by Brady Hammes
“Irina?” Sam asked.
Irina was silent, her eyes fixed on the television. She was prone to moments of sudden abstraction, which appeared to be happening now.
“Irina!” Sam said, clapping her hands together. “Where’s your grandson?”
Irina snapped to attention. “Huh?”
Sam lowered herself to Irina’s level, looked her directly in the eyes. “Where did he go? Ivan?”
“At store. He come home soon.”
Sam took a seat on the other end of the couch and looked down at her phone. Seventeen minutes. She grabbed the remote and began flipping through the channels. She landed on a montage of a dreadlocked man twirling a flaming baton in front of a campfire. Another man stood knee-deep in the ocean, stabbing at fish with a wooden spear.
“This is good one,” Irina said. “Last Hero.”
Last Hero, Sam realized after watching a few seconds of the show’s title sequence, was the Russian version of Survivor, with cruder camerawork and a less sophisticated graphics package.
“When is Chicago?” Irina asked.
“Soon,” Sam said, watching a group of half-naked islanders deliberate around a campfire. She glanced down at her phone. Fifteen minutes.
“Take care of Ivan. He never leave Russia.”
For some reason, Irina was under the impression that Ivan would be accompanying Sam back to Chicago, though Sam had made no mention of such a plan, so she wondered how Irina had gotten that idea. For the last few weeks, Irina had, on more than one occasion, said things that suggested there was some kind of romantic involvement between Sam and her grandson. Sam wasn’t oblivious to the affection Ivan had shown her, but she attributed it to an innocent crush, a local boy’s infatuation with the exotic American. Ivan had tried to kiss her a couple weeks ago but she’d escaped by fielding a text on her cellphone. He tried again last week and she allowed it this time, only because he was so sincere with his words, and she couldn’t stand to break his heart. She also couldn’t imagine where she might find more drugs, though she didn’t want to believe that had factored into her decision. But she was leading him on; she knew that. She was leading them both on—the grandmother wanting nothing more than for her grandson to marry this pretty girl who treated them both so kindly—by not being forceful enough in her protestations. Her entire life up to this point had been an effort not to disappoint anyone, a kind of gentle acquiescence that only exacerbated small fires that could have been extinguished with the firm placement of her foot, an emphatic I don’t think that’s the best thing for me right now.
* * *
—
THE DOOR OPENED AND Ivan entered with a sack of groceries. His cheeks were red, his eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept since she last saw him.
“We need to talk,” Sam said firmly. She looked down at her phone. Eight minutes. “I don’t have much time.”
“I have lunch,” Ivan said, moving toward the kitchen.
“It can wait,” Sam said, following behind him.
“What?” he asked, setting the groceries on the counter.
“In private.” Sam walked down the hall, then into his bedroom, which resembled the scrambled innards of a hard drive. The ceiling was webbed with extension cords and Ethernet cables and blinking Christmas lights. There were modems stacked upon routers and the remains of a disemboweled computer scattered on the floor. In one corner was a twin bed with no frame, above which hung an eighties-era Apple poster. “What happened last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“At the bar,” she said. “You ambushed me.”
“I wanted to sing with you,” he said plainly.
“You can’t do that shit, Ivan. You can’t stalk me like that.”
“I was not stalking,” he said.
“Whatever this is between you and me—it’s over.”
“What about drugs?”
“No more drugs. I’m done. We’re done. Do you understand?” Sam checked her phone: six minutes. She walked to the bedroom window. In the distance, two men stood around a pile of burning garbage.
“But I have more,” Ivan said.
“I don’t want it.”
“Just take,” he said, extending his hand. “You already pay for it.”
This was true. She’d given him money the last time they met. Despite her assertion that she was done with drugs, she figured it might not be a bad idea to have a pinch in reserve. And if she didn’t want it after a couple days, down the toilet it would go.
