“Why didn’t you just ask for it?”
Which, of course, startled me because the particular look on her face made me feel that it was entirely possible that she was laying a trap.
“Can I read your journal?” I asked.
To which she replied:
“First, I need to know your name.”
To which I droopily replied:
“I’m Ivan.”
To which she said:
“I know.”
To which I said:
“Then why did you ask?”
To which she said:
“Because that’s how people do things. They know each other’s names before stealing their diaries. Yes, you can take it. But you have to give it back at dinner.”
To which I said nothing, but might have nodded.
To which she said:
“You broke the first rule of petty theft: if it looks too easy, it’s not.”
To which I said:
“Thanks for the acumen.”
To which she said:
“I’m leaving now. Would you like me to lock the door?”
To which I nodded again. Then she locked the door and left, and I remained on the toilet and read steadily until dinner hour.
The first thing that I noticed was that she wrote in Russian, not Belarusian, and that both her handwriting and her grammar were impeccable, which, of course, knowing me as well as you do now, Reader, rattled my tail.
First, a disclaimer. Out of respect to her, I refuse to share anything from that book that she didn’t later tell me out loud to my face. The things she released from her mouth out into the world are the things I believe she would be okay with me sharing with you. Here are those things:
I read that Polina was an orphan like me. But, unlike me, she had parents until about three months ago, when she lost them both at the same time when a bus they were in fell off a bridge into the Pripyat River because the driver was drunk and wanted to die and didn’t care if other people died too. I read that she was also on that bus and was one of only two people who didn’t drown. I read that they would not even have been on that bus if they were not returning from a consultation with a doctor in Odessa who specialized in experimental procedures to treat leukemia, which she had been diagnosed with a month earlier. I read that she blamed herself. I read that she wished one of the two surviving spots on the bus were not wasted on her, since she was going to die anyway. I read that she had a boyfriend named Sergei, who stopped talking to her after she told him about the leukemia. I read that she loved American rock from the decade of the ’80s including bands that were named after geographic locations, like Asia, Europe, Boston, and Kansas. I read that this was a mild form of rebellion against her father, who conducted the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra before falling into the river. I read that she was a perfect student, but she was also a bit of hooligan. I read that her Dead Souls caper was less of an outlier and more of a lifestyle. I read that from the ages of eight to fifteen she stole things, any things, not because she needed them but because her parents squeezed her into a “model seraphim, whose twin succubus still needed feeding.” (Incidentally, the revelation of her sinister side only deepened the venereal tension I was experiencing.) I read that, like me, she loathed the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children and thought of ways to escape. I read that her chemotherapy was the most lonesome two hours of her day. I read about the synergistic effects of solitude and nausea. I read that she missed her parents. I read that this place was filled with creeps, especially “the androgynous boy who could be anywhere between twelve and sixteen years of age who stares at me for too long and thinks I don’t notice.” I read that she used to love to dance ballet and received a standing ovation once for her solo in Giselle. I read that her first kiss happened when she was fourteen years old and that she didn’t understand what all the hoopla was about, since “not only were there no fireworks, but it also tasted like cold mustard” (data that made me perk for obvious reasons). I read that she was scared to die and that she thought about it during all her minutes. I read that she was 555th on a list for a bone marrow donation, which is the equivalent of “never” in marrow donation parlance. I read that she hadn’t dreamed since she’d been at the hospital, but she used to dream all the time before she got sick. I read that she was still a virgin and was glad that she didn’t waste her virginity on that “pond scum Sergei.” I read about all her celebrity crushes including Ilia Kulik, Anton Yelchin, and Vitas* (all of whom I now secretly, or not so secretly, despise). I read that she loved her mother but was scared of her father, but now that he was dead, she couldn’t even remember why she was ever scared. I read that we had a lot of the same favorite thoughts. I read that she stopped believing in God too. I read that her favorite color was cornflower blue, as is mine, which, statistically speaking, is rather striking. I read that in other ways we couldn’t be more different. I read that she loved figure skating, which I hate. I read that even though she stopped believing in God, she still occasionally pleaded with Him. I read that she didn’t think she had a choice. I read that she refused to die here. And then there were no more words that I could read because I finished the last page, which made me flush with anxiety because now I was supposed to say something to her because that’s what people do. Despite my primitive grasp of social etiquette, I understood that when someone hands you a diary, it is because there is a palpable desperation. I’m all too familiar with the storm that buzzed through Polina’s body when she let the “creepy invalid who stares at me all day” sift through her most private thoughts while he sat on a toilet. After two lonely months of nausea and hair loss, she needed to be seen by someone. The only problem was I couldn’t say anything to her because I had no idea what words to use.
If I were you, Reader, the question I would be dying to ask would be: But, Ivan, this is what you wanted. You wanted her. You wanted anyone. You wanted a one-way ticket out of loneliness. You wanted a friend. You wanted real. What’s the drama? Valid question, Reader, so I will try to explain with three simple reasons.
