Mannequin Girl

by Ellen Litman

  They watch the news after supper, and the TV is playing “Manchester et Liverpool,” the melancholy, heartrending tune that serves as a background for the nightly weather forecast. There’s always mild frost in Belarus. Sixteen to twenty-one degrees in Georgia. Slight rain in Leningrad. Westerly winds in Moscow. So familiar. So imprecise.

  She must have been no older than five. They were coming home from a store, she and Anechka, both dressed in summer clothes. No rain had been mentioned in the forecast the previous night. It started fast. They ducked into the nearest doorway, a normal doorway smelling of urine. They tried to wait it out, at least the worst part, watched hard bubbles pop over the sidewalk. But the downpour wouldn’t let up and the smell in the doorway was horrible. “What are we waiting for?” said Anechka, and then she said, “Let’s run.”

  Oh, how they ran! Squealing at the rivulets of water that trickled down their bare backs and arms. Afterward, drenched to the very last thread, they laughed and laughed and no one could stop them. “Just look at us,” said Anechka. “Like two wet chickens.” She kissed Kat on the nose.

  “Like wet puppies,” Kat added. “Like wet mice.”

  “Like two silly girls.”

  IN THE MORNING, Kat discovers that first of all it’s Monday, and that secondly, the quarter has ended without her being involved. She calls Jules after breakfast, and Jules says, “Thank God! I kept calling and calling your apartment. We’ve been worried sick here, you know.”

  Kat gives her the morning’s update: Anechka’s better, but only a little. Today she’s being transferred. The new hospital is militant about visiting hours. No sneaking around in there; even Misha can’t stay. She doesn’t name the hospital, doesn’t reveal what’s really wrong with Anechka. “A burst appendix,” she says. She and Misha have agreed that’s what they’ll say when people ask them.

  Jules fills her in on what she’s missed the last few days: the chaos surrounding Anechka’s accident, the speculations and concerns. The play’s been postponed, the disco canceled.

  “Do you want to come and stay with us?” Jules offers, but Kat, though tempted, says she can’t. She’s needed here. Misha needs her. She tells Jules she must go. Jules says to keep them au courant.

  Waiting for news at home isn’t easy. At the hospital, Kat had a sense of purpose—talking to the nurses, waiting for the doctor, darting to the store and back. Even sitting in the hallway seemed important. At home, though, she is useless. In the kitchen Valentina is cooking up a storm: soaking bread, cutting onions, putting meat through the grinder for new cutlets. Kat should probably help, but the smells are revolting and the onions make her eyes water and sting. And why is Valentina cooking so much? It’s not as if they starved without her.

  Misha comes home in the evening, looking exhausted, grimy, gaunt. He tells them Anechka is stable. There’s something wrong with her blood count, though—red cells or white cells, he can’t quite recall. Some supper? No thanks, he isn’t hungry. He does need a shower though.

  Ten minutes later, Kat finds him asleep face down on her bed, a stack of fresh clothes next to him, a towel clutched in his hand. He never made it to the shower.

  That evening in the living room, Kat watches TV until late. The Roshdals make their bed on the green living room sofa. For Kat they set up a folding bed. It must have been like this in the old days, back when they all lived in a single room, though now, instead of Anechka, it’s Kat who’s feeling displaced. Stifled by Valentina’s kindness.

  THEY VISIT Anechka on Wednesday, two days after her transfer. She is better, the danger is over, and she is now conscious and awake. Misha is the first to go in, followed by Alexander Roshdal. Kat stands against the door and listens.

  “You can’t give up, Anya. You have your family, your daughter.”

  “Yes, family, daughter, whatever that means.” Anechka’s voice, still frail, goes up a notch. “I’m done, don’t you see? I’ve got nothing.”

  Kat isn’t allowed to see her. “Maybe next time,” says Alexander Roshdal. “Today she is still very weak.” Before they leave, he goes to speak to the head doctor, and Kat spots a plain white envelope peeking out of his coat pocket, presumably filled with cash.

  Kat’s father says, “I’ll pay you back.”

  But Roshdal just brushes him off. “For God’s sake, Misha, stop your nonsense.”

