Winter Eyes

by Lev Raphael

  Sasha made him eat something, but Stefan threw up in the bathroom a few minutes later. He clutched the toilet with his hands, wanting to lose in the putrid water what he kept hearing in his head. Sasha held him and cleaned him up, put him to bed with a hot-water bottle and tea.

  “Scotty.…”

  Sasha went to the bag and brought Scotty in. Stefan tucked the blind dog under his arm.

  Scotty can’t see anymore, he said to himself.

  Sasha sat on a chair right near the bed. Stefan fell asleep and woke and fell asleep while Sasha talked to him. Stefan could hardly hear it was so loud in his head. Sasha took his temperature once, or maybe twice.

  “You’re not sick, that’s good.…you have to understand.…they try to forget everything that happened, but.…”

  Stefan looked at Sasha’s downturned face a long time. “Where did she go?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know. Maybe to stay with a friend?” She was gone, she wouldn’t come back, Sasha didn’t know. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “No. I want to stay with you.”

  “Don’t strain, of course you can stay.”

  “I hate them.”

  “Stefan, no.…”

  “I do, I hate them.”

  “It’s not their fault. We’re all scarred.”

  “Scarred?”

  “Inside, it’s inside.” Was it like his music?

  The phone rang and Stefan leapt up. “It’s Mommy!” He tumbled out of bed. “Stefan.”

  “It’s her—I know it’s her!” He raced out and down the hall. As he rushed across the living room he slid not far from the phone table and slammed right into the piano. The noise in his head went away.’

  When he woke up there was something funny in his head; like a lot of warm blankets, too many. It felt hot inside and he wanted to take some of them off but he didn’t know how. Something was on his head too; he felt with one hand. “No, leave the bandage.”

  He couldn’t see well but it sounded like Sasha from far away. “You hit your head, Stefan, but it’s all right.”

  He held out his hands and Scotty was put into them. “I can’t see right,” he whimpered.

  “It’s just for now, you’ll be fine soon, except for your eyebrow.”

  Stefan was drifting off.

  “It’ll be a little crooked,” he heard Sasha say.

  “Mom—”

  “They’re outside.”

  “Will I have a scar?” Stefan managed, unable to open his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Stefan smiled and hugged Scotty. He would be like them now that he had a scar. His mommy would always stay and his daddy would never hit him again or be angry.

  “A little scar,” Sasha added.

  3

  “But when is Daddy coming back?”

  Stefan asked his mother again this time very low: maybe he’d asked too loud was why she didn’t answer the first time. He fiddled with the bandage on his eyebrow, wondering what it looked like under. His mother had said very little to him when Sasha brought him back from the cold white hospital he never wanted to be in again. He held on to Sasha’s hand all the way home, but it wasn’t home anymore; he didn’t know where home was. The big shiny halls of the hospital had taken him away and he didn’t know how to get back.

  Sasha shifted in his chair and said a few Russian words, but his mother still didn’t answer. The meal went on in silence. Stefan looked sometimes at the fourth chair; he didn’t say anything though—if he kept quiet maybe it would all be the same again. On the way here Sasha had told him something about his mother and father but it was like a hard book that he would understand only when he grew up. He couldn’t believe his mother was there.

  “She didn’t have anywhere to go,” Sasha said now as Stefan’s mother excused herself.

  “She went away,” Stefan insisted.

  Sasha cleaned up, washed the dishes. Stefan sat watching his uncle, afraid to leave the safety of this room.

  His mother was strange. She scared him the way she’d said hello before, her face looking all rubbed and white.

  “Are you going too?” Stefan asked.

  Sasha smiled. “No, I’ll stay tonight.”

  “You can stay in my room,” Stefan ventured.

  “I can sleep on the couch.” Sasha dried his large hands.

  But Stefan was afraid to sleep all alone—no one might be there in the morning when he got out of bed.

  “What do you want to do?” Sasha asked with a slow clap of his hands.

  Stefan couldn’t even shrug; he just wanted to stay near Sasha, that was all.

  “Is Daddy coming back?” he asked; the question had stuck itself in his head like music.

