Her lungs inflated again. As the car bumped along, Marina counted facts. What else did she know about trees? About the formation of hills? Though now a propagandist by necessity, she was a journalist by training, and she had always had a head for information. They were on kilometer 250 of 310 along the pitted road toward Esso. Another hour and a half would pass before they reached the campground. The holiday they headed toward might draw only a few hundred people; its organizers had already transmitted a press release to the party newspaper and there was no need for on-the-ground reporting, but Marina’s editor, who was soft, sensitive, encouraged her toward any opportunity to leave the city. As soon as Marina mentioned Eva and Petya’s invitation, he insisted she attend to cover the event. When, toward the end of last week, she said she was rethinking the trip, he called her into his office and shut the door. “You have to go,” he told her. Again, more firmly, with his shoulders hunched forward so he could catch her eye: “You have to.” Not for the story, she knew, but for the comfort of the rest of the office. He wanted her to leave in grief but come back different.
The road north followed the path of a blaze so old Marina’s grandparents might have heard news break about it. That was another fact. The trees still looked like death to her.
“Are you all right back there?” Eva called over the seat. “Are you hungry? Are you bored?”
Marina leaned forward. The seat belt tugged against her strained ribs. “I’m fine.”
“Well, I have to get out,” Eva said. She spoke sideways—maybe Marina was not meant to hear. Petya checked his watch and guided the car to the side of the road, so Eva, slamming the door behind her, could climb down off the gravel shoulder. Eva’s ponytail bobbed as she unbuttoned her pants and crouched. Marina looked out the other window. The trees on that side were thick, deep, damp-looking. Old growth.
She remembered taking her girls for an early hike. In a younger forest, on a warmer day, in a neighborhood at the southern end of Petropavlovsk. Sophia so small, then, that Marina carried her most of the way in a backpack. That sweet load on Marina’s spine. Sophia’s fingers brushed Marina’s bare arms, and Alyona pulled leaves off the shrubs they passed. Alyona was five years old, at the height of her obsession with carrots—she ate nothing but—and Marina brought a plastic bag full of them, washed and peeled and prepared, for her daughter to picnic on. The three of them climbed along a stream bank, with the sun coming through the trees in strips and ribbons. The sound of Alyona’s crunching, the trickle of fresh water, the steady rush of Sophia’s breath behind Marina’s ear.
Marina pressed her palm to her chest. Her inhalations got shallower. Petya was doing her the kindness of pretending he did not hear.
The passenger door opened and the car chimed in greeting. “Thanks, my joy,” Eva said. She opened the glove compartment, pulled out a sanitizing wipe, and leaned over to kiss her husband on the cheek. The car bloomed with the smell of rubbing alcohol.
When they were another fifteen kilometers along, rain started, falling in little patters at first, then faster, harder. Up front, Eva was talking again about a woman at the campsite she wanted Marina to meet. Marina checked her phone. No service. The police had her parents’ numbers on file, so in case anything developed in the city, they would be able to contact her family, but…Marina hated leaving cell service. These interruptions happened so often—at the ocean, at the dacha, on one stretch of the road between the city and the airport. During the first months the girls were gone, Marina went nowhere that risked disconnection. She drove from home to work, work to home, with her cell phone clutched in one hand on top of the steering wheel.
When she called the police major general to say she was considering traveling to this campground for the weekend, he, too, pushed her toward the trip. “Take a vacation,” he told her.
“It’s for work,” she said.
“Well, take some extra time for yourself.” His voice dropped. “Marina Alexandrovna, our investigation is no longer active.”
Listening, Marina rolled her chair away from her desk and bent over her knees. “I understand that. But if—”
“We will get in touch right away if any new information comes in. Of course we hope for a lead.” Marina could not breathe then, either. “But take your trip. Live your life. Now is the time to move forward.”
He dared to mention hoping for a lead, after she had dedicated months to combing through city news coverage, calling scattered village police stations to ask after unsolved kidnappings, tracking down the prison records of men convicted of sex crimes against minors, begging superiors in the party to bring this case to the attention of Moscow. The major general said such things to make her doubt they had ever spent a minute looking for her daughters. With him in charge, no wonder the girls had not come back, Marina thought and wanted to suffocate.
“It better clear up,” Eva said. Her narrow face tipped toward the windshield. “Otherwise setting up the tent will be a nightmare.”
“It’ll pass,” Petya said. Marina tucked her phone back in her bag. Drops tracked across her window. She thought about surface tension, chemical composition, school science experiments. Nothing else. No recent memories.
By the time they pulled up to the fence bordering the campground, the rain had stopped. The stretch of wet, shining grass in front of their car was lined by empty booths. A stage in the middle of the clearing bore a banner: WE WELCOME VISITORS TO THIS TRADITIONAL FESTIVAL IN CELEBRATION OF THE REGION’S CULTURAL MINORITIES. HAPPY NEW YEAR—NURGENEK.
“Happy New Year,” Marina said. It sounded odd in June.
“The party’s not until tomorrow,” said Eva. Petya slammed his door on his way to grab their things from the trunk.
Arms full of supplies, they crossed the clearing on a dirt path that took them into the forest. They heard people talking, smelled cooked meat. An ATV was parked on the path ahead of them; when they squeezed past the vehicle, they found thirty people sharing dinner around tables in the open air.
“That’s her,” Eva whispered to Marina, and stepped forward. “Alla Innokentevna.” A gray-haired woman in the center of the group glanced up. “It’s so good to see you again.”
The woman put down her fork and beckoned them. Her lips pursed as Eva approached. “Don’t you usually come earlier?”
“We do. This year we brought a friend”—Eva looked behind for Marina—“a journalist. She had to work yesterday so we couldn’t leave until this morning.”
Marina nodded at the group. Alla Innokentevna was smiling now. “A journalist. In the city? What newspaper?”
“United Russia’s,” Marina said.
“We sent you a press release,” Alla Innokentevna said.
Marina said, “I know.” Eva broke in: “When we described the holiday to her, she said she had to experience it for herself. She hasn’t been up north for years. And before she worked for the party, she covered all sorts of subjects. In 2003 she won the Kamchatka Regional Prize for her reporting.”
Petya glanced at Marina. “In 2002,” Marina mouthed. He winked.
“Have you eaten dinner?” Alla Innokentevna asked. “No? You can set up by the big yurt.” She gestured toward the trees. “Come back afterward and we’ll have plates for you.” The other event organizers and the young members of visiting dance troupes fell back into their own conversations.