Once, in a Town Called Moth

by Trilby Kent

  “Come back and visit us,” said a voice at her side, and Ana looked down to see Elizabeth smiling up at her. “Maybe next time you can hold one of the kittens.”

  “That would be great,” said Ana.

  Katherina came and squeezed her hand as the men climbed into the truck, and then Johan turned on the ignition and they were moving. Ana watched the girl go to stand next to her mother as they waved the visitors farewell. She watched them, two figures by a gate, waving, waving, until she could no longer see their smiles, and then she turned around to watch the open road disappear beneath her.

  I’m sorry, she wrote. She folded the paper and sealed it with a rainbow sticker from a pad Suvi had left at Ana’s house by accident, one she’d stolen from the teachers’ supply closet. Ana waited until the water was boiling, then she told her father she was going across the street for five minutes. She would be back before the pasta needed draining.

  There was no car in Suvi’s driveway. Ana slid the note through her mailbox then turned and ran, as if the sound of paper brushing the floor might awaken a pack of sleeping wolves.

  Her father brought the envelope into her room on his way to bed.

  “This was under the front mat,” he said. “I’m guessing it’s for you.”

  There was a smiley face sticker on the seal, and a shooting star inside.

  It’s cool. Sorry for being a dick and making you try out for Crew. I didn’t make it anyway. Thank God!

  Halloween. Ana followed Suvi up and down front paths, hanging back as her friend rang bells and bellowed, “Trick or treat!” as she thrust her pillowcase into cobwebbed doorways. People smiled at Suvi, who had dressed up as a hobo: lumberjack shirt and dungarees, trucker cap and a shoe polish beard. They hesitated when they looked at Ana, trying to establish what she was meant to be—Suvi had given her a hair band attached to a plastic ax that looked as if it was half sunk into Ana’s head—before wordlessly dropping fistfuls of candy into the EXPRESS PHARMA-CARE bag.

  Coffee Crisps, Kit Kats, Hershey’s bars, Snickers, Skittles, Mars, M&Ms, Butterfingers, Sour Keys, Twizzlers, Nerds…Oh Henry!

  (“Nerds,” sniffed Suvi. “What do they think this is—1998?”)

  Up and down flagstone paths, cobbled paths, paved paths, pebbled paths. Up and down brick steps, wooden porches, concrete ramps, grassy slopes. Rubbing shoulders with devils and mermaids, disgraced politicians, astronauts, race car drivers, Rastafarians, hobbits, zombies.

  “So?” Suvi asked her. “Pretty cool, right? We are totally too old for this, Ana, but no way was I going to let you miss out on the Halloween experience.”

  Ana nodded, aware of the ax tilting precariously on her head. “Some of the costumes are kind of…”

  “Freaky? That’s the point, Ana.”

  “It’s a weird thing to celebrate, isn’t it?”

  “Dude, it’s all about celebrating what scares you. It’s, like, a really fun coping mechanism—with free candy. What’s not to love?”

  They divided their spoils in Suvi’s bedroom—chocolate bounty for Ana, anything fluorescent for Suvi—before Suvi waved Ana across the street as she returned home.

  “Sweet dreams!” Suvi called in a mock ghoulish caw. “Mind the vampires don’t bite!” And then, just as Ana slid her key into the lock, “Oh, jeez, Ana—maybe lose the ax before your dad sees you?”

  Colony Felicidad

  If we worked hard and prayed hard, that would keep the invisible wall around our colony strong. Of course, bad things still happened; that was God’s way of testing us. Like Wilhelm Penner, and the wild dog on our roof.

  Sometimes the Devil wandered among us, tempting us to sin. Those were the times when the scent of sorghum hung heavy in the humid air, when the windmills clacked off their regular beat and the sunflower stalks bowed before the moon at night.

  When blood ran down the walls and the retreating wolves left no footprints.

  Toronto

  AS USUAL, THERE WERE a couple of test messages from Suvi already open the next time Ana logged in. But at the top of the screen was something new: an envelope icon and a subject heading in bold letters.

