by Ellen Litman
Doubt creeps in; it always does when Kat’s alone. What if Nikita really is gone? What if he never returns? Without him, her life seems long and meaningless, full of bad choices, precarious turns. She thought that he would help her. He’d tell her whether she should go to high school or maybe learn some useful trade. He’d introduce her to his parents and she would stay with them when he was drafted.
Next week at school, she continues to wait. At first she thinks he might come for her, and she waits every night outside the front gates. She cuts class twice to check on the apartment, but each time the room is exactly as she left it, no sign of him being there. On Thursday, she even asks Sveta about him.
“Nikita?” Sveta says. “The last time I saw him was three weeks ago. We went to a concert at the Gorbunov House of Culture.”
Kat thinks that Sveta might be lying, or possibly she has her weeks confused. Because three weeks ago Nikita was with Kat. Three weeks ago they were already lovers.
“He’s fine, Kat. The thing you need to understand is, he’s a sweetheart but completely unreliable. Look what a mess he’s made of his life.”
“You don’t get it,” Kat says. “You don’t know what it’s like—”
“Ah, Kitten.” Sveta smiles. “You’ve got a crush on him.”
ON FRIDAY morning, Misha asks Kat to see him after classes. He’s especially serious this morning and Kat worries that something must be wrong: Zoya Moiseevna has taken a turn for the worse, or Anechka is in some kind of trouble.
“I know you think I’ve been a bumbling idiot, but, Button, let me tell you, this can’t go on anymore. You can’t miss school for days or cut half your classes. I had an hour-long talk with the headmistress. I had to tell her you were helping with your grandma, that she was in a critical state. I had to lie for you, Button. Do you know what that felt like?”
“You didn’t have to,” she tells him, but secretly she is relieved he did. “Don’t worry, I won’t miss school again. Are we done? Is this it? Because I don’t want to be late—”
“Wait,” he says. “You really think we haven’t noticed? It has to stop, Button. You’ve got to come home.”
“I can’t,” she says. “My life is elsewhere.”
“It’s not a good life for a schoolgirl.”
“Is that all I am to you?” she says. “A schoolgirl?” She grabs her bag and walks toward the door.
“There’s a lot of talk,” says Misha. “I have a pretty good idea who you’re staying with. I never thought he would do such a low thing, but I guess one never knows.”
“That’s right,” Kat says. “You don’t know. Because you never pay attention. Your students, they just come and go. You convince them they’re special and that you care, and then you turn around and forget about them. I bet you’re not even aware what Nikita’s been going through. Well, for your information, he’s got more honor and integrity than you and Mom combined. Plus, unlike you, he loves me—”
“How can you be so unfair! Your mom and I don’t love you? After all these years? After everything we’ve done and sacrificed?”
“You got a cushy job because of me,” Kat says. “You sacrificed exactly nothing.”
SATURDAY COMES and Kat returns to Nikita’s apartment. She’s got all of her notebooks and textbooks and a baggie of bread she stole from the canteen. She meant what she said to Misha: she plans not to skip any more classes and she might as well study while she waits for Nikita this weekend.
She stops on the landing when she hears the sounds of a party, and for a moment she’s unsure what to do. She could go away, but what if Nikita’s inside? Her hands shake as she unlocks the door. “Quiet,” she whispers. “Be quiet.” She takes off her boots before crossing the threshold and slips through the kitchen in socks. Only once she’s latched the door to her room can she at last breathe out. She hopes that no one heard her. The latch offers little protection against the lumbering, boozy college boys; the door itself is a minor obstacle.
It’s six o’clock, the room is shrouded in semi-darkness, and the light, once again, fails to work. Kat squats in the corner on the mattress, her body shaking and her stomach tightening whenever someone steps into the kitchen or stands too close to her door.
An hour later, or maybe two hours, someone raps on the door and then tugs at it. At first she thinks it’s Nikita, but the voice, though male, isn’t his. “Anyone there? Come party with us.”
“A friend of yours?” another voice inquires.
“This dude, I haven’t seen him in a while. His little brother stays here sometimes, and also this chick—”
“Yeah, right, I remember the chick. She was wild.”
“She had something wrong with her, though.”
“A crooked little cat caught a crooked little mouse.”
“Just get another shot or two in her—”
“Drink enough and it don’t matter what they look like.”
“Wait till your girl hears about it.”
“Yeah well, that’s the thing with my girl.”
They kick at the door, though halfheartedly, and when it doesn’t budge, they go away.
The party goes on until three in the morning, but even after it gets quiet, Kat can’t sleep. A crooked little cat, she thinks. A crooked little mouse. It didn’t matter with Nikita. He never said a thing about her body; he knew what to expect. His own back was also crooked, though maybe not in the same way. Maybe for boys it’s different. No one seems to care whether a boy happens to slouch. In fact, being a little slouched is kind of hip.
He made her forget she was faulty. She forgot as she rode the train to meet him. She forgot as she walked to the store. She forgot as the two of them roamed the streets of Moscow. Now, left alone, she’s forced to remember, and it’s horrible, humiliating, worse than it ever felt before.
