Mannequin Girl

by Ellen Litman

  He is silent for a while before he answers. “There comes a moment, Button, when a person must decide things for herself. What’s right and what’s wrong. What’s honest, what’s deceitful. You can’t be hanging on to what we think, either me or your mother. Because, first of all, we’re not the same person, we often disagree. And second of all, you’ll never grow up this way. And you must grow up—don’t you see?”

  She nods, not saying anything.

  Misha stops and examines her, slowly. Her untidy, unbuttoned winter jacket; her school pants with their muddy cuffs. The pitiful squiggles of hair that frame her forehead. A gust of sudden wintry air makes her shiver. He takes off his mohair scarf and spools it around her neck. “There. Isn’t that better?”

  Already they can make out in the distance the start of the long yellow wall.

  A moment comes, Kat thinks. A moment came. You’re a glitch in a plan, an unfortunate error, and even your parents don’t like who you’ve become. And once this knowledge properly sinks in, nothing else out there can scare you.

  14

  TAGANKA SQUARE IS BRISK AND TIRELESS, BRIMming with busy pedestrians, overrun by squealing traffic, tangled in a net of trolley wires, dotted with shops. Streets branch out from it like warm sunrays. Church domes loom just beyond its bounds; a little farther in the distance soar the lacy turrets of a neoclassical high-rise. But the square itself is unassuming, even squat. It’s famous for the defunct Taganka prison; for the nearby bird market, where you can buy yourself a pet; and, of course, for the red cube of the Taganka Theater.

  On this early January evening, Serge and Kat emerge from the theater entrance. With some effort, they cut across the square—it’s really not that easy, with all the crazy traffic and plowed-in sidewalks—and duck under the stone arches of the subway.

  “I liked the dude in the Dynamo jersey.”

  “You’re serious?” says Kat.

  “Why not? Didn’t you like the play?”

  Kat says she liked it, the marketplace style of it, the mixing of eras. Football jerseys, bast shoes, leather, furs. She’s less sure about the folk songs and the choir. She says it’s too much folksiness for her.

  “But isn’t that the point?” Serge argues. “That the play’s about common folk?”

  “Picked that up in some study guide, did you?”

  He tells her not to snipe at him.

  They’ve seen a matinee of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, and Serge is right, it’s not his fault that she’s discomfited by folksiness. Why should it be his problem? He, after all, is a simple Russian boy, most likely of peasant stock.

  Inside the subway station, she hands him a five-kopek coin. If she didn’t, he’d try to hop over a turnstile, risk breaking his neck or getting caught. Out of sheer mischief, mind you.

  In truth, she did like the church choir, especially the final “Eternal Memory” lament. It had an ethereal, chilling strength, this song of angels. It touched her deeply, and then it made her weirdly upset. Because, she says, it wasn’t meant for her.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Serge tells her. “Pushkin belongs to everyone.”

  Pushkin, perhaps, but not the choir. Lately there’s been much talk of the new patriotic group, Pamyat, which extols Orthodox Christianity and blames all past atrocities and present hardships on the Jews. At school, some teachers—the old guard, primarily—wear crosses atop their turtlenecks and blouses, and one night, not long before the winter break, Margo said how unnatural it was to have so many Jews on TV—Jew academics, Jew painters, Jew actors.

  “Margo is certifiable.”

  “No kidding,” Kat agrees. “Are you coming over for supper?”

  They’re already at the bottom of the escalator, and Kat can hear the grinding noise of the approaching train.

  Serge says, “Are you inviting me?”

  The train stops in front of them, the doors swish apart. Kat grabs the sleeve of Serge’s jacket and pushes him inside.

  “Your folks won’t mind?” He always checks, always does this, even though he’s spent countless evenings at their place.

  “When did they ever mind?” she asks him.

  ANECHKA IS fussing by the mirror. She got a new haircut yesterday, and now she’s putting on new lipstick (some extravagant purplish shade), touching up her almost spiky hair, capping it with a raspberry-colored beret. She has not a minute to spare. She’s running desperately late. “Have you seen my keys?”

  “We just came in,” Kat says.

  “Don’t be so sulky, baby. I need your bus pass, by the way.”

