Do you love me? he wanted to ask her, to demand of her. But, fearing the answer would be a wan "I'm sorry, Ivan," he did not speak.

She learned to throw practice Molotov cocktails, she learned to make and strike matches. They made a still in a Sears storage shed Father bought for that purpose, grumbling all the time about how it would look in the papers, "Professor arrested for making vodka in back-yard shed."

They decided they would test everything on the Fourth of July. "Nobody will mind a few explosions and fires that day," Father said, and he was obviously right. They'd find out then what their gunpowder could do. Minute quantities, for they didn't want to blow anything up, just to see if it would explode at all. Firecrackers, really. And a few Molotov cocktails thrown at a pile of logs, so they would be doing nothing more than igniting a celebratory bonfire. Afterward they'd roast sausages over the coals like good Americans. Well, not quite—they could never bring themselves to eat those clammy, nasty wieners Americans used as their hot dogs. Good, hearty Polish and Russian and Italian sausages, that's what they'd eat, and on a hearty bread, not those squishy spongy confections designed so that you didn't need teeth to eat them.

And then Ivan got the phone call from Ruthie.

"No one sees you anymore, Ivan. Are you hiding? Is the honeymoon still so engaging?"

Was she being bitter and nasty? Or cheerful and friendly? Hard to know. "She's learning the language," said Ivan. Which was true enough—though the language she was learning at the moment was modern Russian. As with so many Russian schoolchildren for generations, it was Pushkin who was her teacher, as they read to each other before going to bed. The stanzas of Tatyana's dream had disturbed her greatly—the girl being chased through the snow by a bear. Ivan wondered, then and now, how close Pushkin's vision had been to what Katerina herself went through, before she was enchanted in that magic place. He wondered also how Pushkin could have known. What influence did the bear still have in the world, at the time when Pushkin wrote?

Ruthie's voice brought him back to the present. "I'd like to take you on a picnic for the Fourth."

"A picnic?" It sounded bizarre. But if you looked at it another way, it was rather sweet, too. "That would be nice, but—"

"The three of us, of course. I still think of you as a friend, Ivan. Can't I? Is that wrong?"

"Not wrong, no, of course not. I wish we could, but we need to stay home, kind of a family thing—"

"No, no, I understand. I'm not part of the family, and she is, and that's that. I really am fine with it, Ivan. I don't pretend I understand what happened—maybe that's part of why I want to spend a little time with the two of you."

"She doesn't really speak much English yet," said Ivan.

"You can translate. What if we do it the day before? The third. Ivan, don't turn me away empty-handed."

No way were he and Katerina going to leave the safety of Mother's protected house. And yet it seemed churlish to turn down this overture of reconciliation. "The third, all right, but why don't you come over here? I know Mother and Father would like to see you again."

A moment's hesitation on the other end of the phone. "But you have to let me bring the food," she finally said.

"Mother won't hear of it," said Ivan.

"Then who's inviting whom? It's my picnic, Ivan. Even if we have it in your back yard."

Why did he have such a creepy feeling about this? I should tell her no, Ivan thought. This is wrong, this is a mistake. It's dangerous.

But he couldn't think why it was dangerous. And he had wronged her. He owed her a debt of guilt. If she wanted to mend fences, how could he let some vague, unnameable fear stand between them now?

Truth to tell, there was another reason he didn't want to have this picnic: In the weeks since returning to America, since seeing her at the airport, Ivan had come to realize that he didn't really miss Ruthie. That in fact he probably had never loved her. Now that he could compare his feelings toward Ruthie with his feelings toward Katerina, he knew there was no comparison. He hadn't been ready for marriage at all. It would have been a struggle to make it work with Ruthie. They would have bored each other so quickly.

And if he was completely honest with himself, he had to admit she had bored him already, before he left for Kiev. He was glad to leave her behind, he realized that now. He didn't miss her. He had never really loved her.

And that made him feel so guilty that it overrode any other consideration. "Your food, my house, noon. This is sweet of you, Ruthie."

"Don't patronize me, Ivan. I'm still not sure that I don't want to put the potato salad over your head. And maybe rub it in a little."

The breath of honesty came as a relief to him. "Whatever you think is right," said Ivan. "I won't protest that I don't deserve it. But not Katerina, please. She didn't know about you when she said yes to me."

"Oh. Well, you really are a two-faced son-of-a-bitch," said Ruthie cheerfully.

"There it is," said Ivan. "But at least I saved you from being married to one."

Ruthie laughed lightly. "I'll come by at noon on the third."

"We'll be here with bells on," said Ivan. Only after they hung up did he feel a twinge of embarrassment at his own phoniness. Be there with bells on? What B movie from the thirties did he get that line from? There wasn't an honest moment in that whole conversation, except when she talked about shampooing him with potato salad.

I don't want her here. There'll be a scene. Someone will cry. Someone will swear. No one will enjoy the food. If I had any spine at all, I'd have said no.

But what's done is done.

Yes, Esther was afraid for her son, for her new daughter-in-law, for the whole family. Yes, she worried about how her husband feared and hated the magic that had intruded into his life, and how he resented her for having known it all along. The power and malice she had sensed in Baba Yaga, that was the most terrifying of all. And yet all these fears did not diminish her joy, for this was the moment she had lived for. All those years ago, learning from Baba Tila, she had thought these charms and potions, spells and curses were to protect her family from the KGB or from some future pogrom. But now she saw that her whole life had been directed toward this moment, when she could protect the future queen and king of Taina from the most dangerous witch in history. And, more than her own pride, she was joyful because she saw her son growing into his manhood now. He, too, had been directed in his life—all that running, jumping, hurling of shot and discus and javelin, it seemed so foolish to Piotr and to Esther both; yet because of it he was able to get past the Bear and kiss the sleeping beauty. He and his father had learned to be as fluent in Old Church Slavonic as any two people alive, which proved to be vital for Vanya.

But who was doing all this directing? Was it a god? More to the point, was it God? And if the latter, was he helping them because they were Jews? Or helping Taina because it was a Christian kingdom? Or simply shaping the world to be able to put an end to Baba Yaga's great evil?

Or was there a fate greater than all gods, that could not bear a truly great malice, and had to bend reality, including a backward passage through time, until that malice could be put to rest?

There were no answers to such questions, of course. And in truth, Esther was not interested in them past the asking. Enough for her that whatever had chosen her and her son, they had so far been up to the challenge. It had worried her, watching Vanya grow up, that while he sometimes worried her and did not always choose wisely—look at Ruthie—he was nevertheless good, in some hidden place in his heart where the deepest choices are made. Any rule of life that he truly believed in, he obeyed; any course of action that he thought was right, he pursued. Resentfully, sometimes, but he did his duty.