Dismissively, Saika waved her off. “Maybe in your world. But...my parents weren’t happy with Sabir. He disappointed them. They weren’t going to be keeping his pictures on walls.”
“What did he do?”
“You really want to know?”
And suddenly Marina said, “You know, I really don’t.”
“It’s all right, Marina. No secrets between us.” Saika paused. “What can I tell you? I didn’t think things through. My brother and I played some childhood games that got a little out of hand.”
Her breath stopping in her chest, Marina wanted to stop this conversation, hiding out behind boulders. Shuddering, she tried to shut her mind to the imagining. Had Tatiana already intuited as much? Is that why she—Oh my God. “Please,” Marina said, “don’t tell me anymore. We should go.”
“Sit down. We’ll wait a little longer for her. Where was I? Oh, yes. I know Tania, who thinks she knows everything, thinks my father had dealt with me too harshly. But what do you think? Harshly, or not harshly enough?”
“I don’t know,” Marina said faintly. “How did he find out?”
“It was Stefan who found out, seeing us one day, as he said, up to no damn good. He told us to run. He said Papa would kill us if he found out. So we ran.”
Marina wasn’t looking at her. “Don’t tell me anymore, Saika,” she said. “I mean, really. I don’t want to hear another word.” She stood up.
“Marina, sit down!”
Frowning, troubled, Marina crouched down.
Saika continued. “I guess after we ran away, Papa forced Stefan to tell him where we were headed. And then he went after us. After catching us near the Iranian border in the hut of a Tadjik man who let us stay with him, he took Sabir and me into the mountains.”
Cursing herself, wavering on her haunches, Marina said, “Saika, please...”
With her eyes not even lowered, Saika continued. “He took us into the mountains, took off his rifle, put us up against the rocks and asked us to tell him whose idea it was. We weren’t sure what he was talking about. To run away? Or...? I said, it was Sabir’s. Sabir was Papa’s favorite, and I didn’t think Papa would hurt him. I thought he would just beat Sabir, who was a boy and used to beatings. So I stepped up. I said, ‘It was Sabir’s idea, Papa.’ My brother raised his eyes to me and said, Oh, Saika. And Papa raised the rifle and shot him.”
Marina choked on her gasping.
“After he shot him,” Saika went on tonelessly, “he took off his horse whip, and beat me, it’s true, until I was half dead, and then slung me over his mule and brought me home. We left for Saki two months later when my back healed.”
Saika fell quiet. Marina was mute.
“So what do you think? Too harshly or not? Just punishment or not? Appropriate to the crime committed? Was there virtue in the gravity of the retribution?” She smirked.
Marina half whispered, half cried, “I don’t know what you’re telling me, Saika! Why are you telling me these things? No wonder Tania...”
“Tania,” said Saika, “is a witch. Personally,” she added with a shrug, “I think my father was too harsh. I didn’t see the big deal myself, still don’t. Do you know what he said to me before he flogged me? Since you don’t seem to be sorry on your own, I will make you sorry.”
Oh. Marina emitted an inaudible gasp. What would Tatiana make of this—that despite the one and all-good universe in which the Kantorovs lived, the father still thought there were some things that required absolute justice. Yet Saika did not think so, and didn’t seem to understand—or care—about one crucial thing: That there was no forgiveness for the unrepentant.
Marina put her hands over her face. “What time is it?”
“Two fifteen.”
“Come on!” Marina exclaimed. “Two fifteen! Give me that watch!”
Saika handed it over. 2:15, the watch said.
Marina shook her head in disbelief. “We have to go back, Saika. She was supposed to find us right away. Something obviously went wrong.”
“We’re not going back. If we go back, we lose.”
“Well, this is supposed to be a joke. What’s fun about this?”
“Be a trooper. It’s still fun. And she’ll find us. You’re the one who told me,” said Saika, “that she is like a bloodhound.”
“I didn’t say bloodhound. I said hound. And even the hound first has to know it needs to look for something.” Marina fell silent. “Why haven’t we heard her calling?”
“How should I know?”
“Were the pebbles easy to find?”
“I hope so,” said Saika noncommittally.
Another half-hour crept by.
The sky was overcast and had acquired a decidedly gray shade. Not just gray, Marina thought, but slate.
The white nights didn’t quite reach Lake Ilmen—one too many degrees south from the Arctic circle. Dark did come here.
Hadn’t Saika said they’d hide only a few minutes? They were going to play a prank on Tatiana because she always played pranks on other people. “It will be so funny.” Marina had thought it would be funny, too. Tania yelling, yelling for them, and then they’d jump out from the bushes to scare her; oh, to see Tatiana’s face. Everything had seemed so funny.