Reason #1: When I speak to the nurses, doctors, psychologists, or anyone else I could possibly interact with on any given day, I’m a twenty-four-carat bona fide asshole. More importantly, I have institutional carte blanche. No matter what I say to the nurses, I know they will come back, if for no other reason than because they have to if they plan to stay employed in a hostile post-Soviet economy (I read the newspapers). Consequently, I have seventeen years of excellent practice at being a truly competent asshole, but I have exactly zero years of practice at being kind and interesting and spontaneous. Being an asshole is much easier, and, for me, for all the classic pseudopsychological reasons, it comes much more naturally. This is why I was terrified to open my mouth in front of her—I knew I could not be both myself and likable at the same time.
Reason #2: Over the years I have learned that men have a deeply programmed fear of talking to the opposite sex, which I believe is older than God. My best explanation for this phenomenon is that in the earliest tribal villages there were only about three potential mates in the whole known world to choose from and if you said the wrong thing when you approached one of them you became the sexless reject of the tribe and ruined your chances to fulfill your life’s singular evolutionary purpose. The chumps (chimps) with the biggest nerves tended to be more disciplined with their approach, whereas the buffoons without a care attempted the mating ritual too soon or said something unflattering, as men are often prone to doing, and sunk their own ships. Thus, those with the nerves won and went on to make judiciously nervous babies, and now we are all descendants of those nervous babies.
Eventually, villages turned into cities, and it didn’t matter anymore if you were a nervous baby or not because you could spew any gibberish at all to a million potential mates, and who cares if the tyolka* spread the news because next door there were a hundred more tyolkas. But still, genes are the true gift that never stops giving. The irony now, Reader, is that
I am back in the tribal village, only my village is the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children, and we are a tribe of mutant kids, and there is only one possible mate. How does anyone avoid crumbling under these kinds of stakes? If I botch this particular game, I’m destined to an isolated existence where my seed is forever stuck inside of me. Talking to Polina was too high stakes regardless of all the social norms that suggested I acknowledge the fact that she laid her whole soul bare to me, a perfectly creepy stranger.
Nota bene: Of course, I never had any expectation that I would be spreading any seeds inside of Polina, both because my physical structure is a disaster and because Polina was knocking on death’s door. Nevertheless, this was the battle raging unconsciously in my prehistorically programmed circuitry. Now to continue:
Reason #3: I look weird when I talk.
So with these concerns running through my head I was able to sit guiltlessly as I waited for dinner hour, at which time I would wheel myself down a few minutes early and leave the diary at her spot on the table and not say another word to Polina, perhaps for the rest of my life.
The truth is that my mind is rarely that tranquil, and soon an alternative option started to materialize. As you can tell from the manifesto in your hands, I write much better than I can talk out loud to people. I decided that I could resolve all pending issues by writing her a message after her last entry. The only remaining issue was deciding the right words. I spent the next three hours staring at my ceiling dreaming up every topic of conversation (the sexual habits of bonobos, figure skating, Nurse Lyudmila’s closet bulimia problem), every witty joke (Q: What did Russians use to light their houses before they started using candles? A: Electricity), and every illuminating question (Why is every girl crazy about Vitas?). In the end I settled on:
Polina, thanks for letting me read your journal.
—Ivan
Two minutes before I was about to leave, I realized that I had made a horrible mistake! I left no incentive for her to continue the conversation, no question, no query. So I quickly scribbled down in my messiest script the first curiosity that came to mind, which happened to be: Please describe in complete and thorough detail the combination of events and circumstances leading up to the initiation of your criminal history. Then, for good measure, I promptly added Also, what do you think happens inside of a black hole?
When Polina arrived at the dinner table to find her book meticulously placed at her spot, I could see the 25 percent smile on her face evolve into a 60 percent smile. I, of course, only observed this from the corner of my eye, as I avoided all eye contact with her. Polina, who was better versed in normal social behavior, was clearly looking for more. I could feel the heat of her eyes looking over at me between bites of food, scanning and searching for some glimmer of recognition that she was now visible for having revealed her shadow. When she saw that my plate was nearly empty and I still wasn’t looking back, her 60 percent smile inverted to a scowl, which reminded me of the look on Nurse Lyudmila’s face when she left the Director’s office after midnight. It occurred to me that maybe Polina felt used like the hospital equivalent of the high school whore.
After forty-three minutes of my neglect, she stood up and marched off while hugging the journal over her breasts. The next time I saw Polina, she was sitting in the Main Room during TV hour with a chemo IV plugged into one arm, while the other was busy writing things into her journal at a determined pace. I parked myself a good distance from her and pretended to watch an episode of Nu, Pogodi!* while actually soaking up every detail Polina let me absorb of her, no longer concerned about being the creepy invalid. And every detail of her body language told me that I had lost her, or whatever I had of her when she decided to let me see inside of her head.
