Bottled Goods Page 8

  “Comrade, has your brother-in-law, the traitor of kin and country, Mihai Mungiu, ever contacted you?”

  Alina tries to steady her breath. “No. No. Never.”

  I was trying to write a novel. The ending where the Agents of the Revered Motherland catch the wrongdoers, punish them. Informative for the children. Curse my mother.

  The Secret Service man scribbles in his notebook. “Comrade, have you noticed any suspicious activity taking place in your school? Abnormal behavior in your pupils?”

  “No, never.” He’s trying to lull her into a fake feeling of security. She must remain alert. “I would have reported it immediately to you, or to our headmistress. It’s my duty as a citizen, as a teacher.”

  Trying to write a novel. The ending: Agents of the Revered Motherland catch the wrongdoers. Punish them. Informative for the children. Curse my mother.

  “Comrade Mungiu.” The Secret Service agent folds his notebook shut, looks into her eyes. The scar above his eye is purplish-red. “Have you noticed any suspicious activity in your husband? Signs that he might be attempting to leave our Motherland?”

  Around them, the screams rise again, a dissonant symphony of suffering. It would be easy to turn her husband in. To say that he’s the one trying to defect. She’d never have problems with the Secret Services again. Alina breathes in sharply. This, or being raped and beaten to death. And only God knows what in between.

  “Comrade Mungiu?”

  Alina places her hands on the table, her palms upward. They are trembling. “No. Never. If I had, I would have reported it to you. It’s my duty as a citizen. For the Motherland.”

  The Secret Service agent nods. “Even your husband?”

  Novel. Ending. Agents of the Revered Motherland. Punish. Punish. Curse.

  “Even my husband.”

  He jumps up. His chair screeches on the concrete. He steps toward her, the handcuffs in his hands. “We’re done here.”

  “Where are we going?” she whimpers.

  “You’ll see.”

  He blindfolds her again.

  “Where are you taking me? Why? We haven’t done anything. Please—”

  “Shut up. And move.”

  They pass by the torture chambers: Alina can tell by the screaming. She moves quickly, quicker than him. Please don’t stop. Not here.

  Alina is relieved when they begin climbing stairs. She rushes, misses a rung. She tumbles down, the sharp edges of the steps like so many knives in her ribs. He catches her hand, pulls her up.

  “Why the hurry?” His tone is gleeful.

  Alina wants to claw his eyes out, give him a reason never to smile again.

  Soon, they’re outside. The air grows lighter, warmer. She hears a car door opening, and he shoves her into the van.

  The tin has become hot in the sunlight, and Alina feels like she’s in an oven. She thinks of the iron bull; the gruesomest torture instrument she knows. A fire lit below the bull’s belly, where an unfortunate soul roasted: a slow, slow, slow, unimaginably painful death.

  Alina is wondering what they will do to her, when the van jolts to a halt. She can hear her own teeth clattering in her mouth, as someone fumbles with the door.

  “Easy, there’s a step,” says the Secret Service agent.

  He uncuffs her, undoes her blindfold, then steps back behind the steering wheel, without a word. Alina wants to call him. Where is he leaving her? She crumples on the sidewalk. She needs minutes to realize she’s in front of her apartment building, and that she peed herself.

  * * *

  When Liviu arrives, and crawls into their bed, Alina has long cried herself to sleep. She stirs. His smell of cheap tobacco and stale alcohol make her open her eyes. They’re sore and swollen.

  “What’s the matter?” says Liviu, seeking her mouth.

  She pushes him aside, turns her back toward him, facing the wall. She tells him about her day.

  When she’s done, Liviu’s speech is no longer slurred. “Alina, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” Liviu sits up. “There’s nothing I can say. Nothing I can do.” He punches the wall behind him. “Nothing.” He caresses her back, and this time, Alina doesn’t pull away. “Only magic, only a wonder could save us.”

  What Even Aunt Theresa Fears

  Aunt Theresa is the most fearless creature Alina has ever known. She asks Alina, Who did you vote for? on Election Day, even though there is a single option on the ballot. She asks in a loud voice, while the windows are wide open. But Alina would be fearless, too, if she had a son in the Secret Services and another one working for Border Security, like her aunt.