“Fine,” she said, “but this is it. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but it was a mistake to become friends with you. I accept the blame for that. I shouldn’t have confused the boundaries.” She put on her coat and checked her phone. Four minutes. She looked back to Ivan. “I wish you nothing but the best, but please don’t ever contact me again.”
She closed the door behind her and walked through the living room. Irina had fallen asleep in her chair. Sam turned off the television, placed a blanket over the woman, and stepped into the bathroom to pee before the long walk back to campus. There was dried piss on the toilet seat and empty toilet paper cores scattered across the floor. The mirror, which she looked into as she washed her hands, was smeared with toothpaste. So long to all this, she thought. She knew she was being cold, but there was only so much one person could do for another, and she had reached that limit. She needed to take care of herself now. She dried her hands on her pant leg, then walked to the door and turned the knob, but it didn’t move. She tried again, but the resistance was real. “Ivan,” she called. She worked the knob a few more times, but nothing. “Ivan!” she yelled. She pounded on the door, but there was no response. “Goddamn you, Ivan!” she yelled again. “You little fuck!” Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Time to go.
She walked to the window and looked outside. It was a good thirty feet to the ground, with no fire escape to assist her. She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Max’s number but it went straight to voicemail. She left an unconvincing message about how she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to make it to rehearsal, though she knew there was almost no chance he would believe her. She tried the door again, but it was still locked. She yelled for Ivan, then for Irina. No response. She rummaged through the bathroom drawers looking for a key or some tool to help her break the lock, but instead she found a canvas toiletry bag filled with Ivan’s paraphernalia. Not what she was looking for, but it would at least help offset the frustration of being locked in her drug dealer’s bathroom. She sat on the floor and removed the drugs from her pocket. There were a dozen reasons not to get high, but none were strong enough at that moment. She fixed herself a dose and shot it into her arm. That’s better, she thought, feeling that familiar rush of warmth, as if whatever had tethered her to this world had been cut.
* * *
—
SHE HEARD THE DOOR click open and looked up to see Irina standing above her. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
“What are you doing?” Irina asked, looking down at Sam sitting on the floor.
Sam stood. She felt nauseous, her legs unsteady. “Why the fuck is there a lock on the outside of the door?”
Irina shook her head, not understanding.
“Never mind,” Sam said, pushing past her. She walked down the hall, then stepped outside, where the snow was blowing sideways, making it difficult to see. She quickened her pace, hurrying past the train tracks and into the forest, following the trail back to campus. She wanted to believe that all was not lost. She wanted to believe she could still make this right.
Her phone rang when she arrived back at her apartment; it was Max. “Hello?” she said.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Did you get my message?”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t feeling well. I
’m starting to turn the corner, though. I think I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“We should talk. I’m at the studio. Can you come by?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“This really isn’t a good time.” She’d been looking forward to spending the balance of her high listening to music in bed.
“I’ll rephrase that,” Max said. “I need you to come here. Now.”
* * *
—
THE STUDIO WAS A glowing yellow cube in the forest. Max, alone with his laptop, looked up when Sam entered.
“Sorry,” she said. It was an empty offering, but it was all she had.
Max closed his computer and slipped it into his bag. He looked tired and frustrated, and Sam knew that she was likely the reason for his distress. “Nikolai stopped by. He asked where you were.”
“What did you say?” she asked, moving slowly toward him. She wanted to put a hand on him, tell him how sorry she was, but she wasn’t sure how he might respond to the gesture.
“I said I didn’t know, which reflects poorly on me. It makes it look like I don’t have any control over this production.” He rubbed his forehead. “Which is sort of how I feel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I need more than that, Sam. You not only wasted my time, but the time of all the other dancers.”
“I’ve been working through some personal shit, but I know that’s no excuse. Tell me what I can do to fix this.”