  On the way back, they talk of the doctor’s prognosis, how if everything continues according to plan, by New Year’s Eve Anechka should be able to come home.

  Roshdal says he doesn’t trust doctors. “That’s what they said about Anya’s mother, before she got pneumonia and passed away.”

  “Same thing with my dad,” Misha says.

  “They stop paying attention, get over-confident.”

  “Or it’s just basic neglect.”

  “That’s why we give them a little something in an envelope. A bit for the doctor, a bit for the nurse. A modest present for the janitor so she won’t leave the window open by accident. I understand your scruples, Misha. But trust me, it’s how things work. You can’t at your age view the world through those rose-tinted spectacles.”

  “But that’s the problem, don’t you see? We’re so deeply steeped in bribery, we’ve come to see it as par for the course. I mean, if it weren’t for Anechka’s current condition—”

  “Yes, her condition. Let’s stay focused on that.”

  After a while they calm down. It seems as though now, with the contents of the white envelope circulating among the hospital personnel, Anechka’s recovery is all but guaranteed. To Kat, this is a dangerous error. Bad things happen when you stop watching your back. That’s when the phone call comes—when you’re least prepared.

  When the phone rings later that evening, Kat is convinced: This is it.

  “Kat, it’s for you!” Valentina hollers. She stands outside the kitchen door and winks. “A gentleman caller.”

  Kat’s hands shake as she takes the receiver.

  “Hello?” she says, but there’s silence on the other end. “Hello? Who is it?”

  “Me,” says the voice, too faint to be Nikita’s.

  “Speak up, please. Who is it?”

  “Serge,” says the voice, and it takes her a moment to put it all together. Mironov? What has possessed him?

  “How’s your mom?” he asks.

  She tells him, in brief, about the burst appendix, the positive prognosis, the improvements in Anechka’s health. Where did he get her number to begin with? And why all of a sudden is he calling himself Serge?

  “Guess what? I passed algebra.” He reads her his grades, mostly “satisfactory,” with a couple of “good”s thrown in. “I looked up that book, by the way. The one by that fellow, Yesenin.”

  She doesn’t know what to say to him. It all seems so far away, the tutoring, the play, the name.

  “I liked it a lot, especially the one about the maple. ‘Oh my dear maple, frozen stiff and bare.’” He reads to her some of his other favorites: “Not regretting, not calling, not crying,” “Here it is, silly happiness,” “Are you still alive, my old girl?”

  “He wrote it for his mom,” he says about the last one.

  “I know,” she says automatically.

  She stalls and he stalls and the whole conversation feels suddenly nonsensical.

  “I probably should go. We’re waiting for a call.”

  “Oh,” he says, “I didn’t know. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she says. “It’s not your fault.” She wants to tell him that she’s glad he called, glad about his grades, glad that he is reading poetry. That she is grateful for his care, his concern. Of all the people in the world, he is the one who thought to call her.

  But before she can wring from herself a single kindly word, the line clicks off, and all that is left in her ear is a string of short beeps.

  ANECHKA CONTINUES to get better. On Monday she is coming home. Sveta Vlasenko calls to find out the hospital’s address, but Misha tells her no
t to bother. She can visit once Anechka returns. Kat hears them discuss the “burst appendix” and she is pleased that Misha’s sticking with their story, pleased that even Sveta won’t know the truth.

  After one night on the folding bed, Kat is back in her room, with its firm, almost mattress-less bunk, extensive desk, her notebooks and textbooks. But the apartment feels congested. She used to love it when the Roshdals stayed with them and the apartment took on their distinct noises and smells, the soft fragrant leather of their suitcases, the scent of Valentina’s creams, the rhythmic creaking of Alexander Roshdal’s cane.

  But now she finds everything they do disturbing. She listens to Valentina’s footsteps. She eats her food. She notes the various improvements that she’s made: the stacks of clean bedding, the dusted bookshelves, the patched elbow on Kat’s favorite sweater. Valentina does it all unasked, as always. To Kat it seems as if she’s forcing her good deeds on them, each task calculated to garner their praise, to show up Anechka’s defects, to prove that she, Valentina, is more competent.

  Kat knows it’s stupid, the way she’s winding herself up, but by Saturday morning she is shaky with resentment. She dials Jules’s number. “Get me out of here,” she says.

