Above Us Only Sky (18 page)

19

Prudence

T
he radiators clunked and sighed as water gurgled through the pipes. My poor Oma was freezing. She'd brushed her teeth twenty times, but her mouth still tasted bad. Her stomach hurt. She sat in the middle of a twin bed, the covers gathered at her neck. The Old Man said, “Our guide is meeting us in the dining room for dinner.”

My Oma said, “I can't do it.”

I remember that the Old Man kissed her forehead and pulled the dusty duvet tighter around her neck, telling her that she had to get well before we left for Vilnius, the former capital of Lithuania.

I pressed my hand to the window. The cold felt delicious. Breathing out, I could see my breath, Moscow in November. My Oma's feet were sticking out beneath her blanket. They were old feet with hammertoes and bunions, and I remember draping a blanket over them. Selfishly, I wanted her to hurry up and recover, afraid she'd ruin our trip. We'd come so far. I had to see Lithuania.

The Old Man was smoking his cigar, having a fine time telling one of his long history lessons about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, at one time the largest nation in Europe. We'd already, without requesting it, had a bottle of Russian vodka brought to the room, and he was helping himself. “Vodka,” he said, “is the one thing the Russians will always have.” The Old Man was explaining in his didactic way that
Lithuanians are nationalists, but not in the same way as the nationalism that spawns wars. “We live and let live.” I remember thinking that nationalism has five syllables. Wheaton would like it.

At dinner, we met our guide, a petite woman with spiky blond hair and cat-eye glasses. Her name was Natasha Sluska. (She has since moved to the United States and works as a translator for a national charity, but back then, she was as red as they come.) We soon discovered that it was her job to subtly and not so subtly prove to us, despite the declining economy, that the Soviet Union was superior to the United States. I remember her thin-lipped smile and how she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger. From birth, she'd been indoctrinated to believe that the United States of America was bent on her destruction. Natasha was neat in appearance, wearing a pencil skirt and fitted jacket, one of the last vestiges of an orderly Soviet Union. Mass changes were afoot. Despite her position, Natasha was unaware. She gently informed us that she would be our guide for the duration of our visit, including our trip to the Western Province.

The Old Man didn't hide his disdain for phrases like “Western Province.” He tugged at his beard, pursed his lips, and shook his head. “I'm not going to any Western Province. I'm going to Lithuania.”

Natasha smiled politely. “And where is your wife, Mr. Vilkas?”

I explained that my Oma was sick to her stomach.

“We will send something to the room.”

The Old Man opened his menu. It was imposing, the size of a poster. Natasha Sluska explained, “We have everything here, anything you could possibly want. This is the land of plenty.”

I wanted soup. This was doable. There was cabbage soup and turnip soup and Beluga caviar, but nothing else: not the steak Freddie and the Old Man wanted. Not the green salad Veronica requested. There was vodka and a mashed beet blintz. Even I tried the vodka. The Old Man wanted to know why it was that the restaurant had nothing listed on the menu, and Natasha explained that we had just ordered the specific things that were late in being delivered to the restaurant.

Later, the Old Man slipped away to the kitchen. He knew enough of the language to ask a cook how he might get a steak. It came down to American dollars. How many American dollars was the Old Man willing to spend? According to the Old Man, after some tough negotiations, a deal was struck. He also finagled chocolate ice cream.

Thus, on our second night in Moscow, we feasted on steak and ice cream, and Natasha Sluska proclaimed, “I told you that we have everything you could possibly want in Russia.” She truly believed what she said. The Old Man guffawed but said nothing of his bargain with the cook.

My Oma was still sick, refusing to leave our hotel room. I remember that she scratched the backs of her knees and elbows until the skin flaked white on the red duvet. She threw up the toast and hard-boiled egg she'd eaten for breakfast. The hotel concierge sent up a pitcher of hot steeped dandelion tea to help settle her stomach, but nothing helped. Each day, the rest of us had an itinerary to follow, a guided tour designed to impress and enchant, while Oma stayed in bed.

