Mannequin Girl Page 7

  “It’s unfair,” says Vika Litvinova, when they retreat into their dorms. She’s sitting cross-legged on Kat’s bed, chomping on an apple, the last of Kat’s treats for the week. “Kat’s the sweetest, the kindest, the fairest person in our class. She should be our class commander.”

  “You didn’t nominate me,” Kat reminds her, and Nina adds maliciously, “That’s right.” Vika’s flattery is transparent, and lately even Nina has been refusing to share her snacks with Vika.

  Kat says she doesn’t care; she didn’t want to be elected. Power, her father says, corrupts. She wouldn’t want to be corrupted. Her parents disdain fervent activists, those poor unprincipled sods who’ll throttle themselves for a sought-after Party post or chance of career advancement.

  Though now that she thinks about it, Galochka P. is a class elder and neither of Kat’s parents seems to mind. They both adore Galochka, who’s beautiful and smart and comes from a troubled family. So maybe the rule isn’t absolute, or at least doesn’t apply to everyone. And maybe Kat’s parents would have liked her to be a commander or an elder—someone special, valued, respected—and since she wasn’t even nominated, she’s failed them once more. She resolves not to mention the election, not unless one of them asks her.

  EVERY SATURDAY, Misha comes to collect Kat. If the weather is good, they might walk part of the way: visit the store that sells electrical goods to look at fancy lamps; stop by the Culinariya to pick up éclairs; check up on Anechka, who’s teaching auxiliary classes at her and Misha’s school.

  Kat’s classes end early on Saturdays. By noon the vestibule is packed: parents and grandparents idling on foot, the lucky ones reclining in armchairs. You can’t miss Misha, though. He is taller than everyone else. It usually takes Kat a second to scan the crowd for his curly head. Except today he isn’t there.

  Kat wills him to hurry. Though he’s famously distracted, he hasn’t been late in the past. She watches her classmates depart. “See you later,” she tells Igor Zotov. “See you later,” she tells Alina Nesterenko, who is leaving with her father. A plump, blue-eyed woman comes out of the coatroom, pushing Vika Litvinova and giving her a hearty smack. She looks remarkably like Vika.

  By the time Misha arrives, there’s no one left in the vestibule. Kat’s waiting by the bust of Lenin. She and her good pal Lenin and no one else. Misha halts when he sees her standing there, but he doesn’t say he’s sorry and doesn’t explain why he’s an hour and forty minutes late.

  “Are you ready?”

  “My suitcase,” she says.

  He goes to fetch her suitcase from the coatroom. There is something odd in the way he behaves. He doesn’t hug Kat or rumple her hair like always; doesn’t gasp, “Eh, my dear slab of oak,” while lifting her suitcase. When they come outside, he doesn’t sing to her “Madame, the leaves already fallen, the autumn’s in its mortal rage.” Which is also strange—he loves to sing Vertinsky.

  “You know,” she says, “I was worried.”

  He looks like he’s thinking about something else.

  “Yes,” he says. “Yes. Be gentle with your mother, Button. She had a little surgery this morning.”

  Cancer is the first thing Kat thinks of, the worst sickness on earth. Masha Sivova says young people die from it. Her mother is a nurse; she sees it constantly. Young women come in and you just look at them and know it’s too late. “Doctor,” they say, “please, I have children at home.” The doctors cut them open, glance inside, then quickly stitch them up again. They send them off to die at home.

  Kat bursts into tears.

  “Oh, Button. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just a teeny-tiny operation. A little stomach thing. She’s home already.”

  “Not cancer?”

  “Not even near,” Misha swears.

  They take the bus home, which also reassures Kat. If Anechka’s life were in danger, they would have flagged down a cab.

  “It’s best if you stay in your room today,” says Misha.

  ANECHKA LOOKS LIFELESS. She is resting face down on the sofa, covered in blankets and several shawls. After a while she shifts, and then an odd choked-up sound comes from under the mound of fabric.

  “Is she crying?”

  Misha shakes his head. He pushes Kat gently in the direction of her room. “Remember what we talked about?”

