Enchantment

11

Airports

If Ivan had doubted Cousin Marek's magical power, he would have been convinced by this: A genuine passport and visa for Katerina, in her name, and only a day after telephoning a friend in the new passport office in Kiev.

"The independent government of Ukraine is only a few months old, and already you have connections?"

"My connections are older than the government," said Marek.

Katerina looked through the pages of the book. "So much paper, and almost nothing written in it. And these letters—" She pointed to a word in the Roman alphabet. "—I don't know some of them."

"The letters Kirill gave to your language," said Ivan, "are not the only letters in the world."

"And you know all the letters?" she asked.

"All the letters in that book," he said.

"But there aren't very many here," as if his achievement were not so remarkable after all. Was she teasing him, or scorning him? How could he hope to tell?

"I know two alphabets," said Ivan. "The one that's used here, in the land of my birth—the one Kirill invented. And the one that's used in America, where my family lives."

"And which of these lands do you call your own?" asked Cousin Marek. "I'm curious, is all."

"I'm at home in both places," said Ivan. "But more a stranger here, I think, than there. Maybe I'm foreign in every land."

Marek chuckled. "Aren't we all."

Katerina was studying her own passport photo. "This seems a remarkably faithful likeness of the woman," she said. "Who is she, and why is her portrait in this book?"

It took Ivan a moment to realize she wasn't joking. But then, how would she recognize herself? The shining metal of a sword was the only mirror in King Matfei's court, and before modern times no one in Russia had much use for mirrors, since they believed a spirit from another world could leap from a mirror to possess them or attack. She had probably seen her own face in a pool—rippling, distorted, with fish darting between her eyes.

"The portrait is of you," said Ivan.

"When did the painter spy on me?" she said.

"It's not painted," said Ivan. "The man yesterday, who made the light flash—"

"That's what that spell was for? To take my picture from me?"

"Not a spell, a tool, like the light switch and the running water in the kitchen."

"You keep insisting on this, but isn't it time you explained to me why spells aren't also tools?"

Ivan shook his head. "You are being obstinate," he said. "You know the difference perfectly well yourself. You've handled a scythe—it cuts because the blade shears the stalks of grain. But a spell has no such contact between one thing and another."

"Then you've proved my point," she said. She walked to the light switch and turned it on and off. "There—what connection did my action have with that light? And this portrait—the light flashed, but nothing touched me."

"The light touched you."

She laughed. "And when I wave my hands in the air to cast a spell, there's no doubt a wind, too."

Ivan despaired. "Why do you have to argue with me? You're not stupid. This is my world, not yours, and if I tell you that magic is different from tools and the difference matters, then you should spend your time trying to understand the difference, not arguing with me."

She seemed about to answer with another argument, but then stopped herself. "The difference really is important?"

"Yes."

"Then explain it to me, and I'll try to understand."

The result was a painful hour of explaining electricity and wires and circuits, along with a vague explanation of cameras. And by the end, Ivan wasn't altogether sure that she understood anything. Except the one most important thing: That she not use magic in this world, not in front of other people, nor even speak of it.

"They don't believe in it?" she said. "Even though it works?"

"It takes talent and training to use magic," said Cousin Marek, who had listened to Ivan's explanations without helping once. "While any fool can use a machine."

"Any fool who can afford to buy one," said Ivan.

"And any fool who can afford to hire a wizard has magical power at his command, too," said Cousin Marek. "And now who's arguing for the sake of argument?"

The next day, the tickets arrived for Katerina's flight, and Ivan changed his reservations so they could sit together. "You can conjure money out of thin air?" Ivan asked Cousin Marek.

"Of course not," he answered.

"Then what magic did you use to buy her ticket?"

"American Express," said Marek.

"An immortal carries American Express?"

"Not my American Express," said Marek. "What use would I have for such a thing? When I want to travel, I walk. No, the card belongs to a friend. Your family are not the only folk to leave this land and go across the sea. And not all who leave this place forget their Cousin Marek."

For the first time, Ivan realized that this might have happened before. "Did you help us get our visas to leave the Soviet Union, back when Mother and Father and I lived here with you?"

"I tried."

"Then why did it take all those months?"

"I didn't have such good connections in Moscow," said Marek. "And I wasn't all that eager for you to leave."

With passport and ticket, and a decent selection of clothes that more or less fit her, Katerina was ready to go. Ivan was not, for when he returned to America he would have to face Ruthie and Father and Mother and somehow explain Katerina to them all. But there were no more reasons for delay, and many reasons to move quickly, not least of which was that Baba Yaga was still hovering nearby, plotting who-knew-what nastiness.

They bade good-bye to Sophia and rode with Cousin Marek to the train station. Ivan noticed that Katerina showed no fear of climbing inside Marek's truck. Perhaps that was because her trust in Mikola Mozhaiski overrode any fear. Or perhaps she had believed him when he told her it was simply a tool. Though, given the number of people who died each year in auto accidents, it might have been wiser for Ivan to warn her not to get into any kind of car.

When they got to the train station, Katerina immediately grasped the idea of many cars being pulled along a track by a single engine. "The locomotive is the ox," she said, "and it pulls these houses like sledges across snow." Close enough, thought Ivan.

Cousin Marek walked the length of the train. Only when he was assured that Baba Yaga wasn't aboard did he let Ivan and Katerina get on. "Be alert," he said to them both. "Watch for her, and don't let her talk to you. She can persuade the sun it's a pudding."

"She can't outrun a train, can she?" said Ivan. "Or outfly a jet? So we're safe."

Marek scowled at him. "Don't wear the hide until the bear is dead," he said.

"How will we know her if we see her?" said Katerina. "We might have seen her yesterday, but she can seem to be whatever she pleases."

"Look at her eyes," said Marek, "and you'll know. She can't change those, not without being blind."

"Look at the eyes and see what?" asked Ivan.

"The enemy."

