The Scribbled Victims

by Robert Tomoguchi

  *

  I lay still, thinking about Yelena and how she lied and betrayed me. I wondered what she did with the scribble. Had she killed them yet? I had a spiteful and irrational thought about the husband and wife—sure, they kept Marcie in a closet for seven months, but at least they kept her with them until she died. And then I thought of her dead beneath the cool earth of their bedraggled backyard. They still kept her close. There was the moon again in my dreams when I finally fell asleep in my hospital bed. But this time there was no Yelena to lead me across the expanse of gray moon dust. There was no one. Not even me. The moon hung in the night sky, dead.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the nights that followed, I didn’t leave my room once, not even to go to the cafeteria. And it wasn’t because the nurses kept telling me I couldn’t leave my room anymore or because I could tell they were all keeping their eyes on me. I didn’t leave because the thought I couldn’t let go of—Yelena shutting her door on me—made me feel like I had nowhere left to go. I spent all my time in bed, hating her. But despite that I admit I hoped she would visit. So I lay there with my eyes open, every night, staring at my doorway, waiting for her to appear. For even though I hated her, I still wanted a mother and I still wanted it to be her.

  By the fifth night, I began praying she would come back to see me. I don’t know who I was praying to. God, I suppose, but I never called it that. Maybe I was only praying to the patterns on the ceiling tiles. The dark grooves in them appeared deeper with my room lights off. Regardless, she never came.

  On the eighth night I began to use a name. I used hers. Yelena. I wasn’t exactly praying though. For one I knew she wasn’t a god; she was far from it. And second, I didn’t ask for anything. I just lay there whispering her name. Again and again. Not quickly, not frantically, but slowly, imagining my perfect life with her as my mother in the intervals. I did that until I realized my pillow had become damp. The faith in her I was clinging to began to slip and so I finally told myself to go to sleep.

  It was when I rolled over that I saw her, covered in a cloak the color of night, a starry sky behind her, floating, four stories up, outside my hospital window. My excitement from seeing her made me momentarily forget my weakened body and I fell to the floor when I tried to hop out of bed and go to the window to greet her. I wasn’t sure if the nurses heard my fall and so I stayed there on the floor, peering under my bed to see if any feet were coming to my doorway. No one was coming. I turned back to Yelena. She was still out there. I slowly rose to my feet and went to the window. The latch was colder than the glass. I struggled to pull it down, but finally it gave and I was able to open my window. I stepped back until I was touching my bed. The space the window was permitted to open was fairly narrow, and so the ease and speed with which Yelena entered through it seemed unnatural. She never touched the windowsill, yet she was in my room, standing in front of me.

  “Hello, little one,” she said.

  I fell into her and hugged her tightly. My tears came again. “Why didn’t you keep me?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer immediately. I felt her hands on my back. They were cold, even through my pajamas. She held me like that for a moment and then knelt so that her face was at the level of my own.

  “I’m sorry, Orly. This was the only way I could see to make this work. I needed to gain Sigrid’s trust by turning you in. I couldn’t let you know my true intentions because my plan couldn’t rely on your acting to be convincing enough, so it was best that you just didn’t know. Do you understand?”

  I shook my head. “What plan?”

  “For you to be my daughter.”

  I looked at her, puzzled.

  “I can’t keep you,” she said, “but I could take you out of here for a few hours, and we can be together like that if you’d like.”

  I was disappointed that it was temporary, but I nodded my head anyway. The world was so much bigger outside of my hospital room that I would go anywhere with her even if it was only for the night.

  “We need to leave quickly. I covered the security cameras on the roof but they’ll notice that soon if they haven’t already. The nurses won’t see me if I don’t let them, but they’ll see you. So we have to go this way.”

  “Out the window?”

  She smiled. “Did you ever want to fly?”

  “Maybe, but in a plane.”

  “Come on,” she said and opened her arms to me.

  I went to her. She lifted me easily to her breast.

  “Hold me tightly,” she said. “This will feel strange at first.”

  I was scared but I trusted her because I really wanted to be someplace other than where I was. I gripped her so tightly that I could feel the coldness of her skin through her clothing and her heart beating on my chest. Again, she never stepped on the windowsill and the way we both slipped out of the narrow window space seemed unreal.

  The air was cold outside, but her cloak wrapped around me made things a lot warmer. We shot up into the night sky, passing the five stories above my floor, until we were above the roof of the hospital. The roof looked smaller than a square in a crossword puzzle from the height we reached when Yelena finally stopped ascending. She was staring back at the roof.

  “No guards yet,” she whispered to me and then held her hand out toward the roof, palm flat in front of her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Removing the trash bags covering the cameras. There they go. Can you see that far?”

  I looked down below at the building but it was too small for me to see, especially at night considering the garbage bags were black. “Uh-uh,” I answered.

