Moscow but Dreaming

by Ekaterina Sedia

  Far as memories went, it was hit and miss. Most blended inauspiciously with my own, grey and generic, difficult to separate from each other. But there were rare splashes I lived for—the memories of a tropical island and feathery palms, the glitter of New York on a rare pre-perestroika trip abroad, an exotic hobby of orchid collecting, a fresh memory of love so consuming that even torture could not distract from the thoughts of the beloved.

  Grisha and I compared memories over the phone. We prided ourselves in our acquisitions; we both grew very fond of a young Chechen who enjoyed flowers and Persian rugs and had an abiding fascination with high-breasted women. We snickered over a paunchy, middle-aged guy who believed himself a reincarnation of Gautama Buddha, the belief especially ironic considering that he had fallen in the shootout between two organizations, which quarreled over the protection money from three stores by Borovitskaya. After he was shot and unconscious, his enemies captured him and meted out their slow electric revenge.

  “Sad,” Grisha observed. “He could’ve went to Valhalla had he been slain in battle.”

  It’s the tidbits like that that made me lust after Grisha’s soul. But according to the mortality reports, paramedics tended to die of alcoholism often co-morbid with traffic accidents, and not of the homegrown Kabbala of the bandits.

  One of our later finds, a neckless thug with the requisite burgundy jacket, brought Ipatov to the forefront of my mind. He seemed much like the rest, with a piquant difference—his father was a mid-caliber apparatchick back in the days, as Grisha, who received the entirety of his youth, told me. I got the good part: his adult life. He was the one who killed Ipatov.

  He remembered Ipatov as a small man who would not pay what he owed—a peculiarity that filled the thug with perplexed bitterness. Through his memory, I saw Ipatov’s face as it was in his last moments—his white spasming lips and the shirt torn to expose his shoulders and chest. “Just take me from here,” he pleaded in a hoarse voice thick with a suppressed scream. “Just don’t let Lilya see me like this.”

  The thug flicked away the butt he smoked down to the filter, and burned his iron magic into poor Ipatov, workmanlike as always. He wondered vaguely whether Lilya was Ipatov’s wife, and thought that he too used to date a girl named Lilya when he was a vocation school student.

  The thug had trained to be a car mechanic, but then things changed; he fell into being a thug like many others—ex-cops, Afghan vets, who had no other employment options. I marveled at his conviction that what he did was justice: people who owed money should pay it back, and the thug was there to enforce the law in the law-enforcement vacuum. Ipatov’s agony was thug’s justice, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two memories, enclosing them like pearls with the soft generic mantle of my own.

  Our collecting days came to an end when they stopped selling beer by the liter. The cans just didn’t have the same appeal to the souls, and who could blame them? Could a fat man wiping his balding, apoplectic head with a handkerchief and gracing cans of Danish beer compare to the thick amber and sensual droplets of condensed moisture on the cold glass? No, my friends, he could not. The souls remained behind, fearful, trapped behind the charred alchemy of the electric irons, and Grisha and I had to content ourselves with what we had.

  Now, even the electric irons are going out of fashion, Grisha tells me. We still see each other and reminisce; he often tells me about Ipatov’s childhood, of how he once threw up on the bus during the field trip and all the other kids made fun of him for weeks. I tell him of Ipatov’s crush on the Komsomol secretary, and of his loathing of thermodynamics. Of course, we have other, much more interesting lives and memories, but Ipatov gets precedence. He was our first, and that ought to count for something.

  A PLAY FOR A BOY AND SOCK PUPPETS

  ACT I

  SCENE I

  (Sock drawer. In the drawer, there is a SOCK PUPPET—a grey cotton sock with red and blue stripes and black button eyes. The SOCK PUPPET speaks in a soft halting voice.)

  I stare at the ceiling from my drawer, feeling empty and happy. If I squint, the crystals of the popcorn relief above me catch moonlight and sparkle, transformed into tiny stars right before my eyes. I have hours until the morning comes and steals my solitude.

