Rusalka

CHAPTER 17

PYETR WATCHED while Sasha started a fire in the stove and boiled up a concoction of wormwood, chamomile, willow, and salt—the last of which Pyetr protested as willful cruelty; but Sasha insisted, saying that if vodyanoi disliked it, it might help.

It stung, of course. But the heat helped, and Pyetr sat warming himself in the sun, his hand wrapped in a hot rag which he changed from time to time, between feeding the coals in the pan a twig or two—and quite uncharitably hoped that the vodyanoi had made a meal of Uulamets and his book—not, he told himself, that he particularly wished harm to the old man and certainly not to Eveshka, but he saw no reason for loyalty either.

“Give him till the sun touches the trees over there,” he said finally to Sasha, and nodded toward the far shore. “Then let’s untie and see if we can get this boat turned around.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to get us to break our word.”

Uncomfortable thought. Pyetr cast a look to the nearer woods and back. “We’ve waited all morning and half the afternoon. If he decided to go off he could at least have said to wait—and hang us if we didn’t. That’s one thing. But I don’t think he had a choice. I don’t know why he left, I don’t know what he thought he was doing—but, one—” Pyetr held up his thumb. “He packed, and, two—” The first finger. “He was quiet about it. Book and staff and all. He’s gone off before, but he’s never taken the book. So, one, he thought he’d need it, or, two, he didn’t want to leave it with us, because he wasn’t coming back, or, three, Eveshka got enough of papa and stole it and ran off to her lover…”

“If she did that, he’d have waked us,” Sasha said. “He brought us all this way—”

“If he trusted us he’d wake us. Which he doesn’t. We know he’s on the outs with his daughter. We were talking with her last night—weren’t we? And he was damned quiet about packing up, or we were sleeping sounder than usual—which he could wish. If you were asleep you couldn’t tell a thing. Could you?”

“No,” Sasha said.

“So? What do we owe him? The man’s threatened our lives.”

“Absolutely he’s dangerous,” Sasha said, “and he’s wished this boat safe, and maybe to stay on this shore. If we try to move it—”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t know he hasn’t; and I certainly would, in his place. I’d wish it with everything I had.”

“He could have said he was going. His wishing us asleep didn’t hold up. Did it? Same with his hold on the boat.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“You can’t always be sure!” Pyetr said. “Sometimes you just have to move. You’re worried about Uulamets. I’m more worried about another night on this river. If Uulamets couldn’t out-wish his daughter or the vodyanoi or whoever, I beg your pardon, Sasha Vasilyevitch, but I’m not sure you can, either. So what are we going to do tonight?”

“We won’t be any safer out in the middle of the river. We’re a long way from the house—”

“To the black god with the house. We’re bound for Kiev. Forget the old man. You don’t need him.”

“I do need him,” Sasha said. “And if he doesn’t come back, I still have to go back there.”

“For what? God, you’re quit of him! You don’t believe his nonsense. He wants you to believe you have to rely on him. Trust me instead, why don’t you?”

Sasha said in a muted voice, “Pyetr, I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m not even sure what I’ve done. I’m scared of that…”

“Because you’re listening to him. Forget it! Let’s get this boat out onto the river, let’s put this place behind us, that’s all.”

He was halfway to his feet when Sasha caught his arm.

“No!” Sasha said, and all of a sudden Pyetr doubted he was right, all of a sudden he was sitting down again, a little shaken, and Sasha was saying. “Please. Till tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning we’ll go.”

Pyetr looked at him suspiciously, a little angry, but Sasha refused to flinch. He had his jaw set and looked him in the eye as straight as straight.

“You’re ‘witching me,” Pyetr said. “I don’t like that. I ought to take this boat—”

But he felt extremely uneasy about doing that. He thought how Sasha had been right, sometimes.

“Stop it,” he said.

“No,” Sasha said, “I won’t.”

Sasha was upset, he was upset. He thought that he could get up, cast off the ropes and take them out anyway.

“Damn it,” he said; and got up and walked over to the forest-side rail to prove the point.

