Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (73 page)

“Go home,” Andrei said, eyes bright and hard with the physical pleasure of the ride, and dark with anger. Andrei knew about the marriage proposal. Somehow, he was certain of it.

“I can’t, you bloody fool. The guards will kill me before I’ve gone twenty feet.”

“Maybe,” Andrei said, suddenly very still, his horse glimmering with sweat beneath him, “or maybe not. You have roughly five minutes before they catch up. Do you want to miss this chance, Yasha? What if it’s the only one I can provide you?”

Jamie reined the horse in sharply. “What the hell are you up to, Andrei?”

Andrei’s face was inscrutable, pure Soviet iron, without give or the ability to change form or shape. “I’m telling you to go while you still can, my friend.”

Jamie looked west for a moment, careful to keep the yearning from his face. Of course, it was this ache for home that Andrei understood all too well. That was why he was putting him to this ultimate test.

Andrei cantered away, keeping himself removed, leaving Jamie on the precipice of his own yearning. The horse strained as though she were entirely in tune with his wants, as though they really were one creature who wanted nothing more than to keep running. He knew the odds were better than even that the guards would kill him, and though he knew that should make his decision easier, he found it did not.

The wind picked up, flowing past his senses, and he thought for a moment that he could smell the West in its threads. The scent of far oceans and familiar things. Of home. He allowed himself the vision of it for a moment—to go home, to be free, to make his own decisions. And then the vision was gone, burst like the illusory bubble it was, upon the harsh currents of reality. For that was another country, far gone from him now.

He couldn’t go no matter how badly he wanted to, no matter what called to him from that world and that life. He could not let Andrei go back to the camp and tell Violet, Nikolai, Shura and Vanya that he had left them without so much as a goodbye. He hated himself for it and he was certain Andrei did too.

The guards had arrived, their grey presence restoring reality, tamping down its edges and making it clear to him that Andrei had been willing to risk the guards killing both of them today in order to make a point. Just what that point was, was less clear. Though the slight ache inside told him he understood, even if he was not yet willing to articulate it to himself.

He felt as if the weight of Russia itself sat upon his shoulders, heavy, dark and bleeding. He wanted to keep going, to run the horse until she died beneath him, and then walk the rest of the way home if that was what it took to leave this graveyard of a country behind. But he could not, and it seemed without even his own volition the horse turned, pewter coat gleaming like armor under the Soviet sun, and trotted back to where Andrei waited.

It was not the first time Jamie’s own nature had been used against him and it wasn’t likely to be the last. It was also, as Andrei well knew, the worst form of betrayal he could have inflicted upon him.

Had the ground opened then and pulled him down to hell, it would not have mattered for Russia had swallowed him whole and he knew, as the horse picked up her pace, steadily bearing him back toward the camp, that he might well have turned from his last chance to go home.

Chapter Fifty-four
September 1974
Married

They were married at sunset, when the air was washed
and hung with gold and red and lilac silks of cloud and silence. A normal Soviet wedding service was a perfunctory and utilitarian sort of thing, devoid of emotion, and culminated in a visit to the nearest statue of Lenin. As the state was not present to perform the wedding, it was makeshift, and in the end quite lovely. Shura performed the rites, and though it was simple, there was nothing perfunctory nor emotionless about it.

It had taken some time to get the license, though this wasn’t uncommon in the Soviet Union, and given their special circumstances Jamie knew they were lucky to get one at all. So it was late September and the autumn already well set in before they were able to marry. Violet was only a couple of months away from her due date and Jamie had worried the license would not come through on time, or that they would be denied the privilege of marrying outright. It was important to Violet to be married before the baby arrived. In this way, she felt he was then officially the baby’s father. A sentiment he was certain Andrei would not share.

The common hut, which normally sported a bleak, decaying atmosphere, was charming tonight, the sagging framework hidden by the sunset pouring in at the windows, its crumbling wooden bones made soft with the touch of candlelight.

Gregor had presented him and Violet with a set of traditional Russian wedding rings which he had Dima make, a man who specialized in fashioning every piece of scrap metal to be found into various items of use. Each ring was made from three interlocking bands, traditionally in gold, but here in a scrap of copper Dima had salvaged.

