by Sergey
Nothing but that incredible shriek.
“A mouse ran by and flicked its tail,” the girl said without a smile. “The egg fell down and exploded. Are you sleepy?”
More nonsense. And yet, it made the conversation seem more natural—as if they were talking about numerous different things at each other, and not with each other—and so he responded in kind. “I was just on air for six hours, telling jokes and other nonsense,” Aspirin admitted. “I talked to some idiots who called the station. I put on stupid songs they requested. Then a bunch of underage delinquents set their pit bull on me. And that pit bull goes ahead and dies. And not just dies, it explodes. So maybe I’m tired. Maybe I’m just going crazy.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the girl said, her tone just a touch patronizing. “You can have another drink and go to bed.”
“And when I wake up, you won’t be here,” Aspirin suggested dreamingly, already reaching for the brandy.
“Don’t count on it,” the girl said and hugged her teddy.
Monday
Miracles don’t exist, so when Aspirin limped into the kitchen at nine in the morning, the girl was sitting on a stool in front of a perfectly clean table, legs crossed, staring out the window and humming softly to herself. Aspirin’s passport lay opened on a metal tray in front of her.
“What the . . . ?”
Incensed, Aspirin swore as no one should swear in front of children; he immediately felt guilty . . . and that angered him further.
The girl turned to face him. Her brown teddy bear sat in her lap, or rather between her crossed legs, watching Aspirin with its button eyes. An empty honey jar stood on the floor by the chair leg.
No wonder the girl is up, going through my things, he thought. She’s hopped up on all that sugar.
“So you’re Grimalsky, Alexey Igorevich, and you are thirty-four years old,” the girl said in the voice of a public prosecutor.
“Listen,” Aspirin managed through gritted teeth. “Take your bear and go. I don’t want you here, and I don’t want to see you ever again. I am counting to ten.”
“Or what?” the girl inquired. “What happens at ‘ten’?”
“That’s what I get for trying to be a good Samaritan,” Aspirin murmured bitterly. “For letting a lost child spend the night.”
His legs and back ached after last night’s chase. His mouth felt dry and gross. A miniature hammer banged slowly and triumphantly in his right temple, either from the situation, the brandy from last night, or a combination of the two.
“Or,” he said, passing his guest, picking up his passport, and feeling marginally more confident, “or I will call the police.”
“And what are you going to tell them about me spending the night at your apartment?”
Aspirin finally allowed his mushy knees to buckle, lowering himself onto a stool. The girl watched him with interest.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just curious—what does a grown man say to the police about letting little girls stay with him overnight?”
God . . .
“Listen,” Aspirin said thickly. “I don’t know who taught you this filth, but—there is such a thing as forensic evidence, medical expertise, you know? I don’t want any of this, but . . . everyone will know that you are nothing but a dirty little blackmailing shit, do you understand?”
The girl moved her bear from her lap to the table and folded his paws in a more relaxed manner.
“Then it’s true,” she said indifferently.
“What?” Aspirin tried not to shout, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had such restraint at the moment.
“He said . . . he always tells the truth.” The girl looked pensive, her blond eyebrows forming an unfinished sign for eternity.
“Listen, my dear,” he said with disgust, “why don’t you get the hell out of here. Otherwise, I promise not to conduct a single good deed in my entire life. I won’t even share a can of tuna with a hungry kitten.”
“Oh, I am terrified—you are soooo scary. As they say, don’t try to scare a porcupine with a naked ass, right?” she smirked. “You make it sound as if you’re the king of good deeds. A bona fide Santa Claus.”
Aspirin got up. He wanted to grab the little bitch by her ponytail and drag her over to the door and beyond. Instead, he waited a second—then burst out laughing.
Really, this was utterly comical. He was arguing with a preteen. Why would he need to worry about what an underage delinquent says?
Still giggling, he went back to his room and picked up his phone.
“I don’t get it,” Victor Somov, nicknamed Whiskas, asked Aspirin. “You brought an underage girl into your apartment?”
“She’s just a kid. I thought—”
“You brought her into your apartment?” Whiskas repeated.
“Well, yeah, kind of.”
A pause.
“I don’t get it,” Whiskas said again. “What for?”
“I wasn’t myself,” Aspirin admitted. “She was by herself after midnight. And then there was this pit bull coming at us, and then . . .”
He stopped, not sure how to tell the rational Whiskas about the irrational terror that overtook him in that courtyard.
“Were you sober?” Whiskas asked.
“Yes—I drove home. I don’t drink when I am behind the wheel.”
“Good for you,” Whiskas commended him with mock sincerity. “Did you enter your home alarm code in front of the girl?”
“I didn’t set the alarm yesterday.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I forgot.”
“Pure genius,” Whiskas said, his voice full of wonder at the idiots born on this earth. “Aspirin, one of these days I am going to send a couple of thugs over just to teach you a lesson.”
“Please don’t,” Aspirin said, then cocked an ear—in the living room the nasty child had opened the piano and was now hitting random keys. “Listen. I think she’s crazy.”
“Not as crazy as you,” Whiskas assured him testily. “See if there is anything missing in your apartment. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Sounds good,” Aspirin said with relief.
