C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

“Mother, I’m upset. I’m thinking about it.” Without her intending it, it turned out to be a recitation, word for word her mother’s own example to her what to say when things got out of hand; she decided her mother’s exact words could hardly upset her, since her mother did not approve the things she thought on her own. She tried not to want her mother to let her go, she tried not to want anything, which with nothing right, was hard. So she just wanted all of them to feel better, instead, and for her father not to be upset. After a moment her mother let her go, took hold of her hands and looked up at her with eyelashes damp and tear trails on her face.

“Ilyana. Child—”

(I’m not, mother, not as much as you think.)

“—I didn’t aim at you.”

Her mother was holding out for an answer. Ilyana said, as steadily as she could, “Uncle explained that.” She thought maybe she could get the breath and the wit to go on and explain things of her own, how long she had known her friend, how he had never hurt her, but she could not get it out in time.

“He’s not safe, Ilyana. He’s not what you saw.”

“I know. Uncle said he was a hundred years old. At least. He said you—”—died, she almost said, but that was not something to talk about with her mother upset as she was. She meant to say: Mother, he grew up with me—

But her mother squeezed her hands till the bones ground together and said, “Ilyana, don’t ever call him back. Do you hear me? You don’t know him. He’s not anything you possibly understand right now.”

She thought, You don’t think I understand anything. But I do, mother. Things like getting half the truth. And lies.

Like things you shouldn’t have done.

Father has to be upset with her. With him. With me. God, what can he think, seeing me with this same man—

Who’s not really fifteen years old at all.

Of a sudden she could not bear to face any of them, could not think how to get free of her mother’s hold: she just said: “Let me go. Please let me go—” and thought she was going to be sick at her stomach.

Her mother wished not, her mother was wanting to know what she was thinking, and she jerked her hands from her mother’s and backed away, hitting the table so it screeched behind her. The whole house creaked, the domovoi complaining.

Her father grabbed her and hugged her so hard she could scarcely breathe. She said, “I’m sorry, papa,” the word she had used for him when she was small; and stopped thinking and let him hold her until she was dizzy.

“Pyetr.” Uncle’s voice. Uncle’s touch lighted on her shoulder, and her father let her go. “Pyetr, let me take her up the hill tonight. I think it will be better.”

Like a baby, she thought, sent up the hill to stay in uncle’s house till her tantrum stopped. She drew herself free and lifted her chin, as grown-up as she knew how to be, “No, no, I don’t need to, it’s all right. I’m sorry. I’d like my supper. Then I’d like just to be quiet a while.”

Her mother touched her shoulder, said, “I’ll get your supper. Sit down, dear. Sit down.”

She did not know how she could face her father across the table. She winced as her mother wished something, but it was not at her.

Her father smoothed the hair at her temple, and said, in a voice so shaken it hurt to hear, “Mouse, I knew him. We, were enemies and we weren’t, and you saw him the way he was when your mother met him.”

“Every year since—” Now it came out. She caught her breath, thinking, God, I shouldn’t have said anything, I don’t want to talk about that—

Her mother said, “Ilyana—every year—since when?”

Damn it, she was eavesdropping, her mother was probably passing everything to her father and her uncle, every private thought she had.

She wanted not to talk to them. She wanted to faint away and not deal with any of it.

And she did.

“Mouse?” Pyetr asked. She looked so pale, and so sad, and so frighteningly still against the pillows, in the lamplight of her bedroom.

Sasha said, at his side: “Wake up, mousekin. It’s all right. We won’t talk about it. Your mother’s bringing some supper for you.”

She had just become a weight in Pyetr’s arms, just gone out of a sudden; and scared him so he was still shaking, scared ’Veshka, too, he understood. Sasha was the calm one, Sasha still was: “Wake up,” Sasha said; and without any fuss at all, Ilyana’s eyelids fluttered and she began to wake up.

A little confused at being in bed, maybe. “You fainted, mousekin. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, hushed, as if breath were still very short. “I’m really sorry, papa.”

“Ilyana, it’s not your fault. Nothing’s your fault. I’m not even mad at Chernevog. I was as close to a friend as he had in the world.”

Maybe she did not quite believe that exaggeration. But it confused her. A great many things surely confused her—and confusion might multiply wishes, but it subtracted effectiveness.

“We’ll talk about it,” he said. “Later. Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“A fib, but I’ll take it for a promise. Don’t do that to me again.”

“I’m—”

“—sorry. You’ve been talking to your uncle. Sorry’s his word. Don’t be sorry: you don’t have to apologize to anyone. There’s not a thing in the world you’ve done wrong, except I wish you’d told us a long time ago what was going on.”

“Mother would have said don’t.”

He understood that. Eveshka said “don’t” to anything chancy. He was not in the habit of telling Eveshka when he had decided to risk his neck, either.

Your daughter, Sasha had said.

He said, “I got drunk once, jumped a fence that scared the hell out of me. Risked my horse’s neck, not mentioning mine. It didn’t scare me at the time, of course. But to this day I have nightmares about that fence coming at me.”

“What’s that to do with—?”

“Just that’s who your papa is. A fool, sometimes. And prone to rush into things. But your papa didn’t have anybody worrying about him. He never had anybody who gave a damn whether he survived. Mouse, you do have. Break your neck and you’re going to make all of us very unhappy. But not with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Maybe he shocked her, telling her things like that. It was the speech Sasha had talked about this morning, not the one he would give his daughter: the one someone should have given him—if anyone had cared whether he lived or died, before Sasha had begun to.

She said, faintly, “I didn’t think it was dangerous. I still don’t. He never, ever hurt me.”

“I believe you,” he said, on an uneasy stomach. “I almost believe his intentions. But I don’t believe he can hold to them.” He remembered Eveshka’s touch—then, in those days when it was both dizzying and deadly. He knew the compulsion—on both sides; and thinking of his daughter trapped in it, his daughter locked in an embrace like that— “It’s like vodka, mouse. It corrupts your judgment about the next cupful. Or the next wish and the one that patches it. You could die like that and not care. I know what you’re not telling me. You don’t have to tell me what it feels like. I’ve felt it.”

Stop, he heard her say in his head; and Sasha laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Mousekin,” Sasha said. “I know. It’s all right. Rest. I’ll stay here in the front room tonight. I’ll be here. I’ll bring you your supper in bed. All right?”

“All right,” she said. And Sasha got him out the door.

Distress hit him then, like a weight in his chest: Eveshka’s heart settled against his and he stood there, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe, the pain was so acute. Eveshka was finishing Ilyana’s supper tray. She laid a napkin on it and gave it to Sasha to take into the room, all quite easy, quite calm. He realized that he was in the way: he opened the door for Sasha and shut it after him.