In which we cope…

Ah, ze edeeting. Zhe eez ze beetch.

Believe it or not (and I don’t), it’s April the 20th. Aside from being a Not -So-Secret-Holiday (the article’s eh, but the headline is downright eyerollable. Oh New York Times. You’re so the opposite of hip. Remember when they picked up on Sexting? ), 4/20 also happens to be the day Deb and Polina gave me back in February as my final Div 3 due date. Okay, so they’ve told me I’ve passed. Okay, so the final meeting on 4/29 is just a formality and Deb’s told me I can keep feeding her stuff until as late as May 5th. Okay, the dates have always been arbitrary and it isn’t about passing or graduating or pleasing the Committee anymore, anyway. Still, it’s a deadline, and I’m not going to meet it, leastwise not with the complete, fully-edited draft I’d like. Is this thing EVER GOING TO END?

The reasonable answer? “Probably, eventually.”
The answer that has been screaming in my head for the last two weeks? “NO! NEVER EVER EVER!!!!”

I have a couple of days break from acting (the play ran Thursday through Sunday, and then again for Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week), so for tonight I’m going to try and finish a rough draft of my retrospective and edit as many of the Vassilike and Hannah pieces as I can – editing Dog usually ends with me curled on my floor with a towel over my head, whimpering. Those will go to The Committee tomorrow. Then I’ll work on any pieces that still need to be written. But this can NOT go on indefinitely. After this Sunday (4/26), I am not allowed to work on this thing any more until graduation. I need a break.

Anyway, I haven’t had anything new to post in a while, so here’s the edited (final?) draft of the first Vassilike piece. If you’re feeling masochistic, you could compare it with the earlier draft that I posted March 18th. And if you’re in the camp of waiting until I’m done with the whole thing to read it, well then – suffer. Serves you right…

