Come Back

by Claire Fontaine

  The setting sun has made the lake glitter and I have such an urge to wade in, to feel the cold water on my legs and the warm sun on my face. To short-circuit my emotions with physical sensation.

  I remember Mia’s laughing third-grade face on a lake like this one, canoeing at Mammoth. She was paddling and flinging her oar from one side of the canoe to the other, giggling hysterically, soaking us both. My God, that girl loved to laugh.

  Happy memories are almost worse. I feel like my screenplay’s protagonist, who found herself in a strange, unwelcoming land, where nothing held promise or tenderness, where everything, even the land itself, sang to her of her lost child.

  Dinner is a bowl of something so oily I can see my reflection in it, served with six long, thin rolls. If my mother saw this she would die—“You call this food? Where are the dark, leafy greens?”

  This is the first time I get to see who I’m stuck in here with. A dozen pimple-faced, silent girls in the same ugly uniform. They’re my age, a few Asians, no blacks, one Latina, Lupe, the rest Anglo. A lot of them are pretty, even with no makeup and awful haircuts. One girl catches my eye and smiles at me. I stare back—what the fuck is there to smile about?

  Suddenly, a loud Southern drawl fills the room. “Well, hello there! I’m Zig Ziglar!” Where Zig is coming from, I don’t know, but his booming voice informs us that we “have the seeds of greatness!” The girls just keep on eating in silence as if nothing happened—some of them actually start taking notes! Whatever wrong my mother thinks I’ve done her is nothing compared to this.

  When no one’s looking the girl next to me points to my untouched rolls and looks at me questioningly. I slip her all six. I have no appetite anyway.

  The lakeside restaurant is a Heidi-like affair nestled in the trees. A chorus of birds chirps back up to Barry Manilow and everyone stares at me when I enter. Big surprise. “Excuse me,” I say politely, for lack of a better greeting. A surprised waiter hurries over. “You are American! Hallo! I speak English, leetle.” I will learn two things tonight. One, an American here is always a Morava parent; the exchange rate and a broken heart means a tip equal to a night’s pay. They’ll trip over me the rest of the week. Two, when they say English a leetle, it is, in reality, far leetler.

  Carp is a national dish, so I draw a fish. “Kapr, yes, good very!” He assures me no fried! Fresh yes total never fried! He bows and vanishes. He returns quickly with my fish, beaming. It’s been fussed over, beautifully garnished. And very deeply fried.

  After so long without food, the smell of the grease makes me queasy. I ask for a bag to take it back to my room.

  A handsome young man at the next table who’s been observing me leans over. He looks at me like I’m the Antichrist and sneers at me, actually curls his lip at me. At this point, I’m not offended, I’m actually interested, in an anthropological kind of way.

  “American culture is sheet.” As in “shit.” He leans back, crossing his arms, quite satisfied with himself, rolling his eyes as Madonna’s “Vogue” plays. He’s wearing torn Levis, Nike knock-offs, and a black Metallica T-shirt.

  You picked the wrong night, kid.

  “Well, that’s true,” I say, politely, “my country does make a lot of shit. You seem to like eating it.”

  I leave a great, big American tip and feed my fresh yes kapr to the stray dog in the parking lot of the Santon Hotel.

  “It’s your complexion.”

  “My what?”

  “They probably think you’re a Gypsy,” my mother tells me in her I-told-you-so voice, except she never told me. “They think all Gypsies steal.”

  “What, so they think I’m going to pick their pocket?”

  “Well,” replies my mother the communist, “Czechs avoid giving them jobs or apartments, what do they expect, serves them right. They couldn’t get away with that when the Russians were there.”

  “They couldn’t do a lot of things when the Russians were here, Ma. Like leave.”

  “Don’t start with me. It’s after midnight there. Go to sleep. Wear a hat. And don’t smile so much, they’ll think you’re an idiot.”

  I haven’t been in bed this early since I was ten. My leg is shaking and even though I’m shivering, the sheets are soaking with my sweat. I feel like a colony of ants is crawling around under my skin. I have to get OUT OF HERE!

