,” he says. “Histilόsalas ish hí
at ishatash ti
al. 
wíxwa álita. Xwokwόdis.”[10]
Yakov tilts his cap back and squints and frowns as he listens to the old man, but it’s clear from his face that he understands nothing. Kotelnikov is alternately sullen and defiant as he huffs, shakes his head, and puffs out his burly chest. No one interrupts the old man who continues as though he’s telling a long story. However, two or three men slide along the walls to the doorway and leave the house.
I try to concentrate but my feet ache and soon my attention also drifts.
There’s a heavy pillar in the corner, not far behind the head of the man who’s speaking. Just like the rattle, it’s carved, but with designs and images that look as though they’ve been plucked from a madman’s feverish dreams. They’re creatures. That much I can tell. Eyes, yes, hands, yes, mouths upturned or deeply frowning—but horns and claws and pointed teeth and tongues, too—and too many of everything, not attached where they should be, all encased in ovals. What these creatures represent is impossible to say. I look around me. Every pillar in the house—there are eight altogether—is similarly carved, but all the designs differ. In the firelight, though I know they’re only blocks of wood, I expect the eyes to shift, the lips to part, and the tongues to unfurl as they come to life.
Maria nudges me, and I shift my attention back to the man and try again to concentrate. After a long time and a short time, the old man’s story or speech finishes. Surely, the talking is over.
But no. Here’s another man coming forward. Younger than the first two, this man has enormous half-moon eyebrows. At first I think he’s painted them on, but then I realize they’re real. Tangled and dark, they hood his eyes and resemble the eyebrows of the carved figures on the posts. The rest of his body—his face, arms, and legs—are smooth. His legs are muscular, thick like tree trunks.
As with the first speaker, he addresses us. He starts with Yakov, who nods at him but says nothing. Maria won’t meet his eye, and so he turns to Kotelnikov, who scowls and opens his mouth as if to say something but thinks better of it. Kotelnikov’s lost a brass button and his black-green jacket gapes open, his big belly straining against the fabric, the white of his linen shirt like a feather easing its way out of a pillow.
Then, the man with the eyebrows turns to me. He says, “Xwa wípaťot 
i 
ćhí
a, chi titsíya, halakitkatasalaxw 
hikástoli.”[11] Then he waits.
I look away, but he continues to watch me. “Wacush,” I finally say. It’s Timofei Osipovich’s word and I don’t know exactly what it means—it didn’t work when I gave the ukha to Koliuzhi Klara—but the koliuzhi seem to respond to it.
The man with the eyebrows startles. Smothered laughter ripples through the house. My hands tremble.
Kotelnikov turns on me. “Madame Bulygina! You will provoke him!”
This eyebrow man is most certainly not provoked. The corners of his mouth twitch. Is he, too, about to laugh?
“Yakov? Help me, Yakov,” I say softly.
Yakov looks down and shakes his head.
The eyes of the eyebrow man flit like dragonflies from me to the others, and eventually come to rest on me. Then he begins to speak again. He’s not angry—of this I’m certain—but equally he’s not happy. He’s telling me something. When he finally pauses again, I have no choice.
“Wacush. We can’t understand you. Do you understand me? We come from Russia. We’re stranded here. We didn’t mean to…” I think of the battle. What word is right for what happened? “…disturb you. We have no way to get back home, except if we can get to another Russian ship—it’s waiting about sixty miles away. If you’ll just let us go, please, in the name of God, we’ll go and leave you alone.
“We’re very tired and hungry, and we left everything on the ship. Keep it all. We have no use for it now.” They don’t need to know we’ve jettisoned so much. “We carry only what we need for our journey—a few things to eat, our muskets—”
“Madame Bulygina! Stop!” Kotelnikov snaps.
“They don’t know what she’s saying,” Yakov chides softly. And he’s right—I can tell by their puzzled looks that while they may have understood “wacush,” that’s all.
The gathering then, inexplicably, breaks up. Where’s everyone going? I can’t understand anything. All the signposts I possess have been torn from the ground and thrown in a river; they float away beyond reach.
We don’t move, we four, until finally two little boys take Yakov by the arms and pull him to the other side of the fire. Old Yakov looks down at them with surprise and bemusement, and does not struggle. The boys giggle and offer the big, toothy smiles of children whose milk teeth have fallen out, but whose faces have not grown big enough to accommodate their new adult teeth.
When they arrive at the side of the man with the golden cape and the rattle, who’s seated, the boys gesture to Yakov to sit down. The man with the golden cape looks up at Yakov and gives a short nod. Yakov sits and removes his cap. The young boys then come back for the rest of us. We sit on a cedar mat. The earthen floor is dry and slightly warm from the fire.
Then, Koliuzhi Klara sets before us a long tray.
She pushes it forward until it presses against my knees. “Wacush,” she says mischievously, looking pointedly at me. She smiles when I blush.
The tray contains a mound of unidentifiable pink-brown mush. Maria cries, “Kizhuch!” I take a closer look—she’s right. It’s salmon again. Chunks of fish swim in a shiny broth. Steam rises from the tray. Why are they feeding us? Is this a trick? I look to Kotelinikov, Yakov, and Maria; they’ve already plunged their fingers into the food. Kotelnikov is gobbling like a half-starved pig at a trough.
Is this entire tray meant for us? Or are we to help ourselves and then pass it to others? I’m starving, too, but I don’t know what to do.
A woman sitting on the opposite side of the fire has noted my hesitation. She was cooking earlier; clamping tongs around the hot stones and sliding them into the boxes of water. Does she think I don’t want her food? That I don’t find it good enough? I hear my mother’s voice chastising my manners—so I pinch a scrap of fish between my fingers.
Once the food touches my tongue, I can’t stop. I cram handful after handful of fish into my mouth. The wiry bones slow me down a bit, but with my tongue, I push them from between my lips. Having nowhere to put them, I hold them in my other hand.
The hunger I’ve been staving off for so long raises its head to ask: where have you been, Anna Petrovna Bulygina? I feed it, feed myself, eat and eat until there’s nothing left on our tray, every little drop of oil has been licked from my fingertips, and my hand is full of small bones.
That night, I lie on a coarse cedar mat on the smooth earthen floor. Broad wooden benches rim the walls, but they’re occupied by others.
Cedar mats, propped upright, divide some of the sleeping areas and provide a little privacy. But I can still see into most of them. People in these compartments sleep in clusters looking like bumps along a treacherous road. Men, women, and children are heaped alongside one another. Are they families? Are they random groupings?
I’m quite far from the fire and I’m cold. Maria shares the cedar mat and a soft cedar cover that’s far too small for two people. I’m fatigued but too chilly to sleep. I listen to Maria’s breathing. I can tell she’s awake.
10
Those strangers didn’t kill the Indians with their thunder sticks. They gave us gifts and bought fish or animal fur.