Balance of Fragile Things

by Olivia Chadha

  Paul washed his hands, emptied the food into more attractive serving dishes, and heated them. He and his father ate in silence. Paul thought Maija’s curry was delicious, but he could barely remember the taste of his mother’s chicken to draw a comparison. He began to doubt his taste buds and lifted the hot serving dish. He’d forgotten to use a potholder and burned his hand—and the smell of chicken curry and his father’s beard fixer, along with the searing pain on his skin combined in some unearthly way and sent him on a journey into the past.

  He remembered screams, gurgling sounds, his body flushed with heat. The tile floor was cold under his bare legs. He was a small child; the counter was so far above his head as he searched for the source of his pain. Tears flooded his eyes.

  Oh, my God. Help! Someone help! Bebbeji picked Paul up and poured cold water over his body.

  An old man came into the kitchen. Just leave him, Anjana, he’s going to cause more problems.

  No, I can’t.

  It wasn’t your fault, what happened, but a husband won’t see it that way if he finds out, and you will be left alone on the streets. Finish it!

  Uncle, he’s my child. I don’t care what you say. Oh, God, what have I done?

  Forever the past will haunt you through his existence.

  As Paul reentered the present, the scarred skin on his side felt unusually tight. He looked around the room for something to secure his place in the world—he felt it was about to fall apart.

  “Do you cook, also? American men cook, nah?” Papaji wiped his beard with a cloth napkin.

  “No, Papaji, but I grill and make tea. Maija’s cooking is much better than anything I could make. It’s good, right?”

  “First class. Very tasty. She cooks like a sardarni. Do you come home every day for lunch?”

  “No, only sometimes.” Paul put water on for tea and glanced at his letter to the editor on the fridge. “I was published. The newspaper here, look.” He handed the piece to his father.

  Papaji cleaned his glasses and squinted at the page. “‘The Voice of Reason’ is very important sounding.” He began to read the letter aloud, struggling through the words in English.

  Paul was impressed. His father’s English was better than he’d remembered, perhaps due to spending time in New Delhi. In the city people moved from Hindi to English to Punjabi to Urdu depending on to whom they were speaking. Paul said, “It’s about the construction.”

  But his father lifted his finger and continued to read, with his pointer underlining every word. It took several minutes; Paul made tea, drank his, and reheated his father’s by the time Papaji lowered his glasses to the tip of his nose and said in Punjabi, “When can I see the station?”

  “Soon.”

  “Terrible. Construction. We should learn about the soil.”

  “Yes.”

  “Never heard of this sinkhole business.”

  “Me either.”

  “No one in my family is a writer.”

  Paul’s heart sank. He took the scrap of newspaper from Papaji and returned it to its place on the fridge. “My family enjoys reading and writing.”

  “Son, I am an old man.”

  Paul’s jaw clenched as he tossed the plates into the dishwasher.

  “I have to get back.” Paul spoke in English. “I’ll see you at dinner.” He picked up the remote control and showed his father how to flip through channels.

  “Ikpaul—thank you,” Papaji said as Paul closed the door behind him softly.

  Isabella

  Night fell on Peregrine Court with the heaviness of a dark winter curtain, and Isabella was far from sleep. The speed at which the digital clock progressed felt unnaturally slow to Isabella, who had recently begun to cultivate a deep disdain for her insomnia’s loneliness. The blood-red numbers mocked her as they changed to midnight.

  As she sat up in her twin bed, eyes open wide as windows, she marveled at how her brother’s presence just beyond the duct-taped line on the carpet and past the sheet hanging from the ceiling was absolutely no comfort to her at all. In fact, Vic’s sleep sounds were so contented that his presence sharpened her hyper-vigilance. This was not the first time Isabella had lost sleep. Night terrors filled with all the horrors of hell had managed her nights from age six through twelve. Doctors chalked it up to an active imagination and hormones. When the nightmares ceased to torment her, she didn’t bother to question why; she simply became a heavy sleeper, as though she were making up for lost dreamtime.

