Except for two things. Daria had promised Edward and Alyssa she would find her way home to them. And she wouldn’t give Adam the satisfaction of making her break that promise.
Daria had tried pretending she was drifting without a direction in mind but was forced to give up the delusion when she found herself in front of Adam’s house. The massive lock on the door made entry impossible, and, as it was the middle of the day, Adam wasn’t home. Struck by a new sense of purpose, Daria headed for the administrative complex in the center of what passed for town, a collection of wooden shacks built multiple years apart, crumbling at different levels of disrepair. Except these particular shacks had working stoves, lamps, desks, and filing cabinets. Most important, they had men and women who didn’t dress in rags, whose skin didn’t hang off their skeletons like limp autumn leaves without the color, and who were rationed three meals a day beyond watered-down soup and stale chunks of bread.
Daria entered the bureau where Adam worked, sweeping past his colleagues who demanded to know what someone like her thought she was doing there. She didn’t stop moving until she reached the back, where Adam stood holding a ream of papers, surrounded by a dozen crates in the process of being ripped open by a team of men with crowbars. They were inventorying whatever was left from the latest shipment of food or medicine, after it had been pilfered at every stop along the way.
She told him, “They’re gone.”
He told her, “You have a new job.”
Daria awaited further instructions.
“You can read and write?”
Now he thought he could insult her? After the effort Mama had put into getting Daria educated at the Ukrainian school? “Thanks to Comrade Stalin.”
“Find Marya Ivanova.” Adam mimed huge breasts with both hands, which got knowing snickers out of his crew. “I told her you’d be coming today. She’ll assign your work detail.”
He’d told this Marya Ivanova that Daria would be coming? How in the world had Adam known? Then again, where else did Daria have to go? His arrogance somehow managed to rankle her in yet a new way. On the other hand, Daria would be an idiot to turn down an indoor position. So for the rest of the afternoon, she followed Marya Ivanova’s orders and copied over by hand requisitions for their superiors to sign. Carbon paper never quite managed to reach them this far north, and typewriters were for senior staff. Once upon a time, Daria would have found such mindless work deadly dull. Now, she wanted it never to end.
But of course, it did. Clocks were at a premium, as well, so Daria had no idea how many hours post-sundown it was when Marya Ivanova pronounced their day’s work complete and began spitting to extinguish the lamps. Daria had been banished to a desk in the corner that she shared with three other women also transcribing endless documents. The chatty trio flew out the door. Daria was there alone when Adam appeared.
“Let’s go,” he told her.
He took her back to his house, which answered Daria’s question about continuing to live in the barracks but not much else. He opened the lock with a single key, making Daria wonder if all her comings and goings would be under his control. Once inside, Adam ditched her for his still. As far as Daria could tell, it percolated all day long. No wonder he needed the heavy-duty lock and the bars on the windows. Otherwise, he’d be inviting endless break-ins. Not that Daria could imagine anyone would be reckless enough to take on Adam in a fistfight. Then again, desperation drove people to all sorts of measures.
Look at her.
Adam wasn’t looking at her. He’d discarded her in the entryway, not even bothering to turn on the lights. She did that herself in the main room. Everything was as she remembered. Adam hadn’t even closed the piano lid. Daria did that now, imagining she could still feel remnants of Edward’s energy radiating from the keys. She remembered how he’d bloomed to life while playing, and it gave Daria the strength to move into the bedroom, where she stripped off her clothes and climbed in.
She sent up a silent apology to Mama. Daria had long passed the point of playing hard to get. She was determined to keep to her bargain, for fear any slight infraction might prompt Adam to void their entire agreement. And then what might he do to punish her, not to mention Edward and Alyssa? It was a risk Daria couldn’t afford to take.
And so she waited for Adam to come to her and claim what was his. But he appeared in no hurry, tinkering with his pipes and his cast-iron buckets, pouring the resulting brew into glass jars and tin cans labeled with the names of their designated recipients. It must have been a most time-consuming business, because Daria—lying for the first time in a year in a hay-stuffed bed covered with a thin but nonetheless existent sheet and blanket as well as a pillow filled with horsehair, rather than a bare wooden bunk of ruts and splinters—found herself drifting off to sleep.
She startled awake at the sound of Adam entering the room some time later. It was a habit Daria had picked up from when her children were infants. It came in handy once she was placed in a situation where someone might try to steal her shoes or her sweater or portions of hoarded food while she slept. It was why Daria had pushed Edward and the children toward the wall and had placed herself on the edge, like an ever-alert guard dog.
She braced herself as Adam crawled into bed next to her. In the pitch-dark Daria felt, rather than saw, him lifting the blanket and looking her over, head to toe. Did he realize she was naked? Did he understand that meant she was ready to live up to her part of their agreement? He shifted his weight, and Daria subserviently rolled on her side toward him.
But much to her surprise, Adam turned his back on her, falling asleep before Daria even had the chance to recover from her shock.
Chapter 11
The next morning, she was up before him. Despite the comfort, Daria had found it difficult to doze off again. It wasn’t Adam’s snoring. She’d slept through far worse in the cattle car and barracks, not to mention when she’d shared a single room with her own parents. It was her certainty that Adam would wake up any moment and . . .
Maybe he’d been too worn out the night before? Or maybe it had slipped his mind? Surely, in the morning . . .
She was ready for him. Ready for anything. Except the grunt with which Adam greeted her. He slipped out of bed, dressed in pajamas a bit too close to a prison uniform for Daria’s comfort, likely surplus or maybe another case of supplies getting waylaid en route to their designated location. He headed for the outhouse she’d spied and taken advantage of earlier. The next time Daria saw Adam, he was wearing his street clothes, waiting by the door to take Daria to work.
Dresses appeared for her. Undergarments. Wool stockings. Boots. Not new by any means. But clean and more or less her size. She was issued a ration card for the closed-distribution general store and the cafeteria open to select workers. This allowed her to purchase—on credit; Daria had yet to receive wages to go with her new labor assignment, though nobody doubted her ultimate ability to make good—bread, tea, sausage, eggs, butter, and potatoes. When they were available, of course. Beer was also on the list but never in stock. It made Adam’s home-brewed vodka even more popular.
“Where did you learn to set up a still?” Daria asked, having learned that any conversation beyond bare necessities would need to be initiated by her. Otherwise, she and Adam could pass days working in the same building, living side by side, sleeping in the same bed, for goodness’ sake, and never exchange a word. It was worse than Edward’s silence. At least, with Edward, she’d realized he was traumatized. But with Adam, the situation was more confounding. Daria knew other women who’d taken “camp husbands.” Attaching themselves to one man with the power to retaliate, they escaped being raped by a succession of guards, supervisors, and fellow prisoners. Or, rather, they preemptively chose their own rapist. Daria thought she’d done the same. Except for one not-so-minor detail. The first few weeks, she’d lived every moment in dread of the inevitable. Now Daria simply lived in dread. She no longer even knew of what.