  Aunt Theresa gives Alina foreign currency she makes her sons buy through less-than-official channels. She also asks, How are your preparations going? When will you be leaving? Usually, Alina says, Good. We are making lists of what we need. Soon. But not today.

  Today Alina says, We are not leaving. We will stay. Her voice has the cadence of a marching legion. I’ll watch them tear my husband apart, one small piece after the other, until there are only shadows.

  Aunt Theresa says, Why? Why?

  My mother has something, Alina says. I don’t know what it is. I caught her going through my things last week, when I came home from work. Alina is trembling. Today, I made her return my spare key. She said she knows what I want to do. She said that I shouldn’t even try to reach the border, that she’ll make sure that I’d come back in handcuffs. I don’t know what she has. I don’t know what she’ll do. She hates Liviu. She hates him. And the Secret Service agent—

  Alina’s voice breaks off. She can’t even speak about the horrors she saw. She can’t even think that, one of these days, she might be one of those prisoners. She or Liviu.

  Aunt Theresa says nothing. She closes the windows and turns on the water in the kitchen. The stream makes Alina think of all the tears she is bound to cry. But Aunt Theresa kneels in front of her, pulls her ear toward her lips.

  There is something we can do, she says.

  Alina’s fingers claw around her own skirt, squeezing. Implausible, but there is something that even Aunt Theresa fears and makes her speak in subdued tones.

  You need to find Saint Friday. There is no other way. You must go into the woods on the shortest night of the year—

  Long Forgotten

  There are a dozen of them in the clearing, ghostly silhouettes in their white skirts and shirts, with their embroidered vests and necklaces made of golden coins, or at least so it seems from the bush where Alina is hiding. They could be peasant girls, for all she knows, though their chant is in a language Alina has never heard before, many z’s and j’s and dz’s filling the air like a swarm of angry bees. This is a language long forgotten. Forgotten are their dances, the hops, the swings in their hips, the circles they draw with their toes, their twirls and whirls. They gather in a circle and begin spinning, faster, faster, faster, until their very contours fade and the clearing seems an impressionistic picture of itself with the ghostly essence of the Sânziene* slipping from them and imbibing the woods, the grass, the creek. In the shortest night of the year, the fairies walk, or rather, dance the Earth. Alina must wait for her chance, and her odds are good. Her heart is thumping at her ribs, attempting to break them. She jolts, rustling the leaves with every crack she hears. She hopes her moment will come soon.

  They do not tire of spinning, or so it seems, while Alina’s eyes feel increasingly swollen and every whisper of the wind makes her want to run home. But now it’s too late, because it’s happening. No men have come, so they must scour the woods for them. The first one who broke loose from the dancing mass went in the opposite direction, but the second is coming toward her. Alina’s hands clutch the cable wire, slippery with her sweat. One step at a time, barely touching the rug of decomposing leaves, the Sânziana comes singing toward her. Alina first catches her scent, of flowers, hay, and overripe fruit. The heat of the fairy’s body makes her feel faint, but she grinds her teeth, and when a ski
nny shin is in sight, she tackles the Sânziana to the ground, stuffing a folded handkerchief in her mouth. She turns the gagging fairy on her belly and holds her down, while tying her hands with the cable cord. It’s not very hard, because the fairy is slim and her bones are brittle like a pigeon’s. When Alina is done, she pulls the Sânziana to her feet and drags her by the cord toward the barren hill. The fairy fights and bends and shakes in seizures, howling through the handkerchief. Alina grabs her by the hair and tugs harder until she feels it ripping in her hands. The fairy follows, and where tears fall from her eyes the grass becomes yellow and parched.

