Riding Icarus (8 page)

For the first time, Masha didn’t just think about how mean Anastasia was. She thought how awful it must be having parents like Igor and Anya, and maybe that was why Anastasia wasn’t very nice.

Masha guessed she was probably in disgrace after that. Feeling small and lost, she slipped outside again and round the silent house to the drive. There stood the driver, polishing the Mercedes to an even richer shine.

“It’s time for me to go,” Masha said. The driver turned towards her, his eyes obscured as always behind the blank sunglasses. “I can get the bus,” she added quickly, disconcerted by the sight of her pale, nervous face looking back at her from the gleaming rounds of glass.

“What are you doing?”

She spun round. Igor was leaning over the pretty white balcony that looked out onto the drive, smoking and studying her in a reflective manner.

“It’s time for me to go,” she repeated, trying to sound bold.

“Oh, really?” He raised an eyebrow. “But we had all sorts of nice things planned for you, young lady. All sorts of … surprises. It’s a little ungrateful of you to sneak off like this. Bad manners. It’s your poor upbringing showing again.”

“They’re waiting for me at home.” Masha was angry and ashamed to hear her voice come out high and squeaky.

“And now the lies. How can they be waiting for you at home? You haven’t got a home now, have you, Masha?”

“I have!” she cried. “I’m staying with Gena and Ira, and they’re waiting for me, and when Granny gets better I’ll live with her, and then when Mama comes back we’ll live together.”

“That’s a lot of
and whens
. I’ll add another one.
And when
your mother tells you what she was doing in Turkey, you might find you don’t want to live with her after all.”

“What do you mean?”

Uncle Igor simply went on smoking and gazing at her in that cold, speculative manner. At last he said, “Never mind. Come back and visit soon. You’ll be living here before too long, part of one big happy family. Until then…”

He snapped his fingers at the driver.

“Take her back.”

M
asha wandered slowly past the market towards the garages. She felt hot and sticky and unhappy. She’d been left on her own today, and she didn’t know what to do with herself in an empty flat that was no longer hers. At the back of her mind she could still hear Uncle Igor saying,
You haven’t got a home now, have you, Masha?

She was lonely. She wanted to talk to someone about Granny in hospital, and about her awful visit to Tsarskoe Selo two days ago. Could Uncle Igor really make her live with him as he had threatened? And then there was her mysterious second birthday. When
was
the second midsummer’s eve? Could her present be the treasure Nechipor said was buried in the enchanted place?

If only she could dream in the daytime! Then the little Cossack girl would be there and she could talk about it all, and perhaps her friend would have some answers. She put her hands on the woven belt tied round her waist and tried hard to imagine the Cossack girl: her green trousers and red boots, her smiling face under a mop of dark curly hair. But it was only a dream; she was still alone.

At the entrance to the garages, three hot dogs lay flat on their sides in the dust. One of them lifted its head and gave her a panting, doggy smile. She stepped over it carefully and went in.

“Is Fyodor Ivanovich here?” she called up to the man sitting in the watchman’s cabin. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in reply.

Behind the cabin and surrounded by garages was a small yard full of dented cars and half-finished church cupolas. The cars were brought here to have the dents smoothed out of them, and the onion-shaped domes, taller than Masha and much fatter, were here to have a skin of gleaming metal draped over their wooden skeletons. Masha watched as a man sitting on a pile of old car bumpers worked and stroked at a sheet of metal, easing it little by little to lie smooth and buttercup yellow over the curve of the dome. When it was snugly in place he looked up, and it was Fyodor Ivanovich.

“Hello,” he greeted her. “Have you come to give me a hand?”

Masha looked admiringly at the half-finished cupola, with its round belly and tapering top. “It looks difficult.”

“Not really. You just have to be gentle with it.”

Masha sat down on a tyre near by. It was soothing watching his hands shaping the bright metal. “Where are they for?”

“The new church in Podil.” Fyodor Ivanovich put his head on one side and surveyed his work critically. “Not real gold, of course. The ones in the Lavra monastery are gold leaf.”

“What about the church here, down by the river? Are you going to make any domes for that?”

“It’s already got a dome. It could do with some repairs, though, you’re right; it’s all faded, poor thing. Maybe I can think of a way to brighten it up.”

“Do you think that church can somehow … move about? I mean, be visible from particular places at particular times, and not at others?”

“That’s a funny question.” Fyodor Ivanovich straightened up from his makeshift seat and rubbed his back, groaning. “Some game you’re playing, is it? Where’s young Gena today?”

“At the dentist’s, with his mother.” Masha tried not to sound plaintive, but Fyodor Ivanovich’s face turned compassionate. He had befriended her and Granny when they’d moved into Icarus, and he’d been unfailingly kind, helping them furnish the trolleybus, dig the outside toilet and build the goats’ pen.

“Is your granny still in hospital?” he asked. “What about your mother – any word?”

Masha shook her head. Why was everybody asking about her mother, all of a sudden?

“Tell you what, Masha. I’m going to see my sister on Thursday. Why don’t you come with me? The baby would love it; he took such a shine to you last time.”

