The House of Frozen Dreams

by Seré Prince Halverson

  If she were to present her truest self to her family, it would be from behind her camera, with Kache at her side, filming her parents and brothers and sisters—how odd that was yet also true! But her parents were leery of photography of any kind, so the camera had to stay behind.

  “This is Ural, where I grew up. Where we lived before the split,” she told Kache as they approached her old village on the bank near the end of the road, a spread of brightly painted structures—houses, barns, a church—and plenty of tractors, trucks, SUVs. Satellite dishes?

  “I told you,” Kache said, as if he could read her mind.

  “I am shocked. But Altai will not have this. Ural is more conforming.” What she thought but didn’t say: This is where Niko and Katarina live with their children. She wondered how many they had, if they lived in one of the houses she could see.

  Kache had first turned the heat in the truck on, but Nadia had turned it off miles ago. Still, a trickle of sweat ran down her ribcage. She felt sick to her stomach. It wasn’t carsickness. Kache spoke to her, she watched his lips move, but she barely heard him over the thrashing of her heart.

  Returning was a very stupid thing to do. “Turn around,” she said. “Turn around.”

  Instead, he pulled over. “Breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

  “You do not know this. And do not stop in Ural. That is an invitation for them to approach us.”

  “Do you want me to keep going?”

  “No. Yes. Wait,” she said. She took one deep breath. “Okay, yes, keep going.”

  And so they drove on, until they rounded the last bend where the empty trailhead to Altai seemed to be waiting for them. Kache parked the truck and Nadia reached for the glove compartment.

  He said, “At least let me carry it.”

  “Kache,” she said. “I mean no disrespect. But I have shot guns many, many more times than you have.”

  “Everyone will be hugging you. It won’t be safe.” He held his hand out and she gave him the gun while she hoped and doubted and hoped again that her family would indeed hug her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise not to shoot my own foot. It will most likely stay where it is, in my zipped pocket, with the safety on.”

  They began taking the switchbacks down to the beach. Nadia had already checked the tide schedule online and knew they had plenty of time to walk along the sand to the village. There was no other way in. They could have brought the ATV in the back of the truck, and if it had already snowed, she would have insisted on it. But now she was glad for the time the walk took them. It helped calm her nerves. Alone, on the trail, Kache turned to her and hugged her and then kissed her. She remembered the time on the same trail when Niko had kissed her. It was her first kiss, snuck in, before they raced to catch up with the others.

  But now, Kache and Nadia took their time. He lifted her sunglasses. “Are you okay? Do you want to keep going?”

  “Do you mean keep kissing or keep walking?”

  He smiled. “Either one. Both?”

  “That might be difficult.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” He let her sunglasses fall back in place, kissed the diamond stud on the side of her nose and turned to lead the way.

  They continued down the trail, At one point Kache stopped to inspect bear scat.

  Nadia examined it. “This, it is not fresh. We can always fire the gun into the air to scare one.” Kache gave her a look that said firing the gun might scare him worse than it would scare the bear.

  The trail dropped them onto the beach, where they jogged a bit toward the end of the bay—not because they were in a hurry (they definitely weren’t) but because they needed to expend their nervous energy. A lone bald eagle watched them from its perch on the top of a dead spruce where the forest met the sand. Almost ten years before, Nadia ran down this beach in the opposite direction.

  She took Kache’s hand and they slowed to pick their way along the rocks, dodging driftwood, tide pools, piles of long tangled kelp, chunks of coal. Gulls bickered over a dead lingcod. Nadia bent over an aggregate anemone. Its green tentacles seemed to invite her in, and when she placed her finger in its center, they gently grasped onto it, holding tight until she pulled back and they let go.

  The clouds had darkened and swept toward them, locking the sky in, low and gray. She wished for the sun to break through and lighten her mood, which also felt low and gray, as if the sky were a lid pressing down on her. She half worried, half hoped that she wouldn’t be able to find the next trailhead to Altai, that it would have been taken over by salmonberry and alder bushes. She couldn’t even be sure the village was still here. Perhaps they had given in to having a priest and returned to Ural.