  I work with autistic children. They are a difficult bunch, rocking back and forth, spitting, flapping their hands, screaming silently, screaming aloud, banging their heads on the desks, going rigid, going limp, biting. One of them bit me, right above my left button eye, and I needed stitches. Nine of them, in bright red woolen yarn. I’m happy They did not remove my eye and make me a pirate, but the scar hurts, especially before rain.

  The morning comes, and brings the rain and shutting of the doors, car honking outside, hurried footsteps, and an infernal whine of the food processor. I count days, hoping despite knowledge that it might be Saturday and I won’t have to go. The illusion is shattered when They walk in, pick me up, and shove me in a duffel bag with the others.

  The others: there is the clown, the man, the woman, the naïve child, the dog, and the cat. I’m the autistic sock puppet, and to stay in character I do not talk to the others, block out their chattering with swaying in rhythm with the bag and muttering “November” over and over. I think of how strange it is, to have your personality just assigned to you. I think that I would’ve liked to have some say in the matter.

  SCENE II

  (The interior of a clinical building. It is filled with people, mostly parents and children entering. The BOY is hidden among the others, but announces himself by periodic loud screeching. The SOCK PUPPET narrates.)

  We arrive at Behavioral Therapy. The children are arriving too—they are brought over in cars and SUVs, and file in, some voluntarily, most not. Their parents or guardians drag them by their hands, as the children hiss and fight. Many are wearing little helmets—so bright, in red and yellow and blue, as if the colors can make it better. I want to go home.

  Instead, I feel Them enter me, fill me, put words in my mouth. I play an autistic child named Elija, and the others show me how to do things. The children watch, some puzzled, some indifferent. I teach them skills. I teach them empathy. I pretend to eat Goldfish crackers that They give me, and some of the children perk up. The children like crackers, apparently.

  After the show is over, the children have their own work to do, and it is my turn to watch. I watch them sort buttons. The teachers say that it is a useful, real-life skill, and that they can use it for future employment. The parents smile and nod, no doubt imagining their offspring sorting through rows and rows of buttons for money, for the rest of their lives. Parents leave, still smiling. They’ll be back later.

  One of the children starts screaming, aaaaaaaaaaaaaa, and does not stop even when the teacher holds him down so he cannot move. His hands flail, and another teacher grabs his wrists and presses them against the desktop. Too hard, I think. She is pressing too hard.

  The kid is subdued, and the rest carry on with their sorting. Whoever is done first gets two Goldfish crackers. The rest get one. The little fake fish smile eerily.

  The child who threw a tantrum earlier does not sort. “Darren, you won’t get a cracker if you don’t sort,” one of the teachers says. The kid looks back from under his helmet striped like a watermelon, and crosses his arms on his chest. He just wants to be left alone, and for once I know exactly how someone else feels. He does not get a cracker. They call him “recalcitrant.”

  ACT II

  SCENE I

  (Sock drawer. All of the sock puppets are present. There is a view of the window, and it is grey and raining outside.)

  On the weekend, we do not go to see the children, They do not drive us to the small building of red brick with blue awning, do not make us spout the wrong words.

  The others decide to take this opportunity to practice. They love practicing.

  “Come on, Elija,” says the woman. She likes to pretend to be my mother. “Let’s work on not hurting the cat.”


  I look at the cat—he is striped red and white, and his green eyes are made of shiny stones. I wish I had eyes like that. I do not want to hurt him.

  “Come on,” the woman says.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” I scream. “Aaaaaaaaaa.”

  She backs off for a bit, but then she remembers what they say about not giving in to the tantrums.

  “Now, Elija,” she says. “Stop it.”

  I flail more, aaaaaaaaa, the frayed elastic beating against the roof of our drawer. I bang my head on the wood until my eyes are ready to pop off.

  They leave me alone. I calm down and think of the kid, Darren. I wonder if they leave him alone on weekends. I want to see him now, and speak to him in my own words. I want to tell him that “recalcitrant” means “good.”