In the morning, when it’s light enough to see, she picks up her things and stuffs them in her shoulder bag. Just like the night before, she tiptoes through the kitchen, hoping that everyone is still asleep. She slips outside and walks toward the subway. It’s Sunday and her parents may be home, but right now it doesn’t matter.
WHEN SHE sees Sveta Vlasenko in the canteen next week, her first instinct is to look away, pretend she hasn’t noticed her. Sveta always seems to be there when Kat is at her lowest, as if to taunt her with her beauty, her bits of wisdom, and her teasing voice. But Sveta has spotted Kat and now she’s coming toward her.
“You’re busy?” she asks her.
Kat tells her that she is.
“I thought you’d like to see Nikita—”
“See him where?” Kat says. “Is he okay?”
“Relax, you lovesick child. He’s in the hospital, but he’s fine. It’s just to keep him out of the army.” Sveta explains that Nikita’s been placed in a psych ward, that he might stay there a while. “What he needs is a strong diagnosis to disqualify him. Like schizophrenia, for example. It’s called a white pass.”
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know. It might. Anyway, he said to tell you. He said you can visit if you like.”
If I like? Kat is too dazed to think coherently.
“It’s not a psychiatric hospital,” says Sveta, mistaking Kat’s pause for a sign of unease. “Look, I told him it’s a bad idea. He’s not the right guy for you, Kitten. He’s too impulsive and unstable. Too frantic to know what he wants. I mean, I’ve seen the two of you together. The whole school has seen you; it’s buzzing with all sorts of stupid talk. I’m sure he enjoys your company, but to him, first and foremost, you’re Misha and Anechka’s daughter. Not that you’re not attractive, Kitten. It’s just that I know his type.”
Kat doesn’t correct her. She bites her tongue and writes down the address and directions, the visiting hours, the number of the shuttle that goes back and forth between the hospital and the subway station.
“If you want,” Sveta says, “we can go together. I’m free tonight after five o’clock.”
“I�
��m going now,” Kat says. Because, she thinks, Nikita’s waiting.
THE HOSPITAL is linked to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which means that no simple person can access a facility like this. Which, in turn, means that Nikita’s parents must have connections. The evening is balmy, and some of the patients are strolling or sitting on benches. You can always tell the patients by their standard-issue stripy robes. A sad and familiar sight. Kat’s been to too many hospitals lately.
A group of men in similar-styled robes are smoking on the front porch. They see Kat and smile at one another. “Good evening, young lady,” one says. Despite their advantages, they’re not the crème de la crème. They are regular middle-aged family men: they nurse their hernias, gastritis; do annual stints at this hospital; go to sanatoriums for a short spell—to flirt with waitresses and have affairs with junior associates, who’ve also come to mend their health. They are the type that Anechka has taken up with.
The psych ward is poorly lit, very quiet. Kat slowly walks down the hall, checking each door until she finds the right one. She knocks and thinks she hears a response, a burble of embarrassed voices, a cough that seems familiar, Nikita’s cough.
It’s strange to see Nikita in one of these striped robes. Unshaven and dressed as a patient, he is diminished, oddly unremarkable. He’s holding a guitar across his lap.
There’s a girl seated beside him on the bed. She’s childlike, tiny. Her feet, in ugly Keds, are dangling. She is dressed in a yellow sweater and jeans.
“What a terrific surprise,” says Nikita. “Kat, you’re such a good egg. I didn’t expect you today. Please forgive me my shabby appearance. They don’t give us smoking jackets here.”
The girl next to him giggles. “Or even proper pants.”
“Can you scrounge some tea for us, Zinochka?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Zinochka says, and goes out into the hallway.
“Who is she?” Kat says.
“Just a friend from the institute. You’d love her, Kat—she’s absolutely great. She organized a protest after they expelled me. Of course, you know, it didn’t help—which brings me to this charming place.”
“I’ve been waiting for you. All this time I’ve been at our apartment.”
“It’s not ours, Kat. It’s not even properly mine. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you. This whole thing’s been a bit of a minefield.”
He won’t look at her now. When he catches her stare, he blushes, rubs his unshaven cheeks.
“What’s going to happen to us now?”
“Nothing,” he says. “You go back home, and I stay here awhile. We’ve been careful, kiddo. We’ve been reasonably happy. But we both knew it wasn’t meant to last. I told you from the start: I’m a lost man. With or without the army.”
Zinochka comes back with an electric kettle, gets cups from Nikita’s nightstand. It dawns on Kat that she herself has brought nothing—no fruit, or flowers, or cake—though thanks to the resourceful Zinochka they have a plate of stale oatmeal cookies. The prodigious, magical Zinochka, who knows all the nurses and who is clearly familiar with the layout of this room. She takes her place beside Nikita.
“Play something for us, Zinochka.”
She takes the guitar from him. “What should I sing?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Sing my favorite.”
And so she does, she sings—of cuckoo clocks and storms and furious ninth waves—her voice crystalline, understated. She is older than Kat, more mature and capable, less prickly, and possibly prettier, though not in Sveta’s blatant way. Her posture is effortless, excellent. Perhaps she’s what Nikita needs—a confident, steadfast girl, who can guide him and keep him from going up in flames.