  “It’s a youth one,” Kat tells her.

  “So what? I’m still a youth.” She pecks Kat on the cheek and pockets her bus pass. Her perfume smells tropical, expensive—tart flowers, oil, wood. She goes through her checklist: keys, money, cigarettes, something to read on the subway. “Heat the soup, or whatever. Feed your father. Be good.”

  Kat gets nervous when Anechka is so manic. Is she on the verge of another breakdown or simply in a happy mood? After what happened last year, Kat would rather not take any chances.

  Only after Anechka is gone does Misha poke his head out of the kitchen. “Aha, reinforcements!” he greets Kat and Serge.

  “Where’s she off to?” Kat asks.

  “Some school thing.” He throws up his hands. “She’s like a hurricane, your mother. A cyclone.” He’s trying to be nonchalant, jocular even, but judging by the fact that he’s been hiding in the kitchen, the two of them just had another spat.

  Since September, Anechka’s been teaching at a fancy humanities lyceum, where the students study Latin and art history and don’t wear uniforms. It’s housed in an old-style mansion, somewhere near Karl Marx Square. Kat hasn’t been there yet. Anechka won’t take her; she says she must get acclimated before she starts dragging in guests. It’s not a free-for-all like other schools; it’s quiet and exclusive, with pupils that are practically handpicked.

  In Kat’s opinion, Anechka seems acclimated already. She’s collected up another coterie of students, and she’s there until late every day. On weekends she takes her boys and girls to films, museums, or theater premieres. If Misha objects, she tells him that it’s part of her responsibilities. If he doesn’t believe her, she’s got her contract here—he’s welcome to see for himself.

  He says he’s just thinking about her health, about her energy levels.

  “I’m perfectly healthy,” she says. “Healthy and happy. We can’t be like Siamese twins forever, attached at the hip.” She tells him that they both need space to grow and develop.

  Misha is uneasy with this state of affairs. He’s unkempt and slack, showing up at school in the same dilapidated sweater, neglecting political seminars and grading, doing crosswords instead. Only when Serge is around does he light up a little.

  Tonight he’s glad to have their company. He actually makes an effort. “We’re going to improvise ourselves some supper. What’s on the agenda, hmm? Some potatoes, some herring. And what’s that in a jar? A bit of salad? Not bad, my friends, not bad.”

  They excavate whatever they can find, pile it all on the scratched kitchen table. Plates for the salad, strips of newspaper for the herring. Kat brews a pot of tea.

  “How was Godunov, you lucky beasts?”

  Kat busies herself cutting bread.

  The production had been supposed to open in 1982, but it got vetoed. This year, the banished director of the Taganka theater came back from abroad for ten days. Ten days to revive his masterpiece. It sounds insane, but they did it. Except that it doesn’t seem that risky now. So much has come to light in recent years: banned novels, underground rock bands, magazine exposés, persecuted scientists, Stalin’s camps, Red terror and White terror. Even Lenin is no longer considered a saint. A staging of a historical Pushkin play, no matter how innovative, can’t possibly compete with the onslaught of the news.

  Luckily Serge loved the play. He tells Misha about its unorthodox direction, the penetrating characters, the mar
ketplace arrangement of the stage, the crutch as the symbol of tsarist tyranny. He has really blossomed under Misha’s tutelage. The two of them continue with their tutoring, even when Misha is down in the dumps. They have long-drawn-out conversations regarding drama, comedy, and history. Autocratic regimes and the future of democracy. The Moscow Arts Theater and its recent split.

  Kat still proofreads Serge’s papers for spelling, but he needs no more assistance with content. He has ideas in spades, and, in fact, there are times when Kat herself draws a blank and is tempted to ask him for suggestions. It’s as if they’ve traded places. She’s grown directionless, lackluster, apathetic about her studies—though her grades, so far, are holding up. Left alone in the apartment, she blasts the tapes of new rock bands that Jules supplies her with, reveling in the glum aggression of Alisa (“We’re together!”), the breathless absurdity of Nautilus (“Our kin is an uncanny something”), the star-crossed despair of Kino (“I’m going, close the door behind me”).

