The Summer Garden (99 page)

Tatiana had lent Saika her knife, and hadn’t asked for it back, and was not given it back.

“Marina,” Tatiana called, feebly this time, and then tore the white mushroom from the ground. She tossed it on top of the blueberries in the bucket, and took a deep unrelaxed breath. Saika had the mushroom bucket.

What now?

She decided to stay put until Marina and Saika came looking for her. Otherwise, they’d be looking for her, she’d be looking for them, and they would all get lost.

So she stayed in the small clearing. She found three more mushrooms. Minutes went by? She couldn’t tell. She counted once—to sixty, but it was interminable, so she stopped.

“Marina!” Tatiana kept shouting. “Marina!”

Sabir

Marina and Saika were sitting on the ground
, hidden by bushes, behind two boulders. Marina said nothing at first, still heavily panting. She had gotten very out of breath as they ran. A fully relaxed Saika giggled. “Don’t you just wish you could be two places at once?”

Marina grumbled something in return, something like, “Yes, if one of those places was dry.” The ground was waterlogged after continual rain. While walking you couldn’t tell you were in a swamp, but planting down your behind notified you with all deliberate speed. Your trousers, and then your underwear were soon damp like the raw cold earth. This did not make Marina relaxed
or
giggly.

“Saika, I’m uncomfortable.”

“So crouch. Just make sure you stay hidden. Crouching will make your legs fall asleep, though. I hate that feeling.”

“I hate the feeling of being wet,” Marina said, pulling up to crouching.

“I’m not uncomfortable. I’ve got plastic in my trousers. Just in case.”

Marina glanced sideways at Saika, and something bitter rose up in her throat. “You put plastic in your trousers?”

“Well, doesn’t our Tanechka say prepare for every contingency?”

Marina winced from irritation. She wasn’t brave enough to say: you knew we might get wet, why didn’t you tell
me
to put plastic in my seat? She said nothing, wondering how long it would take for Tatiana to come looking for them. They had run fairly fast. Marina didn’t know how far they had got from her cousin, but she did know that once Tatiana was absorbed in something, she could remain in a trance indefinitely.

“So how long are we planning to sit here?”

“Till she comes looking for us.”

“That could be forever!” Marina was petulant. “Come on, how long? Let’s just do it for five more minutes.”

Saika didn’t reply.

Time crawled by.

Then Saika spoke. “Did you see her on the boat? How she couldn’t stop herself from judging me when I was telling the story about my father?”

Marina shrugged. “I don’t think she was judging. I think she was just listening.”

“I tell you, Marinka,” said Saika, “there is a world out there that Tania will never understand. She is very narrow-minded and has such a small view of the universe.”

Marina nodded with a sigh. Where
was
her narrow-minded, judging cousin?

“She thinks that just because she can’t see herself doing something, that it’s wrong for someone else to do it. Well, I
hate
to be judged. Simply hate it!” Saika’s voice rose. “She doesn’t do a whole mess of things that the rest of the world does, what does that prove?”

They were supposed to be
quietly
hiding. Marina held her breath. Then: “
I
don’t judge you, Saika,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” Saika said dismissively and quieter.

Marina thought Saika did not care a whit for her approval. Marina could have cursed her, and Saika wouldn’t have cared.

Carefully Marina said, “I think Tania was surprised you had another brother. You never mentioned him. That’s why she got quiet.”

“He’s dead. We don’t talk about the dead. They’re gone, as if they never existed. What’s to keep going over?” Saika said, her eyes blinking coldly into the distance.

She said it so casually. Her brother was dead. “Well, I know,” Marina said slowly. Could Tania be so cavalier about her brother? “But the dead leave something of themselves behind, no? A trace? The people who loved them talk about them, remember them, tell stories about them. Their photographs are on the walls. They live on.”

Dismissively, Saika waved her off. “Maybe in your world. But…my parents weren’t happy with Sabir. He disappointed them. They weren’t going to be keeping his pictures on walls.”

“What did he do?”

“You really want to know?”

And suddenly Marina said, “You know, I really don’t.”

“It’s all right, Marina. No secrets between us.” Saika paused. “What can I tell you? I didn’t think things through. My brother and I played some childhood games that got a little out of hand.”

