Anna, Like Thunder

“I already told you—you needn’t fret. They’re good people,” she said. “Good enough for me.”

I held her hand in both mine. I smoothed the wrinkled skin with my thumbs. I thought of my mother and wondered whether I’d ever hold her hand in mine again. Maria tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t release her. Not until I said what I needed to say.

“Maria—I must ask you something.”

“What is it?” she said suspiciously.

“A few weeks ago, I made a promise to Makee. I said we’d stop fighting, and that we’d try to respect the way the koliuzhi live and help out where we could.” I lowered my voice. “But I don’t feel confident. Sometimes, the promyshlenniki make trouble. Even my own husband.”

“Don’t expect me to do anything about that,” she said. “No one’s going to pay me any heed.”

“Maria—please. You said the koliuzhi were good people. So, do it for their sake. Do it for mine. I’m indebted to Makee. If you have the opportunity, please make sure they don’t hurt the koliuzhi anymore.”

“I don’t know how anybody could stop them.”

“Try to find a way. If you can. Please.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind.

“Will you promise?”

She studied my face then gave a quick nod. When she did, I let go.

She left with the Tsar and the Chalats after the festival.

We’re scattered now among different houses, in different communities. Timofei Osipovich, his devoted Kozma Ovchinnikov, and the Aleuts remained with Makee, and Timofei Osipovich gloated about it.

“I have your Makee right where I want him,” he boasted. “We have a mutual understanding.”

“What understanding? You mean that you take advantage of Makee’s good nature.”

“I’m moving into the hut your husband helped me build. I’m going to live there. Hunt my own game. I’m going to trade with the koliuzhi. Don’t think I can’t do it.”

I thought of my promise to Makee. What could I do to stop this stubborn man? “That’s not the way people do things here. Why should Makee do anything for us if you behave so selfishly?”

“When you want to know how it’s done, let me know. I’d be happy to provide instruction.”

“Please. Think about the rest of us. And what about Makee? Don’t you care for Makee? If you don’t like him, why are you always talking to him?”

He smirks. “I’m gathering information.”

“For what? The chief manager is never going to listen to you after he hears how you’ve behaved.”

“For the book I’m going to write.”

They left the next day in the canoes. I watched them paddle into the fog. Except of course Timofei Osipovich wasn’t paddling.

In the house of the moustached toyon, my husband and I were given a mat, a rare woolen blanket, musty smelling, but thick enough for the Tsarina, and we laid them in a place away from the draughty door. The carpenter Ivan Kurmachev and the American John Williams were to stay with us.

We started work the day after everyone left. The young man who’d lost the rope-climbing competition at the wedding came for us.

“Adidá! Hiolíka. Siyamalawoshísalas x^wόx^wa. … wáki ^wisa ho! idílo awí. Kitaxásdo xabá,”[41] he cried, and gestured dramatically. It would be different living here with neither Makee nor Timofei Osipovich to translate. We’d be on our own to figure out what was being asked of us, and to ask for what it was we needed.

Eventually we understood that he wished us to go somewhere with him. He led us along a trail that wound through the trees, climbing, and then we followed a low ridge until we heard the surf and the gulls. We descended along a muddy path dotted with puddles. Then, light appeared through the trees and we emerged on a stony beach in a sheltered cove.

The sky was exploding with screeching gulls. They looped and dipped around one another, drawing circles and spirals overhead. One plummeted to the surface of the sea, and veered up again with a glittering fish jerking in its beak. The gull swung away, pursued by a dozen members of the flock eager to steal its catch.

Many people were already on the beach, while, out in the cove, canoes bobbed and clattered against one another.

The young man swept his arm across the scene and said, “Asái x^wόx^wa. Wáli adá’dalásalas ti’l.”[42]

Kurmachev offered me his hand and pulled me atop a rock from where I could look down on the scene. The cove was a strange shade of blue—cream and turquoise—and its surface quivered like aspic.

The cove was filled with fish. There were so many, I could have walked on their backs and not even wet my feet.

The canoes, I noticed then, were heavily laden. Their gunwales were barely above the water’s surface. But they weren’t loaded with fish. They were heaped high with white branches. The men in the canoes were pulling the branches out of the ocean.

The deep-sea forest of the vodyanoy is a myth—not even my mother would believe it—and I wasn’t silly enough to think trees grew underwater. What were these branches? They weren’t driftwood. Why were they white? Two loaded canoes separated from the group, and paddled away, back toward the houses. The youth who had led us called to us and waved. We followed him back along the trail through the forest.

Near the houses, we waited on the beach until the two laden canoes appeared from around the point. Before they reached shore, unloading began. Men, who’d walked into the ocean to meet them, filled their arms with branches. Water streamed down their limbs and chests as they waded in. One of them approached me. I opened my arms and he spilled the branches into them.

I staggered under the dropped weight. I licked the drops of seawater off my lips. As I tried to settle the pile comfortably, I looked down at the branches. They glistened with white, nearly translucent globules that were stuck everywhere on the needles of the branches.

Fish roe.

I recognized it. We ate it in Petersburg. It was herring roe.

The Quileutes must have put these branches in the water to give the herring a place to deposit their eggs. The Quileutes must have figured out where and when and how to submerge the branches so they could harvest all the roe without having to kill the fish.

I wondered what they’d say if they saw how we harvest caviar—the monstrous ancient sturgeon we hook or net, then kill for a few spoons of roe—female and male, we kill them both, for there’s no way of knowing for certain until their bellies have been slit open. What would they say if they knew how sometimes the flesh is thrown to the dogs because it’s too tough and it’s only the caviar we want? For all our ingenuity and our enlightened thought, we still haven’t found a way to harvest caviar that comes close to what the Quileutes have developed with the herring.

I turned and, lugging the wet, awkward load, followed the others toward the houses.

We suspended the white branches on the fish-drying racks attached by strong cords to the back walls of the houses. We passed the branches to children who carried them to the highest crossbars. When we’d emptied our arms, we went back to the canoes for another load, and another, until all the branches were hanging from the drying rack. It took most of that day.

After I urge my husband out of bed, he eats, but I don’t. I don’t feel like eating. The food, its aroma—just watching others chew—repulses me.

41

Wow! Come with me. Here’s something to make hearts glad. We will be gut-full tonight. C’mon. Let’s go, everybody.

42

How about this! I told you this was great.