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mia, calm down. There’s always someone who can get stuff and you’ll find them tomorrow. Just stay calm like you did at that hellhole in Utah until the right moment. I start taking deep breaths, like my mom told me to do before tests.

  Mom. I see her as clearly as if she were in front of me. How she looked when she said good-bye, my iron-willed goddess of a mother, bent over, shaky and small. I want to console this woman, so unlike the mother I’ve always known, tell her to give up. I want to tell her to move on with her own life and maybe I’ll eventually come back. She looked so pitiful today, so desperately hopeful. I feel a pang when I picture those big sad eyes swimming in the hollows I’ve carved. I did this to her.

  But fuck her for doing this to me.

  It’s after midnight, but I’m too antsy to sleep and I’ve already called Morava twice to make sure she hasn’t escaped. Around 2 a.m., my brain launches into its new favorite game—obsessing over the moment our fates changed. Finding the exact second in time, the One Thing. Do I think that finding the tip of our history’s funnel will narrow the focus of my guilt?

  An event of such magnitude should be obvious, but it’s tricky, the choices are many. Such things are always and only visible in hindsight. Which means that all of our choices are carried out ignorant of their true significance, their final, lasting impact.

  The exact second in time my hindsight focuses on tonight is this—that my child is imprisoned here because I stood in a doorway thirteen years ago and didn’t understand the questions of a sad, puzzled monster who wanted some explanation, some reason why decent people found sex with children a problem. Because I didn’t see his transformation any more than I saw hers, till too late.

  We carve our destinies blindfolded, with sharp knives.

  I wake up and see the ugly brown carpet and Lupe sleeping across from me. Shit. I’m still here. Then I hear Mariah Carey being sung in the hall.

  “Dream lover come rescue me…”

  “Sunny, SHUT UP,” a sleepy voice yells.

  A Czech voice calls out, “Who is talking, no talking, you have Cat 2. Self-correct?”

  Damn, they’re serious about this silence thing.

  “Good morning, girls!” Great, it’s that bitch, “Miss” Zuza. “Everybody up!”

  At this, Lupe leaps out of bed. I turn to go back to sleep but she rolls me back over and tells me that we have thirty minutes to shower, dress, and clean the rooms and bathrooms, spotless, daily.

  “I’ll do the bathroom, you clean the carpet. We only get the vacuum on Sundays, so you have to use your hands.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m dressed and on my hands and knees picking up lint. In the Czech Republic.

  “Line up!”

  I step out of the room to line up but Lupe yanks me back.

  “We have to ask permission to cross.”

  What? If they’re the ones telling us to line up, why the hell do we have to ask to do it? I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. Except for not being able to talk, walk, eat, sleep, or pee without permission. Except for this whole fucking place.

  I get in line in front of Lupe. I feel her chest brush up against my back.

  “Get off me!”

  Zuza explains that your toes must touch the person’s heels in front of you. Okay, right, play along some more. We count off and walk to the lobby. Zuza peeks inside a door as if checking for enemy gunfire. Sure enough, danger lurks within.

  “Girls! Face the wall, the boys are crossing out!”

  I saw them do this yesterday but I didn’t know it was because the opposite sex was about to pass!

  “Mia, your
nose must touch the wall so I know you’re not peeking.”

  I roll my eyes and do it. My nose bumps the wall and I feel a chalky substance rub off onto it. I touch it and realize it’s paint. Paint soft enough to scratch off. Snortably soft.

  Just before I head out for breakfast, Paul calls to tell me my American Express card number was stolen at the airport in Atlanta, I can’t use it. I call Morava to make sure she’s still there and then head for downtown Brno to find an ATM. Wearing a hat.

  Brno hasn’t been spiffed up the way Prague has, but it’s charming nonetheless, with old fountains and outdoor cafés. All of which play American sheet. There’s even live sheet. On a platform in the main plaza, a band in cowboy gear plays Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always on My Mind.” In Czech, with a twang.

  My ATM card won’t work anywhere and no one in the banks I’ve tried speaks English. I can’t find anyone that does. So far, the best thing about this place is that there are churches on every street I can duck into when I start to cry about leaving Mia or get too light-headed from hunger.