Her breath stopping in her chest, Marina wanted to stop this conversation, hiding out behind boulders. Shuddering, she tried to shut her mind to the imagining. Had Tatiana already intuited as much? Is that why she—Oh my God. “Please,” Marina said, “don’t tell me anymore. We should go.”

“Sit down. We’ll wait a little longer for her. Where was I? Oh, yes. I know Tania, who thinks she knows everything, thinks my father had dealt with me too harshly. But what do
you
think? Harshly, or not harshly enough?”

“I don’t know,” Marina said faintly. “How did he find out?”

“It was Stefan who found out, seeing us one day, as he said,
up to no damn good
. He told us to run. He said Papa would kill us if he found out. So we ran.”

Marina wasn’t looking at her. “Don’t tell me anymore, Saika,” she said. “I mean,
really.
I don’t want to hear another word.” She stood up.

“Marina, sit down!”

Frowning, troubled, Marina crouched down.

Saika continued. “I guess after we ran away, Papa forced Stefan to tell him where we were headed. And then he went after us. After catching us near the Iranian border in the hut of a Tadjik man who let us stay with him, he took Sabir and me into the mountains.”

Cursing herself, wavering on her haunches, Marina said, “Saika, please…”

With her eyes not even lowered, Saika continued. “He took us into the mountains, took off his rifle, put us up against the rocks and asked us to tell him whose idea it was. We weren’t sure what he was talking about. To run away? Or…? I said, it was Sabir’s. Sabir was Papa’s favorite, and I didn’t think Papa would hurt him. I thought he would just beat Sabir, who was a boy and used to beatings. So I stepped up. I said, ‘It was Sabir’s idea, Papa.’ My brother raised his eyes to me and said,
Oh, Saika.
And Papa raised the rifle and shot him.”

Marina choked on her gasping.

“After he shot him,” Saika went on tonelessly, “he took off his horse whip, and beat me, it’s true, until I was half dead, and then slung me over his mule and brought me home. We left for Saki two months later when my back healed.”

Saika fell quiet. Marina was mute.

“So what do you think? Too harshly or not? Just punishment or not? Appropriate to the crime committed? Was there
virtue
in the gravity of the retribution?” She smirked.

Marina half whispered, half cried, “I don’t know what you’re telling me, Saika! Why are you telling me these things? No wonder Tania…”

“Tania,” said Saika, “is a witch. Personally,” she added with a shrug, “
I
think my father was too harsh. I didn’t see the big deal myself, still don’t. Do you know what he said to me before he flogged me? Since you don’t seem to be sorry on your own, I will make you sorry.”

Oh
. Marina emitted an inaudible gasp. What would Tatiana make of this—that despite the one and all-good universe in which the Kantorovs lived, the father still thought there were some things that required absolute justice. Yet Saika did not think so, and didn’t seem to understand—or care—about one crucial thing: That there was no forgiveness for the unrepentant.

Marina put her hands over her face. “What time is it?”

“Two fifteen.”

“Come on!” Marina exclaimed. “Two fifteen! Give me that watch!”

Saika handed it over. 2:15, the watch said.

Marina shook her head in disbelief. “We have to go back, Saika. She was supposed to find us right away. Something obviously went wrong.”

“We’re not going back. If we go back, we lose.”

“Well, this
is
supposed to be a joke. What’s fun about this?”

“Be a trooper. It’s still fun. And she’ll find us. You’re the one who told me,” said Saika, “that she is like a bloodhound.”

“I didn’t say bloodhound. I said hound. And even the hound first has to know it needs to look for something.” Marina fell silent. “Why haven’t we heard her calling?”

“How should I know?”

“Were the pebbles easy to find?”

“I hope so,” said Saika noncommittally.

Another half-hour crept by.

The sky was overcast and had acquired a decidedly gray shade. Not just gray, Marina thought, but slate.

The white nights didn’t quite reach Lake Ilmen—one too many degrees south from the Arctic circle. Dark did come here.

Hadn’t Saika said they’d hide only a few minutes? They were going to play a prank on Tatiana because she always played pranks on other people. “It will be
so
funny.” Marina had thought it would be funny, too. Tania yelling, yelling for them, and then they’d jump out from the bushes to scare her; oh, to see Tatiana’s face. Everything had seemed so funny.

