Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories

Smena wasn’t sure to whom, exactly, the woman was directing the question. But there it was: the dying woman’s motive. A lovely two-room for her lovely family. Her legacy secured. If Smena were to be imprisoned for the bone business, Nika’s growing, government-affiliated family would be next in line for her apartment. Smena wanted to jump up, scream “Gotcha!” like she’d seen a man do at the bazaar once, after he’d stabbed his finger into a vendor’s pot of golden honey to reveal the cheap sugar syrup underneath.

Before Nika left, she placed a second sheet of black film on the table, without inquiring about the first.

An hour later, the new scan glowed on the kitchen window. Smena wanted to track the progression—again, for curiosity’s sake.

The sun’s rays showed more thinning of the bone as the tumor burrowed toward the spinal column. Smena couldn’t help being impressed by the thing—an organism living by its own will, clawing for space in the tight dome of the skull.

—

The next meeting, Larissa forgot about the bread and eggs, but did bring two albums by John Coltrane.

“Never heard of him,” said Milena, who stood at the window, left thigh resting on the sill.

Larissa straightened the velvet lapels of her blazer and looked up at Milena. “John Coltrane,” she explained, “was one of the most prominent jazz musicians of the twentieth century.” Her nose and cheeks were red and puffy. Despite her best efforts to appear composed, she looked in danger of crumpling to the floor any moment.

“How am I supposed to know? No one’s ever asked for a Coltrane,” said Milena. She eyed the tray of buns poking over the top of the refrigerator, then glanced at Smena for permission. Smena nodded—she regretted not having offered them herself.

“You’re supposed to know what you’re selling,” said Larissa, hoarse voice rising. Smena shushed her. “How else do you test for fake clients, impostors?” Larissa whispered.

“Speaking of,” Milena said through a mouthful of bun.

Smena and Larissa turned to her.

“It’s probably nothing,” Milena tried.

“Tell us the nothing,” said Smena.

Milena scratched a spot of grime off the window with her fingernail. “I was at the park, my usual spot by the thousand-year oak, when a guy came up to me. Skinny, with a sad attempt at a mustache. Asked for a KISS. Like the group. The music group.”

“Very good,” said Larissa, rolling her eyes.

“I started to grill him,” Milena continued. “Year the band got together, band leader’s middle name, year of their breakout single, whichever useless facts Larissa shoves down my ear.” She winked at Larissa, who turned away in a huff. “The guy was doing well, seemed to know everything. Then he started grilling me. Asked why Ace Frehley added eyeliner to his iconic ‘Space Ace’ makeup design. What was I supposed to do, look stupid? I played along, answered best I could, but when I asked, ‘So are you buying the album or not?’ he only said, ‘Nah, I got what I came for.’ ”

“And then?” asked Smena.

“He just walked off.”

Milena helped herself to another bun. She mashed the entire thing into her mouth, and Smena watched her masticate it without any apparent enjoyment. There were only four buns left, and she imagined what would happen once they were all gone, how she’d gnaw on laurel leaves, suck peppercorns for taste.

After a while Milena said in a low voice, “It’s what they do. Play with you first, see you flail, knowing you have nowhere to go.”

“Play is all it is,” countered Larissa. “No one gets sent to the camps anymore. Human rights,” she proclaimed, chin tilted up, “are in vogue.”

“My sweet thing,” cried Milena. She sank down to the stool beside Larissa, grasped the young woman’s hand. At first Smena took Milena’s outburst for sarcasm, but Milena seemed genuinely shocked by Larissa’s innocence, as if she’d discovered a kitten playing in a dumpster. Larissa blushed, but did not retract her hand before Milena let go.

When Smena had starting making bone records, in the fifties, the risks were clear, the boundaries stable. Now an invisible hand was loosening the screws, but it was impossible to tell which screws, and for how long the loosening would last. Although no one got sent to the camps (for now), every citizen was able to imagine more clearly than ever before what might await them in those very camps; the newspapers had begun publishing prisoners’ accounts, down to the gauge of the torture instruments.

“Camps or no camps,” Milena said, “prison wouldn’t be fun either.” She turned to Smena. “So what do we do?”

“You didn’t show the man any of the albums?” Smena asked. “You kept them inside your coat the whole time?”

Milena nodded. “He saw nothing.”

While the possible punishment was unclear, something else was not: they all needed the money.

Larissa turned to Milena. “When the man asked why Ace started using eyeliner, what did you say?”

“To keep the silver face paint out of his eyes. He’s become allergic.”

Larissa smiled proudly.

—