Thursday, Evening – Vassilike

Yes, it is becoming night. Yes, the sun falls in behind the mountains. But by the road here it’s so hot it is like noon and I am sweating. My shirt feels heavy with this sweat. The collar of it is wet and sticking to my neck; my neck itches. Even the backs of my knees are pouring sweat and sticking to the tire I sit on, so much that I think they will turn the dust under me to mud. It’s better than sitting on the ground, but not too much. I see the heat coming out from the road like the steam out of a roasting pig. Even my feet sweat. But there is nothing to do. I cannot stop the sweat, or the heat, or the sun. I cannot even leave this place. What to do? Nothing. I am waiting.
The tire is from a tractor that broke and someone dragged to the roadside at some time, I don’t know, a long time ago. It is what we have for a bus stop. The rest of the tractor is down the road a little way – just the rusty cab of it with the windows all gone. Its shadow is a square on the cornfield behind me, and little grass and flowers grow up out of the rust. What parts were good were taken a long time ago. In front of me is the road, running away to both sides of me flat for a couple hundred metres, then turning away into hills. Behind me is just more corn and the dirt road I walked on to come here. Later on, that road breaks and runs two ways, one to the village where the church is and one to the place I live in, named Casalui Domnul Nostrii – “The House of Our Lord.” We do not call it all this, usually; it is enough to call it orfelinat, “the orphanage.”
In front of me, besides the road, are just more hills. Some hills also have corn. Some only with hay or a few trees, good for nothing but sheep. Farther away, the hills get darker and smaller. When the sun falls right in behind them like an orange ball I can see the tops of the far, farthest ones, all lined up and pointed like dogs’ teeth. They look only as small as the end of my finger. But when you are close, I know, they are much bigger: muntii Carpati, the Carpathian Mountains, the heart of my country Romania. It is all very beautiful, I guess. Still the light hurts my eyes and like I said, it is hot. So I cover over my eyes with my hand and look the other way, down the road.
It is lucky for me I am not going anywhere, because the bus is late. It always is. But even now I am hearing a noise like an engine, and there is an autobus turning around the hill to the left of me. It’s only a van, really, red and yellow and written with ‘Transportati Romani’ in blue under the windows, and it is turning too fast. I see it shake and almost roll before the driver pulls it back to the road. Still, when it is straight again, I hear the accelerator bellowing, and the bus kicks and it speeds up. It is running at me like an angry painted cow. Five hundred meters away. Three hundred. A hundred and fifty meters and I think maybe it will not stop at all. Then, very fast, the brakes are screaming and the bus is swinging almost into me as she is pulling onto the roadside and bumping and almost hitting the old tractor. She does not hit the tractor. The dust blows up into my mouth, that I cough, and into my eyes that I can know nothing except what I hear: a noise like a door sliding open, the driver yelling goodnight. I do not even hear the slam of the door closed before the bus starts off again. There is more dust from this. I have to cough and spit and before I can even look up to see who’s gotten off. Of course I know already. When finally the dust blows off, she is already next to me, looking down and smiling. It is Elena.
“Vassile! Ce faci? How are you?”
“Bine. Good.” I shrug. “Tu?”
“Yeah, good.”
We are always good. It doesn’t mean anything, bine, it’s just what you say. Still, right now it’s pretty true. Elena gives me her hand. I grab it and pull myself up.
“You are waiting for me?” She asks.
“Eh. Sure. De ce nu? Nothing better to do.”
“Ha. Wipe your ass.”
The seat of my shorts is white with dirt from the tire. I slap at it, but it goes exactly nowhere. “Forget it. I’ll wash later.”
“Uh huh. Anyway, it suits you.” She twists my arm back and holds it to the dirt. “See? Same color. When last did you wash?”
“Ow! Termina! What did I do to you? Let go!”
Elena is darker than me: black hair, black eyes, everything else bronz like the skin of the saints on the walls of the village church whose faces are painted with gold – gypsy dark, my mother would have called her. Also, Elena is clean as a saint, and since she left from school and started work at the dress store in the city, she is much more colorful. On laundry day when the girls wash and hang their clothes off the balcony to dry, Elena’s are no problem to find. Just whatever is colored gold or purple or lime-colored or pink. Whatever sparkles. Tonight her dress is red and the sun shines through it. Her earrings could catch on fire and they would burn less. Looking at her hurts my eyes, like when I looked into the sun. A car rolls up behind us on the dirt road, coming from the village. It stops before it turns onto the paved road and someone rolls a window down just so they can soak her up. The guy in the side seat clicks his tongue under his teeth.
“Tch, domnisoara, you’re ready to go! Better leave the kid here and come with us. Tonight I take you someplace only a man can take you, yeah?”
The guy licks his tongue on his lips and grins like a wolf; on the bottom, he is missing a tooth. I know him a little – we don’t talk with the villagers too much, but still we see them – and he is a loser, a coward. Skinny arms, skinny little chest. If I were taller even a little, he would not open his greasy mouth. Even as a little kid I’ll give him something to cry about.
Elena catches my fist before I even bring it up all the way.
“Is that a joke, huh? I couldn’t tell. Look, go pay a whore if you want someone to say you’re funny. My brother and I have to go home now. Noapte buna, ok? Good NIGHT.”
It’s an insult – oh, and a good one. His friends in the car all laugh. The loser guy gets really red and goes for the doorhandle like he’s going to jump out, going to get her. But his buddy doesn’t have the time. He steps on it. The loser guy falls back into his seat and hits his head. Soon they’re out of sight. We cough in the dust and exhaust and Elena makes dirty gestures after them.
“Don’t bother with those hicks, Vassile. They have dicks for brains.”
“I’m not your brother.”
“Yeah, sure, but they know that?” She swings my hand in hers once before she drops it. “Besides, you look out for me, yeah? And I take care of you. So it’s the same thing. Anyway. You coming?”
“Yeah.”
The sunset is behind us now, so our shadows lean out in front of us when we walk down the road. We walk slowly. There is nowhere to go.
“How was work?”
“Asa sa asa. Same as always. The bus was bad, though. Fifteen minutes late! Also it smelled and a farmer pinched my ass. Horrible! I almost asked Nutsa to stay with her the night so I wouldn’t have to put up with it again.” Nutsa is her boss; sometimes when it is winter, Elena sleeps overnight in her apartment.
