Deathless

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sp; And so Tatiana led them to her long walnut table set with roast swan, vereniki stuffed with sweet pork and apples, pickled melons, cakes piled with cream and pastry. At the head of the table sat a man in a fine brown smoking jacket. His head was a thick-feathered plover, and he snapped suggestively at Marya when she pulled out Ivan’s chair. Tatiana swatted his wing and coaxed him away with her, warbling and clicking to him in the bright, squabbling language of the well-matched.

Ivan devoured the sweet pork and gulped deep red wine.

“The vineyards that gave us this wine also provide the wine for Comrade Stalin’s table,” Marya said with a solemn, blank expression. “Someone told me once that even when children starve for the sake of righteousness, Papas always have wine at their table.” She sipped the wine herself. “When I was young, it seemed far too sweet. I savored bitterness, the spice of those who have lived long and wildly. Perhaps you, too, should learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, still you may have it.” Marya Morevna drained the glass. “Now, even this candied syrup tastes bitter to my tongue,” she sighed.

* * *

When the dawn pinched the great house’s brown cheeks, Marya and Ivan Nikolayevich found Tatiana once more atop her ribboned egg, slicing apples like a woodsman, too fast to see.

“Masha, my own, my littlest sister,” the plover’s wife called down. “Take this with you.”

She tossed an apple to Marya, its red ball spinning in the air. It was firm and bright as a gem.

“No matter how much you eat, so long as you leave the core, in the morning it will be whole again. I make all my children’s suppers with the stuff, so they will know their mother looks after them, and thinks of the future.” Tatiana climbed down the smooth side of her egg and held out her arms to her sister. When Marya stepped into them, Tatiana stroked her head and fussed with her curls. Marya laughed despite herself, as she always had.

“Tell our mother I love her, when you get to Leningrad,” Tatiana said, and kissed Marya on both cheeks. Tanya smelled like bread and loving, and Marya Morevna held her tight.

* * *

Thus they traveled, into the dawn, into the afternoon, across thrice nine kingdoms, the whole of the world between the Country of Life and Leningrad. Through the twilight, and into midnight. The stars wrote strange names onto the dark papers above. Still, no woven soldiers appeared to seize Marya Morevna, or to shoot Ivan Nikolayevich with rough woolen rifles.

Finally, the horse with red ears fell to his knees in a stony pass smeared with ice, where no flower or tree showed itself. A humble hut stood in a circle of sharp rocks, protected on all sides. One of the windows glowed with firelight; horse-breath steamed from one age-blackened barn. A small iron door stood ajar, as though daring, rather than inviting them. Marya’s fingers throbbed with cold. She helped Ivan, who was coughing hoarsely, his skin flushed and fevered, across the threshold.

The single room of the house lay around them, its hard earthen floor dotted with studs of ice, its candles all tallow, thick and long as arms. And in the center of the compact floor sat a great egg, its shining steel shell studded with iron bolts. Atop the egg sat a slim, gentle young woman, her blush quicker than shadows passing. She peered over a pair of glasses at a basket of keys in her lap, and sorted them, the iron from the copper from the brass, for smelting.

Marya’s heart sang in delight. She had hoped, she had hoped, after the others.

“Anna!” she cried out. “How is this possible? How can you have come to hide here, so high in the mountains? It is your sister, Masha!” And Marya wept, her tears warm and free and glad.

The woman looked up, and her face shone, all pale and bright. She filled like a pail of water with the sight of her sister. Tucking a ring of keys under one slender arm, she leapt down from her egg and kissed Marya all over her face before turning to Ivan and kissing him coldly on the cheeks. “Marya! Oh, my dearest sister!” she exclaimed. “So much time has passed! Look at you, grown as a wolf! Ah! When did we grow so serious?”

Marya longed for Anna to seize her up and dance with her, as she used to when they were young together in the house on Gorokhovaya Street.

“Anyushka, are you happy? Are you well?”

“Oh, very well! And with my second daughter on the way!” She patted the steel egg fondly. “A wife and her husband must be in complete agreement.” She winked. “But then, you always knew he was a bird, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me. Traitorous girl. But what of yourself? Are you happy? Are you well?”

“I am tired,” said Marya Morevna. “Anya, this is Ivan Nikolayevich. He is not a bird.”

Ivan bowed to Marya’s third-oldest sister.

Anna angrily pushed her glasses up onto her nose. “Oh, I know who he is. Think lieutenants do not inform on each other, do you? Gossip is like ration cards in these parts. Just look at my sister, disloyal, a criminal, at her age! I’ll have you know I have lived with virtue since Zhulan took my conscience, and I’ve two upright little chicks to show for it!”

“So few!” Ivan whistled.

Anna slitted her plain eyes at him. “Haven’t you heard? It is wicked to have more than your neighbors possess.” She grinned. “We must all do our parts for the Party.”

“Of course,” said Ivan.

“Tfu!” Anna spat. “That’s what you know, both of you.” But she turned her elegant back to him and embraced Marya Morevna once more. “But you must stay the night, refresh your poor horse—what an earnest beast! But your prisoner looks sick. He would throw up anything you fed him. You are my sister. What belongs to me belongs to you, even if you are an exile. We are family. But you mustn’t tell anyone I harbored you.”

And so Anna led them outside, through the silver ice to a little bathhouse, hardly bigger than one of Olga’s closets. A man in a threadbare grey coat exited the banya with a puff of steam. His head was a lean shrike’s, and he would not look at Marya as he passed her by. Anna smiled at him, her face lighting like an oil lamp, took his wing and walked back towards the house, croaking and cawing to him in the strident, ordered language of the incorruptible.

Marya Morevna refused to let Ivan speak. This time she made her will iron, flexing it, testing it. Ivan submitted to her, and there was gratitude in his submission. You are spoiled, she thought. All that rich food and you have kept it all in your belly, enjoyed every bite. But you are sick now, and must yield. She seated him in the bathhouse. On a little paint-scraped table rested a mug of vodka.

Marya stood very still. She felt as though she were two women: one old and one young; one innocent and one knowing, strange, keen. Marya undressed Ivan Nikolayevich, and her hands seemed to move twice for each motion, to unbutton his shirt now, and to unbutton her own then. His eyes rolled and his red brow sweated. He nearly called out her name, but remembered to be silent, and she kissed him for it. Marya Morevna rubbed his skin with her long, hard fingers. Her golden boy nearly fell asleep sitting up, calmed by her hands and her soft, sad little singing, melodies half-remembered, about biting wolves and uncareful girls. Soon both sweat and tears rolled down Marya’s face, and she wished Koschei were with her to show her how to tend to this sick human, the care of whose body was now inexplicably hers. But gone is gone. There could be no more Koschei. Only Marya remained.