Vassa in the Night (11 page)

He felt just guilty enough to stop on the way home and buy Chinese takeout for his wife and the girls. He ordered extra egg rolls for the two younger ones, whom he thought of as
the twins
even though they had different mothers and looked nothing alike. They were twinned in his mind largely by the fact that they were both unwelcome accidents, foisted on him by chance at just the same time. The oldest girl was not technically his concern—not even his daughter—but he bought her dinner, too. And then he walked up the stairs to their apartment, feeling intense gratitude at the realization that it was for the last time, and smiled brightly at the pale one, Vassa, who furtively slipped something into her pocket.

“Suppertime, sweet pea!” He didn't actually think she was sweet. A morose little sprite of eleven who was taking far too long to adjust to her new home and circumstances, and that annoyed Iliana, and Iliana's annoyance looped back around and annoyed him. What was anyone supposed to do with a child like that?

And after they'd all eaten and Stephanie had gone off to play video games and Vassa and Chelsea had formed discrete jumbles on the living room floor with their colored pencils and textbooks, he caught Iliana's hand and held her at the kitchen table. He hoped she would understand the force of the revelation that he'd been privileged to receive, the overpowering exigency of acting on it, but he was aware, of course, that she might respond selfishly. He explained matters gently, nobly. Now that his own father was gone, he'd come to understand that he'd never really had the old man's love. He'd come to understand that there was only one thing he could do to redress that tragedy, to heal his own long-wounded heart.

“You are telling me,” Iliana shrieked, “that you'd rather be a dog than a man? A dog. Roland, a
dog.
Tell me that is not what you're saying.”

Since there was no door separating the kitchen from the living room, Chelsea and Vassa had stopped their reading and drawing to sit up and listen. Vassa just looked stunned, but Chelsea was already leveling a gaze of solemn reproach in his direction—and Chelsea wasn't even his daughter, so it was really no business of hers.

“I tried so hard to win my father's love,” Roland Lowenstein explained. “I did everything I could think of to impress him, Iliana, and it was
never
enough. It's only now that I finally understand why. There was only one creature he truly loved, and it was never me.”

For a moment he pictured it again: his father roughhousing with Posey, the family's German shepherd, while he and his sister waited for the old man to finally notice their wistful stares.

“Your father is dead!” Iliana yelled. “Cold in the dirt! He's not going to love you no matter what kind of dog you are!”

“This is just something I have to do,” Roland said quietly. “I have to try to earn his love
posthumously.
If I do nothing else in this life…”

“You've done nothing else is right! And now you're going to be sewed into a
dogskin
to make sure you
never
do anything!”

It wasn't working out,
he thought. When he was younger everyone had taken it for granted that he would do things, and that those things would of course be magnificent; he'd simply never figured out which marvels he should choose to accomplish. And then time had flowed by, stranding him in this grubby apartment. Now Vassa had turned into a ball of trembling black hair and silent tears and Chelsea looked like a censorious owl, all wide indignant eyes.

“I hoped you would be happy for me,” Roland said. “Maybe that was too much to expect, but I hoped you would see beyond these narrow concerns and grasp what's
really
at stake here. Iliana, my whole life has been devoured by longing.…”

“Narrow concerns?” she snapped. “You mean your daughters?”

“They're your daughters, too,” he explained.

“Oh,
all
of them? Is that what you think? They're all
Iliana's
now, so no more problem of mine, that's what you tell yourself?”

There was a hint of a threat implied by that. He would have preferred not to notice, but after a moment he couldn't help responding. “Well, you wouldn't throw Vassa out now! You
are
her stepmother, Iliana.”

“Why
wouldn't
I?” Iliana demanded. “You think her mother was my dear friend, that I would cherish Vassa for the sake of her memory after you run out? You do this to me and the foster-care people can take her.”

He would have preferred if Vassa hadn't been right there listening to this, but at least Iliana's speech had one positive effect. Chelsea stood up—she was ungodly tall and brawny for a girl not yet thirteen, nothing like his own lithe and maidenly daughters—and her terrible stare swung from him to her mother. “No,” Chelsea said firmly. “No, Mom.”

“Vassa's mother never behaved maliciously toward you, Ili,” Roland said. “Why
wouldn't
it be a bond between the two of you, that you both loved the same man? But if you can't see it that way, then you should blame me, not her.”

“Oh, I
do
blame you,” Iliana clarified. “Don't worry about that!”

“You've always been my earth, Iliana, but Zinaida was my sky. How could I choose?” He was pleased with the formulation; poetry could explain anything.

“You mean,” Iliana translated, “she got you drunk at her crazy art parties, and I took care of you with the hangover afterward?”

It wasn't working out at
all,
but this was the last night he would have to endure in this particular life. Tomorrow he would begin again, with a new heaven and a new earth, and both heaven and earth would be made of fur. His life would become soft, enveloping, and dark, with no expectations of achievement and no petty hassles. A fur ocean would lap at a horizon of bright white fangs, and he'd pad soft-footed beyond the confines of the city. Every fresh scent he encountered would be as vast and hopeful as a new morning.

 

CHAPTER 6

There's a sickly electric blanket heaped on the cot, but nowhere to plug it in. The fibers are so thinned and clumped that the rippling white wires show through, looking like the ghosts of intestinal parasites. After I've eaten as much junk food as I can stand, sugar raking my mouth, I wad up my army jacket for a pillow and wrap myself in the blanket. A single dim light bulb smolders overhead, swinging gently with the rhythm of the dance, and I can't find any way to turn it off. It's so rare for Erg and me to have actual privacy, but now she doesn't have to stay hidden. She curls mewing around my jaw and rests her head on my cheek.

