All the Winters After (10 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

“I have never seen men cook meals. In my village, this never happens.”

Kache liked that Nadia was telling him something about herself, and he refrained from pressing her for more. “Well, ‘cook meals' might be optimistic, but I can get food on the table.”

“It is too much, what you buy.”

He saw the piles of food and supplies through her eyes. He'd felt like a springtime Santa Claus at the store, but now he just felt like a superconsumer on steroids.

“But Lettie brought you supplies.”

“Not all these many kinds of foods, because I have garden and hunt and fish. Does this mean you will go away and not return, like Lettie?”

He didn't answer. While he made dinner, she tried to make room in the fridge and the pantry.

“Who will eat all of this?” she asked as he came in carrying plates of steak from the grill.

“We will. No problem.”

She shook her head vigorously, muttering in Russian.

After he set the steaks on the table, along with the potatoes, salad, and bread, he invited her to sit. “Wine?” he asked and was surprised that she nodded. They stared at the food without looking at each other. “So,” Kache said. “You probably have a prayer or something. I don't want you to break any of your rules.”

“I have my gratitude.” She picked up her fork and her knife and began cutting her steak. “I am breaking Old Believer rules every day. I am eating off same dishes as you. This is not allowed. You are not Old Believer. Separate dishes. And no prayer with you. This is not allowed. Wine? We are allowed only to drink
braga
, wine made at home with berries. Today? Wednesday? Fasting. No dairy or meat allowed. Please, I would like for you to pass me sour cream. And this bacon.” She smiled again. She had nice teeth. How did she have such good teeth without going to the dentist?

He laughed and passed her the sour cream, the bacon, the chives, the salad. “I get the feeling this is not your first introduction to worldly ways.”

“When I came here, I made these decisions. I read. Watched the movies on VCR like Lettie showed me. Made my own faith.” She had been holding the piece of steak on her fork as she talked. “Now I eat, yes?” She took the awaiting bite and then ate the meal with gusto, without speaking, taking second helpings and a smidgen of a third. It was good to see her eat with that kind of abandon. Janie had been a picky eater and always left food on her plate.

Nadia obviously hadn't been starving to death. She had chickens and goats; she planted a garden in the summer—a big one by the looks of all the canned goods lining the pantry. And judging by the contents of the freezer, she knew her way around a fishing pole and a rifle.

Still, she seemed to enjoy the rib eye and the salad, and she devoured the fully loaded baked potato. Kache leaned back in his chair and watched her fork moving from plate to mouth to plate to mouth, pleased at the transforming effect the meal seemed to bring to their conversation. At one point, she let out a huge belch without even a look of apology and continued right on eating, which he found much more refreshing than revolting. When she finished, she sipped the wine and said, “Thank you for this food. It is very good,” which sounded to him like a prayer of sorts, especially because of the way she pronounced
good
to rhyme with
food
. She looked directly at him for an instant and smiled. The third smile she'd bestowed upon him.

He insisted on doing the dishes, and she headed down to the beach to dig up razor clams.

Kache filled the sink and began washing the same white dishes with blue flowers he had helped his mom wash countless times. Behind the faucet rested the pig-shaped cutting board he'd once made for Mother's Day. He'd painted it dark green; the pig had an orange snout, a big blue eye with coordinating blue eyelashes, and his third-grade attempt at a black-capped chickadee painted on its back, inspired by the one Kache had observed picking flies off their cow.

Above the cutting board, on a shelf, sat the Mason jar of shells and sea glass his mom had collected, a Japanese fisherman's blown glass ball, a piece of driftwood in the shape of a
W
, which Denny had found. Each one of these simple objects—everyday knickknacks he'd grown up with—now seemed to be made of gold.

A trilogy of small silver vases held dried wildflowers—forget-me-nots and beach peas, Nadia's own unassuming relics left from last summer, he guessed. Behind all the mementos, the clean, clear windowpanes looked out on the porch and beyond, to the yellow and brown clearing they'd called the meadow, occasional patches of dirty snow still hanging on. A pregnant cow moose stood out there, peeling strips of bark off a birch tree. The land tilted down toward the woods, where Kache watched Nadia head for the trail that led to the canyon and then the beach. She was wearing rubber boots, carrying a pail and a large rifle as comfortably as a woman in the city might carry a purse and umbrella. Leo pranced beside her. Ahead of them lay the ever-changing view, now a dark sage bay below the peach mountains, still soaking in the last lengthening hours of violet-washed sky. Kache had wanted to tag along—he hadn't even been down to the beach yet—but he also wanted to give her space. It must be weird for her to have him around, to have anyone around. Almost as weird as it was for him to be here, in this same kitchen, this same house. Everything the same, except, of course, nothing was the same.

