I was only sorry it was dark out, so I couldn’t see the pink that crept into his cheeks and ears when he drank more than a small cup of anything.
A hint of imperfection. I loved seeing the cracks at Sanya’s seams.
He got drunk, and his head started to droop, then jerked up.
“Maybe you should go to bed, hmm?” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder to keep him from toppling over.
He shook his head, knocking it against my shoulder.
“No? Why not? You might as well be asleep now. You’re not doing any good sitting up like this.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
“What’s that, Sanushka? You have to speak up. I know how much you hate that. But then again, you’ve been chattier lately. Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”
He did not repeat himself, but his head fell into the cradle made where my shoulder met my neck.
“You don’t want to let me rub off on you, Sanya; you’ll surely be the worse for it. The stains are so hard to get out.” I paused for a reaction that was not forthcoming. “If your family wanted to improve you, they never should have let you come out here. They must have ulterior motives.”
He made some more weak mumbling noises, and I reached over with my free hand and patted him on the head.
“It’s okay, I’ll just imagine what you’re saying: ‘Don’t be vuglar, Iyu Aksanevich. Don’t blaspheme, Iyu Aksanevich. Rules are to be respected at all times.’ Ugh, it’s so boring, Sanya; I’m boring myself. Don’t get offended. It’s only boring when I do it. When you do it, it’s riveting.”
The side of his face pressed into my neck and collarbone. The late-summer night had grown comfortably cool, but his skin against mine was warm.
This peace wasn’t going to last. We had to snatch it where we could.
I wrapped my other arm around him, so my fingers laced together on his opposite shoulder. He didn’t move, but his head shifted closer into my neck, and he exhaled heavily—not the pained, slow exhale through his nose, but the long sigh of an exhale made when one finally succumbs to sleep.
“Well, I suppose I’ve succeeded in putting you to sleep,” I said. Then, surprising even myself, I kissed him on top of the head. I hadn’t noticed until then I was swaying back and forth, rocking him gently. “I know you’re sad now,” I said into his hair (almost as dirty as my own, but somehow still untangled as though it refused to shame him). “But everything will be all right. Don’t you worry, okay, because everything is going to be just fine,” I lied.
***
The longer this trip lasted, the more we dragged. It was clear none of us wanted to be here anymore. I, previously delighted at the chance to talk to new people every day, grew more and more taciturn.
If I was taciturn, Sanya reverted into being little more than a brick wall. Dasha’s patience, never robust to begin with, was worn paper-thin, and she couldn’t help but express her short temper on the people we tried to talk to. I only kept moving to get to the next teahouse and the next supply of yasno, and Sanya wasn’t much better. The only times I felt like smiling were when we were drunk together.
We’d been on the road for over a month and had not even covered a quarter of Khorizova. Clearly, the center could not hold for three more months of this.
It was into this pleasant atmosphere that Aksana’s promised message finally arrived, battering itself desperately against the shutters we’d closed to keep out the creeping autumn chill.
Dasha scanned it, marched across the room to a lamp, and burned it up. “I’m going back to that town,” she said, spinning to face us. Her feet were planted shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind her back like a field officer instructing her troops.
And what a sad pair of soldiers we were. I was sprawled out on the bed, barely able to keep my head up, and while Sanya stood as respectfully as he always did, his face was pink, his stance slightly less than steady.
“What town?” I slurred, not picking my face up off the mattress. The smashed corner of my mouth was pooling drool on the bed.
“You know what town,” she snapped, and she would’ve been right if I had any capacity for thought at the moment.
When I didn’t respond, she turned to Sanya.
“While I’m gone, I need you to keep him in line.”
Now this was truly unorthodox. He was the outsider; if anyone was second in command here, it should be me. My indignation gave me the strength I needed to raise myself up on my elbow. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She ignored me. “Aleksandr Artyomovich, I know you have at least some scrap of pride remaining, so please just… stay here, keep him here. Try to have some productive conversations, but failing that, just behave yourselves and don’t go anywhere.” She cast a worried look from me to Sanya and back again.
Sanya straightened his back and bowed to her. What a fucking suck-up.
“I can handle myself,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“You’ve pickled your brain; it’s useless telling you anything,” she shot back.
“Sanya, where is she going?”
“I’m going back to that town where the woman was plotting sedition,” she said.
“Why?” Now, I sat up fully.
“Because those are Knyaz Aksana’s orders,” she said.
“You know no matter how much you call her ‘Knyaz’ and do everything she tells you to do and more, she’s never going to throw Semchik over for you, even though you’re older, even though she’s a female knyaz.”
A paroxysm of rage passed over her face like a storm cloud, but she just said, “Go to sleep, Yushka. Don’t become a mean drunk on top of everything.”
***
I was facedown on the bed again. The wet spot under my face had grown to a sizable stain on the sheet. The shutters were thrown open, and light poured in the room, making it look less sad and dingy than it had the night before.
My head hurt, but my head hurt every day. I barely even noticed it anymore.
When I sat up, I saw a lap tray on the other side of the bed with a bowl of runny kasha, a teapot, and, amazingly, two little round syrniki with a dribble of blueberry preserves. I may have chirped with small pleasure before I saw Sanya sitting in the middle of the floor, legs folded and eyes closed. No matter how much he drank, he was always up with the sun. No wonder he was trying to get some shut-eye in now.