Something scuds at the door, the soft whicker of flesh on wood. I don't think it can get in, but I still find myself listening way too intensely to every scuff and thud, then to a series of stealthy hopping sounds. I picture a hand bouncing on the stump of its wrist, trying to leap high enough to grab the doorknob. I picture it inching under my blanket, the poke and dab of dry fingers, their sinuous crawl over my shoulder and down to my throat. Babs said there were rules, but I have a funny feeling that the hands might think that rules are made to be broken—just like people and their useless hearts.

“Sinister!” Babs calls. The walls must be awfully thin because I can hear her voice in all its crackling detail; it makes me think of a radio transmission beamed from another planet. “Sin, get your misshapen pinkie over here! Dex and I are waiting! Did I hack you from that stale cadaver for nothing? Shall I sew you back on to it, then?”

A rapid thumping retreats from my door. I stifle a laugh. Babs sounds so much like a cranky mom screaming at her toddler on the subway. I must have been more anxious about the hands getting in than I'd thought, because now that I know they're occupied I start to relax and drift off. I see the shadow-forms of a world where the people are locked in place, stiffened into twisting immobile clouds, while the objects around them blur with savage activity. Chelsea stands in the middle of it all, her feet on a pedestrian overpass but her head ejected skyward and frozen far above. I know she can't move, can't say anything, but a single tear glides down her cheek.

“Vassa!” Erg whispers, and I jolt back into the musty mini-room, my eyes flying wide. “Vassa! I think you'll want to see what's going on. Except it's a terrible tragedy, so maybe you'll be sad.”

Babs is yelling at someone. I'm afraid to listen. “Oh, God, Erg. Is she about to behead somebody?” The worst part of it is that I really ought to do something even though there's nothing I can do.

“Nope! Not that! It's auto-da-fé time here at the Babs-and-Grill. Toasty!”

“Erg? Want to use real words?” Though maybe I did understand her, just too well for comfort.

“Today her medium is fire, Vassa. This is one of those spicy-hot executions!”

I stare at Erg in utter disbelief; even for her this seems like some pretty phenomenal callousness. “And you're
joking
about that?”

“Why, it's not like she's burning
dolls,
Vassa! I don't see the need to observe a lot of prissy emotional niceties.”

“Oh? Just people?” There are moments when I could hate myself for being so attached to Erg; sometimes our connection feels almost like a string of darkness winding through us both.

“Not even people! Jeez. Chill already. You know what you should do? Sneak really carefully and look for yourself.” For a long moment I stay curled there, staring at Erg and listening to Babs's voice sawing intricate filigrees of abuse. She's saying
lazy, worthless
; she's saying
I asked you to do one thing, just one
.

Very cautiously I sit up and tug on my army jacket, pulling the sleeve wide for Erg, who scrambles in. Then I turn the doorknob so slowly that I nearly forget I'm moving at all. The door tips ajar, enough for me to skim through the gap. Luckily there's the bulky cooler right there. I press myself behind it and lean out until I can catch a glimpse of the counter.

Babs is sitting on it with her legs folded; I wouldn't have thought she had that kind of flexibility. She's turned partway toward the windows so that I'm looking at the side of her crinkled face. The hands are perched up on the register, obviously watching her. I'd like to think they're the ones who are about to get executed but I know that's too good to be true.

Babs arches one spindly arm high into the air. A ten-dollar bill dangles between her fingers, squirming like it's trying to get away. She regards it with a look of righteous disappointment. “You, too? You failed me, too? And I thought you showed leadership potential. A likely candidate for advancement. Drive her to despair, I asked; scatter to the winds, I clearly instructed. A small enough task, I'd have thought, but it was evidently too big for you. Well, now that you've proved your
worth
…”

Her other arm lifts up and I hear the click of a lighter. A single flame appears, muddy ocher against the rough daylight. It's only now that I notice there's already a small heap of ash by Babs's leg. The bill starts torquing desperately but it can't escape, and the flame is sailing closer, the movement so light and graceful that it looks disembodied. Up on the register the hands hobble and draw themselves into fists, then flash their fingers wide, trying to get Babs's attention. She ignores them, tenderly brushing the lighter across the bill's coiled belly. A little fringe of fire bristles up along one papery edge.

If the hands could scream, they would. I can feel it from here; they've gone tense with a frantic energy.

Then one of them leaps, high and wild, and tackles Babs's bony claw in midair, knocking the burning currency from her grasp. Babs lets out an unearthly shriek and smacks at it, but the hand has already landed on the counter with a splat and it's rolling itself back and forth on top of its little monetary friend to stifle the flames. Vile as those things are, I've got to give it credit: it's a brave thing to do, what with Babs lowering and glowering and coils of smoke stretching like black rubber up to the ceiling. There's no telling what she might decide to set fire to next.

“Justice!” Babs yowls. “Who are you to confound justice, Dexter? I decide what's proper and what's immoral here, and I determine suitable penalties! You might think of how that will apply to
you
.”

The hand on the counter frisks and cringes apologetically, but it's still imposing itself between Babs and the flame-crisped bill. It bends in half and makes urgent scribbling motions with its forefinger on the counter, then stretches again. I know what it wants even if Babs doesn't, and my heart goes cold.

It's the one with the bite mark on its thumb. It knows about Erg. It probably knows that she stopped the money from getting away. And it can't speak, but for all I know it's perfectly capable of expressing itself through writing. If Babs gives it a pen, that is.