“I want you to focus,” Max said. “I want you to attend rehearsal. I want you to convince me that you’re committed to this production. I’ve got four weeks to get this ballet into shape, which is about half as much time as I need.” Max walked to the window and looked out at the darkening forest. “Every day counts. I can’t move forward wondering if my lead dancer is going to show up to rehearsal.” He turned back to her. “I’ve seen you dance, Sam. You’re very good. Extraordinary really. No one’s arguing that. But you’re worthless if I can’t count on you.”
“You can count on me,” she said, unsure if she believed it. “I swear this won’t happen again. I want to do this. I want to be a part of whatever you’re doing.”
“Nikolai has serious concerns about you dancing this role.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’s not sure he can trust you.”
“Is that all?” She searched his face, trying to determine what else he knew, whether Nikolai had said anything about the drugs. She wouldn’t put it past him, even though he’d assured her that no one else had to know. Max was the only constructive figure in her life right now, and she couldn’t afford to lose him.
“He said you have self-destructive tendencies. He thinks I should replace you. I’m trying to make a case for why you’re essential to this thing, but you’re making it difficult.”
“I’ll do better. I promise.”
“Look,” Max said. “I know you don’t like Nikolai and I can see why. He is kind of a dick, like you said. But he’s also our boss, which means we have to produce for him. We have to make him happy.”
“I get it,” she said, nodding vigorously, making clear that she understood the gravity of the situation. “I really do.”
Max smiled, which Sam took to mean that he was satisfied. “You technically still owe me some rehearsal time.”
“Now?”
“What do you think? Do you want to dance with me?”
She very much wanted to dance with him, but she wasn’t sure her body would cooperate. While the initial rush had worn thin, she still felt the drug coursing through her body, entombing her in that gummy warmth she’d come to crave.
“Okay,” she said, slipping off her shoes. “Sure.”
Max hit play on the stereo and took her hand. He led her through a few quick steps, the same ones he’d shown her yesterday. It felt different, since she wasn’t dancing on pointe, but still, she was surprised by how much she remembered. Despite her high, or maybe because of it, her body transitioned seamlessly as she treaded water, then rotated once, twice, her leg going vertical, back arched against his hand, the weight of her body falling into his arms. Everything moved slowly, and she attained a focus that had eluded her for the longest time. Outside, the cold Russian winter blew snow against the glass, but inside the studio she was wrapped in the arms of a good and kind man. She remembered now what she had always loved about dance, and it crystallized her resolve to get clean, because this, this right here, was all she wanted. Max then lifted her by the waist and spun her in a circle and slowly lowered her to the ground until she was supine on the floor, their faces nearly touching. She smiled and he smiled back, but when he leaned in for a kiss, a large rock crashed through the glass and skidded across the floor.
JONAH
RETURNING TO CAMP SEEMED UNWISE, so he spent the night on the observation deck. With its location three kilometers from camp, disguised by camouflage netting, Jonah figured it would make a good safe house until the situation with Slinky could be smoothed over. He hiked through the grinding heat of late afternoon, swatting at insects, a large A/V backpack strapped to his back. The trail was faint, the undergrowth thick and grabbing, and Jonah moved in slow, belabored strides, hacking a path with a folded tripod.
By the time he arrived, a light rain had begun to fall. He scaled the ladder and began assembling his jungle studio, mounting the camera on the tripod and affixing a 400mm telephoto lens. He was pleased to find that the camera still worked after its brief stint filming Gabonese action films. He snapped some pictures of what he guessed was an African finfoot alighting from a branch above his head, then stole a couple shots of a red-billed firefinch darting between trees. He’d never been much of a birder, though Marcus, during their many hours together on the deck, had tried to educate him on the various winged creatures that made a home in the forest: African pied wagtails, black-casqued hornbills, African grey parrots. Marcus had left behind his tattered copy of the Collins Field Guide to the Bird of West Africa, which Jonah devoured during the mindless hours spent waiting for elephants to do stuff. He wasn’t expecting accolades from the Audubon society, but he’d begun to take a certain pride in the ornithological knowledge he’d acquired, the ability to differentiate between a cerulean kingfisher and a common kingfisher, based on the color of its plumage.
