The Hawk Man seemed to enjoy her presence, but didn’t seem to require it. In the evenings, he smoked and worked on his taxidermy projects, and she read his books. She liked Ovid’s Metamorphoses, cheerful stories of girls avoiding grief or rape by turning themselves into cows or laurels or birds. She also flipped through his tattered copy of the Whole Earth Catalog, a book that had instructions on how to build a bomb, how to raise chickens, how to give cunnilingus. It seemed akin to a book of spells and she thought it must be illegal. “Where did you get this?” she whispered, but the Hawk Man only laughed at her.
He never touched her. He drove her home each evening, dropped her off, and never made plans for the following day. He seemed confident she’d return to him.
Her mother must have seen his truck idling outside the house, but she didn’t mention it. She was exhausted after her shifts at the store and Shiri found her in front of the TV, her feet propped on the coffee table. She hardly seemed to be watching whatever show played in front of her, though she always turned up the volume when the weatherman came on. She stared at the map of Canada, the highs and lows marked over each province, and when she talked to Shiri, it was like from across time zones. “How was school today?” she asked, even though she must have been getting calls about Shiri’s truancy.
“Fine.” Shiri clenched her fists, dug her nails so deep that her palms almost bled. She wanted to scream, to fill this house with sound. To rage and lament like one of the doves. “I’m going upstairs,” she said.
Then she lay on her bed and looked at the glittering stucco on the ceiling. Its gold flecks reminded her of the Hawk Man’s teeth and she pressed her hand to her mouth, practicing. She wanted to be kissed so hard it left an imprint on her skin. She slipped her hand under her jeans, touched herself the way she’d learned to do from the Whole Earth Catalog, then fell asleep on top of the sheets.
Once she woke in the night and saw a bird’s golden eyes—two small suns that burned in the dark. A goshawk. A passage bird.
“Dann?” she tried, but the hawk didn’t answer to her brother’s name. It perched on her belly, eyes fixed, crest gray like ash from the Hawk Man’s cigarettes. Its talons dug into her skin, cramping, releasing.
In the morning it was gone. The only evidence was blood that ran down her leg and onto the sheet.
“We should go for a hunt,” the Hawk Man said that evening. “You’ll fly Rose this time.”
“Me?”
He gave her a wink. “You.”
It was nearly sunset when they reached a wide, empty field in Delta. The Hawk Man pulled off the road, cut the engine, and Shiri climbed down from the truck. She put on the glove and Rose stepped lightly onto her hand. Just as she’d been taught, Shiri tied the jesses to the glove’s metal loop, then slipped the hood off the bird’s eyes. “Hello, love,” she said.
There had been rain earlier in the day, and as she followed the Hawk Man through the grass, her sneakers got soaked through. They stopped near a stand of fir and pine.
“You know what to do,” said the Hawk Man. It was true. She’d watched him enough times that it felt easy to walk toward the trees, the bird on her arm—Shiri’s muscles, like the bird’s, were taut, her eyes hard and expectant. Then she heard something—a rustle, movement in the tall grass—and cast the bird off her arm. Rose flapped her wings, bells ringing sharply.
“There she goes,” said the Hawk Man.
To be seen through his eyes—that’s what Shiri wanted. But she was heavy and plain, feet on the ground.
Rose edged into the trees, and they ran to follow. They found her crouched in the grass, her feathers mantled over the kill.
“Do the trade,” said the Hawk Man. “Like we practiced.”
Shiri held out a piece of raw steak on the glove, whistled, and the hawk flew to her arm. There was no time to be squeamish—she crouched beside the kill, grabbed it before the hawk went back for it. A mouse. The bird’s talons had punctured one of its eyes—blood poured from the socket—but it was still alive. Shiri felt the throb of its small heart. And she felt pride, adrenaline, ambition fulfilled. She wasn’t sure if these were her feelings or those of the bird, transmuted to her through the glove.
Then the heartbeat stopped. The mouse lay dead in her hand.