But he could not even stay mad. It was enough to drive a man crazy. He looked into the forest and thought that this was a better place to be than out on the river tonight, and he knew, damn it all! where that notion was coming from.

He bowed his head, he stood there with his arms folded. He felt Sasha wishing him not to be upset, and insisted on being furious. He turned around, on Sasha’s grace, he suspected, and said, “Boy, that’s not polite.”

“I’m sorry,” Sasha said earnestly.

“Being sorry doesn’t patch it! Don’t interfere with my judgment! Don’t do that to your friends!”

“I haven’t got a choice,” Sasha said.

“Why? Because Uulamets wanted us here? Because something else does? What if you’re wrong and it’s not your wish, can you even tell?”

“If it’s that much stronger than I am,” Sasha said after a moment, “then you wouldn’t be arguing to do what it doesn’t want, either, would you?”

Sasha made a kind of sense. Pyetr hoped so. Otherwise nothing in the world was reliable.

And Sasha wanting him not to be mad was infuriatingly hard to resist.

Pyetr walked over to where he had been sitting, and slammed his hand into the side of the deckhouse, so it hurt.

That was a feeling he could rely on, at least.

Sasha came and sat down near him, contrite, Pyetr imagined: he squeezed out the water from the reheated compress and wrapped the cloth about his hand without so much as looking up.

“Pyetr, please.”

“Don’t talk to me,” he said, because he had decided he was going to say that before he felt sorry for the boy. But he did glance up, and the boy looked so shaken it went through him the way the pain of his hand did.

At least he supposed it was his own feeling.

“Tomorrow morning,” Sasha said, his voice trembling. “I don’t care how mad you get, I won’t let us have an accident.”

“Who won’t let us?” Pyetr retorted. “Didn’t you say once, wizards are easier to affect? Maybe you don’t know better. Does that thought occur to you?”

“It does,” Sasha said. “And I don’t want you mad at me, Pyetr, I’m sorry, I can’t help that, but what do I do?” Sasha looked to be at the end of his wits, and bowed his head, his hands tangled in his hair. “Don’t want to go. Be patient. Don’t do things like that—”

The pain in Pyetr’s hand diminished, markedly. And the boy sat there with his head in his hands, throwing everything he had into that relief, Pyetr reckoned. He felt his anger ebb and could not even make up his mind whether it was himself or Sasha deciding it.

He slumped back against the wall of the deckhouse, set his jaw and glared at Sasha in a moment that felt as though they were both irretrievably mad—and searched back to his first days in Sasha’s company, trying to recover his balance.

But one never knew about those moments, either…

Except that Sasha had attacked the vodyanoi for his sake, with a salt pot and a stick—which he could not forget.

“You want me to remember that?”

“What?” Sasha asked, looking up, looking bewildered.

Innocent, then. But then, he did not in any sense doubt he could trust Sasha; what frightened him was the degree of trust he began to understand it took—to live with a wizard.

“Let me tell you,” Pyetr said, “I don’t know how far Uulamets ever pushed us—he could, I don’t doubt it, and maybe he’s so good neither one of us could catch him at it, but I don’t think so.” He soaked the rag again and squeezed it, so he had somewhere else to look besides Sasha’s pale face. “Do me a favor. Don’t do that again. It’s not the way to get along with people.”

“I don’t want to do it… I don’t want you to get killed, either!”

“Fine. Neither do I. You think there’s some kind of spell on the boat. I think there’s a Thing somewhere around here that got breakfast and it’s coming up suppertime. What do you say to that?”

“I know how to stop it.”

“Good. I’m very glad of that. Why don’t we leave tonight?”

“Because it could turn us over.”

“With you wishing not.”

“I don’t know how strong it is.” Sasha bit his lip and said, “I’m not sure that’s not what tore the sail.”

“Are you sure about anything?”

Sasha took a little longer about that answer. “No. I’m not. But I’m afraid if we go out there—that’s deep water. And we could be in it. And I can’t swim.”

“Neither can I,” Pyetr said. “But we won’t know how by tomorrow morning, either. Are we going to stay here for the rest of our lives?”

“Master Uulamets might come back.”

