“Onions have to be cooked slowly,” he said. “It makes them sweet as milk. It takes patience to cook well, but no one has patience these days. Everyone wants things done at once. Stick it in the microwave! Might as well eat old leather.” He closed the pot lid, then lifted the lid to the frying pan. Browning inside were six tiny birds, each one no bigger than a boy’s fist. “Like morsels from heaven,” he said.
“Those are the smallest chickens I’ve ever seen,” marveled Aleksei.
The cook laughed. “They’re quail, idiot.”
“Why do we never eat quail?”
“Because you’re not in the aft cabin.” The cook arranged the steaming birds on a platter and drizzled them with chopped parsley. Then he stepped back, his face red and sweating as he admired his creation. “This they cannot complain about,” he said, and slid the platter into the dumbwaiter, which by then had returned empty.
“I’m hungry,” said Yakov.
“You’re always hungry. Go, cut yourself a slice of bread. The loaf is stale, but you can toast it.”
The two boys rummaged in drawers for the bread knife. The cook was right; the loaf was dry and stale. Holding down the loaf with the stump of his left arm, Yakov sawed off two slices and carried them across to the toaster.
“Look what you’re doing to my floor!” said the cook. “Dropping crumbs all over. Pick them up.”
“You pick them up,” Yakov told Aleksei.
“You dropped them. I didn’t.”
“I’m making the toast.”
“But I didn’t drop the crumbs.”
“All right then. I’ll just throw away your slice.”
“Someone pick them up!” roared the cook.
Aleksei instantly dropped to his knees and picked up the crumbs.
Yakov slid the first piece of bread into the toaster. A furry ball of gray suddenly popped out of one of the slots and leaped to the floor.
“A mouse!” shrieked Aleksei. “There’s a mouse!”
The gray ball was scampering around Aleksei’s dancing feet now, chased in one direction by Yakov, then in the other direction by the cook who threw a pot lid at it for good measure. The mouse skittered halfway up Aleksei’s leg, eliciting such a scream of terror it immediately changed course. It dropped back to the floor and shot off, vanishing under a cabinet.
Something was burning on the stove. Cursing, the cook ran to turn off the flame. He cursed some more as he scraped blackened onions from the pot, the onions he’d been so tenderly nursing along in butter. “A mouse in my kitchen! And look at this! Ruined. I’ll have to start over again. Bloody fucking mouse.”
“He was in the toaster,” said Yakov. Suddenly he felt a little sick. He thought about that mouse crawling, scratching around inside.
“Probably left it full of his shit,” said the cook. “Bloody mouse.”
Yakov cautiously peered into the toaster. No more mice, but lots of mysterious brown specks.
He slid the toaster toward the sink, intending to dump out the crumbs.
The cook gave a shout. “Hey! Are you stupid? What are you doing?”
“I’m cleaning out the toaster.”
“There’s water in that sink! And look, the thing is still plugged in. If you put that in there and you touch the water, you’re dead. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
“Uncle Misha never had a toaster.”
“It’s not just toasters. It’s anything that plugs in, anything with an electric cord. You’re as stupid as all the others.” He waved his arms, shoving them toward the door. “Go on, get out of here, both of you. You’re a nuisance.”
“But I’m hungry,” said Yakov.
“You wait for supper like everyone else.” He threw a fresh slab of butter into a saucepan. Glancing at Yakov, he barked: “Go!”
The boys left.
They played on deck for a while, until they grew chilled. They tried the bridge again, but were shooed from there as well. Sheer boredom took them, at last, to the one place in the boat where Yakov knew they would bother no one, and no one would bother them. It was his secret place, and he’d meant to show it to Aleksei only as a reward, and only if Aleksei could manage, for once, not to be a crybaby. He had found it on his third day of exploring, when he had spotted the closed door in the engine room corridor. He had opened that door and found it led to a stairwell shaft.
Wonderland.
