“But why do two people in love do that if it hurts?”
“You’re so dumb, One-Two! Were you born in a cave or what?” Catching her breath after the first bout of laughter, Half-Jane asked, “Who told you tales that it hurts? Well, maybe it is not a big pleasure either, but it’s so beautiful,” she added doubtfully.
“Have you tried it yourself or do you know everything from hearsay?” you wondered.
Not even deigning to answer but only humming her contempt, Half-Jane hid her head under the blanket and started snoring loudly. Soon you fell asleep, too, but I lay awake for a long time thinking about what I had seen. After all, if people do it, it must be good for them.
The next morning turned out to be an identical copy of the one before and all the subsequent mornings we had to spend in the foster home. As always, we stood in a line for the lavatory, though now we were not the last to go in. We brushed our teeth, had breakfast, did morning exercises. In short, we got into an endless loop and there was seemingly no way out of it.
At the beginning of morning exercises, Adoter entered the gym accompanied by Marfa Ilyinichna and the old concierge. A silence fell, being occasionally interrupted by irregular breathing from an exhausted “athlete”.
“Last night an incident occurred within our walls,” Adoter started. “Somebody stole the keys at the reception desk, broke into my office and rummaged through my personal belongings. And I have grounds to believe that it was one of you. Whoever did it, he or she will be punished.”
“Holy crap, Adoter must have counted all her sweets,” Snot standing next to us whispered. Some of the kids gave a silent whistle.
“I already have an idea who it was,” the principal continued. “I suggest the culprit confesses voluntarily; in that case, the punishment will be less severe.”
She spoke calmly, but her eyes flared with rage, looking even more beautiful than usual. For several moments we were captivated by this look, wondering how a perfectly evil spirit and beauty can combine in one person, each harmoniously supplementing the other.
Nobody made a move, and I couldn’t get rid of the thought that she was looking at us.
“Well, if nobody is going to admit his guilt, I will have to look through your personal belongings, and believe me, the one who committed this crime is going to regret it very much. And now carry on with your morning exercises, quickly.”
My teeth chattered with fear, though I knew she couldn’t find any evidence. Sprinter stealthily approached us from behind and muttered:
“If you point at me, I will let you rot!” I wanted to run away and hide, but you wouldn’t move. The physical education class continued.
When Adoter and Marfa Ilyinichna came into our room, all the girls were standing near their beds. The head of the department methodically turned out the contents of our bedside tables, and the principal scanned them with her X-ray-like eyes. After a fruitless search they called a caregiver and started moving beds away from the walls. While Adoter rummaged underneath searching for a sweet wrapper, Marfa stood looking around, fidgeting with her foot.
“Well, here is the guilty one!” joyfully exclaimed Adoter. She picked up a wrapper lying under Sprinter’s bed with her two long nails which resembled a pair of tweezers.
“We have to do something,” I whispered to you and blurted out aloud at once: “She’s not guilty. I did it.”
“You did? Then why is this here?” And the principal pointed at the crumpled sweet-wrapper.
“I dumped it there.”
Trying to suppress my fear, I hastily rapped out my confession as if declaiming a poem by heart.
“I stole the key, burgled the office, took several sweets out of the box, ate them, and then returned the key to the reception desk. I didn’t take anything else, and there was nobody there except me. My sister is not guilty!” That was an absurd admission in our case.
Adoter listened coldly and gloomily and obviously did not believe a single word, but she could do nothing. She knew that the concierge had seen only the two of us, and the story about the sweets was irritating her more and more.
“You are going to have a very hard time in our friendly collective,” she said, frowning, “both of you.”
Pausing for a moment, she gave us time to prepare for what she was about to say. Then, as if being afraid that she would not be heard, she declared loudly:
“The guilty ones will receive their punishment, that is, ten days in the isolation cell, with attendance of all necessary studies.”
“What kind of punishment is that if we have to go to classes?” I thought in the back of my mind.
As strange as it may seem, teenagers tried not to lag behind the school curriculum. Satisfactory marks helped us to enroll at technical school and even university, avoiding nursing homes or nut hospitals (Slang – mental hospital). However, this only applied to walking kids; bed-ridden patients were penalized from the word “go”.
We left the room in silence, without any thoughts. The sentence had been given and arguing made no sense at all. However, I did not feel guilty, maybe because I had made a confession and re-established my own sense of justice. Only one thing was confusing me. In order to find a family in a place where nobody cares about you, you are supposed to commit a crime first, and then voluntarily endure punishment. First, you cave in striving for a better destiny, and then you have to give up your life. And what do you receive in return? A clear conscience? But isn’t your conscience clearer without committing a misdemeanor?
“Hurry up,” the principal ordered. “You must move more quickly than the others. After all, you have four legs, not just two. And all four of them are healthy.”
Why does everybody care so much about our four legs? Is it envy or what?
And what is there to say about Marfa Ilyinichna, the head of the women’s department? That woman, chary of words and emotions, only seemed to exist to provide everybody with a perfect example of resigned, meek submission to every whim of her chief; she only sighed when she had to call us by our names. Faceless and gray, not even given a nickname, she walked slowly, shrinking her head into her shoulders as if ashamed of the awkward scenes she took part in. I expected her to say at least a couple of words of support and understanding but she continued to maintain a deadly silence in the corridor, on the staircase and outside. Only at the door of the low, wooden accessory-building, looking like a hen-house, did she force herself to say a trivial “Come in”, addressing either us or Adoter.
We entered a small room, which turned out to be dark and damp inside. A light was switched on. The first thing to strike the eye was a dirty floor and shabby walls. Marfa stood at the door for a while and then indecisively nodded to a small bed, saying, “Have a rest,” and slowly walked out.
“Have a rest.” Very funny!
Adoter didn’t even budge.
Left alone, we sat in silence for a long time, each of us absorbed in her own thoughts.
“Don’t be upset,” you said at last, trying to encourage me. “Some time all of this will come to an end.”
“I hope so,” I said.
Suddenly, an incredible thought came into my mind.
“Hope,” I started, “what if initially they had named you Faith and me Hope, but afterwards they forgot which of us was which and swapped our names around by mistake? You always believe that everything is going to be all right, and your faith helps me.”
“And you hope that it will be that way. We have this close bond between us.” After thinking a while, you added, “All people need hope; no one can live without it; and our hope is way stronger when it is warmed up by faith. So it isn’t really important who is Faith and who is Hope; the main thing is that we are connected together.”