On our first day, we visited the Tretyakov Gallery, a museum housing some of Russia's greatest art. It was stunning. Even the Moscow Metro was worth seeing. The underground train had reflective marble walls, high ceilings, and shimmering chandeliers, another testament to the proletariat's brilliance.

Back in our room, the red velvet duvets were soft, but underneath, the sheets were scratchy and threadbare in spots. My Oma remained in this drafty room, her fear festering like a rotten plum in her gut.

She had lost her mother and father and brother, and then she'd lost her cousins to an iron curtain, and here we were behind the borders of this imposing red-star state, awakened each morning by its image on the television announcing the start of a new day.

It was November 9, 1989, and none of us knew that in Berlin, Germany, a wall was being torn down. In the rest of the world, it was on the front page of every newspaper, the story running continuously on cable television, but not in Moscow. Only recently had the 1969 moon landing by the United States been shown on Soviet television. Every morning, there were exercise programs and news reports about the evils of capitalism. At night, there were symphonies, the music of Tchaikovsky, and special programs on the glory of Lenin. In between, there were montages of happy, marching children, red stars, and the Soviet flag. I thought it was strange but alluring, and I thought it would be easy to believe the Soviet mirage.

For two days while we toured the Kremlin, my Oma remained in the hotel room. That black plum was rotting and wouldn't let anything else, neither soup nor bread, not even water, remain. The Old Man thought we might have to cut the trip short. She was pale. Soon we'd need to get her to a hospital. She was dehydrated. On the third day, Natasha Sluska called for a physician. He started an IV and injected fluid under her skin. Then she looked puffy. I told her about the grand cathedrals and palaces, the great works of art. She stared blankly out the frosty window.

Fear breeds sickness. Few things breed it as deeply or as quickly. I know that if my sweet Oma had seen the first sledgehammers knocking against the Berlin Wall, she would've tossed the bedcovers aside.

If she'd seen the pickaxes gouging out concrete and rock, she'd have thrown her hands in the air.

If she'd seen the strangers from East and West holding on to one another, hugging, and patting each other on the back, she'd have eaten cake.

If she'd heard the newscasters shouting above the flag-waving crowd, she would've raced outside in the freezing cold, bunions and hammertoes be damned, and my sweet Oma would've danced in Red Square. I know it. I wish that we'd all known what was happening in the world, but we were in a protected proletariat bubble. Of course, we'd know soon enough. That's the thing about bubbles. At some point, they burst.

In the middle of the night, my Oma shook me awake. She said, “I don't care that I missed the art. I do not like Russians, nothing about them. Not even Russian babies because they'll be indoctrinated.” She looked like a specter in a long white polyester nightgown. Before I could respond to what she'd said, she shuffled back to her own bed and went to sleep. I was awake.

This was our last night in Moscow. In only three days, we'd seen Lenin's tomb, Red Square, Victory Park, and Saint Basil's Cathedral. We could've spent three days alone touring Red Square. There'd been so much to do. At three in the morning, I went to the Old Man. He sat alone in an upright chair in the corner making gruff, bearlike sounds.

“I'm worried about Oma,” I told him.

“She is a tough bird, Prudence.” He scratched his salt-and-pepper beard. “Do you want a cigar?”

“Do you have any cigarettes?” He shook his head that he did not, and continued, “This is shit, you know . . . Their charades. Nothing here is what it seems to you. Your Oma is lucky she did not see it. Not lucky to be sick, but she will be better when we are away from this.”

The skin beneath the Old Man's eyes was puffy. I don't think he'd been sleeping. We were all antsy to get out of Russia, and he couldn't hold his vodka the same way he could hold his beer. The vodka made him sad. He told me that they dug their own graves, and I asked him, “Who?”

“The Russians gave them shovels and they digged in the dirt until it was deep enough to bury them, and then they got on their knees, and if anyone tried to run, he was shot.”

Like my father before me, I did not want to hear such things, and as if he could read my mind, the Old Man said, “Do you think I want to remember?”

The Old Man puffed on his cigar and looked at the rotting ceiling. “Who cares about shit?” I remember that he spoke to me in the present tense like everything was just happening, like forty-eight years hadn't passed. “If they have it their way, they will murder everyone or send us to work, to fish or dig iron ore until our hands bleed and we die.” The Old Man's voice was sloshy and guttural.

