Sergei’s head began spinning. He felt dizzy and sick and faint. “The body; how can you refer to him as ‘the body’? He’s a person, my friend—” He jumped up and kicked his chair. “And he’s not dead. Nobody would ever hurt Mikhail. Nobody.”
His father looked at Sergei with a grave face. “A stranger may be responsible, someone who knows nothing about Mikhail…”
Sergei’s eyes burned with rage. “That doesn’t make any sense, it has to be a mistake; Mikhail isn’t dead, he’s at home with his grandparents. I know it.” Before his father could respond, he ran back to his room and slammed the door.
Standing near the edge of the River Byk, Sergei showed his father where he’d left Mikhail on Sunday, two days earlier. His hand shook as he pointed to the spot. Mikhail’s death had now been confirmed. Sergei’s emotions conflicted between a thirst for revenge, and remorse for the argument he’d had with Mikhail the last time they’d been together.
“There, where the river’s the widest. That’s… where he was standing the last time…” His voice was tense, “…the last time I saw him, with Rachel. There were some other people skating not far from them as well.”
“How many people, hmm?”
“I don’t know. Maybe seven or eight.”
“Did you know any of them?”
“No.”
“Were they all Jewish?”
“Why are you and the rest of the police so obsessed with the Jews?”
“I’m asking the questions. Not you.”
Sergei scowled at his father and then pasted his eyes onto the river. “If only Mikhail had come with me instead of staying with Rachel.”
“Don’t go near that girl. Do you hear me?”
“She didn’t have anything to do with his death,” said Sergei, shouting out the words with a fierceness that surprised even him.
“How can you be so certain? Were you there?”
“They were friends, and she’s half his size.”
“Just do as I say and stay away from her. She’s bad luck.” His father reached into his waist pouch for a cigarette, lit it with a birch splinter, and inhaled. He wrote some notes on his paper, his cigarette dangling from his lips. Then he beckoned one of his officers to look at the bloody trail from the ice in front of the bench to the snow-covered ground.
Sergei turned away from his father, disappointed that he would even consider Rachel a murderer, and waded through the heavy snow on the riverbank far past the bench. The sky was gray and the birch trees sagged as if they were bent in grief. As he walked by the dormant trees that obscured his view of the river, something red on the frozen ground caught his eye. Perhaps it was a clue to Mikhail’s murder, he thought as he strode toward it purposefully.
It was Rachel’s shawl, the one she had been wearing when she was skating with Mikhail. Looking around to make sure nobody was watching, Sergei picked it up and stuffed it inside his bulky sheepskin coat.
Rachel could hear the wind’s menacing howl moaning through the cracks of the house, like heavy, deep breaths, taunting her as she tossed and turned. Mikhail stood before her with a knife plunged into his chest. Begging her for help. But she stood silently, unmoving. Listening as his cries grew louder and louder and louder… watching as he fell to his death. Footsteps chasing her, getting closer and closer, louder and louder…
Rachel sat up, her chest heaving rapidly up and down. She threw her quilt to the floor. At the other end of the bench, Nucia slept peacefully, breathing in a steady, comfortable rhythm.
She wanted to show respect for Mikhail, just as she had honored her mother’s parents when they died a year ago. Her family had sat Shiva for seven days. They hadn’t looked in the mirror, bathed, or washed their hair for a week, and her mother even tore a piece of her skirt…Rachel sat up quickly and reached down to the bottom of her nightdress. Grabbing the cotton between her thumb and forefinger, she pulled as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t tear. Feeling around for the seam, she pulled until the fabric ripped apart. Now Rachel felt like she had truly honored the separation between her and Mikhail. Now she could try to sleep.
“You’re awake!”
Her mother’s voice startled Rachel as she poured herself a glass of tea, spilling it all over the samovar.
“How can you be so messy?” said her mother. “You must be more careful.”
Fetching a rag from the water bucket, Rachel wiped the samovar clean.
“You look better. You’ll go back to school tomorrow,” said Rachel’s mother before emptying her birch-bark basket of the tea and cabbage she had just purchased. “Idleness is the mother of all vices.”
“But Mother, I still don’t feel well.”
“What if I didn’t cook your meals or wash your clothes when I was ill? You’d starve, yes?”
Rachel frowned and headed back into her sleeping area. She needed to write about what she’d seen, to ease the burden within her heart that was becoming heavier by the minute. The pages of her journal were her friends, better than real friends, for they would not talk or reveal her secrets.
“Where are you going?” asked her mother as she lit the oil lamp sitting on the table.
“To write in my journal.”
Her mother pulled out a white piece of cloth from a basket near the stove. “If you’re well enough to write, you’re well enough to help me. Come,” she motioned with her finger. “You will embroider this challah cover.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me. Now, here’s some red and blue thread. The scroll work should be in red and the flowers in blue.”
For hours, it seemed to Rachel, she sat and stitched, doing her best to keep the threads even and smooth, which was almost impossible with her clumsy hands. She poked her fingers with the needle more times than she could count. Knots appeared out of nowhere, causing her to stop and cut the thread. Her head throbbed and her eyes were strained and heavy.
“You’re actually doing needlework!” said Nucia when she arrived home from her work as a seamstress. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Nucia, enough,” said their mother as she cut a head of cabbage for soup. “She’s been sitting all day working. Let her finish.” She put her knife down and poured a glass of tea from the samovar. “Come, Nucia, and have some hot tea before we make dinner.”
Rachel clumsily pushed the needle through the fabric and accidentally pricked her thumb. A tiny red spot appeared on her skin. The door swung open bringing a gust of cold air into the room. Rachel’s father, home from his job as a shoemaker’s assistant, entered with a somber expression on his weary face.
“What’s wrong, Gofsha?” asked Rachel’s mother.
He stomped his feet to get rid of the snow. “That boy Rachel knows—Mikhail—he was found dead in Dubossary. It was on the front page of the newspaper. Police think he was taken there after he was killed.”
Rachel froze with terror. She desperately wanted to tell her father what she’d seen but was afraid he wouldn’t believe that a police officer was responsible. He might think she’d been mistaken, that it wasn’t an officer at all, and insist on going to the police. Then the man who’d killed Mikhail would know she had seen him and come after her.
“When did you last see Mikhail?” her father asked.
“Sun… Sunday,” she stammered. “We skated together, but when I left he was on the river.”
“I was with Rachel, Father,” added Nucia. “We walked away and he still had his skates on.”
Rachel pressed her lips together and gave Nucia a grateful look.