The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons
Perspiring slightly, Tatiana was lost in thought and only belatedly saw a black fast-moving cloud over her head; she looked up and instinctively raised her oar in defense. The cloud was black crows, in a formation of hundreds, swooping too close to the girls’ heads. The birds screeched, flapped in a frenzy and flew away, leaving Tatiana puzzled and troubled. She was already breathing hard from the rowing.
“Hmm,” she said through her panting. “What do you think of that?”
“Is that a superstition, Tanechka?” Saika said with a wide smile. “The birds?”
“Tania is right, I’ve never seen so many either. And so close,” Marina said.
With a laugh, Saika said, “Oh, come on, you sillies. They’re just birds. If they were pigeons or seagulls you wouldn’t be sitting motionless in the middle of a lake, would you?”
“But they weren’t pigeons,” Marina said, with a peculiar glance toward Saika.
“And seagulls over an inland lake might as well be polar bears in Africa.” Tatiana thoughtfully lowered her oars into the water.
“Tania, are you too tired to row the rest of the way?” Saika asked. “Want me to row? I’ll be glad to.”
“What did I tell you, Saika? Tania doesn’t let anyone touch the oars,” said Marina, grinning, when Tatiana shook her head. “That’s just complete defeat, isn’t it, Tania?”
“Complete,” agreed Tatiana. “Good thing Pasha’s not here.” She was still looking up at the sky where the birds had flown. She resumed rowing and Saika resumed her conversation with Marina. They were discussing a place Saika had lived in.
“You think I wanted to leave Oral?” Saika was saying to Marina. “I didn’t. Kazakhstan was very good to us. But we were forced to leave.” Saika spat right into the boat. Her demeanor suddenly changed from affable to angry. “It was those bastards. Late one night, you see, they tried to kill my father.”
Tatiana strained to listen.
“Who? Why did they do that?” Marina asked.
“I don’t know. I was young. Maybe ten. My brother told me Papa was doing his job too well. He was doing what he was paid to do, working very hard, and the sloths, the slackers, the swine he was watching didn’t like it. So they dragged him from his bed in the middle of the night and nearly beat him to death. They had wooden boards and spades and coal in their grimy thieving hands.”
“Oh, that’s terrible! So what happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? They didn’t kill him, did they?” Saika was agitated. “They didn’t kill him, but they opened up his head and broke three of his teeth. They broke his ribs on both sides and crushed his kneecap. They even cracked his breastbone, can you believe it? Do you know how hard you have to hit someone to crack their breastbone? I think it’s the strongest bone in the body, isn’t it, Tanechka?”
“I don’t know,” Tatiana said. “One of them.”
“Why did they stop? Did they think he was dead?” Marina asked.
“No! My father wasn’t lying down, he wasn’t dead. He was an ox and he fought like an ox.” Saika took a stormy breath while remembering. “Then my brother rushed out with a lead pipe and helped him.”
Tatiana stopped rowing. She had been unable to concentrate on the rowing and Saika’s story.
“Stefan and I were yelling for him not to get hurt but he didn’t listen. He wielded that lead pipe as if he meant to kill them all.”
“Who wielded the lead pipe?” Tatiana asked, confused.
“I told you! My brother,” exclaimed Saika. “Sabir, we were yelling to him,” she continued, her eyes glazed as if entranced. “Sabir, get out of the mêlée, save yourself, Sabir! Papa can take care of himself.”
“Who was yelling?” Tatiana said, uncomprehending.
“Me and Stefan! Are you paying attention?” Saika paused.
And then—she blinked, and glanced at Tatiana.
They did not speak. For several minutes there was silence.
“Yes. So? There was another brother,” Saika finally said. “He’s dead now.”
Tatiana’s only response was starting to row again, while Marina, failing to catch Tatiana’s uncatchable eye, haltingly continued the conversation with Saika.
A weakened Tatiana, after sucking in her breath, turned around to see how far it was to the shore. Her arms were tired, and there was no sail and no wind, just Tatiana and her small wooden oars, doing the best she could, rowing as fast as she was able. So how come you didn’t tell us you had another brother, Saika?
