Vaclav & Lena (18 page)

“Who knows. Who knows what drugs the mother was on. Or the father! Who knows.” Lena did not know what drugs were. She was incredibly confused about drugs, in fact, because she had seen the posters in Russian saying not to take drugs, and showing the pictures of people out-of-their-minds crazy, or very sick, or stealing things. You could tell they were bad people from the way they were drawn. So drugs were for bad people.

And yet she and Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would often go to the drugstore, and Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would buy drugs, and the man there would sell to her the drugs, and this did not seem like the thing on the poster, that this man was bad, or that Radoslava Dvorakovskaya was bad. Perhaps it was okay to do drugs when you were an old person but not when you were young like Lena. This made sense. Lena’s mother had taken drugs, which was wrong, because she was young.

“So young!” Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would moan. “Babies giving birth to babies! It’s terrible. And not married. No wonder.” And so Lena became terribly confused about her mother, who was a baby who did drugs, who was not married, and who was now gone. Was she dead? Lena did not know. She was afraid to ask.

“Lena! Our tea, it is cold. You make new tea. And not so strong this time. I’m weak, and I can’t have my heart spinning along.”

“Yes,
Babushka
,” Lena said. Lena had always called Radoslava Dvorakovskaya
Babushka
, Grandmother. This was the only name Lena had for her, though she did not believe that Radoslava was the actual mother of her own mother. If Radoslava were the mother of Lena’s mother, she would not talk about Lena’s mother the way she did.

“Like a stray dog, she was raised like a stray dog. So who would be surprised that she squats and gives birth to this mutt in this mutt country and then scampers off? Yelena! My tea is becoming cold. It’s the very least that you can do, don’t you think?” Lena would get the tea and think,
Oh, I am the mutt. I wonder what a mutt is. My mother is the stray dog who scampered off. How is this a mutt country? What is a mutt? This woman
, Lena thought,
is not the mother of my mother, or she would not say that my mother was raised like a stray dog
.

Lena, at four, was very good at making tea for her
babushka
. She would pull a chair from the table and push it against the stove, where she would retrieve the teakettle, fill it with water, replace it on the crusted burner, light the fire, sit in the chair, and wait for the whistle. The hard part was the pouring, because the kettle was heavy, and often the first water to escape the tipping spout would miss the cup and splash against her shins or sprinkle onto her toes.

Lena brought the ladies their tea, and this reminded them of her.

“Where is the mother? Where is the father? Is there no other family? Surely someone else should watch her, with you unable to even walk three blocks to the grocer.… A shame.”

Mrs. Yablokov seemed exquisitely pleased that Radoslava Dvorakovskaya could not walk the three blocks to the grocer.

“The mother and father are gone. They are either dead or they have gone back. If they were here, they would be banging down my door, asking for money, asking for using the telephone, to take a bath, to sleep on my couch, as if I live in excess and have so much to give!” Mrs. Yablokov accepted this explanation, as it offered further evidence of the disrespect, the irresponsibility, of the young.

“There is no one else?” she asked.

“There is the sister of her mother, the one who first left her here,” said Radoslava, and Mrs. Yablokov’s eyes became electric.

“And why will she not take the girl?”

“She refuses. I have asked her, begged her, to take this burden off my hands, for the sake of Lena. She hangs up the phone, and later the number is no longer her. I see her on the street and I yell for her; she runs away from me, an old woman.” Mrs. Yablokov shook her head at this. Too terrible. Too terrible.

And meanwhile, Lena, on the floor, was listening to every word. Because she was silent, adults forgot themselves in front of her, and Lena acquired a superpower that most kids wished they had; she became invisible. She knew everything that went on, and everything that was said, just by being very still and very quiet. She had always thought that adults were like animals, that if you held still they forgot you were there. It was hard for a little girl like Lena to hold still for so long. But she held herself still now, because she was a collector of this information, about her parents, about other people who might want her, about her life.

“Can I tell you something? And this must remain a secret between us,” said Radoslava, lowering her voice.

“Of course, Rada. Your confidences are safe with me. Go on.”