Except they had been crouching for nearly two hours! To Marina it suddenly began to seem that the joke was no longer on Tatiana. What had tempted her to agree to such stupidity? Marina was damp, and Tatiana wasn’t coming. She climbed out from their covering and brushed the mud off her trousers.
Saika looked up. “What are you doing?”
“She’s obviously not coming. I’m going to go find her.”
In the same calm voice, Saika said, “No, you’re not. Sit down.”
“Forget it, Saika. It’s not funny anymore.”
“It’ll be funny when she comes.”
“She is not coming! Maybe she went another way, maybe we didn’t hear her, but it’s pretty clear, after two hours, that she’s not coming.”
“She’ll be here any minute.”
“Well, then, you sit and wait.”
Saika stood up. “I said sit down, Marina.”
Perplexed, Marina stared at Saika, who stood stiffly, the twinkle to her eye gone. Maybe it was too gray in the forest to see twinkles of any kind. Marina couldn’t tell if there was anything pleasant in her own face; she didn’t think so. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Why are you getting angry?”
“I’m not angry. Who’s angry? I’m not raising my voice. I just want you to sit down, that’s all.”
“She’s not coming!”
“Marina!”
“Saika!” Marina was not afraid.
Saika stepped forward and pushed Marina down on the ground. Marina raised her eyes to a hovering Saika.
And then Marina was afraid. “What’s wrong with you?” she said in a thin voice. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I don’t like to be thwarted,” said Saika. “We’re playing. You said you were going to do it, and I don’t like my friends to go back on their word.”
“My word?” Marina said slowly, getting up off the ground. “What about your word? All the words out of your mouth are lies. I didn’t care before because I thought we were friends, but don’t stand in front of me pretending there’s something about words that has meaning for you.”
“Talk all you want, you’re not going.”
“Oh, yes, I am. What are you going to do, push me again?”
Saika didn’t just push her. She shoved her on the ground, and Marina staggered and fell back, crying out from landing on a stick. She tried to get up but Saika wouldn’t let her. She forced Marina to remain down. “Loyalty in my friends is very important to me,” Saika said, bent over Marina. “You are going to be loyal to me.”
“Loyalty is important to you, is it?” Marina said, ripping away, reeling up. “Tell that one to your brother, will you? You sold him out in half a breath when you thought it would save your sorry skin!
”
Saika went for Marina who ducked. Saika’s fist glanced her temple; staggering, she hit Saika in the stomach. They fought, getting covered with leaves, with mud. They scratched each other’s faces, they pulled each other’s hair. They screamed.
When they separated, Marina was crying and panting. “I deserve this,” she said with gritted teeth. What had Blanca said to her? You are susceptible, because you can be swayed. Now she knew the old woman had not been talking to Tatiana. Marina could hear Tatiana’s mild but iron voice in her head. Marinka, couldn’t you have given at least a whimper before you handed yourself over? Did you have to be such a willing accomplice in your own corruption? “I so fucking deserve this.”
But before Marina could turn and run, Saika, also panting, reached down into her boot and pulled out Tatiana’s knife. She said, “You’re going to do as I say, and you will be quiet.”
Marina stared in stupefaction at the knife. The sprinting short distance between the feelings of fuzzy friendly affection and naked hostility had been crossed so rapidly that Marina felt as if she had not taken the necessary long walk for such a quantum leap of heart regarding her friend, her intimate. She blinked in disbelief, but the knife blade remained in front of her, glinting, menacing, a meter away, held with intent. Marina simply could not comprehend the eyes filled with black malice that regarded her—it was as if Saika had been snatched and replaced.
She said faintly, “Saika, I don’t want to play anymore.”
“Marina, you think you decide when the game is over? That’s like the mouse saying that’s it to the cat.”
“But I’m not the mouse...”
“No?”
“No.” Marina frowned in her shaking confusion. “I thought Tania was the mouse.”
“You know nothing.” Saika shook her head. “Tania only pretends she is the mouse. But she is...forget it. I’m not going to explain these things to you. You’re too small to understand.”
Marina started to shake. “But she is not coming.”
“No?” Saika smiled. “Perhaps you’re right. And you know, it is getting late. It’s three, and we told your mother we’d be heading back at four. We’re still kilometers from the shore. I’ve got the compass. It’s cloudy. It’ll take us a little while, but you’re so right. We really should head back.”
“Head back where?” Marina whispered.
“Back to the boat, Marina. Where did you think?”
“Without Tania?”