Why was that so frightening to think about?
They arrived on the eastern forest shore of Lake Ilmen at eleven. The girls had promised Aunt Rita that they would pick mushrooms and berries until four at the latest, and then start for home to be back by six. That gave them about five hours in the woods. Tatiana had on the only watch, and Marina asked for it to see if she could coordinate the time with the position of the peeking sun. Tatiana kept teaching her how to do it, but Marina was a slow learner. Saika had brought a flask of water and some bread and eggs. Was anyone hungry, she asked as they got out of the boat. Eager to get started, the girls wolfed down the food and then Marina and Saika helped Tatiana pull the boat halfway onto the sandy bank and Tatiana tied it with rope to a fallen tree trunk. She wore Uncle Boris’s high galoshes over her shoes. After wading in the water and pulling the boat onto the shore, she took off the galoshes and laid them back in the boat. Looking up at the sky, she wondered if it was going to rain.
“So what if it does?” said Saika.
“I don’t want the boat to get filled with water,” replied Tatiana, frowning, not remembering if she wondered about the rain out loud. “It’ll be hard to row back. I suppose we can always ladle it out with this bucket.”
“Good thinking, Tanechka,” said Saika. “You’re always thinking. But it won’t rain. Should we take the extra rain bucket in case we find lots of mushrooms?”
“I think we shouldn’t pick more than we can carry,” said Tatiana. “One bucket of mushrooms, one of blueberries will be plenty.”
“Oh, you’re right, of course,” said Saika merrily. “Whatever you say, Tania. You lead. Which way?”
The swampy woods began right at the lake. There was a short sandy bank full of conifer needles, some sap, some fallen branches, pebbles, larger rocks, desiccated fish—and the forest. Tatiana grabbed a few large handfuls of pebbles and put them into her pants pockets.
It was peaceful in the forest, it was restful and pleasant.
Saika asked for Tatiana’s compass. What do you need that for, Tatiana wanted to know, but the question might have involved eye contact. After the story on the boat, Tatiana didn’t want to be making any eye contact with Saika. She decided to just give it to the girl, careful not to touch any part of Saika’s hand as she handed the compass over.
“Thank you, Tanechka.” Saika smiled. “I’ll give it right back. I love compasses. Marina, has Tania always been so organized? She’s brought everything.”
“Yes, Tania always prepares for contingencies. She is so much like Deda.”
Tatiana liked that. She strived to be like Deda most of all.
“I wish I were like that,” said Saika. “It’s such a good way to be. Don’t you think, Marina? Better than me. I never know where I put anything. I’m never prepared for a single thing. Everything I do, I do on the spur of the moment. Tania, look, I found a mushroom, and I don’t even have a knife. I’m just plain silly. Can you tell I’ve never done this before? Teach me, Tania. Like, what are you doing? Why are you throwing little pebbles down on the ground?”
“So we know which way we came,” replied Tatiana.
“But we have a compass.”
“It’s always good to throw down the stones. They never make a mistake.”
“Oh, so true.” Saika giggled. “You must have done this many times. Marina, isn’t it good to have a guide?”
“I’m hardly a guide,” Tatiana muttered.
“Yes,” said Marina. “S
“So true,” agreed Saika heartily. “Common sense is key. Tania seems to have a surplus. I’m sorry I’m so silly and forgot to bring my own, but, Tanechka, may I borrow your knife to cut this podberyozovik mushroom?”
“Of course,” Tatiana said, staring at Saika with incredulity. A small twinge of remorse prickled her chest, but then she blinked again, a small styptic blink, and saw the scars and the lies, and the steady hands, and the faintly foul odor, and the unmentioned brother, and the twinge was gone.
