1972
“Not, not
mine; it’s somebody else’s wound.
I could never have borne it. So take the thing
that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground.
Whisk the lamps away…
Night.”
--Anna Ahkmatova
Prologue
On the banks of the mighty Columbia River, in this icy
season when every breath became visible, the orchard called
Belye Nochi was quiet. Dormant apples trees
stretched as far as the eye could see, their sturdy roots
coiled deep in the cold, fertile soil. As temperatures
plummeted and color drained from land and sky, the whitened
landscape caused a kind of winter blindness; one day became
indistinguishable from the next. Everything froze, turned
fragile.
Nowhere was the cold and quiet more noticeable than in
Meredith Whitson’s own house. At twelve, she had already
discovered the empty spaces that gathered between people.
She longed for her family to be like those she saw on
television, where everything looked perfect and everyone
got along. No one, not even her beloved father, understood
how alone she often felt within these four walls, how invisible.
But tomorrow night, all of that would change.
She had come up with a brilliant plan. She had written a
play based on one of her mother’s fairy tales, and she
would present it at the annual Christmas party. It was
exactly the kind of thing that would happen on an episode
of The Partridge Family.
“How come I can’t be the star?” Nina whined. It was at
least the tenth time she’d asked this question since
Meredith had finished the script.
Meredith turned around in her chair and looked down at her
nine-year-old sister, who was crouched on the wooden floor
of their bedroom, painting a mint green castle on an old bed
sheet.
Meredith bit her lower lip, trying not to frown. The castle
was all wrong. Too bright, too bold, too messy. It would
have to be fixed. She got up, holding the treasured script
in her hand, and went to her sister, kneeling beside her.
“We’ve talked about this, Nina.”
“But why can’t I be the peasant girl who marries the
prince?”
“Jeff is playing the prince and he’s thirteen. You’d look
silly next to him. And besides, your part is important,
Neens. Without the younger sister, the prince and the
peasant girl would never meet.”
“I guess.” Nina put her paintbrush in the empty soup can
and sat back on her heels. With her short, tangled black
hair, bright green eyes, and pale skin, she looked like a
perfect little pixie. “Can I be the peasant girl next year?”
Meredith put an arm across Nina’s narrow, bony back. “Of
course.” She loved the idea that she might be creating a
family tradition. All of her friends had traditions, but
not the Whitsons; they had always been different. There was
no stream of relatives who came to their house on holidays,
no turkey on Thanksgiving or ham on Easter, like everyone
else she knew, no prayers that were always said. Heck, they
didn’t even know for sure how old their mom was.
It was because Mom was Russian, and alone in this country.
Or, at least that was what Dad said. Mom didn’t say much
of anything about herself.
A knock at the door surprised Meredith. She looked up just
as Jeff Cooper and her father came into the room.
Meredith felt like one of those long, floppy balloons being
slowly filled with air, taking on a new form with each
breath, and in this case, the breath was Jeffrey Cooper.
“Jeff,” she said, her voice catching only the smallest
amount. Her cheeks grew hot at the obviousness of his
effect on her. They’d been best friends since fourth grade,
but lately it felt different to be around him. Sometimes
when he looked at her, she could barely breathe. “You’re
right on time for rehearsal.”
He gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles. “Just don’t
tell Joey and the guys. They’d give me a ton of crap for
this.”
“About rehearsal,” her dad said, stepping forward. He had
just come home from work, and he was still wearing his
favorite brown leisure suit with the bell bottoms and the
orange top stitching. His curly black hair reached the
collar, and his bushy moustache made it hard to tell if he
were smiling. He held out the script. “This is the play
you’re doing?”
Meredith got slowly to her feet. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
Nina stood up. Her heart-shaped face was
uncharacteristically solemn. “Will she?”
The three of them looked at each other over the expanse of
the Picasso-style green castle dand the costumes laid out
across the bed. Meredith found herself leaning forward
expectantly. The truth they passed between themselves, in
looks alone, was that Anya Whitson was a cold woman; any
warmth she had was directed at her husband and even her
neighbors and friends. Precious little of it reached her
daughters. When they were younger, Dad had tried to pretend
it was otherwise, to redirect their attention like a
magician, mesmerizing them with the brightness of his
affection, but like all illusions, the truth ultimately
appeared behind it.
So they all knew what Meredith was asking.