The shaft soared three levels. A circular staircase spiraled up and up, and leading off the second level was a flimsy steel walkway that clattered and shook if you jumped up and down on it. The blue door leading aft from the walkway was always kept locked. Yakov had stopped even bothering to try it.
They climbed up to the top level. There, with the floor a dizzying drop below them, it was easy to scare Aleksei with a few noisy jumps.
“Stop it!” Aleksei cried. “You’re making it move!”
“That’s the ride. The Wonderland ride. Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t want to take a ride!”
“You never want to do anything.” Yakov would have kept jumping up and down, shaking the walkway, but Aleksei was on the verge of hysteria. He had one hand clenched around the railing, the other hugging Shu-Shu.
“I want to go back down,” Aleksei whimpered.
“Oh, all right.”
They went down the staircase, setting off lovely clatters. At the bottom they played for a while under the steps. Aleksei found some old rope and tied one end to the lowest walkway railing. He used it to swing back and forth like the ape man. It was only a foot off the ground; not very exciting.
Then Yakov showed him the empty crate, the one he’d found shoved into a nook under the stairs. They crawled inside. There they lay in darkness among the wood shavings and listened to the engines rumble in Hell. The sea felt very close here, a great, dark cradle that rocked the hull of the ship.
“This is my secret place,” said Yakov. “You can’t tell anyone about it. Swear to me you won’t tell.”
“Why should I? It’s a disgusting place. It’s cold and wet. And I bet there are mice in here somewhere. We’re probably lying right now in mouse shit.”
“There’s no mouse shit in here.”
“How do you know? You can’t see anything.”
“If you don’t like it, you can get out. Go on.” Yakov gave him a kick through the wood shavings. Stupid Aleksei. He should have known better than to bring him here. Anyone who carried a filthy stuffed dog everywhere could not be expected to enjoy adventures. “Go on! You’re no fun anyway.”
“I don’t know the way back.”
“You think I’m going to show you?”
“You brought me here. You have to bring me back.”
“Well I’m not going to.”
“You bring me back or I tell everyone about your stupid secret place. Disgusting place, full of mouse shit.” Aleksei was climbing out of the crate now, kicking up shavings in Yakov’s face. “Bring me back now or—”
“Shut up,” said Yakov. He grabbed Aleksei by the shirt and yanked him backward. Both boys tumbled together into the shavings.
“You asshole,” said Aleksei.
“Listen. Listen!”
“What?”
Somewhere above, a door squealed and clanged shut. The walkway was rattling now, the sound of every footstep shattering to a thousand echoes in the stairway shaft.
Yakov crawled to the opening and peered out of the crate at the walkway above. Someone was knocking at the blue door. A moment later the door opened, and he caught a glimpse of blond hair as the woman vanished inside. The door closed behind her.
Yakov retreated back into the crate. “It’s just Nadiya.”
“Is she still out there?”
“No, she went in the blue door.”
“What’s in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you were the great explorer.”
“And you’re the great asshole.” Yakov gave another kic
k, but only succeeded in tossing up a puff of shavings. “It’s always locked. Someone’s living in there.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Nadiya knocked, and they let her in.”
Aleksei retreated deeper into the crate, having changed his mind about venturing out quite yet. He whispered: “It’s the quail people.”
Yakov thought of the tray with the wine bottle and the two glasses, the onions sizzling in butter, the six tiny birds blanketed in gravy. His stomach suddenly gave a rumble.
“Listen to this,” said Yakov. “I can make really sick noises with my stomach.” He sucked in and thrust out his belly. Anyone else would have been impressed by the symphony of gurgles.
Aleksei just said, “That’s disgusting.”
“Everything’s disgusting to you. What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“I don’t like disgusting things.”
“You used to like them.”
“Well, I don’t anymore.”