  The others are caught up in their rehearsal. The dog plays a family friend, and the man and the woman explain what “autism” means. The cat is trying to eat the naive child, but only chews on his painted-on face with its soft woolen mouth impotently. The clown laughs.

  I cannot take it anymore, and rock and slither my way to the opening of the drawer, where a single sunray and dancing motes penetrate the darkness. I struggle my way outside and fall to the ground, narrowly avoiding the knob. I would hate to get my stitches caught on it.

  “Where’re you going?” the dog says after me, belatedly. I ignore him.

  I crawl under the door into the hallway, and look both ways, as They tell everyone to do. I reach the front door undetected, and squeeze through the mail slot.

  SCENE II

  (The street, freshly washed by the rain; most of the stage depicts a wet pavement, with several large puddles. The buildings on the background are out-of-focus and not quite real. The SOCK PUPPET is in the center, lying in one of the puddles.)

  It is early, and the streets are mostly empty. I crawl along, trying not to think that I have no idea of how I would find Darren. I concentrate on staying undetected, and freeze every time someone goes by, but they don’t seem to notice an old sock lying on the ground, the black buttons of its eyes shiny, blank.

  Two joggers jog by, and one of them stops to look at me. “Hey look,” he says. “It’s a sock. Now we know what happens to the missing left socks, eh? They run away.”

  His friend laughs and does not stop, so the jogger leaves me be and takes after his friend. I sigh with relief and crawl along, slowly, imperceptibly, inching my way toward the brick house.

  ACT III

  SCENE I

  (No change from the previous stage design. It appears that the SOCK PUPPET did not move at all.)

  I’m so exhausted I fall asleep in a puddle, and drift off, soothed by the slow saturation of my every fiber with dirty rainwater. I do not dream. I wake up in motion, and realize that I’m being carried off by a dog—a real one, with hot pungent breath and warm mouth.

  “Rex, put that down!”

  The dog growls a bit, and chews me hastily, guiltily, dribbling spit and tearing out one of my stitches before spitting me out and running to join its owner. I wince in pain as I feel the old gash beginning to reopen.

  I slither across the road, not caring about thick rubber tires that run me over again and again, flattening me, sapping my desire to find Darren. What will I say to him? How will I find him? I concentrate on crossing the road. I give up on looking both ways.

  On the other side, I lie panting for a bit, and look around. I glimpse the small brick building, its doors concealed by a corrugated sheet of metal. I try to remember the direction from which the kids usually come. I make up my mind and crawl toward the narrow slit of the horizon, as the setting sun bleeds all over it.

  I hear chittering, and I turn to see a squirrel, its barbaric incisors bared, its eyes glistening. I try to shoo it away and rock, aaaaa, and twist and flail. Undeterred, the beast starts picking on my elastic, and I feel myself unraveling. I bang my head on the pavement, but the squirrel picks me up in its small hands (thank God it’s not putting them inside of me), then its mouth, and runs up the tree, as I flap along. The nature was stupid when she created socks—we have no defense mechanisms whatsoever. I hang limply and whisper “November” to calm myself down.

  SCENE II

  (The interior of a tree hole. Light penetrates in slants from somewhere high above the stage. The SOCK PUPPET, torn and wet, is on the bottom of it.)

  The squirrel carries me to its nest in a deep treehole, and I worry that it will continue the horrid unraveling it has started below until all of me is gone. I wonder if a ball of yarn has a soul, but I doubt it. When I cease to exist, so will my spirit.

  The squirrel nestles into the hole, and lays me on the bottom of it. I play dead until morning. When my captor is gone, I open one eye, carefully, and look around, to discover bits of moss and paper, but no other captives. With that, I make my escape. The squirrel runs out and back in, and out again, and I make very little progress, trying to worm my way up the vertical wooden wall. I watch my stitches and unraveled threads, making sure they do not get caught on splinters and jagged edges of the hole.

