Thursday's Child

                                                                     Thursday's child has far to go.

                                                                                    Excerpt from a nursery rhyme

                                                                                    Author unknown

I don’t mind that dozens of men are hunting me, ready to put a bullet in my brain. I don’t mind hiding out in caves, breaking ice to get to the water underneath, or fishing with a bow and arrow. I don’t even mind the brutal cold of a Siberian winter. What I do mind, though, is being treated like an animal. Like I’m just another rich American.

To while away the time before I make my move, I watch an old woman living alone in a cabin, miles from anyone. I wonder why she’s there all alone. I imagine that her husband has died and she has no children to take care of her. Yet she perseveres in a land that challenges one’s will to live.

I watch her all summer while I regain my strength. She works her garden, fishes in the river, gathers firewood, and washes clothes. I watch her during the fall when the biting winds come. Her garden harvest is meager. Beets, onions, tomatoes, peas, celery. It doesn’t seem like much, but I suppose an old Russian woman can make do.

Winter comes and the fish run out, at least for her. I break through the ice and catch salmon, sturgeon, and the occasional trout. I kill a moose, butchering it and cleaning the hide. The meat will keep me warm, though I would have preferred a bear. The hide will make an excellent coat, if I can find some fish bones strong enough to sew with.

I stay busy surviving, but I make time to watch the old woman. She intrigues me. I admire her for her toughness and resilience at such an age. Her back is bent from decades of hard work, her face lined with what life has done to her. She seems neither happy nor unhappy. She seems indomitable.

But can I trust her to do what I need her to do? The plan is ridiculously dangerous and I may very well end up dead because of it.

                                                              **************

I hated Vilovich for kidnaping me. It was disrespectful. Yes, my family was rich, and I understood that this was what kidnapers did. I was in Alaska, hunting, when he took me. How did he know to take me? Maybe he thought all American hunters in Alaska were rich, and I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was shot with a tranquilizer gun and thrown into the back of an airplane. I regained consciousness before we landed, my head throbbing and my mind racing to understand what had happened. I wound up in a small, dark room on the outskirts of Moscow, thinking that I would soon be dead.

The man was good at what he did. I studied the compound for the month I was there. The place where I was kept was isolated. Unscalable walls surrounded the compound, topped with broken glass. There was always a guard at the gate, armed with an AK-47 and a sidearm. Patrols would go by my room every fifteen minutes, talking and laughing while I pondered my fate.

Vilovich told me about the ransom demand, and that I shouldn’t worry. My family, he said, would pay, he was sure of it. I wasn’t so sure. My parents weren’t too thrilled that I had decided to live with my grandfather and his people instead of coming back home. We hadn’t spoken in three years.

Hunting, fishing, living off the land are what I love. Testing myself against nature is honest, exhilarating, almost transcendental. You feel close to God in the mountains, away from electricity and two-story houses. Away from a mortgage that will kill you. There are a thousand ways to die in the mountains, and only one way to live: by your wits.

Vilovich underestimated me. I crept out one night and killed the guard at the gate. It was the first man I had ever killed, and my stomach revolted. I felt queasy, but I steeled myself. The dead guard would soon be discovered, and the hunt would be on.

I had advantages. I took the AK-47 and the sidearm, so I was dangerous. I eventually traveled north, toward the Arctic Circle, a move Vilovich would probably not expect. And I was at home in rough terrain. That was my biggest advantage. Who would suspect that a rich American could thrive in such a cold, desolate land?

The food given to me wasn’t nutritious, and was chosen, no doubt, to keep me weak. Like I said, Vilovich was smart. Was he smart enough to hunt me in ever-widening circles, cutting off probable escape routes, canvassing the people in the area and offering a reward for me? That’s what I would do in his place. I had to assume he would do the same.

I traveled twenty-five miles that first night, jogging when I could and walking fast at other times. I entered a stream, leaving plenty of evidence. I crossed the stream, trying not to let the frigid water bother me. When I found a suitable spot, I recrossed the stream. A delaying tactic. I would repeat the maneuver a few miles downstream. This would buy me a few days, unless Vilovich had a skilled tracker in his employ.

I stole a coat and a hunting knife from a house the next morning. I watched the farmer leave, and I waited to see if anyone else was in the house. The cold seeped through me, getting into my bones. But I had learned patience long ago; it often meant the difference between a kill or going hungry. I had never been so cold while waiting, though.

I warmed myself by the farmer’s fire before I left. Despite the danger, I stayed until I could feel my fingers and toes again. The farmer would miss the coat and the knife. Would Vilovich find out? I had to assume he would, but needs must. Survival came first.

A month later, I found a place to hide. Made a bow from elk horn and sinew. Made arrows from Siberian elm. I had to rest, to recover my strength and endurance.

