The Great Alone (68 page)

Winter had barely begun, and already he was looking forward to the spring melt and the fresh outcroppings the thaw would create. Gold was a subject that always took his mind off his troubles.

On a typically mild January afternoon, the sun sat low in the west, its soft rays pinking the white cone of Mount Edgecumbe and pearlizing the wispy trails of mist that blanketed the waters of Sitka Sound. Eva hugged both arms around the pouch containing her schoolbooks and her mother’s Bible. She always carried it with her even though the sea water had smeared the ink and dried the pages together. It had been her mother’s most treasured possession, especially during these last months. Now it was Eva’s.

A group of soldiers lounged idly at the street corner ahead of her. She walked slower, hoping they’d move on before she got there, but they didn’t. They were a scraggly, unkempt lot—dirty and smelly. Steadfastly, Eva kept her gaze glued to the ground in front of her as she approached them. She trembled inside with a rage born of fear and hatred.

“She’s wearin’ skirts. Ya reckon that’s a girl.”

“ ’Bout as homely as a mudhen, ain’t she?”

Tears burned the back of her eyes. She wanted to scream at them and hurl their insulting remarks back at them; but as violently as she hated them, she was frightened of them, too. She broke into a run, and the awful sound of their mocking laughter gave added impetus to her flight. She didn’t slow down until she was nearly home, but she couldn’t face the thought of going there. She hated it. Ever since her mother had drowned, it seemed that death lived in the house. Her father just sat around, waiting to die.

Even though she was not quite ten years old, she had tried to assume the role of woman of the house—cooking and cleaning and caring for her father. But the meals that she labored so diligently to prepare usually went untouched by her father. Even the times that he changed into a clean shirt, which were rare, he never noticed how carefully she had ironed it. Nothing mattered to him any more, not even her.

She didn’t want to go home. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way, but she did. Although her grandfather had always listened sympathetically, Eva wasn’t in the mood to hear more of his assurances that in time her father would get over his grief. Nobody seemed to understand that she missed her mother, too—nobody but her sister. She remembered how Nadia had held her and cried the last time she’d come to the house. That had been two weeks ago, before Nadia had broken her arm when she slipped on some ice and fell. Eva decided to visit her sister and make certain she was getting along all right.

Finding the front door of her sister’s house unlocked, Eva walked in without knocking. Almost immediately she heard the approach of footsteps coming from the kitchen. An instant later, Nadia came into view, her left arm cradled in a sling, a strained and anxious expression on her face.

“Eva.” She sounded relieved as she nervously wiped her right hand on the front of her apron. “I thought maybe Gabe had come home early. What brings you here? Did you just get out of school?” She glanced apprehensively at the door, then at Eva. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen? I was just starting to make some
kulich.
I thought I’d surprise Gabe.”

She started for the kitchen without waiting to see if Eva followed her. After that initial barrage of questions, Eva didn’t know which to answer first. As she walked slowly into the kitchen, she wasn’t even certain Nadia cared to hear her answers.

“I didn’t feel like going home, so I thought I’d come by to see you.” She laid her pouch of books on the table, where Nadia had set out all the ingredients for the Russian holiday bread.

“How’s Papa?” Nadia added some flour to the nutmeg and vanilla-spiced mixture of butter, eggs, and sugar in the large crockery bowl, then picked up a spoon to start stirring it in, awkwardly attempting to hold the bowl steady with her left hand.

“The same.” Eva slumped onto a chair. “He just sits in his chair and hardly ever talks.”

“He’s taking Mama’s death very hard.” After thickening the batter with flour, she added a cupful each of currants and nuts. “I knew he would.”

Eva stared at the wooden spoon in her sister’s hand, watching its circular motion as Nadia attempted to fold the ingredients together. “I hate him.”

The statement had the desired effect, as her sister finally took notice of her and let the spoon handle rest against the side of the bowl. “Eva! How can you say that?”

