I picture myself lying on the beach between Felix and Volker. How I casually put my foot near Volker’s and stick the bottle of sun-cream in the sand as a protective barrier against Felix. I can hear the crash of the waves and the cry of the seagulls. And I hear the tune from the Bacardi ad.
“Why are you laughing?” asks Felix.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “I’ll think it over, okay?”
“Just don’t think about it for too long or else Volker will be gone.”
“And so will you.”
“No. If you don’t go, I’m not going either.”
«Don’t start, Felix,» I say, looking at the clock. I still have to fill out the applications for my advanced placement courses.
“By the way,” says Felix. “We haven’t practiced in a while.”
“What do you mean practice?” I say. “I’m sure by now you are a regular Pieter Brueghel.”
“Who?” says Felix. “Why are you always trying to piss me off?”
“I’m not trying to piss you off,” I say. “I just meant that by now you are a master. Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Tomorrow?” he says. The disappointment in his voice barely registers. “You always say that. And then you never have time.”
“Jesus, I do have things to do,” I say.
Felix is silent. Hurt.
“Hey,” I say, “no crying, my dear. A little tan will do you good.”
“I just burn,” Felix says.
“Then I’ll put cream on you.”
“I’d rather be the one creaming on you.”
“You’re annoying, Felix. Listen, I have a job. I can’t go away.”
“A job?” says Felix. “Why didn’t you say that right away? Can’t you just ditch it for a while?”
“I should have told you right off the bat. I just forgot.”
“How stupid do you think I am?”
“What happens if you have breathing problems on Tenerife?”
“Why don’t you . . . ”
“Why don’t you just tell me what happens.”
Felix suddenly loses interest in the conversation.
“Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he says.
“Felix, I hate it when you don’t answer me.”
“Why do you ask anyway? Are you worried about me?”
“What a question,” I say. “What do you want to hear? Yes! Yes! Yes! I am so worried about you.”
“The deal is,” he says with annoyance in his voice, “we always have to stay near a hospital. I have no idea if there are cities on Tenerife, but there must be hospitals, because otherwise Volker would never suggest going there. It’s that simple. He’ll bring medicine and a copy of my medical records and instructions from our hospital on what to do in the case of an emergency. Normally any old hospital can handle it. And we can always reach my doctor by phone in case they can’t figure out what to do. What else do you want to know?”
“Thanks for putting my mind at ease,” I say. “But now tell me the truth.”
“Did I mention that I can’t stand you?” says Felix. “Seriously cannot stand you?”
“Yep,” I say. “Lots of times.”
He slams down the phone. Probably on the table so I can hear it. Only afterwards does he hang up.
I go down to the third floor to pick up Alissa from her friend Katja’s place.
The walls are thin in the Emerald. By the time I get down to the fifth floor, I can hear Alissa’s voice. It’s high and piercing, loud and happy. A future soprano, as my mother always used to say back when Alissa was really little and would screech for her bottle. “Sounds more like something on an ultrasonic wavelength,” I would answer. “Like a dolphin. Bores into your head.”
I sound completely different. My voice is lower and scratchier. “Because I smoked when I was pregnant with you,” my mother used to say.
“I won’t smoke if I ever get pregnant.”
“I guess you’re smarter than me.”
“Which is exactly why I won’t get pregnant.”
“That’s what I used to say. Until I had you. Then I realized it was a joy worth repeating.”
“And you smoked your way through it.”
“I’m really sorry about that, sweetie. I would do it differently now. You could have gotten kidney damage from it.”
“And I’m stuck with a baritone because you smoked.”
“More like a tenor. Your father had a baritone. You should have heard him lecture. I went once. I understood only one word.”
“What word?”
“And.”
“You know what? This doesn’t interest me.”
“That’s what he used to say. About everything I told him.”
Anton’s voice isn’t particularly high or low. He has hardly any voice at all. Just a quiet rustling. Anton is practically invisible—thin and blond and weak and fearful.
Anton, I think. My Anton. I would give you my voice and my brains if I thought it would help you come to grips with everything. But I don’t think it would help you. I’m so scared for you. I know you’re not going to make it. If you’re lucky you’ll end up like Harry.
And if you end up like Vadim, I’ll kill you.
Back then, the time when your parents came home from that first parent-teacher meeting, you had such a fucked-up evening. Your father was so angry at you, and he kept yanking on his tie—the one your mother had put so much energy into tying—as if it were trying to strangle him.
The polka dot pattern of that tie is forever burned into my memory. Along with Vadim’s face above that pattern, full of rage, flushed, his eyes squinting.
And words, his words.
“How dare you—my son—awful in school—don’t talk—you dimwit, you failure, you pussy—what an embarrassment—little idiot—shut your mouth, you—nobody asked you to say a word—I’m warning you, I’m doing the talking here—tell that brat she better shut up or there will be consequences—you’ll never, never, never amount to anything—in the old days your type would have been . . . ”
Anton was cowering in the corner of the sofa, light eyebrows, lips drained of blood, his face colorless, his wide-open eyes trained on Vadim—who loomed hulking in the middle of the room, gesticulating, spitting out his words along with saliva.
