Harvest

whisper: 'Feel that? Feel how big I am?' And he would grab their hands and force them to touch him.

But Valentin was gone now, he and Pyotr. Gone to new parents who'd chosen them, Nadiya said.

The rest of them were the leftovers.

In the afternoon, Yakov and Aleksei climbed to the deck and stretched out on the spot where the helicopter had landed. They lay gazing up at the hard blue glare of the sky. No clouds, no helicopters. The deck was warm and, like two kittens on a radiator, they began to feel drowsy.

'I've been thinking,' saidYakov, his eyes closed against the sun.

'If my mother is alive,! don't want to be adopted.'

'She's not.'

'She could be.'

'Why didn't she come back for you, then?'

'Maybe she's looking for me right now. And here I am, in the middle of the sea where no one can find me. Except with radar. I'm going to tell Nadiya to take me back. I don't want a new mother.'

'I do,' said Aleksei. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, 'Do you think there's something wrong with me?'

Yakov laughed. 'You mean besides the fact you're retarded?' When Aleksei didn't answer Yakov squinted up at his friend and was puzzled to see the boy had his hands over his face, and his shoulders were shaking.

'Hey,' saidYakov. 'Are you crying?'

'No.'

'You are, aren't you?'

'No.'

'You're such a baby. I didn't mean it. You're not retarded.' Aleksei had folded into a ball of arms and legs. He was crying all right. Though he didn't make a sound, Yakov could see the chest spasmodically sucking in gulps of air. Yakov didn't know what to make of this or what to say. A fresh insult was what automatically came to mind. Stupid girl. Crybaby. But then he thought better of it. He had never seen Aleksei this way, and he felt a little guilty, a little scared. It was just a joke. Why couldn't Aleksei see it was a joke?

'Let's go down and swing on the rope,' saidYakov. He gave Aleksei a poke in the ribs.

Aleksei lashed back with an angry shove and jumped up, his face red and wet.

'What's the matter with you anyway?' saidYakov.

'Why did they choose that stupid Pyotr instead of me?'

'They didn't choose me either,' saidYakov.

'But there's nothing wrong with me!' cried Aleksei. He ran from the deck.

Yakov sat very still. He looked down at the stump of his left arm. And he said, 'There's nothing wrong with me either.'

'Knight to bishop three,' said Koubichev, the engineer.

'You always do that. Don't you ever try anything new?'

'I believe in the tried and true. It's beaten you every time. Your move. Don't take all day.'

Yakov rotated the chess board and studied it first from one angle, then another. He got on his knees and peered down the row of

HARVEST

pawns. Imagined black-armoured soldiers standing in formation, awaiting orders.

'What the hell are you doing now?' said Koubichev. 'Did you ever notice the queen has a beard?'

'What?'

'She has a beard. Look.'

Koubichev grunted. 'That's just her neck ruffle. Now will you make your move?'

Yakov set the queen back on the board and reached for a knight. He set it down, picked it up. Set it down in a different place and again picked it up. All around them rumbled the engines of Hell.

Koubichev was no longer watching. He'd opened a magazine and was flipping through the pages, eyeing a succession of glamorous faces. The one hundred most beautiful women in America. Every so often he'd grunt and say, 'You call that beautiful?' or 'I wouldn't let my dog fuck that one.'

Yakov picked up the queen again and set her down on bishop four. 'There.'

Koubichev regarded Yakov's latest move with a snort. 'Why do you always repeat the same mistake? Moving your queen out too early?' He tossed the magazine down and leaned forward to move his pawn. That's when Yakov spotted the face on the magazine page. It was a woman. Blonde hair, with one wisp curling over the cheek. A melancholy smile. Eyes that seemed to be gazing not at you, but beyond you.

'It's my mother,' saidYakov.

'What?'

'It's her. It's my mother!' He lunged for the magazine, knocking against the crate that served for a table. The chess board toppled. Pawns and bishops and knights flew in every direction.

Koubichev snatched the magazine out of reach. 'what the hell is wrong with you?'

'Give it to me!' screamed Yakov. He was clawing at the man's arm now, frantic to claim his mother's photo. 'Give it!'

'You crazy boy, it's not your mother!'

'It is! I remember her face! She looked like that, just like that!' 'Stop scratching me. Get away, do you hear?'

'Give it to me!'

'All right, all right. Here, I'll show you. It's not your mother.' Koubichev slapped the magazine down on the crate. 'See?'

Yakov stared at the face. Every detail was exactly as he'd dreamed it. The way the head was tilted, the way her skin dimpled near the corners of her mouth. Even the way the light fell on her hair. He said, 'It's her. I've seen her face.'

'Everyone's seen her face.' Koubichev pointed to the name on the photo. 'Michelle Pfeiffer. She's an actress. American. Not even the name is Russian.'

'But I know her! I had a dream about her!'

Koubichev laughed. 'You and every other horny boy.' He glanced around at the scattered chess pieces. 'Look at this mess. We'll be lucky to find all the pawns. Come on, you knocked it over. Now pick them up.'

Yakov didn't move. He stood staring at the woman, remembering the way she had smiled at him.

Koubichev, grumbling, dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl about, retrieving chess pieces from underneath machinery. 'You've probably seen her face somewhere. The TV, or maybe some magazine, and you forgot about it. Then you have a dream about her, that's all.' He set two bishops and a queen on the board, then heaved himself back onto the chair. His face was flushed, his barrel chest panting heavily. He tapped his head. 'The brain is a mysterious thing. It takes real life and spins it into dreams, and we can't tell what's made up and what's real. Sometimes I have this dream where I'm sitting at a table with all this wonderful food, everything I could want to eat. Then I wake up and I'm still on this fucking boat.' He reached for the magazine and tore out the page with Michelle Pfeiffer. 'Here. It's yours.'

Yakov took the page but didn't say anything. He just held it. Looked at it.

'If you want to pretend that's your mother, go ahead. A boy could do worse. Now pick up the pieces. Hey! Hey, Boy!Where do you think you're going?'

Yakov, still clutching the page, fled Hell.

Up on deck he stood at the rail, his face to the sea. The page was wrinkled now, flapping and crackling in the wind. He looked at it, saw that he'd been holding it so tightly, a crease now cut across those half-smiling lips.

He grasped one corner with his teeth and ripped the page in two. It was not enough. Not enough. He was breathing hard, close to crying, but no sound came out. He ripped the page again and again, using his teeth like an animal tearing at real flesh, letting the pieces fly off into the wind.

When he'd finished, he was still holding onto one scrap of the page. It was an eye. Just beneath it, pinched by his fingers, was a star-shaped crease. Like the sparkle of a single teardrop.

He threw the scrap over the rail and watched it flutter away and fall into the sea.