“Is she Jewish?” Kat will ask when Nikita calls to check on her months later. He’ll say, “She doesn’t need to be.”
And maybe this is what it’s like to love: to abnegate yourself, to give up almost willingly, to stomp on your own stupid heart. Before Kat departs, she places the apartment key under Nikita’s pillow.
19
IN THE COLD WALKWAY OUTSIDE WHAT USED TO be their drama room, Kat stares at an issue of the journal Yunost. “Hear me out,” says Serge. “I really think I’ve found something. Only two major characters, and best of all, it’s short.” It’s the first time they’ve spoken since their fight a month ago.
“What are you talking about?”
He says, “Just read it first. It won’t take you half an hour.”
“Fine,” she says, “I’ll read it. At some point.” She rolls up the journal and stuffs it in her shoulder bag.
“Come on, read it now,” says Serge.
“You’re kidding? Right now? What if I’m busy?”
“But you’re not.”
He is right, she has nowhere to go anymore. No one to see on the sly during evening walks, no secretive trips on the subway. She stays at school and follows the schedule, and then on Saturday she goes home.
“All right,” she says to Serge reluctantly. “I’ll read it now if you want. But don’t just stand here and breathe down my neck.”
She waits until he leaves, then slowly flips to the story he told her about. She doesn’t expect much, but she is grinning before reaching the end of the first page. It’s a good thing she sent Serge away. The story is about them: a boy, a girl, a school play. She—gawky, not entirely attractive, possessed of literary zeal. He—a small-time hoodlum with bad grades, always a step from expulsion. For the Boris Godunov production, she is cast as Grigory the impostor, he as Pimen the monk. She’s outraged because hers is a male part; he didn’t want a part at all.
Serge returns at the end of the hour. “Did you like it?” he says, and she says yes. She’s thinking of the Boris Godunov they saw that winter at Taganka, how they argued as they plodded home from the theater, how they always seem to disagree these days.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “for what I said back then.”
He waves her off. “I overreacted.” What he’s concerned with is the play. They can rehearse and stage it before the summer break. Perform it and show the whole world that the drama club hasn’t been dormant. “It’s you, Kat,” he says. “That girl. She’s your character.”
“But Serge, I don’t want it,” she says. She’s been exhausted lately, gutted. She can barely muster the energy to speak in class.
“No,” he insists. “Don’t decide anything yet. Just wait and, you know, think about it.”
“But it’s too late,” she tells him, in a tired voice. “I know you want to help Misha, but he’s broken down, just like me. He’ll never agree—”
“Maybe he will.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?”
“Because of you,” he says. “Because last year you were all about acting. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your dreams.”
“Oh, dreams!” She lifts her hands up to the sky, in the manner of a tragic character. “I am a seagull—no—no, I am an actress.”
He stops her. “Maybe to you it’s a joke, but not to me. Let me prove it to you. Come with me to Kratovo on Sunday.”
How perfectly simple and clean is his world, with its noble pursuits and boundless belief in people’s goodness. But people are not like that at all. They are slippery, fallible, fickle—even if they say all the right words. Words that are peanut shells. Words that are tinsel. What’s worse is that they don’t even see it: they continue to think themselves selfless and virtuous, above all commonplace concerns, and just as you convince yourself you’re one of them, they chuck you out like a broken toy.
THE FACT that Kat came home wasn’t treated as anything remarkable. No one hugged her, or scolded her, or said I told you so. Maybe her parents knew what had happened with Nikita. Maybe they thought it was inevitable. She was grateful for their tact, if that’s what it was.
Now she comes home from school on Saturday, and Misha, and sometimes even Anechka, are there. Anechka works, and Misha cleans and does the laundry. Sometimes they
make supper together, sometimes they watch TV, and on those nights it’s easy to believe that things are returning to normal.
But the very next morning Anechka might be gone, and there are some weekends when she doesn’t appear at all and Misha just acts like it’s par for the course. He sits on the edge of Kat’s bed in the evening and reads to her chapters from Anna Karenina—those proverbial unhappy families—as if attempting to persuade himself that what Anechka has done is understandable and natural and maybe not his fault.
Kat is also thinking about Anna Karenina.
“You think I’m ruined now? Tainted?”
Misha tucks in the edge of Kat’s blanket. “We’re human beings, Button. We botch things a lot. But in the end we bounce back, get better.”
Kat doesn’t feel better. She gets panicky whenever she’s not at home or at school. She keeps seeing those college boys from the Barricades apartment, in the back of a bus or in line at a grocery. She knows it can’t be them: they don’t belong in her neighborhood; they wouldn’t know how to find her. But she can’t shake the sensation that they’re following her. One time she thinks she sees Nikita outside the subway.
She still has no plans for after graduation, and maybe—just maybe—she doesn’t have to graduate. She could stay at their current school for ninth and tenth grade. She asks Misha what he thinks of this, but he tells her the school is scaling back the top two grades. Most of the students are done with their treatments by then, so it’s best to let them go—in the interest of savings. It takes a lot of money to keep and feed these students, not to mention to pay extra staff. Next year they might be down to just two classes.