“The sister, she works at the club.” Mrs. Yablokov’s eyes widened, for this was better than not being able to dress yourself. To work at the club was a nebulous idea for the women, but it had something to do with dancing, or taking off one’s clothes, or serving alcohol to men, or taking naked photographs, or having sex for money. To work in the club was to do all this and more.

To Lena, the club sounded wonderful, like she had seen clubs on television, where you might have a hat with your name on it and a group of friends and secret passwords and a secret key to a secret clubhouse. Lena wanted to work at the club too, and she wanted to be with this woman who seemed to be the opposite of Radoslava.

MRS. YABLOKOV’S DREAM COME TRUE: RADOSLAVA DVORAKOVSKAYA DROPS DEAD
…

T
wo weeks after Radoslava Dvorakovskaya sat with Mrs. Yablokov and spoke about Lena’s parents, and her aunt, and the club, and Lena being retarded, Lena woke up while Radoslava Dvorakovskaya was in the shower. Lena could hear the water running in the bathroom. Lena quickly folded her blankets and put them away in the linen closet, and rearranged the pillows on the couch where she slept, and then she sat in front of the television and turned it on and watched a cartoon goat on
Sesame Street
. Lena liked
Sesame Street
because she could tell what was happening even though she didn’t understand any English, and she liked the funny sound the goat made when the dog pulled on his beard.

When
Sesame Street
was over, Radoslava Dvorakovskaya was still in the shower, and Lena had to pee. She walked to the bathroom door and listened. She went back to the TV and watched the cartoon shows that were on after
Sesame Street
. Lena liked to watch these but became bored easily because she did not understand the words the cartoon characters said. She could put on the Russian channel, but it was for grown-ups and did not have fun pictures.

Lena still had to pee, and now it was very hard to sit still, even sitting on the floor and rocking back and forth with her ankle wedged into her crotch. Now Lena could not watch the television or concentrate on it; she could concentrate only on needing to pee and trying not to pee in her pajamas. Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would be very angry if she peed in her pajamas, because this would make work for her (which Lena would do), and Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would be sure to tell all of her visitors that Lena was still wetting her pants.

Lena wiggle-waddled back to the bathroom and listened. The shower was still going. This was strange, because usually the hot water would run out, and when Lena bathed, Radoslava Dvorakovskaya would stand outside, yelling at her not to use it all up. Hearing the water was too much for Lena, and so she wiggle-waddled to the kitchen, little drops starting to sneak out, and she took down a bowl and she put it onto the linoleum floor under the kitchen table so that if Radoslava Dvorakovskaya came out of the bathroom, she would not see Lena right away.

Lena squatted over the bowl and peed, and even though it was a large mixing bowl, some pee danced out onto the floor, and when Lena tried to move, to better her aim, it only got worse.

When Lena was done, she did not feel too much better, because of the warm bowl full of pee and the pee on the floor, and the possibility that she would be caught and embarrassed. What would Radoslava say if she found that Lena had peed in a mixing bowl? She would tell everyone how strange and off and bad Lena was. Quickly Lena pulled a chair up to the sink, and she picked up the bowl, which was fuller than she thought it would be, and she tried to climb the chair without sloshing out any of the pee.

Lena got one leg up on the chair, and then another, but as she was standing up, she wobbled a bit, just a bit, and pee from the bowl, so cold now, sloshed onto the front of her pajamas, above her belly, which was unexplainable too. How do you explain a pee stain on your belly, where pee does not come out?

The rest of the pee she dumped into the sink and rinsed away with water. Lena then wet a sponge with dish soap and cleaned up all the other little drips everywhere, and then dabbed at the front of her pajamas. She realized that this was better; she could tell Radoslava Dvorakovskaya that she spilled water. She could even say that she spilled water while trying to make tea. Lena decided to clean everything up, and to then make the tea so that there would be less lying. The shower was still going in the bathroom. Even if it stopped right now, there would be plenty of time, since Radoslava took so long in the bathroom to get out of the shower and to powder herself, and replace her teeth.

Why was Radoslava Dvorakovskaya still in the shower? Lena was afraid to knock.

