Bottled Goods Read online

  Alina cackles.

  3:45 p.m.

  It’s Tuesday, and the Secret Service agent is due to arrive soon. Alina checks the bedroom, to make sure no corner of the suitcases peek from under the bed. She places her mother between the sweaters she’s packed for their escape. She arranges a plate of the apricot cakes on the living room table, makes fresh coffee.

  4:20 p.m.

  The Secret Service agent hasn’t arrived yet. Alina runs from window to window, listens to the sounds on the staircase. Nothing. She pulls from the drawer of her cupboard an unsigned postcard she’d received the day before. “THINKING OF YOU,” it says on the back, in capital letters. On the front, there’s a picture of the sea promenade at Constanţa, the one Alina has known since she was a student and played tour guide for German tourists. Liviu declared his love on that promenade.

  5:10 p.m.

  Alina concludes that the Secret Service man must be on vacation, and that the postcard was from him. She begins preparing dinner. Today, she makes potato stew with smoked ham.

  8:23 p.m.

  After Alina and Liviu have eaten, they step into the living room. Alina turns the TV and the radio up loud and whispers in Liviu’s ear. “How much longer? Are you sure we should wait for the Italian visa? Wouldn’t it be safer to leave now?”

  As she tells him about her day, and how unmanageable her mother has become, Alina remembers with a shudder that she left her parent in the suitcase. She darts toward the bedroom and tosses the suitcase open. She can’t find the bottle; she can’t find it. She ejects all her clothes on the floor, while crying and screaming, “It’s gone, it’s gone!”

  Alina is sorry, she’s so sorry for what she’s done, and for what she’s doing to her mother, who never deserved this, not even for all the harm she’s done to her.

  Liviu steps into the room. “What’s gone?”

  “My mother!”

  Liviu bends, fumbling with the sweaters. Alina searches the hidden pockets inside the suitcase. She hears the sound of a glass rolling on the floor. Alina turns so sharply that pain pierces her neck muscles like an arrow. Liviu holds the pink metal bottle with the tips of his fingers. He can’t even look at her.

  “She’s here, she’s here.”

  Guilt tugs hard at Alina’s frayed edges.

  Ripping

  Aunt Theresa has given us a can of gasoline so we can go for a drive with our new used car.

  The upholstery inside has oil stains and cigarette holes as wide as my pinky. It smells like a woman who has spent her whole afternoon in a bar, chain-smoking and drinking cheap vodka while being felt up by the man beside her, who’s drunker than she is.

  My husband and I are going out for a picnic. My favorite spot is in the woods near the monastery, a place I’ve known since I was a little girl. But we have to leave the tarmac and drive on a path of dry earth for the last section of the road. This rusting heap of metal we call a car squeaks and moans while the dust rises around us like we’re in a sandstorm.

  “Is this normal?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Liviu. “The car’s just fine.”

  “I can’t believe that we paid more for this piece of crap than for a new one.”

  “What were you going to do?”

  Nothing. The average Romanian waits for a new car for up to eight years. But after the defection of my brother-in-law, we have been demoted from the rank of “comrade” to that of “persona non grata.” We would never have stood a chance to get our hands on a new Dacia.

  “I’m sorry you had to sell your stamps,” I say.

  “I’m sorrier for your earrings.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Aunt Theresa will give them back to me. Somehow.”

  No matter how green the foliage is, on the ground of the forest are always dead leaves, a permanent reminder of the autumn. I spread our blanket on top of them, near the dirty creek I fell in at least a dozen times when I was little. My mother always brought a spare set of clothing for me.

  “Shit!”

  “What is it?” Liviu asks.

  “I left my mother at home.”

  Liviu rolls his eyes.

  “Great!”

  “We’re fine. We don’t have to go. I pulled her out of the bowl and placed her in the perfume bottle. I just forgot her on the kitchen counter.”

  “Fabulous. The kitchen counter.”

  “Don’t worry. I put her in the metal container I use every time we take her out. Even if the Secret Services spontaneously decide to search our house, they won’t find her. You can’t see through the bottle; and what would they want with a bottle of perfume?”

  He starts folding the blanket.

  “Alina, really, when will you start behaving like a grown-up? You always manage to pull something like this.”

  “You know what? I never should have told you.”

  I’m schlepping the heavy straw basket from the trunk, hoping that Liviu will change his mind.

  “You honestly think that I wouldn’t notice? And besides, we’re talking about your mother here, Alina, for God’s sake!”

  Yes. My mother. My mother who dug out our dirty little secret by going through my things while I was not at home. My mother who was blackmailing us into staying put and swallowing all the crap the government made us eat. My mother who had it coming.

  So yes, when Liviu invokes God and my mother in the same sentence, I shrug. Liviu drags the picnic basket back into the car.

  “You know, I’d like to do something that doesn’t involve my mother for one time this month,” I say.

  Liviu shakes his head.

  “Did you leave her there on purpose? After what you’ve done to her?”

  On the little mound on the other bank of the creek, three poppies have sprouted from the compost. I’d like to crush their petals between my lips.

  “Do you really think she would have enjoyed the picnic? Should we have set her free so she could scurry off? Only to be eaten tonight by a fox?” I muse.

