Found Life

by Linor Goralik

  Agatha is sick for several days. The doctor, Mom, and Dad all think that she has a very bad flu. She is nearly always in a state of semi-consciousness. But, really, Agatha knows that she is sick with melancholy, that she’s sleeping all the time so that she can play pat-a-cake with the gentle person in the enormous, shaggy, gray fur coat, so that she can feel like that happy, smart, nimble, clever Agatha, that perfectly wonderful Agatha who will, at any moment, find out what she needs to do to stay that way forever. But the dreams always break off a second before the answer is revealed and Agatha wakes up moaning, with a terrible headache. She is made to swallow tea; she is given shots. Little by little, the medicines begin to take effect and the fever goes down, but Agatha is still very weak: she sleeps almost all the time; her head hurts.

  Finally, the night arrives when Agatha can’t take it any longer. Mom has fallen asleep, and Agatha climbs out of bed. She is staggering with weakness; she has to hold on to the walls in order to make it out into the hallway. She doesn’t have the strength to wrap a scarf around her neck; she pulls her coat on any which way, right on over her pajamas, fastens her boots with trembling hands, and goes out into the backyard. There, Agatha gets down onto all fours and starts crawling around in the snow. Her weakness makes her feel like lying down in the snow and sleeping for a while, but Agatha keeps looking for the ring and, finally, she finds it in a little snowbank. Over the past week, it has snowed twice, but only a little bit each time. If you really wanted to, you could still make out the footprints that the little demon left as he was running away.

  With trembling, frozen fingers, Agatha takes the ring and sits down in the snowbank.

  “Please,” she says to the ring. “Please,” and, just in case, she screws her eyes up tight.

  At first, when Agatha opens her eyes, it seems as if nothing has changed: her house has simply disappeared off the face of the earth. She is still sitting in the snowbank and holding the ring, but she is no longer facing the back door that leads to the kitchen. Instead, she is looking out into an endless forest that stretches out in all directions. Agatha jumps to her feet in terror and starts looking around. No, she’s never been in these woods before: the trees shine dimly in the moonlight, but they aren’t made out of glass; they’re made out of metal and covered in black splotches. It smells of something both strange and familiar. It’s the way Dad’s office smells when he’s soldering parts together to make little model airplanes and the heavy, mirror-like drops are falling down off the tip of his soldering iron, quickly growing dim, and getting covered in black soot. Tin, that’s what the trees are made of here.

  Agatha looks around, but there isn’t a single squirrel, a single bullfinch, or even a single little acorn, tin or otherwise, in these woods—only bare branches and dry, gray, prickly snow, like tiny drops of dingy metal. Standing behind one of the tin trees, watching Agatha, is the person in the gray fur coat, only his fur coat has been turned inside out: coarse, gray fur is sticking out of the sleeves. Agatha can’t look at him: she is frightened, and also ashamed that she has asked for his help after throwing the ring into a snowbank earlier. On top of that, she is very hot. Agatha hugs a cold tin tree, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t help. Then the person in the inside-out fur coat smiles, walks towards Agatha through the disgustingly creaky snow, and takes her palms in his own cool, soft ones. The fever that has been tormenting Agatha these past few days seems to trickle down into the snow through these tender palms. Agatha starts to breathe easily. She suddenly feels calm and happy; she no longer understands why she acted so stupidly a few days before, why she tossed the ring aside, why she left the glass woods in the first place, why she hadn’t come back to this person earlier. The person in the inside-out fur coat is talking to her, saying something very funny, Agatha says something funny in return, and they both laugh.

  The person in the fur coat slaps Agatha’s hand lightly and she slaps his hand in return. Slap-slap, palm-to-palm, right-left: Agatha feels like she could continue this game of pat-a-cake her whole life, she could spend her whole life looking at these amazing images. Especially now that they are showing not past Agatha or future Agatha, but an Agatha firmly rooted in the present. And, any minute now, this smart, nimble, strong Agatha will do something extremely important, something that will make everything fall into place. But the game with the person in the fur coat is moving faster and faster again, the images are flashing, Agatha is in a panic—“No,” she says pleadingly, “no, no, no!”—and here her palm flies through the air, finding no support, just like in her dreams. The person in the inside-out fur coat lowers his hands. The game is over.