Ivan had long since learned that when Cousin Marek didn't want to give a straight answer, he went in circles, and they were circling now. Rather the way Ivan had led the bear around the chasm till it gave up.

As the train pulled out of the station, Ivan felt a thrill of fear. Cousin Marek was no longer with them—as he said, why leave a trail fifty feet wide for the old hag to follow—and now it was up to him, Ivan the nonfighter, Ivan the scholar with his nose in a book, to keep Katerina safe and guide her through this dangerous world.

What if she gets airsick and throws up on the plane? Did Sophia explain to her about how to deal with her period here, or is Mother going to have to explain that in America? What if there's some disease she isn't immune to? He thought of War of the Worlds, when the alien invader is felled by the common cold.

Katerina was hardly the alien invader, and as for Baba Yaga, he knew better than to count on some microbe-ex-machina to save them from her. For all he knew, the witch had gotten on the train at the first stop, making Marek's check of the train useless. How far did her powers of illusion go, anyway? Could she be on board disguised as a suitcase? How did he know what was possible? The world that only a few days ago had seemed, if not safe, then at least comprehensible, was now fraught with new dangers and possibilities. It made everything new again. New and frightening, the way America was when Ivan first arrived, and everything he said and did seemed foolish, not only to the other children in school, but to himself. Add to this Katerina's insistence on making her own decisions, whether she understood all the consequences or not, and Ivan knew he'd get very little rest, on the train, in the air, or at home.

Katerina tried her best to remain as calm and brave as Ivan had when he came to Taina. She would not be shamed in front of him by showing cowardice. Now she understood how baffling and frightening it was to be in a strange place where the old rules no longer applied and no one knew how to value her. In Mikola Mozhaiski's house, she hadn't really grasped it yet, for she was among people whose language she understood; indeed, it was Ivan who still sounded like the accented stranger. But now in the cacophony of the station and the train, where everything was unexpected and she only understood one word in fifty, she was nauseated with fear. She found herself wanting to cling to Ivan's arm and beg him to come back to Taina with her. Better the known danger than the unknown! But she couldn't ask that, for in Taina it was his life that was in danger, while here, as far as she knew, neither of them was threatened. Her fear was foolish. Ivan would protect her, and if he couldn't, she might be able to help herself with a little magic. And if that didn't work, well, her life was in the hands of God, wasn't it? If he wanted her dead here, then nothing could save her; if he wanted her to live, then nothing could harm her.

The airport was a nightmare, though Ivan assured her that all was normal and safe. The customs official who looked at her with no respect whatsoever, as if she were a peasant with an unpleasant stink, and then rattled off a stream of the strange language that they spoke here—she barely kept herself from bursting into tears. Then Ivan interposed himself between her and the official, said a few words, showed the little book, and the man's demeanor softened. She was just about to smile at him when he suddenly picked up something heavy and slammed it down on a pad of wet blue cloth and then on her blank book, staining it and making a brutal pounding noise. She jumped back and screeched inadvertently before regaining her composure. The official laughed in her face, the swine. She felt humiliated, though Ivan simply hurried her along and spoke soothingly to her that this was a common thing, he should have warned her, he was so sorry, they always stamp the passport.

She wondered how many things in her kingdom might have surprised or frightened him, and she had never thought to warn him or prepare him for anything. Instead she had scorned him for not already knowing what any child knew. But now she knew a bit of wisdom: Whoever travels to a new land is always a child.

She thought back to when Mikola Mozhaiski woke up the gruzovik and made it go forward, controlling it effortlessly with a wheel in his hands and with devices he pushed with his feet. She had imagined herself trying to control this moving house. Impossible. Yet hadn't she expected Ivan to pick up a sword and know how to use it instantly? She wanted to tell him she was sorry for not understanding what he was going through. But as she was about to do it, she wondered whether he really had felt the same fear as she. After all, he had traveled from land to land before, and even learned a new language, so he was used to new experiences. She didn't remember him showing fear in any obvious way, either, except reluctance to do certain things. So to say anything about fear right now would merely be a confession of her own.

As the airplane lumbered over the runway and then rose into the air, she wanted to scream in terror—and in delight, both at once. She was flying! She wanted to look out the window; but when she did, it made her want to throw up, to see the ground fall away like that, everything becoming small. And when the airplane made a sharp turn in the air soon after takeoff, she did throw up.

Oh, the unspeakable humiliation of it! Ivan was there at once with a little bag in case she vomited more, but it was too late, wasn't it? Her blouse was smeared with vomit, and even after the attendant led her to the bathroom and helped her rinse that part of the blouse, the smell lingered on the cloth and she had a cold wet spot that was quite uncomfortable. She had thought that the bra Sophia had bought for her in the village could not possibly be any more uncomfortable, but now she knew better. She could be cold, wet, humiliated, and smell like vomit.

When she got back to her seat, she looked out the window to hide her face from Ivan. By now the airplane was so high that all she could see was clouds below her, and she pretended it was only snow, and this was a huge sleigh gliding along, occasionally hitting an inexplicable bump—no doubt a bird or a particularly thick cloud. I don't want to be here, she thought. I want to go home, where I'm not humiliated every moment, where I can speak and be spoken to, where people know that I'm Princess Katerina and treat me with respect instead of contempt or pity.

Mustn't think this way, she told herself. Keep control. No crying.

Then she felt Ivan's hand gently but firmly take hold of hers, and he leaned close to her and whispered in her ear, "You're doing very well, and many people get sick in airplanes, so don't be ashamed of it." Then he kissed her cheek the way her father might have, when she was a little girl, and it was too much for her. She burst into tears. Or rather, burst out with a single sob, and then wept in silence, turning her face toward him, hiding her tears against his chest as he held her. Oh, if only it were my father here with me! she cried silently, but then rebuked herself. This is what a husband should do for his wife, and he is doing it. A wife should not wish that she were still with her father. That was undutiful and childish.