But here he was, not alone exactly. He suspected Nadia knew an aloneness that even he couldn't begin to fathom. There were things he wanted to ask her, but he was learning to wait. He wouldn't bombard her. He didn't want to keep driving her to hide in his room. He rinsed the silverware and came back to her smile.

His mother had been a big smiler; it was part of her bright and undeniable beauty. She smiled easily, always. A flash of her perfect white crescent made it hard not to smile back. Maybe because of that, Kache had always been drawn to women who showed their teeth. First, there'd been Denny's poster he never took down—in fact, it still hung in his room—of Farrah Fawcett in that red bathing suit (admittedly, it was more than her big white teeth that had fueled Kache's adolescent fantasies). Marion was a smiler, Janie too, and most of the women in between.

But there was another type of smile that Kache was learning to appreciate: the shy, rare smile that presented itself as a gift. It wasn't given freely; it had to be earned. Nadia's face had been fearful, watchful. But now and then, her smile came through like determined sunlight working its way down through spruce and aspen branches, and he wanted to close his eyes and tilt back, expose his face to the unexpected warmth of it.

He shook his head, trying to shake loose this stupid fantasy edging on romance. She had lived alone for ten years. Ten
years
. She was strange…and probably married and who knew what else. Besides, she traipsed around in his mother's old clothes. Talk about Freudian.

He had just broken up with Janie, hadn't been laid in an entire month even prior to the breakup, and was letting a slight wisp of a smile stir up some ridiculous, flowery observations. Jesus. He really did need to park himself in front of the television to stop all these emerging
emotions
. It was like he was his teenaged self all over again,
feeling
every single thing that flickered across his mind.

He set the last pan in the drainer and considered whether to dry the dishes or let them drip, just as a gunshot cracked the air and rattled the glasses. And then another. Was she
hunting
? He looked out, but the cow moose was gone. No. Nadia wouldn't kill a pregnant moose. Would she? She wouldn't kill a person? Or herself? Would she?

Heart going like crazy, he pulled on his boots. He still hadn't come across a gun, had kept forgetting to even look for one. He ran out to the barn and stood, scanning the walls, seconds ticking by.

TWENTY-FIVE

Nadia made her way down to the beach, pail and clam shovel clanging, Leo following her, past the empty orange canoe that just yesterday she'd loaded with supplies. So many changing emotions in two days. And now this type of kindness from a man? No wonder she had not felt this tired in a very long time. And yet, Kache's mention of clams had reminded her the tide would be low and she wanted to fill her pail, to give something back. The dinner had been generous and satisfying. Though the meat tasted strange at first, she kept cutting off another piece and then another. It was odd to have lettuce and fresh tomatoes this time of year, and they too tasted different from those she grew every summer. Kache had even fried strips of bacon to crumble on the baked potatoes. She'd had bacon a few times when Lettie brought it, and she'd let it sit on her tongue, taking in its smoky salt.

He had insisted on washing the dishes—strange to see a man cook meals and wash dishes—so she took the opportunity to slip away, telling him she would be back in a few hours. How awkward she felt around him, and utterly exhausted. Yes, she had been so lonely at times, yearning for someone to talk to. But solitude gave her the undisturbed train of her thoughts winding toward their destinations. Her long winter nights of reading their books and listening to their records or watching their movies. Soon after she'd arrived, she'd begun thinking of all these as her own, set here only to satiate her thirst for knowledge and companionship. As soon as Kache stepped in, her perspective changed. This was his family's legacy she had been taking in, as if it were her family.

She set the shotgun on a dry piece of driftwood and began searching the sand for a small, telling indent. Then she pushed the cylinder-shaped shovel down as far and as quickly as possible, pulling it up and dumping out sand, which Leo nosed through, and there it was, a clam. She kept working like this, digging quickly and deeply, the way she'd been taught by her parents when she was a small girl, when they had worked the beach together as a family.