I felt a lump in my throat, pressing against my trachea and pharynx, filling my voice box and spreading like thick jam over my vocal folds. I started to cry because I could imagine the men in that pit. I could imagine the Old Man digging for his father.

Right away, he changed the subject. He hadn't meant to upset me. He used his thumb, which smelled sweet like his cigar, to wipe the tears from my face. He said, “I will teach you some songs. There is every kind of song in Lithuanian. There are hunting songs, milling songs, harvest songs, herding and plowing and haymaking, but the most important song is the song for the heroes who fight for their freedom. When I was a boy, there were always festivals and singing, and my mother, she was the greatest at singing.” With this, he sat up straighter and touched his throat. “Even I used to sing! You would never believe it. And my sister Daina is named after the word for song. She had the wings. She had a beautiful voice.” His anger and sadness had evolved into excitement. “I remember singing.”

His face glistened in the dim light. I asked if he was crying.

He gruffed, “There is something in my eye.”

I loved my grandfather how I imagined a girl should love her father, unconditionally, wholly, and without reservation. Despite everything he'd endured, the Old Man was soft on the inside, a young man in an old man's dress.

I feel dirty from the plane. The rental car has that new car smell, and my mother is smoking, rolling down her window. There were house sparrows in the parking lot when we signed for the car. House sparrows were first brought to the New World and released in Brooklyn, New York, in 1850 because they were thought to feed on the insects that were then feeding on crop populations. Rather, as ground feeders, the sparrows ate those very crops that they were thought to protect. Because they've endured and thrived, simultaneously crowding out native bird species, sparrows are regarded as pests. I have old cookbooks filled with sparrow and blackbird recipes. Sparrows belong to the Old World, not ours.

The Old Man is from that world. We are driving to the hospital. My mother offers me a cigarette, but I don't feel like smoking. I'm not thirsty and I have no appetite. It doesn't matter where the sparrow originated. It's the most abundant songbird in the world. I want to be close to the Old Man, feeling his beard tickling my shoulder, hearing his gruff voice tell me that everything is going to be all right because I am a Vilkas. Like the house sparrow, I know how to adapt. If it weren't for the Old Man, I don't know that I would've survived losing Wheaton.

20

Prudence

W
heaton and I parted ways two years after my trip overseas, when the scrub of Los Vientos was no longer underfoot. I was accepted to the University of Florida and Wheaton was accepted to Saint Mark's College, a private liberal arts school only fifteen miles from home. Wheaton still carried his brown notebook, bulging with folded drawings and held together by thick rubber bands.

For acceptance to Saint Mark's, Wheaton spent six months compiling a portfolio, none of the work as brilliant as what I'd seen crumpled in his old brown recipe book.

Wheaton's father, Rick, had always wanted to attend the small yet prestigious Saint Mark's College, but instead he impregnated Lily with Wheaton's sister and procured a job as a proofreader for a local tourist rag. Growing up, we never saw Rick. He quarantined himself in a small room off the den working on his novel. While Wheaton and I ate dinner with Lily and Tammy, Rick was in the next room click-clacking away. About once a month, I saw him emerge from his cave and talk gibberish about people we didn't know. These people, Wheaton explained, were Rick's characters, and they were more real to him than Lily, Tammy, or Wheaton. Rick certainly spent more time with them.

Wheaton's mother was having an affair with a building contractor who lived four houses away. She liked the contractor because he made things with his hands and not his mind. She could see and touch the things he made. Wheaton, Tammy, and I knew about the affair. We didn't discuss or mention it. I think Lily knew that we knew, while Rick was oblivious, caught up with the fictitious lives of his characters. His real family was not welcome within the borders of his imaginary world.

I was busy at the University of Florida, with plans to be a marine biologist. I had no foresight.

It was during my first semester, October 1991, that Wheaton quietly left me.

In 1989, he'd feared my departure from his life because I had found my birthright, but in all our years together, I had never considered his sudden exit from mine.

