by one, her liver, kidneys, the lungs, the heart. Her breathing slowed until every exhalation became a ghastly choking rattle that exited painfully from her mouth. When I held her reddened and gnarled hand, it was still warm, but she was already gone. I held that hand—the skin had never recovered from being boiled all those years ago—and twisted and re-twisted the cheap ring on her finger, until it became cold.
Father got drunk. He went out into the freezing night and falling on his knees swore at the sky. I stood at the window and saw the white trunks of the birches shining dimly through the dark. I went outside with a blanket. The air I inhaled was so cold it stabbed like a jagged piece of ice in my lungs. He looked up at me. The last time I had looked this deeply into his eyes was at the feast after Anastasia’s departure.
His ey
es were pained hollows in his face. So he was not totally dead inside. Strange, but perhaps he had loved her. I found no love or pity in my heart for him. Not one tiny bit. My heart was as cold as ice. I spread the blanket on his shoulders and left him there. I did that for my mother. It was what she would have done. While she was lying in her bedroom and her soul probably still not yet left, I didn’t want to grieve her. But that was the last thing I would do for him.
We buried my poor sad Mama’s body in a grave that my father and brother dug up at the side of the house. Nobody cried. We were all frozen. With grief and fear. Without my mother I realized that her children were in more danger than ever from my father.
Chapter 4
Two days after her funeral my father took my brother to sleep in his room. That night I awakened to a scream. I listened again and I thought I heard my brother crying. I sprang out of bed. My sister grumbled and, turning over, went back to sleep. I ran to my father’s door and knocked on it.
‘Go to sleep, Lena,’ my father shouted.
At that time I was surprised that my father knew it was me, but now, I know it was because he knew that only I would ever dare to disobey him. It would be no one else knocking on his door at that time of the night.
‘Is Nikolai all right?’ I asked.
For a few ominous seconds the silence stretched. ‘I’m fine, Lena. Go to sleep,’ Nikolai called out, but his voice was trembling and strained.
‘Are you sure?’ I insisted.
‘Yes. Go away,’ he called out, louder and more firmly.
I stood for a few more minutes outside the door fighting with the strong and unreasonable urge to turn the handle and enter my father’s bedroom. I even put my hand on the handle. But the silence inside the room frightened me. I knew I should not enter. I knew my brother did not want me to enter. I thought of my mother running naked in the snow. Somehow I knew this would be similar.