“I’m not really looking forward to that,” Pyetr said. Across the river the sun was closer to the trees, but he had lost his certainty and his enthusiasm for facing the river in the dark. “Tomorrow, then.—You’re not pushing that on me, are you?”

“No.” Sasha shook his head emphatically. “No, I swear I’m not.”

“See how hard it is to know anything when somebody does that to you? You’re liable to make me do something backward to what I’d do in good sense. Make me break my neck. Who knows? I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.”

Sasha looked entirely upset. “What if you’re wrong? What if I know you’re wrong?”

“What if you’re wrong about me being wrong? You’d better be right, hadn’t you, and you’d better not do it often—had you?”

“It’s so easy to do.” Sasha said, “and it’s so hard not to—”

“I wish you had a choice,” Pyetr said, sure enough of Sasha’s honesty this time not to doubt himself: he felt sorry for the boy, more, he was suddenly afraid for the boy’s sanity as much as his own. He reached out in a rough halfway hug, a pull at Sasha’s neck. “You might be right this time. Just mind your manners.”

“I’m sorry.” Sasha took a swipe at his eyes, his head ducked. “I’m just scared.”

“Time to be,” Pyetr said, and dipped the rag in the pot again, and attended to his hand to give the boy time to dry his face. “You think you can keep whatever-it-is off tonight. Uulamets couldn’t.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Grandfather’s a pretty competent wizard, by what I see. And he didn’t do all that well, by what I see, either. What do we do, sprinkle salt, light a fire and hope?”

“Don’t make fun, Pyetr. It’s not funny.”

“No, this time it certainly isn’t.” He wound the rag around his hand and flexed his fingers, dripping water that hissed onto the stove. “But I don’t say taking the boat out in the dark is that much better, I give you that, too.”

“What you have to understand—” Sasha said. “Pyetr, I honestly don’t know what to do. And I can’t swear to you I know it’s my idea. I just have this feeling—I have this terrible feeling we won’t make it home—”

“Home,” Pyetr scoffed, and saw how upset the boy was, and shook his head. “I’ll allow you this—I’ve no fondness for that old man, but I’m getting a real understanding—” Why he’s crazy, was what he thought, but he said: “—that he’s not as bad as he could be.” Uulamets might, Pyetr thought, have done what Sasha had done. “I can forgive him.”

God, he thought… what am I going to do with this boy?

What if he weren’t as good-hearted as he is?

Or if he weren’t sane as he is—or if someone crossed him, seriously?

“If you want to go back to the house for a while,” Pyetr said calmly, “before Kiev—we can do that. Grandfather might even turn up. He’s probably wishing he was home anyway, by now. Or wishing himself back at the boat. We’ll have supper, we’ll sprinkle salt all over the deck, just in case. We probably should have done that last night. And we’ll get some sleep and in the morning we’ll untie and get out into the river.”

“We hit ground on the way in. I think there’s this long ridge—”

“We put the sail up just part way—it ought to blow us back a little. Maybe turn us around.”

Sasha looked a little more cheerful then.

“Wish up a wind for the morning, if you want something to do.”

“I’ll try,” Sasha said, and rubbed his face with his hands.

“But you’re right about the salt. He left us most of it. Maybe he was thinking about that.”

“Considerate of him,” Pyetr said.

They cooked a comfortable supper on the little stove—fresh grilled fish, right out of the river, Sasha having thought to bring fishhooks—and they cleaned up and flung the ashes overside, by which time the sky across the river was dimming from its last colors and the stars were coming out.

Sasha scattered salt and sulphur all across the deck then, one end of the boat to the other, and Pyetr forbore to suggest he try a few incantations and some smoke as well: Sasha would surely take it amiss, but, sincerely, if salt worked he saw no reason to stint on the rest of Uulamets’ rituals, rattles and singing and the rest of it: it all seemed alike to him.

Sasha did take a cup of vodka and draw a circle on the deck, which Pyetr watched, hands on hips, with some curiosity.

“So the wind won’t blow a gap in it,” Sasha said, “and I don’t think water’s a good idea.”