“I don’t know, Meredoodle,” Dad said, reaching into his
pocket for his cigarettes. “Your mother’s stories—”
“I love it when she tells them to us,” Meredith said.
“It’s the only time she really talks to us,” Nina added.
Dad lit a cigarette and stared at them through a swirl of
gray smoke, his brown eyes narrowed. “Yeah,” he said,
exhaling. “It’s just…”
Meredith moved toward him, careful not to step on the
painting. She understood his hesitation; none of them ever
really knew what would set Mom off, but this time Meredith
was sure she had the answer. If there was one thing her
mother loved, it was this fairy tale. “It only takes ten
minutes, Dad. I timed it. Everyone will love it.”
He hesitated, almost as if he wanted to tell her that this
brilliant idea to stage a play during the company Christmas
party was a mistake, but she knew that in the end, he’d give
in. He loved her too much to say no.
“Okay, then,” he said finally.
She felt a swell of pride. And hope. It would work. For
once she wouldn’t spend the party in some shadowy corner of
the living room, reading, or in the kitchen, washing
dishes. Instead, she would be the center of her mother’s
attention. This play would prove that Meredith had listened
to every precious word Mom had ever said to her, even those
few that were spoken softly, in the dark, at story time.
For the next hour, Meredith directed her actors through
rehearsal, although really only Jeff needed help. She and
Nina had heard this fairy tale for years.
And what a story it was! Meredith had added some personal
bits and pieces (she imagined this was a playwright’s
prerogative, and besides, her mother only told the
stories at night, she didn’t write them), like a magical
wishing well and an enchanted mirror. But even without the
extras, it was as good as any movie, this story of a
reckless peasant girl who fell in love with the handsome
prince and ran off to be with him, and of the evil black
knight who wanted to crush them.
When the rehearsal was over and everyone went their
separate ways, Meredith kept working. She made a sign that
read: One Night Only: A Grand Play for the
Holiday and listed their three names. She touched up
the painted backdrop (it was impossible to fix entirely;
Nina always colored outside of the lines), and then
positioned it in the living room. When the set was ready,
she added sequins to the tulle ballet skirt-turned princess
gown that she would wear at the end. It was nearly two in
the morning by the time she went to bed. And even then,
she was so excited that it took a long time for her to fall
asleep.
The next day seemed to pass slowly, but finally, at six
o’clock, the guests began to arrive. It was not a big crowd,
just the usual people: men and women who worked for the
orchard and their families, a few neighbors, and Dad’s only
living relative, his sister, Dora.
Meredith sat at the top of the stairs, staring down at the
entryway below. She couldn’t help tapping her foot on the
step, wondering when she could make her move.
Just as she was about to stand up, she heard a clanging,
rattling sound.
Oh, no. She shot to her feet and rushed down the
stairs, but it was too late.
Nina was in the kitchen, banging a pot with a metal spoon
and yelling out, “Show time!” No one knew how to steal the
limelight like Nina.
There was a smattering of laughter as the guests made their
way from the kitchen to the living room, where the painting
of the castle hung from an aluminum movie screen set up
beside the massive fireplace. To the right was a large
Christmas tree, decorated with drugstore lights and the
ornaments Nina and Meredith had made over the years. In
front of the painting was their “stage;” a small wooden
bridge that rested on the hardwood floor and a streetlamp
made from cardboard, with a flashlight duct taped to the top.
Meredith dimmed the lights and then ducked behind the
painted backdrop. Nina and Jeff were already there, in
their costumes.
There was no real privacy back here. If she leaned a little
sideways, she could see many of the guests, sitting in
various chairs in the living room, and they could see her,
but still it felt separate. Meredith went out to the fake
streetlamp and turned it on. It created a pale spotlight
on their stage. Then she slipped behind the backdrop again
and began the narration she’d composed so painstakingly:
“Her name is Vera, and she is a poor peasant girl, a
nobody. She lives in a magical realm called the Snow
Kingdom, but her beloved world is dying.”
She heard a sound, like a sharp intake of breath. Leaning
sideways, she peered around the screen, but saw nothing out
of the ordinary. Everyone was smiling, nodding; the ice in
their glasses rattled as they drank. Meredith cleared her
throat and went on: “An evil has come to this land; it rolls
across the cobblestone streets in black carriages sent by a
dark, evil knight who wants to destroy it all.”