  Sasha sighed and sat down like he’d been standing somewhere too long.

  “Why did he go? Why did Mommy?”

  “People have to go away sometimes, when they’re unhappy.”

  Stefan didn’t understand how going away made you happier.

  Where did people go? How come his father had a place to go and his mother didn’t? What did that mean?

  Sasha stroked his forehead, rose.

  “How about some TV?” Sasha asked him.

  They watched in the darkened living room for a long time, but Stefan couldn’t see the screen; he was trying to know what “away” was, how you got there. He sat close to Sasha, feeling secure.

  Sometimes he looked up to see the lights move across Sasha’s face, but mostly he didn’t really look at anything. The bandage on his eyebrow itched a little, and Stefan rubbed there trying not to let Sasha notice he did it.

  The hospital wasn’t away, or a visit; you came back from those. Away was when you never came back, Stefan decided, but not as bad as dying. If his daddy never came back, though, wasn’t that kind of being dead?

  He heard something funny—it was Sasha snoring. Stefan didn’t move; he was anxious not to wake Sasha up.

  Sleeping was going away, sort of.

  And his mother too; she was home, but she was away. And even if he ate everything on his plate and tried real hard not to mess up his room too much and didn’t say anything that made her cry, she might never come back. She would be there—all quiet and washed-out, not really hearing, not really talking, in Polish, or any language—but she would be away.

  He didn’t know which was worse—his daddy or his mommy. Sasha muttered something in his sleep Stefan couldn’t understand, and then woke up like he’d been hit, eyes wide.

  “It’s me,” Stefan assured him.

  “It’s late.”

  Passing his parents’ room, Stefan called good night, but he didn’t know if his mother heard. Sasha knocked on the door and Stefan moved down the hall, into the bathroom to wash. He brushed too hard that night, because when he spit out the white foam it had red in it. In the mirror he pulled open his lips to see where he was bleeding; he couldn’t find a place, and nothing hurt. He wished he could be sick and have to go away. He didn’t like the hospital, but Sasha would sit near his bed and talk, and pretty nurses would call him “cutey” and ask how Scotty felt and the doctor would make jokes. And his mother wouldn’t have to be there—or not a lot.

  He didn’t turn on the radio in his room, looked around a long time like he might have to leave it some day, to go away too. He pulled back the covers and changed into his pajamas. Stefan folded all his clothes very neat so his mother wouldn’t say anything and brought Scotty over from the desk.

  Sasha came in and Stefan got into bed.

  “Will you sleep here?”

  “I’ll sit up with you until you fall asleep. Okay?”

  That was better than if he had to be alone, so Stefan nodded.

  Sasha slipped off his shoes and sat on the outside of the bed, switched off the lamp.

  “Is Scotty comfortable?” Sasha asked.

  Stefan smiled.

  “Shall I tell you a story?”

  “Not a book story.�
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  “Well.…” Sasha leaned against the wall, an arm around Stefan’s shoulder.

  “When we were little, even younger than you are, I thought I was brave, and once someone dared me to put a pea in my ear because I said that if you did, you would swallow it.”

  “Did you put the pea in?”

  “All the way.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I forgot it was there.”

  “You forgot?”

  “It wasn’t a very big pea, and maybe I thought I would swallow it someday.”

  “What happened?”

  “Some time later I began to have a terrible pain in my ear.”

  “The pea was growing!”

  “Right. It’s nice and warm in there. But I didn’t remember about the pea. When we went to the doctor and he found what was wrong he laughed, but my father thought it was a terrible waste of food.”

  “One pea?”

  “That’s what I said. Mother laughed, though—she said pea soup wouldn’t have been so much trouble.”

  “What was your mommy like?”

  Sasha didn’t say anything for a while. “Aren’t you sleepy?” he asked, yawning.

  The War, Stefan thought, it was always coming in to mess things up; couldn’t they ever forget it?

  “Your mother’s tired out,” Sasha said, and the room seemed suddenly very dark and quiet to Stefan.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know, Stefan. She wouldn’t tell me.”