Except they had been crouching for nearly two hours! To Marina it suddenly began to seem that the joke was no longer on Tatiana. What had tempted her to agree to such stupidity? Marina was damp, and Tatiana wasn’t coming. She climbed out from their covering and brushed the mud off her trousers.

Saika looked up. “What are you doing?”

“She’s
obviously
not coming. I’m going to go find her.”

In the same calm voice, Saika said, “No, you’re not. Sit down.”

“Forget it, Saika. It’s not funny anymore.”

“It’ll be funny when she comes.”

“She is not coming! Maybe she went another way, maybe we didn’t hear her, but it’s pretty clear, after two hours, that she’s not coming.”

“She’ll be here any minute.”

“Well, then,
you
sit and wait.”

Saika stood up. “I said sit down, Marina.”

Perplexed, Marina stared at Saika, who stood stiffly, the twinkle to her eye gone. Maybe it was too gray in the forest to see twinkles of any kind. Marina couldn’t tell if there was anything pleasant in her own face; she didn’t think so. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Why are you getting angry?”

“I’m not angry. Who’s angry? I’m not raising my voice. I just want you to sit down, that’s all.”

“She’s not coming!”

“Marina!”

“Saika!” Marina was not afraid.

Saika stepped forward and pushed Marina down on the ground. Marina raised her eyes to a hovering Saika.

And then Marina was afraid. “What’s
wrong
with you?” she said in a thin voice. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t like to be thwarted,” said Saika. “We’re playing. You said you were going to do it, and I don’t like my friends to go back on their word.”

“My word?” Marina said slowly, getting up off the ground. “What about
your
word? All the words out of your mouth are lies. I didn’t care before because I thought we were friends, but don’t stand in front of me pretending there’s something about
words
that has meaning for you.”

“Talk all you want, you’re not going.”

“Oh, yes, I am. What are you going to do, push me again?”

Saika didn’t just push her. She shoved her on the ground, and Marina staggered and fell back, crying out from landing on a stick. She tried to get up but Saika wouldn’t let her. She forced Marina to remain down. “Loyalty in my friends is very important to me,” Saika said, bent over Marina. “You are going to be loyal to me.”

“Loyalty is important to you, is it?” Marina said, ripping away, reeling up. “Tell that one to your brother, will you? You sold him out in half a breath when you thought it would save your sorry skin!”

Saika went for Marina who ducked. Saika’s fist glanced her temple; staggering, she hit Saika in the stomach. They fought, getting covered with leaves, with mud. They scratched each other’s faces, they pulled each other’s hair. They screamed.

When they separated, Marina was crying and panting. “I deserve this,” she said with gritted teeth. What had Blanca said to her? Y
ou are susceptible, because you can be swayed.
Now she knew the old woman had not been talking to Tatiana. Marina could hear Tatiana’s mild but iron voice in her head.
Marinka, couldn’t you have given at least a whimper before you handed yourself over? Did you have to be such a willing accomplice in your own corruption?
“I so fucking deserve this.”

But before Marina could turn and run, Saika, also panting, reached down into her boot and pulled out Tatiana’s knife. She said, “You’re going to do as I say, and you
will
be quiet.”

Marina stared in stupefaction at the knife. The sprinting short distance between the feelings of fuzzy friendly affection and naked hostility had been crossed so rapidly that Marina felt as if she had not taken the necessary long walk for such a quantum leap of heart regarding her friend, her intimate. She blinked in disbelief, but the knife blade remained in front of her, glinting, menacing, a meter away, held with intent. Marina simply could not comprehend the eyes filled with black malice that regarded her—it was as if Saika had been snatched and replaced.

She said faintly, “Saika, I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Marina, you think
you
decide when the game is over? That’s like the mouse saying
that’s it
to the cat.”

“But I’m not the mouse…”

“No?”

“No.” Marina frowned in her shaking confusion. “I thought Tania was the mouse.”

“You know
nothing
.” Saika shook her head. “Tania only pretends she is the mouse. But she is…forget it. I’m not going to explain these things to you. You’re too small to understand.”