November, 1941
The Volga River
Three weeks on the river, the hold filled with their catch, they made for the port of Astrakhan. Now was the time of plenty, when they could lay about and talk while Pug took the helm.
Maslow revealed that he and Mitya had been engineering students together. Mitya had gone into the army while Maslow had obtained a position in Moscow that led to his being employed in the construction of the Moscow subway. “It’s an old story,” he explained, “we told them what had to be done, but it would have taken too long. We had to do it their way—and when part of a tunnel collapsed, killing a dozen men, we were sent to prison for sabotage.” He had served eight years, and upon release, had become a black market trader, accumulating enough illicit profit to bribe his way onto the river. “Except on paper, we’re the owners of our boats. And we can always sell part of our catch for ourselves and there’s nothing the Reds can do about it.”
“How did Mitya know where to find you?” Rachel asked.
Maslow chuckled. “He got me out of Siberia by bribing authorities and then invested some of his military pay in my operation.”
Mitya Vodogolin, the most cautious of idealists, a black marketeer? Rachel and Lily were both astounded.
“I go to Moscow twice a year to deliver his share of the profits—or used to. Now you’ll have to take it to him.” Maslow turned to Rachel. “Why are you so surprised? The only way to survive under Stalin is to cheat. Look at you—drawing posters to save one tyrant from another.”
“I don’t think about anything except the Nazis.”
“There’s no difference!” Rostow exclaimed. “Stalin is more insidious but every bit as vicious. If I were you I’d forget I even knew how to draw until the war’s over. Get a job mopping floors.”
Having made his pronouncement with indisputable finality, Rostow got abruptly to his feet and went up to the deck.
“Did I do anything to provoke him?”
“Nothing.” Lily looked thoughtfully at Rostow’s empty chair. “Like a lot of Russians these days, he doesn’t like the life he has to lead.”
Her time out in the sun had revived Lily’s spirit. Looking at her now, it was almost impossible for Rachel to believe she was the same person whose will-to-live almost collapsed back in Moscow.
“Mitya thinks just like him. No compromise. He wanted me to leave you behind.”
“They want you to be careful you don’t get in over your head is all.”
“I’ve been wondering what I would do if I can’t uncover any trace of Michael.”
“And.”
“I don’t know. It would be tempting to contact Avilov and offer to take a commission from him in exchange for . . .”
“Locating Michael.”
Rachel nodded.
“I can understand your wanting to do anything you could to save him, but remember what the statue did to you. Michael wouldn’t want that.”
“I know.”
Yet, could she simply abandon any hope of ever finding him? That would require a cynicism like Maslow’s, and she would never allow herself to become like him. The same force that drove her to create demanded more of her.
That night Maslow docked the Avatar at an island that appeared deserted except for the existence of a single row of slips. “You stay below,” he ordered Rachel. He then instructed Lily to put her hair up under her cap and pretend to be a man.
Rachel followed his instructions, though she hated being cooped up in the stuffy cabin. She didn’t even try to go to sleep; there was too much tension in the air. She guessed what Maslow was going to do, and her conjecture was confirmed shortly after midnight when she heard the sound of approaching engines thumping, their vibrations shivering through the Avatar’s frame. Waves slapped against the Avatar’s hull, rocking the craft.
All at once, the thumping ceased, and Rachel heard voices shouting back and forth across the water. She opened the cabin door a crack and peeked out. The hull of the visitor ship rose above them; the Avatar was now tied up to the larger ship like a parasite fish to a shark.
Lily and Pug were near the forward hold, positioning a large net over the hatch. A crane extended from the larger craft and a boom dropped down to the net.
A rope-ladder dropped from one deck to the other, and Rachel saw Maslow’s big frame lumber across the flat deck of the great barge. He turned and waved at Pug, who initiated the unloading of fish as Maslow went into the barge’s pilothouse.
Rachel watched the crane pull up net after net, bulging with silvery shapes, and lift them effortlessly into the air to the open hatch in its forward deck. The tonnage vanished without a trace into its vast caverns. It would be impossible for such a large ship to escape being noticed by the authorities.
For two hours the unloading continued, until Pug, responding to a signal from Maslow, covered the hatch. Maslow went back into the barge’s pilothouse and both ships were engulfed by silence.
They waited in vain for Maslow’s return. After an hour, Pug began gesturing frantically toward the barge as he spoke to Lily. Certain that something was wrong, Rachel went out on deck.
