by Lev Raphael
The day went okay until at the end when they had free period for the first time in days. Kids flocked to the long low supply cupboards for paints and paper, clay, wire, crayons, tape, and glue, but Stefan stayed near his desk watching the jostling girls and boys at the back of the room.
Miss Zimmer came over. “Stefan, don’t you want to make something pretty today?”
“No.”
Miss Zimmer shook her head. “You have to make something pretty.” She moved on to direct her class and Stefan followed; if he had to do it, that was different. There wasn’t too much left to choose from—everyone was settling down to their work—and Stefan surveyed the littered shelves dimly. How would he make something pretty of this stuff?
He got the bathroom pass so he could put off the decision. In the big white-smelling toilet (it was rude to call it a toilet even in your head, but he didn’t feel too polite) he washed and washed his face with cold water and then hot, and sat up on a sink to look out the high deep-grated window at the park, wishing he could get sick. He knew if you stuck a finger down your throat you threw up, but he didn’t know which finger, and how you did it exactly, and it was nasty. Still, he didn’t want to go back to class.
Where was his daddy? Was he driving somewhere? Would he come back? Stefan began to feel his eyes wet and he got off the sink to hurry back to class; he didn’t want to cry by himself in that place—someone might find him—and crying didn’t help anything, Stefan was beginning to decide. So he raced back to class; it was okay, though, because Miss Zimmer had gone out and Sophie, her monitor, was too busy at Miss Zimmer’s desk mangling bits of clay to care who came in or out. Stefan found some paper for drawing and colored pencils that were too sharp: they scratched on the paper. He was doing a project, though. He tried a house, and then a walk in the park, and finally a piano, but nothing looked close to what it was supposed to be. All around him flowers grew and blossomed, figures took shape—pretty things—and Stefan couldn’t make anything at all, pretty or not.
When school ended Stefan tore up his drawings and threw them away. He didn’t want to go home, he felt that like a heat inside him; he would go anywhere but home: it was so awful there with his daddy gone, his mother strange. He felt all alone as he left school in a sudden fog—everything looked unfamiliar: the yard, the metal fence, the kids and cars, like he’d been gone for years and years, or was from a different place now. He didn’t want to go home; he didn’t want to come back to this school either.
He would go to Sasha. Stefan almost trembled with the terror and demand of his thought, but suddenly he was not afraid. It was very simple—he knew he just had to skip the school bus and take the Broadway bus instead, and get off blocks before where his regular stop would be. Sasha was so unlike his parents that Stefan had always thought of the two apartments as very far apart, but it wasn’t that many blocks when he counted them up; he even sometimes walked there on Sundays, with his parents.
He would probably never go anywhere again with his parents, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, not today. Stefan shrunk back to the entrance and inside, heard the school bus finally drive off. If anyone asked why he was in the lobby he would say he was waiting for his ride. He stayed there a few minutes and then hurried out to the city bus stop across the street. His mother always made sure in the morning that he had change with him “in case”; his father called it “silver” and Stefan liked the way that sounded. He stood now fingering his change, trying to look like he belonged there; he was afraid someone might find him, maybe Miss Zimmer, and make him go home, but no one did and he almost tripped up the stairs when the crowded bus roared up, huge front window like an eye. The bus driver stared at him, he thought, so after he dropped in the coins he squeezed as far back as he could, hiding in the forest of bigger school kids who were all laughing at something. Stefan clutched a pole, waiting to get off at Sasha’s block.
The bus thinned out and he was nervous in case someone might know him and ask where he was going, but no one did and he got off on Broadway at Sasha’s street feeling dizzy like the time in first grade he played a toy soldier in the Christmas play and had to march around and around when the long clock bonged—which was too many times, so that he almost got sick before the last time he had to march and when he bowed at the end and his big hat came off, his head was so funny he couldn’t pick it up.