  The squirrel passes me as I reach the opening in the trunk. I freeze, but the obtuse beast pays me no attention, its small mind apparently preoccupied with the wafer end of an ice-cream cone it clutches in its teeth. It passes me on its way inside.

  SCENE III

  (Playground in the park. There is a large tree, and the SOCK PUPPET is hanging out of the hole in the tree. The BOY is off-stage, but his shrill cries betray his presence.)

  I peek out of the hole, and forget about my trailing threads and open gash. I stare at the town, washed by the first September rains into muted pearly purity, spreading below me. I whimper at the bigness of it, but I cannot deny its beauty. I peer with my button eyes, and everything stands out in startling clarity. I see dogs and kids running around, and realize that the squirrel dragged me to the park filled with children and their parents. I look for a watermelon-striped helmet. I cling to the rough bark of the tree, high above everything, and wait.

  I decide to call for Darren, and I wail, aaaaaaaa, and my gash hurts, and my threads are sore and unraveled. I scream my inarticulate suffering, hoping that he would hear me, until I grow hoarse.

  And then I hear him, aaaaaaa, screaming back at me. For me. Green and black stripes come into my view, and I see Darren running, I see Darren chased by the woman who usually brings him to Behavioral Therapy. “Darren, honey,” she calls. “Come back. Mommy will give you a cracker.”

  The kid does not want a cracker and he runs straight for my tree, a fresh gash in his forehead glistening red, like mine. It takes persistence to hurt oneself while wearing a helmet. He tilts his pale face toward the sky, and his mouth opens expectantly.

  I jump. I sail through the air and plummet, alternately, until his hands snatch me out of the air. His hands hold me, carefully, and do not try to enter me. I cling to him, grateful.

  “Elija,” he says.

  The woman is gaining on us, and I hurry to tell him. “Don’t let their hands touch you,” I whisper fiercely. “Don’t let them speak for you.”

  He nods that he understands, and hugs me close. I drape over his shoulder and he runs. The woman recedes behind us, panting, her hands on her knees. We leave behind the park and its trees and horrible squirrels, we splash through every puddle we can find. I look at the sky, empty, happy. I hope that there is a place without intrusive hands, where one can scream and flail and speak his own words.

  (Both the BOY and the SOCK PUPPET exit stage left.) CURTAIN

  THE TASTE OF WHEAT

  Dominique came from solid peasant stock, not frequently given to fancy; still, in the privacy of the thick bones of her skull, she dreamt of an Asian gentleman who insisted on being called Buddha, and small dogs with sharp white teeth.

  The heavy sleep descended unannounced, smothering her with dreams in the middle of dinner with her family, or in the wheat fields while she was threshing. Any blink could turn into a jumble of
images and voices, and then someone would shake her shoulder and say, “Dominique, wake up.”

  Sometimes the dreams stopped before she was forcefully pulled away from them, and then she would hear what they said. “What is wrong with her?” and “You’d never think looking at that girl.” Then she blushed, and let the world in shyly, through the slightest opening of her lashes. The sun was fuzzy in their frame, and the faces—soft, undefined, kind. Then she would get up, smoothing down her skirt around her wide hips.

  “You seem so healthy—milk and blood,” people said. They kept the second part of their comments silent, but Dominique knew what it was. She was defective, and no man would take a wife with falling sickness, no matter how well-fed and ruddycheeked. Her family thought that it ought to bother her, but it did not. She only shrugged and went about her business, ready to be assaulted by dreams with every step she took.

  She worked in the fields with the rest of her compatriots, from the time when the sun rose to the sunset. But at midday she left the merry din of people laughing and talking, children squealing, oxen lowing, and went home to tend to her grandfather. He was too feeble to venture into the fields, and she took it upon herself to make sure that he was fed and attended to.

  The old man looked at her with his colorless rheumy eyes that had seen so many harvests come and go, and she almost wept with pity. He was the only person she had ever known who understood what it was like to inhabit a body ready to betray him at any moment.