Moscow but Dreaming

Claudia grabbed the small body, disconcertingly cold and slippery, and hugged it tight to her chest. The kikimora shrieked and flailed with the strength surprising in someone so small. She almost kicked free, but Anton grabbed her reed-thin shoulders and pinned them to the floor. Her legs kicked up, blurring with speed, and she screamed and screamed, like a wounded animal. Claudia’s hands shook as she took the scissors to the creature’s wispy hair, and with two swift strokes exposed a cross-shaped patch of her white skull.

The girl went quiet and limp, her eyes rolling back in her head. For one dreary moment, Claudia feared that they killed her, and she shook the girl—so tiny, she couldn’t be more than three years old—until her eyes swiveled back and met Claudia’s. “Ba-ba,” the girl said.

“Where did you find her?” said the social worker, looking up with tired eyes from his paper-littered desk.

“She was hiding in our cellar,” Anton answered. “We found her yesterday.”

“We’ll check her against all missing persons reports,” the social worker said. “Thanks for bringing her in.”

The little girl, sensing that something was amiss, grabbed onto Claudia’s hand, looking at her with pleading dark eyes. She had quite a bit of a lazy eye, but Claudia did not care. To her, the little changeling was the most precious thing, no matter how lopsided or cross-eyed.

Claudia squeezed the girl’s hand. “What if no one claims her?” she said. “What will happen to her?”

“Foster care,” said the social worker. “What, you’re interested?”

“Yes,” Claudia said, avoiding looking at Anton. “Please keep us posted—I don’t want someone else taking her in.”

“Okay,” he said, and gave the little kikimora a thorough looking over. “Don’t worry, I’m sure the competition won’t be stiff.”

As they left the social services building, Claudia listened absently to the girl’s crying inside.

“Well?” Anton said. “What’s that foster nonsense?”

“She’s ours,” Claudia whispered fiercely. “She chose us, and we are not turning her away.”

“But—”

She spun around, cutting him off. “Anton, I never asked you for anything. I put up with a lot of shit. But you can’t deny me this.” She stared at Anton, silently challenging him. The cars passed by in the broad streets without sidewalks, and above them the cloudless May sky bloomed azure. The birds twittered in a few perfunctory maples lining the parking lot.

“I guess she did come to us,” Anton said, and patted his pockets for the car keys. “Maybe it is a sign.”

Satisfied, Claudia nodded and walked to the car. At home, she resumed her busy routine, but never strayed away from the phone for more than a few minutes at a time.

Despite her irrational fears, there were no living relatives uncovered, and no desperate couples rushed to adopt the girl. She had scoliosis, and her eyes were badly crossed. She did not speak, but seemed relieved to be brought back to the home where she first became human, comforted by familiar sounds of the chickens clucking in the back yard, and smells of the first preserves of the season.

Anton never took more than a perfunctory interest in the child, but Claudia did not mind. Tina, as she named the girl, seemed content to follow Claudia around the house and the backyard, and watched her every movement with quiet intensity. For a few weeks Claudia felt happy—as happy as she was when she and Anton first moved into the house, full of hope. And just as then, the happiness soon gave way to discontent.

She could’ve coped with an ill child—she could’ve spent nights sitting up soothing fevers, administering injections, giving sponge baths. But she did not know what to do when Tina went rigid and screamed and screamed without any visible provocation, without an end, growing hoarse but still screaming and moaning, the back of her throat shredded with exertion. She couldn’t cope when the girl banged her head against the table, the pulsing blue vein in her forehead vehemently searching for the sharp edge, when the girl clawed her own face, gouging deep parallel ravines into her translucent skin.

“What will we do?” Claudia asked Anton, as Tina napped in her lap, temporarily consoled, curled up like a shrimp.

“I don’t know,” Anton said. He had good grace not to add, You wanted this. “Maybe she needs to see a doctor.”

Claudia’s fingers ran through the girl’s hair absently. “Maybe.”