  When they arrive at the top of the hill, they are both out of breath. The Sânziana yanks herself upward and tries to run, but Alina pulls her back. The cord cuts through the flesh in her palm, and it burns deeper and deeper as the fairy twitches and jerks. She suddenly turns and rams her like a bull, knocking Alina off her feet. They both fall to the ground, and the fairy bangs her head against Alina’s teeth. Alina slaps her, rolls on top of her, and begins hitting the Sânziana with her fists. Her screams are muffled by the handkerchief in her mouth, and as she gulps for air, she gags. She brings her tiny hands to her swelling face, but they cannot protect her, and Alina is coming in swinging, right, and left, and right, and after each blow she hears bones grinding and she doesn’t know if they’re hers or the fairy’s, when something blunt kicks her in the shoulder, throwing her off balance and onto her back.

  Her mouth is full of salty blood, and there is a dull ache in her front teeth and in her knuckles and a not-so-dull-pain in her shoulder. She looks up and she sees an old lady with wrinkles as deep as cuts, smiling at her, revealing a lone front tooth. A few white, wispy hairs are falling to her shoulders. She scrambles into a sitting position. The old lady is wearing a thick, worn wool coat in the middle of the summer, and her back is bent at almost ninety degrees. She supports herself on a gnarled cane, which Alina identifies as the object that knocked her off balance. Tears begin to flow from Alina’s eyes, slim riverbeds on her face covered in yellow, powdery dust.

  “Saint Friday . . . Please . . . Help me!”

  The Potion

  Saint Friday said, Take this. Put a few drops of the potion into her tea.

  I said, She doesn’t drink tea. Does coffee work?

  Saint Friday said, Yes, it does. Seven drops for a cup.

  How was I ever to make my mother coffee if we haven’t spoken for months? I wondered for a long time. I knew all the right answers, but I blindfolded myself and went through my days stumbling with every step. Stumbling until my soul ached with the bruises. But when Liviu fell asleep on the living room floor, drunk and crying, on a Wednesday evening, I knew that it was time. On the Monday that followed it, I stayed in bed and called in sick at school. Then the waiting began. I suspected my mother had a copy of the spare key she’d given me back—and I hoped to be wrong.

  I said, What does it do?

  Saint Friday said, Do you know “The Story of the Pig”?

  “The Story of the Pig” is one of my favorite stories. A prince is turned into a pig by an evil witch, but his princess wife saves him by retrieving three magical objects. I always wanted to be that princess. Save someone. But I can’t even save myself. I have no saving to spare for anyone else.

  I said, I hope I’m not turning my mother into a pig.

  She said, No, but it’s the same principle. Even better. After she drinks it, you’ll be able to immerse her into water or other liquids for an uncertain amount of time.

  I said, How long is that? And why would I want to do that?

  She said, Hours at least, maybe days. Nobody knows precisely. And you’ll want to remember this.

  I waited. I passed my time on the couch, a book in my hands, pretending to read while my thoughts revolved around their own axis like a drunken, hurried planet. On Thursday, I shuddered when I heard the key turn in the lock. The front door opened, and there she stood, with her formidable mink coat and rabbit-fur hat.

  I told my mother, Hello. Would you like a cup of coffee? and hurried to the kitchen even before she had taken her gloves off. My heart was beating like a rabbit chased by a legion of greyhounds. When the water began boiling in the kettle, so did my blood. I’d been right. She’d made a copy of her spare key, the one I’d asked her to return to me. I counted to steady my hands: two spoonfuls of coffee for each cup. Boil the mixture three times. Three minutes for the coffee dust to settle. After pouring, seven drops of potion for a cup.

  * * *

  I said, You’re a saint. How come you’re allowed to do this?

  Saint Friday said, I’m not allowed to give you something that would kill her. I would then be breaking the sixth commandment.

  I said, But I’m breaking the fifth.

  She said, Not quite. I am assuming that you’re doing this in your mother’s best interest.

  I said, I am.

  Saint Friday said, There you go.

  * * *

  My mother asked me, What are you doing at home? Shouldn’t you be in school? Did you put sugar in my coffee?

  I asked her, What are you doing in my house when I should be in school? How did you open my door?

  She said, You know I like my coffee black.

  I said, Don’t drink it, then, almost hoping that she wouldn’t.