  As of late, however, a new and curious sensation came upon her when night fell and darkness crept into every corner of the house. She had seen things in her room. At first, she thought her eyes were tricking her because these moments usually occurred during the dim twilight. Then she wondered if perhaps the figures and swaying shadows were images that she glimpsed between her waking and dreaming states. Yet when she could find no other options within her logical mind, Isabella conceded that her insomnia could be supernaturally influenced—and that’s as much as she was willing to admit.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said aloud. Perhaps she could convince herself of this, or at least prevent the revenant from taking completely corporeal form in the corner of her room. Believing and witnessing were two totally different things for Isabella. She had been aware of her mother’s clairvoyance since she was a child. Before she was five years old, she knew her mother could do things that other kids’ mothers could not. For example, when they’d once driven to the grocery store, an outing Isabella rarely missed as a child, the traffic had slowed as they passed a massive car accident on the expressway. Three small cars and a semi had been tangled into a mortal mess. Isabella watched as the EMTs and firemen tried to revive the victims, but her mother told her to close her eyes. They’re already dead, darling. But don’t worry. It was very quick, and they look happy now. Sometimes her mother saw the future, sometimes the past. Isabella had always feared a similar fissure in reality would occur in her life. The present was complicated enough for Isabella without having to deal with potential futures and unsettled, demanding pasts.

  “I don’t believe in you,” she whispered, even though it sounded ridiculous to her. This time she directed her words at the closet, where she could see the faint outline of a tall man becoming clearer. She heard Vic turn over in his bed but knew he was too far taken by sleep to wake. She was glad he was a heavy sleeper; if he woke and couldn’t see what tormented her, she would feel more isolated.

  The closet door swung open, and the almost-there man reached inside. He looked as though he’d been dipped in bleach and stripped of all his color. Isabella sat up on her knees, letting her comforter slip from her fingers. It seemed as though the man was pushing aside the hangers in the closet. The spirit separated her clothes from Vic’s and opened up a large gap, as though he were making room for something.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, but he didn’t seem to hear her. The man crossed a line when he took her favorite black-and-yellow sweater off the hanger and tossed it to the floor.

  “Hey!” As soon as she stood, bare feet chilly on the carpet, her confidence vanished. The figure turned toward her and smiled. The grin seemed strangely familiar. His eyes, too, were more visible, dark blue and piercing.

  “Mine mazmeita, making room for the next visitor. Not much time, mazmeita. She will be here soon.”

  “Who are you? Who is coming?”

  He ignored her, then became increasingly transparent until there was nothing left but the room as it had been before his visit. The hangers had returned to the same disarray as before.

  Each time something like this happened—like a few weeks ago when she’d seen a round woman sitting in her desk chair knitting—Isabella entered a state of disbelief for at least a half hour. This time, she went to the kitchen because there was no use trying to get to sleep with her stomach tied in knots. It was a relief to see a small light already on in the kitchen and her mother sitting over a large bowl of ice cream, flipping th
e pages of a photo album.

  “Oh, Queen Isabella, what are you doing up so late?” her mother asked.

  “I couldn’t sleep again.”

  “Here, sweetie, I’ll get you some ice cream.” She stood, retrieved another bowl from the cupboard, and scooped ice cream into a bowl for Isabella.

  “Mama?” Isabella began, with a cold bite of rocky road in her mouth. “I think there was a man in my room, just now.”

  “I know, my darling. It’s my fault.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s making sense now. I haven’t called your Oma in almost a month. Uncle Janis was always looking out for her.” Her mother slid an old picture toward her. The edges were curled and brittle. The three people in the photo were smiling, though the sun was in their eyes. Two young women, with their hair curled in 1930s fashion and dressed in blouses and skirts, sat atop a boulder before a thick forest. A man in suspenders, with his woolen pants pulled above his belly button, stood alongside them. He held a cane in his hand and wore a hat firmly on his head. It was the same man who’d appeared in Isabella’s room.