“It’s his fault Mama’s dead. Even he says so. He shouldn’t have let those soldiers hurt her. He should have stayed in the room with her and not left her alone. She wouldn’t have gotten frightened and run out of the house if he’d been with her.”

“That isn’t fair, Eva. He did everything he could for her. He couldn’t sit with her every minute. He needed his rest, too.”

“He could have asked me to stay with her if he wanted to sleep.”

“You know she only wanted Papa with her.” She picked up the spoon and started stirring the batter again. “What happened to Mama wasn’t his fault, and I don’t want to hear you say such a thing ever again.”

“After the Americans came, we should have left with Uncle Stanislav, like Papa said.” She stuck her finger into the rich bread batter when Nadia paused to add more flour to the mixture, then slowly licked it off.

“Maybe we should have.”

Nadia’s unexpected agreement took Eva by surprise. Always before, her sister had denied such a suggestion, with the explanation that she never would have married Gabe if they had left.

“But we didn’t go with Uncle Stanislav or Aunt Anastasia, so there’s no point in talking about it.” Her sister’s tone seemed unnaturally brittle. “You should be old enough to understand that we can’t change the past. If we could, there might be a lot of things we would do differently.”

“What would you change?” Eva had always thought her beautiful older sister had everything. Everyone had always liked her best, with the possible exception of their grandfather. Otherwise she’d always been the favorite daughter, favorite niece, favorite cousin—favorite everything. She’d gone to the balls and concerts given at the governor’s mansion when Princess Maria had entertained there. She had married a handsome and important American. Nobody had ever laughed at Nadia, made fun of the way she looked, or called her names. She had never suffered the agony of not being liked the way Eva had.

Nadia hesitated over her answer. “I would change what happened the night the soldiers broke in. I would have Papa make them leave.”

Eva thought about that for a while, then nodded slowly. “That’s when everything went wrong. Nothing was the same after that night, was it?”

“No. Nothing.”

“I hate them,” she declared vehemently.

“Who?”

“The soldiers.” She hated them for what they’d done to her parents and for the way they made her feel with their hurtful remarks. She hated all the soldiers. “Somebody should make them pay for what they’ve done. What about Gabe? Can’t he see that they’re punished?”

“There’s … there’s nothing he can do.” Nadia added the last of the flour and tried to work it into the stiffening dough.

“He could try, couldn’t he? He could talk to the general and—”

“No!” The suggestion obviously upset her, although she tried to conceal it. “I told you there isn’t anything he can do. Please, let’s not talk about it. And don’t suggest it to him either.”

“How can I?” Eva muttered. “I hardly ever see him any more. How come he was too busy to come to Mama’s funeral?”

“Because he had important things to do.” But she didn’t say what they were.

For some reason, Eva didn’t find that excuse very convincing. “He never comes over to see Papa.”

“He’s been very busy.” Despite Nadia’s attempts to hold the bowl steady while she worked the flour into the dough, it kept shifting. Eva observed the wince of pain that flashed across her sister’s face as a sudden movement of the bowl sideways jerked at her injured arm.

“Would you like me to do that for you?” she offered.

“Yes, thank you.” Nadia willingly relinquished the bowl of bread dough and moved away from the table, gently holding her sling-wrapped arm as if it pained her. “It’s surprising how difficult it is to do simple things when you have only one good arm.”

“It must hurt.” Eva abandoned the spoon and began kneading the flour into the dough with her fingers.

“Sometimes, but it’s getting better.” Her smile seemed strained. “You’ll have to take some of the kulich home to Papa.”

“He won’t eat it,” Eva replied glumly. “He hardly eats anything. It doesn’t matter what I fix.”

“That will change in time. His appetite will come back.”

“No, it won’t. He doesn’t care about anything any more. If I didn’t come home tonight, he wouldn’t even miss me.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Yes. Mama didn’t want me in her room. Now Papa doesn’t even care if I’m there or not.”