  Kat waits until he leaves to buy some bread, then tiptoes out to check on Anechka. She stops by the living-room door; she doesn’t intend to go any farther than that. Except that from where she stands, she can’t tell if Anechka is breathing. She steps forward a little and listens again. Then moves ahead some more. Soon she is kneeling beside her. She places her hand on what she figures is Anechka’s back.

  The heap of blankets shivers.

  “Who is it?” says her mother. Her mussed-up head pokes out from under the coverings.

  “Does it hurt?” Kat says.

  “What?”

  “You. Your operation.”

  Anechka’s gaze wanders, confused, uncomprehending. She grabs Kat’s hand, holds it against her breast. “This,” she says. “This is where it hurts. You understand?”

  She lets go of her roughly. “Just leave me be,” she says, burrowing again under the blankets. And now it’s unmistakable—she’s crying. These hard, strangled sounds forced into the pillow can’t be anything else.

  IN HER room Kat sits amidst her books. She has them organized by title, catalogued as in a real library, with a shoebox full of index cards. The ones in front of her are tattered picture books. Anechka’s been itching to recycle them. In return for twenty kilos of recycled paper one can get a brand new volume of Dumas or Conan Doyle.

  Misha says, “Looking for something?” He’s brought her supper, noodles in milk, which she usually likes.

  She tells him she’s not hungry.

  He sits next to her on the carpet, leafs through the books fanned out in front of her. “Want me to read to you?” he says.

  On any other night, she would have found the offer insulting. She does her own reading now, real books, not these childish scraps. But tonight she allows it. They huddle together on the carpet and he reads to her, one by one, The Tale of the Golden Cockerel and The Little Black Hen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and The Scarlet Flower. It’s past Kat’s bedtime, but Misha is unmindful of the hour. He seems to love these silly illustrated tales, where every dilemma is solvable and every choice is clear-cut.

  6

  ANECHKA NEEDS A NEW DRESS, NO QUESTION about it. Not for a special occasion, an anniversary or New Year’s Eve, but simply because she deserves one, damn it. Especially after everything she’s been through in the last few weeks.

  “You mean the operation?” says Kat.

  “I mean a baby. A child. A little sister or brother for you. But since that wasn’t permitted, I’m getting a dress.”

  “And the baby?” says Kat.

  “No baby.”

  “Ever?” Come to think of it, Kat wouldn’t mind a little brother or sister. Or a puppy. A puppy would be great. Could they possibly get themselves a puppy?

  “Shut up, Kat. Don’t be daft.”

  Most of Anechka’s dresses are from before she was married, dating back to her institute days. Faded knits, stretched-out synthetics, plus one crisp black number with red stripes along the hem and a row of white plastic buttons. What she needs is something warm and durable, good for the approaching winter months. Raised shoulders, a simple cut.

  It’s a Saturday evening. They are walking along deserted, frosty streets, the streetlights casting thin pools of electricity. Each apartment block they pass is lit up by hundreds of windows. Behind each window, life sizzles—warm, intimate, impossibly mysterious—while out in the streets there’s only the chill and stillness and occasional crunch of footsteps.

  They are going to meet Anechka’s dressmaker, and the word itself, somehow antiquated, makes Kat feel grim. She wanted to stay in, to have a cup of egg-flip, to watch The World of Animals with Misha. She’
s been away at school all week. But Anechka said, “Come with me, baby,” and Misha gave Kat one of those looks that seem to say they have an understanding.

  Ever since her operation, Anechka’s been in a state. Misha keeps saying “fragile,” but Kat, if asked, would call it “all-out mad,” except that no one is asking. The week after the operation, Kat came home with two “satisfactory” grades; when Anechka saw them she slapped her with the back of the school diary. Later she cried and said sorry and told Kat about the “murdered” baby, hacked out of her belly with knives and garden shears and God knows what else. It took Misha days to convince Kat there had been no garden shears, and the baby itself hadn’t become a real baby yet. They just couldn’t risk it, he said. Not with Kat’s scoliosis in the picture.

  The dressmaker’s apartment is in a fancy complex of tower-style blocks. She’s been endorsed by a colleague of Anechka’s, a young, silly woman nicknamed Moth. She’s a lousy teacher, this Moth, but she does know fashion. When she’s not at work, she stands outside the Shoes & Furs store, waiting for some once-in-a-lifetime delivery, boots from Yugoslavia, men’s leather gloves.