And then his hand, with its short fingers, gripping his leather belt and opening it with a few quick motions, the hiss of the belt cutting through the air and my memory of his words: “Back in the old days, in the army, we would fill our buckles with lead and, man, did that crack your skull.” Chuckling as he did it.
I misunderstood, thinking he had lead in this belt buckle and was about to crack open Anton’s blond head.
Of course it was just a normal belt, a normal belt that whipped me across my face when I stepped between Anton and Vadim—not that it felt good. Everyone screamed except Anton, who I thought was dead by that point, keeled over in the corner of the sofa.
And I thought that was just normal, nothing shocking, the nature of a situation like this, just like the pain burning across my face. Until I realized my mother was screaming, too. That was something I couldn’t comprehend.
She never screamed. Never.
And now she was in Vadim’s face yelling, shouting that it was over, done, finished; that they were through, there would be no more agonizing over it; that he would never, ever hurt a child again; that he was leaving the apartment right this second; that she was filing for divorce—out! Out!
And Vadim dropped the hand with the belt to his side and listened with his mouth agape.
Out!
And I thought that he would whip her now, and that I needed to think of something fast to keep him from killing her. Where was the phone? Mother was so disorganized and never put the handset back on its cradle.
Out!
Then Vadim fell to his knees and started to cry, still clutching the belt in one hand while the other quivered in the air.
The scene made me sick.
I looked away, at my mother. But she didn’t look at me. She was still looking at Vadim, her eyes tightly squinting. And in her hand was the phone.
“Out,” she said, almost whispering. “I’ve already dialed the number. I don’t want to hear another word.”
Vadim had difficulty standing up, nearly falling over, fighting to regain his balance. You could tell he realized how absurd he looked at that moment.
“Now?” he said, just as quietly, trying to read her face. If he was able to read it, he didn’t like what he saw in it.
She nodded and put the phone to her ear. Vadim shook his head no, wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve and began to put his belt back through the loops of his pants, slowly, having difficulty, finally leaving it be, walking past her and out of the room with his belt dangling. I didn’t even realize that I had jumped to my feet again, ready for the possibility he would try to hit her.
At first I couldn’t believe he was gone. Until I heard the front door close, I thought he was waiting for us in the entryway.
When I finally came to my senses again, my mother was already sitting on the couch with Anton on her lap. His eyes were still wide open, and his face was smeared with brown from the chocolate she was stuffing in his mouth like a life-saving medicine.
I looked at them and blinked uncomprehendingly until my mother said, “He did it. He did it again. He hurt my child.”
And I answered automatically, “Don’t exaggerate. He didn’t even touch Anton.”
“I’m not talking about Anton,” said my mother. “He hit you. He dared to hit you.”
And as I sat down next to them and took a piece of chocolate for myself, she said, “He’s never coming back here.”
And fifteen minutes later she said, “Where did you get the nerve, Sascha? Are you not afraid of anything at all? How is that possible? How did you get that way?”
I felt the chocolate melting in my hand. I didn’t even want to eat it. So I wiped it off on my pants.
“Never again,” my mother said, hugging Anton. “Never again, it’s over, done.”
“Me!” shrieked Alissa. I could clearly hear her from the staircase. “Me, me, me!”
I’m not worried about Alissa. She’s been good to go since she came into this world. She was born in the ambulance because my mother didn’t make it to the hospital in time. A screaming red bundle with a head of pitch-black hair and a startlingly observant look in her dark blue eyes. Pretty as a picture and full of energy. I held her, newly born, in my arms as my mother, no longer pregnant, took the elevator back up to our place and got into her bed. I never saw her so happy again.
“A girl, Sascha,” she kept saying. She hadn’t let them tell her in advance what she was having. She was drunk with joy. “You know what, Sascha? I never said anything, but I really wanted it to be a girl. Girls have it so much easier in life.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I said, looking at Alissa’s wrinkled red face. Alissa looked at me, too, studying, skeptical. And when we put her in her crib, she would close her eyes and open her mouth and scream until the walls of the entire Emerald shook.
“It’s all right,” I said, “No need to get out of bed. I can handle it. I can hold her. She likes it in my arms.”
“I want to hold her, too,” said my mother. “Give her to me. Give her to me, I said. Who gave birth to her—you or me?”
My little sister never wanted to be put down. Within a few days, we were all doing her bidding. Even Vadim overcame his disappointment at not getting a son worthy of carrying on his name, turned down the TV, and carried Alissa around until her diapers were full—“baby shit is not something for a man to handle.” He even said he saw his grandfather in her tiny features, started calling her “his princess” and “snuggle-bunny,” and bought her a doll in a red dress.
I blow on my pointer finger and put it on the doorbell.
I’m excited to see Alissa again.
Peter the Great comes to the door. I haven’t forgotten that little Katja is his sister. I just didn’t think about it.
“Hi,” I say. He nods and lets me into the apartment.
“Your little sister,” he says instead of a greeting, “is like a siren. My ears are ringing.”