“Well, I don’t see Tania here, do you?”
Saika’s face was shrouded in dusk. Marina could barely make out the shiny eyes. Trying not to get hysterical, Marina gasped, “You want to go back to the boat without Tania?”
“If we call for her, she’ll win. How do we know it’s not her pride that’s keeping her from calling out for us?”
“What pride?” And before Saika could move toward her, Marina opened her mouth and screamed with all her strength: “TANIA!!!!”
Saika’s hand went roughly around Marina’s mouth.
Marina bit Saika’s hand.
“Bitch! What did you do that for?”
Marina pulled away and continued screaming. “Tania! Tania, Tania, Tania!”
Saika slapped her. “Don’t ever do that to me again or I’ll slice your tongue out of your mouth with your Tania’s knife, do you hear? Now come on, are you coming? Because in one second I’m going to go without you.”
There was one thing Saika did not know about Marina, that Marina had no intention of sharing with Saika at this precise moment, and that was: Marina was terrified of the woods. The thought of being in the woods alone at night was more than Marina’s heart could take. She was scared of Saika, but not as much as she was of crushing black terrors. Saika had the compass, the knife, the watch, and the matches. Saika was a paralyzed Marina’s only path out. She had to follow Saika.
Biting her lip to keep herself from screaming for Tatiana again, tears rolling down her face, Marina slowly moved behind Saika as they began to make their way through the forest.
There were no sounds, just the occasional shrill whir of the large-winged cicadas.
From her pockets, Saika pulled out a handful of muddy pebbles and threw them on the ground. “Make my load a little lighter.” She smiled with an easy shrug. “I thought the pebbles would make it too easy for her to find us.”
The Second Largest Lake in Europe
Tatiana worried about them at first. She waited for them, yelled and yelled for them, not moving from the clearing where they left her. Soon the forest had lost the saturation of daylight. It didn’t have that much to begin with, with so much cloud cover. The brush was broken in many places, every spoke out of the wheel of that clearing looked exactly the same, and the pebbles to help her find her way back were gone. She didn’t know which way the three of them had come.
Belatedly realizing they were playing a prank on her, Tatiana finally left the clearing. She walked in one direction, calling for them, then in another. She did not hear them, not an echo, not a stirring of the lower branches. How far could they be? She walked and called for them. Then Tatiana started to worry. What if they were lost? The pebbles were gone for them, too; what if they tried to find their way back to her after they saw the joke had misfired, and couldn’t?
Marina had fears about everything; if she was lost, she’d be scared, especially as evening was falling. But how far could they get from her? Tatiana called for them so loud and so long, she got hoarse and had to stop.
It got darker.
She started to hyperventilate. She had to sit down.
Night fell.
And now Tatiana was on the ground in a fetal position, afraid to move, to open her eyes, to unclench her hands. She heard noises in the forest, she couldn’t see the sky, the stars, nothing. She imagined all manner of life around her, every nocturnal creature sending out signals that there was a member of another phylum among them. She tried to focus her thoughts away from the darkness, away from the forest.
When would Aunt Rita and Uncle Boris notice they weren’t back? Let’s say they weren’t fighting; how much time would have to pass before they became worried?
And what could they do even if they did become worried? It was late now and dark. They’d say, we can’t do anything tonight. We’ll look for them tomorrow morning.
Oh, but to get through this night.
Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains.
But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night.
To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out?
Was it worry over Marina? No... not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika...
Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong... the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something
so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning...who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she . . .
What if...?
What if this was not an accident?
Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming.
Saika took her compass and her knife.
But Marina took her watch.
And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this?
Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow.
Could Marina have betrayed her?
Tatiana failed to imagine the morning, with sunshine perhaps, with flowers. Tomorrow, there would be sun, and she would find the lake. How hard could it be to find a large lake that has swamps around it, that smells so strong of freshwater, a lake 27 miles long and 21 miles wide, the second largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga?
What if they had run, run gleefully through the woods, picking up the pebbles, run back to the boat, and rowed back home? Could the hapless Marina have agreed to lose Tatiana in the Lake Ilmen woods?
A womblike coil wasn’t enough to hide from the black betrayal.
Honor Among Thieves
“Well, now what?” Marina and Saika had been walking for what seemed like a long while. Marina heard no other sounds from the woods. “Where’s this lake, Saika?”
“Oh, be quiet. Can’t you see I’m trying to find our way out?”
“Saika, you didn’t pick up all the pebbles, did you?”
“Shut up with your pebbles already. Of course I didn’t pick up all of them. They’ve disappeared.” She paused. “Maybe Tania took them.”