  “This is Janis,” her mother said, “and there is Oma when she was very young. And this is her sister, Alvina. Janis was much older than Oma, you know. I never met him.” Her mother stroked her hair. “But he has visited me in spirit form since I can remember.”

  “This is too weird. Make it stop.”

  “I know, sweetie. Eat some more ice cream. Did he say anything to you?”

  Isabella nodded. “He said he was making room for a visitor.”

  “He came to me tonight, too, you see. But I tried to ignore him. I should call Ma tomorrow morning and make sure everything’s okay. I think she’s coming here.”

  Isabella’s bottom lip trembled. “Oma’s coming?”

  “Now, listen carefully. The only way to stop this nonsense is to ignore it completely. They lose interest if they feel they don’t have an audience.”

  “Okay.”

  This connection to her mother was something she’d never felt before. Likeness, Isabella thought, was wonderfully comfortable.

  “C’mon, let me tuck you in.”

  Isabella finished her ice cream and let her mom lead her back into her bedroom. Her mother slid the comforter up to her chin and patted her cheek. “Don’t worry, honey. It won’t last, okay?”

  With those words Isabella found herself drifting off, finally.

  Maija

  Maija returned to the kitchen and to the photos. She removed a small black-and-white portrait of her mother from the sheer plastic sleeve. It had been taken when Oma was in her twenties. She flipped it over and it read: Hermione, augusts 40.

  How like doorways, Maija thought, are these pieces of paper into the past. She envied her mother’s porcelain skin and sharply drawn red lips, which echoed the elegance of the forties. Oma’s hair was jet black and pulled into tight curls. Her eyes were focused gently on something off camera; her mouth was just about to turn into a smile. She was looking toward the future. This day had to be a happy one. World War II had just begun; the Nazis and Soviets had yet to sign their ironic Friendship and Non-Aggression Treaty, and Germany had yet to invade Poland. When the photo was taken, her mother’s future was still filled with unlimited possibilities. Her soft gaze carried dreams of a farmhouse, beautiful horses, a family, a husband, and a daughter. Maija wondered if her mother knew that her portrait would travel so far, from Latvia to Germany and back again, through refugee camps, through DP camps in Poland, along war-ridden roads of the countryside, on to Cleveland, until its journey ended here on top of a wood-veneer kitchen table in New York State. Oma wasn’t more than a short flight away; she still lived in that small apartment in Cleveland. But this picture was a world away.

  Maija sighed. She’d been born after the war but had the weight of her parents’ past on her shoulders. Maija did not carry history in the same manner that many children of war families did; in her dreams, she relived much of the torture and torment that her mother had experienced during World War II quite literally. Maija knew that Oma wasn’t well. She knew, for the past few years since Oma’s best friend passed away, that her mother should move in with them. And now, the dreams she’d been having of Latvia made it seem as if Oma was downloading her memories into Maija’s mind for safekeeping, which could mean she was nearing her end.

  Maija would wait until it was a decent hour, perhaps six or seven, to call her. It was still quite dark, but this night she wasn’t going to sleep. Her mind was too full of the past for her to relax. She browsed the photos to pass the time and came upon a series of landscapes of Riga. She looked closer.

  In 1967, when Maija was a little girl and her psychic abilities were surfacing through dreams of her past lives and deaths, Oma had taken her to the Riga Circus. It was an effective distraction outing. The pair stayed with Oma’s sister Alvina’s family. There were animals: dogs, seals, even a giraffe and an elephant. The clowns ran around the circle, lighting and juggling fireworks and throwing them at one another. There were even trapeze artists swinging in the air, dressed in silver costumes. She remembered the maestro himself, Cris Katkevics, wielding his staff and top hat, commanding the attention of all performers and audience members alike. Maija’s memories swirled around her; she even smelled candy, sickeningly sweet.

