Zara glanced at Aliide, although she no longer had even her hair as a curtain between them. Aliide gave her body a once-over. Zara’s skin was filthy with mud and dirt. What she needed was some soap.
1992
Läänemaa, Estonia
Aliide Prepares a Bath
Aliide told the girl to sit down on a wobbly kitchen chair. She obeyed. Her gaze wandered and came to rest on the tin of salt left between the windowpanes over the winter, as if it were a great wonder to her.
“The salt absorbs moisture. So the windows don’t fog up in the cold.”
Aliide spoke slowly. She wasn’t sure if the girl’s mind was working at full power. Although she had recovered a little outside, she’d put her slipper in the door so warily, as though the floor were made of ice that wasn’t sure to hold her, and when she made it to the chair she was more withdrawn and huddled than she’d been in the yard. Aliide’s instincts told her not to let the girl inside, but she seemed to be in such a bad state that there was no other choice. The girl was startled again when she leaned back and the kitchen curtain brushed against her arm. The flinch made her lean forward again, and the chair swayed, and she had to fumble to keep her balance. Her slipper hissed against the floor. When the chair steadied, her foot stopped swinging and she grabbed the edge of the seat. She tucked her feet under her, then wrapped her arms around her sides and drooping shoulders.
“Lemme get you something dry to put on.”
Aliide left the door to the front room open and dug through the few housedresses and slips in the wardrobe. The girl didn’t move, she just perched on the chair chewing her lower lip. Her expression had sunk back into what it had been in the beginning. Aliide felt revulsion well up in her. The girl would leave soon, but not before they figured out where to send her and gave her a little medicine. They weren’t going to sit there waiting for another visitor—the girl’s husband or whoever it was that was after her. If she wasn’t thieves’ bait, then whose bait was she? The boys in the village? Would they do something that elaborate? And why? Just to torment her, or was there something else behind it? But the village boys definitely wouldn’t use a Russian girl— never.
When Aliide went back into the kitchen, the girl heaved her shoulders and head and turned toward her. Her eyes looked away. She wouldn’t accept the clothes, said she only wanted some pants.
“Pants? I don’t have any except for sweatpants, and they’d need to be washed, for sure.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I wear them to work outside.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“All right!”
Aliide went to look for the Marat pants hanging from the coatrack in the entryway, at the same time straightening her own underwear. She was wearing two pairs, as usual, as she had every day since that night at town hall. She had also tried men’s breeches sometimes. They had briefly made her feel safer. More protected. But women didn’t wear long pants back then. Later on, women appeared in pants even in the village, but by that time she was so used to two pairs of underwear that she didn’t hanker after long pants. But why would a girl in a Western dress want a pair of Maratbrand sweatpants?
“These were made after Marat got those Japanese knitting machines,” Aliide said, and laughed, coming back into the kitchen. After a tiny pause, the girl let out a giggle. It was a brief giggle, and she swallowed it immediately, the way people do when they don’t get the joke but they don’t dare or don’t want to admit it, so they laugh along. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke to her. Maybe she was so young that she didn’t remember what Marat knits were like before the new machines. Or maybe Aliide was right in guessing that the girl wasn’t Estonian at all.
“We’ll wash and mend your dress later.”
“No!”
“Why not? It’s an expensive dress.”
The girl snatched the pants from Aliide, peeled off her stockings, pulled on the Marats, tore off her dress, slipped on Aliide’s housedress in its place, and before Aliide could stop her, threw her dress and stockings into the stove. The map fluttered onto the rug. The girl snapped it up and threw it into the fire with the clothes.
“Zara, there’s nothing to worry about.”
The girl stood in front of the stove as if to shelter the burning clothes. The housedress was buttoned crooked.
“How about a bath? I’ll put some water on to warm,” Aliide said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Aliide came toward the stove slowly. The girl didn’t move. Her panicked eyes flickered. Aliide poured the kettle full, took hold of the girl’s hand and led her to the chair, set a hot glass of tea on the table in front of her, and went back to the stove. The girl turned to watch her movements.
“Let them burn,” Aliide said.
The girls eyebrow was no longer twitching. She started to scratch at her nail polish, concentrating on each finger one by one. Did it calm her down? Aliide fetched a bowl of tomatoes from the pantry and put it on the table, glanced at the loaded mousetrap beside the pile of cucumbers, and inspected her recipe book and the jars of mixed vegetables she’d left on the counter to cool.
“I’m about to can tomatoes. And the raspberries from yesterday. Shall we see what’s on the radio?”
The girl grabbed a magazine and rustled it loudly against the oilcloth. The glass of tea spilled over the magazine, the girl was frightened, and she jumped away from the table, stared at the glass and at Aliide in turn, and started to rapidly apologize for the mess, but messed up the words, then nervously tried to clean it up, looking for a cloth, then wiping the floor, the glass, and the legs of the table, and patting the already-ragged kitchen mat dry.
