IT WASN’T NEARLY AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMED. A FLOOR BETWEEN A FIRST AND A SECOND STORY IS NOT JUST A THICK BOARD. IT IS A STRUCTURE MADE of beams, with a space of six inches or more in between the ceiling on the first floor and the floorboard of the second floor.
Nikolai and I were inexperienced carpenters, much more comfortable in a field or a schoolroom than with tools in hand. We began our work in the closet on the second floor after clearing it out and removing the shelves so we had room to stand and work.
Our first job was to take out the floorboards. Whoever built the farmhouse had done an exceptionally good job. The boards seemed hard as stone, and so tightly laid together that it took us what felt like hours before we were able to remove our first one. Even then we struggled not to crack them near where they were nailed down.
Nikolai and I sat in the dimly lit closet catching our breath. “Zasha could have her puppies before we get this done,” my brother said, looking down at the small area missing its covering of oak.
“There’s no other answer. We have to do this.” After a moment I added, “I’ll bet if Papa were here, he could figure this out for us.”
“If Papa were here,” Nikolai said with a sigh, “he’d be brave enough to defy the whole world. He’d take Zasha walking out in the open and dare any man to challenge him.” He picked up a crowbar to pry out another narrow strip of wood.
“Why aren’t we doing that?”
“I don’t know. Because we’re not men yet. Because we have Mother and Rina to think about. Because we don’t know enough about the world to be certain we could keep Zasha, or that no harm would come to her.”
“You’re practically a man,” I offered. “I’m just thirteen.”
Nikolai laughed. “At last you admit I am a man and you are a puny child.”
“Hey,” I said, pushing him playfully, “that’s not what I meant.”
“Prove it, then. Remove all the floorboards yourself.”
“Give me the other crowbar and we’ll see who the man is.”
It was just three hours later that the eight-foot-by-five-foot linen closet was stripped bare of all traces of an oak floor.
“Now comes the hard part,” Nikolai said, looking over the thick crossbeams that formed the support between the ceiling below and the floor we’d removed. I was tired and the muscles in my arms hurt, but I didn’t want to admit that to Nikolai.
“What do we do next?”
“We have to cut around the edge of this closet, through the beams, and through the ceiling of the closet below.”
“But you have to kneel on it to cut it. Won’t it collapse and drop you down to the floor below?”
“I was hoping to avoid that,” he joked.
“Maybe I should get on a ladder downstairs and start sawing, too.”
“Why don’t you go to the barn and see if the saw blades are rusted. Look for some long nails, heavy ones, and some hinges.” I was relieved to be out of the closed space, and ran to the barn.
All of our tools, implements, and odds and ends were stored on shelves in the far corner of the barn. I sorted through several glass jars filled with screws, nails, washers, and other miscellaneous bits of materials. The supplies were skimpy and uneven; nothing had been replenished since the war broke out, when almost anything made of metal disappeared from the shelves. The nails I found were small, rusted, and slightly bent — nothing that would support our design for a hiding place for Zasha.
The saws needed scrubbing with a wire brush, and a thin coat of oil; it took about fifteen minutes to finish. When I was done, I found Nikolai at the kitchen table having cheese and bread. I helped myself to some and told him between bites, “We don’t have any nails or hinges.”
“Can you go into town and buy some?”
I nodded. “Anything else I should look for?”
“Not yet,” Nikolai answered. “It’s better if we go there in several small trips … not arouse any suspicions.”
I took a container marked Flour out of a cabinet near the sink and put it on the kitchen table. It was where my mother kept a small amount of money for household purchases. I hoped what I took would be enough for what we needed. Zasha walked me to the front door, acting very much like she wanted to go. “No, girl,” I said, kneeling down and scratching behind her ears. “You may not be going out again for some time. Would you call her, Nikolai?” I asked. “I don’t want anyone to see her when I open the door.”
“Zasha, kitchen!” he cried, and she obeyed, trotting off to join him. Being careful was a habit that was already paying off, I learned, as I opened the front door and saw my mother, Rina, and Alex Golovin pulling up in front of the house in the ancient truck Mr. Golovin held together with baling wire, ingenuity, and a dose of magic.
Rina jumped down from the back and bounded up the stairs two at a time. “You’re not going to believe what I saw!” she said breathlessly, and ran past me into the house. I followed her like a dog after its master.