  But there was the second trailhead, as it had been before, cleared, dirt-packed steep switchbacks that took you one way and then another in an indecisive reverie climbing upward. Where before she had been sweating, now she pulled her coat tighter around her. Chills. Her body balked, wondering when she would turn around. She’d never come this far, not even close.

  The trail seemed shorter than she remembered and too soon they came upon Altai, too late to turn back because children already peeked out from behind women’s long skirts, and men walked toward her and Kache. Nadia’s eyes filled with tears so she could not see who these men were, whether she knew them or not. They spoke in Russian, greeting Kache, but when he looked to Nadia, they switched to English.

  “Brother, can we help you? Are you lost?” a tall man asked. Nadia did not recognize him or the others.

  “We’re hoping we can speak with you.”

  At the word “we” the men looked Kache and Nadia over. “What would you like to speak about?”

  Nadia took a step toward them so that she was slightly in front of Kache. She said in the old Russian, “I need to talk to Irina and Dmitri Oleska. I have important information for them.”

  The man who’d first spoken nodded. “We will take you to their home.”

  Nadia said, “I appreciate your kindness but that won’t be necessary. I know where it is located. Thank you.” She motioned with her head to Kache and they walked off toward her old home. The group that had formed followed along behind them with some of the children prancing ahead, calling out to her parents, “Irina, Dmitri, the strangers have come to see you!” Nadia shook like the birch leaves in a wind. A young woman broke through the crowd and approached her.

  “If you please …? Take off your glasses so I can see your eyes,” she said.

  Nadia took off her glasses but her tears were already escaping, running down her cheeks. “Yes, it is me, little sister. Anna, I am your Nadi.”

  Anna cried out and reached her arms around Nadia and they fell to the ground, embracing. And then Anna was yanked away, Nadia was pulled to her feet, and her mother—a bit thinner and more lined—held Nadia’s shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. Her mother cupped her chin, then the side of her neck, then slid her grasp down both Nadia’s arms. Her mother’s lips trembled, her pale eyes wet with questions. “Nadi? Nadi?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “It is miracle? God has brought you back to life?”

  “No, Mama. I have been alive, all this time. Always alive.” Nadia lay her hand flat along the side of mother’s cheek. “I am so sorry.”

  “You are alive? You are alive.” Her words croaked out in the midst of laughter and cries. And then her father was twirling her around and around, holding her waist. More crying and laughter; the entire village quaked as if the land under it shifted. No one asked, “Where have you been?” or “Who is this man?” Everyone far too overtaken by emotion, too busy praising God for the miracle to ask the obvious.

  The crowd suddenly grew quiet and parted. Nadia’s grandmother approached her with her crooked smile and wet eyes.

  “Hi, Baba,” Nadia said.

  Her grandmother threw her arms around Nadia and whispered into her ear, “It is you! My precious Nadia, you are more beautiful than ever.”

  It wasn’t until
her mother and father along with her ten siblings—for word spreads fast in so small a village—had pulled her from the mob and taken her into their home, painted a lovely robin’s egg blue and sunny yellow, and directed her and Kache to sit, sit, that the questions began. They came one after another after another, without any pause for an answer, while her grandmother sat stoically, listening:

  “What happened to you?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Why did you cut your hair?”

  “Who is this man? Is he your husband?”

  “Where are your children?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Were you held captive?”

  “Why haven’t you come home to us?”

  “Why are you dressed in worldly clothes? What is in your nose?”

  “Why are all those earrings in your ears?”

  “Did you know it has been almost ten years? TEN YEARS?”