“Yeah? Why didn’t you?”
“What, I would leave you alone for a night? No, you’d get bored and hurt yourself. Anyway, the donkey told me to come back.” Father Cristi, the priest who is in charge of the orphanage, is Elena’s enemy – she is afraid of him. She says his name only if she has to.
“I am working every day, and still he tells me, ‘Oh, you do this and this.’ Why not just say, ‘You are mine, do what I want?’ And do you know who came to the shop today? His slut daughter and old hag wife! Rubbing it in! ‘Oh, Elena, who knew you worked here? You must come for dinner! Lunch!’ And so and so and so…iishhh, as if I am their pet! Like, a cow from the family farm. I almost couldn’t stand it. Hicks!” Elena is from Bucharest. Everything she hates, she hates it because it is from the country. “And stop laughing already. It’s not funny.”
“Sure it is. Ha aha ha, you are their COW! Ha!”
“Oh, shut up.” She crosses her arms and makes a face like I am worse than the priest’s whole family all together. She gets upset very fast like this, and always she is really angry. She does not pretend. It used to scare me, but now I know that she doesn’t stay angry. Even now, she is smiling a little. “You’re a hick too, you know!”
“Sure! I’m a cowboy!”
“And I’m the cow? Okay, whatever, fine. But no branding.”
“Fine.” She slaps my shoulder, hard.
Then she laughs, and imediat – just like that – we’re friends again.
“I was surprised that you were waiting for me today. Is your party over so soon?”
“I didn’t go.” I shrug. “It’s not my party, anyway.”
“Vassilike! It is a graduation party! You graduated, right?”
“Only the seventh grade.”
“It is better than a lot of people. Think of Alex! He is as old almost as me and only just now he graduates the seventh grade.”
“Ok, so. I am smarter than Alex.” Alex is sixteen, four years older than me, and on the outside, his head is hard like a brick, Inside, it’s soft as mamaliguita – as cornmeal mush. He always is smiling but he never gets jokes. He likes to pinch the little kids until they cry. “This is not hard, being smarter than Alex.”
“Yes, yes, you are smarter than Alex. But who cares? Right now he is in town dancing and drinking and rubbing himself against all the little girls because he knows that graduation is a good thing. But you, draga, you are smart, and here look at you! Having no fun at all!”
I shrug again.
“Alex leaves tomorrow.”
“Mm. For Moldovia?”
“Da.”
“Well, he’ll be hungover on the bus then.”
“Da.”
“Look, Vassile, are you still worried about your paperwork?”
I know she will yell at me, so I say nothing. Every year, boys from the orphanage go the east of Romania, to cut down trees and get paid for it. To with them, you must have an identification card. To get this card, you must have a paper, proof that your parents are dead or that they have given you up. I have no card.
“My God, you have years, something will come up. So you can’t work in Moldovia this summer. So WHAT? Anyway, you can hang out with me instead of with assholes like Alex.”
“Da.”
“My god, you are an idiot sometimes.”
We are come now to where the cornfield ends. To both sides of the road there is a grass field; ahead the road splits and goes two ways. Down, on the right, is the village. An old woman bent double with her scarf on over her hair is taking her cow out of the field and along this path, and we wait for them to cross ahead of us, very slow. Then we walk the other way, on the left road up the hill that leads to the orphanage. All suddenly, Elena stops.
“My God, what is that smell?” She stands in the middle of the road, crunching her face in disgust. “Nasul meu va morti. It is HORRIBLE!”
“What are you talking about? Don’t be an idiot.” I walk a few steps, and then suddenly it stops me like a rock – Domneazu! A smell so strong I can taste it. My eyes water. It is the smell of something dead.
“Oh God, it is terrible. Come on, let’s go quick!”
I hold my nose and start with running up the hill. Elena stays. She walks to the side of the road and stands there, looking around for what stinks. She is always wearing high heels – yellow sandals like this – and when she stands on the very edge, where the road falls into a deep ditch, she is swaying. Afraid she will fall, I walk back and grab her on the arm.
“Elena? Come on!”
“I think it is a dog.”
I look down.
Behind us, the sunset is over. Still, the sky is pink, and it’s light enough so that we can see where we are walking. But in the ditch, already it is night. I can see nothing. Then when I watch for a long time I see something, but what? Lying next to a rock, just another color of blackness at night. It is the size of a dog, at least. In the middle it is round, and its four legs sag out to the side like fat sticks stuck into wet mud. Only when I squint I can see that it has a head. Dog ears. The dog’s face is turned away from me, pressed into the dirt of the hillside. Still, I can imagine the look of the dead eyes – black and ashy, like burned out coals. You can see it in the eyes, the very moment that a thing is dead. I have seen it. Eyes change. I think of it and I feel sick.
“Vassile? Hai Vassilike, e doar un caine. It’s only a dog.”
“I know. Just…”
When I am opening my mouth to speak, all of a sudden I am sick. There is not too much to be sick of – I ate for the last time many hours ago. But still, I gag, and some of the sour water out of my stomach splets into the ditch on top of the dead dog. Some more of it sticks in my throat.
“Oh God, Vassilike. Come on.” While I am still being sick, Elena takes my arm and tries to pull me up the hill to where we cannot smell the dead smell anymore. I am coughing, still with the bile in my throat. Then, I am angry. I grab Elena’s hand and throw her off.
“WHAT was that? Why did you have to look?”
“What? Look, I’m sory, okay? Are you still sick?”
“No. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure you are not still sick?”
“Whatever.”
It is only maybe ten steps now to the top of the hill; we walk ten steps without saying anything more. Then, we are home. The ground becomes flat. The road makes a circle and then it stops; around the circle is the orphanage, the buildings where we sleep and eat and the playground in a fence in the middle of the road circle. Behind the buildings are more hills. It isn’t that dark yet. Behind the far buildings, I hear shouting. Cheering. The party must be over. They’re playing futbol.
“Listen to those drunks.” Elena laughs like she has forgotten the dog and . “You want to see?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, but I have to sleep soon. I have to wake up tomorrow.”
“You have to cook for the doctor again?” There is a guest staying in Father Cristi’s house, an American doctor. Who knows why? He never does anything.
“Yes, and another one is coming tonight. Another American. A girl. Aren’t you excited?”
“What do I care?” I don’t – my stomach still hurts. Anyway, it has nothing to do with me. “Come on, let’s go before the game’s over.”
“Fine.”