  RE: your message, it said.

  Ana clicked on it before the panic could begin to flare up her fingertips.

  Ani—if that’s you?

  What are you doing here? Can I see you?

  My heart is dancing.

  Mama

  Suvi didn’t eat cold cuts—not salami or ham slices or even leftover chicken—because she said the meat seemed too close to death. Stews were fine. Spaghetti Bolognese was fine. Pepperoni on pizza too.

  “It’s still meat, and it’s still dead,” said Mischa.

  “But it’s not cold,” insisted Suvi. “Like it’s been sitting in a morgue.”

  They were eating ham and cheese sandwiches at Mischa’s house—Suvi had just made a show of picking the ham out of hers—and flicking through TV channels. Not that anyone was paying attention to the screen.

  “Getting back to the real problem,” said Ana.

  “Right, right—sorry.” Suvi grabbed the remote and switched the TV off. “We’re going to be constructive. Mischa?”

  “Maybe constructive isn’t the thing right now.” He looked at Ana. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not, like, in shock? It’s sort of a big deal.”

  “Mischa, Ana wrote to her hoping she’d reply. It’s great news. Now we just have to make sure that this lady is who she claims to be.” Suvi reached for a notebook in her bag. “Throw me a pen, will you?”

  “Here.”

  “So, we need to come up with some questions that only Ana’s mother will know the answer to. That way, we can test her.”

  “Like what?” said Ana. The fact that she hadn’t thought about any of this sent a wave of humiliation through her. What had she expected to happen next? That, with the tap of a button on a library keyboard, everything about the last ten years would be made right again?

  I could ask her to explain the things Papa was discussing with Johan, she thought. The gun in the lake. What gun? Was it the same lake where Isaac Buhler nearly drowned?

  “Like, what pattern was on the curtains in your old bedroom? Or, do you have a weird birthmark that only she would know about?”

  “She called me Ani in her message. That’s what people used to call me in Bolivia.”

  “OK, but that could just be a fluke. We need more.”

  “You should write to her in your language, Ana—in German,” interjected Mischa.

  “That goes without saying.” Suvi was scribbling furiously in the notebook. “Maybe something about your dad too?”

  Ana tugged at a loose loop of thread in the rug by her feet. Right now, it felt like the only real thing in the room.

  “There’s the book he kept,” she said at last. “It belonged to her. It came into the family by accident.”

  “Great! You can ask about that.” Suvi tore the page out of the book with a flourish and handed it to Ana. “This would be a whole lot easier if they just microchipped people, right?”

  “That’s messed up,” said Mischa.

  “If they’d microchipped Faith Watson…” began Ana.

  “They microchip condors that have been raised in captivity,” said Mischa. “They leave one egg in the nest in the wild and take one egg for the lab. When the condors are born, they handle them with gloves so the condors don’t get too attached to the people, and then after they’re released they track them with satellites.”

  “Fascinating,” said Suvi.

  “Do the condors go looking for the ones that were left in the wild?” asked Ana.

  Mischa didn’t know, and Suvi wasn’t interested.

  “If you’re both done with your morgue meat, we could get ready to go to Thandi’s,” she said. “Blow off some steam. Ana, you totally look like you could use some distraction.”

  “I’m ready,” said Mischa.

  “You’re a g
uy—you can show up in jeans and a sweatshirt. Ana and I are going to make an effort.” Suvi reached for her backpack. “Come on, Ana,” she said as Ana began to protest. “Meesh, we’re using your room.”

  Thandi Rosen was called that because her parents had met in South Africa in the ’80s. Thandi was the name of one of their friends there; it meant “loved one” in Xhosa.

  The first time Ana had seen Thandi, she’d had two white wires coming out of her ears. She was sitting on a bench outside the guidance office, fiddling with a small white box connected to the wires. Amid all the noise and motion of the hallway, she didn’t look up when Suvi called out a passing hello.

  “Is she mute too?” Ana had whispered to Suvi.

  “Huh?”

  “The deaf girl we just passed.”

  “Thandi’s not deaf. She probably just didn’t hear cause of her iPod.”

