If only she would offer some reassurance, perhaps I could rest. I lie still, waiting for a sign. But all I detect from her side of the mat is her breath, so slow and measured. Finally, she speaks. “You say joining that toyon is the only choice. And you might be right. But why are you surprised your husband doesn’t see it that way? Surely he’s ashamed that his own wife forced him to give up command. And perhaps he’s worried about the ones who didn’t surrender. Is your decision going to help them?”
“You don’t know my husband,” I cry. “You don’t know anything about what he thinks and how he feels.”
“Then what about that toyon? He doesn’t seem very happy with you either.”
After she’s spoken, I feel even more confused. Try as I might, sleep evades me all night.
I’m awake in the morning before everyone else, and when I go out to relieve myself, no one follows. After I finish, instead of going back inside, I walk along the river’s edge toward the sea. The sky is clear, and the western horizon indigo blue. As the sun rises, my shadow is thrown out before me, tall and rippling over uneven ground as I walk. It’s like I’m breaking apart.
At the river’s mouth, the sea glitters where the early morning sun reaches it. The waves rise and tumble over themselves, drawing white, lacy lines along the water’s surface. The sea is calm today but, even so, it never rests.
I stop beside several pools of water that have collected at the base of a rock carved smooth by the waves. In one pool, purple and pink sea stars are wedged together, their arms clinging to one another and the rock. Waves wash over them, bathing them in salt water. I climb the rock. An eagle flies into view, swoops over the sea, wings yawning. With a flap and a pivot, it lifts itself and sails over my head, drawing a wide arc that leads it back over the forest and out of view.
I imagine it’s going home.
After Maria and I eat, we’re called to the water’s edge where the canoes sit. My husband huddles with the rest of the Russians. They’re like moths gathered around a lamp. My husband raises his eyes as I approach, and glowers.
Makee speaks quietly with our hosts and does not look at me.
Then, the moustached toyon declares, “Li
áts
al axwό
xabá. Watalik ti asostoό,”[38] and Makee’s people move toward the canoes.
No journey ever begins, and no visit ever ends without singing. An older man on the beach delivers a line, everyone responds, and then he sings another. Back and forth, they’re like priest and congregation during Mass. We stand at the edge of the water, where land, river, and sea all meet, but I imagine I smell incense and feel the chill of old stone just as I would if I were in Vladimirskiy Cathedral on a winter day.
Maria lightly touches my shoulder. “You’re going now,” she says.
“Back to Tsoo-yess,” I say. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No. I’ll stay here. I won’t see you until next time.”
I turn my back to the people boarding the canoes. I close myself from the music and the sea and face only Maria. Trying to understand what she means by “next time” is like trying to imagine a Sunday afternoon at home with my parents in Petersburg.
“No. We’re not leaving you here,” I say.
She embraces me. “You’ll need the forbearance of the old trees,” she murmurs and then releases me with a decisive push. When she does, I realize she really is staying.
“We’ll be back,” I promise. “We’ll be back for you.”
“The koliuzhi are waiting.”
I climb into the canoe to which they direct me. It’s not Makee’s. His is already well into the channel, and paddlers are pulling against the surf and inching the vessel to sea. My husband, Timofei Osipovich, and the rest of the surrendered crew are in that canoe, too.
Into the mouth of the river the singing follows us, strong as the sea and the wind, as if it, too, will help carry us home. I wave for as long as I can see Maria on the shore. She does not wave back, but she remains until we pass beyond the headland and I can no longer see her.
As we disembark at Tsoo-yess, we’re received into song. Women, children, and men have gathered on the beach to welcome us home. Others are drumming on the rooftops, the thunderous sound shaking the ground beneath our feet. White down that, from a distance, looked like snow has been strewn plentifully for our arrival.
“Wacush! Wacush!” the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts cry.
The festivities that mark our return spin around us like a whirlwind crossing a field of dry grass. The gulls shriek, disrupted by our arrival. In the chaos, my husband is nudged over until he’s at my side. “How was your journey?” I ask. He looks me up and down before allowing himself to be swept back up into the throng.
Makee’s family has prepared a feast—fresh halibut and clams and roasted potatoes. Everyone’s wearing their finest clothing and jewellery. Makee’s wife wears a white dress with a beaded bodice—korolki in the pattern of a star. Inessa has a woven band of bark around her head and a new fringed and beaded belt around her waist. She smiles when she sees me, but immediately turns back to her work.
Hours later, everyone retires for the night. In my old corner, I lay out a new, larger mat that will accommodate me and Nikolai Isaakovich. The cedar mat walls are erected around the house, and the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts settle. The edges of the bedclothes of the people I can see are illuminated by light from the dying embers. Conversations are muted, children are hushed, and even though he’s turned away from me, I wait for my husband to say something.
When I can wait no longer, I say in a low voice, “You’ve misunderstood. You don’t know my side of it.”
He burns with rage—I can feel it—but he says nothing.
“Makee is going to save us.”
Tension presses against the edges of our contained space.
“Kolya, there are two ships on the coast. Two European ships. The koliuzhi have seen them. They could arrive any day now.”
My husband rolls over and thrusts his face close to mine. His breath is sharp, like rusty metal. “Anna Petrovna, there are no ships. That’s why the Tsar sent us. So we’d be first.”
“But the koliuzhi saw them.”
“And have you?”
Grey sea, grey sky, a grey horizon, all merged together, one single flat expanse that stretches as far as the eye is permitted to go—that’s all I’ve seen offshore. The only two ships I have any certainty about are the Sviatoi Nikolai and the Kad’iak—they’re ours—and one is wrecked.
“A ship will come. Makee promised we’ll be rescued.”
“Rescued? We’re slaves. Thanks to you,” he says in a voice too loud for this quiet house.
He doesn’t realize what he’s saying. What he knows of slavery and the serfs is what happens in Russia and in Russian America. He’s not given the koliuzhi a chance. Besides, we’re going home.
The fire pops.
“Kolya, please,” I say softly. “You don’t understand. Makee already arranged the rescue of an American. He told me all about it.” I remember the metal cheetoolth, and his sister’s silver comb. “He’ll do the same for us.”
“How dangerous of you to believe a toyon who calls himself Poppy Seed.”
“Makee’s virtuous—and kind—and there’s plenty to eat. There are cabbages here, Kolya. Cabbages!”
“You would value our freedom less than a cabbage?”