Half a World Away

by Cynthia Kadohata

  “Cool.”

  Sam leaned back importantly, and then, as if he was trying to be modest but just couldn’t, he said, “I know this word ‘cool.’ Huh? You said that to test me, didn’t you? I have been to America, I know this word. Eh? Eh? I am right, that is why you don’t answer.”

  Jaden laughed.

  “Yes, I understand you,” Sam said. “You would not know it by seeing me, but I know many things. I was born already knowing a lot. Ask my mother, and she will tell you this is true.”

  Jaden suddenly wanted more candy, or any kind of food. Sometimes the need for food simply overwhelmed him. “Do you have any candy?”

  “I am not the candy man,” Sam replied. He paused. “I must smoke now,” he said earnestly. “I know to Americans it is bad habit, but I cannot stop. I have accepted this.” He got out of the car and lit a cigarette.

  Jaden looked out the window toward the baby house. He wondered if he could find out what schedule the toddlers were on. He was worried about this Dimash. He was way too skinny. What would become of these toddlers? There was no life if you didn’t have a family. Jaden knew this because he didn’t have a family, not really. That was why his life was worthless.

  Jaden watched Sam smoke and wished he were Sam. Sam had the confidence of a man with a family. Jaden saw this self-assurance frequently in kids at school. Sometimes it was mean. Like, some of the mean kids felt completely confident and were snobby to others who maybe felt unsure of themselves. That was why Jaden acted confident at school. That and the fact that he really was confident about some things, like namely that he understood the world better than those snot-heads in their trendy clothes ever would. They didn’t even realize that they were made of snot.

  Jaden closed his eyes and slept. . . .

  “Jaden!” It was Steve, back at the car. “Wake up. Don’t sleep now or you won’t be able to sleep tonight. We need to get on a Kazakh schedule. Please. We’ve talked about this. Don’t make trouble in every single thing you do. I don’t want to battle you now when we’re having such a titanic experience in our lives. We are experiencing a revolution in our very existence.”

  Jaden had no idea why Steve was in a bad mood, then remembered kicking the wall. Still, sometimes he wondered whether every single person he ever talked to for the rest of his life would think that he tried to make trouble. All he wanted was the opposite of trouble. He wanted easy street. Why was that so much to ask? After all, he was an American now. Where was the easy street he’d been told he would find?

  Sam was already back in the car, and Penni, Steve, and Akerke got in. “Is nice baby, your baby,” Akerke said happily.

  There was a pause, and then Penni said, “Yes.” But Jaden could hear stress in her voice.

  Sam screeched out of the parking area. At the road, Jaden bumped upward as Sam sped over a pothole.

  “Is there a law against driving slow?” Jaden asked.

  “No, is no law,” Akerke piped up.

  “I believe he was being sarcastic,” Steve said. “ ‘Sarcastic’ means he didn’t ask the question seriously.”

  “A joke?” Akerke asked.

  “No, no, not a joke. Let’s see, how can I put it?”

  Jaden yawned. If there was one thing Steve liked to do, it was think about words.

  “Do you know what ‘mocking’ means? But no, he wasn’t trying to mock. He was highlighting the fact that Sam was driving too fast, but the way he did it was to say the opposite of what he really meant.”

  “What’s this?” Sam asked passionately. “You question my driving? You would want me to drive like I am ninety years old when I am only sixty-seven? I cannot do such a thing until I am ninety! It would not be possible.”

  Jaden studied Sam’s profile. “You’re a little sensitive.”

  “I know this word. I am sensitive like many intelligent people. Ah, you didn’t expect me to say that, did you?”

  Jaden laughed. “You’re funny. I like you.”

  Sam chortled. “Eh? You make me laugh. That is not so easy to do.”

  “So how did the bonding go?” Jaden asked.

  There was a pause, then Penni said, “It was nice.”

  “Good, good, good!” said Akerke.

  Steve groaned. “Ahhh, I already miss my motorcycle. I need to de-stress.” Jaden agreed but didn’t say so.