When Jonah was eight, he attended Zoo Camp at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He and three other second graders were assigned to a “creature-teacher” named Eric. Most of the creatures Eric taught them about were the kind Jonah had seen on his grandparents’ farm—goats, box turtles, barn owls. They were fine—all animals were special in their own way, Eric told them—but it wasn’t until they visited the elephant enclosure that Jonah felt he’d encountered something truly magnificent. It wasn’t just their size, which he’d learned about in books, but the grace with which they moved, the elegance of something so large.
After high school, he studied conservation biology at Boston University. The summer after his junior year, he took his first trip to Africa, volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Kenya. The organization’s mission was to rehabilitate orphaned elephant calves to the point where they could be reintegrated back into the wild. Jonah was initially tasked with menial jobs like shoveling manure, but in time he learned the basics of animal husbandry and was eventually assigned to the nursery, where the youngest, most fragile calves were nursed back to health. Most of the elephants that arrived had been orphaned after their mothers were killed by poachers. They were usually found half starved and wandering alone through the savannah, and it was the job of people like Jonah to help them through this intense period of mourning. Toward the end of his time in Kenya, he was assigned to a three-month-old female calf named Laki. She’d been found standing next to the decomposing body of her mother, dehydrated and on the verge of death. Jonah spent that first night lying alongside Laki, rubbing hi
s hand along her back, waking every few hours to feed her from a bottle, trying to impress upon her the understanding that she was safe now, that she was loved. It was the closest he’d ever felt to any kind of paternal instinct, and during the long dark hours that he watched the animal sleep, he imagined finding the man responsible for Laki’s grief and smashing a rock against his head.
Jonah fixed himself a meager dinner of rice and beans and dined in the fading light of a discouraging day. He wasn’t sure what to do about the whole Slinky situation, though he suspected a shakedown was headed in his direction, the extent and severity of which he could only guess at. He’d courted danger before—a run-in with a disagreeable bush pig being one of the more terrifying instances—but this was the first time he’d felt truly threatened. He held on to the slight hope that his new nemesis might forgive the whole thing, dismiss it as a minor affront unworthy of his time, though Laurent’s description did not suggest a man brimming with mercy.
The sun was nearly gone when Jonah heard the trumpet call and saw a family of elephants emerging from the forest. He spotted the matriarch first, but something about her slow, halting movements seemed strange. She stopped every few feet as if she’d smelled something offensive, then continued carefully, like a soldier navigating a minefield. It seemed like she was trying to camouflage herself in the forest growth, but when Jonah grabbed his binoculars and looked closer, he noticed that it wasn’t her massive body she was trying to conceal but her tusks. It was both shocking and heartbreaking. Not only did she associate the human scent with poaching, but she seemed to be cognizant of the reason someone would want to kill her. He’d never witnessed such behavior, and it was a stark reminder of the intelligence of his subjects, as well as how dispiriting their situation had become.
The matriarch led the others to a shallow pool, where they slurped mineral water percolating from the ground. As the night wore on, Jonah set up a thermal imaging camera that he and Marcus often used to track nocturnal visitation patterns. The video had shown that a lot more was happening than anyone had previously suspected, and Jonah looked forward to reviewing the footage from this evening, discovering what he’d missed after falling asleep. He grabbed his notebook and jotted down some observations, the names and faces that were familiar to him, as well as those that were not. He was relieved to discover Kibo standing beneath his mother, whom Jonah had assumed was dead. A dozen more soon filtered in, and now there were close to forty, an encouraging increase from the morning’s count. A few of the younger ones locked tusks, roughhousing, while the adults congregated in little subsets, drinking and socializing in the manner of good-natured suburbanites. It was a festive scene, full of bonhomie and goodwill, one that reminded Jonah of a spirited forest block party. As he unfurled his sleeping bag and settled into bed, he paused to savor the moment, how fortunate he was to spend an evening with such noble and sentient creatures.