  After they finish their impromptu supper, they move into the living room. Kat turns on the nine o’clock news. Misha digs through his papers for an Ogonek article he long ago promised Serge.

  “Did you give any more thought to what we talked about?” he asks matter-of-factly.

  Serge doesn’t respond; only the line of his jaw seems to tighten and his eyes get a stubborn, steely look. Misha’s been on his case about surgery. All the doctors are urging Serge to have it—not only for the cosmetic benefits, but to decrease the chance of pain in the future, to lessen the pressure on his lungs. They say the curvatures are crushing his ribcage.

  The girls from their class have been going under the knife since last year, and many teachers think it’s a disgrace. They blame the trend on the attending doctor, who’s writing a book on the so-called Krasnoyarsk method. The Krasnoyarsk surgery begins with two incisions, one at the base of the spine, the other at the top. A steel rod is threaded along, attached to the spine with hooks. At least it’s not the slaughter it once was, back when they split the whole back open.

  For the ambitious doctor, the gaggle must have been easy prey—despised, neglected, with blundering and heedless parents who didn’t need much persuading. Three girls got shipped to Krasnoyarsk last May; in September, another four followed. Even those who dislike the gaggle are calling it a massacre and a scandal. The girls come back after the long months of recovery—spent flat on their backs, in a cast—and most report serious discomfort. Lena Romanova has had recurring inflammation. Kira Mikadze’s gone for a repeat procedure—something’s slipping inside her, a ratchet or a clamp—which means more pain, more scars, more months of missed schoolwork.

  Serge is a different case, though. He’s got the most severe scoliosis in their class, and even Professor Fabri has told him to think hard about his future. But Serge doesn’t listen to doctors. He’s done his own research, and on the basis of it he has decided that he’s better off without this surgery. The risk of nerve damage alone, he says, is five percent. As for the pain, he can manage.

  He won’t admit it, but Kat knows that he’s already got some pain. He can’t be upright for long stretches—in crowded subway trains, in line in the canteen. He pauses in the middle of a sentence, his face gets white and tense. She’s seen him sneak handfuls of aspirin, which don’t seem to work very well.

  After the nine o’clock news, they walk Serge to the bus stop. Tomorrow’s Monday, the start of a new quarter, which none of them looks forward to.

  Kat is hoping that the subject of surgery has been exhausted, but Misha brings it up again. “I feel as though you’re gambling with your life, Serge.”

  “We all die, Mikhail Aronovich. A brick might crack my noggin tomorrow. A car might squash me like a crab.”

  “God forbid,” Misha gasps. “Of course, you can’t prevent all accidents. Still, you can try to be more cautious.”

  Serge lights a cigarette, and Misha frowns and looks away.

  “It’s like he has a death wish,” he later complains. “Such a lucid mind, such talent, and yet he’s intent on destroying himself.”

  They’ve put Serge on the bus, and now they’re ambling home. Misha keeps glancing backward. It’s too early for her, Kat wants to say. He hates the idea of Anechka returning so late, crossing the vast snow-covered grounds by herself, walking along the poorly lit paths. Now that Serge is gone, Misha has sagged again, withdrawn into his worries.

  But he never says anything. He never confronts Anechka, or even admits they’re drifting apart. He nags her sometimes, which is his roundabout way of showing displeasure, saying he’s worried that she works too many hours and doesn’t eat or rest enough. Even to Kat he won’t confide his true misgivings, and she feels that to challenge him would be too cruel, or impolite. And so it continues: the two of them walk home in silence, absorbed in their respective troubling thoughts, each feeling too shy to discomfit the other.

  KAT SWIVELS her head—left to right, right to left—like a wind-up toy, like a Pinocchio. It’s a new mannerism, something she does unconsciously. Jules has to point it out to her: “You’ve got your peripheral vision, you know.” But Kat can’t help it. For the first time in years, her neck feels so wonderfully loose.

  She’s been free of the brace since December, and she is still learning the movements of her body, how to arrange it, how to put it forward. “A beautiful figure,” Professor Fabri said at the consultation a few months ago, but Kat knew the score—she was flawed. Passing a storefront, she’d catch her reflection in profile: the weak, sunken shoulders, the limp posture (despite the many hours of exercise), the bump protruding on the right. She’d never wear open-backed sundresses or saunter in bikinis on the beach. She won’t be a mannequin girl, the way Professor Fabri so often promised.