  They came to a red light and screeched to a stop. There was the sound of screeching behind them and then another screech that ended with the sound of metal hitting metal.

  Jaden watched a pack of dogs chasing after a cat on the street. The dogs caught up and immediately fell upon the cat, surrounding it. “Did you see that?” Jaden said. “That cat—there’s a cat in the middle of all those dogs.”

  Nobody answered. Jaden kept watching as they drove away, but he didn’t see the cat again. He felt a stab of sadness.

  When they got back to their apartment, Akerke said, “Very good. Sam will come for you tomorrow.”

  Back in the apartment, Penni fell onto the couch and said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know. He’s so vacant. Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

  “We need to take him to an American doctor,” Steve said. “Do you think there is one in Kyzylorda?”

  “No, remember that lady who adopted here said you can’t take the baby anywhere until after the waiting period, when he’s completely ours?” Penni said, her forehead bunched up with worry.

  She had a crazy expression, like she wanted to scream. Steve sat beside her.

  “For him, it’s like we aren’t even there,” Steve said.

  Jaden roused himself. “One of the babies at the Almaty airport was the same way.”

  Penni said eagerly, “Really? Do you think that’s normal?”

  Jaden shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  Penni fell into Steve’s arms, sobbing. Steve held her tightly. Jaden had never seen them exactly like this, but he realized there must have been many days and nights she sobbed in Steve’s arms when Jaden was misbehaving. He watched them curiously.

  “Honey,” Steve was saying. “It’s just all the pressure. We’re under pressure to bond with this baby instead of the one we’d expected. I think that’s all it is. We’re under a lot of pressure to begin to love Ramazan.”

  After four years with Penni and Steve, Jaden still didn’t know what kind of promises their adoption agency had made to them about him. But he knew they’d expected him to be the center of their lives, and in fact, now that he thought about it, he was their center—until this new adoption started. But of course he wasn’t the center they’d expected.

  “You know, you weren’t what I expected either!” he blurted out angrily.

  “What, hon?” said Penni, her face confused and tearstained. She pulled away from Steve.

  “You were disappointed with me. That’s why you’re adopting another boy. And now you’re disappointed with him.”

  “Jaden, Jaden. We’re not disappointed with him,” Steve said. “We’re just worried. We don’t know what’s normal. We don’t think we can handle a special-needs child, that’s all.”

  “Because you have me, right? Be honest.”

  “Jaden,” Penni said, “I am not even slightly disappointed in you. We are absolutely not talking about you. We’re thinking about the totality of our family. What makes sense in terms of our being a family?”

  “You want it to be easy.”

  “That’s not it. It’s just, it’s just . . . We don’t want it to be any harder than necessary.”

  Jaden swung an arm, deliberately knocking a floor lamp on its side. One doctor had said he had a knack for drama, and ever since then, whenever he lost his temper, he could step outside his body and view himself being dramatic.

  He went into his bedroom and pushed a chest against the door. In a moment Penni knocked.
“Jaden?”

  He heard Steve say, “He’s being dramatic. He wants you to come after him. Don’t let him control you.”

  “I have to,” she said. “Dr. Wilder said he’s in pain.” She knocked again.

  Jaden leaned against the chest, because Penni was stronger than you might think. Sometimes his whole world was just so crazy. Like, here he was in Kazakhstan pushing against a chest that was pushed against the door, and Penni, his supposed mother, was on the other side trying to get in. Why was all this happening to him? Why wasn’t he a normal kid? Or did things like this go on in other kids’ lives too?

  Chapter Sixteen

  After a while Penni went away, so Jaden sat at his window to watch for more shepherds. He didn’t see any, and he became aware that he was hungry. He didn’t want to leave his room. He liked how separate from the whole world he felt in here. Sometimes the only thing that you had to protect yourself was a closed door between you and the rest of the world. He hadn’t had that in Romania. He loved doors!