And yet she did wish it, as she made his shirt almost as wet as her own. Did a man forget his mother just because he had a wife? She should hope not. So why would it be wrong for a woman to remember her father, even if she had a husband?

The flight went on for hours and hours, broken only by a landing in Vienna, where they stayed on the plane. It was miserable, trying to sleep sitting upright, but at least the chairs were the softest she had ever sat in, and the clever little pillow was unbelievably soft and yet held its shape much better than feather pillows. And when she and Ivan were both awake, he tried to teach her to read the modern Russian printed in a magazine. When it was written down, it was easier for her to see how it was related to the language she spoke, and to find patterns in the differences. She was feeling pretty good about it, until he reminded her that in America very few people spoke this language, either.

"But my mother and father do, and that's what counts at first, that you be able to talk with them. My father speaks your language, too, after a fashion, and my mother will do her best. You'll see. They're gracious people."

"So that's how you learned," she said softly.

If he heard her, he said nothing. She hoped, at least a little, that he hadn't heard, because it would shame her to be kind, if he despised her kindness. Then it would feel like surrender. But she also hoped, perhaps a little more, that he had heard, for they were also words of apology. She regretted her arrogance and criticism, how she had hurt his feelings in her own world and when they first arrived in his. Everything he told her had turned out to be true. For instance, many women dressed just like the men. In fact they all dressed in clothing that she found appalling at first, but was now getting used to. The shoes were amazing, shaped differently for the right and left feet, and even at that, Ivan and Sophia both assured her that they'd find her shoes that fit much better once they got to America, where there was no shortage of shoes the way there were in Ukraine that year.

The officials in the airport in America were even ruder than the ones in Kiev had been, barking orders and shouting in a jumpy, harsh-sounding language that was offensive to hear. To her relief, when Ivan spoke the same language back to them it was not as jumpy and strident, and his calm voice seemed to calm them down as well. More stamping—this time she didn't flinch—and Ivan had to open his bags for them to look through what he brought with him, but soon they were out of the lines and into a crush of people holding up signs in the strange alphabet and calling out to people and hugging them. For a moment she feared that someone would grab her and hug her, too, but then realized they were hugging people they already knew. And here, she knew no one.

But Ivan knew someone. A man and two women.

"God hates me," said Ivan softly in her language. "I told my mother on the phone not to bring Ruthie."

"Your betrothed," murmured Katerina.

Ivan said nothing to that.

Katerina sized up the younger of the women—her confident bearing, her easy grace as she embraced Ivan and then embraced Katerina—and realized that what seemed so familiar about her was that Ruthie felt herself to be a princess as surely as Katerina did. She murmured this to Ivan, who smiled and translated her remark, or some version of it, for the others. Ruthie blushed and smiled, then leaned over and kissed Katerina's cheek.

"I've told them," Ivan murmured, "that the language you speak is an obscure dialect from the Carpathians. And that you're a friend I brought with me. I'll tell them the truth very quickly, but not here in the airport, because it would be wrong to embarrass Ruthie in a public place like this."

Katerina noticed that Ivan's father was listening as best he could to what they were saying. His eyes narrowed, and he began looking back and forth between her and Ivan. But Ivan's mother only embraced her and said something softly in her ear—so softly that she couldn't hear the words, though she'd probably not have been able to understand them even if she'd heard.

"What did your mother say?"

Ivan asked his mother, and, blushing, she whispered the same words to him. He turned red, but then leaned down to translate for Katerina. "Mother says that you are the woman she always hoped I would marry."

Katerina smiled at Mother, even as she murmured back to him, "I thought you didn't tell them we're married."

"I didn't," said Ivan. "My mother is simply a little strange."

"Or very wise," said Katerina.

"That's what she thinks," said Ivan. Then he translated some version of their conversation and the others laughed and nodded. She had no idea what Ivan told them that she'd said, but she nodded and smiled right back at them. Language wasn't going to be a problem after all, because apparently it didn't matter what she said—Ivan would turn it into the right thing when he interpreted.

Katerina looked away from Ivan's mother and saw that Ruthie was staring at her with cold rage in her eyes. There would be no need to tell her that her engagement with Ivan was off. Obviously, she already knew.

If only Mikola had learned to read and write back when it was a new idea. Instead he had only picked it up during the past fifty years, when literacy became universal in the Soviet Union and you had to be able to read signs and newspapers in order to function in society. Even then he still thought of it as something of a fad, until now, when he realized that his shortsightedness might cost him dearly.

Back in the old days the stories inscribed in the priests' books seemed trivial and distant to him. He had his own life, his own duties, his own powers. Why learn to read about their god, who ministered to another people in a faraway land, when he had his own business to attend to?

Only once in those early days of literacy did it occur to him that he might learn to read and write. He was telling his wife at that time—Hilda? Bruna?—the story of the time when Bear first wandered across the Urals, thinking that whatever land he came to would be his alone. Bear was wilder then, ignorant, barbarian—but dangerous, volatile, full of powers that Mikola had never faced before. He had to be inventive, combine spells and incantations, devise clever invisible fences across time. He laughingly told his wife about the time he inadvertently put every bear in the forest to sleep for three days before he figured out how to make his new spell more selective. And his wife asked him—Hilda, definitely, the one who ran off with Loki when the Norsemen first started raiding down the rivers—Hilda asked him what he did to make all the bears sleep. And Mikola couldn't remember.

He had sat there thinking, and then took a walk and thought some more, and still he could not remember. Only late that night, lying awake in his bed, did he remember the simple and obvious mistake that had put the bears to sleep. He almost woke Hilda right then, to tell her, but she was tired and he didn't like annoying her because she had the most amazing temper. And as he lay there listening to her snore he realized that remembering that old spell wasn't what mattered. The important discovery was the fact that Mikola Mozhaiski was capable of forgetting a spell. He hadn't known that could happen.

