Dark Eyes

Dark Eyes

RAZORBILL

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Young Readers Group

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Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © 2012 William Richter

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-101-56096-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

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For the Shaw girls

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

Valentina stirred awake
and found Mrs. Ivanova leaning over her bed, gently squeezing her shoulder.

“Shh, little one,” Mrs. Ivanova said in her most quiet whisper. Valentina could smell sweet tea on the old woman’s breath. “Come along.”

Valentina smiled, still half-asleep, and slid out from beneath her covers as quietly as she could, careful not to wake the other children with the sound of her squeaky bed. With Mrs. Ivanova’s help, Valentina put on her robe and slippers and padded silently out of the room. The two of them moved hand in hand along the hallway of the main building, the faint glow of early morning light, cold gray, just barely creeping in through the high windows. They passed a low shelf on the wall where twenty small clay pots sat in a row, each with a single blooming flower, each with a name hand-painted on its side: Aniya, Mika, Stasya, Youri….

No one else was up yet—not even Miss Demitra, the cook—and the privacy of their short journey added to the feeling of specialness that tickled inside Valentina’s stomach. They reached Mrs. Ivanova’s quarters at the end of the North Hall and entered the warm apartment together, the air inside rich with the aroma of blini and lingonberry jam and—most special of all—hot chocolate. A small table was already set by a coal stove.

“Sit, Wally,” said Mrs. Ivanova. Valentina took her place at the table and Mrs. Ivanova served their breakfast, spreading sour cream on the warm blini and pouring a full cup of chocolate for her guest. Valentina waited anxiously for Mrs. Ivanova to join her.

“Okay, okay,” the woman said with a smile as she took her own seat across the modest table. “Eat.”

Valentina dug hungrily into her food, adding dollops of jam to each forkful of pancake and relishing sips of the hot chocolate between bites.

The two of them had shared such a breakfast five or six times before, each time a surprise for Valentina and, as far as she knew, a gift not shared with any of the other children. This morning, as always, the two of them ate in silence, Mrs. Ivanova observing Valentina’s appetite with approval and then clearing the table once all the food was gone.

At this point in their other breakfasts the two of them had drunk tea together while Mrs. Ivanova told stories about someone named Yalena—Yalena Mayakova—who the old woman claimed was Valentina’s mother. On those occasions the girl had listened carefully but without understanding; she knew only that a mother was a woman who cared for her children, and how could this Yalena, a complete stranger to her, be that? Valentina had no memory of her, or of any life beyond the walls of the orphanage. Where was this Yalena? Why had she left her daughter behind?

On this morning, however, there were no stories. Mrs. Ivanova sat in silence, drinking her tea and making the nervous
tsk-tsk
ing sound that the children recognized as a sign the old woman was in distress. Valentina observed this and became worried herself. What was wrong? None of their other private meals had ended this way. After many minutes of this silence, something happened that had never happened before, at least to Valentina’s knowledge: Mrs. Ivanova began to cry, turning her head away in a futile attempt to hide her emotions from the girl. Valentina saw the tears anyway and soon she was crying also, upset and afraid but without knowing why.

“Are you sad, Babu?” Valentina used the shortened name for Mrs. Ivanova that the younger children in the home routinely used: Babu. Babushka. Grandmother.

“I am not your babushka.” Mrs. Ivanova spoke with a hard tone in her voice. “I cannot be anymore. I am sorry, Wally.”

“You
are
my babu,” Wally said, wiping the tears away from her face, wanting to be strong. Crying was for the little ones. The older children in the home never shed a tear, ever.

“A young couple will come today from America,” Mrs. Ivanova started in again. “A mother and father for you. A chance for a new life.”

“No. I have a mother. You said. My mother is Yalena. If she comes to find me and I am gone…”

Mrs. Ivanova shook her head. “You must let go of the stories, Wally. I am sorry I shared them with you; that was my mistake. You must forget Yalena.”

Overwhelmed, Valentina did not resist as Mrs. Ivanova led her to the private washroom and rushed her through a bath, soaping Valentina’s hair with scented shampoo and scrubbing her body with a coarse washcloth head to toe. By that point, the old woman had composed her emotions, and Valentina struggled to do the same, hiding her tears of fear and confusion behind the clear warm water that rinsed the soap off her body and down the drain. When the bath was over, Mrs. Ivanova produced a pale yellow dress for the girl to wear, clean and pressed but well worn, with frayed threads at all the seams.

“Yes, yes,” the woman said tersely once Valentina was dressed, adding the
tsk-tsk
ing sound involuntarily. “Very pretty. Beautiful girl.”

Everything happened so quickly then that Valentina’s heart and mind could barely keep up. Mrs. Ivanova held her hand tight and led her insistently through the Main Hall, all the lights on now and the place fully awakened. The other children—her brothers and sisters—were nowhere to be seen, but Valentina could hear them singing together behind the closed door of the main lesson room, the muffled sound of their voices echoing down the long hallway.

Mrs. Ivanova steered Valentina into a small office that she had never entered before, and there stood a young man and a woman. They smiled brightly at Valentina’s arrival, the woman stepping forward and kneeling before the little girl so that they could see each other face-to-face. Tears began to flow from the woman’s eyes and she twisted her hands nervously around each other, wringing them tightly until they were as white as the cream for tea. Valentina felt an urge to run away but found that she could not move, that her feet were planted on that spot of floor by a powerful and frightening force.