He was hungry; he hoped Sasha had cookies or something good. And cocoa. Stefan didn’t look at anyone as he cut down to Fort Washington Avenue and turned the corner. Inside, though, he kept pressing Sasha’s button and there was no answer. He stayed there real long, pushing in all sorts of different ways but no one buzzed back. Sasha was gone too.
Stefan turned and trailed out of the lobby. He sat down outside on the wide front stoop, holding his book bag tight so he wouldn’t cry.
“Aren’t you Mr. Borowski’s nephew?”
Stefan looked up through blurred eyes at the tiny white-haired woman he thought he knew.
“I’m Mrs. Mendelsohn, dear. Do you remember me? I live on the same floor as your uncle.”
He thought so—he nodded.
“Are you waiting for him?”
He nodded and she eyed him for a very long time, making him feel like she knew he wasn’t supposed to be there.
“I’ll wait with you,” she announced, her voice thin and squeezy. She began to tell him all about her grandson without asking him to say anything, which was good. He kept wondering where Sasha was, beginning to feel really hungry; he almost asked Mrs. Mendelsohn if she would give him something to eat but he was afraid to—it wasn’t nice, but also, worse, she might ask him questions and he didn’t want to tell her anything. When he saw Sasha strolling up the block he was so upset he didn’t even wave, just stared.
“Look who is here, Mr. Borowski,” Mrs. Mendelsohn pointed. Sasha strode up to them. “Stefan?”
Mrs. Mendelsohn began a long shrill speech in Russian that followed them all the way upstairs; she was mad at Sasha but Stefan couldn’t tell why. Upstairs, she patted Stefan’s shoulder and murmured, “Poor child.”
Sasha led him inside and sat him down. “She thought I kept you waiting,” he explained flatly. “Now what is this?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You’re too young to wander around the city.” Sasha sat absolutely still, eyes hard.
“I didn’t wander, I came here from school. I’m smart—I know how.”
“What about your mother?” Sasha reached past him for the phone. “You should never do this,” he said. Stefan had never seen him so far away and cold.
Sasha sat with the phone and it rang for a long time until he hung up.
“See? She’s not home—she doesn’t care.”
“You have to go home. I have a set of keys.”
Stefan jumped up. “No, don’t make me!”
Sasha looked away. “You have to.”
“Please?”
“You’re not my son.”
“I want to be!” He tried to hug Sasha but his uncle held him back. “Why can’t I be? They hate me!”
“No, it’s not true.” The buzzer rang and Sasha broke away to answer. Stefan crumpled on the couch, wanting to die. If Sasha didn’t like him then no one did.
He soon heard his mother’s voice at the door and sat up. She saw him and smiled and she and his uncle were soon chatting as if she’d just come over for a visit, not to find him. Stefan watched her as she sat with hands folded, face attentive, interested; it was like being with someone who was pretending to be his mother. Sasha seemed angry at him still, so when his mother suggested a walk because the early evening air was “so fresh” he stood and headed for the door, not sorry to leave. If no one wanted him it didn’t matter where he went, who he stayed with. The three of them strolled down the low hill and along the tree-lined length of the avenue as if it were a Sunday afternoon, but it was almost night. Usually Stefan liked the way the trees on both sides of the street reached up and touche
d the middle to make the street like a tunnel. Now, though, he felt confused and angry, answered when his mother and Sasha spoke to him but volunteered nothing; their interlocked voices—now English, now Polish or Russian—were no more to him than the whoosh of bicycles or the harsh-edged talk of strolling couples. It wasn’t home he walked to, just a place he lived.
He would never play the piano again, he almost said out loud when they finally entered his building’s elevator. His mother had dinner ready and they ate in the same way they’d walked. Stefan left the kitchen when he was done and left them to talk; he didn’t care what they said, didn’t care if he never saw both of them again.
