Shelly Sanders: Rachel's Secret

Mikhail shrugged. “Next time. I’m skating with Rachel now.”

Rachel looked away and fiddled with the tea-colored braid that hung halfway down her back.

“But you skate with Rachel every Sunday. You don’t mind, do you, Rachel?”

She blinked at Sergei. “It’s up to Mikhail. I would never force him to skate with me.”

“I skate with you every Saturday, Sergei,” Mikhail said. “I told you, I’m skating with Rachel today.”

Rachel looked at Sergei and smiled—a gloating smile that she couldn’t hide.

Sergei shook his head and frowned as he skated back to the river’s edge, his arms flying wildly from side to side.

Rachel and Mikhail watched as Sergei sat down on the rickety wooden bench he and Mikhail had made earlier in the season. He unbuckled his skate blades and stomped away from the river.

“Why is he so angry?” she asked. Mikhail shrugged and took off across the ice. Rachel moved quickly to keep up with him, shoving Sergei and his foul temper to the back of her mind. In a way, she was grateful to Sergei for easing the tension between Mikhail and her. She wanted to forget about their kiss, pretend it had never happened.

Up ahead, Rachel saw her older sister, Nucia, showing off by skating on one leg, the other extended behind her. Tall and graceful, she looked as if she were flying on the ice.

“You’re so lucky you don’t have any brothers or sisters.” Rachel’s eyes were pasted on Nucia.

“I wouldn’t mind a brother,” Mikhail replied. “It’s pretty quiet with just my grandparents and me.”

“You may think you want a brother, but trust me, you don’t…especially if your brother was better than you at everything. I hate it when Mother tells me I need to be quieter like Nucia, or neater like Nucia .” She paused to catch her breath. “Chaia has an older sister who is a very good cook. She bakes bread that melts in your mouth. So Chaia’s mother expects her to be just like her sister, only Chaia can hardly make tea! If I was starving and there was no other food then maybe I’d eat Chaia’s rock-hard bread. I feel sorry for her future husband. He’ll probably starve to death…”

She glanced to her right and saw Mikhail’s mouth twitch with amusement.

“First one to that tree leaning over the river wins,” he said.

Rachel laughed and began skating faster. It took two of her strides to make one of his, and she had to keep pushing her long, bulky skirt out of the way. Mikhail was at least more than a body length ahead of her. “Just you wait, Mikhail,” she called out, clutching her shawl around her. “I’m not stopping until I get you.”

As soon as the words flew out of her mouth, Mikhail fell onto his back and stopped moving.

Rachel rushed over, blanketing his body with her shadow, a stricken expression on her face. As she leaned closer, Mikhail suddenly opened his eyes and grinned, his teeth glistening in the late afternoon light. Rachel fell backwards until she was sitting down on the cold ice. “I can’t believe you tricked me like that,” she laughed.

“I can’t believe you fell for it.” He got to his feet, extended his hand to help her up, and pulled her into an embrace.

“What are you doing?” she cried, squirming out of his arms. “I told you… I don’t want to be with you like that.”

Mikhail’s jaw clenched and he eyed her with derision. “You’re crazy for thinking you can choose your destiny. You will never leave Kishinev, and you will never become a writer.”

Nucia’s shrill voice pierced the air above the quiet river, now almost deserted. “Rachel, it’s time to go,” she called in Yiddish, the language Jewish families used among themselves.

Rachel heard her sister but was too upset to respond. She truly had thought that Mikhail, of all people, would understand and support her dreams, not rip through them with sharp, cynical words.

“Quickly. Mother will be angry if we’re not home to help with supper.” Nucia stood on the riverbank with her arms crossed, waiting for Rachel. A couple of parents and children were also leaving the river, skates in hand.

Without a word, Rachel skated over to the bench where she slowly undid her skates, buckled them together, and stood up. She looked back and saw Mikhail skating off, away from the river’s edge. Nobody else was in sight. In the distance, she heard the train whistle announcing its departure for Odessa, a sound that reminded Rachel of the larger world she desperately wanted to explore.

With a heavy heart, she walked silently beside Nucia from the river to the narrow, meandering street that led to their home.

Sergei kicked the snow as he walked from the tree-lined edge of the River Byk along the muddy street that led to town. He shivered as the cold penetrated his worn leather boots and quickened his pace. Laughter erupted as he neared the ice hill where children were climbing the wooden stairs. He watched some young boys fly down the icy slide on sleds painted brightly with flowers and birds. Just a few winters ago he had spent his free time on this hill, racing Mikhail to see who could get the most slides in one afternoon.

As he continued downhill toward the crowded Jewish district, the wind smacked against his face, stinging his eyes. Uneven stones and tiles jutted out from filthy snow, and short, half-dead birch trees stooped over like old Jewish men. Sergei wrinkled his nose at the strange odors emanating from the stone walls that obscured Jewish communities along the narrow road. He glanced through the arched gates of one courtyard. Inside were wooden houses with sagging tile roofs and a small child who looked at Sergei with mournful eyes.

The sharp whistle in the distance announced the departure of the afternoon train to Odessa. One day, Sergei promised himself, he would be on the train going somewhere, anywhere, to get away from Kishinev. He walked past the Jewish orphanage, a large, stone building with dark, narrow windows that had frightened Sergei when he was younger. His father told him that if he were really bad, he would be locked in the Jewish orphanage as a punishment. Looking at it now, Sergei decided it still looked ominous.

Sergei began walking uphill, crossing over to Aleksandrov Street and upper Kishinev, with its wide, paved sidewalks, stone office buildings, and schools, theaters, and churches. Stores, built from white stone, had red-trimmed windows, but many of them had gone out of business recently and were boarded up.

From the top of the hill, Sergei could see the whole city, set upon hilly plains. White limestone cathedrals rose up from the snow-covered evergreens, with cupolas that looked like helmets or onions. In the distance were flat steppes on which crops of sugar beets, sunflowers, wheat, maize, tobacco, and grapes would appear in the spring.

“Sergei! Wait for me!”

Turning, he saw Petya running to catch up with him. Sergei frowned. “I was looking for you on the river today.”

Petya held his battered skate blades in his hands. His face was bright red from the cold—almost the color of his copper-red hair.

“Theodore, Nikolai, and I were racing at the other end of the river,” Petya replied, breathing heavily. “There were too many people in the middle. You should’ve come with us.”

“I wish I had. Mikhail went off with Rachel, so I left.” Sergei lit a cigarette with a birch splinter and they continued walking, leaving a trail of smoke behind them.

A large horse-drawn troika bearing a fur-clad woman and a young girl drove past. The girl wore a red hood with a deep cape and a long white cloak. The sleigh was low and small, with just enough room for two passengers and the coachman. His tall, black hat reminded Sergei of a stovepipe.