  Agatha feels a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than she did after the game in the glass woods; her chest burns with grief. She is a completely ordinary Agatha again, not the amazing, smart, happy Agatha that she had almost become for good. This thought is so unbearable that she presses her hands to her chest and doubles over in grief. Then the person in the inside-out fur coat pats Agatha on the shoulder.

  “The third time will make your heart burst, Agatha,” he says, trying to look her in the eye.

  “You promised you’d help me!” Agatha says, practically choking on the tears that are rising in her throat.

  “I promised you that I would do whatever you asked,” says the person in the fur coat. “And if you ask me to play with you a third time, I won’t be able to refuse.”

  Agatha slowly rights herself and stretches out her palm. The person in the inside-out fur coat looks at Agatha sympathetically, shakes his head, and stretches his palm out in return, but Agatha snatches her hand away.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” she says.

  Agatha has no intention of playing pat-a-cake with this person. Glinting on the very tips of her fingers lies the little glass ring.

  “Take it away,” Agatha says.

  The person in the inside-out fur coat bites his lip quickly, as if Agatha has caused him great pain. Agatha looks at him, then at the ring, but the ring isn’t there anymore: there is only a damp circle where the ring has just been—as though a little piece of ice with a hole in the middle had melted there. Agatha raises her eyes to the person in the fur coat again, but he isn’t there. And the tin woods aren’t there, either. Agatha is standing in the middle of a thicket in a completely ordinary forest, which smells of sap and damp trees.

  Agatha is so unbearably lonely that she is unable take a single step. She feels as if she has only just been in a fairy tale castle—a dangerous one, but one full of magic, a gloomy one, but luxurious and exciting, full of promise—and now she is standing alone in a thicket, her pajama pants soaked up to the knees with snow. Agatha is overcome by the feeling that she has made an enormous error, the feeling that she has only just made a terrible mistake.

  Then Agatha closes her eyes and begins to imagine home. Her bed with the crisp sheets that Mom changes twice a day so that Agatha will feel cooler while she’s sick. The porcelain teacups with curlicues as blue as the evening sky. Her fat cat Christian, who has gotten into the habit of sleeping on the refrigerator. And her little brother—Agatha is suddenly absolutely certain that it will be a little brother and not a little sister—her little brother that she has never seen before, but that she already really enjoys thinking about. Agatha doesn’t notice that she has begun moving forward—just like that, with her eyes closed. She stumbles, and realizes that she is moving in the direction from which the hum of passing cars can be heard. Her house is just beyond that road. She can’t see the road itself, but the familiar rustle of wheels is perfectly audible in the clear nighttime silence. In fifteen minutes, Agatha will be home. Her fever is rising again, and she has to hurry.

  Suddenly, something crackles in the bushes as if a branch is being snapped off. Agatha shrieks. The creature hiding in the bushes shrieks, too, and dashes first to the right, then to the left. Terrified, Agatha also dashes to the right, then to the left. In the moonlight, she sees his gleaming little horns and extremely dirty fur�
�not gray this time, but brown. This little demon is plumpish and clumsy: he is frozen in terror, standing stock-still. Agatha is also standing stock-still, and she and the little demon stare at each other in panic. The little demon starts blinking rapidly and opens his mouth up wide to gather air into his lungs. Agatha knows exactly what’s about to happen—and, before the little demon has time to cry for help, Agatha shouts in a trembling voice:

  “Go away!”

  And again:

  “Go away! Go away! Go away, do you hear?! Go away! Go away!”