  The dressmaker greets them in the hallway. She’s wearing what looks like silk pajamas, though since she’s friends with Moth, it could be the latest squeak of fashion. Her name, she says, is Nelya.

  “We’re doing something for the girl?”

  “The girl is just along,” says Anechka.

  “Charming,” Nelya mutters. “Simply charming.”

  Kat sees nothing charming at all.

  Nelya leads them into the kitchen, where, amidst tea and clutter, Kat sees no sewing implements. A phone rings, a slick red contraption with buttons, and Nelya motions for them to sit down and wait. She is speaking to someone called Bunny. “Yes, tomorrow. Let me write it down.” She scribbles a reminder directly on the wall.

  “Now, where were we?”

  The dress, says Anechka. She starts describing what it is she wants, but Nelya interrupts her. “Let’s see the fabric first.” She rubs the edge of the blue nubbly fabric they brought, and even Kat can see it’s better suited for upholstering couches. “Domestic production?”

  Anechka says, “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Well then,” says Nelya. She gets a tape measure from a cupboard and tells Kat she can look at catalogues. There are several thick catalogues on the counter, pages full of lovely blond people in bright coats. Women, men, children. German or Swedish. The colors in the Working Woman magazines are dismal in comparison, and the women, the mannequin girls, how strained they seem in retrospect, how mannered and uncomfortable.

  In some parallel universe, Nelya takes Anechka’s measurements, and later the two of them discuss payment, make the next appointment. Anechka dictates their phone number, which Nelya commits to the wall. “Roshdal,” she says, jotting down Anechka’s last name. “I knew some Roshdals once. They went to Palestine. You’re not related, are you? Probably not. Her husband, I think, was an accountant.”

  “WHAT’S A JEW?” Kat asks Anechka on the way to school next Monday. It’s not as if she’s never heard the word; in the kitchen discussions it popped up quite a lot. She just never figured out what it meant, or what the discussions were about.

  “Jew is a nationality,” says Anechka. “Our nationality, to be precise.”

  “Aren’t we Russian?”

  “We’re Soviet citizens, if that’s what you’re asking. That’s not the same as nationality. You know there are many nationalities, Ukrainian, Moldavian, and so on.”

  “The fifteen republics?”

  “That’s right,” says Anechka. “Except there’s more than fifteen nationalities.”

  “We don’t have a republic then?”

  Anechka sighs. “We don’t have squat.”

  “It’s not a bad thing, though, is it? To be a Jew?”

  “Why should it be a bad thing?”

  Kat drops the subject. Some girls at school don’t make it sound like a good thing. Lida Kravchenko whispers “Yid” when she walks by, and Misha later tells Kat it is an ugly word. And also, why do they have such odd last names?

  Ahead of the Octobrist ceremony, Rosa divides their detachment into groups. The groups, called little stars, are supposed to compete with one another in grades, deportment, adherence to medical procedures, and daily chores. The first little star is the best: it’s got, among others, Alina, Igor, and Kira Mikadze. The second one is also good. The third has the weepers and is clearly inferior. But Kat’s little star is by far the worst.

  “Tell your father about your little star,” says Anechka.

  “What should I tell him?” Kat stalls. They’re having their normal weekend supper—cubed potatoes, small bits of “Doktorskaya” sausage fried in sunflower oil—and she’d rather not discuss the latest of her failures.

  “Just tell him who’s in it.”

  “Vera Dinnershtein,” Kat starts slowly. “Sonya Bronfman—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” says Anechka. “Dinnershtein, Bronfman, Knopman, Falikman.”

  “Also, Seryozha Mironov.”

  Mironov was added at the last minute. “Why me?” he tried to argue. “Why put me with those freaks?” Some girls in the front row started giggling. Didn’t he know what he looked like, the poor freaky thing?

  “Could Rosa be any more blatant?” asks Anechka.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” Misha says.

  “Knopman, Falikman, Dinnershtein, Bronfman?”

  “And don’t forget Mironov. A simple Russian name.”

  “An outlier,” insists Anechka. “An exception that only proves the rule.”