  He sat on the floor next to his luggage and opened it up, grabbing one of the Ziploc bags of granola. Ziploc, that was another thing that was kind of cool about America. In Romania he’d kept all his things in an old Ziploc that originally came from who knew where. He’d found it on a street. After it was decided he’d be adopted by Penni and Steve, they sent him a handheld Nintendo. Once the Nintendo ran out of power, there was nowhere for him to recharge it because, though he’d been sent an adapter, the house he was staying at didn’t have electricity. But he’d put it in his Ziploc along with a broken rock he’d found with crystals inside. As a matter of fact, he had that rock in his luggage. He’d originally thought it was a diamond.

  He shoveled granola into his mouth. For some reason he was shivering. It wasn’t cold. After a while he got thirsty. But he sat there eating an entire bag of granola. Then he lay on the floor next to his suitcase. Penni and then Steve knocked at some point, but they didn’t try to push the door open. At home they’d once taken off the door to his room because he kept barricading himself in there. That was when he’d burned his teddy bear’s face.

  When it had been dark for a long time, he pushed the chest aside and stepped outside his room. Penni and Steve seemed to be asleep. He used the bathroom, drank water that Penni and Steve had bought, then returned to his room and pushed the chest against the door. He was incredibly tired but couldn’t fall asleep. He lay on the floor, trembling again, his teeth chattering though it wasn’t cold. He was so screwed up. He knew this in his head, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

  In a while he got up and paced back and forth around his dark room, switched the light on and off for a while, and paced some more. Someone pounded on the floor. His footsteps must have been bothering the people who lived below. A couple of hours passed, but Jaden still couldn’t fall asleep. He sat at the chair in front of the window. The moon was sinking on the horizon. The steppe was lonely and beautiful, and he couldn’t take his eyes from it. Loneliness flooded his whole body like it was a physical sensation, not merely a feeling. Like it was a liquid that had replaced his blood and flowed inside his veins as his heart pumped it through. He wasn’t even Jaden anymore; he was loneliness. He wanted to take a picture of all this loneliness: a picture of the steppes, of his room, of himself, but he remembered his phone wasn’t charged. How annoying. They’d brought adapters, so he plugged in his phone.

  It was getting light when he finally lay in his bed and fell asleep. When he awoke, it was to the sound of Penni and Steve pushing open the door. He watched as the chest was pushed forward. When they got in, Penni and Steve looked exasperated.

  “What are we going to do with you, young man?” Steve said, but he didn’t seem to want an answer. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

  Jaden didn’t bother to change clothes, and they all left the apartment. Apparently, Akerke had told Penni and Steve where some restaurants were. They walked just a few minutes and came to an area full of shops, kiosks, and restaurants.

  Steve said, “What do you think, Jaden?”

  Jaden lifted his nose into the air the way he sometimes saw dogs do. He had an incredible sense of smell. At home if Penni or Steve thought they smelled something odd, they would ask him for his thoughts about it. He led them to a kiosk that was giving off the smell of good bread. “Here,” he said.

  There was a small crowd around the kiosk. “Where do you suppose the end of the line is?” asked Penni.

  They stood in back of what might have been the end of the line. But people kept butting in front of them. “There is no line,” Jaden said. He pushed his way in. Somebody said something sharply to him in Russian, but he didn’t budge. And whenever anyone tried to butt in, he held his ground.

  When Jaden reached the front of the counter, saliva filled his mouth at the thought of biting into this delicious-smelling bread. He took out his tenge and bought three loaves of bread. Then Penni called out, “Don’t forget some meat!” So he pushed his way back to the counter and bought some meat. Then, at a small wooden store, they bought cucumbers, tomatoes, and yogurt, which came in a plastic bag.

  They decided to eat at home, but Jaden tore off hunks of bread and ate as they strolled. Somebody yelled something at him as he was devouring the bread, but he didn’t care what anybody thought. In fact, the great thing about being here was that it seemed like nothing mattered, even though to Penni and Steve, everything probably mattered.

  When they got back to their apartment, Jaden swore he could smell those tomatoes. He bit into one like it was an apple, and it tasted better than any apple he’d ever eaten. Sweet and juicy and tangy—perfection. He loved perfection when it came to food.