  “You’re unbelievable. Let’s go.”

  I sit on the bed of leaves. The earth is cool, but my blood is boiling.

  “Alina! Let’s go. The poor woman—”

  “Yes. The poor woman. That’s not what you called her until I took care of the problem. I took care of the problem, because you were busy calling her names. Busy not staining your white hands. Your failed-archaeologist hands.”

  “Alina, this is not the time—”

  Liviu steps into the car and starts the engine. He knows that I won’t let him wait forever. We only have a canister of gasoline, and if we run out of fuel, we have to get home on foot.

  I get up and before I get into the car, I jump over to the other bank and pick a poppy, though I know that it will wilt in the car.

  On our way back home, I insert my finger into one of the cigarette burns on the upholstery and tug lightly, so that my husband won’t hear the fabric ripping.

  What Alina Did Last Tuesday

  It’s Tuesday, and when she comes home from work, Alina runs up the stairs of her apartment building and stumbles into the kitchen. Her mother knocked over her fishbowl yesterday and unhooked the telephone, so Alina and Liviu spent the whole evening scouring the apartment for her, until they looked inside the shoe closet. She was inside a pair of ancient boots Alina uses when they go fishing, and the smell of dirty socks was caught in her hair. Alina had to pour water over her again when she left for work, to prevent her from making too much noise, and placed the bowl in the kitchen sink, where it could not be tilted.

  Alina exhales—her mother is where she left her. She bends, dipping two fingers into the water, when she hears the doorbell.

  She opens the door and there is the Secret Service man, three hours early, looming on the threshold like a bad omen.

  “Comrade Mungiu,” he says, stepping in, without taking off his hat. “Please join me at headquarters.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Alina takes two steps back, swinging the d
oor, but the man catches her wrist.

  “Comrade Mungiu, are you resisting?”

  “No!” she cries.

  The man pulls again. Alina sways by him, pushing the door shut. She stands between him and the exit.

  “Comrade, this is ridiculous!” he says, tightening his grip.

  Alina lowers her hand, relaxing her muscles, then abruptly pushes him aside and makes to run. He catches her skirt from behind, pulling her closer. He throws a hand across her chest, pressing her against him. Alina kicks and screams.

  “Comrade!”

  Alina can feel that he is hard. There is a knot tightening in her throat, but there is only one thing she can do. Her body grows limp, and she leans backward closing her eyes, rubbing her buttocks against his member through the thin skirt.

  “Are you sure that I can’t give you what you need here, in my home?”

  * * *

  Alina steps into the kitchen and throws the plastic tablecloth over the bowl. She fills a pot with water and places it on the stove. Her own guilt for shrinking her mother forgotten, she considers putting the bowl containing her mother on the other stove burner, but she has no time for shenanigans. The man must have his coffee.

  He took his pants off in the living room and leaned against the back of the couch.

  “I like it very much when women kiss me down there,” he said, pointing toward his dangling, swelling penis. It was short and thick, a sausage made by a clumsy housewife.

  A sausage. Alina tried to keep thinking about a sausage, with her eyes shut.

  “You haven’t done this very often, have you?” he finally asked.

  Alina swallowed a tear and tried to smile, but out came a frightened giggle.

  “I’ll tell you what to do, no problem. See, you should grab it like this, rub, and put it in your mouth,” he said.

  In the kitchen, Alina wipes her mouth furiously. She would love to fill it with dish detergent and scour it, but the man might taste it on her.

  “I have some sour-cherry cake from yesterday. Would you like some?” she asks.

  “Yes, thank you,” he says.

  As she opens the cupboard, looking for powdered sugar, Alina sees the vinegar and grabs it. On a whim, she uncovers the bowl and drizzles the vinegar over her mother. Her mother’s eyes grow wide before she closes them tightly and starts rubbing.

  * * *

  The man gone, Alina grabs her mother by the back of her dress. Her mother spits and screams and tries to scratch her. Alina, eyes reddened like a mad dog’s, dips her mother in the water in the toilet bowl.

  “If you make one more move, I’m dropping you and flushing. Do you understand?”

  Her mother thrashes once more. Alina dips her leg into the water. Alina’s mother stops, frozen.

  “Why?” she tweets.

  “You heartless bitch. Do you know what the man from the Secret Services told me, after doing me from behind? Twice? That you contacted them yesterday with some information. Concerning me and Liviu. About a planned escape from the country.”

  Alina drops her mother lower and lower as she speaks. Now her mother chokes on the toilet water, coughing.

  “You bitch. I’ll make sure that you never, ever return to your original size. Do you hear me?”

  Alina’s mother shrieks, gulping for air.

  Alina’s face is as hard as the marble that statues are made of. “You. Fucking. Degenerate. Bitch.”

  The White Line

  There’s a white strip in the middle of the road, and our car is following it into the night. The weak headlights of this squeaky, rusting heap of metal only manage to light a few yards of line in front of us, but I know the road goes beyond that, and it will go on and on and on until it turns into metallic booths at the border, toward noon. It will be the perfect time to cross it—the Border Security agents will be tired, waiting for the shift to change, not so thorough, not so rough. After the booth, there will be another white line, and at its end we will finally meet our new selves. This line is life. My new life.