Tina did not like the idea of leaving the house—she kicked when they loaded her into the car and strapped her down in a plastic safety seat. She bit Anton’s arm as he buckled the seatbelt over her. Two crescent wounds swelled with blood. He frowned and got into the driver’s seat.

Claudia looked out of the window at the fluffy clouds littering the sky and kept quiet. She did not want to admit that Anton was right, and stubbornly hoped that things would work out. They just had to.

They had to wait in the reception area, and Claudia blushed and lowered her head under the disapproving eyes of the receptionist and a few parents. Tina twisted and hissed, slid off her chair as if she had no bones, and tried to bang her head on the coffee table, littered with colorful fans of magazines.

“Shh,” Claudia whispered, and held Tina’s head. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

Anton stared at the wall opposite him, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He wanted nothing to do with either of them, and didn’t even try to hide it.

When they were finally called in, Claudia had to resist an urge to jerk Tina by her arm, just drag her along like a floppy doll. Instead, she carried her. The girl tried to slide through her arms like soap.

The doctor, a nice young woman just a little older than Claudia, listened to her sympathetically, every now and again giving Tina a penetrating look. Tina still hissed, but remained still in the cocoon formed by Claudia’s arms and lap, squirming only occasionally.

The doctor told them that Tina had an autism spectrum disorder—they were not sure exactly which one. “But they are pretty similar,” the doctor said.

Anton spoke for the first time since they got there. “Can you fix it?”

“Unfortunately, no,” the young doctor said. “There are therapies that can help her adjust. We can teach her to relate to other people.”

“But she’s not going to get better,” Anton said, standing up. He turned to Claudia. “Let’s go.”

The doctor gave him a card. “This is our behavioral therapy center,” she said. “You may want to check it out.”

As they were leaving, the doctor caught Claudia’s sleeve. “She’s in your foster care, correct?”

Claudia nodded. “What does it have to do with anything?”

“There are institutions for autistic children,” the doctor said. “The state will take care of it if you need it.”

“Thanks,” Anton said, and left.

“The book said she would become human.” Anton paced across the kitchen floor, and when he turned his shoes squeaked on the polished tiles.

“She did,” Claudia said, in a whisper, afraid to wake up Tina, who napped on the floor by the kitchen table. “It’s not her fault that she’s ill.” She sat down next to the child, running her fingers through the wisps of her light hair, all signs of the cross shorn into it obliterated by the new willful growth. It’s my fault, Claudia thought. I wanted to make her human, and I broke her.

Tina shifted in her sleep, and uttered a wordless whimper. “Don’t worry,” Claudia said to her, even though the girl could neither hear nor understand her. “We’re not giving you away. You’re ours now.”

Anton sat on the floor next to them, watching Tina as if she were an exotic animal, impossible to comprehend. Claudia supposed she was, just like everyone else. She was grateful that her husband put in an effort, at least. Most didn’t bother at all.

“Her hair is growing back,” Claudia said. “Do you think it’ll make a difference?”

Anton shrugged and yawned. “Let’s go to bed.”

She tucked the blanket around Tina and followed him to the bedroom. Both of them lay sleepless, listening to the small tired noises houses make at night. They heard Tina waking up and whimpering, then her shuffling footsteps across the kitchen floor, the clicking of the screen door latch.

The screen door banged in the wind. Anton shifted but didn’t get up. Claudia balled the sheet in her fist as she heard the angry clucking of chickens and a small, halting voice. “One, two, three,” Tina counted and laughed. “One, two, three.” Then the clicking of the bobbins started, portending a disaster.

YOU DREAM

This is a recurring dream, the kind that lingers, and lately it has become more frequent. And it takes a while to realize that you are not, in fact, standing in front of the brick apartment building, its doorway cavernous and warm, your hands in your pockets, cigarette smoke leaking slowly between your lips and into the frozen air. It takes you a while to even remember that you’ve quit smoking years ago. And yet, here it is, clinging to the collar of your winter coat in a persistent, suffocating cloud, and you can taste it still.