“You don’t understand how it is here.”
“And what exactly do you understand, Madame Bulygina?” He draws out the “madame” in a way that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Tell me. What is your experience of slavery? Did your father keep slaves back in Petersburg?”
“They’re not slaves,” I cry. “They’re house serfs.” As the words leave my mouth, I think of the arguments of my father’s friends. I think of Maria. I feel unsteady and wish I could stop myself, but Timofei Osipovich always knows how to provoke.
He laughs. At me. “And what about your dear husband? You don’t actually believe the Aleuts are here with him of their own free will, do you?”
“That arrangement is between them and the company! My husband does not mistreat them!”
He hasn’t stopped laughing. “And me? How long before your Tsar’s reforms reach me? How much more time before he gives me an estate in the country where I can live like your father does?”
“You leave my father out of it! And tell the others what I said!” I speak so loudly the children on the beach stop racing the seaweed and look over. “Don’t put our rescue in jeopardy.” I stomp away like I’m no older than the children on the beach, and then chastise myself for failing, once again, to act like I’m eighteen years old. How does he manage to always make me feel so infantile?
“You’re working far too hard,” he calls.
Despite what he said, Timofei Osipovich must have spoken to the others. The next day, I see his loyal Ovchinnikov and the Aleuts helping the Kwih-dihch-chuh-aht men dig a hole near the houses. With long, pointed sticks, they hack into the soil, breaking it up, and using baskets they move the earth to nearby piles. Ovchinnikov’s stick snaps, and he curses, but a man gives him another one. The hole grows deep and by the end of the day, it’s a pit.
I see neither my husband nor Timofei Osipovich taking part in the digging and I wonder how they’ve been exempt from the task. I hope they’re not idle, or, if they are, I hope Makee is not aware of their indolence.
In the evening, as we eat around the fire, I ask, “Where were you all day?”
My husband glances sideways at Timofei Osipovich and says, “We were on the other side of the headland.”
“Working,” says Timofei Osipovich. “I was told it would be advisable if we were to work.” He looks at me, raises his eyebrows, and smiles.
He didn’t say something to my husband. Did he? Nikolai Isaakovich keeps his eyes on his meal, and I know better than to ask anything further. They’re working; that’s all that matters.
The next day, I notice the Aleuts and Ovchinnikov helping make planks from a log that’s washed up on the beach. With a heavy stone tool, a man pounds wedges into the wood. Each strike rings out across the bay. The Aleuts hold the plank and guide it away from the log, as it splits down its length. Its final release from the log is gentle; it comes apart with no effort. Then, Ovchinnikov and other men carry the planks from the beach up toward the houses. They must be heavy—it takes four men to carry each plank.
I watch them make the planks from down the beach, where I’m with Inessa and the other girl. We’ve pulled the baskets of mussels from the sea and we’re removing their fibrous beards. They’re coarse like dried straw, and sometimes so firmly fastened to the mussels that I can’t detach them without a knife. I add each beard to a heap the girls started. Eventually, there’s enough to stuff a mattress though it’s not clear what use the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts have for the beards. I can see, now that I’ve done it myself, that they might be suitable for scaling fish or scrubbing the cooking ware.
After all the beards are removed, we put the mussels back into the baskets and carry them to the pit that the crew helped dig. Heat radiates from it—there’s a fire buried deep below—and it’s been lined with ferns. I prepare to tip my basket and pour the mussels in but Inessa stops me. She kneels at the lip of the pit and begins to place her mussels inside it. She leans in and positions each mussel beside the one she placed before it, leaving no room between. I lower myself nearby and begin to lay my mussels in the pit as well. We work slowly and deliberately, nudging the mussels up against one another. I bathe in the warmth that washes over my face and arms. When the baskets are empty, the dark ovals blanket the entire space and gleam like jewels. We lay more ferns over the mussels until they’re completely covered, and, finally, on top, cedar mats that we tuck in at the corners.
Two women pour water from a large basket into the pit. There’s a hiss, and a cloud of steam rises. They fetch a second basket, and then a third. Steam billows up as more water is added. After a few minutes, the steaming stops, and the smell of cooked mussels wafts up.
The mat is peeled back, and the ferns, now black, are removed. The acrid odour of wet charcoal is released. The shells gape, a frill of orange peeping out from each. We scrape out the flesh—still a bit gelatinous—and thread the mussels on sharpened sticks. Even the liquid in the shells is saved, poured into a cooking box.
The women who added the water to the pit look pleased when they see all the sticks of mussels lined up like orange soldiers at attention. One says something to Inessa and everyone laughs. Inessa blushes. Refusing to look up, she gathers the discarded shells, throwing them into the baskets, but she listens keenly to the women.
Eventually she calls, “Anna!” She motions me to come. We each carry a basket of empty shells to an area just beyond the edge of the village. There are thousands, maybe millions of shells already spread out here, bleached white by the sun. We each tip our baskets. When they spill, the river of shells rattles on and on, like it will never stop, just like the never-ending river that pours from the vase of Aquarius.
The world around us is starting to awaken. Thin, green shoots push through the surface of the damp earth. Buds swell at the ends of grey branches. Birds sing us awake, and flutter about with twigs and moss in their beaks as they fly away to build nests. Winter is coming to an end. The ships will be back soon.
On a rare afternoon when both Nikolai Isaakovich and I are idle, I say, “Let’s go see how the garden is faring.”
“Anya, gardens hold little charm for men of the sea,” he complains.
“It’s not far. Please?”
After a moment of hesitation, he nods and pushes himself to his feet.
I lead us along the winding path through the trees. The crows are cawing—we’ve startled them—and in the distance, the surf roars. New life is stretched out along the entire trail, in the buds and shoots and moss, vivid against winter’s dull palette. The odour of growth is also sharp. It clamours for attention, and behind the hopeful pleasures it suggests, there’s insistence, as the new season pushes against confinement. Spring wants to break free from the winter.
“How much farther is it?” my husband grumbles.
“We’re almost there.”
We pass the tree shaped like a chalice. The path veers closer to the sea. We bound across a rivulet channeling water toward the ocean. The water’s etched a shape like the outline of an ancient oak tree in the sand.
When we reach the garden, I find it more overgrown, as indistinct from the plant life that surrounds it as it ever has been.
“This is it?” Nikolai Isaakovich says.
Upon closer examination, I find that the burst of spring growth has not forgotten the garden. A green shoot pushes through the grey winter debris like a knife blade. Beside it is another.
“Look!” I point. I pinch the tip off one of the shoots and let him smell it.
“Onions?” he says.