  Jules says, “No problem. Eleven thirty, at the Avenue of Peace. Meet you across from the subway.”

  An hour later, Kat is picked up by Jules’s parents in their spanking new Moskvich. Jules is in the back seat, sporting a blue Adidas tracksuit (“You wear Adidas today. Next day your country you’ll betray!”), a tape player perched on her lap. Kat climbs inside and also settles in the back. She tends to get sheepish around Jules’s parents. They are so imposing and big, which is strange considering that Jules herself is so scrawny. Jules’s mother is particularly regal in her black patent-leather coat.

  She asks after Anechka’s health. “Appendix at this age! It must be horrible. I had mine taken out back in high school. Ate too much candy. Or was it sunflower seeds?”

  “Candy, I think,” says Jules’s dad. The two of them met while in high school. “Could have been anything, though. Everyone knows, Murzik, that you can eat.”

  “That’s true,” says Jules’s mother, whose actual name is Marusya.

  It’s pleasant to be driven in this voluptuous automobile, to lounge on the padded seats and listen to bouncy music. They seem to have no destination, nothing to buy or see. They’re just cruising—stopping at random places for chocolates or chebureks or ponchik donuts or, at one point, a bottle of perfume for Murzik. Such a kittenish name for such a solid person, though it does match her apparent joie de vivre. Jules plays pop tunes on her tape player and Murzik sings along, not a bit embarrassed to squander her great operatic voice.

  Is it wrong to enjoy this and even like these people, who, according to Anechka and Misha, have long ago sold their souls, who are money-obsessed and too successful, and who probably detest Gorbachev’s reforms because the old system worked so well for them? But if you put that aside, they’re just normal, pleasant folk. They like music, cars, good food; they seem to like each other; and it’s clear that they also like Jules. Nothing overt ties the three of them together, not even physical resemblance, and yet you can’t miss that they are family and Jules belongs with them.

  Jules herself seems different, not the way she is at school: sticklike, almost plain, in her uniform pants and light blue jersey, and the brace, which she wears with the head-holder mostly open even though it’s against the rules. There is no brace today. Jules has put on violet lipstick and eye shadow, tucked her hair under a jaunty beret, and suddenly she’s enigmatic, even beautiful. Mostly, though, it’s her confidence, that invisible pivot that holds her up, makes her impervious to setbacks, immune to insecurity. Maybe she learned it from her parents, or maybe it’s something innate. Whatever the case may be, Kat has been relying on her self-assurance. Being with Jules calms her down, sets her chaotic mind at ease—though not until now has she known how vital it is, how much it helps her sanity.

  Around four o’clock, they end up at the Exhibit of People’s Accomplishments. In summer it’s one of Kat’s favorite places, a vast and stunning park with wide paved alleys and palace-like pavilions. In winter, though, it looks neglected. The stone fountains are silent, and there are no Pepsi stands or pony rides. They find a show of folk art, and afterward they shop for souvenirs. Kat buys a florid shawl for Anechka. For Valentina she selects an apron, pale yellow with a bright rooster appliqué, and when she comes up short Jules’s mom spots her some money.

  Back at the subway station, they part ways. Murzik makes sure that Kat has the subway fare, checks whether someone will be there to meet her at the other end. Her father? Her grandfather maybe? Kat’s already starting for the station when Murzik rolls down the window and calls out her name. “Here,” she says and presses the bottle of perfume into her hands. “Give this to your mom. It will make her happy.”

  THE SUBWAY ride is long and the bus doesn’t come for a while, so when Kat returns home it’s almost eight o’clock. Valentina is nearly hysterical. “You know what time it is?” she asks her.

  Kat shrugs. “It’s not that late.” What’s the big deal anyway? She was just out with the Smolkins.

  “I don’t know any Smolkins.”

  “So? That’s your problem,” Kat says.

  “Don’t lie to me. You went to see that boy. I know it!”

  “What boy?” Kat says, incredulous.

  “The one that called the other day. No ‘please,’ ‘no how do you do,’ not even a basic ‘hello.’”

  “Mironov?” Kat starts laughing. “He’s, you know . . . he’s nobody.”