Everything was clean. Lena’s pajamas were only slightly wet on the belly. The teakettle was on the stove, getting hot and ready to boil. Lena changed into her daytime clothes from a little pile next to the couch where she slept. Dressed, she sat down again in front of the television and surveyed the apartment. Everything was clean, and dried, so that there was no evidence that the pee bowl had even been used at all, no evidence even that the kitchen rags had been used to wipe anything up. No evidence at all. Why was Radoslava Dvorakovskaya in the shower, still?

There was another episode of
Sesame Street
on the television. Lena tried to learn the letters of the alphabet, the numbers from the Count. Three bats flying. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. What were these sounds the Count made? This was his laughing. What are these things flying, black things? These Lena could not figure out.

When
Sesame Street
was over, it was too long for Radoslava to have been in the shower. Lena figured that four shows had gone by since she had woken up, and that was a very long time for Radoslava to be in the shower. Lena was hungry, and that was a sign too. Too long. Lena thought of what should be done. She could knock on the door, in case something was wrong. This was a bad plan, because if Lena interrupted her shower, Radoslava would be very angry. Lena watched a commercial about a doll as big as a real live girl, whose hands you could hold, and who would cuddle with you while you took a nap together.

Lena got up and walked to the bathroom, and she pressed her face to the door, careful not to make the door bang around in its frame, because this would make Radoslava know that she was listening, and Radoslava would be angry. Lena did not hear any noises, except for the shower water. Lena lifted her fist and knocked three times.

There was no answer. Lena’s knock was too soft; it was like she had not knocked at all. She could go back to watching television and pretend she had never made the knocking plan. She walked two steps away. She turned around quickly and took two quick steps, the second one almost a hop, and she banged on the door very loudly. And stopped. And listened. Nothing. Bang, bang, bang, again. Nothing.
One, two, three bangs
, thought Lena. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

She is dead in the bathtub
, thought Lena. This did not make Lena very upset, because she was not quite sure of what it meant. She thought of it because Radoslava had said it over and over again. “One of these days they are going to find me dead in bathtub.” Lena had not understood the part about one of these days, but now she understood a new part. Lena was the “they” who would find her dead in the bathtub. She had thought before,
Who are these people, this team of people who walk around, finding people dead or finding people and sending them away, or running about robbing people? Who are “they”?

Since Radoslava was dead, Lena thought, she could not be mad. So Lena opened the door to the bathroom. The water was running. It was cold in the bathroom, when usually it was very warm from the warm water. There was a shower curtain the color of peaches, only with brown mold growing up from the bottom, so Lena could not see into the shower. There was no fog on the mirror.
Fog must be from hot water
, Lena thought. Lena closed the bathroom door behind her.

Lena got down on her hands and knees next to the edge of the bathtub. She took one finger and very, very carefully, without making any rustling at all, pulled the curtain, making a very tiny gap that she could see through. Slowly Lena moved her head toward the tiny gap in the curtain. Lena was being very careful in case Radoslava was not dead in the shower, in case she was alive; Lena did not want Radoslava knowing that Lena looked in at her in her shower.

The first thing that Lena saw was Radoslava’s hair, which was gray, and straight, and missing in patches. At first Lena thought that she was looking at the back of Radoslava’s head, that Radoslava was looking down at the tub floor, but then Lena saw that this was the face of Radoslava, with her hair all pressed against it with wetness. Her eyes were open, but they were not looking at Lena, and there was hair covering them, so Lena felt certain that Radoslava could not see her.

Lena looked at Radoslava for a very long time. Radoslava did not blink or breathe. After a long time, Lena made a little noise in her throat. Radoslava did not seem to hear this. Lena pulled back the curtain more, and then she knew that Radoslava could not see or hear anything that Lena did.

Lena looked down at Radoslava. She was not supposed to look at her. Lena knew this, because Radoslava was naked, and she was dead. Lena’s
babushka
lay in the tub with her legs splayed, and Lena could see between the dark hair that spread from her thighs to her belly, and the folds of skin between her legs, and this skin was purplish, or brownish. It was the ugliest thing that Lena had ever seen.