Page 25 of Captured By the Pakhan

She looks at Sergei and her whole voice changes.

"Hey. It's okay. It was just a dumb disagreement about cereal."

"It wasn't about cereal." Sergei says firmly.

"No," she admits. "It wasn't just about the cereal."

He comes into the room fully, and puts his book down on the counter with enormous care, and says, "I know how."

Nobody answers him. We all just stare at him.

"I know how to cook," he says, louder this time. "I watched Karina. And the one before her. I know how to do all of it, I just — " a small shrug " — I'm not allowed near the stove."

And that is the moment I come through the door fully.

All three of them look at me and all three reactions are different. Andrei goes to attention, minutely, the way he does. Raven's chin comes up about a centimetre, which I have learned means she has decided in advance not to explain herself.

And my son's shoulders climb toward his ears.

There it is. Five steps into a room and I have already made him feel small. I have been doing this since he was six – unintentinonally of course – but I have never once caught it happening this cleanly.

I don’t ask what happened. I don’t look at the red marks on her neck, which take me some effort not to look at. Then I take off my coat, and I put it over the back of a chair, and I roll my sleeves.

"Andrei. You have been awake for almost 72 hours. Go and sleep."

He hesitates.

"Andrei." Its a warning.

He goes. On the way past he glances at Raven and she looks back at him steadily, neither of them says one word, and I file the entire exchange for a night when I have more patience.

Then I turn to my son.

"Sergei. You said you know how to cook?"

He goes very still. "Yes."

"Then I am at your disposal. Teach me." I spread my hands. "I can tell you honestly that I have not cooked anything in years and my last attempt was not very successful. So you will have to be specific with me." And then I add. “And patient.”

He stares at me. Eventually he says, in a voice that is testing every word before it lets it out: "...You could cut the onions."

"I can do the onions."

"There's a board. In the — you have to — " He stops, and starts again, and something in him takes hold of the situation. "Raven, get the big pan. Not that one, the heavy one. Papa, the onions are in the drawer under the window and there's a board behind the bread bin, and you have to cut them small, not in rings, because Karina cuts them in rings and then they go all — " he makes a gesture " — stringy."

"Small," I repeat. "Not stringy."

"Small."

"Understood."

And that is how I come to be standing at my own counter at half past seven on a Thursday, dicing onions under the supervision of a ten-year-old.

He is extremely serious about it. He has a system. He sends Raven for tinned tomatoes and then rejects the tin she brings on grounds she is not permitted to appeal. He fills a pot and salts the water and says "not yet" in a voice of real authority when she reaches for the pasta. He tells me twice that my onions are too big and the second time he is correct.

"Like this?"

"Smaller."