  With questions zooming at her from every direction, Nadia felt like she stood at one of those intersections in Anchorage—only this was where her wish to share nothing and her wish for them to know all intersected … where to begin, how much to divulge? In the corner: the shrine of icons and hand-rolled candles, the old gold jewelry and ancient texts. The patron saints stared, waiting for her answers. Upon entering the house, every person had turned to this shrine and bowed repeatedly and made the sign of the cross. Every person except Nadia and Kache. She looked to Kache, who stood off to the side with his hands shoved deep inside his pockets. He raised his eyebrows and she gave him a slight nod.

  He said, “Nadia will answer your questions. But it’s difficult for her. It’s not an easy thing to tell. Let’s all sit back for a minute and catch our breath and let her tell you her story. But first will you answer an important question that we have? Where is Vladimir?”

  Her father said, “He is no longer of us. He left this village soon after Nadia disappeared.”

  So it was true. Nadia hung her head and willed the next set of tears to stay put. Here, her grandmother spoke up. “Nadia and her friend must be hungry, eh? Let your questions wait. It is not any holy day of fasting, so let us feast. Our celebration feast of gratitude for return of our Nadia. She will answer questions later. For now, you show her our family, your children, your husbands, your wives. You tell her what happened in these ten years she’s been gone.”

  In minutes, it seemed, foods piled themselves high on the table. Nadia noticed that her mother took out the mandatory outsider dishes—separate dishes in a different pattern for those who weren’t Old Believers—for Kache, but also for Nadia. Her grandmother argued with her mother in Russian, but Nadia couldn’t make out what she said. There was no prayer before the meal. Nadia knew why: the rule that Old Believers cannot pray with outsiders. But her father raised his glass and said, “I wish you all good health and the spirit of God.”

  Nephews and nieces, brothers-and-sisters-in-law, all gathered to meet Nadia. Warm hugs, shy smiles. Her sister Marina said, “I have always been afraid of water. I cannot go in boats. But here you are! Maybe I’m not as afraid anymore.”

  Her brother Alex introduced her to his wife and children. “This is your Aunt Nadia. She is the one who taught me how to play Lopta and Knaz. No one ever beat her at Knaz! She was always the King.”

  Her sister Natalia said, “How we have mourned you. The forty required days was only the beginning. I have never stopped crying and praying for your soul. But now I happily stop.”

  There were more stories, more tears, but joking and laughing too. Braga flowed freely. Nadia almost forgot that she had yet to explain where she’d been. She almost felt that she had never been gone. Almost. Yet not quite. Every now and then she looked up to see Kache, chatting with Alex, Kache looking fairly comfortable and well-fed, as he nodded and ate from his separate dishes.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Kache had never been the recipient of so many sideways glances. While Nadia’s return was being celebrated, his presence was definitely of the elephant-in-the-room variety. A few people spoke to him, but the obvious question—What the hell are you doing here with Nadia?—hung unasked.

  Nadia sat behind a cluster of vibrantly clothed siblings. Two of her brothers spoke quietly and urgently in Russian in the corner. They did not look happy. At one point, one actually snarled. Kache tried to appear casual as he repositioned himself between them and Nadia and her more friendly siblings. If he were the elephant in the room, the gun felt like a rhinoceros in his coat pocket.

  Another brother did approach Kache just then, smiled warmly and shook his hand. “I am Alex,” he said. “How do you know my sister?” He took a bite of food and then another.

  “She has been living in my parents’ home,” Kache offered, aiming for the most wholesome way to put it.

  “She is married, you know,” Alex said, talking with his mouth full. He seemed like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. “But we will never see him again.”

  Kache wondered if Vladimir was dead. “Really? Why’s that?”

  “He was not truly Old Believer. He kept … uh … magazines.” He set down his fork and plate and squeezed the air as if he had big breasts. “The worst acts you can imagine. We burn them—only looked at a few.” He let out a low long whistle. “Barbaric. He stopped coming to service, he smoked and drank the hard liquor. At first we let him mourn Nadia, but then we realize this is not mourning. This is his life, you know? We ask him to leave and he says ‘Gladly.’ He says we are backwards, backwoods, backass. He stumbles out. Not in good condition. We assume he died soon after.”