“It’s all right.”
The girl’s panic didn’t subside, and Aliide had to calm her down again—it’s all right, there’s nothing to worry about, just calm down, it’s just a glass of tea, let it be, why don’t you fetch the washtub from the back room, there should be enough warm water now. The girl dashed off quickly, still looking apologetic, brought the zinc tub clattering into the kitchen, and rushed between the stove and the tub carrying hot water and then cold water to add to it. She kept her gaze toward the floor; her cheeks were red, her movements conciliatory and smooth. Aliide watched her at work. An unusually well-trained girl. Good training like that took a hefty dose of fear. Aliide felt sorry for her, and as she handed her a linen towel decorated with Lihula patterns, she held the girl’s hands in her own for a moment. The girl flinched again; her fingers curled up and she pulled her hand away, but Aliide wouldn’t let her go. She felt like petting the girl’s hair, but she seemed too averse to being touched, so Aliide just repeated that there was nothing to worry about. She should just calmly get in the bath, then put on some dry clothes, and have something to drink. Maybe a glass of cold, strong sugar water. How about if she mixed some up right now?
The girl’s fingers straightened. Her fright started to ease, her body settled. Aliide carefully loosened the girl’s hand from her own and mixed up some soothing sugar water. The girl drank it, the glass trembled, a swirling storm of sugar crystals. Aliide encouraged her to get into the bath, but she wouldn’t budge until Aliide agreed to wait in the front room. She left the door ajar and heard the water splashing, and now and then a small, childlike sigh.
The girl didn’t know how to read Estonian. She could speak but not read. That’s why she had flipped through the magazine so nervously and knocked over her glass—maybe on purpose, to keep Aliide from seeing that she was illiterate.
Aliide peeked through the crack in the door. The girl’s bruised body sprawled in the tub. The tangled hair at her temples stuck out like an extra, listening ear.
1991
Vladivostok, Russian federation
Zara Admires Some Shiny Stockings and Tastes Some Gin
One day, a black Volga pulled up in front of Zara’s house. Zara was standing on the steps when the car stopped, the door of the Volga opened, and a foot clothed in a shiny stocking emerged and t
ouched the ground. At first Zara was afraid—why was there a black Volga in front of their house?— but she forgot her fright when the sun hit Oksanka’s lower leg. The babushkas got quiet on the bench beside the house and stared at the shining metal of the car and the glistening leg. Zara had never seen anything like it; it was the color of skin; it didn’t look anything like a stocking. Maybe it wasn’t a stocking at all. But the light gleamed on the surface of the leg in such a way that there had to be something there—it wasn’t just a naked leg. It looked as if it had a halo, like the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, gilded with light at the edges. The leg ended in an ankle and a high-heeled shoe—and what a shoe! The heel was narrow in the middle, like a slender hourglass. She’d seen Madame de Pompadour wearing shoes like that in old art-history books, but the shoe that emerged from the car was taller and more delicate, with a slightly tapered toe. When the shoe was set down on the dusty road and the heel landed on a stone, she heard a tearing sound all the way from the porch. Then the rest of the woman got out of the car. Oksanka.
Two men in black leather coats with thick gold chains around their necks got out of the front of the car. They didn’t say anything, just stood beside the car staring at Oksanka. And there was plenty to stare at. She was beautiful. Zara hadn’t seen her old friend in a long time, not since she’d moved to Moscow to go to the university. She had received a few cards from her and then a letter that said that she was going to work in Germany. After that she hadn’t heard from her at all until this moment. The transformation was amazing. Oksanka’s lips glimmered like someone’s in a Western magazine, and she had on a light brown fox stole, not the color of fox but more like coffee and milk—or were there foxes that color?
Oksanka came toward the front door, and when she saw Zara she stopped and waved. Actually it looked more like she was scraping at the air with her red fingernails. Her fingers were slightly curled, as if she were ready to scratch. The babushkas turned to look at Zara. One of them pulled her scarf closer around her head. Another pulled her walking stick between her legs. A third took hold of her walking stick in both hands.
The horn of the Volga tooted.
Oksanka approached Zara. She came up the stairs smiling, the sun played against her clean, white teeth, and she reached out her taloned hands in an embrace. The fox stole touched Zara’s cheek. Its glass eyes looked at her, and she looked back. The look seemed familiar. She thought for a moment, then realized that her grandmother’s eyes sometimes looked like that.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Oksanka whispered. A sticky shine spilled over her lips and it looked like it was difficult to part them, as if she had to tear her mouth unglued whenever she opened it.