Once I saw him, I chirped louder. “Sanya! Did you do this?”
“You need breakfast,” he said.
“Yes, but I usually have to get it myself,” I said, crawling out of bed and sitting down across from him, folding my legs the same way he was, pushing my knees right up against his. “Thank you. What are you doing?”
“I was praying.”
“Why?”
“To hone my ability to absorb myortva, as you should know.”
“Does it really help? I absorb myortva fine. I thought maybe you were napping because you wake up too early. Do you do this every day? Is this why you wake up so early?”
“I used to. Go eat your breakfast.”
“Okay, okay.” I said, jumping back on the bed, making the dishes slide around on the tray. “I will eat the breakfast that Sanya made me himself.”
“I didn’t make it.”
“Shh,” I said and stuffed one of the syrniki in my mouth whole.
Sanya sat silently for a while as I wolfed down my breakfast. Then, he said, “I thought you’d be upset.”
“Is that why you brought me breakfast? Why would I be upset?” I said around a mouthful of kasha.
He paused, and when I looked at him, his eyes were still closed, but his brow was creased. “Darya Aksanevich has gone back to that town.”
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten, not really. I just had not allowed myself to think about it. I saw Antosha’s throat, heard Fedya’s body hit the floor, felt the cartilage of that rebel’s nose crunch under my fist.
I set the bowl down and threw myself back on the bed. “Why’d you have to bring that up? You heard Dasha, we’re supposed to sit here and behave ourselves, so what is there to talk about?”
“You’re going to do what she said?”
“I have a very powerful and responsible supervisor, so what can I do about it?”
“I don’t believe you.”
I sat up. “You don’t believe me! What do you think I’m going to do? Tie you up and run off after her? How could I? With your powers of prayer, you would overwhelm me in a heartbeat.”
“Don’t tease, Iyu Aksanevich.”
“Don’t call me that; I’m not an Aksanevich here. I’m Ilya,” I said, leaning heavily on the “ya.”
Sanya rose and went over to the window, squinting into the sun and curling his fingers around the window frame. “You won’t tie me up. You’ll wait until I'm asleep and go after her.”
“You think I’m that patient?”
“What if you didn’t have to be?” he said, still staring out into the lovely, sunny day.
I could hit him in the back. If he weren’t expecting it, I could knock him out. Was that what he was trying to say?
I was just raising my hand when he turned around.
I tried to play it off like I was smoothing my hair back, but he expelled air from his mouth in a manner that vaguely resembled a laugh. “No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Sorry.” I laughed nervously. “I thought you—”
“I will go with you. I won’t let you push me out of a window.”
“That would be poetic, though, wouldn’t it? Wait. Did you say you’ll go with me? Where do you mean?”
“I’ll go to that town with you to see what has been done.”
“Why?”
“You know Knyaz Aksana better than I do. If you think something drastic might be done, perhaps you’re right.”
“But why do you care? Don’t you want all those people dead, too? Aren’t they the same as the ones who killed your sister?”
The expression on his face abruptly changed. He looked hurt.
“You’re the one who said they killed her, and they could still kill me, too, if I wasn’t careful.”
“Will you go with me or not?” he said, his tone cold, reproach evident on his patrician features.
“Yeah, Sanya, of course,” I said. “I’m just surprised.”
He suddenly looked ten times haughtier, like the spoiled little knyazhich he nearly was, and I was struck by the fleeting thought that this was so unlike him he must have been up to something. He must have been trying to trap me.
And who would he be working for, Iyu? Aksana wouldn’t get an outsider to expose your treachery, and Knyaz Artyom wouldn’t be able to pick you out of a crowd.
I paid the innkeeper for three days so he wouldn’t give up the room. I later reasoned that we’d be back before Dasha was, and I could explain then to the innkeeper that as far as our companion was concerned, we’d never left at all, and if he agreed to that, he could keep the change. But right then, I wasn’t thinking at all. If I had time to think, that meant Sanya had time to change his mind. Come to his senses.
We had to go at speed if we had any chance of arresting calamity. We didn’t bother about anyone seeing us, which was stupid, but these deep inland roads were not heavily traveled, and we managed to make mincemeat of neither ourselves nor any passersby.
When we got to the hill where I’d stood and looked down into the village, we slowed down. It was early evening now, and the hill blocked the sun on us, but the light spilled freely on the village in the valley, lighting up the eaves and the village green, almost as though it were on fire.
Seeing the village intact loosened the vise squeezing my ribcage. My head suddenly felt light, and I braced myself on Sanya’s sweaty shoulder.
“It’s not burned down. It’s okay.” I let myself hunch over, finding my breath and looking down at the quiet village for a moment, the sudden departure of all my excited tension making room for exhaustion to take my muscles. “Should we camp?”
“Where are they?” Sanya asked, eyes still trained down the hill.
I squinted, following his gaze. Down below, the streets were empty. The village was still. I turned to the terraces, but they, too, were quiet, the nearly mature plants rippling alone in the breeze. When the wind died down, and my own breathing quieted, a dull sound carried up from the valley. On the green, the temple cast a long shadow that occluded much of the common space, but there were skinny shades like needles moving at its periphery. “Something’s going on on the green."
Comments (1)
See all