Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories

Now Nika visited Smena every week. She would bring soup or cabbage pie, and the pair would sit down for a midday meal followed by tea. Each time Nika knocked, Smena vowed to confront her. If Nika really was looking to extort her, Smena was willing to preempt, negotiate, even give her a cut of the bone music profits. But confronting Nika would also mean admitting to the business, and what if the woman wasn’t willing to negotiate? And, a distant possibility: What if Nika wasn’t trying to extort her at all? More and more, Smena was willing to believe it.

In truth, she didn’t mind Nika’s visits. The woman’s chatter offered a lens into the outer world that the newspapers—which Smena had mostly stopped reading anyway—could not. From Nika, Smena learned that the irises were blooming, the flowers floppy as used handkerchiefs; that it was the time of year when woodpeckers drummed on utility poles down by the river, to woo their mates. Nika exclaimed, “Can you imagine the ruckus?” Yes, Smena could.

Week to week, Smena watched the change in Nika over the rim of her teacup. One visit, Nika’s slur was so pronounced Smena could barely understand her, and the pair sat in silence, pretending nothing was wrong. Another visit, Nika regaled Smena with jokes, but as she spoke her face lacked expression, as though she were posing for a government identification photo.

“You keep giving me a funny look,” Nika remarked on that occasion.

Smena tried to brush it off. “I’m impressed. You tell a joke but keep such a straight face.”

“I’m losing feeling in my face.”

“Oi.”

“My daughter-in-law says it’ll do wonders for the wrinkles.”

“The brat.”

“I’ll look all the better when they bury me.” A strand of hair fell over Nika’s eyes and her hand pecked at her forehead, trying and failing to find the strand.

“You should be in the hospital, Nika.”

The women locked eyes.

“So you’ve looked at the scans,” said Nika.

“I don’t know why you keep giving them to me.”

Nika shrugged. “They’re as useless to me as they are to the doctors who order them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The polyclinic has quotas for tests, so they do tests. Or they just make the numbers up to fill the quotas, so their money and supplies don’t get cut. The polyclinic’s filled with these ghost patients and can’t admit new ones.”

“You have a growth in your brain the size of a lemon and they can’t admit you?”

“They can’t admit me because of the lemon. I’m not a viable patient.”

“With your new face I can’t tell when you’re joking.”

“Really, Smena, when was the last time you went out into the world?” Nika sighed, as if she were about to explain basic arithmetic. “The polyclinic doesn’t want to exceed their death quota.”

“Which I’m sure they’ve made up.”

“Doesn’t matter. The nurse said if they exceed the quota, they get investigated, and if they get investigated, it’s worse for all of us.”

“How nice of her to give you an explanation.”

“It was,” she said softly. “I gave her chocolates.”

Smena looked at her neighbor. She was a shell of the woman who had first come to Smena’s door two months ago, determined to get her way.

“At least you can make something useful out of the scans,” said Nika. “Something beautiful.”

Smena heaved herself to her feet. A vertiginous feeling overwhelmed her. She saw herself on the edge of a precipice, its bottom beckoning. She feared heights, perhaps because she also loved them—she always wondered what would happen if she jumped.

Smena swung open the cabinet above the fridge. She retrieved the five albums she had made for Nika and spread them out on the table in chronological order. She pointed to the first, the Megadeth. “You won’t like this one at first but it’ll grow on you. Listen to it when you’re alone, and imagine the sounds pouring from your own mouth.” She pointed to the rest: “Pink Floyd, to relax to. Suzi Quatro and Julio Iglesias, to cheer up to.” Nika studied the scans on the table, the ripening shadow at the base of the cranium.

Smena set the fifth, Coltrane, on the record player, and watched Nika see her skull spin into a milky blur as the needle sucked music from the grooves. The horn section came in, ecstatic, then melted away into the oily tones of solo sax. Nika closed her eyes, swayed lightly to the music. At the end of the song Smena lifted the needle from the record. She searched her friend’s face for a twitch, a nudge, but was met with an unsettling blankness.

Nika opened her eyes. “Thank you.”

Smena gathered up the bone albums. “Take them, they’re yours.”

“I said you were a good watermelon. Didn’t even have to thump you to know it. Didn’t I tell you?” Nika took the scans, placed them in her cloth sack with great care.

Smena wasn’t sure what to say, or why she settled on “Cut me up and eat me.”

“Don’t think I won’t.”

“I’m all seed.”

“I’m smiling, Smena. You just can’t tell.”

When Nika made to leave shortly afterward, Smena asked, “No more scans for me this week?”

Nika shook her head. “No more.”

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