  Yet, she is free. Completely free. Every motion feels fluid and novel. Jules has also been released from her confinement, though for her it’s hardly a big deal. She’s never been very disciplined about her brace or worn it off campus. This is their final year. A year from now, they’ll be attending normal high schools, wearing blue skirt-vest-and-jacket uniforms, routinely using makeup. The sooner the better, Jules says. To her, this school is like a bad nightmare, one she’d just as soon forget.

  For Kat, though, it’s more of a mixed bag. Good memories, bad memories. A big chunk of her childhood is here, her adolescent crushes, her first love. The drama club. Her parents. Here’s Kat, age seven, representing Turkmenistan in the Friendship of the People pageant, in a red jersey dress and Tartar skullcap. Here she is in third grade, on an outing to the House of Culture with her class, the day she tripped at the bottom of the stairs, bloodied both her knees and skinned her arm. Fifth grade, and she is learning the Sirtaki circle dance. Sixth grade, and it’s the opening night of their best play, The Shadow, and she is standing in the wings in her villager’s garb.

  She knows every hallway here, every chair, every scratch, every bit of graffiti in the bathroom stalls—“Igor K. is a goat.” “Bella plus Alex equals Love.” She’s been captured by this place. She’s destined to be one of those who are forever coming back.

  It’s no mystery that there are such students. They get discharged, but they can’t stay away. Some return in a dignified manner, for the alumni gatherings or discos or drama club rehearsals. Others rush in without warning, arrive abruptly, teary-eyed, practically flinging themselves at their favorite teacher or matron. “I can’t be out there. I miss you guys.” They pine for their lost buddies, the ease and coziness of communal life, the security of the school’s boundaries. They may never adjust to being outside.

  Sveta Vlasenko returned at the start of the year, after trying for the Pedagogic Institute and flunking the entrance exams. She now works at the school as their senior Pioneer counselor. She says it’s a useful experience; it might even get her extra points next summer when she applies to the Institute again.

  Kat likes to visit Sveta in her office, a narrow room just off the main walkway, filled wit
h red banners, drums, and bugles. A long conference table runs along the center, though it rarely gets any use. It seems like such a dreary job: attending meetings, staging drill-and-song days, supervising the school’s Pioneer board, overseeing the Komsomol panel.

  “When are you joining Komsomol?” asks Sveta.

  Kat tells her there’s no point. Margo won’t endorse her or write her a character reference.

  “There are ways to work around your Margo. What do you think is going to happen when you show up at some lyceum and they see that you’re not in Komsomol?”

  “I’m not going to Anechka’s lyceum.”

  Sveta balks, looks down at her fingernails. Over the winter holidays she’s chopped her hair to shoulder-length, which makes her look plainer and older. She’s grown thinner, more rigid in her movements. There are dark circles under her eyes. She says she has insomnia. Last month she said goodbye to Vlad. He’d failed to get into the Medical Institute, fell short by one point, and now he’s been drafted to serve in the navy. “Three years,” Sveta groans. That’s how long she has to wait for him.

  Sveta is glad to have Kat’s company. The elementary school teachers in block five across the campus are the only ones close to her age, and they steer clear of Sveta. Kat’s probably not an ideal companion, but she can listen well. When Sveta’s done talking about herself, she asks her about the holidays: what she did, where she went. How’s Misha? Is he any better? Does he have any plans for the drama club? (The drama club hasn’t met once since the beginning of the year.)

  She never asks about Anechka, won’t even mention her name. If Kat brings her up for any reason, Sveta is careful to change the subject. Anechka has forsaken her, severed their friendship, though Sveta did nothing to warrant this break. It’s not just you, Kat wants to say. She can see it pains Sveta. The girl could use a word of kindness, a gesture of support, especially now that everything’s turned so wrong and she’s gone from being a Botticelli-like creature to an average college-age girl with a shoulder-length bob and mild, pleasant features.