  “Is that her hearing aid?”

  “Dude, she’s not deaf. She’s listening to music.”

  Thandi lived in a neighborhood of mansions and pool houses and massive landscaped front lawns. Miniature lanterns poked out of the rockery like glass toadstools along the path leading to Thandi’s front door, which was guarded by two stone dogs. Through the cut-glass window it was possible to see bodies moving around each other in the hallway as people discarded their coats in a pile on the floor. The thump of music Ana didn’t recognize resounded from another room.

  “You made it!” Thandi flung her arms around Suvi and smiled at Ana. “Meesh, you look boss. Ana, I love your eyes. You should totally do them like that for school.”

  The eyeliner had been Suvi’s idea. She wasn’t going to bother with any herself, she’d told Ana up in Mischa’s room—blue walls and duvet, pennants, a mug of something growing a crust on his desk, dimly lit, close and boy-scented, a book on the floor open to a picture of an abstract painting of figures in a bath—but she wanted to practice on Ana. “It’s easier doing it for someone else,” she’d said. When she finished, Ana’s eyes looked bigger and older suddenly, staring back at her from the mirror. She’d let her hair down, but then felt so self-conscious she’d tied the sides back in a half-and-half. Suvi had grunted but said at least it was better than braids.

  Thandi was handing out mocktails in plastic champagne glasses. The pink one was a Strawberry-Tini, Thandi said. “And this is a Virgin Mojito,” she told Ana, passing her a green one with a mint leaf floating on top. When she’d moved on, Ana and Suvi exchanged drinks. Both were fizzy and tasted like ginger ale. Only the girls seemed to be taking them; all the boys Ana could see were drinking Coke.

  “Sean probably spiked it with rum,” said Suvi. “Or vodka, so it doesn’t change the taste.”

  They worked their way around clusters of people into the living room. Ana perched on the arm of a sofa next to the sound system, while Suvi scrolled through the phone in the wireless dock.

  Look out, this thing is gonna blow

  I heard it from the people in the know…

  “Do you recognize anyone?” asked Ana.

  “It’s mostly Thandi’s sister’s friends,” said Suvi. “But there’s Carter Fry and Ella Stephens. Bet you they’re making out before this song’s over.”

  I’m never going home

  I’m running from the sun

  Bullets at my heels

  The devil’s got a gun…

  “What happens now?”

  “We wait for people we know, or for one of the guys to get drunk. We could work the room, but everyone’s older.” Suvi finished her drink. “So what’s up with you and Peterson?”

  “What?”

  “Nice try. You said he gave you a ride home?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of? Holy crap, Ana—”

  “It’s not what you think. He had to get this book from his apartment first—”

  “You mean you went to Tom Peterson’s apartment?” Suvi clapped both hands over her mouth. “What was it like?”

  “Kind of empty. We had dim sum.”

  “He cooked for you?”

  “We got takeout.”

  “And it took you until now to tell me any of this, why, exactly?”

  “You only just asked now. And possibly finding my mother was maybe more important.”

  “OK, OK, true. Sorry.”

  Ana finished her drink. “Do you want another?”

  “Yeah, sure. See if you can find some food too. Mischa said he could smell hot dogs.”

  Relieved to have escaped Suvi’s questions, Ana slid off the sofa with a glass in each hand.

  Rain is jumping up into the clouds

  A girl has ceased to make her father proud…

  By the time she got back to the sofa by the stereo, Suvi was drinking a Coke.

  “So,” she said, taking the bowl of chips from Ana. “Where were we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Peterson. Don’t think you were getting off that easy.”

  Her voice seemed louder now; she was grinning.

  “Is that spiked?” Ana said.

  “I’m guessing yes, seeing as Sean was handing them out. Want some?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Don’t be such a square, Ana. C’mon. For the team? For me? To celebrate finding your mom?”

  “I’ve got this already. Maybe later.”

  “So…?”

  “So, nothing. Honestly, I’ve told you everything.”

