Julia Phillips - Disappearing Earth

Chegga’s camera was clicking. Inside the car was dark. Airless. The charm did not swing.

“Why did he take it off her phone?” Marina said. “Where is her phone?”

Eva was wide-eyed. Natasha kept her face to the window.

Alyona’s phone had been off, Marina knew, since the afternoon the girls disappeared. But the desire to call her daughters was flooding her. She had to hear them. “Where are they?” Marina said. So loud. “Where are they?”

The hood was hard under her knees. “Take a minute, Marina,” Petya said. “Look again. A thousand souvenirs like this one are sold on the streets every tourist season. This one is hers? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said. Even as she said it, she thought, Am I? Am I? A thing like this, generic. But I know it. Except why would he save it? Display it? If this is true, if this is actually happening, where is Alyona? Her phone dismantled—where is Sophia? With him? Yegor? Who is that? Where is he? Did they go into this house? Are they buried in this garden? In the forest? Are they on the side of the road between here and Petropavlovsk? He might have. He. How am I still breathing? How? This charm.

Painted cottages lined freshly paved streets in Esso proper, where Petya, at Chegga’s direction, had driven them. As soon as a lone bar of service appeared on Marina’s screen, Petya pulled over, and Marina dialed the major general’s cell number. It rang without answer, so she hung up and dialed the station. A woman picked up, took Marina’s name, and asked her to hold for a transfer. A young man’s voice came over the line.

“Marina Alexandrovna? It’s Lieutenant Ryakhovsky.”

“I need to speak to Yevgeny Pavlovich.”

Ryakhovsky paused. “The major general is on a case away from his desk.”

“It’s urgent. You have to find him immediately.”

The detective sighed and lowered his voice. “Marina Alexandrovna, may I speak honestly? It’s Saturday night. The major general left work hours ago. You don’t want to call him at this point. He won’t be sober enough to assist you.”

Eva reached for the phone to take over the conversation. Marina held up a hand to stop her. The black car, Marina told the detective. The rearview mirror. Alyona’s phone charm. Yegor Gusakov. His private trips to the city and his house shuttered. Out of Marina’s mouth, the journalist was speaking. She listed the facts.

“Tell him about Lilia,” Chegga whispered.

Also Lilia, Marina repeated. Lilia…Marina looked over Chegga’s shoulders at the shadow of Natasha. “Solodikova,” Natasha said. “Lilia Konstantinovna.”

Solodikova, Lilia Konstantinovna, Marina said. Missing four years. And Yegor Gusakov. Alyona. Sophia. The Toyota, Marina said. The color of the Toyota, the size. An SUV.

“You saw this car yourself?” the detective said, voice sharp. She said yes. “Was Yegor Gusakov there? Did you see him? Did he see you?”

The darkened windows. The car in the driveway. Had he been in the house after all? Watching them? But— No, she said. She didn’t think so. No.

“Where are you right now? This very instant?”

The village streetlights flickered on above. In Esso, Marina said.

“You’re alone?”

She met Eva’s eyes. I’m with my friends, Marina said.

“How many friends?” Four. “They know? Have you told anyone else?”

Yes. No.

“Good. Don’t.” The detective was silent. “Marina Alexandrovna,” he finally said, “you’re sure about all this?”

She nodded. He kept waiting for her answer. Yes, she said out loud.

“Give us two hours to call back,” he said. “Maybe three. I’ll—we’ll track down the major general. We’ll send a team north by helicopter. You said this man wasn’t home when you were there?” No, she said. “We don’t want him to know we are coming.” Marina inhaled. “I can reach you on this number? So for now—do you understand me?—for now, you will need to stay out of his way. Stay away from his house. Do not go there. Tell your friends the same. Wait somewhere and expect to hear from me.”

In two hours?

“I’ve got to find him first. We’ll start organizing the flight. Then up to Esso…” The other end of the line was quiet as he calculated. He said, “In three.”

But you’ll come.

“We’re coming.”

And I’ll wait, she said. She was always waiting. When Eva reached again for the phone, Marina gave it over, so her friends could hear the plan from the detective’s own mouth. Beside Marina, under the new yellow light, Chegga scrolled through the photos on his camera. Natasha stared ahead stunned.

They had decided. To the campground, to collect their things, then back to Esso where there was cell service to wait for Ryakhovsky’s call. Chegga told Marina, Eva, and Petya that they should stay at his house, with his wife and daughter. Marina listened to Eva and Petya agree. As helpful as Chegga had been, he had the same quality as everyone else over this year: he wanted to put himself inside the story. As if on instinct, Natasha roused, then— “No,” she said to the group. “Come to ours.”

“Which is closer to Yegor’s?” Petya asked.

Chegga glanced at Natasha. “They’re the same, practically. The village isn’t big. We’re two streets apart.”

“But your mother,” Eva said to Natasha. “She won’t mind?”

“She stays at the camp during the festival.” Eva nodded. “You can meet the rest of my family,” Natasha said.

Out of Esso, the houses drew farther apart, the ground under their tires grew rougher. The river alongside the road returned. Marina looked into the blackened woods. In two or three hours, just after midnight, she would hear a helicopter.

When they pulled into the rows of parked cars at the campground fence, the music coming from the clearing beyond was contemporary, electronic-sounding. “Will you come with us to pack up or would you rather wait in the car?” Eva asked.

Marina could not feel her lungs, or her throat, or the pulse in her chest or her back on the seat or her hands where they had hit the car’s glass. Nothing hurt. This was a new, not unwelcome, way of existing. “You can do it,” Marina said. “Please.”

Between the driver’s seat and the door, Petya reached back to touch her shin. “We’ll be back as soon as possible,” Eva said.

Natasha got out, too, to let Chegga slide from the car. He hugged Marina before he left. Marina, outside her own body, observed him doing it. Then Natasha got back in to sit again. She left her door open.

This is not real, Marina thought. This could not be her life.

The night was cool, the music loud. Marina checked the time on her phone, then put her head back and practiced making an O of her numb lips. Natasha was turned toward the clearing. She said something.

“What?” Marina said.

Natasha cleared her throat. “Almost the closing ceremony.”

Drums sounded through the speakers. Long research had given Marina one more fact: a body takes ten years to decompose after burial. Alyona and Sophia are buried in that man’s garden, she thought. She had practically stood on top of them an hour before. After Marina’s months of horror spent gathering information, that idea neither distressed nor soothed her now. It surfaced in her like a piece of driftwood. Ten years. It floated along.

“I always wanted what you got tonight,” Natasha said in the direction of the clearing. “An answer.”

Marina looked again at her phone. Two hours, he’d guessed, to call back.

“Any answer,” Natasha said. “I’m glad for you.” Her voice was flat and far away.

The words percolated through Marina. She said, “Thank you.”