  It must be real bad to go away if she couldn’t tell anyone, and looked so weird; maybe his father wasn’t happy either wherever he was. Somehow that was all right, if everyone was unhappy. But then why didn’t he come back?

  Sasha had fallen asleep leaning against the wall; his mouth was open and he didn’t look too comfortable. Stefan settled down to sleep but Sasha moaned and started shaking his head, talking and moaning, like he was being hurt. Stefan could feel the skin at the back of his neck all tight and tingly. Sasha was moaning worse and was all stiff like someone tied down who couldn’t move. Stefan didn’t wake him; a kid told him once that you died if anybody woke you in the middle of a dream even if it was horrible not to wake up.

  Sasha’s face was all wet when Stefan turned on the bed lamp; he was afraid to be there in the dark with Sasha’s bad dream. Sasha began to whimper, his face drenched, twisted. Stefan had never heard anything so awful—people didn’t sound like that. He edged out from under the sheets and down the bed away from the white wet face that was torn apart by something Stefan couldn’t see. He crept off the bed and stood at the foot, then backed away slowly, quietly, barely able to breathe, while Sasha began to cry—a thin strange sound.

  His mother opened the door, glided to the bed, sat and took Sasha up in her thin arms, like a child holding a huge teddy bear.

  Sasha mumbled something, awake now, Stefan thought, transfixed by the scene on the bed.

  “What was it?” his mother asked, soft and warm like she’d never been with him—the words were like a blanket.

  Sasha shook against her. Stefan wondered how his mother was strong enough to hold Sasha up.

  “It was her?” His mother asked in that same witch-like voice.

  He thought Sasha whispered “Tak”—yes, in Polish—but he couldn’t be sure; he felt cold and sweaty.

  “Stefan, take linen and go sleep on the couch,” his mother ordered without turning, and he was so scared, and so grateful she talked to him that he padded quickly to his closet, took up a blanket and pillow and went off in the dark.

  He left Scotty on the bed in case Sasha needed him.

  He woke up thinking about school. He sat up sharply, heard his mother in the kitchen and went to her.

  “I called your principal and said that you were still not well,” she explained, and Stefan was almost sorry he had to stay home. His mother set down his cereal and orange juice; she’d even poured the milk into his bowl—he eyed her, sat at the table.

  “Did Sasha go home?”

  “No, he’s not well, either, he’s still here.”

  “Sleeping?”

  “Finish your cereal and you can see him.”

  He ate, watching her putter around the kitchen, scrubbing the sink and then the oven top. She didn’t look so weird today, even hummed a little while she worked. It was scary because she acted all right, like nothing had ever happened, last night or any night.

  But she went away, he told himself fiercely, finishing his cereal. “I’m done,” he said, as if she might not believe him.

  “Fine.” She smiled, wringing out a dishcloth.

  He stepped along to his room. Sasha lay in his bed, the covers high up, a glass of tea in reach on a chair.

  “Morning.”

  “Are you real sick?” Stefan moved to the bed, overwhelmed by how helpless and sad Sasha looked. He wanted to cry, but you were never supposed to cry near sick people his father told him once, because they might think “it was bad.”

  “Real sick? Is that the opposite of fake sick?”

  Stefan grimaced, sat on the bed and took his uncle’s hand. “You feel hot.”

  “I am a little, but it’s nothing.” Sasha winked: “I just like to make a fuss.”

  Stefan laughed.

  Sasha squeezed his hand and nodded as if he’d done a very good thing.

  Then Stefan noticed Sasha was wearing one of his father’s pajamas; he drew his hand away and wanted to break something or cry out. He grabbed Scotty.

  “He’s been very nice to me,” Sasha observed, voice low, tired.

  “Scotty likes you.”

  “Maybe I’ll give him lessons too,” Sasha joked. Stefan realized he hadn’t played in a long time. He felt very lost to be sitting here on a school day with Sasha sick in bed, his father somewhere he didn’t know. He tried to remember, but it was all funny to him—he’d think something and it’d get snowy like a bad TV picture. He was stuck right here in this room; other rooms and days were gone.