Why didn’t they all go away and stop being so mean to him? His parents’ door was wide open and Stefan entered the dark musky room that used to scare him when he was little—thick curtains to beat back the light and the heavy black furniture looked like it wanted to be alive and do something nasty—but now he wasn’t afraid. He entered the silent room where he’d sometimes fled at night when he woke from a nightmare or couldn’t sleep because of a noise he heard in the hallway like something coming to get him. Always he’d have to go back, could stay under the covers just a little before they sent him away.
“I heard something,” he would say, or “I was scared.” Now he was in the room to find something. He stood looking at the bed, at the shelf of books behind it, the night tables, the dresser, the table with the mirror, looking for something more than the smell of his father’s after-shave. He opened the closet where his father’s clothes hung, large and silent, shirts and suits, and pants upside down, the tie rack inside the door dripped cloth icicles: red-and-blue stripes, and blue-and-red, gray, black, layers and rows of ties. He fingered them, wanted to pull one down and wrap it around his neck even though he didn’t know how to make it fit. He peered up at the top shelf lined with hatboxes. He stroked the empty suit sleeves, soft or grainy, one was even rough, reaching into the pockets. At last, after all the empty ones, he found a hard bit of silver; it was one of his daddy’s cuff links: round and flat with a fancy “M” on it. He wanted to close the door, crawl in among the shoes all lined up, each with its shoe tree holding it tight and stretched, and sit in the darkness that smelled like his father.
He bore the cuff link like a treasure to his room and closed the door while he decided where to hide it; he didn’t trust his mother or Sasha. But there wasn’t any place he could put it his mother couldn’t find. Then he saw Scotty, and knew: a hole had grown under Scotty’s blanket. He stepped to the desk, hesitated, and then picked up his dog. Wincing, he shoved the bit of silver as deep inside as he could, apologizing under his breath. He rooted in the bottom desk drawer, found a needle and dark thread. He sat on the floor, bent over, fixing the hole to make it secret. He kept sticking his fingers and the needle and thread were always separating, but he finally did it—no one would really notice since Scotty was so scruffy anyway. Even though he wasn’t sleepy, Stefan washed up, changed and slid into bed so he wouldn’t have to say good-bye to Sasha. He lay in the dark on his side, facing the wall, trying to pretend himself asleep but it didn’t work; he felt all tight and squeezed and even breathing real deep like his mother once said would work only made him more awake.
“Stefan?” Sasha knocked on the half-open door.
He didn’t move.
“Are you asleep?” Sasha stood there a minute and then left, closing the door.
Good, Stefan thought rolling onto his back to glare at the ceiling.
He woke feeling very hot and sick, but he knew it wasn’t really being sick, just how you sometimes were when you slept funny, too long, or when you didn’t think you would. In the cool bathroom he drank three cups of water, but then he didn’t know what to do. He was too tired to go back to bed, or to eat anything, besides, it wasn’t good to eat late at night—it was probably real late, he guessed. He switched off the bathroom light; out in the hall, though, he heard a funny noise. It came from the living room, maybe, a soft hissing noise like the flames that had once burst from a frying pan his mother held on the stove, sending Stefan under the kitchen table where he stayed, his mother said, until they gave him ice cream to come out.
Stefan was scared, pressed now against the wall, like something might be passing him he didn’t want to get near. He edged down the hall, his bare feet sticking to the linoleum. At the end of the hall he heard it again; someone was in the living room, talking, whispering. Was Sasha still there? But there wasn’t any light on. Then Stefan recognized his mother’s voice. He stood in the dark hallway that stretched back to his room, his bed, unable to move from listening to his mother whisper to herself in a language that he didn’t know, but it sounded like German a little. There was no one else in the room—Stefan was sure of it. She was in the living room all alone at night, talking to herself. She couldn’t be reading aloud if there was no light. It made him afraid.
He didn’t know how long he listened, how long he breathed as quietly as possible so she wouldn’t know he was there, how long he did not move or think. Somehow, he made his way back down the hall, away from what he did not understand. He closed his door, wishing there was a lock on it.
