on the door only to have a carton of F’eggs fall on her head, or when they went up the front path and all the sprinklers came on, spewing them with that water-substitute. Each time he denies doing anything deliberately.
Why can’t he admit he’s no longer up to functioning on his own? He is so antiquated he insists on using a rotary phone. The last person on the planet who really can say he has “dialed” a number. He won’t have an answering machine – let alone voice mail, or a mobile unit to take with him, so she can’t even leave a message.
No wonder she is such a freak. Her upbringing had been like someone from a hundred and fifty years ago! Her father with his obsessive collecting of paper goods and his letter writing – letter writing when there wasn’t even a postal system any more, it all had to go Docu-Express or something!
She dials again. Where could he have gone? Maybe just out for a walk around the block, she’ll try back later.
Her father never liked Slawa; Dad griped all the time how Slawa was a foreigner, and kept muttering Slawa was an old man, older than himself. At the time she just thought he was crazy, Slawa was older than Terry, and he was foreign, but he was so different from that cocky braggart, her first husband; he was so good with Tahnee, he never treated her differently after his own, Julie, was born. She thought her father was angry, perhaps, that Slawa had a nice house for them to live in, she wasn’t dependent on Dad any more.
Now she is beginning to wonder if her father hadn’t been right. Just how old is Slawa, actually? And how could she have ever found him attractive? True he wasn’t handsome the way Terry was; Terry was gorgeous, blond, a tight firm bottom and sassy grin. But Slawa had seemed appealing in a comforting kind of way, solid. Authentic. Now Slawa smells, she guesses because he drinks. Or maybe it is just some strange biochemistry. How stupid could he have been putting all his money into buying that shoe repair business – which is a major failure.
And his stories change all the time, she has long since given up believing anything he said. Slawa claimed to have a degree in science, a Ph.D. from Russia. But he couldn’t get a science job; no one around would hire him, he said, doing the kind of work that he did, which was something – very limited, an obscure area – only in practice over there. Did that make any sense?
He couldn’t even tell the truth about his age! Sometimes he had a memory of things that had taken place when he was a kid, things that she later realized, when she checked out the details, would have had to occur a hundred and twenty years ago. Stuff that had happened in Soviet, Communist times; if she pressed him, he would say something had happened and he was sent to some kind of Moscow long-term-care facility.
And when he was finally allowed to leave, all the old people had disappeared. He came home, his grandmother was gone… Nobody noticed, nobody cared, they said, yes, the old people were taken on a vacation, they all went quite happily… No more babushkas! There were shops and restaurants and bars, which hadn’t been there before.
Why has it taken her so long to wonder if he really has a graduate degree? Now she is realizing, maybe nothing at all is the truth.
In the background the endless blare, no way to turn it off without shutting down the whole Homeland Home System, “It’s Maya turn – for fun!” and then Mady Hus In Autoset Meier is on the program; they have had the number one hit in the country for more than six months now, after which the President’s and First Man’s Wedding Registry and Wish List items are going to be shown.
Then Mady Hus In Autoset Meier come back for an encore and are joined by none other than the Fairy Princess, it is really the Fairy Princess herself and nobody can believe it! She has to be pushing sixty, but she still has the touch, not much in the way of singing ability, not much in the way of looks, but still, fantastic! And anybody watching has the chance to Win a Backstage Pass simply by dialing the magic number on the remote! The studio audience – or maybe it’s just a soundtrack – goes wild and even the President grabs his guitar to play along, “Got Dree? Take Harmony. Dree: it’s twice as good with Harmony.” And then Scott, the President’s fiancé, says, “President Wesley, I have to add something at this point if you don’t mind. For all you sufferers out there – and I am one of them – when your Drena won’t quit, take Dora. It comes with its own inserter!”
“That’s right, Scott,” says the President, “You know, we’ve been together a long time and I had no idea what it meant to be a Drena sufferer. Since you’ve been on Dora, tension in our relationship has been greatly eased. And I must say, I’ve enjoyed helping you by using the inserter!”
“Oh, I know, Mister President,” Scott says coyly. “But I should add, do not take Dora if you have or ever plan to have children. Be prepared to perform an emergency tracheotomy. If you are unable to keep both feet in a bowl of ice water for an hour or stand on one leg, Dora may not be right for you. Side effects may include enlarged heart, liver failure, constipation, dandruff, ortlan and pillbox. For those of you with remaining eyelashes or a significant other, Dora may not be recommended. See your doctor if…”
Could she stand on one leg, Murielle wonders, for one hour? No, definitely not. She would have to go to the bathroom, or the dog would want to go out. She’s about to make a cup of coffee when she sees she has already done so. It’s evening, how can that be? The days roil out from under her, a nest of snakes gliding quickly from beneath a rock and disappearing into… where? If only it were possible to put her foot down fast, trap one underfoot, she might be able to remember Real Time.
Lifting the mug with the tepid coffee to her lips she is startled, momentarily, to find, there on the bottom, a large eye, unblinking. Then realizing it is her own, pale green, the color of an unripe olive, staring back at her reflected off the ceramic. She dials her father again. Still no answer. “Slawa!” she shouts, hearing him get out of the shower. “I am not kidding! I want you out tonight!”
“I am a little bit tired of being constantly picked on!” says Slawa. “All the time I am working and you sit there watching that stupid President, my God how can you stand it, the man is lousy idiot!”
Murielle goes past him and slams the bedroom door. Three days, four, who knows how long she will be in there sulking, it is impossible to say; brief forays to use the toilet or take some crust of food back to their room, attracting even more bugs and the bed always with crumbs.
In the meantime he is supposed to sleep on the sofa, baffled, bewildered and then, slowly, irritated, at having to beg her forgiveness for… for what? Even she would not be able to remember. This time, Slawa thinks, it is going to be different. He actually will leave, he can live in the shoe repair shop. The only person left who is important to him here is Julie, and he can arrange to visit her. His cats are scattered all over the house and even though they are responsive, they can do tricks, he works with them daily, it still takes an age to round them up and coax them into their cages. Breakfast, the dog, stands watching by the door. “You go?” he says in a plaintive voice. Slawa nods. “When back?”
Breakfast
“I don’t know,” Slawa says. He is full of sorrow. “You want to come with me?”
The dog shakes his head. “No,” he says. Slawa knows the dog is scared of anything new. Breakfast likes his routine. “When you come back, Poppy?”
“I don’t know.” There are