  Hardly believing his luck, the dirty, brown little demon takes a step backward, afraid to take his eyes off Agatha, off her finger, which is pointing in the direction of the thicket. Then he turns around timidly, continuing to cast wary glances over his shaggy shoulder, and, finally, dashes away at top speed, his little horns and hooves glinting in the moonlight.

  For a moment, smart, strong, brave, amazing Agatha stands there, catching her breath. Then, slowly, she begins trudging in the direction of the cars—which is to say, toward home.

  VALERII: A SHORT NOVEL

  TRANSLATED BY MAYA VINOKOUR

  THE CAT

  I wanted to go look for the cat right away, but Mom said to have dinner. I had two red cards and one green one, so I had to eat meat, and I’ll have to tomorrow, too, but right after tea I got a piece of chocolate, put it in my mouth, and sucked on it. I asked if I could go look for the cat. Mom said I could and I went to look for the cat.

  First I walked around the house. No sense in calling the cat—cats aren’t dogs. I had his bowl of dry food with me and was shaking it because the cat always used to come running when he heard that sound. I’d looked for him inside the house that way before dinner, but he hadn’t come. I started to walk around the house, shaking the bowl. The cat didn’t appear, but I did see Old Lady Trainwreck. Old Lady Trainwreck was sitting in the yard on the swings and pulling on her fingers. She comes out really early and gets on the swings, probably so no one else can use them, and sits there until everyone gets called in to dinner. She herself almost never swings. Normally she just twists the chains right or left so tightly that she has to bend over and then tuck her stubby legs under, and then the chains ­unwind super fast. Old Lady Trainwreck sits in the yard all day, spins around on the swings and pulls on her fingers to make them crack.

  I didn’t see the cat, but Old Lady Trainwreck saw me and started yelling that I shouldn’t feed the strays. She said that those cats would attack me at night and rip my throat out. I politely said I wasn’t feeding the strays, just looking for my cat. Old Lady Trainwreck gave her finger a jerk and said she hopes that shithead goes straight to hell.

  I thought this was actually not at all unlikely. My cat is in fact a real shithead. If I hadn’t told myself that the cat’s behavior would count toward my behavior cards, Mom would have thrown him out long ago. Every day he tears through the house like crazy and wrecks everything. He slashes the wallpaper. Sometimes he yowls for hours at a time—out of spite or just because he likes to. He eats off the table, you can’t look away for a second. Because of the cat I always have red cards for behavior. I’m forced to be really disciplined and good, all because of the cat. The cat is doing me good.

  The whole time I was walking around shaking the bowl, I was thinking, do I need to take a red card because the cat ran away? If I decide yes, then I’ll have three cards for the week already, and I won’t be able to go to the skating rink at Mega. I give myself cards for the cat because it’s my own fault he’s such a shithead. When I asked for a kitten, I promised I’d train him. Wouldn’t let him eat off the table or tear up the sofa or bite. But when the cat was bad, I never wanted to train him. I liked that he did whatever came into his head. Like, he’ll howl and howl and wreck everything whenever he wants. I decided that I would give myself cards for the cat. And since then, for a whole year already, I always have red cards, and I punish myself. It’s not easy, but then again I like the cat. I think he’s grateful to me.

  So when Old Lady Trainwreck said that my cat was most likely headed straight to hell, I thought that it really was quite likely. I walked around a little longer, shaking the bowl, but of course the cat never showed up. I went back into the house and took a red card, then thought about it and took another two for the thing I would have to do now. I hid them well because Mom gets really upset when she sees me giving myself red cards. Then I opened the hall closet and got out a shovel and went to the backyard again. Mom was watching TV and I had said I was going to look for the cat, so it was like I just hadn’t come back yet.