“He does care. He may not show it, but that’s only because he misses Mama so much right now. But … if he knew … you were hurting, he’d do something about it. Papa would. I know he would—if he knew.”

“Are you crying, Nadia?” She thought she saw tears in her eyes.

“My arm hurts a little, that’s all.” She turned away so Eva couldn’t see her face.

From the front room came the sound of the door opening and a man’s heavy footsteps walking in. Eva frowned at Nadia’s visible start of alarm. She looked so frightened that for an instant Eva thought maybe some soldiers had come. But her sister turned and bustled quickly to the table.

“I’ll finish that.” She moved the bowl away from Eva’s flour- and dough-sticky fingers. “You’d better go home before Papa wonders where you are and starts worrying.”

“But who came in?” Eva didn’t understand why she was suddenly being sent away. “Is it Gabe?”

“Yes.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and pleaded urgently, “Please, just do as I ask and leave. And don’t forget your school books.”

“But—” Eva was confused.

“Woman! Where the hell are you?”

Surprised by the anger in the demanding voice, Eva turned toward the connecting door just as her sister’s husband appeared in the opening. His expression looked harsh and forbidding, his eyes small points of blackness. The smile, the engaging twinkle of his eyes were nowhere to be seen.

“What’s she doing here?” He glared at Eva.

“She stopped by on her way home from school,” Nadia explained anxiously. “She was just leaving.”

“Have I interrupted something?” His gaze narrowed suspiciously, darting back and forth between the two of them. “I’ll bet you didn’t expect me home so early.”

“I wasn’t certain what time you’d come home.” Her sister tried to sound very calm and unconcerned, but Eva heard the faint waver in her voice. She moved cautiously closer to the table, inching toward her book pouch. “I know how much you like kulich. I thought I’d bake some to surprise you.”

“Now I see.” His glance fell on the tins of flour and sugar sitting on the table. “You’re making a surprise for me. I wonder if I had come home later whether there would be any left for me—or would you have given it all to that half-breed family of yours? That’s what’s been going on, isn’t it? You’ve been slipping food to them behind my back. That’s why we never have any sugar or flour or anything else to eat in this house!”

“No! I was making this for you, Gabe.”

“Liar!” With an angry sweep of his arm, he knocked everything off the table. Eva jumped at the loud clatter of bowls, tins, cups, and pans as they fell onto the floor, scattering their contents amidst a rising cloud of flour dust. She heard her sister’s half-smothered shriek of alarm and turned, her eyes widening as she saw him spring on Nadia and grab the wrist of her broken arm.

“Don’t hit me. Please, don’t hit me,” her sister sobbed.

He slapped her across the face, then jerked her back to him with a hard yank on her wrist. “Don’t you lie to me, you little bitch.”

“Don’t you hurt my sister.” Eva flung herself at him, trying to pull his hand loose from its grip on Nadia’s injured arm. “You let go of her.”

She didn’t see the backhanded swing of his arm. Pain exploded in her head as its force catapulted her backward. She fell, striking the juncture of the kitchen wall and floor. For an instant she was too stunned to move.

“Eva!” Distantly she heard her sister call out her name before the outcry of alarm was choked off by a sharp groan. Gradually the pain began to center on one side of her head, leaving a bruised soreness to claim the rest of her. “My arm!”

“I’ll break it again if you don’t tell me the truth.” Gabe’s threatening response dimly penetrated Eva’s consciousness. She tried to sit up. “You were going to give that kulich to her, weren’t you?”

“I was going to … send one loaf home … for Papa.” Her pain-strangled answer broke on a sob. “Only one, Gabe.”

“I’ll bet it was only one.”

Eva heard the strike of another blow and looked up as the force of it knocked her sister to the floor. She fell on her broken arm and cried out sharply. Eva wanted to go to her, but Gabe was standing over her sister. She was frightened of what he might do to her if she tried to come between them again. The excruciating throbbing in her head hadn’t abated from the last time.