  “Your brothers,” Kache motioned with a tilt of his head. “They’re not happy to see Nadia?”

  “Not happy to see she has been stamped with the world. Me, I don’t care. The world is coming more and more every day. What next? We blast out caves in the mountains and hide there? Some people leave here, they don’t like it. Three people last year.” He shrugged. “It happens. I have beautiful wife, four children, I like my life, it is good, yes? Live and let live. But Yuri and Josiph. They want penance.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  Nadia watched one of her brothers, Yuri, who even as a boy always had a dour face, clink his fork on his glass and demand quiet. He said, “It is time we let our sister speak of her absence.”

  Both of her parents, her Baba, her sisters and brothers sat in silence while Nadia began from the very beginning, speaking in Russian, of the night of her wedding to Vladimir, and without going into too much detail she was able to convey how terribly wrong things turned, the insane violence that took place within the four walls of their house and the threats to set fire to the village if she told a soul. “I believed he would. And I still believe that to this day. So I left, and I faked my own drowning. It was the only answer I could think of, but I have missed you all terribly and I am begging you for forgiveness for this terrible lie that went on all these years. It didn’t have to. Vladimir is long gone. He isn’t even around here and I’ve been hiding all these years.” The tragedy of this scraped the back of her throat as she tried to get the words out.

  Tears ran down many of the faces of her family, and Kache too wiped his eyes. But Yuri and another brother, Josiph, whose lips made a thin straight line above his beard, whispered back and forth.

  Yuri stood and spoke. “You are obviously living in sin. One look at you tells us this. For what, exactly, are you looking for forgiveness? Adultery, perhaps? Certainly you do not wish to come back and live as family and worship with us?”

  Her father waved his hand and said, “Yuri, you do not know this. Give Nadia time to speak and time to adjust to being back again. Ours is a unique culture and her absence, very many years. Give her time, and she will remember our loving and good life. She will remember the joy in living as pure a life as humanly possible.”

  Nadia considered keeping quiet, but this is where she knew she might begin another lie that would tangle her up and keep her here. “Father, Mother. Yuri is correct. I have changed great
ly since I have been gone. As much as I love you, as much as I have missed you, I no longer believe as you believe.”

  Her mother gasped, reached under her scarf and pulled on one of her braids. Her father said, “Nadi, do you know what you are saying? You are renouncing your faith?”

  She couldn’t speak the words, so she merely nodded and as Kache would later say, All hell broke loose. Literally. Some of the women cried out and many of the men groaned and shook their heads in dismay. The mood in the room went from celebratory to funereal. This was not an exaggeration. She knew, that to them, she had come back to life and now was dead to them once again—all in a matter of hours.

  She said, “I am so hoping that we can still have a relationship. That we can still be a family and I can visit with you and you can come and visit me. We can eat together and sing together and play games again. Please?” But they stared at the ground while her father said they belonged to the family of God. Her sisters did come up and hug her goodbye. Anna and Natalia clung to her longer than the other three, who probably barely remembered her. But they all, eventually, let go, and left.

  Her Baba held her and whispered in her ear in English, “You are strong woman. You are good woman, my precious Nadia. I love you always.” Her three brothers left without even looking at her, except for Alex, who squeezed her hand and wished her peace. Nadia’s father and mother pleaded with her to rethink her decision, hugged her long and hard, then walked her and Kache to the front door.

  Her father said, “Nadi, it is your choice. We believe in this, freedom of choice. Know we receive you with arms and hearts open wide if you ever change your mind.” Her mother held her apron to her face.

  As Kache and Nadia set off down the trail, her mother’s wails followed them. “Nadia. Nadia!”

  And later on the beach when a single cry sliced the air, Nadia looked back, hoping to see her mother running after her, but it was only a lone gull, pure white against the steel sky.