  The wind seemed to push us in a different direction and we just sailed with it until we began to fall. We were falling so quickly that I should have panicked, but I could feel Yelena’s heartbeat still on my chest. It was strong and slow. Yelena was calm and so I trusted her as we fell back into the City of Angels below, the ground approaching rapidly. I expected a severe impact, but Yelena’s feet touched down softly on the asphalt of a vacant parking lot that was neither attached nor adjacent to my hospital. There was only one car parked there, a black Mercedes Benz. The headlights flashed. She opened the passenger door and sat me down in the passenger seat. She shut it and went to the driver’s side and got in.

  “Where shall we go?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I nodded my head.

  “We’ll go to a restaurant then.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Yes you can.”

  “I’m in my pajamas.”

  She smiled and opened her door and stepped out of the car and closed her door. I heard the trunk pop open and shut. She returned and opened my door. She was holding three boxes and a bag. She placed them on my lap.

  “You can wear this tonight,” she said and shut the door again so I could change in privacy.

  The first two boxes were shirt boxes with tissue paper in them. In the first was a black sweater, skirt length. In the second was a pair black socks and black leggings, both warm for winter weather. I took off my glasses and placed them on the dashboard. I removed my pajamas and fluffy pig slippers and then pulled on the socks and then the leggings, and then pulled the sweater on over my head. In the last box was a pair of lace-up boots. They needed to be broken in but were comfortable enough.

  I was smiling because I felt brand new but it didn’t take long before I remembered myself and my smile faded because I was still mostly bald. I only had a few stringy patches here and there. But then I remembered the bag and knew Yelena thought of that and probably had a black beanie or other kind of hat to match the rest of my black outfit. But when I reached inside the bag, I felt soft strands of hair slip between my fingers. I pulled it out. It was a wig of very long, dark brown hair, similar to the color of my real hair but probably longer than I’d ever grown mine before I became sick. I struggled to put it on. I’d never worn a wig before.

 
There was a knock at my window. I looked out and saw Yelena looking in at me. The windows were tinted very dark but I knew she could see me perfectly. She opened the door.

  “Need help with that?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Hop out.”

  I got out of the car. Yelena took the wig from my hands, turned it, and fitted it over my scalp. It itched a little, but it was very warm.

  “There,” she said. “Take a look.”

  She reached into the car and pulled the sun visor down and opened a lighted mirror. I sat back in the car. I looked so different. I smiled. Except for my bony face, I didn’t look very sick at all.

  “You look pretty,” Yelena told me.

  I looked at her and must have been smiling. She shut my door again and walked around the car and got in. She turned and looked at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Something is missing. To complete the ensemble, I mean.”

  “What’s ‘ensemble’?”

  “In this case, your outfit. Check the glove box. I think you’ll find something in there to accessorize with.” She motioned to the glove box in front of me. It took me a second to figure out the latch, but when I did, it popped open and was lighted. Inside was a small box wrapped in light blue paper and a white bow. I took it out and held it.

  “This is for me?”

  “Open it.”

  I removed the bow and then took the paper off as carefully as I could. Beneath the paper was jewelry box, the kind that opens like a clamshell. I pried it open. Inside were a chain and a key pendant that sparkled with diamonds. I learned later that it was called a Kaleidoscope Key and that it was platinum. I had never touched something so expensive and it belonged to me.

  “Thank you, Yelena.”

  “You’re welcome, Orly,” she said and then helped me put it around my neck. I didn’t feel threatened with her so near my throat. I still trusted her not to bite me. The key was beautiful. It shined and glittered brightly over my new black sweater.

  Watching the way she drove, it was obvious she enjoyed it. Her car was so quiet. Everywhere we drove in the city, it felt like we were a cat sneaking up on prey. We drove less than twenty minutes and pulled up at a valet parking stand and got out. Yelena removed her cloak and left it in the car. I won’t say what restaurant we entered because of what happened next.

  *

  It was later than ten p.m., but the restaurant was still full of people and quite loud with all their chattering. Yelena and I were seated at a table in a corner. To my surprise, Yelena took the seat that left her back to the restaurant, and as I faced into the crowd, she faced me. Over the tablecloth was a large sheet of white butcher paper. There were two crayons on the table too—orange and green—put there to occupy the children while parents looked over the menu.

  A waiter called us “ladies” and told us his name was Shawn and wrote his name with both the orange and green crayons together on the butcher paper so that the letters looked doubled. So the crayons had a purpose beyond keeping children quiet. He handed each of us a menu. I opened mine while the waiter was showing Yelena the wine list and that was when Yelena asked something weird.

  “Shawn, what are your vegan options today?”

  He recommended the fettuccine with broccoli. He said the broccoli was very tender and sautéed in garlic. Yelena agreed to that and ordered a bottle of wine, but I still didn’t know what to order for myself. The menu was much different than eating at the cafeteria. Shawn offered to give me a minute and come back and Yelena nodded her head. He left.

  “Vegan means you don’t eat meat, right?”

  “It also means I don’t eat any animal byproducts like milk, eggs, or cheese.”

  “Why not?”

  “I believe in animal rights. But I understand your real question. How can I believe in animal rights being what I am when it comes to people?”

  “Yeah.”