She was supposed to tuck the kill into the Hawk Man’s bag to be eaten later—that’s how you taught a bird to be your hunting partner. But instead she offered it to the bird right then, still warm. She wanted it gone.
“You’re spoiling her,” said the Hawk Man.
And Shiri knew she should hood the bird now. But that would blind and subdue her, turn the hawk into a harmless and decorative thing. Instead, Shiri released the jesses and let the bird go. Watched her fly into the air, wings flaring.
“My god.” The Hawk Man was already running. “Rose!”
The bird climbed higher, leveled and soared, circling the field. Shiri squinted into the sun.
“Call her back.” The Hawk Man took a piece of meat from his bag, tore it open so it would shine with blood. “Hold this up so she can see.”
But Shiri couldn’t move, couldn’t push air from her lungs to form the sweet, two-toned whistle he’d taught her. Because the bird was high now, too high, only a smudge against the blue sky. If she didn’t come back, would the Hawk Man want Shiri instead?
“Shiri,” said the Hawk Man. “Now.”
She took a breath, whistled.
Nothing. The bird was gone. What had she done? Rose would die out here—bells and jesses weighing her down, tangling her feet. Shiri whistled again. Took a few steps, raised her arm. Closed her eyes to keep the tears back, whistled and whistled.
Then she heard metal bells—faint and tinny and far-off. The sound grew louder, brighter. Shiri kept her eyes shut until she heard the hiss of air through stiff feathers, a whistle that answered her own. The bird slammed into her arm.
“Beautiful!” The Hawk Man was laughing. “Amazing. But don’t ever do that again.”
Shiri laughed too, tears streaking her face, her legs weak. She sat in the wet grass and the bird perched on her arm, devouring the dead thing in her hand.
“Not quite as planned,” the Hawk Man said when he drove her home. “But you’ll be a falconer soon enough.” He pulled up outside her house, reached across her, and opened the truck’s door. Shiri didn’t move.
“You should hurry,” he said. “You’re probably expected.”
“I’m not going in there.” She stared at her hands, at the blood that had dried under her nails. “I’m staying with you.”
“Your parents wouldn’t like that. It would break their hearts.”
She almost laughed. “What do you care about their hearts?”
She wanted him to say it. To expose his hunger so she could hate and pity and love him for it. She wanted him to grip her hand the way the hawk had.
“I’ll live with you and Rose and Eugenie,” she said. “Rose likes me now.”
“You know that’s not true. She doesn’t like anyone.”
“Almost,” said Shiri. “She almost likes me.”
“You have to understand something.” He turned toward her so their knees almost touched. “I tend toward fanaticism, Shiri. That must be obvious by now.”
“So?”
“So I’m your father’s friend.” He whispered now, as though Hirsch might hear them from the basement. “And you’re fourteen years old.”
“Fifteen. My birthday was two months ago but everyone forgot.”
“Do you know I can remember a time before these houses existed? No sidewalks, no yards. Just open fields and forest.” He pointed toward her house. “I trapped Helen here, my passage bird.”
“What does it matter? Who cares how old you are?”
“You’d tire of us. Of me and Rose and the others.”
“I even like the vultures. They make us better, don’t they? They do.”
“Shiri, listen to me. You’ll finish school. You’ll get a b
oyfriend. You have an entire life to live.”
When she pictured the rest of her life, she always unintentionally imagined herself working at Eve’s Fashion Shop. She was prone, that year, to confusing herself with her mother. Even her body looked more like Ruth’s—it had gone from being slim like her brother’s to being full and soft. She missed feeling light and nimble, climbing the cedar tree.
She looked him in the eye, kept her gaze steady as a hawk’s. “I want to be with you.”
She knew what that meant. She remembered the way he’d held out her arm when she was a child, stretching it like a wing. I turn little girls like you into birds, he’d said, and even then she knew he was telling the truth.
“Come on, Shiri. You’re too smart for this.”
“Or maybe I’m insane like you are.”
She could still feel that mouse, its heart beating itself out in her hand. She never wanted to see the ground again.
