no earring there, just a faintly flushed hole. How should she answer Aliide’s question? She was stupid, slow to come up with anything, but if she didn’t say something Aliide would think she was hiding something very bad. Could she keep claiming to have worked as a waitress and still be convincing? Aliide was sizing her up and she was starting to get nervous again. There was no way she was going to handle this thing well. Maybe Pasha was right, she needed a good whipping. Maybe he was right when he said she was the kind of person who just didn’t know how to behave unless you took a stick to them. Maybe there really was something wrong with her—an inherent flaw. Maybe she really was good for nothing. And while she was thinking about how unsuccessful she’d been at behaving correctly, words started to fly out of her mouth before she could think clearly about what they meant. OK, she wasn’t a waitress! She pressed against the empty hole in her earlobe, her other hand going up to rub the pit at the base of her collarbone. Her head and mouth and she herself were separate; there was suddenly nothing connecting the three of them. The story just streamed out and she couldn’t order it back in. She told Aliide that they had been on vacation in Canada, at a five-star hotel, driving around all day in a black car. And she had her own fur for every day of the week, and separate evening furs and daytime furs, inside furs and outside furs.
“Oooh! That must have been thrilling.”
Zara wiped the edge of her mouth. She was ashamed, her face was burning. And she did what she always did when she was overcome with shame: She focused her gaze and her thoughts on something else. Aliide, the kitchen, and the pot of pigs’ ears disappeared. She stared at her hands. The froth left on her finger from where she had wiped her mouth looked like snake’s spit on a raspberry leaf. A spit bug. She focused on that, a little animal was always best when you had to move your mind away from your body. A spit bug larva hiding in a ball of spit, and the ball protects it from enemies and from drying out. Where had she heard that? In school? She remembered the soothing rustle of her school book. The smell of paper and glue. She listened to the rustling in her head for a moment, willing her thoughts toward a dry page from her schoolbook, and composed herself, left the spit bug behind and let the Vikerraadio program back into her ears, her mind back into Aliide’s kitchen, with its cracked floor, oilcloth, and aluminum spoons. A jar of vitamin C sitting on a corner of the table, safe Cyrillic letters and words, sugarcoated tablets, vitamin C, the government’s GOST category numbers, the familiar brown glass. She reached toward it and repeated in her mind the calming Russian words on the label, clicked open the lid— a familiar sound. As a child she had often secretly eaten the whole bottle, the tart, bright orange flavor rushing through her mouth, the smell of the pharmacy. They used to get them from the pharmacy. Her pulse was already normal when she turned to Aliide and apologized for getting excited and told her she wanted just to sound normal and ordinary. She didn’t want Aliide to think she was putting on airs.
Aliide laughed.
“The young lady doesn’t want to sound like a thief.”
“Maybe.”
“Or a Mafia man’s wife.”
“Maybe.”
Aliide didn’t say anything more about it or ask why Zara couldn’t go back to Russia or go home.
The clock ticked. The fire hummed in the stove. Zara’s tongue felt stiff. The cracks in the cement floor looked hazy, as if they were moving all the time, ever so slightly.
“So that’s it,” Aliide said finally, getting up from the table and swinging a flyswatter at the lamp, around which several two-winged creatures circled. Then she went to boil some jars in the kettle. “Come and help me. The liquor socks must have helped—you don’t look like you caught a chill, anyway. I’ll
“Oooh! That must have been thrilling.”
Zara wiped the edge of her mouth. She was ashamed, her face was burning. And she did what she always did when she was overcome with shame: She focused her gaze and her thoughts on something else. Aliide, the kitchen, and the pot of pigs’ ears disappeared. She stared at her hands. The froth left on her finger from where she had wiped her mouth looked like snake’s spit on a raspberry leaf. A spit bug. She focused on that, a little animal was always best when you had to move your mind away from your body. A spit bug larva hiding in a ball of spit, and the ball protects it from enemies and from drying out. Where had she heard that? In school? She remembered the soothing rustle of her school book. The smell of paper and glue. She listened to the rustling in her head for a moment, willing her thoughts toward a dry page from her schoolbook, and composed herself, left the spit bug behind and let the Vikerraadio program back into her ears, her mind back into Aliide’s kitchen, with its cracked floor, oilcloth, and aluminum spoons. A jar of vitamin C sitting on a corner of the table, safe Cyrillic letters and words, sugarcoated tablets, vitamin C, the government’s GOST category numbers, the familiar brown glass. She reached toward it and repeated in her mind the calming Russian words on the label, clicked open the lid— a familiar sound. As a child she had often secretly eaten the whole bottle, the tart, bright orange flavor rushing through her mouth, the smell of the pharmacy. They used to get them from the pharmacy. Her pulse was already normal when she turned to Aliide and apologized for getting excited and told her she wanted just to sound normal and ordinary. She didn’t want Aliide to think she was putting on airs.
Aliide laughed.
“The young lady doesn’t want to sound like a thief.”
“Maybe.”
“Or a Mafia man’s wife.”
“Maybe.”
Aliide didn’t say anything more about it or ask why Zara couldn’t go back to Russia or go home.
The clock ticked. The fire hummed in the stove. Zara’s tongue felt stiff. The cracks in the cement floor looked hazy, as if they were moving all the time, ever so slightly.
“So that’s it,” Aliide said finally, getting up from the table and swinging a flyswatter at the lamp, around which several two-winged creatures circled. Then she went to boil some jars in the kettle. “Come and help me. The liquor socks must have helped—you don’t look like you caught a chill, anyway. I’ll
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