  Yelena spoke quieter, but somehow I could hear her just as clearly. “I’ve tasted animals but their blood cannot sustain me. I need human blood to live. I’ll die without it. I won’t die without animals, so why kill them?”

  “I like meatballs though,” I said.

  “Then you should order meatballs.”

  “You won’t get mad that I’m eating animals?”

  “It’s not for me to decide what you eat. That is still your choice.”

  I did order meatballs but I didn’t order it with spaghetti because they already have spaghetti and meatballs in the hospital cafeteria. Yelena suggested capellini. She told me it was also called angel hair pasta and so that’s what I ordered. Shawn brought Yelena a bottle of wine and poured it for her. He put a big glass of blood orange lemonade in front of me. I’d never had that before and wanted it just because it had the word “blood” in it, which seemed so odd when talking about food. And of course it was made even stranger since I was having it while sitting across the table from a vampire.

  I picked up the crayons and started drawing orange flowers with green stems. I knew Yelena was watching me, so I said, “I would scribble some of the people here, but it won’t work with these colors.”

  Yelena sipped her wine and put her glass down on the table and reached into her purse. She pulled out a black crayon and showed it to me. I reached for it and she gave it to me, and while we waited for our food I scribbled the people at the tables around us, but they were all a waste of wax. The worst person I found was a woman who consistently returned expensive clothing after wearing them out once.

  Our food arrived and I put the crayon down. The angel hair pasta was basically like spaghetti but thinner; however, it all tasted a lot better than what they had in the cafeteria. I really liked the blood orange lemonade too. It was better than soda. Yelena ate slowly. She took a long time between bites and chewed for a long time when she put something in her mouth. It was like she was studying the taste of each mouthful. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking. I didn’t know if she was savoring her food or if she was disappointed my scribbles hadn’t found her her real food. So while I was still eating, I picked up the crayon again and began scribbling a family of four that was eating on the other side of the restaurant. I skipped the two kids and drew the wife. She had an affair with her boss at some mortgage company. The husband had his back to me but I scribbled him anyway, but as the scribble developed I became confused. I was still too young to understand his intentions completely but I knew they were bad.

  Yelena’s phone rang. She looked at it. “It’s Sigrid,” she said and then put her finger to her lips so I wouldn’t make any noise.

  “Hello? Hi Sigrid. She is? When? No, she’s not with me. But I’m not home either. It would probably be a good idea to send the police by my house in case she’s waiting outside again. Yes. Yes, I will let you know if I hear from her. Please do the same. Thank you. Okay. Bye.” She hung up and looked at me. “That’s the kind of trust I needed to build. Do you understand now?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Do you want to know what she said?”

  “Not really. I can tell she’s looking for me. There’s not much more besides that, right?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Because look. I have a question. I mean, I know what sex is. But what is a sex tour?”

  Yelena looked at me, confused. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “The man over there with his kids, he’s going on something called a sex tour.”

  “The man with the plaid shirt?” she asked me without even turning around. I don’t know how she knew whom I was talking about, but I nodded my head.

  “He wants girls who aren’t, you know, grownups. Like me or even littler than me. Does that mean he wants to have sex with them?”

  “Yes. He’s planning on going on a trip to find these girls.”

  “Yeah! Someplace called S-R-I Lanka. Is that far?”

  “It’s on the other side of the globe.”

  “Why is he going all the way ther
e just for that? He could do bad things to little girls here.”

  “People from wealthy countries often exploit…take advantage of those in poorer societies. They don’t see them as people and know they can get away with it.”

  “Do you see them as people? Not the sex tour girls—I mean, the ones you pick. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, I do see them as people. But most of our kind do not.”

  “He hasn’t gone there yet. I mean, he’s never done it before, but he looks at some website about it every night and has tickets to go in a couple weeks.”

  To my surprise, Yelena asked me, “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Since he knows he’s gonna do it, that’s just as bad as doing it, right? If you do your stuff to him first then it would be like I was helping little girls in S-R-I Lanka.”

  “That’s very insightful. I agree with you, Orly.”

  “I know his address.”

  *

  Yelena took me out for ice cream after dinner. I began to think this would be what our life would be like together. We would go out every night. She would take me to dinner, to ice cream, or to the movies and I would scribble everywhere we went until I found someone for her. But I don’t think she realized how lucky it was to get the sex tourist at that dinner. She had been given so many scribbles so quickly that I wasn’t sure she knew how uncommon it was to find victims of this caliber. But I didn’t think about that long. I went back to thinking about our life together. A life of nighttimes, and that maybe I wouldn’t have to go to school or have a tutor like I did in the hospital.

  But after my ice cream, as Yelena didn’t have any, she said she had to bring me back to the hospital. I knew that had to come eventually, so I just nodded. She parked the car in that empty parking lot again and had me change back into my pajamas and pig slippers. I was disappointed to lose my new wardrobe so quickly, especially the wig, which made me look like an ordinary girl. But when I reached to take off the diamond necklace, she told me not to. She said I could keep that with me.