I should write them all down, he thought as he lay awake that night. I should get some priest to teach me to write, and then I could record all my spells so I don't have to try to remember them. Commands to the waves and the wind, those I remember because I use them so often. The flow of the great sky river, that I could direct in my sleep. But the commands to each plant to wake up in the spring, I barely remember those, because they generally do it well enough without my help. And the spells to control insects in their flight, and the song to calm the birds—how did those go? He definitely should learn this new alphabet and all the words so he could write it all down and never have to worry about remembering.

But then he thought some more, and decided that it was a bad idea, for two reasons: What if he came to rely on the book, and then lost it? He'd be worse off than now. And—even more dire—what if someone stole the book and used the spells against him? Better to keep his memory sharp, so he would never need a book that might empower an enemy. That was when he began his long custom of rehearsing every spell he knew at least once a year.

He kept it up, too, for several centuries, until his people grew so rational that he had no more rivals, no enemies disrupting the right order with their local spells. Witchcraft and wizardry had so effectively been denied that his own powers began to weaken, for there were few who contributed to his strength by invoking his name. He could cast all the old spells, of course, but it cost him more, wore him out, and he stopped doing any spells but the essential ones, and began to look out for less and less of the old lands, until most of his effort was spent caring for this area that was sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia, sometimes Ukraine and Belarus, even bits of Slovakia. Names could change, armies could pass by, but they concerned him little. He steered them around his little godhold, or made sure they passed lightly over the land and interfered little with the people. Beyond that, he simply tended to the weather.

Until now. Until Baba Yaga brought her stink into the land. And now he had no book to remind him of the spells of combat, techniques he hadn't used since the early days, when his people first separated from the main tribe in the hills of Iran and woke a new god to be their protector. He still had vague memories of childhood, of an idyllic life playing on the slopes of a mountain, the animals all talking to him, the plants making a constant music to which he often sang along. And then they woke him, called him by a name that he knew at once was his own, though it had never been spoken before. It filled him with vigor and he leapt down from the mountain as eager as any adolescent boy, ready to take on all comers. Oh, he fought his battles then, putting others in their place—or getting put down himself, from time to time. Zeus especially loved to torment him, until Mikola finally learned all the weathers of the sky and matched him bolt for bolt.

The time of battles was over, though, long since. Even that arrogant sex fiend Zeus had retired from public life, though he still had a sort of fame that kept wakening him from his lazy philandering and henpecked domesticity—but to no purpose. It was just the sound of his name being murmured in a thousand classrooms; it had no strength in it. Mikola looked at Zeus these days and saw his own future, when his people had at last forgotten him. But until then, he was still guardian. And now a great danger had come into the land, and he could hardly remember how to aim lightning. If only, if only I had written it down.

So he struggled to remember as he trailed after Baba Yaga, following the odor of her passage through the land, cleaning up after her, casting little spells to make people forget her visit, removing the vile little curses she always left on any house that let her in or gave her anything to eat or a place to sleep. It took a great deal of ingenuity on his part, because she was so maliciously clever, laying traps for him, so that when he released one curse, a worse one would slip into place, unless he took precautions in advance.

Most important, he kept renewing the spell that kept Bear and Baba Yaga from finding each other. They both smelled each other, but whenever Baba Yaga thought of seeking him out, or Bear stirred in his somnolence, Mikola filled the air between them with so much of the forgetful haze of summer that they'd become distracted and think of something else, with only a feeling of fitfulness and ennui to remind them of their forgotten desire.

Mikola was no fool. He recognized that Baba Yaga was following the children's trail toward Kiev, even though she must have thought the twisting and turning of her path would deceive him. But he knew what she did not—that in Kiev, their trail took to the air and soared at thirty-five thousand feet across Europe and the Atlantic, heights and distances that would be utterly incomprehensible to a woman who, powerful as she might be, was still only a mortal who had never followed the flow of the great sky river around the world. She might make it to the airport and see the great planes lumber into the sky and figure out that Vanya and Katerina had flown off in one of them. But that wouldn't tell her where they went, and it wouldn't help her follow them. She would stand there, baffled, helpless, and gradually realize that they were out of her grasp.

Mikola imagined her going into one of her tantrums. The authorities wouldn't stand for it, of course. He could imagine the antiterrorist police surrounding her as she madly screamed and sprayed fiery spells through the airport, finally getting a good shot and taking her out just as in those American movies that had taught police all over the world how to walk with the swagger that made them ridiculous and frightening, both at once. Baba Yaga would see the silliness; not knowing the accuracy and range of rifles with scopes, she would not have sense enough to fear them, too. The bloom of a bullet in her head, spraying blood and brains in a fan-shaped pattern on the airport floor—the mere thought of it brought back feelings that Mikola had not let himself feel in years. He could smell battle. And even though he would not strike the blow himself, it made him feel no less triumphant to know that Baba Yaga would never survive in a world where he had managed to preserve a niche for himself and his beloved Sophia.

The whole drive to the airport had been awkward. Ruth just didn't have that much to say to Ivan's parents. During Ivan's long absence in Russia, Ruth had tried to keep in close contact with her future in-laws, and at first it seemed to work, but as the months went by, she got more and more of a sense that they entertained her only out of a sense of duty. In fact, Ivan's father was always distracted—nice, almost too nice, for a few minutes, then anxious to get back to his work. Back to his books. How terrible, for the husband to work at home. Much better the way her parents were—leave the job at the office, come home and really be home. Of course, Ivan would probably expect to live like his father, since they were both pursuing the same career. And that would be fine, Ruth would learn to live with it, that distraction, that there-but-not-there coolness. Besides, unlike Mrs. Smetski, Ruth would have a job. A career of her own.

Mrs. Smetski. She was the problem. Ruth suspected from the start that Mrs. Smetski thought that Ivan could have found a better girl to marry. She wasn't distracted like Professor Smetski. On the contrary, she focused completely, almost smotheringly, on Ruth. But there was this sense of amusement in everything she said. A sense of irony. I know something you don't know.