• • •

Her family had followed the others, hiking along the recently cleared path toward the land where they would establish their new village. Nadia held on to the stone Niko had slipped into the pocket of her
sarafan
. She felt its smooth, cold surface warm up in her grasp, and then, when no one was watching, she pulled it out to look at it. It was in the shape of a heart, with a white unbroken circle around its center.

She decided then. She would leave. She would sneak back to him and marry him before her mother or father could protest. Maybe the new bishop would perform the marriage ceremony.

About a month after they'd settled at the site of the new village, nothing but a few crudely built temporary cabins and a dozen tents, she packed her clothes and hid her bag under her cot and waited for her mother and father, her brothers and sisters, to make another arduous trip into town for supplies. The timing had to coincide with when the tide reached its lowest so she would have adequate time to walk along the beach far enough behind them. She waited three more weeks. She missed Niko so much and wondered if the tears in his eyes when he'd said good-bye to her returned when he thought of her now.

She feigned a stomachache, which her mother treated with lemon juice and salt. Nadia stayed in bed until they left and then waited a bit longer because her mother always forgot one thing or another. When enough time had passed, Nadia set out to walk the seven miles back to Ural, back to Niko. The summer days spread themselves out like long, soft rugs of light, plenty of light to make the trip in one day. She'd packed only a few of her favorite dresses, hoping that her parents would forgive her. Surely, they would participate in the
devichnik
with all her female friends and come the week before the wedding, the
svadba
, to prepare the handiwork and linens, the woven belts and dresses. They would kiss and hug her and invite her and Niko back for visits, soon welcoming their new grandchildren into the family. How hopeful she was on that long hike! She clanged the bell she brought to ward off the bears, and the clanging might have been a thousand church bells declaring their newlywed love.

Even though she'd worn good hiking boots, her feet ached by the time she got to the trailhead that led up to the old village. She wished she could bathe before seeing him. But with the heart-shaped stone damp in her palm, she pressed on, imagining his expression when he opened his front door. His eyes, such a soft river green, framed in blond lashes; the dimples everyone teased him about because his beard was growing in and they wouldn't be as visible. How would he continue to be such a charmer without those dimples? the men asked. He was seventeen, almost eighteen. In the last year, he'd become more and more of a man. But a good-hearted man, and smart.

And more. Once, when he and Nadia had lagged behind on a school outing, they had managed a few moments alone on the trail. Alone! And Niko had broken the rules. He'd turned to her and held her face in his hands, and with the confidence of a grown man, he had kissed her and kissed her until she felt her legs giving way under her long skirt. “That,” he had whispered to her, “is just the beginning of what we have to look forward to.” He took her hand and pulled her along the trail; if he hadn't, she suspected she'd still be standing there, trying to will her legs to move in a forward motion to keep from dissolving into the earth.

Now the anticipation of seeing him ached more than her feet, but it was a giddy ache. Almost to the village. Almost skipping. Dusk hadn't set in yet, but the sun hung low, and she guessed it was around eleven. Most of the village would still be up. It was not a day of fasting and prayer. They had to get as much work done as the summer daylight would allow.

But they were not working. The sounds of laughter and music drifted across the village—a celebration. She smiled. She would see all her friends in one place; they would welcome her, and there would be tears of joy. Look how far she'd come to return to them.
Sit, Nadia. Eat! Drink!
And they would bring her plates of
pelmeni
and
kulebiaka
and a cool pitcher of water. Pride would take over Niko's face. He would hold her hands in his.

She blotted her forehead and chin with her scarf, held her shoulders back, and smiled wide. Niko always said she had the prettiest smile in the village.

But when she had opened the door to the community center, no one noticed her. All eyes had stayed on Niko and Katarina, perched at a long table, fingers entwined, dressed in the traditional wedding clothes. Katarina, smiling her own stunning smile, already wearing the
shashmura
on her head, hair held in the two braids of a married woman instead of the single braid Nadia still wore.

• • •

So many years ago, and yet her chest was squeezing as if it had just happened, as if she were thirteen years old and Niko and Katarina sat before her, holding hands, so happy. So very happy. Nadia saw their smiling faces as she dug for the razor clams, working quickly to catch them before they burrowed deeper, the wind whipping off the hood of her jacket and then working at her hair. So she had left the original village, Ural, and then she had tried to leave Altai. Those were her first two departures. Neither of her leavings led to happiness. It might even be said that her last leaving led to her death.