Fyodor Ivanovich’s sister lived right across Kiev, quite close to Uncle Igor’s house. The baby was actually a toddler; Masha had kept him occupied for several hours playing shops when she’d visited, putting things in and out of bags and exchanging bits of paper.

She realized Fyodor Ivanovich was trying to cheer her up. “I’d like that.”

“All right. Come down here on Thursday morning and we’ll go together.”

“I will.” Masha got up to leave. “Thanks.”

Down by the river it was cooler, and the sand slipped and shuffled under her feet familiarly. She visited the goats. They chomp-chomped away at the thick grass and didn’t pay her much attention.

“What shall I do?” whispered Masha into the silky pink, black-speckled ear of the kid. “Where do I find my heart’s desire?”

The kid shook its head so its ears flapped, and looked meaningfully out towards the river. “Maaa,” it said.

Masha looked too. A thin, grey plume of smoke rose vertically into the air above the island, like a finger pointing skywards.

“How can I get there?” Masha asked. But the kid was engrossed in a nice green willow branch.

Perhaps she would find a fisherman beside the river to take her across, so she could finally investigate the smoke. Masha was quite sure it wasn’t just a shashlik party like Gena had said. It was something special, and specially to do with her. She ambled down the bank, hoping to find someone fishing beneath the willows. The faded blue dome of the church appeared on her right, and she scowled at it.

Along the riverbank a few people sunbathed, supine and almost naked in the grass. Nothing, not even a sun-dazed fish, broke the glittering water surface. The sky pulsed with light; the crickets whirred inexorably, winding the day to its pitch of brightness and heat. Masha drifted into a sort of walking dream.

A tremendous noise from the trees ahead startled her out of it. It was a snorting, roaring, whistling sound. She approached cautiously and peered through the leaves. She saw a shaded sandy hollow, almost entirely filled by the big round figure of Nechipor. The Cossack, lying comfortably with his hands folded over his bulging belly and his hat tipped over his eyes, was taking an afternoon nap. And to Masha’s delight, he was leaning against a little boat. What incredible good luck!

“Nechipor!” called Masha softly. More loudly: “Hey,
Nechipor
!”

The Cossack’s droopy moustache twitched once, twice, he sneezed hugely, his hat fell off and he opened his eyes.

“Who? What? Can’t a fellow get even forty winks in peace? What the devil – oh, it’s you,” he said more calmly as he caught sight of Masha. “What d’you want, young scamp? Or do you just think it’s fun to go round waking up old snoozing walruses, eh?”

“Oh no,” said Masha earnestly. “I’m sorry I woke you, but I so wanted… Won’t you, Nechipor – I mean, please will you take me across the river in your boat?”

“Humph.” Nechipor retrieved his hat and stuck it back over his topknot. “I was planning to go fishing. Can you fish?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never tried.”

“Never tried?” he exclaimed. “Well, pickle my whiskers! All right then. Seeing as you’ve woken me up, you can come along and help me catch a big fat fish for my supper.”

“What’s so interesting about the island?” the Cossack enquired as he rowed slowly out into the river. Masha sat in the bow of the boat, amid a clutter of fishing nets and hooks.

She pointed at the smoke pencilling a faint bluish line up into the sky. “I just have this feeling,” she tried to explain. “It’s like trying to find the magic place between the dovecote and the church. I’m sure there’s something special there.”

Nechipor looked over his shoulder at the smoke. “It’s a witches’ wood,” he muttered.

“Witches?”

“Oak trees and crows. Witches’ favourites. I feel a twitching of my moustache, young Masha. I’m not sure I like it.”

“What does it mean if your moustache twitches?” asked Masha, trying to see if it really was.

“It means a strange smell. A suspicious smell. I might even say the stink of that filthy old devil, may he choke on his own pong.”

The oak trees ahead were a dark, sullen green, and after the dazzling glitter of the water the shadows beneath them looked black. The sun was blazing down but suddenly Masha trembled all over, as if cold air were blowing straight from those terribly dense shadows. But the trickle of smoke drew her, and the feeling that she was going to find something important grew. As the prow of the boat ran ashore onto the sand she hopped out, leaving her sandals tangled among the fishing line.

The shade beneath the trees was not as dark as it had looked from the river. Sunlight lay in brilliant yellow patches between the deeper pools of shadow. When she stepped into the shade the grass was cold, lapping round her legs like water. The way between the trees looked intensely green and enticing, laced with ferns and the twinkle of little yellow and purple blooms, and the dead afternoon stillness here was broken by the tiniest rustles and shivers, as if a thousand distant voices were whispering about her passing. She walked on towards the heart of the island with a shudder of anticipation.

Soon the sunlight reaching through the trees split into dusty spokes and there was a smell of woodsmoke. Masha emerged into a sunny clearing alive with butterflies. At the same moment as she saw a thin, red-haired woman crouched over a pot on a fire, the trees around her suddenly exploded with crows that flew shrieking and clattering into the air.

The woman jumped to her feet and turned a white, scared face towards her. It took a minute for Masha to recognize her. Then through the uproar of the crows she shrieked, “Mama!” and ran across the grass into her mother’s arms.