  Later they waited in the alley for Akerke and Sam to pick them up. Sam was in a jovial mood. “How are my favorite Americans?” Sam asked. “Eh?”

  “There’s some good food in Kazakhstan,” Jaden said.

  “If it is good food you want, you need to go to Turkey. I am from Turkey, so this I know. There is no better rice than pilav. You may go all over world, and you will not taste better rice.”

  This interested Jaden quite a lot. “Rice? What do you mean? How can it be that good? It has no taste.”

  “What! Are you mad? Rice is known all over world as perfect food.”

  “I love perfect food,” Jaden replied. “Today I ate a tomato that was perfect.”

  “Pahhh! I will have my wife make for you some ezme. It is salad with tomatoes. You will realize that until you taste that salad, you have never tasted a tomato.”

  Jaden liked this man! He liked him a lot.

  When they arrived at the baby house, the toddlers were out. The boy Dimash spotted Jaden immediately and kind of ran over, or at least tried to, but he was too uncoordinated. Jaden took out his phone and snapped a photo of Dimash. The boy stopped himself by loping right into Jaden.

  “Come on,” Steve said.

  “Dad, Mom, this is Dimash. We could adopt him.”

  Penni knelt down in front of Dimash. “Hello,” she said, rubbing his cheek with her hand. He leaned away from her. “He’s very shy.”

  “Not with me,” Jaden bragged. “I’m already his best friend.”

  “We must go now for bonding,” Akerke reminded them.

  But Penni wasn’t finished saying hello. “What beautiful hair he has. So thick and shiny.”

  “Remember when you told me that your cousin had an old soul?” Jaden asked. “That’s the way he is, I’m sure of it.”

  Penni softly touched Dimash’s face. This time he didn’t pull away. “Yes, I see it,” she said.

  “We must go,” Akerke repeated.

  Penni stood up.

  “I’ll be right there,” Jaden said. He motioned to Dimash. “Come here, I’m going to teach you how to walk. You gotta walk like you don’t care.”

  Steve hesitated, but Jaden saw Penni take h
is hand and lead him away. Jaden tilted his head a little and sauntered down the courtyard. “Like that, man. You gotta be cool or nobody will take you seriously.”

  Dimash laughed like Jaden had said something very funny. “Come on,” Jaden said. “I’m serious. Be cool.” He walked again, and Dimash ran right into him, then laughed more. “What am I going to do with you? You gotta learn some of this, or—or you’re gonna have one bad life. You gotta have people respect how chill you are.”

  Dimash eagerly nodded his head over and over. At first Jaden thought he nodded because he understood, but then Dimash smiled slightly and turned around in a circle several times. The caretaker was watching them. Jaden ignored her, and soon she was busy with the other toddlers.

  “Hey, look, do you know how to clap?” Jaden clapped his hands. Dimash laughed. Jaden stomped a foot. Dimash laughed. Jaden mussed up his own hair. Dimash laughed. “Say something, Dimash. Why don’t you talk?”

  Akerke came out and said, “Jaden, I know you are busy, but you need to come in. Baby house director says you must bond with Ramazan or she will not approve the adoption.”

  “Let her say it, that’s not my problem.”

  “Jaden, please, I beg you. She would like the whole family bonding.”

  “I’ll come if you can find out why this boy doesn’t talk more.”

  Akerke frowned at Jaden, then called out to a caretaker and had an exchange of words. Then Akerke said, “This boy is not well. I don’t know the words to explain. He cannot talk well—all he says is ‘kak dyela.’ He cannot think well. He cannot move well. He is not well and will never be well. Is a problem in his nerves and his brain. He also has problems in his stomach. He may not live for long, which is a blessing.”

  “Do you think we could adopt him?”

  “Your parents have said they do not want a special-needs baby.” But then Akerke’s eyes grew soft, even sympathetic. “Jaden, this boy will never be able to talk more. I know is sad story, but is his story.”

  Jaden stared at Dimash for a moment. “I gotta go, but maybe we can adopt you. I’ll ask my parents.”