The audience clapped enthusiastically. Someone whistled.
Meredith walked on stage, taking care not to trip over her
long, layered skirts. She looked out over the gathering of
guests and saw her mother in the back of the room, alone
somehow even in the crowd, her beautiful face blurred by
cigarette smoke. For once, she was looking directly at
Meredith. Finally.
“It is so cold, this winter,” Meredith said loudly, pacing
in front of the faux castle. She clapped her mittened hands
together.
At the sound, Nina made her entrance. Dressed in a ratty
nightgown with a kerchief covering her hair, she wrung her
hands together and looked up at Meredith. “Do you think it
is the Black Knight?” she practically yelled, drawing a
laugh from the crowd and immediately grinning at them. “Is
his bad magic making it so cold?”
“No. No. I am chilled at the loss of our father. I am so
worried. When will he return?” She pressed the back of her
hand to her forehead and sighed dramatically. “The
carriages are everywhere these days. The Black Knight is
gaining more and more power…people are turning to smoke
before our eyes…”
“Look,” Nina said, pointing toward a picture taped to the
fireplace. “It is a white carriage, with gold. The
Prince…” She managed to sound nearly reverent.
Jeff came out from behind the fake trees. In his blue sport
coat and jeans, with a cheap gold crown on his wheat blond
hair, he looked so handsome that for a moment Meredith
could hardly breathe. She knew he was embarrassed and
uncomfortable—the red in his cheeks made that obvious—but
still he was here, proving what a good friend he was. And he
was smiling at her as if she really were a princess.
Meredith crossed in front of Nina and went to Jeff. He held
out a pair of silk roses. “I have two roses for you,” he
said, his voice cracking.
Meredith touched his hand, but before she could say her
line there was a crash and a sound like a cry.
Meredith turned, saw her mother standing in the center of
the crowd, motionless, her face pale, her blue eyes
blazing. Blood dripped from her hand. She’d broken her
cocktail glass, and even from here, Meredith could see a
shard sticking out of her mother’s palm.
“Enough,” her mother said sharply. “This is hardly
entertainment for a party.”
The guests seemed to freeze; some stood up, other remained
stubbornly seated. The room went quiet.
Dad made his way to Mom. He put his arm around her and
pulled her close. Or he tried to; she wouldn’t bend, not
even for him.
“I’m sorry,” Meredith said, although she didn’t know what
she’d done wrong.
“I never should have told you those ridiculous fairy
tales,” Mom said, her Russian accent sharp with anger. “I
forgot how romantic and empty headed girls can be.”
Meredith was so humiliated she couldn’t move.
She saw her father guide her mother into the kitchen, where
he probably took her straight to the sink and began
cleaning up her hand. The guests left as if this were the
Titanic, rushing for lifeboats stationed just beyond the
front door.
Only Jeff looked at her, and she could see how embarrassed
he was for her. The pity in his eyes made her feel sick to
her stomach. He started toward her, still holding the two
roses. “Meredith—“
She pushed past him and ran out of the room. At the end of
the hall, she skidded to a stop and stood there, breathing
hard, her eyes burning with tears. As if from faraway, she
could hear her dad’s voice as he tried to soothe his angry
wife. A minute later a door clicked shut, and she knew that
Jeff had gone home.
“What did you do?” Nina asked quietly, coming up beside her.
“Who knows?” Meredith said, wiping her eyes. “She’s such a
bitch.”
“That’s a bad word.”
Meredith heard the quiver in Nina’s voice and knew how hard
her sister was trying not to cry. She reached down and held
her hand.
“What do we do? Should we say we’re sorry?”
Meredith couldn’t help thinking about the last time she’d
made her mother mad and told her she was sorry. She
tightened her hold on Nina’s hand. “She won’t care. Trust me.”
“So what do we do?”
Meredith straightened, tried to feel as mature as she had
this morning, but her confidence was gone. She knew what
would happen: Dad would calm Mom down and then he’d come up
to their room and make them laugh and hold them in his big,
strong arms and tell them that Mom really loved them. By
the time he was done with the jokes and the stories,
Meredith would want to believe it. Again. “I know what I’m
going to do,” she said, staring through the entryway to the
kitchen, where she could see Mom’s side—just her slim,
black velvet dress and her pale arm, and her white, white
hair. “I’m never going to listen to one of her stupid fairy
tales again.”