“A raven,” He touched her dark hair. “Something clever. Did you know ravens are also called ‘ravishers’?”
She knew that ravens were birds of mountains and tall trees. She saw herself in high, silent places.
“I’m told that once you have one,” he said, “all your other birds seem uninteresting.”
She imagined herself soaring, catching a current of air. She saw herself hooded and leashed.
She slipped her hand into his.
He looked at her, pupils expanding to take her in. “You’re sure?”
She thought of her mother in that store, on her feet all day, wearing orthopedic shoes. Her father underground: he hadn’t seen the sky in months. She wouldn’t be like them.
“You have to be sure,” said the Hawk Man. “You have to say yes.”
Her father, heaving himself up to sit beside her. You’re so good to me. And her mother, trying to believe in a story, trying to survive. How was school today?
“Shiri?” said the Hawk Man. “Yes?” And air from his lungs swooped into hers.
She didn’t go inside the house. She climbed the tree and sat on the highest branch she could reach. She wished her brother were with her—wished they could live here, between the basement and sky.
Maybe everything would happen the way the Hawk Man said it would. Maybe she would finish school and get a boyfriend. She wanted to go somewhere—fly to Europe, walk along the Danube all the way to the Black Sea. She’d read about it in one of his books. There were red-footed falcons there, and herons, even pelicans.
A bird’s shadow passed over her. She looked up, hoping for a hawk or a falcon—she would have even accepted a vulture—with a message for her. There was nothing but the setting sun, and she watched it plunge into the water, bleed along the horizon. She would go inside when it got dark. But for now she perched in the branches, tying and untying a falconer’s knot in her own hair.
Hard Currency
The last time Alexei paid for sex, he was eighteen years old. It had been his birthday, only weeks before he and his parents left for the United States. And now, twenty-eight years later, everything is different: the city is named Saint Petersburg and its crumbling facades are being rebuilt and repainted. But walking down the street at midnight, the northern sun turning the canals pink, it’s as if Alexei is a teenager again, as if he never left. He’s no longer in touch with the friends he grew up with, but it’s as if they are beside him, drunk and singing as they lead Alexei down Leningrad’s bright streets. On his birthday, they’d laughed, collapsing against each other, saying, “Good luck!” as they pushed him toward an apartment block. It overlooked the Neva, and though the apartments were communal, the building was grand. Alexei felt dizzy and warm as he rang the doorbell.
The woman who answered was older than him by at least twenty years and wore her graying hair tied back. This was not what he’d imagined. He figured it was a joke, and waited for his friends to reappear, doubled over and laughing. But they were gone, and he was left in front of this woman with broad hips and a tired face. She said her name was Oksana. “Please come in.” Her voice was softer than expected.
When she led him to her room, he could hear voices belonging to the apartment’s other tenants. The hallway was littered with boots and coats, and smelled like his own family’s apartment: tea and dust and sweat. Alexei had to lean against the wall to keep steady as he followed her. He watched Oksana’s back as she walked. Her black sweater was rough and pilled, and her skirt made a scratching sound against her legs. Had he been less drunk—or less timid—he would have left.
“Excuse me. I’m not sure—” Alexei didn’t finish the sentence, and Oksana didn’t acknowledge that he had spoken. She led him to her bedroom, and closed the door quietly behind them. There was a narrow cot against the wall, and a lamp beside it. She stood with her arms hanging at her sides, and seemed to see his disappointment. “Please.” She pointed to the bed. “Be comfortable.”
Then she took off her shoes. She unbuttoned the coarse sweater, then undid the zipper of her skirt and slid it off her hips. She folded both the skirt and the sweater, and placed them on a chair. She reached behind her to unclasp her bra, then slipped her tights and underwear down her thighs. He had seen his neighbor, Yadviga, coming out of the bathroom in only a towel. But he had never seen this: a woman entirely naked.
Oksana’s body was more pleasing than he’d expected: full breasts, pale skin, a small round stomach. She appeared tough and capable, but not without vulnerability. Without clothing, she looked cold. She had goose bumps on her arms, and her nipples puckered.
