Little Cat

‘Where is your family, Mira?’

A low scraping noise suddenly started running with the engine. I looked behind us. Gio accelerated.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you speak with them?’

‘Who?’

‘Your mother, your father.’

‘Not really,’ I said.

I wasn’t going to talk about my family with him. I didn’t even want to think about my family with him. My family meant nothing inside this car. Even my Ezrah shit disappeared.

‘What does your father do?’

‘Why are you asking me?’

‘Why don’t you answer?’

‘He’s a doctor.’

‘A rich doctor?’

‘No. He has enough.’

Why the fuck was he asking me this? I was betting his next question would be: Why are you doing this?

Well, sir, Mr. Mogilevich, since you asked, I am prostituting myself so that I can go to Japan, so that I can travel and see the whole world, in fact, so that I can make money quickly and not be in debt to my family, the government or amorphous men. I don’t care about having some predictable good job at twenty-two so my mummy and daddy will pat me on the head.

‘What about your brothers?’

‘Brothers?’

‘Yes, what about the brothers.’

‘I don’t have any brothers.’

‘No brothers? Poor father!’

I snorted.

‘And Mother?’

‘My mother?’

‘Who is your mother?’

‘She’s a teacher. What do you mean?’

‘She teaches what?’

‘Religion.’

‘Religion?’ Gio started coughing. ‘What kind of religion?’

‘I don’t know, my god. All kinds.’