There were some nights when I wanted to stay here forever. This wild, untamed land appealed to me, called to me, dared me to live with its demands. Give up this idea of revenge and let Vilovich live with his failure.

The ghost of my grandmother’s voice whispered in my ear during these nights. A piece of a nursery rhyme. A piece of her.

Thursday’s child has far to go.

                                                       **************

The smell of borscht invades my nostrils.

When I was a kid, my maternal grandmother made borscht. I hated it and did everything I could to avoid it. In the end, though, my grandmother won out.

I loved everything about this grandmother except her borscht. She would take me to the movies, to the zoo, to the park: every place, in fact, that my parents never took me. And she talked to me like I mattered. That meant the world to me. My parents were so busy spending their newfound wealth that I became an afterthought.

The old woman at the cabin reminds me of her.

I knock on the cabin door, hoping that my rough appearance won’t scare her. She opens the door and stares at me; her eyes are sharp and piercing. She notes the moose hide in my arms and she smiles. She has missing teeth but the smile is genuine.

She offers me a seat and dishes up a bowl of borscht. It tastes so good! I can’t remember the last time I had something that wasn’t fish or moose.

The old woman grunts as she sits. She’s drinking tea – I think – and gazing at me. She can see I’m not Russian. My skin is too dark for that, and my features mark me as a foreigner.

I don’t speak Russian and she doesn’t speak English, except for a few words.

“American? Escape?”

She points a finger at me. I nod. This could be the end of me. She might inform on me and I’ll be hunted down. Once Vilovich knows where I am, the game is over.

The old woman grins and spreads out her arms.

“Welcome!”

                                                           **************

I bring meat to the old woman, and she accepts with no reservation. We sit by the fire and talk, though neither one understands the other. No matter. Words just get in the way most times.

She sews well, but slowly. I don’t care. The warm fire and the company are tonics I didn’t know I needed. She seems to enjoy my presence. We eat a lot of borscht, but it now has meat in it. Her eyes sparkle now. The meat has done as much for her as the vegetables have done for me. There’s a message in there somewhere, I suspect. I’ll think about it later, after I leave.

                                                            **************

I figure out how she knows who I am. Radio. She listens to the radio some nights, when the reception is clear. I heard my name during a broadcast last night. The old woman looked at me and smiled, pointing at me. She shook her head in apparent satisfaction. I guess Russian grandmothers like bad boys as much as American grandmothers.

She talks up a storm most nights. As do I, I suppose. I think we both feel free to say whatever we like to the other. Since we don’t understand each other’s words, we let it all out. Our dreams, our failures, our tragedies, our fears. Everything in indecipherable tongues. It’s therapeutic.

Her name is Svetlana. Took me a while to figure that out, for she has a thick accent and missing teeth. She calls me Bee-yook, or something like that. I don’t know what it means, but it’s who I am to her.

This winter is colder and longer than the ones I spent in the mountains of Idaho. It feels natural, though. I killed another moose, so we have plenty to eat. Svetlana knows how to make moose meat tender and tasty. She has obviously done this before. I just kill it, butcher it, cook it over an open fire, and eat it. Meat, to me, is life. Svetlana adds a little flavor.

When spring gets here, I’ll journey back and find Vilovich. Someone needs to show him the error of his ways.

Meat is life, but so is honor. Nothing else matters.

                                                        **************

It’s hard to leave Svetlana. I provide her with enough meat for the spring and summer, and she provides me with an elk coat, a warm hat, and some vegetables.

I hug her before I leave, and drop a kiss on her cheek. We will never see each other again, but I believe we will always be family. Bonded by borscht, not blood.

I walk away. I look back. She’s standing on the front porch, her face impassive, but I swear I see a tear in her eye.

Probably just a trick of the light. Or a distortion from the tears in my eyes.

                                                      **************

I spend the night in an abandoned farmhouse a few miles from Vilovich’s compound. It isn’t as comfortable as the cave I inhabited all winter and early spring. I eat cold meat and munch on a carrot.

How many times have I rehearsed what I am about to do? How many nights have I dreamed of facing Vilovich, alone, seeing fear in his eyes? Too many. The truth hasn’t escaped me. I know I may die tomorrow night. It’s almost beside the point, living or dying. As long as Vilovich knows my intent, that will be enough. On a personal note, I prefer the option where I live and he dies. Call me selfish.

I think about Svetlana. What happened to her? I’m sure she never dreamed of a life where she would end up old and alone, no family, nothing but isolation and a meager subsistence. I thought of my mother’s mother. She had been surrounded by family when she passed away. What will my mother’s end look like? My father’s end?

Maybe I should make amends with them. Maybe I should do what I came to do and go back to Svetlana and be with her when she dies. Either way will be a long road back, a distance traveled in the soul rather than in miles.

I curl up and wait for sleep.