  After the main event—a series of scenes from fairy tales acted out by clowns, animals, and acrobats—Oma had taken her to Madam Blatvskavia to have her palm read. Maija’s small hands pushed aside layers and layers of faux silk curtains of baroque design—the deeper she went into the tent, the stronger the perfume of frankincense and myrrh. When they came to the innermost center of the small tent, they encountered a velvet-covered table with various objects: leaves, string, crystals, a tambourine, and coins of different sizes. Madam Blatvskavia was sitting with her back to them but spoke gently in a Romany accent.

  Have a seat, please.

  Oma pushed Maija into the small chair and kept her hands, like weights, on her shoulders. In Maija’s memory, Oma had been young then; she had curls in her dark brown hair and wore a handmade teal sweater with an orange stripe through its center. Three brass buttons the size of baby’s fists clasped the sweater together. Oma’s hands were hot, almost burning. Maija couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve at the time. Oma dropped a coin on the table. Madam turned around slowly and told Maija she must close her eyes and concentrate on believing in what will occur. I don’t convince, I just show what is what.

  I already believe, she whispered. At least she’d thought she believed; she’d been witnessing strange goings-on since she was a toddler. Her dreams were filled with other people’s lives, and sometimes the dreams were so visceral she woke feeling like another person completely. She’d been terrified and hadn’t slept for years. It hadn’t been until Oma found Maija crouching under a chair, shaking and crying because she’d just seen dead Aunt Charlotte in the bathroom putting curlers in her hair, that Oma told her it was all very normal.

  You are my daughter, are you not? she’d said. It skips generations. I don’t have it, but I knew you would. Oma had dried her tears and made Maija peppermint tea with chamomile flowers that spun across the top like sea stars.

  Oma’s eyes, the shade of ancient ice, had calmed Maija. When her mother looked at her, the vastness embraced her and she felt as if she were falling forward. It was exhilarating—chilly and comforting, clear and all encompassing, Oma’s eyes were a contradiction. The week prior to coming to the circus, Maija had seen her own death. It must have been from a past life, Oma reassured her scientifically, and she must have crossed that age when her previous death occurred. Yet it had been a terrible sight in Maija’s mind’s eye. She was a little girl sleeping in an eighteenth-century dressing gown; lace and uncombed cotton tickled her back. She was on a farm. A man came into her bedroom at night and strangled her. The act seemed so meaningless and terrifying. Now here she was, in Madam Blatvskavia’s tent, awaiting her f
irst real reading to see beyond a doubt about her ability.

  Maija closed her eyelids tightly. She heard the skin of a small drum tap-tap-tapping, then she heard something falling onto the drum, like rain. Open. Maija, peeking, saw that Madam had dropped dried beans into the center.

  They are all telling me the same thing. The beans rested on the right side of the drum. You have the gift, but need to control it. Madam poked at a few of the beans that were close to the rim. The trees speak to you the most. Listen to them. I see changes in your future. Continents shift, perhaps a journey. She grabbed Maija’s hand forcefully.

  Oma glared at her. Careful with her hands. They are important, neh?

  I am careful.

  Madam traced Maija’s palm with her fingers. There’s something about a dark man. Someone dark. I don’t know when or who.

  Yes, yes, we are done now.

  Wait. I see great riches in your future…

  Then Oma had grabbed Maija’s arm and dragged her from the tent. That woman’s greedy. Dark man! Ha! You know she’s a fake. Shame. She used to be so good. She’s probably a Jew.

  That was that. They stopped by Alfonse’s bakery for cake afterward and walked to Aunt Alvina’s flat in Old Riga, where they would spend the night. The winter night was biting. Oma asked if she’d understood what happened, and Maija nodded her head in the cold wind as they walked on the cobblestone path.

  Now, sitting in her kitchen, Maija realized she didn’t want to become like Madam Blatvskavia; she wanted a normal life. She needed to sort out her memories from the ones that were coming from her mother.

  The sky was just showing the first signs of morning. The backyard glistened with dew as the sun tinted the clouds pink. It was only five but she picked up the phone. “Hallo, Ma? It’s me. Labrīt.”

  “Meita, what is wrong? Why are you calling so early?” Oma sounded frantic. Maija could hear her trying to sit up in bed.