Ruth had tried to point it out to Ivan, but he never saw it. "That's just Mom," he'd say. "She's always having an out-of-body experience. Looking down on everything from the ceiling. Never part of it. It's nothing to do with you."

But Ruth knew better. A woman knows these things—though of course she didn't say that to Ivan, he got quite testy when Ruth asserted her female power, as if her womanliness threatened him. Of course, he tried to sound like a doctrinaire feminist about it. "Either the only differences between men and women are cultural, or they're innate," Ivan would say. "So if you go for the women's intuition thing, then you have to take that whole package, pedestal and all. And if you want equality, then you have to give up that idea that women have secret ways of knowing."

As if.

But, for the sake of harmony, she allowed his threatened male ego to have its protected space, and didn't push the point. She simply knew, that's all, that Mrs. Smetski disdained her for some reason.

And during the months while Ivan was gone, it became more obvious. Ivan's dad had work to do; Mrs. Smetski had no such excuse. She would wander out of a room sometimes when Ruth was talking. And it wasn't an accident, either. Because when she came back in, she'd resume the conversation with a bland, "You were saying, Ruthie?" in that thickly accented English.

To her, I don't exist. Ruthie could reach no other conclusion.

Come home, Ivan, before your parents make me have second thoughts.

Well, the time had finally come. Of course Mrs. Smetski had hinted that maybe Ruthie should drive her own car, but Professor Smetski put the kibosh on that immediately. "We have to go together, it would be cruel to make Vanya choose between his parents and his bride-to-be. You know he would choose the bride, and then wouldn't we feel foolish!"

"I just thought it might be crowded on the ride home," said Mrs. Smetski.

Crowded? It wasn't as though their car was tiny. Like so many Russians, the Smetskis luxuriated in the American sense of scale. A big old Crown Victoria was their choice—cheap, for a big car; or was it big for a cheap one? Plenty of room.

Too much room. Professor Smetski tried to get Mrs. Smetski to sit in back with Ruth on the way there, "to keep her company," but Mrs. Smetski just laughed and said, "You know I get sick in the back seat," and that was that. And when Ruth tried to engage them in conversation, Professor Smetski was the only one who seemed to be paying attention, and not very much at that. Mrs. Smetski just looked at the scenery. Trees were trees. Ruth knew that Mrs. Smetski was looking at them just so she didn't have to talk to Ruth.

Ivan, we have to have a talk. Your parents don't like me, or at least your mother doesn't, and that's a problem. Then he would kiss her and reassure her that it would never be a problem, Mom likes you just fine, yadda yadda.

Maybe the whole thing was a mistake. Maybe Mrs. Smetski was right, Ivan was charming, smart, fascinating with his sultry foreignness, that fragility hidden within the muscular, lithe runner's body, the sensitive eyes in a sculpted face. But charm, intelligence, and good looks, did they add up to love? As Ruth's own mother kept saying, What kind of boy is it asks a girl to marry him, then he runs off to Russia for long enough to get a girl pregnant and watch it be born before he comes home to his fiancée?

She didn't even want to think about that. Ivan wasn't that kind of boy, damn his shyness. It was so embarrassing to tell the girls at college that no, they hadn't slept together, Ivan believed in waiting—the whooping and laughing! "He's gay," they all said at once, and when she assured them that she had ample reason to believe that he was not, they treated her like she was in love with a cripple. "Did he have a childhood injury?" one of them asked, and then it became a joke. Ruth's fiancé's tragic childhood injury. They kept thinking up some new malady to explain his lack of sexual drive. "He has elephantiasis of the testicles"—that was a favorite—"his balls weigh thirty pounds each." Or "he was just one of those kids who slides down every banister, even the ones with those cruel little spikes every few feet." Or "his parents left him alone with the cat and without a diaper, and you know how cats are when they find something to play with."

The thing is, some of their joking was genuinely funny. Ruth felt disloyal to laugh at such crude talk about her future husband's private parts, but wasn't it his own fault? She had done everything but strip naked and hide in his bed, and he just laughed and kissed her and said, "Plenty of time for that when we're married."

Here's a news flash, Ivan. The reason I wanted to sleep with you was not because I thought we were going to run out of time later!

But it was also kind of sweet. After all the boys who had tried to get into her pants from the time she was eleven, or at least so it seemed in retrospect, Ivan was an entirely different creature.

No, he couldn't be gay. Damn them for making her wonder.

If Mrs. Smetski had only been willing to talk, Ruth wouldn't have been thinking about all these negatives. About how Ivan's letters grew rarer and rarer as the months went by. How he wrote romantically at first, but more perfunctorily later. You'd think he'd be getting hornier, wouldn't you? Unless he found somebody else.

Somebody Russian. Somebody from his childhood. Some woman who'd set her cap for him the moment he arrived, since he represented a ticket to the States. Long walks along the river—there was a river in Kiev, wasn't there?—talking in his beloved Russian, discussing Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy or—who was that poet? Eugene Onegin? No, that was the name of the poem. Pushcart? Pushpin?

Pushkin!

Or maybe he was just into his research and there was no woman. This was Ivan, after all. Not the ordinary man. She wouldn't have fallen in love with him if he were the kind of man who couldn't keep his word to the woman he loved. Not that he'd actually given his word. Ruth could imagine that conversation. "No getting laid in Ukraine, my love." "Oh, really? That would bother you? All right, my pet." "No kissing either." "But in Russia, we kiss for greeting!" "No tongue." "Definitely no tongue. Thank you for providing me with moral guidelines for traveling fiancés! You think of everything!"

"Good flying weather," said Professor Smetski as they got out of the car at the airport.

"A clear day," said Ruth.

"I mean, no wind," said the professor. "Safer for landing."

"The USAir terminal is this way," said Mrs. Smetski. Then she took off, and Ruth and Professor Smetski had to make their way as best they could.