They looked and peeked and picked and wandered. The mushroom bucket was getting filled up, but as they were walking in the dense forest, Tatiana realized that it was not getting filled up by her. She was better at the blueberries, but she hadn’t found a single mushroom. And what was worse, she wasn’t even wondering why she hadn’t found one. She’d been mindlessly picking the blueberries, but for mushrooms you needed steady focus and her mind wasn’t steady. It wasn’t seeing the mushrooms. She couldn’t stop thinking about Saika and the words that came out of her mouth, all sounding like lies or fraud, Tatiana didn’t know which. Did Saika herself know? Lived in one place, Tatiana muttered to herself, or five dozen places? Was she a shepherd’s daughter, a farmer’s daughter, a field hand’s daughter, or an engineer’s daughter? Or just a weeder’s daughter? Saika once told Tatiana she rode horses in Kazakhstan to herd the sheep, yet when Marina talked about a horse chomping at the bit, Saika asked what a bit was. Despite having lived on farms all her life, when she came to Berta’s house, she didn’t know how to shear a sheep or milk a cow. She was a peasant who should barely be able to read, yet she knew everything. She had been so belligerent lately, yet this fine morning was nicer than ice cream. What was Tatiana supposed to believe?
Why had she never mentioned Sabir, her other brother? Why were there no pictures of him in their house, no words about him on her family’s lips? And here was the thing—the effort Tatiana was expending on not thinking about why the brother was dead and why the family never mentioned him made it impossible for her to also concentrate on hidden fungus. Don’t raise your eyes, Tatiana told herself. Bend to the leaves, look for mushrooms, find them and avoid at all costs the dark shape behind you. Soon she was successful and didn’t notice Saika in her peripheral vision anymore.
Tatiana’s thoughts must have spilled out of the pores in her body, because Saika stayed meters behind. Marina and Saika chatted quietly. It was better this way, Tatiana thought, bending to pick off the blueberries. But where were those mushrooms?
In the thick deciduous coniferous forest, Tatiana was crouched next to what she thought were good mushrooms. She was close to the ground, being small, but still she needed to use her magnifying glass, for the difference between a white mushroom and a white mushroom was in the stem only. They both grew under oaks, they were both squat, they were both grey white—only one was a delicacy and one was deadly poison. She was crouching, trying to ascertain whether it was one or the other— since there was no trial by error, she thought with amusement—and as the magnifying glass was pressed against the mushroom with her nose on the other side, she called out, “Marina, what do you think, is this one good?”
The forest was quiet. It occurred to Tatiana just then that it had been quiet for some time. She was concentrating too hard on finding mushrooms and hadn’t noticed.
“Marina?”
She called a third time. And then she looked up.
“Marina!” she called, raising her voice another octave.
There was no answer.
Now Tatiana stood up. Her legs were aching from crouching so long. Everything was quiet and still. She yelled again, good and loud this time.
Her high voice carried through the birches and above the underbrush. It echoed off rock somewhere, off the water maybe, and returned to her, fainter and gone, like a stone skipping on the water, hard, then softer, softer, and sinking.
Yes, there was no answer. But there was something more than that.
Tatiana did not feel their presence nearby. She did not feel another soul even out of earshot, she did not feel Marina bending over her own mushrooms, not responding. She felt Marina not near. But how not near? Could Tatiana have walked so far that she left the girls behind? She spun around once, twice. Which way did she come from?
She had been hearing their voices as they walked, softly laughing, softly talking, softly whispering, softer, muter, mute.
Gone.
“Marina!”
Where were the pebbles she threw down on their trail from the boat? Why couldn’t she find them? How long had she been this absorbed? That was the thing with absorption—it was by definition consuming. Tatiana could not tell how long it had been since she last heard the girls’ voices, and when she looked at her wrist, she remembered with a quiver of frustration that she had lent her watch to Marina when they were still in the boat.
And now she remembered giving her compass to Saika, who had asked and been freely given.
No watch, no compass, and the pebbles were gone. Tatiana looked up at the sky. It was cast with cover. The sun was gone, too.
At a complete loss as to what to do next, she did the only thing she could to prove to herself she was in control. She crouched back down and pressed the magnifying loop to the mushroom to figure out once and for all if it was the Beluga caviar or the black adder of the fungal forest.
She concluded it was the former.
She went to cut it and... “Tanechka, please may I borrow your knife so I can cut this podberyozovik mushroom?”
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?”
“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.”