He stretches out his arm, leans against the wall, and looks me up and down. His facial expression is hard to read.
I don’t look away. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
He really is gigantic. Six and a half feet of muscle and acne, adrenalin, and testosterone, and whatever it is you get when you sniff glue, all packed into oddly tight jeans and a white T-shirt. The Marlon Brando of our Russian Ghetto. Long black eyelashes that give his face a feminine note. Which is probably why he lifts weights so obsessively. Light blue eyes, red lips that crinkle easily, a thick gold chain around his neck, and an even thicker one around his wrist. A fat ring on his pinkie and tattoos on his upper arm. There’s the obligatory naked woman—with no head—as well as an eagle and some symbol I don’t recognize.
No, he doesn’t sniff glue, I think. His eyes are too clear and observant. Maybe a couple of beers and a joint, but only on weekends. He can restrain himself. Probably drinks protein shakes and pops vitamins.
I think he’s younger than me. I’m pretty sure he’s only sixteen.
There sure are a lot of sixteen-year-old boys in this world.
“How’s it going?” he says.
“Fine,” I say. “You?”
A door flies open and Alissa comes stumbling out. She’s pulling a toy wagon with three Barbies lying in it. She sees me, shouts a greeting, and pulls the wagon past me and Peter and on into another room.
“Come on, Katja,” she screams. “Where are you?”
Katja comes out of the doorway. She’s a year older than Alissa, already five. Her face is round. Her pink tights are twisted around. And too small. Katja’s one of those chubby kids who can’t help bringing attention on herself—the wrong kind. For instance, I have rarely seen her without a chocolate bar in her mouth. Even now her mouth is smeared brown. So is Alissa’s.
“Hi, Katja,” I say. She jumps, startled, and stares at me. “What are you playing?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbles.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re one of the ones playing it.”
“Formula One,” shrieks Alissa from the next room. “We’re playing Formula One racing. Come on, Katja.”
Katja sticks her thumb in her mouth. Her eyes are the color of water, like Peter’s. There must be twenty-six barrettes in her hair.
I wink at her. She takes her thumb out of her mouth and hides her hand behind her back.
“How come you never come up to our place?” I ask. “I think Alissa would like it.”
Katja says nothing and looks over at Peter. Peter looks at me from above and likewise says nothing.
“I’m not allowed,” mumbles Katja.
“Why aren’t you allowed?” I ask. “Who said you weren’t allowed?”
“Mommy,” she says.
I raise my face to look directly at Peter.
“Why isn’t she allowed?” I ask. “Does your mother think we eat children?”
The corners of Peter’s mouth turn up. “How should I know,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned she can visit you anytime she wants. I’d enjoy the peace and quiet.”
“I’m not allowed,” Katja says more stridently.
I kneel down in front of her. “I’ll ask your mother if you can, okay?”
She nods. Then she nods again, more vigorously. “I want to see Alissa’s robots,” she says.
“I’ll ask your mother,” I repeat. “When will she be home?” I ask, this time directing the question to Peter.
“Forget it,” Peter says, stretching and touching the ceiling as he does. “She comes home at seven, but you can save yourself the trouble.”
I stand up. I stretch, too, but I only reach the level of his shoulders. “What do you mean?” I ask angrily. “What did we
ever do to your mother?”
“You know how they are around here,” says Peter. “She’s afraid. She was home the night it all went down at your place. I can hardly believe she lets the little runt come over here even. The adults are all so spineless and stupid.”
“It was Vadim,” I say. “Vadim did the shooting. Not me. Not Maria. Why shouldn’t Katja be allowed to come over?”
Peter shrugs his massive shoulders.
“Look, personally I don’t give a shit,” he says. “But my mother says you can still smell tragedy up on the eleventh floor. She’s a bit out there. When she sees a black cat she spits three times over her left shoulder so nothing bad happens to her.”
“Is that it?” I ask. “She’s just superstitious?”
“I’ve never asked her,” he says, “but if I were in your position, I’d want to move out of that apartment.”
“Why?”
“It’s poisoned. Somebody was stabbed nine years ago on the eighth floor—you weren’t here yet—and to this day there’s only one apartment rented out on the entire floor.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You can still see the blood stains on the floor in front of your apartment.”
“That’s just dirt.”
“Right.”
“If your father killed your mother,” I say, “would you want to move out of here? The apartment where you lived together with her? The place you call home? And her last home? Would you really split?”
“That would never happen to my mother,” Peter says.
That hurts. I only realize after a few seconds that I’ve clenched my fists so tightly that my fingernails have pierced the skin on my hands. There are several red, crescent-shaped cuts.
“Your mother?” I say. “No, you’re right, it would never happen to her.”
“What?” says Peter. “What do you mean by that?”
“What did you mean?”
And then I realize Peter is smarter than I thought—he doesn’t answer.
The children’s voices have gone quiet. And I can now hear the music coming out of the open door to Peter’s room. I know the song.
The drunken doctor
Told you
That you
Broken Glass Park Page 13