So there they stood, making small talk—smaller even than usual—watching the gate to see him the moment he appeared. Like a contest—I caught first glimpse of him, so I love him more! And then he appears, bearded, suntanned—definitely a scholarly look! Oh, he was hard at the books, wasn't he!—and he was helping a woman up the ramp, wasn't he? How nice.

Only she didn't leave him when they reached the door. In fact, his arm was around her waist, guiding her along. She was... she was with him.

Ruth felt sick. The woman was Russian, but not in that exaggerated wide-faced almost-Mongolian way that gave you a pretty good idea what the Golden Horde was doing all those years they ruled the steppe. She wasn't Nordic, either. Something else. But one thing was certain: Definitely not Jewish. Not that Ruthie was politically incorrect, of course; it was her duty to pretend that you couldn't tell a Russian Jew just by looking. But in this case, you could certainly tell that she was not a Jew. In fact, if she had been born to a Jewish mother, this girl would constitute proof of adultery.

Someone he met. That's all. Some scholarly woman who was coming to America anyway and he accompanied her because... because... her English wasn't good!

Surely he wouldn't bring her home, though, as a guest. Well, what if he did? This stranger wasn't Ivan's fiancée, Ruth was—and Ruth would make sure that Ivan had very little time to lounge around home with this shiksa princess. If the girl wanted to speak Russian, Ivan's parents would be excellent company for her. While Ruth would make sure that she was Ivan's constant companion.

They came closer, and there was something in the way that Ivan looked. A shiftiness. He saw Ruth, smiled at her sheepishly, but then he looked down, looked away. Looked at his mother and father. Anywhere but at the girl. Pretending that he didn't know she was there. But still, his arm around her waist. Ushering, sheltering, protecting. That is not her place, you bastard. You let somebody else into my place.

Don't get angry. You don't know yet.

Yes you do.

Katerina? Oh, what a pleasure, says Professor Smetski.

And back comes a string of Russian.

Only it isn't Russian, is it? Or if it is, it's some weird accent, anyway, because Professor Smetski asks her to repeat what she said, and when he answers her it's with a different tone from the way he usually speaks. And his eyes are wide and he's absolutely fascinated with her language.

But Mrs. Smetski, she's completely wacked out. Smiling. Like a kid who won the prize. Doesn't try to talk to the shiksa, but just loves her. Hug hug, kiss kiss kiss, hug again. Can't take her eyes off this goyishe princess.

And princess is right. The way the girl holds herself. As if the space around her for about six blocks belongs to her. As if Ivan belongs to her. And not like a man, either, but like a... servant. She thinks she owns him. Like Nancy Reagan, that's what she looks like, beaming because this man is hers. Defiant, arrogant.

And all the time Ruth was thinking this, Ivan was talking. "I met her near Cousin Marek's place. She wanted to visit in America, but she never studied English, so I volunteered."

Ruth wanted to scream at him, "That's a lie, you moron! She's obviously more than some neighbor girl you're doing a favor for! Tell the truth, tell it right away, and have done with it!"

Instead, Ruth went hug hug, kiss kiss kiss, and hug again. "What a lovely girl," she said. "Are you Ivan's niece?"

Ivan laughed awkwardly and translated.

Only when the translation was complete did Katerina's full attention turn to Ruth. And the look on her face—what was that look?

Pity.

She thinks she's got him. She thinks she's already won, and she's feeling sorry for me.

Well, save your little pity-eyes for somebody who gives up easily. Maybe Ivan got all gooey-eyed over you there in Kiev, but I can hold my own, thanks a lot. I can definitely outdress you, you poor thing. Where did you get those clothes? Hand-me-downs from some farmer's daughter?

"I must take her shopping," said Ruth to Ivan. "Please tell her—we must spend an afternoon together at the mall."

"Oh, definitely not," said Mrs. Smetski, intervening before Ivan could even translate. "You and Vanya will be together all the time. I find American clothings for Katerina."

If Mrs. Smetski had ever looked at me the way she's looking at this shiksa, I would never have had a moment's worry.

And then it dawned on her. Mrs. Smetski always wanted a shiksa for her boy. For her Russian boy. She was one of those self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews! Hadn't Ivan told her that it was entirely his father's idea to become serious Jews and emigrate from Russia on a visa to Israel? Mrs. Smetski never wanted Ivan to become serious about his Jewish identity. She wanted him to marry a nice Russian girl, and... he-e-e-e-ere's Katerina!

They were speaking Russian together, all of them, as if Ruth did not exist, as if courtesy were an old legend that no one believed in anymore.

Ruth felt a momentary twinge of despair. I've already lost. They've formed a closed group now. Ivan's already got his protective-male thing going with her, and his father is fascinated by every word she says, and Mrs. Smetski is absolutely in love with her. Mrs. Smetski looks so smug. As if she had defeated me. And maybe she has. Definitely she has. I'm gone. If only I had my own car and could just get out of here and drive home by myself and...

Mrs. Smetski already knew. That's why she wanted separate cars. She knew that the Crown Victoria would be way too crowded on the trip home because she knew this shiksa was getting off the plane. Ivan must have told them. But no one bothered to tell me.

Ruth couldn't let this deception go unchallenged. "So, when did you call your parents and tell them Katerina was coming?"

They all looked at her like she was crazy. "He didn't call," said Professor Smetski.

"I didn't even know I was bringing her till the last minute," said Ivan.

He certainly didn't seem to be lying.

Only Mrs. Smetski said nothing. Because she knew. Somehow, even without a phone call, she knew. And, dear sweet compassionate loving gracious woman that she was, she had tried to spare Ruth's feelings by giving her an escape route so she wouldn't have to suffer the long ride home from the airport trapped in the back seat with Ivan and his...

On impulse—on damnable, uncontrollable impulse—Ruth asked him point-blank. "So, are you and Katerina engaged already, or are you waiting to make it formal until you've had a chance to get rid of me?"

The embarrassment on all their faces. How inconvenient of her, to lay it on the line like this. To demand that they face up to what was obvious to all of them. Oh, is this making you uncomfortable? You poor dears.