  “Could be a coincidence. We don’t know about the other groups.”

  “Sure!” Anechka sneers. “A whole class full of little Jewish girls. Next you’ll tell me we’ll have communism by the year 2000.”

  “Won’t we?” Kat asks them, and her parents both say no, at once, in unison.

  “Communism is a utopia,” says Anechka. “A fairy tale, that’s all.”

  “She really needs to know this now? You want her to repeat that at school?”

  “She knows better,” says Anechka, and Kat assures them she won’t repeat it.

  “She’s a child,” says Misha.

  “She’s an individual,” says Anechka.

  “Okay, Button, be an individual now and go to your room. You must have some homework to do.”

  “I’ve done it,” Kat says, but she goes. She’s disappointed them again, this time by not rising above her weird surname, the way Misha and Anechka rose above theirs. This wouldn’t have happened if she had managed to excel in something—math, reading, nature studies, art, or gym. Instead, she is just average.

  ANECHKA SAYS she dislikes the dressmaker. She’d rather not go back to her. “That woman,” she says. “That woman with her innuendos.” But the appointments have been made, the dress is partly paid for, so it appears she doesn’t have a choice. She makes Kat come along with her—the fittings are always on Saturdays—and Misha also pushes Kat to go; her mother, he says, needs her moral support. Kat sits at Nelya’s kitchen counter, looks at the catalogues, imagines what it must be like to live in such opulence, with such a wealth of colors around you.

  She has her own fittings now. Once a week she returns to the brace shop, where her technician tries on her the newly made brace parts. She likes her technician. She’s glad he’s not the one with missing fingers, nor the clean-shaven buffoon who flirts with the older girls. Hers is a serious, taciturn type, and she mostly doesn’t mind when he touches her bare arms and shoulders, or when he jostles her hips into the pelvic enclosure. She never says a word. Even when he pulls the belt too tightly and the uneven edges pinch her skin, a small grunt is all she’ll allow herself.

  Pain is becoming her companion. She goes in for vitamin injections every day; the school dentist fixes her two cavities; and then, despite Anechka’s conjectures, she is given a plaster-cast bed. It’s molded to her body
, and after it dries for a couple of weeks, it’s fitted with hard wedges that bite into her back when she lies down. It hurts so much, she can’t sleep. Other girls in her dorm ditch their plaster-cast beds once Rosa goes out for the night. They stash them underneath their normal beds. They can’t understand why Kat prefers to suffer. Is she showing off? Is she afraid?

  But Kat is testing her resolve, her character. “Live up to the heroes’ example!” It is imperative to prove that she’s a hero, that she is stalwart, brave, impervious to pain. She must be diligent in class and generally well-behaved, and she must always volunteer to sweep the floors or air the classroom. “Only those who toil and sweat get to join the Octobrist set.”

  They are swimming in slogans these days. The one they hear the most is, “The school is your new family.” Thumbelina says it when they quarrel. The school principal says it when she inspects their class. And Rosa? Rosa says it at every opportunity.

  “Why do I need a new family?” Igor Zotov asks her.

  Rosa considers that a show of impudence and sends him to stand in the corner for an hour. Then she tells them the story of Pavlik Morozov, the pioneer hero who exposed his kulak father. “Loyalty to one’s collective is more important than familial love.”

  “What if my mama dies,” starts Vika.

  “Your mother’s fine,” says Rosa. “I spoke to her last Friday.”

  “That was my aunt.”

  “You don’t have an aunt, Litvinova. And your mother, incidentally, doesn’t have cancer.”

  So now they have to decide what to do with Vika, whether she can be forgiven for deceiving the class, whether she deserves to join the great Octobrist organization. This isn’t a minor infraction, Rosa tells them. Because Octobrists don’t lie.

  The night of the Octobrist ceremony, neither Misha nor Anechka comes. There’s no one to marvel at Kat’s prettiness as she stands outside the classroom in her new blue skirt and white silk blouse. Her hair has grown out a little. Thumbelina brushes it and ties up one section with a borrowed rose-bow. “Such lovely soft ringlets,” she murmurs. The weepers ask if they can touch Kat’s hair, and then Igor Zotov comes closer too.