  Growing up, I’d been to church with my paternal aunts far more than temple. Latin mass was enthralling and fantastic to a girl who lived in books—the ritual and incense, the graceful, cryptic gestures of priests in sparkling robes. I never tired of watching the sad, drooping Jesus on the cross, amazed and impressed that someone in such bad shape could have such a big following. I wanted to hold his hand, be a comfort.

  All I want to do in these churches now is drink from the holy water basin when no one’s looking. I can’t believe this is happening to me. It’s the twentieth century and I’m about to plotz in the gutter from thirst and starvation like some medieval peasant. I don’t even have Czech coins to call Morava and beg for a spare potato to be left at the end of the driveway, where Mia can’t see me and be set back.

  Group therapy is the first time we can legally speak. A Czech lady named Tyna joins the circle.

  “Hi, girls. Who wants to talk today?”

  Unfuckingbelievable! Something here is voluntary. Four hands go up and she chooses a tense, pug-nosed girl. Even though she raised her hand to talk, she’s silent.

  “Last time in group you did the same thing, it’s very nonworking,” Tyna says.

  Non-what?

  The girl sighs. “I’ve had stuff come up about my rape this week.”

  Christ, I don’t want to hear this, I just found out this girl’s name a day ago. I go over to Zuza and ask if I can go to the bathroom.

  “We just came from there. There’s another bathroom break in an hour.”

  Bitch. I distract myself by checking out the rest of the girls. It’s hard to know who might have stuff because we’re not allowed to talk and I can’t tell by looks because they all look like matching nerds. They act like it, too, that’s the scary thing. Because, either these girls weren’t that bad to begin with, or they were and this brainwashing crap works. The girl finally stops talking.

  “Feedback?” Tyna asks the group.

  “I experience you as playing the victim, which still just gives your power away to him.”

  “My experience of you is that you use your rape to stay stuck, so you don’t have to take on anything that scares you or is challenging.”

  This is so messed up. She opens up and her friends shove everything she said down her throat! Of course she’s a victim, dumbasses, she got raped. One thing’s for sure, I won’t have any trouble maintaining the silence rule here.

  When I stagger back to the Santon, I find that Paul’s arranged for me to get some cash and I have my first meal in almost two days. I call Morava, and Zuza reports that Mia is quiet and cooperative, which makes me regret eating dinner because my stomach pitches. Fortunately, before I can say anything, Zuza continues, half amused.

  “But I see her studying the windows and doors. I saw her studying the signs on the way here, too. Girls who are runners all do the same thing.”

  Brendan was right, they’ve seen it all. But, I still want that genius of a tracking dog there, ASAP.

  I decide to spend my remaining few days sightseeing the area. As I dress in the morning, I find myself chatting with God about Mia, about my day, nonchalantly, without thinking. And it feels good.

  I have no idea if it is theologically correct, but God’s just going to have to settle for me chattering at Him like we’ve met for coffee in Starbucks.

  Yesterday’s grief and tears seem to have settled into a kind of numb peace, an acceptance perhaps. I know that somewhere I’m sad, still stricken I think, but in yesterday’s body, the one that cried. Today, my body feels hushed and tender.

  As I walk along the ancient ramparts of a ruined castle overlooking the city, my body feels memories as well. It remembers you now, Mia, as a vague ache across my arms, my chest and throat. The places you pressed against as I held you. Something done so often leaves a trace, an imprint that remains forever. Your cells rubbed off into mine and throb now like a phantom limb pain.

  My prayer tonight, my last night near my daughter, is that Glenn will find the precious Mia that lies curled inside the dark cocoon she’s spun around herself. That she will carve away from this stony Mia all that is not really her, the way Michelangelo released David from the marble by taking away all that was not David.

  I still think that she is mine to fix, to save, by sheer force of will or by proxy. I still can’t see that it isn’t possible, that our paths have already been separated forever.

  12.