  Since Tuesday, I’ve been wondering if the harm I’ve done is larger or smaller than the one that’s been done to me. Guilt has been creeping slowly, but firmly. What happened Tuesday is my fault, too. I paid for a wrong I was committing—trying to creep out of this damned country. Evil deeds will always be punished. At least, that’s what my mother told me.

  Tuesday evening, when Liviu came home, he found me tossing heaps of clothes on top of the suitcases, their mouths like those of three hungry crocodiles.

  We have to go, I told him, between sobs. Now. Today. Tomorrow, at the latest.

  He asked what happened and held me tight, but I wrenched myself free and told him nothing. His embrace made me want to scream.

  Later, when he opened the bathroom door, he saw me in the tub, staring at the dish-washing scrubber. I had been wondering for an hour: If I scoured the soiled patches of skin until they turned raw, would the blood wash me clean?

  Bottled Goods

  The light in the Border Security interrogation room has a greenish hue, just like the bile coming up in her mouth. Alina has to swallow it down over and over again, leaving a burning highway in its wake. This always happens when she doesn’t eat in an entire day, but that’s just how long it takes for a team of men to disassemble a Dacia, looking for hidden money or jewelry. Something that could serve them should they, God forbid, attempt to flee to the West. You only forsake your country by going to Heaven, and the communist government doesn’t believe in that, either. The Border Security agents don’t believe that she and Liviu are only going on vacation to Germany. They also don’t know that they won’t find her greatest secret upon her. It lies where secrets belong in all adventure stories—buried in the woods.

  But it has been almost a day since they’ve been held up at the border, and Alina imagines her mother’s tiny fists banging against the glass wall that may prove to be her coffin. She never thought it would be so long before she could make the rescuing call.

  Though it is something she shouldn’t do, Alina buries her face in her palms and begins to pray.

  On the night before they left, she and Liviu drove to their favorite picnic spot in the woods, near the monastery. They dug a hole with two tablespoons and their hands. That was where they lowered the perfume bottle containing her mother, careful not to wake her. She had fallen asleep in the car—Alina could see her through the transparent pinkish glass. Strangely, Alina remembered Snow White’s story, though she knew there would be no prince to give her mother the kiss of life.

  Alina laid her in the ground, not far from where she and Aunt Theresa had buried her grandfather, and made the sign of the cross three times, for good luck.

  As they were driving toward the border, the silence between her and Liviu was thicker than the darkness. Through the window, Alina could only distinguish the shadowy contours of the trees on the side of the road and nothing beyond them.

  “I don’t understand why you couldn’t just leave her with Theresa,” said Liviu in the car, cutting through the silence.

  “I told you. She wouldn’t have taken her. I’ll just call her when we reach Yugoslavia and tell her where to find Mother.”

  “Why when we cross the border? Why not call her when we leave—or when we’re on our way?” asked Liviu, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

  Alina shook her head. “No, no. She’d never touch my mother. She’d rather make us come back.”

  “Your family is strange,” he said. “Why wouldn’t she take her? Not even for your sake?”

  “There is so much bad blood between them,” Alina said. She wondered what would happen to her mother if they had an accident on their way out of the country, if their car were to coil around one of those black silhouettes on the edge of the road. “I’ll tell you about it, I promise,” she continued. “Once we’ve crossed the border.”

  “What makes you think that Theresa will dig her out of the hole, then?” Liviu asked, turning toward her.
His eyes had something fierce and cutting in them, as they reflected the light in the dashboard.

  “Look at the road,” she said. “Aunt Theresa will get her. If my mother dies, it would be on her.”

  “Would it?”

  Alina preferred not to think about it. She had little choice—Border Security would have checked any bottled goods they found in her purse or in the car. It would have been impossible to spirit her mother across the border.

  A plonk on the window interrupts Alina as she recites “Our Father who art in Heaven . . .” for the fifth time. Then comes another one, and another one, and Alina can now distinguish them for what they are. Not plonks, but the splash of raindrops on scratched glass.

  Rain. Rain. Alina sinks from her chair onto her knees and begins sobbing. Tears flow for the first time in the day that they’ve been detained at the border.

  “God, no, please, not rain. Not rain.”

  She brings her moist forehead to the cold, dirty floor, leaving behind crushed hopes, regrets, and other bodily secretions.

  Alina had been against marking the spot where her mother was concealed—she said it would attract unnecessary attention. Therefore, only a small mound of refined earth would show the spot. But not if it rained.

  Rattled

  I recite all the prayers that I can remember, beg the saints and Virgin Mary for mercy. I don’t want my mother to die. I don’t want to be the one who killed her. I make the sign of the cross, fall to my knees, hands clasped. My lips burn with the fervent whispers. Please, God, help us cross the border, please stop the rain, please let me tell Aunt Theresa where she can find my mother, please don’t let her die. Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name—

  The door opens with a violent creak, and a bald man with an oily moustache marches in. He grabs me by the elbow, forces me up on my feet. His fingers are claws in my flesh.

  “What are you doing? Were you praying?”