  Old Lady Trainwreck was gone already, it was totally dark, but I started walking—lifting my legs real high so I wouldn’t trip—over to the sandbox. And I started to dig. At first I kept getting sand on myself, but then I figured it out. I’m really strong, I can lift Mom easily when she needs to get something from the top cabinet, and she’s not small, my mom. But it still turned out to be hard digging, especially when I got down to the dirt under the sand. I probably dug for like two hours until the shovel began to pierce all the way through the dirt. Heat poured from under the ground, but not as much as I had feared. I lay down and looked. I couldn’t see anything, but I felt like it wasn’t too far to jump. Then I went into the house, got the bowl of food again, came back, made the hole wider (I’m really big so this took some time), poured the food into my pockets and jumped down.

  It wasn’t that hot down there, but it was completely dark. I felt around and found some sort of wall. Then I poured all the food back into the bowl and started walking, one hand on the wall, the other shaking the bowl. Cats aren’t dogs, it’s stupid to call for them, but I wanted to go home as soon as possible, so I called for the cat a couple of times. The wall went on and on and sometimes curved. I walked along it until I got to a lighted empty space like a stairwell, but with no stairs. There was some kind of door in front of me, I pushed it open and went in. Here it really was hellishly hot with blinding flames, and I got crazy scared. I covered my eyes with my hands and started to yell. I really regretted climbing down there. Someone else yelled nearby and I figured we were all done for and started yelling even louder. Someone jumped on me from behind, I hit back and managed to throw the creature off of me. I’m really big and strong. When people see that my hair is all gray, they think it’s easy to run away from me, children especially. But I’m much stronger than they think. So I managed to throw off whoever was attacking me, and with my eyes closed I started jerking my arms and legs as hard as I could. There was shrieking all around me. In my terror I forgot about the flames, came too close to them and stuck my arm inside. The pain was so bad that I fell on the floor and howled. Someone started whaling on my hurt arm, I howled and kicked them, but whoever was doing the whaling cussed me out and I realized I had caught fire and they were trying to put it out. Then I stopped moving and they put out my sleeve.

  They demanded I open my eyes, but I refused and at first talked to them with eyes closed. I explained that I had come for the cat, that it wasn’t the cat’s fault but mine. I had trained the cat badly. I told them that over the last year I had taken almost two hundred cards for the cat, which meant that I hadn’t been to the movies for a year. I said I’m responsible for the cat, right? Otherwise I wouldn’t take cards for him. And if they let the cat go, I’ll take him back up to the surface and train him properly. And when I die, they can take me. And when the cat dies again, he’ll go to some good place.

  Then they started to laugh. This made me so horribly angry that I even opened my eyes. I was afraid that thing would happen to me: when I go blind from rage and start wrecking everything. The last time this happened was when Mom took me on the subway to go to the doctor and someone tried to grab my mp3 player out of my hands. My hair is gray already and they thought it’d be easy, but then my eyes went dark with rage and I almost killed one of them. I ran away from the police and gave myself ten red cards when I got home. I was afraid that the same thing would happen now, I can
’t stand getting laughed at. But I had to get the cat, so I pulled myself together and opened my eyes. My arm really hurt and I didn’t want them to make it hurt even more.

  When I was fighting with my eyes closed, I thought there were a hundred people there, but there were only two. They were very dirty and small and wore ugly thick jackets. I was surprised that there wasn’t any fire around; it turned out that the fire was burning behind a glass shutter in a huge round thing. Probably the shutter was open when I hit the fire with my arm. These two people made me repeat myself about the cat. I repeated that it was my responsibility. Then they asked how I had gotten there and I told them that I dug a pit in the sandbox, went home to get the bowl, and then jumped down into hell. Then they went with me to where I had jumped down and spent a long time looking into the hole—you could see the stars really well through it.

  I asked if I could get my cat back. But they said that the cat wasn’t there. I felt much better because this meant the cat hadn’t ended up in hell after all. I told them that they had to let me go because there were still four more days until the end of the month. I would still have time to work off my red cards, which meant I wouldn’t have any sins that would make it so I’d have to go to hell. I really had come down to get my cat, and they had no right to keep me here. I asked them to give me a boost so I could climb out. I was starting to think that the cat had run off for good since he hadn’t either gone to hell or come for his bowl.