At dinner the next evening, he and Sasha did most of the talking while his mother just ate quietly, slowly. Stefan told Sasha all sorts of things about what happened at school that day even though he didn’t really care and could see that Sasha only half-listened. Sasha looked right at him, nodded a lot, asked questions in that funny sort of cheerful voice Stefan knew adults used when they were thinking of something else.
But someone had to talk—they couldn’t just sit there at the huge dining room table and say nothing. When the doorbell rang his mother didn’t look up; Sasha smiled across at him strangely and rose to get the door.
His father walked in, set down a small suitcase, ruffled Stefan’s hair, kissed his mother’s cheek and sat at the fourth place, opposite his mother.
“I’ll get you something,” his mother said, going out to the kitchen.
“Fine,” his father nodded.
Stefan just stared and stared—his father was so beautiful he wanted to cry. But he couldn’t even talk.
His mother returned balancing full plates and silver like a waitress and they went on with dinner.
“Your eyebrow will be all right, Sasha tells me.”
Stefan couldn’t stop gaping.
“Your food’s getting cold,” his father smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. Stefan looked from face to face, stunned, trying to find the answer. His mother’s eyes didn’t meet his; Sasha kind of shushed him with a raised finger, and his father didn’t seem like he’d been away even a minute—but it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be: Friday no one was home and now everyone was.
“Where did you go?”
Hands stopped.
“Not far.”
“How far?”
Sasha was trying to get his attention but Stefan wouldn’t stop. “Why’d you go away?” Stefan slammed down his knife and fork.
“You’re too little to understand—”
“Everyone says that!” Stefan stood so fast his chair fell behind him. He wanted to hurl his plates across the table.
“Take him to his room,” his father told Sasha.
“So you can go away again!” Stefan cried. “So Mommy can too!”
Sasha took him by the shoulders, but he struggled and Sasha had to pick him up and carry him out. Stefan felt all white like he could kill somebody. Sasha took him down to his room the way he carried Scotty.
Sasha closed the door and moved to the desk, sat down, and Stefan followed, sat on his bed arms crossed tight, still wanting to break something, anything.
“You’re making it very hard,” Sasha began so gently it surprised Stefan, but that only made him feel worse now that Sasha wasn’t going to yell at him, and he felt more like yelling himself.
“Where did he go?” Stefan demanded.
“To stay with a friend, another teacher.”<
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“In the city?”
Sasha nodded.
“Why didn’t you make him come home?”
Sasha sighed. “I couldn’t. He had to come back when he wanted.”
So his father had left first?
“Your mother couldn’t stand it—she went to get him.” Sasha rubbed his forehead. “It was very bad.”
She went to get him? Like he’d looked for Sasha. Suddenly Stefan felt very sorry for his mother. She hadn’t left him; she went away to look for his father. He wanted to laugh or run or something. She didn’t leave him, not really.
“What—?” Sasha wondered when Stefan jumped off the bed.
“I want to see her.”
“No—let them talk.” Sasha came to him, held his shoulders.
“She didn’t leave me,” Stefan moaned, beginning to cry.
Sasha held him close and Stefan clutched the large warm man who loved him. Stefan hugged Sasha and cried, happier than he knew he could be.
“No, she didn’t leave you,” Sasha agreed and Stefan knew Sasha wasn’t lying. This time.
4
There was music again—Stefan could listen to the radio now that his mommy and daddy were back; he could sit in one spot again for a long time without wanting to jump up and go somewhere or cry or throw something. The music could come to him again, persuade and love him like it used to. It was like eating when you hadn’t known you were hungry. He had trouble turning the radio off, liked it to play even when he wasn’t right there so it could make his room friendly and comfortable.
And the next Sunday he had a piano lesson—it was so neat to sit at the familiar broad smile of keyboard, catch the gleam of his smaller fingers reflected alongside Sasha’s when Sasha corrected him or played along. Stefan’s hands were stiff, though, like they’d been sick.