  Suvi nodded sagely. “Look, Ana, I know. Older guy and all that. Have I ever told you about my cousin Alexander?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “He’s English. He’s actually more like my second cousin, or my cousin once removed or something. He’s just started university. Leeds. Like the soccer team, right?” She draped herself along the back of the sofa, propping herself up on her elbow so that she was speaking just behind Ana’s ear. “Super cute. Sandy curls, piercing eyes, nice nose. Is aqualine when it’s straight or bumpy?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Anyway, it’s a bit bumpy but in just the right way, you know? And this mouth that’s, like, a bit stern, like Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music—but in a good way too. And he’s always saying such smart things, and he never wastes a single word, and when he talks to you, you just feel so damned special it’s insane.”

  Ana looked around to see if anyone else was listening. She wondered where this was going.

  “I must have been, I don’t know, ten or eleven the first time. We were watching TV in his parents’ basement—he was, like, fifteen, maybe?—and it was kind of cold because English houses are pretty drafty, and it was winter because we’d gone over for Christmas. So, we’re sharing a huge chunky blanket, and suddenly our feet touch. And I think this is weird and I start sweating, but he just makes some joke about the movie and so I laugh it off. And then later our hands touch under the blanket. And that was all. Until the next year, it’s the same thing, only it’s not just our hands touching now…” Suvi giggled into her wrist. “It becomes like this weird habit, only it’s just once a year, and just in his parents’ basement, and there’s always this huge chunky brown blanket, and neither of us ever says anything about it. Nothing else happens, even though I keep thinking it’s going to.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it. This year he probably won’t even be there because he’ll be backpacking around Europe with a bunch of hot girls his own age.” Suvi looked into her Coke. “Go on, finish it. It’s gassing me up like a balloon.”

  Ana took the cup and smelled it. Then she drank, swallowed. Felt nothing.

  “Want another?”

  “Sure.”

  The night got better after that. Thandi came over with some of her sister’s friends, and Ana found herself answering questions about vultures and police chases that wound up in Moth and how to chew coca. She didn’t mention Low German or the way Susanna used to pull her braids so tight it made her head ache. Soon she was only talking about things that she had heard
secondhand from Susanna, or Frank Reimer, or Agustín, but it didn’t matter because they were listening. Suvi kept filling her glass and saying, “See? See? What did I tell you?”

  Help me I know not what I see

  I’m a stranger to the face looking back at me…

  Justin Cook was there among them. Boy-band Justin, Suvi called him, because there was another Justin in their class who was a coding geek who played Minecraft all the time. Minecraft Justin was not at the party. Boy-band Justin was Karen Spelberg’s boyfriend. He had a ski tan, a moody sweep of dark hair and the shoulders of an eleventh grader.

  He wanted to know how to say something in Plautdietsch.

  “Goo’ndach,” said Ana. “Means hello.”

  “Something better than that,” said Justin.

  “Das Leben ist wie eine Hühnerleiter: kurz und beschissen,” said Ana. She had read it once in a High German book borrowed from one of Agatha Bartsch’s older brothers. “Life is like a chicken ladder: short and shitty.”

  “That’s good,” said Justin. “What about ‘fuck off’?”

  “People use the Spanish,” said Ana, feeling her color rising. “Tu madre.”

  “Tu madre,” practiced Justin, just as Karen Spelberg appeared behind him with his baseball jacket. Her eyes were wide and blue but slightly too close together, and when she didn’t know she was being watched her top lip puckered in a way that made it look as if she was stuck in a perpetual near sneeze. “Let’s go,” Karen said. “This party’s lame.”

  “Tu madre,” said Justin.

  “What did you say?” Karen looked at Ana and back to Justin as some of the others in the group started to snigger.

  “I said, tu madre,” said Justin, catching Ana’s eye and winking.

  Karen said nothing and walked away.

  “Get this girl another drink,” said Justin. “So she can teach us some more crazy shit.”

  Mischa’s dad drove her home. He must have dropped off Mischa and Suvi first because Ana was alone in the back seat when she saw her father appear in the doorway, the kitchen light on behind him.