“It’s because of that Nadiya. She’s turned you all soft and gooey. You’re sweet on her.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not!” Aleksei threw a handful of shavings, catching Yakov full in the face. Suddenly both boys were grappling, rolling against one side of the crate, then the other, cursing, kicking. There was not much room to move, so they could not really hurt each other. Then Aleksei lost Shu-Shu somewhere in the shavings and began scrabbling around in the darkness, searching for his dog. Yakov was tired of fighting anyway.
So they both stopped.
For a while they rested side by side, Aleksei clutching Shu-Shu, Yakov trying to coax new and more repulsive sounds from his stomach. Soon he tired of even that. They lay immobilized by boredom, by the sleep-inducing rumble of the engines, and by the sway of the sea.
Aleksei said, “I’m not sweet on her.”
“I don’t care if you are.”
“But the other boys like her. Haven’t you noticed how they talk about her?” Aleksei paused. And added: “I like the way she smells. Women smell different. They smell soft.”
“Soft doesn’t make a smell.”
“Yes it does. You smell a woman like that, and you know, when you touch her, she’ll be soft. You just know it.” Aleksei stroked Shu-Shu. Yakov could hear his hand skimming the tattered fabric.
“My mother smelled that way,” said Aleksei.
Yakov remembered his dream. The woman, the smile. The wisp of blond hair tracing across a cheek. Yes, Aleksei was right. In his dream, his mother had indeed worn the scent of softness.
“It sounds stupid,” said Aleksei. “But I remember that. Some things I still remember about her.”
Yakov stretched, and his feet touched the other end of the crate. Have I grown? he wondered. If only. If only I could grow big enough to kick my feet right through that wall.
“Don’t you ever think about your mother?” asked Aleksei.
“No.”
“You wouldn’t remember her anyway.”
“I remember she was a beauty. She had green eyes.”
“How would you know? Uncle Misha says you were a baby when she left.”
“I was four. That’s not a baby.”
“I was six when my mother left and I hardly remember anything.”
“I’m telling you, she had green eyes.”
“So she had green eyes. So what?”
The clang of a door made them both fall silent. Yakov squirmed over to the crate opening and looked up. It was Nadiya again. She’d just come out of the blue door and was crossing the walkway. She vanished through the forward hatch.
“I don’t like her,” said Yakov.
“I do. I wish she was my mother.”
“She doesn’t even like children.”
“She told Uncle Misha she dedicates her life to us.”
“You believe that?”
“Why would she say it if it isn’t true?”
Yakov tried to think of an answer, but could not come up with one. Even if he had, it would make no difference to Aleksei. Stupid Aleksei. Stupid everyone. Nadiya had them all fooled. Eleven boys, and each and every one of them was in love with her. They fought to sit beside her at supper. They watched her, studied her, sniffed at her like puppies. At night, in their bunks, they whispered about Nadiya this and Nadiya that. What foods she preferred, what she’d eaten at lunch. They speculated about everything from how old she was to what undergarments she wore under her gray skirts. They discussed whether or not Gregor, whom everyone despised, was her lover, and unanimously decided he was not. They pooled their knowledge about feminine anatomy, the older boys explaining, in lurid detail, the function of tampons and how and where they are inserted, thus transforming forever the way the younger boys would view women—as creatures with dark and mysterious holes. This only increased their fascination with Nadiya.
Yakov shared that fascination, but his was not adoration. He was afraid of her.
It was all because of the blood tests.
On their fourth day at sea, when the boys were still puking and moaning in their bunks, Gregor and Nadiya had come around carrying a tray of needles and tubes. It will be only a small prick, they’d said, a small tube of blood to confirm you are healthy. No one will adopt you if they cannot be assured you are healthy. The pair had moved from boy to boy, weaving a bit from the rough sea, the glass tubes clattering on the tray. Nadiya had looked sick, on the verge of throwing up. Gregor had been the one to draw the blood. At each bunk they’d asked the boy his name and fitted him with a plastic bracelet on which they’d written a number. Then Gregor tied a giant rubber band around the boy’s arm and slapped the skin a few times, to make the vein swell. Some of the boys cried, and Nadiya had to hold their hand and comfort them while Gregor drew the blood.
