“Open up,” I say, and I place the fragment in his mouth.
I pull the thatch back. It’s too early but I can’t resist. With a flat rock, I score a circle around the plant, trying not to get too close to the bulb. Then I dig away the earth. With my fingertips, I find the smooth skin of one small onion. There is another right beside it. I brush the earth from the first, and tug gently until it gives way and pops into my fingers.
It leaves behind a hollow space that’s perfectly round as though it once held a giant pearl.
“Give it to me,” Nikolai Isaakovich says and takes the root by its stubby stem.
He wipes it on his trouser leg. It’s an impossibly white and glossy ball, with a hairy tangle of roots.
He sinks his teeth into it. It crunches. He chews. “God, it’s delicious.” He wipes his chin.
I laugh. “Give me a bite.”
The juice rolls over my tongue. It’s so sweet and tender. I take another bite before passing it back.
There are only three bites each. It’s gone too soon.
“What else is here?” my husband asks.
I poke around, but it’s too early, and I find nothing of interest. Not yet. There may be a few seeds that have yet to germinate, a few shoots that have yet to push to the surface and so, I pull the vines back into place for next time.
I sit back and my husband flops down beside me.
“The koliuzhi don’t want anything from the garden,” I say. “Except the potatoes. They like the potatoes.”
My husband shakes his head in incredulity. “Why don’t they want it? They should take care of this garden. Make it bigger. They should make more gardens. They need farms. How can any civilization advance without producing its own food?”
“I thought the same thing when Makee showed me the garden. But now—Kolya—what if they don’t need farms? They get everything from the forest and the sea.”
“That’s impossible.”
“And anyway, they take care of the forest and the sea. They don’t plant gardens, but they tend to things. It’s not so different from the peasants tending to their land and livestock.”
“It is completely different! Have you lost your mind?”
The afternoon presses in on us. The heat weighs us down. There’s a bee humming and hovering woozily, and a buzzing in my ears, too, that might be the bees. Or it might just be me.
“Everything has gone wrong. Everything,” my husband declares.
“Not everything,” I reply softly. “We’re alive—and together.” I take his hand. It’s cold and limp.
“We’ve lost the brig and everything on board. Khariton Sobachnikov is dead. Yakov and Filip Kotelnikov are gone. And who knows what’s happening to the rest of the crew? If we ever get back home, what will the chief manager say?”
I tighten my grip. “What he’ll say is: you’ve made the best of a disastrous situation. Under your command…”
“But we’re slaves! I’ve failed!”
“Stop saying that,” I cry. “You’ve done your best, and we’ve far more men alive than dead. We’ll be rescued. You haven’t failed at all.” I draw him into my arms and kiss his cheek. I lean in and press my head against his. He softens and wraps his arms around me. I kiss his lips. Like me, he tastes of onion.
Perseus rescued Andromeda from the sea. He cut the chains at her wrists and ankles and set her free before the sea monster could take her. They married and had seven sons and two daughters. They whirl overhead and on any autumn night, if it’s clear, I will see them together and be reminded of their message: that love’s path has always been twisted and confusing, filled with hope—and fear. In the end, when we seek reassurance, we need only look overhead.
“Anya,” my husband whispers. He lays me down at the edge of the garden. I close my eyes and the sun’s so bright everything’s deep pink. His hand runs down my side, and when it reaches my hip, it begins to tug at my clothing. He swings his leg over, and pushes it between mine.
His desire is quick and demanding. It beckons me to follow. If I do, I must skirt a ledge so narrow there’s no space to turn around. I can’t see the end of the ledge—I don’t know how far it is and what lies beyond. There’s nowhere to go except ahead. And that is the path I choose.
When he finally calls out, I’m glad there’s nothing but a few birds and insects who’ve witnessed our coupling. I feel like one of the creatures here, wild and lacking the reason that would tell me how wantonly I’m behaving. We lie in each other’s arms for a long time and a short time afterward, while in the air above us those creatures trace lazy paths.
The next morning, the girls and I head into the forest. We carry smaller baskets with a tight weave, so I know we’re gathering something new. We stay on the trail and pass alongside an area where many logs crisscross one another. One gigantic tree has put down its roots atop a fallen log. The roots wrap around the trunk and reach to the ground, forming the moss-covered bars of a cage. We eventually emerge into a level grove where the canopy has thinned. Spring is here, too, in the swollen buds and the pale shoots that push through the surface of the forest floor.
I’ve long lost track of the date, but we’re close to the time of year when the peasants celebrate spring. My mother told me there’s a ritual in which, on a certain day, they go into the forest to look for a fiery fern.
“It’s not easy. It grows beyond the thrice ninth land, in the thrice ninth realm,” she said. “And it shows itself only one day a year. But…whoever finds it will become steeped in wealth.”
“Mother…” I said. “I’m not a child anymore.” I was still a girl, yes, but already too smart to believe in such superstitions. “There is no thrice ninth land except in somebody’s imagination. And people don’t become wealthy from finding plants.”
“Ah, you think so literally. I’m not talking about the kind of wealth they worship these days. The fiery fern promises prosperity in wisdom and an abundance of grace.”
“People can grow wise and choose to behave with grace,” I said primly. “They don’t need a plant if that’s what they desire.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Well, you’d best watch for it when you’re in the forest. You’re young still and the possibility of learning wisdom and grace certainly won’t harm you.”
My mother, if she were here today, wouldn’t know where to look for all the ferns unfurling their fronds. As the days grow longer and hint of warmer days to come, they stretch out and open their pale arms.
The girls drop their baskets. Inessa gives me a shell knife.
I turn away from the ferns. The shoots we’re cutting are faint green quills with only the hint of leaves. I guess the ones growing near spiny canes must be berry shoots. They have tiny white hairs that hint of the thorns to come, but, for now, the stems are so supple I could pinch them off without a knife.
“Anna,” says Inessa. She holds a shoot and delicately peels back the skin in ringlets as pretty as freshly curled hair. Then she bites into the shoot and smiles as she chews.
She offers me a shoot. Nicking the end with my fingernail just as she did, I peel it. Then I bite into it.
“Čabas,” she says.
My mouth puckers—it’s so sour—but as I chew, that taste diminishes and something as sweet and fresh as summer rain emerges. It’s how I imagine waking up would taste if such a thing were possible.
She laughs at my surprise.
“Chabas,” I repeat.
We work our way around the grove until we arrive at a damp hollow of shadows. Here, we shift our attention to a different kind of shoot. These look like tiny Chinese bamboo, their stems segmented into ever-decreasing lengths, dressed in frilly, brown skirts. The shoots are so slender, it will take many hours before we fill our baskets. Nevertheless, it happens and when the girls seem satisfied, we wind our way back along the trail.