"Ruthie, don't be silly," Professor Smetski was saying, "Vanya is just helping her on the—"

Ivan held up his hand to stop his father. "I don't know, Ruth, I don't know how you—I wanted to have a chance to talk to you alone, I didn't want it to be right here, but..."

Ruth's heart sank. She wanted to cry, in shame, in grief. "You are engaged?" Ivan shook his head.

Ruth knew a moment of hope. Still a chance. "We're married," said Ivan.

It struck her like a blow. Married. The door, not just closing, but closed, locked, slammed in her face. Married! "How... sudden," she said.

She turned her back on them then. They would not see the tears that leapt into her eyes.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. "I'm sorry I didn't write," he was saying. "Or call. I know it's hard to believe, but I really couldn't. And it wasn't as sudden as it seems, either, it... Ruth, you have to believe me, I didn't want it to be this way."

"If you didn't want it to be this way," she said, controlling her voice almost perfectly, "then it wouldn't be this way, would it? Or are you seriously telling me the two of you had to get married?" Ruth turned around and pointedly scanned Katerina's body, as if the pregnancy might already be visible.

"We haven't even slept together," Ivan protested.

"No, of course not," said Ruth scornfully. "Not you. If your wife ever has children, it'll be a virgin birth. That's why you needed a shiksa, isn't it? That's their specialty."

"Ruthie," said Professor Smetski, "this is as much a shock to us as it is to you, completely unexpected, but let's try to stay calm, it's a long ride home, and—"

"No, Professor Smetski, I don't think we'll be riding home together. I have a roommate who lives here in Syracuse. It was lovely to meet you, Katerina. Just a word of advice. Don't let Ivan out of your sight."

Of course the girl didn't understand a word Ruth said, but she wasn't a fool, this Ukrainian princess, and her eyes were full of tears. Remorse? Pity? Keep your crocodile tears, darling. If he wants you, then I don't want him. The man I loved wouldn't have gotten married without bothering to break off his previous engagement. So whatever you've got there with his arm attached to your back, it's not a man I ever knew or ever wanted. Somebody else, somebody faithless. I deserve better. So save your tears for yourself.

Bitch.

Without another word, Ruth turned and walked away. Out of the terminal. The payphones were all inside, but she wanted a clean break. Exit scenes had to be managed. No lingering where they could see you, see how you cry when you finally get Emilia on the phone and tell her, Bring your hot yellow roadster out to the airport, Nancy Drew, because your friend Ruthie needs a long ride with a strong breeze on her face to dry these silly damn tears.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga was astonished and delighted with these houses-that-fly. Long lodges like the halls of great lords, into which a hundred people crowded themselves, and then they scooted along the ground on their skinny chicken legs until they rose like geese into the sky, trailing smoke behind them from their sideways chimneys.

She knew at once that the princess and her unmanly husband had gone into one of these flying houses and traveled to a faraway place.

Why? To escape Baba Yaga, of course. There are no trails in the sky, no scent of Katerina's magic left behind. And they'd go a long way, too, to a land where Bear had no power, so Baba Yaga would be weaker yet. They thought that would stop her from following them.

It was always pleasant when an intended victim imagined himself to be safe; that added zest to her life, for it meant that the surprise would be all the more delicious. But for such a person really to be safe, that was unbearable, that sat in her belly like bad meat, churning, aching. They were not going to get away just because they had friends with such powerful magic that they could make houses fly.

Inside the airport, though, everything was confusing. Everybody seemed to know where they were going, which line to stand in. Lines meant nothing to her, of course, but when she tried to go past one particularly long line, a burly man stopped her, quite forcefully. Baba Yaga was appearing as an old woman at the time, so he wasn't rough with her, just kept explaining to her, talking more and more slowly, but none of it made sense. The people in the line had brought gifts, apparently, which they placed into the gaping mouth of a large box. The box engulfed it, and the people passed through a gate, and then they got their gift back on the other side. This made no sense at all. She had no gift, but without one, she apparently couldn't get through, even though people got their gifts back.

So Baba Yaga put on Shadow, the charm that made her unnoticeable. It wore her down to wear it—it took strength from her, apparently, with Bear so far away—but she used it only long enough to take away a woman's bag. A light one. She carried it to the box, put it in. The porch of the box moved, drew it inside. Then they let her pass through the gate.

Only it made a loud noise as she passed through it. They indicated she should step back and walk through again. Again the noise. They asked her questions she didn't understand. They took her by the arm and led her to a place where someone began to wave a wand around her. She had no idea what spell they were casting on her, but she had no intention of finding out. She drew out Shadow, put it on, and they didn't notice when she moved away. They shuffled around a little, looking vague and distracted. She walked off and left them wondering why they thought they were wanding somebody at the security gate, when no one could remember seeing anybody set off the alarm.

Exhausting as it was, she kept the shadow charm around her neck past the other gates. There was no important magic at any of them. She didn't know how the floor in front of the box moved, and she didn't know why the loud sound came when she walked through; but if it was magic, it wasn't much, because a simple charm like Shadow fooled them all. It shouldn't have. It was for common people, not for wizards, it would never work with wizards. But apparently wizards were in short supply in this place.

Finally she came to the place where she could see the houses-that-fly through large windows, magnificent clear windows without leading. How could such windows be sustained without magic? And yet she detected no trace of a spell on them. A lot of old prayers had been whispered here at the windows, and especially near the doorways that led down to the houses-that-fly, but that was god business, humble petitioners, obedient servants, nothing to do with the way that Baba Yaga used power.

She walked through an open doorway and made her way to the entrance of the house. She touched the wall of it. Hard, like the blade of a sword. Cold and smooth. She loved the feel of it. But where was the flying spell? She could smell strange things in the air, but recognized none of it. She slipped through the entrance and found row on row of chairs, all facing the same way. Soft chairs, like thrones, and she sat in an empty one.