Yakov was the only boy whom she was unable to comfort. No matter how she tried, she could not make him hold still. He did not want that needle in his arm, and he had given Gregor a kick to emphasize the point. That’s when the real Nadiya took over. She pinned Yakov’s one arm to the bed, holding it there with a grasp that pinched and twisted at the same time. As Gregor drew the blood, she had kept her gaze fixed on Yakov, had spoken quietly, even sweetly to him as the needle pierced his skin and the blood streamed into the tube. Everyone else in that room, listening to Nadiya’s voice, heard only murmured words of reassurance. But Yakov, staring into those pale eyes of hers, saw something entirely different.
Afterward, he had gnawed off his plastic bracelet.
Aleksei still wore his. Number 307. His certification of good health.
“Do you think she has children of her own?” asked Aleksei.
Yakov gave a shudder. “I hope not,” he said, and crawled to the crate opening. He looked up and saw the deserted walkway and the empty stairway, coiling above like a serpent’s skeleton. The blue door, as always, was shut
Brushing off the wood shavings, he scrambled out of their hiding place. “I’m hungry,” he said.
As the cook had predicted, that gray and oppressive afternoon was soon followed by heavy seas—not a severe storm, but rough enough to confine the passengers, both children and adults, to their cabins. And that was precisely where Aleksei intended to stay. All the coaxing in the world would not budge him from his bunk. It was cold and wet outside, and the floor was rocking, and he had no interest in poking around the dark, damp corners that seemed to fascinate Yakov so. Aleksei liked it in his bed. He liked the coziness of a blanket pulled up around his shoulders, liked the drafts of warmth that puffed at his face when he turned or wiggled, liked the smell of Shu-Shu sleeping beside him on the pillow.
All morning, Yakov tried to drag Aleksei out of bed, to tempt him with another visit to Wonderland. Finally he gave up and went off on his own. He came back once or twice to see if Aleksei had changed his mind, but Aleksei slept all afternoon, through supper, and straight into the evening.
In the night, Yakov awakened and sensed at once tha
t something was different. At first he could not decide what it was. Perhaps just the passing of the storm? He could feel the ship had steadied. Then he realized it was the engines that had changed. That ceaseless rumble had muffled to a soft growl.
He crawled out of his bunk and went to give Aleksei a shake. “Wake up,” he whispered.
“Go away.”
“Listen. We’ve stopped moving.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m going up to take a look. Come with me.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“You’ve been sleeping a whole day and night. Don’t you want to see land? We must be near land. Why would the ship stop in the middle of the ocean?” Yakov bent closer to Aleksei, his whispers softly enticing. “Maybe we can see the lights. America. You’ll miss it unless you come with me.”
Aleksei sighed, stirred a bit, not quite certain what he wanted to do.
Yakov threw out the ultimate lure. “I saved a potato from supper,” he said. “I’ll give it to you. But only if you come up with me.”
Aleksei had missed supper, and lunch as well. A potato would be heaven. “All right, all right.” Aleksei sat up and began buckling on his shoes. “Where’s the potato?”
“First we go up.”
“You’re an asshole, Yakov.”
They tiptoed past the double bunks of sleeping boys and climbed the stairway, to the deck.
Outside, a soft wind was blowing. They looked over the railing, straining for a view of city lights, but the stars met only a black and formless horizon.
“I don’t see anything,” said Aleksei. “Give me my potato.”
Yakov produced the treasure from his pocket. Aleksei squatted down and devoured it right there, cold, like a wild animal.
Yakov turned and looked up toward the bridge. He could see the greenish glow of the radar screen through the window, and the silhouette of a man standing watch. The navigator. What did he see from that lonely perch of his?
Aleksei had finished his potato. Now he stood up and said: “I’m going to bed.”
Harvest Page 20
