But Daria wasn’t ready to be taken for one of those. Yet. She crept around the outskirts of the settlement, hiding in shadow, taking the long way from their barracks to the one-story construction Adam claimed as his own. She spied a sliver of light coming from the inside and quickly, before she could change her mind, knocked on the door. He opened it so briskly, she nearly fell in over the threshold.
They’d all lost weight since arriving. Edward was so skeletal, Daria could see where his hip bones met his legs. Even Adam was thinner. His collarbone was more prominent, his cheeks beneath the ruddy beard a bit more sunken. But the change in proportion made him even more towering. He reminded Daria of the children’s book character Stepan Stepanov, a giant nicknamed “Fire Tower” due to his height. Uncle Styopa tromped about the Soviet Union performing charitable deeds. He rescued drowning boys, saved pigeons from a burning building, and joined the navy, as an inspiration to his fellow citizens. Except Uncle Styopa was “all kids’ best friend.” While Adam was terrifying.
Daria’s first impulse was to shrink back, the way Edward now did at everything. But then her past resolve kicked in, and she looked Adam in the eye, needing to crane her neck. Sounding as imperious as if he still worked for her—not that it was ever true—she informed him, “I need to speak with you.” She walked in without being invited and closed the door behind them.
Adam’s home consisted of three sections, not counting the tiny entry where Daria was now standing. To her left was a sleeping area, housing a bed, the sheets worn and institutional but neatly made. The largest section in the middle held a desk, the legs different colors, suggesting each had been replaced over the years, and, of all things, a piano, its top missing so that the strings, not all of which were present, lay exposed to the elements. Daria guessed this had been the home of an administrator’s family, before they’d either moved up, away, or . . . well, no use thinking about any other possibilities—and Adam had inherited the house, furnishings included. It was the room to the right that explained how he’d managed to do it. The room on the right stood bare. Except for the trio of homemade vodka stills chugging away in the center.
“Oh,” Daria said. Now everything made perfect sense.
Adam had yet to say anything.
She asked him, “How much are you managing to produce a day?”
“Enough.”
“No wonder you’re so popular.”
“Enough,” he repeated.
“You can get anything you want from them. A house, clothes, food.”
“What do you want?” Adam emphasized the third word, under no illusion about why Daria was there.
“This.” She showed him the scrap of paper with the names and amounts of medication needed.
Adam’s brow furrowed. “Are you trying to resuscitate a corpse?”
“My daughter, Anya. The little one. You remember her? The doctor says it’s pneumonia. We’ve tried everything. She thinks this is the thing that might help. Please.” Daria took a step closer to him, so close, too close, dangerously close. “Please, help me, Adam Semyonovitch.”
Chapter 8
She expected him to ask how. She expected him to ask why he should. She expected him to demand something in return. She was prepared for all of it.
She was not prepared for Adam taking another long look at her list of medications, then folding the paper into quarters and stuffing it in his shirt pocket before escorting Daria to the door, closing it soundly behind her.
She didn’t know what had happened. She didn’t know what they’d agreed upon or what Adam intended to do. All she knew was that the next evening, as Daria and Edward lay in their bunk with Anya between them, trying to keep her warm, watching her struggle so hard for every breath that her face first turned bright red, then a deadly white that faded to near blue before the process started over again, the doctor crept in beside them and showed Daria and Edward the satchel she’d been slipped by . . . she’d rather not say. Comrade Stalin had taught them: The less you know, the sounder you sleep. But it was for Anya.
They gave her the first dose immediately. The second at midnight. The five of them were the only ones still awake, Alyssa sitting in the corner, pulling on tufts of hair and sticking the thinning strands in her mouth, chewing and swallowing. No one tried to stop her anymore, not even the doctor who’d initially attempted to explain the dangers, that she could clog up her intestines. But everyone understood how hungry Alyssa was, and if this helped, even for a little while, then long-term consequences be damned.
They tried a third dose during that devil’s hour of four a.m. There was enough left for a fourth at dawn, before the guards would come to gather them for work. But Anya was dead by then.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was barely noticeable. The intervals between breaths stretched longer and longer, until there simply wasn’t another. For a few minutes afterward, Daria and Edward might even have convinced themselves that Anya had turned a corner, that she was no longer struggling, that she was getting some rest.
Glancing through the slats in the walls, Daria glimpsed the sun on its way up. Briskly, she peeled off Anya’s clothes and passed them to Alyssa. “Put them on. They can’t help her anymore.”
The shirt was too small. Alyssa nonetheless forced herself into it, ripping the seams of one sleeve. Anya’s hat she pulled over her own head, the socks she used for mittens. They were still warm from her sister’s skin.
Daria took off the shawl she’d acquired a week earlier in exchange for a handful of wheat seeds, and began wrapping Anya in it, wrenching her out of Edward’s arms to do so. He’d been stroking his daughter’s face, closing her eyelids, smoothing back her hair.
“We have to bury her before they come.”
“Mama.” Alyssa pointed to the shawl. “You’ll be cold.” She stood in front of Daria in Anya’s too small clothes, a reminder that nothing should go to waste.
Daria hesitated. Alyssa was right, even the smallest scraps could be put to some use, and a knitted shawl was nothing to throw away. Still, the idea of putting her naked child in the ground . . .
Avoiding Edward’s eyes, Daria undid the knots she’d just made, throwing the shawl back over her shoulders, telling herself that if she fell ill, her husband and the one daughter they had left would be lost for good. Daria stood, cradling the weightless thing that had once been Anya. She headed for the door, hissing to Alyssa, “Bring Papa.”
Edward rose and accepted his older daughter’s hand, allowing Alyssa to lead him. A few people had woken up and were watching them. There were periodic flickers of sympathy, but most merely looked unsurprised.
One whispered to Daria, “The clearing on the left, by the newer pines. Too small to cut down—they don’t look there.”
“Thank you,” Daria said, but the woman had already scurried away. She’d risked enough.
They buried Anya alongside others whose families couldn’t stomach the official mass of graves erected on the other side of the settlement. They wanted their loved ones close by. And they didn’t want them spending eternity under the authority of those who’d driven them there.
Daria, Edward, and Alyssa dug with their hands, racing the sun, and the roll call that came with it. Edward was humming again. Alyssa joined him. They started to, of all things, harmonize.