  Valentina calms down a little and changes her tack. “No need to be ashamed, my dear girl. It’s perfectly normal at your age to have a certain curiosity, or feelings.”

  “Feelings?” Kat says. “You must be out of your mind.”

  “Kat dear, don’t be rude. Your grandfather and I, we’re your family. We have a right to be concerned. You’re going through puberty. You need someone to guide you toward the proper path, and your mother, in her current circumstances—”

  “Leave my mother out of it! She’s fine!”

  “Of course she is. I didn’t mean to—”

  But the more Valentina stumbles, the angrier Kat gets. “It’s not your place to interfere.”

  “Now, darling, I think I’ve been patient enough. But really, you’re pushing all the limits.”

  What limits are there? There aren’t any limits. Just the growing fury that sweeps Kat along.

  “You’re not one of us. You’ve simply glommed on to our family!”

  Valentina shuts down. She touches her face and says, “Oh dear.” And then she simply stands there and seems not to know what to do. Kat briefly feels sorry for her, she’s so pitiful. Then she panics, like a kid who’s mouthed off to grownups. But on the heels of the panic comes more anger. Valentina is devious, Anechka has been saying so for years. She has been undermining Anechka, slowly ruining her life. Why couldn’t Kat see it?

  Cloistered in her room, Kat waits for the sounds of packing, the tears in the bathroom, the sharp rap of her grandfather’s cane. What she hears instead are voices in the hallway. Roshdal returns from the hospital, Misha from Zoya Moiseevna’s. There’s the noise of running water, the clattering of plates. “Get in here, Kat! It’s suppertime.”

  For supper they’re having stuffed eggplant. Valentina herself doesn’t join them, but busies herself at the stove. “Come eat with us, Valya,” Roshdal calls.

  She says, “I have no appetite.”

  Tomorrow Anechka is coming home. The doctor says she needs a sense of normality, and what can be more normal than a plastic New Year’s tree tied to a kitchen stool with laundry ropes? They dress it up with an assortment of glass ornaments, and at the base they place clumps of cotton wool.

  “How about some tinsel?” suggests Valentina.

  Kat turns away and gets a broom. Misha starts picking up empty wrappe
rs.

  “Tinsel! To make things more festive?”

  They’re trying not to look at her. Because it is embarrassing. How can she not know after all these years? How can she be so blundering, so uninformed? She’s been with them on every holiday.

  “Anya hates tinsel,” Roshdal tells her.

  BACK FROM the hospital, Anechka’s installed on the living room sofa, propped up on pillows, swaddled in blankets and shawls. There are books all around her, cups of tea on the floor. She’s looking peaked and hardly speaks at all—asks for another cup of tea, but then forgets to drink it; complains the room is stuffy, so they crack the ventilation window, but soon she is too cold.

  Tonight is New Year’s Eve, which is a family affair. In the kitchen, Valentina is baking. Misha has gone to school to pick up their holiday food packages (small tins of pollock liver, sprats, and the ubiquitous salami sticks). But no one feels like celebrating.

  By nine o’clock they set the table: egg salad, potato salad, fish in aspic, meat jelly. They push the table up against Anechka’s sofa so that she can stay there. They keep the TV on because otherwise they have little to say. At quarter to midnight, they toast the departing year. Then comes the usual moment of panic as Misha grapples with a bottle of champagne. At midnight they drink to the new and better 1987, and Valentina mutters the obligatory adage about the old sores and scabs that should stay in the past. She’s been subdued tonight, and it’s never been more evident than now, when good cheer is so badly needed.

  “Feeling under the weather, my pet?” Roshdal asks her.

  She says, “Just a bit of a headache,” and he places his palm over her small, withered hand.

  Anechka leans back on the pillows.

  “Should we call it a night?” Misha says.

  But first they must open the presents. They pile the packages on the sofa next to Anechka. Kat gets a fountain pen, a volume of British poetry, a set of long camisoles to wear under her brace. Misha gives Anechka the bottle of perfume Kat got from Jules’s mother. From her handbag Anechka retrieves an assortment of hospital trinkets: an orange fish, a devil with green horns—each creature woven lovingly from used IV tubes.