Jamie, waiting for his bride, thought briefly of his first marriage. How very young he and Colleen had been, how nervous he had felt that morning until he caught sight of her coming up the aisle. It wasn’t likely then he could have imagined standing here in Camp 642, with a vor for his best man, a dwarf officiating, a Soviet clerk serving as witness, and his morning suit now replaced with a white
kosovorotka
, the traditional Russian men’s shirt, and rough black trousers.

Despite the gap of years and customs, he felt a buzzing of nerves all the same. Over the decades the gulag had spawned all sorts of relationships and forms of marriage, some conducted purely by letter, and lasting for years. Some made by couples who had never seen each other’s faces, who said their vows on opposite sides of a wall, who would likely never touch nor see one another. He could understand the need for even that much. People craved love, no matter how dire their circumstances, for love was the only thing that could keep them human in such conditions. It had also afforded the women some protection from the sexual advances and often outright rape of other men. Camp relationships were all the
zeks
had, and they were taken very seriously.

Vanya came in, grinning and nodded to Nikolai, who began to play his own rendition of the wedding march. Violet entered, one hand held ruefully to her belly, a clutch of late roses from the garden in the other. She wore a dress of palest buttercup yellow and above it her copper hair gleamed in the flickering candlelight. When she reached Jamie, he took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

It was simple after that, just the two of them surrounded by those who had formed a strange family from the tattered ends of life in a Soviet labor camp.

In Russia, wedding rings went on the right hand, and it felt oddly comfortable there to Jamie. For this was an entirely different life in another world altogether from the one he had lived in Ireland.

After, there was truly terrible Georgian champagne in tin mugs, and several hearty toasts accompanied by the cry of
Gor-ko
after which the bride and groom were expected to kiss.

Each person kissed them on either cheek and congratulated them on their new marital state—Gregor in his usual hearty fashion, Volodya, polite and shy, but pleased for them and Vanya simply watching their faces with a wistful smile upon his own. Love, Jamie thought smiling at the boy, even in the small doses allowed here could make a man ache for his own lack of it. Shura delighted Violet with bags of herbs that he had specially prepared for her impending motherhood and for the baby.

Nikolai’s blessing was last. He took Jamie’s face between his hands and kissed him briefly on each cheek. “Be happy,
moy droog
.”

Everyone departed into the night, back to the drafty huts, empty mattresses and bittersweet dreams except for the newly wedded couple, who were to spend this one night together.

There was a small hut that sat empty most of the time, unless there was a visitor from the state who, because of the isolation of the camp, had to stay overnight. Valentin had arranged for Violet and Jamie to have it for their wedding night. It had been prepared for them in advance by some kind soul. The small tin stove kept out the chill of the autumn night, the bed made with heavy quilts and pillows. There was a kettle and tea cups on the table and a small pot of raspberry jam. There were even curtains over the windows, giving the hut a snug intimacy. He handed her over the threshold, stepping in from the dark, starred night behind her and shutting the door.

Violet sat on the bed and sighed, her hand going automatically to her belly to stroke the heavy round of it.

“It was, as gulag weddings go, quite a nice event, don’t you think?”

She had meant it as a joke, yet it had been lovely, despite the surroundings.

“It was,” he agreed. “Would you like some tea? I’ll put the kettle on.” It was his Irish soul coming to the fore, he knew. When your nerves got the best of you, making tea bought you the time to steady them.

“Tea would be wonderful,” she said.

He put the kettle on and spooned the tea leaves into the samovar.

“You look very well in that shirt, Yasha,” she said. “I was feeling very proud of how handsome a husband I have.”

He looked at her, serious, giving back the gift she had given him. “I too was proud. You are beautiful always, but especially so tonight.”

“Yasha, you are a wondrous liar.”

He knelt down at her feet to take her shoes off for her. In another life, he might have given her a string of pearls for a gift, or a beautiful house on a seashore, but in this life there was only the offer of what he could give from the labor of his hands and the wells of his heart. He would have her know that such as he had to give was hers entirely.

“Despite circumstances, I should like to be a good husband to you. If you have expectations, I should like to meet them if at all possible.”