  She drank it like a glass of vodka, bottoms up, contorting her face after she was done.

  She said, I take whatever crumbs my daughter throws me. Now, could I please have a coffee? Black?

  In the kitchen, I sank into a chair and waited, trembling.

  She screamed, Alina! Alina!

  When I returned to the living room, she was shrinking by the moment. Before I reached the armchair where she was sitting, she was the size of a baby. I frantically peeled the clothes off her, for fear that they might suffocate her. When I was done, she was two middle fingers tall. Perhaps a bit plumper. Naked, cold, scared, wrinkled, and small.

  I cut a patch from her skirt, to wrap her up in something until I stripped a doll for some clothing. She kept striking me with her little fists, asking, Why have you done this to me? Why, Alina, why? I tried to carry her with me around the house, as I paced, thinking, crying, mumbling, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. When she bit me, I put her in the empty fishbowl for her own safety. But she stripped herself and began pounding her fists against the glass, screaming, Have you done this because I won the lottery? I said, Please, Mom, you won the equivalent of two years of your pension, and I poured warm water on top of her, filling half of the bowl, drowning all of her sounds, and then I put it on top of a radiator, so that she wouldn’t get cold.

  * * *

  I said, I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.

  Saint Friday said, I also think you shouldn’t.

  I said, But I need to escape.

  Saint Friday said, You’re running in the wrong direction.

  I said, How do I know which the right direction is?

  Saint Friday said, First, you stop.

  Now, Everything Has Changed

  6:17 a.m.

  Alina wakes up to an empty bed, even before her alarm clock rings. Liviu must have left an hour ago—or else he wouldn’t have caught the train that takes him to school on time. Before she goes to the bathroom to wash her face, she checks on her mother. She’s still resting in her transparent bowl, wrapped in a piece of soft fabric cut from a fluffy yellow duvet.

  There’s cold coffee on the kitchen table, made by Liviu earlier. Alina pours herself a cup, and a few drops in a thimble for her mother. She also brings her apricot pie crumbs. Her mother is awake, and watches her through narrowed eye slits. It’s been more than two weeks since the shrinking, two in which Alina has done little else but cry. Her mother threatened, cursed, and swore. All in a shrill, thin voice. But as anything else in life, even guilt eventually wears off. Now her mother refuses to speak.

  7:25 a.m.

  Alina drinks another cup of coffee in the teachers’
break room. She’s clutching the purse in her lap. Her mother, in a pink perfume bottle, has begun with the rocking and the banging for the day. Alina shakes her knees to hide the movements in her purse. Everyone stares at her, in silence. Even Miss Puiu forgets what she was saying about her seven siblings and her mother’s polenta.

  Before class, her pupils sing “The Tricolor Flag.” Alina moves her lips, but she refuses to sing along. She has no love for her country, for the government, for the Beloved Leader. She can’t believe in a regime that encourages brother turning on brother, mothers on their children. A regime that punishes innocent people.

  8:26 a.m.

  Romanian Literature class. Today’s story is about the voievod Ștefan the Great and his mother. Most of Alina’s pupils stare at their textbooks. A few of them glare at her lecturing desk. The rocking in her purse makes the soft brown leather wobble. Alina smiles and hides it under her chair, which rests on a wooden dais. The pedestal she sits on makes her feel uncomfortable today.

  9:10 a.m.

  Mathematics. Her mother taps through her leather wrapping on the wooden dais. Alina wants to dig her heel into the purse and crush, crush, crush until she hears the crunch of glass and tiny bones and blood. She’d throw her purse in the first garbage bin, without even looking inside.

  But she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles and assures the children that the noise is caused by wood-boring beetles.

  During the ten-minute break between classes, she locks herself in a toilet and promises her mother that this is the last time she’s taking her to school. Her mother pouts and crosses her arms. Alina hisses, “No food for you today, missy!”

  1:40 p.m.

  Alina prepares fried chicken thighs with mashed potatoes. She places her mother’s bottle on the table, so she can watch her eat. Her mother says, “I hope a bone catches in your throat.”