Leo leaped up from where he'd been crouching at the hole, stood at attention, and barked. A huge snapping of branches through the bushes. Was it a moose? A crashing, a muffled grunt. It was hard to hear over Leo's incessant barking and the wind. It sounded like a bear. Yes, a bear. She grabbed the shotgun, pointed it to the sky, and pulled the trigger. The butt kicked back, biting into her shoulder as the shot rang out. She pressed her shoulder tighter against it and pulled the trigger again. She still couldn't see the bear, but the loud lumbering faded, retreating toward the canyon.

No more sounds, except for the wind and the waves and the gathering gulls.

• • •

As she headed up the trail back to the Winkel homestead, her stomach clenched. The ground seemed to ripple ahead, and a stifling warmth wrapped around her. Doubling over, she vomited onto a salmonberry bush. She was unaccustomed to food from the grocery store. This had happened before, with Lettie, after the first few visits. Nadia gagged again, and up came more of the dinner Kache had so generously prepared. She retched and retched until there was nothing left, her throat and nose burning, eyes running. Leo paced and whined. She grabbed some snow from a clinging patch, scraped away the top dirt-crusted layer, and ate some before rubbing her face and hands with it to clean herself and put color back in her cheeks. She didn't want to reveal any sign of weakness or vulnerability to Kache. But she also didn't want to hurt his feelings after he had made her such a bountiful meal.

“Nadia?” His voice made her jump. “Are you okay?”

She turned to see him standing there, breathing hard, holding one of the Winkel rifles awkwardly away from his body. Leo hadn't warned her; instead, wagging his tail, he sniffed Kache's leg, as if to say,
He is our friend. This is the man who made us steak.

“Yes, I am fine.” She stood, trying to block the vomit-covered bushes.

“I heard gunshots.”

“I thought I heard bear.”

“You shot a bear?”

“No, I shoot into air only. To scare away this bear I did not actually set my eyes on.”

“You scared the hell out of me.”

“Your family, they never shoot guns?”

“Yes. Of course they did. I just… Okay. Right. But what about now? You're sick.”

She shook her head.

“I saw you puking. Hey. You're not… Are you? Are you
pregnant
?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“None of my business. I know. Of course. Forgive me.”

“If I am pregnant, it is the second coming of Messiah. Or how do they say? A freezing day in hell.”

“Oh. Okay. Got it. Are you sick? Should I take you to the doctor?”

“No. I do not need doctor. Only once in many years, Lettie brings me medicine. Mostly, I make it myself. Devil's club is good for headache. Ginger root is good for this stomach. Or pickles.”

“Do you throw up a lot?”

“No.”

“It was my cooking.”

She shook her head again. So many questions. “No, not your cooking. I am sorry.” She hesitated. “It is the food I am not used to. Your cooking it is very good.”

“Oh man. I'm sorry. Didn't even think of that.”

“It is fine. I am fine now.” And to prove herself, she grabbed the bucket and the rifle and started back up the trail, with Leo following, along with Kache, who continued on with his talking and his questions until they reached the house and she excused herself and went upstairs to wash up.

In the kitchen, she poured the clams in the colander, rinsed and gently shook them.

“Your coloring looks better now. You feel all right?”

“Yes, I told you. I am fine. I will prepare dinner tomorrow.”

“I'm invited back for dinner?”

She glanced at him, turned back to the clams. “Of course. Yet I am not in this position to do this invite. I am the guest.”

A pause lingered before he said, “That's not how I see it.”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and kept shaking the clams. “How do you see it?”

“I'm not sure.” He said he'd be back the next day to work on the truck and start clearing the road.

She rinsed a towel in the sink and covered the clams with it. “For this truck, you need a new battery and a starter.”

“You don't say.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, opened the refrigerator, and set the clams on a shelf. “You confuse me. I
do
say this.”

“Just an expression. You know your way under a car hood too?”

She shrugged and let out a long sigh. She was tired. She could not answer one more question, and certainly not one about getting lost under a car. Fortunately, he said only good night and that he would see her the next day, closed the door, and was gone.

She leaned against the door, listening to the new sounds of the ATV revving up the road until the silence returned—her old, familiar silence, made of certain creaks and scratches and howls and the clickety-clack of Leo's claws across the floor.