A Silver Willow by the Shore by Kelli Stuart

Author:Kelli Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fine Print Publishing
Published: 2019-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

Elizaveta

You can’t move faster than your shadow.

I remember exactly the day that I decided to lock away the past. I remember the chill in the air and the lilt of a bird floating on the wind above my head. I can pinpoint the moment in time when I made the choice to keep my memories hidden, stuffing them into a corner of my subconscious and willing them away, only to be haunted by them instead. I remember it now so vividly as I watch Nina and Nastia...Annie, move.

Mother and daughter float past one another in the kitchen, Nina stealing soft glances at Annie from time to time, a look of concern and heartache writing a story through her dark eyes, and I recall the feeling of pulling away from my own mother. I remember the way it felt when she looked at me, how she studied me so closely as she tried to figure me out, and the more she studied, the tighter I held my secrets until I couldn’t hold her at bay any longer. She had figured me out.

The first secret I kept from my mother was during our second year in Siberia. I didn’t tell her about the man’s hungry eyes or groping hands. I didn’t let her know what he said to me behind closed doors. I couldn’t tell her these things because to do so would have meant sure death for us all.

Our situation had changed since our early days in the holding camp. We were no longer living in the overcrowded barracks, trying desperately to survive the howling winter winds. Now we stayed in a small, brown house outside the camp. The house had a fireplace where mother could keep embers burning through the night to stave off the cold that still seemed to seep through the ill-fitting slats of the walls. We ate one full meal each day, and Mama often brought home enough bread and potatoes for us to eat a good breakfast in the mornings, too. We were warm and fed. But we were not safe.

Our placement in this little cabin came about by sheer luck and a little bit of quick thinking by my Mama. It happened in the spring of that first year, as the ground beneath us began to thaw and Tanya’s cough subsided. We had survived the winter, and this made Mama brave.

Dima and I still trekked to the one room schoolhouse each day, where we continued to endure the abuses of Valerya Sergeyevna, whose every lesson reminded us of just how unwanted we were to our great and growing Soviet society. Despite the fact that she no longer had the protection of the wind to hide her whispered words of rebellion, Mama continued to read to us each night from her scriptures, the pages of her precious book growing faded and worn. It didn’t matter, though. Mama knew most of the words by heart. It was her rebellion that ultimately saved us. Her rebellion got us out of the camp.

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