The wind fluttered a curl of Oksanka’s hair against her lips, she flicked it away, and the curl brushed her cheek and left a red streak there. There were similar streaks on her neck. It looked like she’d been hit with a switch. As Oksanka squeezed her hand, Zara felt her fingernails, little stabs into her skin.
“You need to go to the salon, honey,” Oksanka said with a laugh, rumpling her hair. “A new color and a decent style!”
Zara didn’t say anything.
“Oh yeah—I remember what the hairdressers are like here. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t let them touch your hair.” She laughed again. “Let’s have some tea.”
Zara took Oksanka inside. The communal kitchen went quiet as they walked through. The floor creaked, women came to the door to watch them. Zara’s down-at-the-heel slippers squeaked as she walked over the sand and sunflower seed shells. The women’s eyes made her back tingle.
She let Oksanka into the apartment and closed the door behind her. In the dim room, Oksanka shone like a shooting star. Her earrings flashed like cat’s eyes. Zara pulled the sleeves of her housecoat over the reddened backs of her hands.
Grandmother’s eyes didn’t move. She sat in her usual place, staring out the window. Her head looked black against the incoming light. Grandmother never left that one chair, she just looked out the window without speaking, day and night. Everyone had always been a little afraid of Grandmother, even Zara’s father, although he was drunk all the time. Then he had faded and died and Zara’s mother had moved with Zara back to Grandmother’s house. Grandmother had never liked him and always called him tibla— Russian trash. But Oksanka was used to Grandmother and clattered over to greet her immediately, took her hand, and chatted pleasantly with her. Grandmother may have even laughed. When Zara began to clear the table, Oksanka dug through her purse and found a chocolate bar that sparkled as much as she did and gave it to Grandmother. Zara put the heating coil in the kettle. Oksanka came up beside her and handed her a plastic bag.
“There are all kinds of little things in here.”
Zara hesitated. The bag looked heavy.
“Just take it. No, wait a minute,” Oksanka pulled a bottle from the bag. “This is gin. Has your grandmother ever had anything like gin? Maybe it would be a new experience for her.”
She grabbed some schnapps glasses from the shelf, filled them, and took a glass to Grandmother. Grandmother sniffed at the drink, grinned, laughed, and dashed the contents into her mouth. Zara followed suit. An acrid burning spread through her throat.
“Gin is what they make gin and tonics from. We make quite a lot of them for our customers.” Then she pretended to bustle about with a tray and put drinks on the table, and said in English, “Vould you like to have something else, sir? Another gin tonic, sir? Noch einen?” Her boisterousness was contagious. Zara made as if to tip her, nodded approvingly at the drink she offered, and giggled at her silliness, just like they used to do.
“I made you laugh,” Oksanka said, and sat down breathless after her antics. “We used to laugh a lot, remember?”
Zara nodded. The coil in the kettle started to form bubbles. Zara waited for the water to boil, took out the coil, got a tin of tea from the shelf, poured water into the pot over the tea leaves, and carried the cups to the table. Oksanka could have warned them that she was coming to visit. She could have sent a card or something. That way Zara would have had time to get something to offer her that would impress her, and she could have come to meet her wearing something other than a housecoat and an old pair of slippers.
Oksanka sat down at the table and adjusted her stole on the back of the chair so that the fox’s head was on her shoulder and the rest of the stole wrapped around the arm of the chair.
“These are real,” she said, tapping at her earrings with a fingernail. “Real diamonds. See how well I’m doin’ in the West, Zara? Didja notice my teeth?” She flashed a smile.
Only then did Zara realize that the fillings in Oksanka’s front teeth were no longer visible.
Zara remembered the Volgas—they always drove so fast and rushed up in front of you without any lights. Now Oksanka had one. And her own driver. And bodyguard. And golden earrings with big diamonds in them. White teeth.
As children, Oksanka and Zara had once almost been run over by a Volga. They were walking home from the movies and the road was deserted. Zara was turning an old eraser around and around in her pocket—hardened, grayed, the printed brand worn off the tip several days before. Then it came. They heard a noise, but they didn’t see the car when it came around the corner, ran straight at them, and then instantly disappeared. They had been only a finger away from being hit. When they got home, Zara had to file the nail of her index finger. It had broken off when the car hit the eraser—still in her pocket—as it went by, and another nail had bent backward and broken off at the skin. That one bled.
There was a family living in the same apartment commune whose daughter had been run over by a black Volga. The militia had thrown up its hands and snapped that there was nothing they could do. That’s just the way things were. A government car—what can you do? The family was sent home with a scolding, too.
Zara hadn’t intended to tell her mother, but she noticed the torn fingernail and the bloody fingertip, and she didn’t believe Zara’s
explanation—she could see that Zara was lying. When Zara finally told her that a black Volga had hit them, her mother struck her. Then she wanted to know if the people in the car had seen them.