She sat on the single bed and the springs made a sound that reminded him of loneliness. “Don’t be shy,” she said.
He got down on his knees in front of her, and put his mouth to one of her breasts.
Now it’s his forty-sixth birthday and the street along the Fontanka, the one he stumbled down with his singing friends, is full of entrepreneurs advertising boat rides to tourists. His friends—those young men he studied with, who understood loyalty better than anyone he has met since—must still live in this city, but Alexei probably wouldn’t recognize them if they passed on Nevsky.
And the prostitute he has hired is nothing like Oksana. She is young and thin and wears a purple dress made of thick, glistening material. The dress has thin straps and no back, leaving the bones of her spine exposed. She speaks proficient English and tells him that her name is Svetlana and she is from Novgorod.
“A nice city,” he says. “Do you miss it?”
“No,” she replies.
They are at a bar made to resemble a beach, in an empty courtyard where sand has been poured onto the pavement. They sit at a plastic table, under a wide umbrella, and drink glasses of bad wine. From this table, Alexei can see the bright domes of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.
He is trying to get drunk as quickly as possible, so that he doesn’t have to think about the fact that he has bought a woman. He never planned to do this, and if his friends or his ex-wife found out, they would be appalled. North Americans, especially the educated, liberal type he associates with, don’t look kindly upon men who pay for sex. They are idealists. They don’t seem to understand that nearly every touch that passes between a man and a woman is exchanged on the most costly and devastating black market.
Besides, Alexei has been in Russia for two weeks now, and the women of Saint Petersburg—those exquisite creatures in stiletto heels—have got to him. Their faces are as cold as this climate in winter, and their eyes the same blue-gray as the northern sky. They scare him even more than New York women do, and he knows that the only way to tame his fear is to buy one of them.
And there’s also this: he is lonely. He’ll admit it. It’s his birthday, he is in a country that is no longer his, and he is alone.
“In Novgorod, we have a beautiful monastery where monks still live,” says Svetlana. There is a false rhythm to her voice that reminds him of a tour guide. “I think you would like it.”
“I’ve been there,
” he says in Russian. “It was years ago. The church was being used to store grain.”
“You would prefer it now,” she replies in English. “It is very beautiful. Just the way it was in the twelfth century.”
An acquaintance of Alexei’s, an elderly professor at the state university, arranged this meeting. He guaranteed that Svetlana was clean and high-class, that she was within Alexei’s price range, and that she was beautiful. This last part is not exactly true. She has stunning cheekbones, but there is something strange about her face. Her eyes are too far apart, and her chin is too sharp. It’s a face like those of the feral cats that roam the streets at night. Also Alexei is no longer used to women who wear this much makeup: her eyes are rimmed with black and her cheeks shimmer. Hers is an artificial beauty that reminds him of the city’s impenetrable architecture, its false facades.
“How long have you lived in Petersburg?” he asks her.
“Three years. I came with my sister.”
Alexei had been nervous and had arrived at the bar early to meet her. He’d heard the click of her shoes—purple heels that match her dress—when she came in. She walked purposefully, carrying a gold purse that seemed to have many superfluous buckles.
She recognized him right away. Though he spent nearly half his life in this country, locals immediately pick him out as foreign. Maybe it’s his clothing: he wears a linen shirt, pants that are wrinkled from being in a suitcase, and soft leather shoes. Svetlana walked to the table and held out an anemic hand for him to shake.
“You’re Vladimir,” she said, because he’d given a fake name over the phone. He’d bestowed Nabokov’s moniker on himself and this seemed fitting, not extravagant at all. Many reviewers had already made the comparison.
She sat down across from him, lit a thin Vogue cigarette, and he bought them both a drink. Since then, she has seemed anxious to leave, to get her work over with, and twice she’s checked her phone for messages. It’s obvious that she doesn’t like him, and he isn’t sure why he insists on conversation.
The Dark and Other Love Stories Page 7