“When we cry o’er sweet love,” the other woman continued, “we pay all those postmen who don’t bring us bad news with our sincerest appreciation. You have to pay for everything—every evening and every night—and our tears are just the blue hue of the air, blue ripples in the water, the gold of our joy, and the silver of our silence.”
All at once, the song cut out, the fridge stirred and then froze. The stranger turned sharply and looked him straight in the eye.
First a wave of heat overcame him, then ice crippled him, and then he realized that his whole body had gone numb. The stranger was already smiling at him like an old friend. She found a warm, white towel, wrapped herself up in it carelessly, hiding almost nothing, stepped onto the soggy, squeaky hardwood floor, walked over to Mark, and extended her hand casually.
“Hi,” she said, flipping her hair back. “Are you Mark?”
“Yeah, I’m Mark,” he said, startled to remember his own name.
“I’m Nastia, Aunt Zina’s daughter,” she said.
Back at the hospital, Mark had to wait in the hallway—the doctor was trying to explain to a surly and uncooperative Kolia that he had to take his medicine. He offered the doctor a bribe to let him go, and she took offense and explained that nobody was keeping him there and that treatment at their hospital was entirely voluntary—unless you were a schizophrenic, of course. Then Kolia took offense, yelling that he could’ve sold half a truckload of bananas since they’d started haggling last night. The doctor burst into tears, Kolia apologized and tried stuffing some money in the pocket of her white coat, and she demanded that he lie down and stop chasing after her—he had an IV in his arm. Eventually, she left, glancing tearfully at Mark in the hallway. He walked into the ward and saw Kolia lying by the window, wearing wrinkled white pants and a stale dress shirt, his expensive, dirty shoes tossed under the bed. He looked exhausted, and after yesterday’s festivities, his face, which was a bit puffy at the best of times, had swollen up and acquired a lemon tinge. Kolia had a bulging potbelly and stubby legs; Mark thought he looked like the bad guy in a Bollywood movie. Generally, those characters abuse their power… and the audience’s patience. The way he looked now, with that needle in his vein, Kolia elicited dread rather than sympathy—what if he survives and seeks revenge? There were three other people in his ward: a bookish gentleman with glasses was lying across from Kolia, reading some newspapers and gnawing on a hard cookie; a guy who clearly worked at a factory, judging by his oil-stained hands and the bags under his eyes, with a coiled metal wand for boiling water, which was evidently central to his treatment; and a younger man in orange shorts, long, white socks like the kind golfers wear, a striped T-shirt, and headphones—he was lying there, refraining from talking to anyone or answering any provocative questions. It was as if he’d simply stopped by to rest for a bit and enjoy his favorite music. Mark immediately noticed that Kolia had already established his dominance—all three of them would occasionally glance at him warily, trying to anticipate his next outburst and figure out where the danger lurked. That’s precisely why Mark found his uncle so intimidating: you could never tell what kind of mood he was in, whether or not he was joking, or when he was planning on busting your kneecap. Kolia’s eyes scrutinized people through their narrow slits, and he talked as if he were ordering at a restaurant—you didn’t feel like listening to him, but you couldn’t interrupt him either. He spoke quietly, so you always had to listen closely to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Once he saw Mark, he got up, yanked the needle out of his vein, and attached it to the IV stand with the Band-Aid that had been holding it in place.
“Ya got everything?” he asked calmly, as though he hadn’t just tried to bully the doctor.
“Yep.”
“What’s new?” Kolia asked, apparently expecting to get some updates on the family.
“Zina’s daughter’s there,” Mark answered, unsure what tone would please Kolia—happy, reproachful, or disgusted?
Kolia took one of the bags from Mark and dumped its contents out on the bed. Then he removed his shirt and pants unhurriedly, tossed them into the now-empty bag, handed it back to Mark, and started changing into clean clothes. Mark noted that Kolia’s upper body was tan but he had pale, bluish legs, making it look as though somebody had mixed and matched body parts from different people to assemble a model Kolia, and now all you had to do was pump a little blood into him and send him on his way. Finally, he started talking again.
“Oh, Nastia,” he said, “that’s right. She was supposed to come by yesterday. How’d I forget?” He went silent, looked out the window, put his hands in his pockets, and then turned toward his nephew again. “I want you to keep an eye on her while I’m gone. Okay, Markster?”
“If you say so. But what for? She’s not a kid, she doesn’t need a babysitter.”
Mark saw Kolia clenching his fists in his pockets.
“I realize that,” he answered, clearly annoyed but trying not to let it show. “Just keep an eye on her, okay?”
“Okay,” Mark said, trying to calm him down.
“I’m putting my trust in you,” Kolia said, and Mark felt all the resentment packed into those words. “Pick her up something for dinner.”
He took a wad of cash held together with a hair tie out from under his pillow, counted out a few bills, handed them to Mark, stuck the needle back in his vein, plopped down on the bed, and said sourly, “We’re all one big family. What keeps a family together? Trust. You got that?”
It was unclear how seriously Mark was supposed to take that, but he nodded just in case. On the way out, the headphones guy gave him a sympathetic look.
He stepped outside and mulled over that whole odd exchange for a while. He went to the 24-hour grocery store across the street and bought some frozen fish. He came back out and stopped dead on the sidewalk. He went back inside and bought some boxed wine. He left, then he went in yet again. He picked up another box, thought for a second, picturing Kolia’s yellow face, then put it back. “I’ll just make her some fish and get out of there,” he thought. When he showed up at Kolia’s place, his cousin was running around the apartment in a short light dress, trying to clean the place up. Mark noticed the striking resemblance between her and her mom—dark hair, bright clothes. Happy to see her cousin, she hugged him giddily for quite a while. She smelled like children’s shampoo. Then she tossed the fish into the kitchen sink to defrost and told Mark it’d be ready soon.
“I’ll whip something up in no time. I just gotta figure out what’s edible around here and what we should steer clear of, you never can tell with Uncle Kolia.”
She rooted around in the fridge for a while, fishing out chunky bags of milk, hard as set cement, pieces of meat the color of dirty shoes, and jars of dubious preserves that looked like witches’ seasonings, tossing it all in the trash can, poking around in the kitchen drawers, standing on a chair to reach something on the top shelf, and calling Mark over so she could pass him some sugar, honey, and sea salt. He walked across the kitchen and gawked at her from below—in his eyes, the light filled up with sea salt, and what he saw brought tears to his eyes. Nastia loaded him up with sauces and preserves, rummaged around in the kitchen a bit more, plopped everything down on the table, and tried making some sense of what she’d pulled out of Uncle Kolia’s hoard. Mark came out of his daze and started taking the kitchen knives away from her.
“Run along now. Go read some comic books or something while I get dinner ready. Then I’ve gotta get back to the shop.”
“Do you even know how to cook?” Nastia asked.
“Yeah, but not very well,” Mark answered, thinking back to when he mixed up some wallpaper paste for his buddy at the shop and nearly burned the whole building down.