  “How’s the patient?” His mother called at the door.

  “The patient what?” Sasha grinned. Stefan didn’t get it.

  She advanced to the bed, leaned down to feel Sasha’s forehead, picked up his glass. “I’ll get more. And some toast?” Sasha nodded and she left.

  “Our grandmother always said tea and toast were the best things for a cold.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Well they taste good.”

  “Scotty doesn’t like tea,” Stefan said, gazing down at the battered old dog which he held by its front paws.

  “I know, I offered him some.”

  Stefan wanted to ask about last night, what had scared Sasha—he didn’t know anyone could be that scared—and ask about his father and ask and ask. But the answers were so strange when he did get them, that maybe he should just give up.

  “What do you want to do?” his mother asked, back with a plate and steaming glass. Stefan sniffed at the tea, not sure if he liked the smell or not.

  “What do you want to do today?” his mother asked him, helping Sasha sit up.

  “Stay with Sasha.”

  “That’s nice.”

  So Stefan sat in his room, talking to his uncle, reading to him from The Three Musketeers, not just straight through, but different parts he liked best, and Sasha fell asleep a few times. All day Stefan heard his mother move from room to room, cleaning. The washing machine sent out a steady rumble from its corner of the kitchen that the vacuum cleaner now and then drowned out. Smells of polish drifted his way. He didn’t think Sasha liked all the noise and commotion either, but they didn’t mention it, as if his mother wasn’t really there, or was only a cleaning lady. She came in with his lunch not looking tired or any different than she used to—her hair was a little damp and maybe some dirt had got on her face. Around dinner time, when Sasha slept again, Stefan found food in the kitchen and his mother wasn’t there. He hadn’t heard her go out. The bedroom door wasn’t open; he stood ou
tside it trying to hear if she was inside, but there wasn’t any sound and he couldn’t be sure.

  Was she really gone now?

  Stefan checked on Sasha: he was still asleep, so Stefan sat alone in the kitchen, trying to make himself eat enough to be a dinner. He couldn’t look at or taste the food, just forked and chewed and swallowed, and then tried to wash the plates, afraid he might break one, but more afraid to just leave them on the table. When he finished he gulped down some milk; it didn’t taste good and he almost wanted to spit. The kitchen seemed very big to him by himself—all the cabinet doors, the humming fridge that leaned back a little like it was showing off, the glitter of pots on the wall over the stove.… What if he never came back, he wondered, what if this was the last time he ever walked out of the kitchen through the dining room, the foyer, down the hall to his bedroom. He didn’t know—he couldn’t think right.

  Sasha was well enough to get up and make tea for himself. The pajamas were too short at their ends and tight too; Sasha laughed at himself in the closet mirror, but Stefan couldn’t: even if they didn’t fit, they were his daddy’s.

  Sasha went back to bed to drink his tea, sitting up now and not looking as white as before. Stefan didn’t mention his mother once; he noticed how Sasha’s glance kept flying to the door, expecting her. He didn’t ask Stefan anything and Stefan kept quiet. If his mother was really gone then she was gone—he was tired trying to understand. At least Sasha wasn’t gone, and Stefan knew without asking that Sasha would never leave him because Sasha felt bad too, left behind. They would stay together, Stefan was sure.

  “Where will you sleep tonight?”

  Stefan looked out at the dark sky; somehow night surprised him today. He counted the lit windows in the building across theirs.

  “On the couch.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  Stefan blinked—it was a funny kind of question, or maybe the way Sasha asked it.

  He nodded.

  “Shall I make you cocoa?”

  “Ooh—” Stefan leapt up to follow Sasha into the kitchen, passing his parents’ door as if there wasn’t a room there, just a wall.

  He had homework to catch up with, but the assignments he got the next day in class from Miss Zimmer were almost a relief. He would have something to do that wasn’t watching television or talking or eating—what he really did when he did those things was worry and feel bad. Sasha took him to school because he was too late to get the school bus. Stefan wished Sasha could always take him places, but the wish wasn’t too big: what he most wanted was for the bad things to not keep happening so fast.