After which he scattered salt and sulphur right along that wet line, so it stuck.

Smart lad, Pyetr thought. “As a wizard,” he said, “you don’t do a bad job.”

“I hope,” Sasha said. “You’ve got that little bit I gave you.”

Pyetr patted his pocket. “Absolutely.”

Sasha looked at him as if to decide whether he was being laughed at, dusted his hands off and set the cup of salt and sulphur on the deck inside the circle. He handed Pyetr the cup with the vodka in it. “Nothing wrong with it,” he said. “It’s leftover.”

Pyetr grinned, took the cup and sipped it at his leisure.

He took a second, full one, but that was all, since he had no inclination to sleep too deeply this night. They lay looking at the stars and listening to the sounds of the boat, and planning how they would get off the shore and how they had to be sure to come to the house and the landing by daylight or risk missing it—discussing too—he could not figure out how an enterprising scoundrel had gotten to this pass—how they could get through the winter there, and how the garden could be better than it was and what they could do with the bathhouse to repair the roof.

He knew nothing about gardening or carpentry. Sasha did. Sasha was quite happy talking about turnips and beans and roof-mending, and if it eased his mind, Pyetr was willing to listen.

Only somewhere in the midst of Sasha’s plans for the spring planting Pyetr’s eyes began to close, and he began to drift—which he had not planned to do. He said, “I’m done. Get some sleep. I won’t swear to how long I’ll stay awake otherwise.”

“I can stay awake.”

“I’m sure. But I know I will.” He did not say that he had had practice at long watches in activities he did not want to explain to Sasha. He only sat up, laid his sword across his lap and propped his elbows on his knees, settling for a long night.

Sasha started to say something else about the bathhouse. “Hush,” Pyetr said. “I’m not staying awake so you can talk.”

Sasha hushed. Things were quiet after that, no sound but the water, the branches and some forlorn raucous thing chirping in the brush on this warmer night. Eventually it gave up. He listened only to the river, rested comfortably, and, after some hours, as a cold breeze began to kick up off the water, he thought about it a while, then finally unstopped the jug and poured himself a quarter of a cup, just enough to warm the blood.

Absolutely no more than that.

But he found himself nodding when he had finished it, his head dropping toward his chest. He straightened and stretched his arms and his back and shifted position. He ought, he thought, to take a walk around the deck—outside the salt circle, it might be, but things were quiet and the center of the deck was no problem.

He got up as quietly as he could, because sleep was coming down on him irresistibly and he figured the vodka now for very bad judgment. He looked to the wind to clear his head and wake him up, took a walk to the middle of the deck and turned around with a start as something moved in the tail of his eye.

He saw Eveshka walking, then, near the rail, saw her hair and her gown wet and the water streaming off her sleeves as she turned and held out her hands to him.

“Sasha!” he yelled, as lethargy came tumbling down on him, in the desperate hope that Sasha was not caught in it, asleep though he was…

But such salt as the wind left on the deck seemed no hindrance to her. She drifted closer, put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes, soundlessly speaking to him, while he was too dazed to move; and her expression was so gentle and so concerned there seemed no threat in her. Her eyes were dark as her face was white, with moving shadow in their depths that might have been currents, or only a vision of the ropes and the rail of the boat as she put her cold arms about his neck and kissed him with the taste and the chill of river water on her lips.

It lasted a long, long while. He grew dizzy and dazed, he tried to remember what she was, but nothing he had ever felt was the same as this—profound, and dangerous, and at the same time so gentle there could never be any harm, as long as he did not move—

He drifted, then, in a dream where dangerous things moved around the both of them, but there was no harm, not so long as she was there—not so long as he looked into her eyes and not to other things.

But she drifted away then; and he was suddenly locked in one of the sweating, heart-thumping sort of dreams which usually meant he was looking for his father. He knew that somebody was going to tell him that his father was murdered, but that was long ago and he had long since gotten used to that idea. Nowadays it was not truly his father he was looking for—though he had never known precisely what or who it was. It was the searching itself that was the nightmare, a conviction that if he could not find what he was looking for, he was damned…