Palimpsest

I cannot do it. He is so old. It doesn't matter now.

Secretly, Nhean keeps a hope in his heart, and at least that is still whole. He hopes that enough rungs break that someday a child will come ‘round to him, and he can love it and teach it to make a yellow goulash, and sleep with his tail curled around it at night. It hasn't happened yet.

The rungs which are weak are the rung of Chanthou Who Loved No One, and the rung of Mealea, Who Fell in the River.

“Do you remember when mother let us eat caviar for the first time?” Lyudmila asks. “I remember how red the little eggs were, and how they burst on my tongue, and all that fishy golden oil ran down my throat. I loved it, there was so much salt in it, as though they were little sacs filled with salmon tears.”

Oleg frowns. “That was before I was born. I could not have been there, if you were there.”

“Oh,” she says, her fine forehead creasing in confusion. “Of course. I forget, sometimes.”

“I know.”

The river curdles by, and Oleg thinks he can see eyes open in the pale, dark, piscine eyes.

“I remember when you told me the story about the land of the dead,” he says, trying to cheer her up. “I told it to mother and she took my books away for a month. And I remember when I asked that girl, the Polish girl, to marry me. You whispered in my ear that she did not have a yellow rainslicker, and it would end badly.”

Lyudmila bobs her head. “Didn't it?”

Snow still spatters her hair. He does not think it is meant to melt.

“Will we get there tonight?” he asks. “Where we're going?”

“I think so. I hope you do not mind heights.” She is quiet for a long while, and Oleg strokes her knee gently, chastely. “It is a strange and pleasant thing to play the game of ‘Do You Remember?’” Mila sighs. “The only answer possible is yes. A no stops the game cold. Do you remember when I went away? From the Brooklyn girl, and also from you.”

“Yes, I'm sorry for that. I've said I'm sorry.”

“Didn't you wonder where I went? Did you think perhaps there was a Prince of Cholera?”

“You didn't die of cholera,” he points out.

“A Prince of Drowning, then. With a blue umbrella. Maybe he kissed me, and maybe his lips were cold.”

Oleg considers this. It had not occurred to him before, but he is not really upset by it. The dead keep their counsel, and he never expected to be told of his sister's love affairs.

“Is that what happened?” he asks.

“No.” She shrugs.

“I miss you, Mila,” Oleg says, his throat thick. “Your strange little ways of saying things. I can't see the world the right way up without you.”

Lyudmila shakes her head, as if to clear it, to make it empty of all that disturbs calm water. “This is… difficult for me,” she says.

“It is hardly easy for me! This is such a crazy place. It's… pretty, but it's not right in the head. But I had to come back! You're here, and not at home anymore. It's cold there, now, and I sleep on the floor I can't bear our bed. Hester-I guess you don't know her, but she's the one who didn't want to come back, the one with short hair like a boy. She brings me orange juice and cold hamburgers, sometimes, when I don't have the energy to go out, and that sounds bad, it sounds like things are bad, but I'm okay. I don't mind. I don't mind coming to you these days. It's like I'm your ghost, now. I can be as faithful as you were. I can.”

“Yes, fidelity is important. I select for it.”

“What?”

“It's so strange,” she murmurs, “that the village of the moon-drinkers was destroyed and yet these spindly little houses on their stalks survived. How can that be? The bombardments were astonishing, wasp-cannons firing fusillades like golden clouds, pale green rockets that sent burrowing weevils into the foundations of every house. I cried. I remember crying. But it was for fidelity all of it. I understood that, even then. The whole war, just for that. And because of it I learned so many things.” Lyudmila turns her face up to him, her fine, high cheeks streaked in tears. “I believe that you are faithful. That is why I bring you to my boat and stay beside you, because the war said with bombs like beetles that faithfulness must be answered with faithfulness, and that is a harder lesson than it may sound.” Lyudmila cocks her head, as if seriously considering a snarled problem. Her tears stop very suddenly. “And so I am trying to decide,” she says dreamily, “how long I ought to let this go on. It is pleasant to be held by you, after all, and pleasant on a late winter evening to be called Mila, and pleasant to smile at you and receive your smile in return. I am enjoying it.”

“Mila, what are you talking about?”

“A little longer? Just a little? I think I would like to be your sister, for a little while more.” Oleg's grip tightens on the edge of a broken, useless oar. “But I see I have handled it badly because I have become bored with saying some things and not others, with wearing masks. I should not be blamed. It is my nature. And I must pay the price for that. I am not your sister, Olezhka. Perhaps it was wrong of me to dress myself so that you would think so, but I am not a very nice creature, not really.”

“Please, Mila, don't talk about this. I can't bear it.”

“But it is cruel to let you think she is here! I did not realize you would not know the difference. It's not a very good game if you don't know we're playing. It was cruel to let Hester see the hands of the dead with no one to dry her tears. I learned my lesson; I won't do that again. I am capable of learning.”