In the living room the girl continued to press random piano keys like someone who’d never seen a piano before. Aspirin glanced at his watch wondering whether twenty minutes was enough time for the strange little creature to destroy the instrument. He hoped Whiskas would hurry.
Victor Somov managed the security detail at the nightclub Kuklabuck where Aspirin lit up the crowd on Tuesdays and Fridays. Victor had once helped Aspirin out of a sticky situation that involved the accidentally crushed bumper of a fancy car. Whiskas was considered an intellectual—he forced every bouncer on his team to read Murakami—but that was not what Aspirin valued the most about him. Victor Somov was a good friend because he was the perfect listener. He was attentive and a little slow, with an air of deliberateness that felt like attentiveness. He also had an aura of confidence and serenity, and that was exactly what Aspirin usually needed after his long, stress-filled days.
Or crazy, dog-and-girl-and-bear-filled nights.
Enlisting a professional to help with a child was overkill. Aspirin was showing weakness, and he knew it; he felt awkward now about calling Somov. But he also had no choice. If the girl refused to leave on her own, he would have to—what, grab her arms? Shoulders? Grab her by the throat or hair? He would have to seize her and drag her out, and she would most certainly scream, and the neighbors would hear her screaming and then he’d probably be screaming his way to prison. And that wasn’t in his plans. No, in a few years Aspirin was going to make some decent dough, buy a house in the country, erect a tall fence, and get a dog. Just not a pit bull. A German shepherd. He would live without a telephone, without a television set; a stereo and a laptop would be enough.
And he wasn’t going to let an act of charity turn his dream into a nightmare.
He listened again: a melody replaced the erratic s
ounds in the next room. An uninitiated listener would think that the girl continued to press random keys, but Aspirin heard a ragged, unschooled, strangely captivating song emerging from the instrument. A few measures—stop—repeated now, with more conviction.
A new measure . . .
He peeked into the living room. The girl stood in front of the instrument, finding the melody by ear, but not in the usual way of children trying to pick out a song. She didn’t hit the keys with one finger; instead, she passed her left hand over the octaves, while the right barely touched the keys, like a blind person reading Braille.
Her teddy bear sat on the piano between an antique clock and a china doll Aspirin had brought from Germany, seemingly watching her and keeping a glass eye on him at the same time.
“Right,” the girl murmured to herself. She placed both hands on the keys now. Her left hand played a chord, the right hand led a melody, and for a second Aspirin felt dizzy. He saw his future, and it was so serene and so joyful, as if he were a schoolboy at the start of an endless vacation. He took a step toward the piano, about to embrace and kiss this marvelous girl who came to teach him how to live his life for real, without depression and fear, without small upsets, without Mishutkas, to live and listen to music, to live and rejoice in living. He placed his hands on her shoulders and at that moment the china doll, securely attached to its stand, stepped forward, lost its balance, and toppled over onto the keys.
The melody died. Shards of porcelain lay on the carpet. Aspirin jerked his hands back; the doll’s head, curly-haired and indifferent, lay between E and F of the second octave.
“It wasn’t me,” the girl said with a guilty look. “I didn’t do it.”
Aspirin rubbed his temples. He still felt a little dizzy.
“No . . . it’s okay,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if anything was ever going to be okay. “Do you know how to play?”
“Well, no,” the girl admitted. “I just try to pick the right notes . . . and the keys are in order, so it’s not that difficult.”
He tried to work his mind around that, but things were still a bit blurry after the song. “What were you playing?”
The girl crouched down and started collecting the shards of porcelain. He saw the back of her neck under the blond ponytail, her spine, and her scrawny shoulder blades.
“It’s his song,” the girl said, addressing the floor. “If it’s played correctly, it leads you away forever. But you can only play it properly on his pipe. Or maybe if you get a big orchestra . . . maybe. If you gather virtuosi from the entire world, a few thousand of them, then maybe you can make it work. Maybe.” She looked up at him. “Do you get it?”
She stood up. The remains of the doll lay in her hands.
“I am sorry,” she said, looking into Aspirin’s eyes. “Have I upset you?”
“Goes in the trash,” Aspirin said, still not sure what he was being told.
Obediently, she went to the kitchen, and he heard the shards of porcelain hit the bottom of the empty trash pail. She came back holding the doll’s blue dress gently with the tips of her fingers.
“May I have it?”
“You may,” Aspirin said. “Who are you?”
“You should have asked me right away.” The girl gave him a shy smile.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I kept waiting for you to ask who I was, and in the meantime you figured I was a beggar, a gold digger, or something worse.”
Aspirin plopped down on the sofa and crossed his legs.
“But I did ask you your name.”
“But a name isn’t who someone is, right?”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. After a beat, he asked again, “Who are you?”
“I—”
She opened her mouth as if about to recite a memorized, well-prepared lesson—then suddenly she paused and stopped smiling.
“What is that?” she asked nervously.
“Where?”
“That sound.”
A mere second earlier the neighbors upstairs had switched on their audio system, heavy bass making the walls vibrate.
“Neighbors,” he said, shrugging. “They are music lovers . . . of a sort.”