  “I honestly don’t know how you could send your own fucking kid here…Dude! All they feed us is bread because it’s cheap. I could kill somebody for a piece of lettuce…Get me out, I’m dying! If I’m not out before next summer, I’ll burn the place down, NO JOKE!…If I come back and my books or other things of mine have been thrown out, I’ll fucking kill you both…”

  “I’m sure the food was much better in the back of that van!” Paul hoots as he reads her first letter. “And I guess she’s just going to have to ‘fucking kill both of us’ when she sees her bedroom.”

  Yesterday, we threw out nearly everything in her room. The disgusting clothes, her Johnny Rotten books, bottles of Death Cola.

  I check the parent manual, which gives examples of kids’ typical letters as they go through the Denial phase, the Guilt Trip phase, the Anger phase. Mia managed to hit all three in one letter. She’s so hateful and resolute I wouldn’t be surprised if she just waited out her time till she’s eighteen. Which would make this a pretty expensive babysitting service.

  Mothering is a physical act, a dance of a thousand gestures performed and perfected over years. Hugging, hair brushing, oatmeal stirring, back-scratching, bed jumping, good-night snuggling, clock watching, carpooling. On autopilot, I keep starting to do things that are as outdated now as carding wool. My arms and hands are like dodo wings, vestigial appendages.

  Even my voice has decided it’s useless without Mia, because I can’t sing anymore. Nothing comes out but hoarse, off-key noise. It’s a minor loss given all that’s happened, but it was a bond between us, another now broken, and it saddens me terribly.

  My existence was structured around Mia. Her needs beat the rhythm of my days. There are only two real necessities in my life now. One is writing, which I do until dinnertime or I fall asleep having forgotten to eat.

  The second is calling about Mr. Sniffy, das wunderdog.

  I hate to keep calling day staff, who never seem to take calls anyway, so I call the night staff every afternoon. None of them speak even leetle of English. The first few days, I twist my tongue around “německý ovčácký pes šňupat je tam ano?” After polite chuckles and what can only have been, “Hey, Ivan, listen to this lunatic asking about shepherd of smell there dog is yes,” I’ve simplified things. I say, “Madame Fontaine,” bark a couple of times, make loud sniffing sounds, then say, “Ano?” (Yes?)

  Each student has a case manager, who is the liaison between you and the school. Ours is Tyna, and each month we’
re to have one scheduled call with her and get three emails from her. Kids can write home as often as they like; parents can both write and email as often as they want. Paul sends emails, but half of them don’t go through.

  The few short emails I’ve sent have bounced back, and I haven’t written more. What’s there to say that hasn’t already fallen on deaf ears? Besides, if I’m honest, I need a break from the Sturm und Drang. If I’m really, really honest, I suspect my short, and now nonexistent, emails are a way of punishing her.

  The school recommends faxing Mia’s letters to us back to Morava. It keeps staff and parents on the same page, making it harder for kids to manipulate. A few months ago, I would have had issues with doing this. Not anymore. Let her throw a tantrum.

  Apparently, she has. Tyna has emailed us that Mia’s just lost all her points. She does well, gains points, then screws up and loses them. The manual tells parents not to focus on points and levels, they’re not always an indication of growth, but I ride hers like a roller coaster.

  After a couple of weeks, I finally get Glenn on the phone. The first thing I ask isn’t about Mia, it’s about the dog. She says he was there for a few days but left again.

  “What, is he going for a PhD?” I say, exasperated.

  “No, the UN borrowed him to help find survivors in the Kenya embassy bombing. He saved eighteen people,” she says proudly.

  “Oh,” I say, feeling stupid.

  “Claire, relax. Your daughter is fine, she’s learning every day. Now that I’m back, I’ll spend some one on one time with her. You know, it’s a big turning point for these kids to realize the world doesn’t revolve around them. When was the last time you and your husband did anything fun? You need to get a life.”

  The realization that I can’t run from here has officially tipped the life scale from pretty fucking awful to sheer hell. We do a head count every time we change rooms, so slipping away unnoticed is impossible. Plus, this place rewards people for ratting, so it’s not just the staff I’d have to watch for. Which means I have a pen, paper, and thirty minutes during letter-writing time to convince my parents to take me home.