“Maslow should have come back,” Lily explained. “Pug is worried because the war has made the fish ten times more valuable.”
“And there’s nothing to stop them from taking it all,” Rachel observed.
Another hour passed. Pug indicated that he wanted to climb the rope ladder up to the deck of the barge. “NO!” Rachel and Lily shouted in unison.
As though in response, they heard a sharp loud noise like the sudden crack of a tree limb on a frozen winter day. It was followed by a heavy crash and two more cracks.
“Gunshots,” Rachel said, recalling the sound of the guns in the garden.
Pug jerked her arm and dragged her behind him across the deck to the small rowboat that was tied to the deck, hull up. Lily followed, and Pug slashed the ropes with his knife; they lifted the boat and dropped it over the side, followed by two oars, and without pausing to look back, all three followed the boat into the water.
Rachel went in feet first only a few yards from the rowboat. The water wasn’t as cold as the Baltic, and she rose to the surface without difficulty and easily reached the boat, grasping its sidewall. She held on, as Pug swam over and grabbed the other side. They balanced the boat for Lily, who reached the bow and pulled herself up and over the edge. While Rachel held on, Pug recovered the oars and shoved them into the boat. Lily first helped Rachel and then Pug in.
Pub inserted the oars and got them underway. Even as they passed beneath the stern of the Avatar, they heard voices above and search lights scoured the river for them. With short strong strokes, Pug got them away and into the main current; when the light found them, they were already moving too swiftly downstream to make a viable target. A few harmless shots were fired in their direction, but Pug ignored them and continued rowing without missing a beat.
The swift flowing current took them out of sight of the two ships. Pug pulled the oars out of the water and moved to the stern. Using one of the oars as a rudder, he held the boat on a steady course.
“Astrakhan. Tomorrow night,” he said.
Rachel huddled with Lily against one side of the bow. The cold air wafted across their faces and wet clothes, and they held each other until they fell asleep. They didn’t awake until the sun had risen in the pellucid sky and they felt its warming rays.
They saw a landscape transformed, stripped of green and made up of denuded hills of varied sand shades. The river had broadened out to become a watery plain, interspersed with hundreds of small islands.
“Delta,” Pug explained.
From the shore came a hot southern wind that smelled of the desert. Far off down-river, they could just make out what looked like a white wedding cake on one of the islands.
“Astrakhan?”
Pug nodded.
The city was perched on an inlet; behind it was the Caspian Sea. Across the sea lay the desert kingdom of Russia.
“Pug, we have no money,” Rachel said. “How can we get across?”
Pug patted his waist. “Here’s your money.” He lifted his shirt to reveal a money belt. “You follow me to boat. I take care for you.”
They reached the northern side of the island at mid-afternoon. Pug led them at a near run through the riverport to the seaport, guarded by the white walled fortress, shimmering in the sunlight. Astrakhan was, they saw, two cities, one Russian and the other Moslem. Winding streets took them through tangled Casbahs populated by dark-skinned men in robes who chattered in loud voices. Pug bought them a goatskin water-bag for the desert, and for Rachel, a pencil and pad of paper, arguing fiercely with the merchants in their strange language.
Rachel found the aroma of spices and incense intoxicating. They squatted and ate skewers of lamb cooked over open braziers and drank thick coffee half filled with grounds. Rachel would have wandered for hours among the stalls, examining the stacks of luminous silk, the hookahs and urns, all redolent of the desert that waited for them on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea. But Pug hurried them to the docks, where he seemed to know everyone.
Berthed there was the ferry to Krasnovodsk. He left them at the crowded gangplank to the ferry and went aboard; when he returned he shepherded them past the crowd, ignoring their hisses of protest, and took them onto the boat.
“Here. For you.” He stuffed wads of cash into Rachel’s pockets.
“But what will you do?”
“Go back to the river. And fish. Fish and sing.” He grinned.
Rachel hugged him. Always she wanted to remember this man and the river that was his life. “Thank you.”
He looked back towards the delta. “I belong to river. Not the sea.”
“I understand.” She smiled, tearfully. “Good luck.”
“You too.” He kissed her on the brow and vanished. She ran to the railing and watched him weave his way back through the casbahs to the river.
Lily was sitting in the shade, her back against the cool planks.
“I loved him,” Rachel said.
“He was a strange little man,” Lily remarked.