He said, “Maybe they really are gone,” and she wished him dead in their place.
The people who surrounded Marina at home tried to do better than that. They invited her out and were gentle. This trip was not the first time she had left the city—for New Year’s, she went with her parents to the dacha, coated then by ice. The stakes in the garden were black with withered vines. Marina had a panic attack at midnight, and her mother fetched her a pill and fixed her warm vodka with honey. On Alyona’s birthday in March, they came together again, nervously. Marina’s mother was the wreck then, weeping for the girls. Marina cut the cake to the sound of sobs. Sophia’s birthday was coming soon.
For her part, Marina survived. She went to her office, filed her scripted articles, responded to small talk. She showed up at friends’ apartments when they asked her to. She called the police station in search of updates. But that was all she could manage, and sometimes even that seemed like too much. Everything that once propelled her was now gone. She used to be a storyteller, she used to have a sense of humor, she used to be a mother, but now she was—nothing. Alla Innokentevna was equipped, after her loss, to organize celebrations, but Marina was a person left purposeless.
Someone called her name in the woods. Marina’s hand stayed on her chest. The planks under the curve of her head were hard and scratchy and unforgiving. She remembered Sophia’s breakfast that last morning. Oats mixed with milk and freeze-dried bits of berries. A peeled orange. The girl’s shoulders over the table looking as easily shattered as porcelain cups.
“Marina,” Petya shouted. Closer now. She exhaled, waited, and then realized—maybe he was looking for her for a reason—maybe they had contact from the police. No. It wouldn’t be. And yet she sat up.
“I’m here,” she shouted back.
The log ladder rocked in place. Petya’s head came into view, framed by the granary’s entryway. “There you are,” he said. His eyebrows rose in tenderness.
His expression made it clear he had nothing urgent to say, but still she asked, “What is it? Did anything happen?”
“No,” he said. “Sorry.” Brows now creased. He climbed the rest of the way up and joined her inside. “Nice little nest you found here.”
“Caw, caw,” she said.
He turned himself around to face the river. He had to hunch to fit under the roof. In front of her was the broad sweep of his back. She lay down again.
“Eva sent me to find you. They’re about to start.”
“Okay. I’ll come in a minute.”
“She wants you to talk to people.” Marina did not respond. Eventually, he said, “It’ll be a good time today.”
“I know it will,” she said. “I’m sure.” She doubted.
The world around them was a constant buzz. The rushing water sounded louder than their breath did. Petya shifted his weight. The wood creaked.
“I’m too heavy for this,” he said. “I’ll see you down there.” She kept her eyes fixed on the roof as he climbed out.
The clearing was filled with people. Yesterday’s empty stalls were packed tight with trinkets and posters. Shouting over each other were narrow-eyed villagers, teenagers in neon hooded sweatshirts, pale Russians with swollen red noses, city tour guides wearing name-brand outdoors gear. Alla Innokentevna, who this morning was dressed in slacks and a turtleneck, wore a beaded deerskin tunic, and spoke into a microphone on the stage.
“We thank the Ministry of Culture for its support.” The crowd, that portion facing the stage, clapped. Alla Innokentevna’s teeth flashed white behind the black foam of the microphone’s head. “And we thank you, dear guests, for coming to our Even New Year, Nurgenek.” The words blasted from speakers on either side of the stage. “We welcome you all, indigenous, Russian, and foreign, on this final day of June, to celebrate the solstice sun.”
Eva and Petya were close to the stage. Eva’s yellow ponytail stood out among the dark-haired locals. Marina squeezed over to her side and gripped Eva’s arm, thin in its windbreaker sleeve.
“Couldn’t we use some new sun?” Alla Innokentevna asked the crowd. The ground was packed with wetness under their feet. A woman on Marina’s other side tittered. “We’re joined today,” Alla Innokentevna continued, “by native artists from all over the country. Let’s meet them.” Music bumped out of the speakers. It was the same song Marina had heard in the woods after breakfast—a woman’s voice trilling over a synthesizer. One by one, dancers stepped onto the stage from behind the banner, shook and stomped across the boards.
Into Eva’s ear, Marina asked, “Is there information posted somewhere about what’s happening?”
Without turning from the dancers, Eva pointed to the left. “Try the food stall.”
Marina forced her way out of one clot of people, crossed the trampled grass, and pushed into another crowd. When she got to the front, she found the morning’s cooks ladling out bowls of soup in exchange for cash. Marina waved to catch one’s eye. The cook showed no recognition. “Is there a schedule for today?” Marina called over other people’s orders. Seeking numbers, names, the small and neutral details that could always return her to herself. The cook nodded at the end of the counter, beyond stacks of plastic bowls and loose spoons, where scattered pamphlets carried the title “Nurgenek.” Marina grabbed a pamphlet and pushed her way out.
She read as she walked past the stalls. The campground was a reconstruction of a traditional Even settlement—the granary was Even, then. Long paragraphs praised the grounds’ historical accuracy. A full page of the pamphlet was dedicated to pictures of dance troupes to draw tourists. The sky in those photographs was brilliant blue, while the one above Marina looked like rain.
“Genuine sealskin caps,” said one vendor she passed, turning a hat inside out to show hidden speckles. The back of the pamphlet listed the holiday’s events. After this came a concert on traditional instruments, then an hour-long leatherworking demonstration by native craftsmen…“Pardon me, miss?” said a man from behind her.
She turned to the flat black eye of a camera. A middle-aged man in a polo shirt stood beside it, recorder in his hand. “Yes?” she said. Airless.
“Is this your first time at the festival?” Marina nodded, waiting for his next question to cut. He must have recognized her. “What are your impressions so far?” She stared at him. “We’d love a comment. Where are you visiting from?”
Beside the reporter, the photographer’s camera shutter clicked. “No pictures,” she said. People pressed behind her, against her, but she was trying to keep a little distance between herself and the recorder. How was it possible? This peninsula was so small that she collided with random journalists wherever she went, but so big she could lose both her girls?
The reporter pushed on. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
Instead of answering, she pointed in the direction of the stage, waved to no one over there, and mouthed, “My friends.” Her throat was closing. Even not knowing about the kidnapping, he forced her to return to it. She had to get away.
These attacks always felt like dying. They came on at the thought of her girls’ death, and brought her to a dead place, where her lungs shut down, her mouth dried up, her vision eventually blotted out. But she had felt like this before and lived. Many times. Every time. She plunged deeper into the crowd because she felt the reporter watching.
When she finally got to Eva, Marina’s chest throbbed. Eva glanced down and looked horrified. “What’s the matter?”