Then, while she was absorbed in whatever sentence or whatever thought was running through her head and down into her fingers, Polina vomited a supernova of color up out of her mouth and onto her clothes, chair, chemo plug, and the page she was frantically writing on, and it all eventually dripped slowly onto the linoleum floor and gathered into a pool of swirls and eddies. It was that particular variety of nausea that by the time you sense the irresistible urge to expel, it is already halfway into the world and all you can do is spend a moment in shock and embarrassment before your eyes tear up and you run out of the room to leave those who clean up vomit for a living to come and clean up vomit. In this case, however, Polina was plugged into a chemo bag, which meant that the only thing that she could do was sit tight in her own gastric juices.
I’m not lost to a modicum of chivalry, so when it struck me that her situation would become worse if any of the other nurses were to find her in a puddle of her own puke, I immediately called out for Nurse Natalya, who arrived at the scene in three short seconds and walked Polina and the chemo bag she was connected to away while muttering things like, “Oh, you poor baby,” and “It’s all right, darling.” Somehow in all the pandemonium, Polina managed to remember to grab her diary, which was now coated in bright stomach acid.
I didn’t see Polina again for three days, which I presumed was the minimum amount of time that it took to find the courage to show her face again. When she finally came back around, her first instinct was to sit back down on the dirty old couch in the Main Room, pull out her journal, rip out two pages, scribble through two more, stash the book under one of the couch cushions, and leave the room without ever even looking in my direction. It was clear that Polina was being what they call passive-aggressive, so I wheeled my way over to the couch to see what she had left me. Unfortunately, at the same moment, the ginger twins plopped their tiny ginger asses on the couch and started some nonsensical hand-clapping game. Since moving them would require an act of God, I was forced to wait and watch. Two hours and seventeen minutes later, they got bored and simultaneously pranced off, which is when I lifted the cushion, pulled out the diary, still pungent from Polina’s stomach acids, and turned to the last page. This is what it said (I remember because I’m holding it right now):
Dear Ivan,
First, I would like to tell you that you are a terrible human. And in most ways I find you repulsive. And the only reason that I even let you read my diary is because you were my only option. But if this is how it works, then I will play along. You know too much about me, and I know nothing about you. So answer these questions if you want to continue talking (or whatever it is that we’re doing).
(1) How long have you been here?
(2) Why are you here?
(3) How do you make this bearable?
Disrespectfully,
Polina
PS—To answer your first question, the first thing I ever stole was a cat named Anatoly. He was my best friend for seven hours until my father made me give him back.
PPS—Inside of a black hole there are mountains of chak-chak,* which would last for an eternity, since a black hole contains all time.
PPPS—Leave the book back under the couch cushion where you found it.
I wasted no time crafting an eloquent response and then tucked the book back inside the couch before lunch. This is what it said:
Dear Polina,
Thanks for your response. To answer your questions:
(1) I have always been here.
(2) I’m here because I’ve always been here. And because, like you, I don’t have any parents.
(3) I turn everything into a game.
Respectfully,
Ivan
I returned an hour later, and it was already gone, meaning it was back in Polina’s hands. Then I checked again anywhere from twelve to eighteen more times that day, but the couch was empty. Then I remembered that once again I forgot to continue the conversation like a normal person and concluded that I had most likely ruined our budding rapport.
The next morning, I woke up an hour early and wheeled myself out to the Main Room and checked the couch again much like children check the Christmas tree at 3:00 in the A.M. on Christmas Eve in American movies. To my surprise, I fou
nd it there this time. It said:
I have a game. I used to play it with my father when we had to drive for a long time. Meet me in the Main Room during TV hour after dinner.
—Polina
Okay, Polina, I will was the first thought in my head. The second was But this does not mean that I will make eye contact with you. So I quickly scribbled into the diary:
Okay, Polina, I will. But this doesn’t mean that I will make eye contact with you.
My first instinct was to look at the clock on the wall in the Main Room, which told me that it was 9:47 in the A.M., which meant that there were eight hours and thirteen minutes until dinner hour and nine hours and thirteen minutes until TV hour, which I knew meant eight hours and thirteen minutes of Kafkian dread.
But the comforting truth about time—and all the Buddhists agree—is that nothing lasts forever, and after eight hours of kamikaze thoughts and one-handed nail biting it was 7:00 in the P.M., and I found myself parked a safe eighteen inches from Polina while an episode of Bednaya Nastya* played on the big TV. And while I kept my promise and refused to look her in the eye, I could tell from my peripheral vision that Polina had chosen not to arrive with her wig tonight. Her face was pale and gaunt and almost transparent like mine. She looked tired and a bit soulless, but she put it all behind a 45 percent smile. And somehow, in spite of her deterioration, she made my heart beat to the rhythm of “Sexual Healing,” which is a song written by the late soul singer Marvin Gaye.
Polina wrote a few sentences down into her book and passed it over to me. It said:
I’m thinking of a person. It could be a him or a her. It could be fictional or real, dead or alive. You get to ask me twelve yes/no questions to guess who it is. You are supposed to get twenty questions, but my personal record for this game is twelve. If you guess my person in twelve questions, then you get to ask me any question in the world, and I have to answer honestly. If you don’t guess it in twelve questions, then you have to say something to me. Do you agree to the terms of this contract?
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko Page 10