I eat slowly, alone, thinking of the Spanish and their six cannons, and the taste of my mother’s shchi cabbage soup.
I’m unprepared for a feast, especially one where people will want to see me. My clothes are dirty and torn; my shoes are disintegrating. My hair needs grooming. Makee tells me his wife will assist. So, when she comes for me one morning, I’m equally relieved to get a reprieve from collecting wood and water, and curious about how she’ll help me prepare for the feast.
Makee’s wife and three other women take me to a sediment-filled pond. At its soggy edge, they demonstrate that I will have to, for the first time since the ship ran aground, wash my clothes. The youngest woman gives me a short cedar robe to wear while I’m laundering my skirt and blouse. I keep my chemise on. The robes gape and I feel ashamed that these women might be able to see me unclothed. The women stifle smiles when they see my strange costume, my stained and wrinkled chemise drooping from below the hem of the robe, but Makee’s wife shushes them.
The oldest woman, who has thin greying hair that falls to her shoulders, shows me some coarse reeds I should use to scrub my clothes. I rub so vigorously, I chafe my fingers, and I worry that my skirt and blouse will come apart. Despite my efforts, some stains won’t wash out.
After my clothes are as clean as I can get them and have been draped over bushes to dry, I discover that I ought not to have fretted about my modesty. My body is next. The old woman tugs at my cedar robe and then at my chemise.
[29] she says loudly.
Reluctantly, I turn away and slowly drag each one over my head.
I’ve never been outdoors and completely unclothed. I fold my arms but there’s no way to hide, no way to stay warm. I enter the pond. My feet sink into the mucky bottom and tiny bubbles creep up my legs. Cold rises over my womanly parts, and then my bosom, until only my shoulders and head remain dry.
The old peasants fear the rusalki who live in ponds in Russia just like this one, waiting for young men to approach. The rusalki know who’s weak and easily lured by a pretty face, and those young men are never seen again. What if I see a lock of hair, a billowing sleeve, a fingertip through the murk? I’m not a young man but would they want me anyway, want me to become one of them? I know it’s foolish but the muddy water I’ve stirred up makes my imaginings more real.
I splash a bit of water on my face, and wonder how, with so much sediment, I’ll achieve what they wish. I’ll come out dirtier than I already am. After a long time and a short time of watching my half-hearted effort, the old woman cries out and throws off her robe. She scoops up the coarse reeds I’d been using to scrub my clothes and enters the water. Her breasts are two empty sacks hanging to her waist. I’ve never seen the bare breasts of an old woman before.
“Da·
ukwa·či
subaqa·k?”[30] she asks as she draws close. Her tone is coaxing. “Šuuk, ti·
ti·yayikdi·cu.”[31] She takes me by the arm and scrubs my skin with the reeds. Then she turns me and scrubs my other arm. The reeds bite. I feel like a bride being washed for her wedding.
She splashes water on my back and then I begin to clean other parts of my own body. Finally, she tugs my head back and washes my hair. Her fingers are fierce, and she kneads my scalp like it’s bread. When that’s finished, she leads me by the hand out of the pond.
We stand dripping before the other women, and she still doesn’t release my hand. With the sweat and dirt washed away at last, my skin tingles. The youngest woman wraps me in the cedar dress again and I begin to warm up.
Back at the house, I’m given a bone needle threaded with a coarse fibre. I’ll be able to mend the sleeve that was torn so many weeks ago. Being along a seam, the repair is easy. I also sew the hem where it’s coming loose. The faint rusty bloom of a stain remains, my husband’s blood from the day of our battle on the beach.
Finally, on a clear afternoon when the clouds and mist have vanished, and the blue stretches lazily from one end of the sky to the other, I go to the beach with a bowl of fresh water. There’s one more step to take to prepare for the feast. I must do something about my tarnished silver cross.
I unclasp the long chain. I hold the cross out and let it twirl in the breeze and sparkle in the sun. Even though it’s badly in need of a polish, it still glitters like a star. I consider that other cross in the sky, Cygnus the Swan, and how she spans the expanse of the Milky Way, and how Mademoiselle Caroline Herschel and her brother counted the stars there, drew the first diagram of our galaxy, and marked our tiny sun’s place among the others. Unlike the pink tourmaline on my cross, we’re not in the centre. My father always reminded me of this and of the ancient men who argued that we were until, one by one, science proved them wrong. “Only a fool knows everything,” he said.
I rinse my silver cross in the bowl of water, then rub it in the fine, warm sand. I rinse it once more, then hold it out before me again, letting it dry. Without the tarnish, it’s even more brilliant, as shiny as the day my mother gave it to me, and fit for a feast.
I fasten it around my neck once again.
A dancing man who wears a mask bounds out from behind a wooden screen that’s as big as the front of a mansion and carved and painted with koliuzhi figures. The creature in the centre has eyes on its face but also eyes on its hands and knees and feet. On either side of the figure there are more eyes, and also ears and mouths and snubbed noses, all encased in ovals, all floating away from one another as if they were bubbles. The pointy shape that looks like a wave or maybe even the fin that rides on the back of a fish repeats itself inside and around the creatures. Each half of the screen is a mirror image of the other. Firelight casts rippling shadows that make the figures come alive.
The dancing man dips close to me and freezes. His head swivels and the carved and painted eyes of his mask bore into me. He dances away, turns his head, and again, the mask’s eyes turn to me. Then with a leap he spins around and though I expect to be released from his gaze, I’m not. There are eyes on the back of his mask, too.
Makee has a tall chair like a throne with a carved back and arms. It’s so tall, he needs to climb up to sit down. But right now, he’s standing and blowing into a funny little pipe that plays a single squeaky note, keeping time for the dancer.
When I think I won’t be able to bear the dancer’s gaze any longer, he moves to the other side of the house. Like the first snow, down that’s scattered on the floor floats and settles behind him, marking a white path across the house.
Makee’s skin sparkles. His face, arms, and legs are painted and powdered with something reflective. His lower arms are ringed with bracelets that dance and rattle as he moves. The bracelets are made of leather and a shiny orange metal that appears to be copper. Could it be? Where would Makee get it from?
All the men have painted their bodies, some in red and black squares that bring to mind the harlequins and jesters who sometimes entertained us in Petersburg. Some have adorned their faces with oversized black eyebrows in the shape of half-moons or triangles, just like the injured eyebrow man. Their hair, greased and piled atop their heads, is decorated with cedar boughs and sprinkled with white down. The best sea otter capes, black as coal, are draped over the shoulders of the most regal-looking men.