“Are they deaf?” the girl asked after a pause.
“They love their bass.” She was distracting him with these interruptions. “Tell me where you ran away from.”
“I didn’t exactly run away,” the girl said, scrunching her eyebrows again. “I just left.”
“Escaped from a music school in a prison facility?”
“No,” she said, scornfully. “From this . . . from a very nice place.”
“A very nice place?”
“Yes. I’d like to return there someday.”
“Return now!”
The girl sighed. “I can’t. Mishutka and I have something important to do.”
She picked up her teddy bear and pressed her cheek to the short, light brown fur. A horrifying moment later, Aspirin realized she was crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s scary here,” the girl said. “Back there, last night—I was so scared.”
“That’s not surprising,” Aspirin said, though he didn’t remember her seeming all that scared in the alley. After a pause, he added, “Me too. But we are doing just fine now, aren’t we?”
“No.” The girl shook her head, still hiding her face behind the bear. “We’re not fine. You’re afraid of me.”
“Nonsense.” Aspirin came over and crouched down next to her, quelling the terror from seeping into his voice or through his eyes. “Hey. Don’t cry. Do you want a cup of tea? I have cookies.”
She nodded, still not looking at him. Aspirin went to the kitchen and filled a teakettle with fresh water. If nothing else, he would feel much better if his unwanted guest had enough to eat and drink before she left.
At least no one will accuse me of being a bad host.
They waited in silence until the teakettle purred, growled, and switched off with a loud click. Aspirin took out a box of tea bags and put one in each mug, filling the mugs with the boiling water. He put a plate of stale cookies in the middle of the table.
“What about Mishutka?” The girl’s voice was weak from crying.
After a moment of hesitation, Aspirin reached for the third cup. The girl placed the bear at the table. Aspirin sighed and filled the bear’s mug with hot water and a tea bag.
“Actually,” he said, moving the sugar bowl closer to the girl, “I am not afraid of you. Why in the world would I be afraid of you? Drink your tea. I just got angry when you took my passport.” He was almost convincing himself of what he was saying.
“It was on the table in the hallway.”
Now Aspirin remembered having to bring his passport to the post office and then tossing it on the hallway table. Which meant she hadn’t been rooting around in his apartment. Still . . .
“This is not a good reason,” he said firmly. “You cannot just pick up someone else’s documents, especially a stranger’s, in their apartment . . .”
“I needed to know who you were.”
Aspirin shook his head at her naiveté. “I told you my name. What exactly have you learned from looking at my passport that I didn’t already tell you? My age? Why would that matter?”
The girl hung her head.
“Don’t take it personally, but there are rules, after all,” Aspirin said, enjoying his small victory. “You must have parents . . . or some guardians or something. And you must live with them—those are the rules. So where are they?”
“My guardians are very, very far away.” The girl smiled. It was a strange smile, more fitting for a wrinkly, experienced old woman. It made Aspirin wary for some reason.
“Where is that?”
The girl touched the paper tag and lifted the wet brown tea bag above the amber liquid in her mug.
“Wow.”
She dipped it into the mug and pulled it out again.
“You’
ve never had tea from a tea bag, have you?” Aspirin asked softly. “What sort of boondocks are you from?”
“Alexey.” The girl’s eyelashes stuck together like icicles. “Don’t kick me out.”
Aspirin almost choked on his tea. Although it was exactly what he wanted to do, it galled him to have her voice it aloud. Spluttering, he exclaimed, “I am not kicking you out! Finish your tea in peace. Have a cookie. But we don’t live in a forest, for god’s sake. You must have some sort of identification. A passport of your own. Or a birth certificate. And . . . I have to leave—a business trip!” He made that up on the fly and became very enthusiastic. “Yes. I must be leaving shortly for a business trip. And it’s a long one. My train leaves in one hour. So you see, I’m not kicking you out. But you can’t stay here. We both belong in other places, you know?”
As he spoke, though, the girl seemed to have suddenly lost interest. She was staring at a toy silver bell, a simple knickknack sitting on one of the kitchen shelves.
“What is that?” she asked. And without asking for permission, she reached for the bell and picked it up.
“Put it down,” Aspirin said and frowned. “Haven’t you been taught to ask first? It doesn’t belong to you. Come on!”
The girl didn’t put it down, though. Rather, she shook the bell. A sound flew around the kitchen, weak but clear.
“The note A,” the girl said.
And immediately the doorbell rang, squawking like a deranged chicken.
“Here we go.” Aspirin got up, any guilt for getting rid of the girl fading once more. “This guy is here to help you.”
Walking to the door, he had a fleeting idea of giving her the bell. Especially if it got her to leave sooner. He opened the door.
“Hello,” Whiskas said, stepping over the threshold.
“Hello.” Aspirin tried not to fidget. “Want a cup of tea?”
“A cup of tea? Seriously?” Whiskas gave him a suspicious, sidelong glance. “Let’s deal with your problem first.”
They entered the kitchen as the girl poured her tea into the saucer to cool it, her sharp elbow up in the air.
Whiskas stopped abruptly, making Aspirin collide with him.
“A tea party?” Whiskas inquired.