She watched the people around her and learned how to lower the table, how to fasten a belt around her—what for, she couldn't imagine, but they all seemed to take it seriously. Finally the only people moving around were the servants in livery and one middle-aged man. The man held a piece of paper in his hand, and the servants kept looking at it. They moved up and down the rows of seats, looking down at the paper, then up at letters written above the seats, checking, checking. Checking what?

Finally she realized: Every seat in this house was full. Every person in here had a paper, and the writing on the paper told where they were supposed to sit. She was in the seat that this man was assigned to, but because she wore Shadow, they kept overlooking the place where she was. Therefore they couldn't find his seat. And until they found his seat, they were not going to let the house rise into the sky.

The ingeniousness of the system intrigued her. The wizard who created all this magic used ordinary people without a speck of power, and yet they had managed to stymie Baba Yaga herself, simply because they were so stupid that they would fuss around, go back and forth, talk and argue, but the plane would not rise into the sky until they found this man's seat. If Baba Yaga took off her charm, they would know she was in his chair, and they would try to get her to leave because she didn't have the paper she needed. She might kill a few of them for daring to refuse her—but she knew that the wizard who designed this system would have foreseen the possibility, and the house simply would not fly.

Well, have your cursed chair, you poor stupid fools. I'll stand.

She got up and moved away from the chair.

At once the servants found the seat and the man settled into it. Baba Yaga had left an itch in the upholstery—it would get through his clothes after an hour or so. And it would keep working on everyone who ever sat in the chair. It was one of her favorite curselets.

She was standing near one of the servants when she took a black-handled whip from the wall and spoke to it, as if invoking a god. Only, her voice was repeated throughout the house. Baba Yaga couldn't understand much of what she said. Only a few words, like Kiev and to and...

To, The woman was telling the people what the destination of the house was. Only then did Baba Yaga realize that of course the houses didn't all fly to the same place. Certain houses went to certain places, and everyone knew where except her—no doubt because the information was written on those nasty little papers, which she couldn't read, or it was said aloud in a language that she couldn't speak.

The door to the house-that-flies was closed, and she couldn't open it.

The house began to move; it almost knocked her down when it started.

If she was taken away from here, she didn't know how she'd find her way back. And since she didn't know where Katerina and Ivan had gone, there would be no hope of finding them without this as her starting place. She had failed.

She almost took out that little cloth and draped it over her head. But it made her too... not frightened—she wasn't frightened—too ashamed at the very thought of giving up, going back home empty-handed, blocked by a wizard who used cattle like these as his servants. She would not do it.

She pulled off Shadow and began to weep loudly, shifting her appearance so she looked like a frightened, confused country woman she had robbed out in the farm country a few days ago. Not knowing the language hampered her, but she hoped they'd just assume she was old and senile.

Oh, these servants were in fine form, running around, searching for her seat. Only there were no seats, she had no ticket, she heard them babble at her and comprehended nothing, and finally the house-that-flies stopped while the servants talked to men from a little room in front, who looked at Baba Yaga in exasperation and spoke in savage whispers to the women before they finally went back into their room and made the house glide back to the doorway.

They opened it, they ushered her outside, they left.

So the houses were controlled in that little room in front—that was good to know. And you really did have to have a paper with those letters on it so that there'd be a seat for you. And you had to know where you were going, or you'd end up somewhere else.

That was why Baba Yaga lingered in the airport for several days, watching. She tried to use Shadow only sparingly as she ate the oversalted, oversweetened food that nobody noticed her stealing. She learned to use the toilets and began to imitate their obsessive handwashing. She rifled through luggage until she found clothing that fit her and would allow her to blend in with the locals when she wasn't wearing Shadow.

Most important, however, she learned about tickets and money and credit cards. She accosted an employee and put him under a brief spell of talkativeness. She made him talk slowly and repeat things until she thought she understood what he was talking about. Money was no longer made of gold, she discovered, it was just magical numbers that were stored in tiny houses with a single large window called computers, and credit cards were the charms that commanded a distant servant to send these magical numbers through thin wires to other computers, and then, behold! You got a piece of paper with magic words on it that would compel the people in the flying houses to give you a seat and carry you with them to your destination.

Now that she knew credit cards were valuable, Baba Yaga began to collect as many of them as she could. She would slip Shadow on over her head, walk right up to people as they were paying for their tickets, and take the cards out of their hands. Soon she had dozens of them.

But what good would they do her, when she didn't know where Katerina and her consort had gone? Not till she got one of the ticket sellers to explain the computer screen to her did she finally get it. This was not all the work of a single wizard. Each of the different lords-of-the-air had his own livery, so his servants could be identified by the colors of their uniforms. And each lord had a different realm, so certain liveries would take you only to certain places. Also, they kept records of everyone who flew in their houses. Since Baba Yaga knew more or less when Katerina and Ivan had flown away, it wasn't hard—just time-consuming—to find out which lord-of-the-air had transported them, and where they had gone. It was a simple matter after that to get a ticket to carry her to the same destination.

Conveniently enough, Ivan's address was even listed in the computer. Baba Yaga had the ticket seller write it down for her. Everyone was so helpful. She paid using the prettiest credit card, and then left it with the ticket seller as a gift. Along with a minor curse—a bladder infection and diarrhea—just because she was Baba Yaga, and certain things were expected. Then, familiar now with all the airport routines, she bypassed every one of them without incident, got on the house-that-flies, and sat down in a seat, clutching in her hands the tickets that would take her first to Berlin, then to New York Kennedy, and then to Syracuse. From there she would somehow get transportation—a train, perhaps?—to Tantalus. The place where Ivan and Katerina had gone.

The gods and wizards of this world were no match for Baba Yaga, even in her weakened state. She got the better of every opponent. And every ally, too, for that matter. Even death. Someday she'd find a way around that, too. If feebleminded old gods like Mikola Mozhaiski could do it, so could she.