“Russians don’t have expectations, Yasha. You surely know that by now. Especially here, it is enough to live with one another when we can, day by day. I should like…” she hesitated, and then rushed on with the words, as though she were afraid if she stopped she might never say it. “I should like for it to be a marriage in all senses of the word. After all, we are not complete strangers in that way. I realize you do not remember, but I do.” She flushed, a blaze of color along each camellia-skinned cheek. She touched the collar of his shirt in question. He took her hand and kissed the back of it then leaned forward to kiss her mouth. She was warm, so warm and his body kindled bright at the touch of her.

To touch and be touched so was almost more than he could bear for it required that he open up those parts of himself he had put away in Russia. It required that he be entirely present, a luxury that was dangerous in this land. He drew back for a moment, frightened by his own need, for he had not expected it to be so overwhelming.

Violet understood it seemed, without him saying a word, for she stood and went to blow out all but two candles, small stars that glowed golden near the bed.

“I think we are both nervous, so you tell me a story first and then maybe we will relax.”

She poured them each a cup of tea, adding a spoon of jam to each saucer. He took the tea gratefully, sitting down on the bed and stretching out his legs. She sat beside him, not touching but close, blew on her tea and closed her eyes, the look of anticipation the one he saw each night before his tales began. This was familiar territory for both of them and he appreciated her wisdom in using it to set the ground beneath this first night of their marriage. Stories were the gateway between worlds and could bridge the distance between friends about to become lovers.

And so he began, each word a span by which they would enter into this new land.

The Tale of Ragged Jack, continued.

It was the dark of the moon and Jack could not remember
the last time he and Aengus had more than bitter herbs or tough roots or shrivelled berries to eat. He was afraid they were wandering in circles and no longer on the trail of the Crooked Man. He wasn’t even sure what world he was in, being that when he went into the frog’s hole it had been winter, and then when he and Aengus had escaped a few hours later—by his own reckoning—it had been spring. This whole place, whatever and wherever it was, was entirely topsy-turvy and Jack could no longer decide what was reality and what might be just a dream. It made him feel decidedly off kilter, as though he had suddenly discovered himself walking amongst the clouds with no ground beneath his feet.

It was the afternoon of a day that belonged to some week, or at least he supposed it must, though perhaps days and weeks and months had no meaning in a world where the seasons changed willy-nilly. He and Aengus were both hungry and he hoped they would find something soon: a patch of berries, some apples forgotten on the tree, or a young hare to cook over a fire. The sun was hot in the sky and butterflies floated past him, blue and red, silver and gold. Ahead of them was a scrim of young birch, so new that they seemed hazed with water-green silk, near translucent in their youth. Jack walked toward it, drawn as though he were a skein of yarn being wound in slowly but surely. As he got closer, he saw that the birches were indeed young, but not exactly birches. They were young women, half-frozen, so well rooted in the soil that they would never be able to extricate themselves. Their long arms and fingers had become the branches and twigs, their hair the weeping of leaves.

He approached them sidelong, hoping to get close before he was noticed. Aengus stuck to his side like a cocklebur, a low humming growl setting up in his throat. It was of no use, for with a great sighing creak one birch turned toward him and stared down a long haughty nose at him.

“Who dares to cross this border?” she asked, the voice green and thick with sap, as much a soughing of the wind and a movement of water through wood as it was words, and yet Jack had no problem understanding.

“Me and my dog,” Jack said, aware his voice was all but lost as more birches turned toward him, their creaks and groans rending the air like a terrible storm.

“Do you and your dog have papers? We need the official forms, dated, signed and stamped by the Ministry of the Oak Warden, or else you cannot cross.”

Jack sighed, for he did not have any sort of papers, though it might have been nice to possess such, just as a way of reminding himself who he was. Seeing it on paper would be reassuring: name, date of birth, place of residence. Such things could anchor a boy into the world more firmly. Such things could make a boy real.

“I have no papers. I am just Jack, called Ragged by some,” he said stoutly, though his heart quailed within his chest.

Now all the trees were looking toward him, all very officious, all very disapproving. He suddenly felt not to have papers was the very worst thing in the world. Without papers he would have to rely on what skills he had.

“You are,” Jack said in a voice as sweet as a harp on the wind, “the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.”

The tree blushed a pale green, tossing her leaves over one bent shoulder.

“Flattery will not get you over the border,” said another birch who had not spoken up until now, her voice dry as autumn leaves. “Only papers will get you over this border, Comrade.”