Across the house, a man strikes Kotelnikov across his back. He howls. He and Yakov are pushed toward the bench on which Maria and I cower. Kotelnikov’s pushed against me, and I feel the force of his weight as he half-lands on me. I can’t breathe. I shove him away. Yakov’s knees ram the bench and he cries out. He turns until he’s squeezed between me and Maria. He bends, holds his knees, and rocks.
The gunfire continues. The women and children alongside us scream with each shot as though they’ve been hit. An old woman crushes a wrapped baby to her chest. The baby’s hysterical shriek rises above the din and the old woman tightens her embrace. Koliuzhi Klara’s back is pressed up against one of the carved posts. She’s frozen, her gaze pinned to the doorway. A carved figure with an open mouth and sharp teeth looms over her head, whether to attack or protect her, who can say. The Tsar shakes his rattle and shouts, but his booming voice cannot pierce through the chaos.
The shots become less frequent. Then they stop altogether. Outside, there’s not a sound. Inside, children sob. A few women try to comfort them, and the rest wait.
Is the crew getting closer? Are we finally going to be rescued? Yakov, Maria, Kotelnikov, and I watch the door.
Then I hear a voice outside. The footfall of a person running. The woman with the silver comb rushes to the door. She calls out. Somebody outside replies. Voices join in. The woman with the silver comb veers away from the entrance. A cluster of people bursts into the house. The light from outside is too bright and I can’t distinguish their faces. Is that us? Is that Nikolai Isaakovich?
“Kolya!” I scream and wave. “Over here!”
The bodies swarm together like clouds in a storm. Everyone’s talking, yelling, and some are shrieking. I climb up on the bench.
As they move away from the harsh daylight, I see it’s not Nikolai Isaakovich. It’s not even our crew. It’s koliuzhi men. They’re dragging a body.
The man, limp as a fallen petal, groans. His head hangs, and his arms drape over the shoulders of two men. There’s blood, dark and glossy, on his leg. He’s been shot in the thigh. His wound is the size of the small celestial sphere my father keeps on his desk. The blood drips all the way down his naked leg and onto his foot. It leaves a trail on the floor.
The koliuzhi hoist him onto the bench. He’s flat on his back.
He’s the eyebrow man, the one I said “wacush” to on our first day. His eyes are shut. His mouth gapes as he struggles to breathe. The koliuzhi close in around him. I can’t see what they’re doing. He bellows.
I collapse down on the bench. I can’t bear to look. Yakov has put his hand over his mouth, and pulled his cap down. He, too, has turned away from the injured man.
The sound of a man singing rises through the tumult. He wails, long ays and ohs, and cries out. As his voice grows louder, the people quiet. Then somebody begins to beat a drum. The chaos around the injured eyebrow man transforms into order, governed by the beat of the drum. The house itself joins in, its planks and beams coaxed into vibration. I stand up and the rhythm rises through my feet until my heart is no longer only a part of my flesh, but a part of something large that demands compliance. Near the door, four men with sticks as long as their arms pound the wooden bench that, I realize, is hollow and empty as a drum.
Then a rattling begins, sounding similar to the Tsar’s wooden cylinder carved with the bird’s head, but harsher and more clattery, like the wheels of a coach. Wood is not making that sound. I can’t see who or what is.
I look to Maria, then Kotelnikov, then Yakov. Where is Yakov? He’s no longer beside us. Across the house, I spot his cap. Surrounded by koliuzhi men who grip his arms, he’s beside the injured eyebrow man. The koliuzhi speak urgently.
Through the drumming and rattling and singing, Yakov cries loudly, “No!” Kotelnikov and Maria turn toward his voice. “I told you—I don’t know what you want!” He’s flustered and confused. The more he objects, the more they insist.
The singing, drumming, and rattling add to his confusion. He tries to twist away, but they push him back toward the injured man. What do they want? How is Yakov supposed to know?
“Take the musket ball out,” Maria shouts.
Yakov squirms and recoils from the men who nudge him forward. He doesn’t hear her. So she shouts more loudly, “The musket ball! Yakov! You have to take out the musket ball.”
Yakov hears this time. His face crumples. “How? I can’t. I don’t know how.”
“For Lord’s sake, Yakov, just do it. It can’t be hard.”
“No!” he shouts. “I can’t.”
The singing soars, the beat of the drum grows more urgent. With a shake of her head, Maria pushes forward. She slips sideways between two koliuzhi. She nudges another with her shoulder. She steps around a woman older than she is. Eventually, the koliuzhi crowd divides and allows her to pass until she reaches Yakov and the injured man.
I strain to hear their conversation. It’s almost impossible with the drumming and singing, but the words eventually rise above the clamour.
“Poor boy,” Maria says. “He’s not awake, is he?”
“He won’t live,” Yakov says. “How could he? The blood…”
“Shhh! Are you mad?”
“They can’t understand me.”
“Don’t summon the devil.”
“Not even the devil would dare to come here.”
“Then go ahead. Call him. Perhaps you’ll be next.”
This silences Yakov. Under Maria’s oversight, he bends and examines the wound. His head shakes.
“Oh, you old fool.” Maria bends, and I lose sight of her.
“Maria!” Yakov gasps. “Maria, no!”
The eyebrow man bellows so loudly I expect the walls to fall. Others wail. A man near me shouts and tears at his hair.
Maria’s turned to the crowd. Her arm is raised, her hand bloody to the wrist like a midwife’s. Pinched between her fingers is the flattened musket ball.
“Maria!” Kotelnikov cries. For once, there’s no sharpness and impatience in his face. He’s shocked.
Silence falls throughout the house. The eyebrow man must have fainted from the pain and no one knows what to say about the sight of Maria with her raised, bloody hand, holding the musket ball as though it’s a baby she has just delivered or perhaps an amulet she’s conjured up like she’s a sorceress.
“Bring some water,” Maria says firmly. “Warm, if you can. We need to get cleaned up.”
The mood changes from that moment, as though having stumbled upon a crossroads, we blindly chose a path and through a miracle it turned out to be the right one. The eyebrow man is alive, and if he survives the night, perhaps we will, too. If she’s saved his life, perhaps Maria will also have to her credit saving ours.
When it’s late, the fire is stoked and most of the koliuzhi drift to their sleeping places. Only a few remain at the side of the eyebrow man. One is the singer. Even after most people have retired for the night, he sings in bursts, and sometimes, he shakes a staff decorated with feathers and black bones or shells that dangle from cords and rattle together.
The door is heavily guarded, though I doubt the Russians will come back so soon after today’s battle. The fierce rain that’s started to pound the roof will also keep them away.
From my place on the mat beside Maria, my mind clambers over tonight’s events and weighs the possible outcomes. I try to think rationally but it’s hard to fight the terrible ideas as they occur to me, one after the other. I try to think instead about what I love. Nikolai Isaakovich. My mother and father. Zhuchka, dear little Zhuchka with her paintbrush tail and her simple joy. My telescope on a clear night, the searing feeling of the cold brass against my fingers. The comfort of a feather bed and a warm cover. A book. I miss reading a book. Dancing in a room so full of people the ceiling swirls and you think it will lift at any moment.