The last time I remember speaking to him, he was telling me about his new friend Skye Bouvier. He'd known her for little over a month, and already I was sick to death of hearing about her. She was studying social work, and he'd told her about his visions. I was jealous, fearful of being replaced. The last thing he said to me was that he'd never be a leading man with me. I thought he was drunk or in the midst of some vision. I made light of what he said. I planned to see him over fall break and then again at Thanksgiving. But he was not there. He didn't come home for fall break. His college was fifteen minutes away, but he'd made “other plans.” He didn't go into specifics. At Thanksgiving, Lily said, “He's not coming home.” I didn't know that she meant
ever again
. I asked her if Wheaton was involved with Skye Bouvier. She had no idea to whom I was referring. I sent him cards and silly notes. When he didn't respond, I gave him the space he clearly needed. I suspected that he was engaged in his first serious relationship. I would see him at Christmas.

Then Christmas break arrived. I took over a plate of cookies and a carton of eggnog. “Where is Wheaton?”

It was ninety degrees.

“He's gone.”

“Where?”

“He's moved on.”

Had I done something? I couldn't think of any good reason for Wheaton to run out on me. I tormented his mother. She had to know his whereabouts. Finally, a few days after New Year's Day, 1992, she said, “I can tell you that he's fine, Prudence.” She took a deep breath. “He's written you a letter.” She took another deep breath. The door was open only enough for me to see her face. She looked tired. Wheaton's father, Rick, came up close beside her and extended a note for me. Lily looked like she might cry.

“Where is he?”

In unison, they shook their heads.

Had they somehow put him into a Magnolia Gardens for grown-ups? For a split second, I wondered if Lily was still sleeping with the contractor. Was Rick still struggling with his novel? But Wheaton's parents, for my purposes, were more like appendages than people. They were a link to Wheaton, little more. They closed the door and I crossed the street with my note. Sitting on the front stoop where I'd first sat, knee to knee, seven years old with Wheaton Jones at my side, I opened his letter. It was printed in pencil on notebook paper. The
W
s looked swirly and capped like waves. Those were Wheaton's
W
s.

Dear Prudence,

I have to go away now. It's bittersweet to end on a grand number like ten, thumb to pinky two times. You were the most important person in my life. I wish that I had told you once that I love you. Why didn't I say it? I do. I love you.

This isn't about you. You'll be all right.

Remember: I can see things no one else can see, so I know that you're going to be just fine. Good luck with the birds.

Love,

Wheaton

What upset me most in his letter was the use of the past tense. I
was
the most important person in his life. I had been replaced. Ours was a platonic relationship, and although I'd had a few dates in high school, as far as I knew Wheaton had not. He was a virgin. At first, I assumed that Skye Bouvier had stolen him away from me. I knew nothing about her, but when I visited Saint Mark's shortly after receiving Wheaton's letter, I tracked her down. She seemed harmless. They'd been friends. She thought he was interesting. My accusations of a tryst bothered her. She had a boyfriend. She and Wheaton were never more than friends. She'd tried to help him.

Apparently, at fall break, Wheaton had left school and never returned. Shortly thereafter, he'd written a letter to the chair of the arts department, explaining that he did not belong at Saint Mark's. By the time I started investigating, Wheaton was no longer enrolled at Saint Mark's.

Skye said that she could show me his old place—if I wanted. She was sorry that I'd lost my friend, but she didn't know where he was. Maybe his parents knew? I didn't tell her that he'd left me, that there'd been a note.

I didn't know what to do.

Skye took me to his warehouse studio. It hadn't been rented yet, and she still had a key.

I nearly got sick on the concrete floor. In addition to finding the usual things, like clothes and toiletries, pen-and-ink, charcoal still-life drawings—what looked like early class assignments—there was a separate pile of drawings done on kraft paper. These were drawings of wings, but they were rendered architecturally, with an eye for utility, including formulas and measurements, things I didn't understand. In the warehouse's center was an eyesore, the culmination of Wheaton's designs: a winged monstrosity. In the winter of 1992, I still felt my wings, and I felt them at the sight of this thing Wheaton had wrought. I felt them sharp and bulging against my back. Wheaton had made hulking wings, heavy and robotic, like someone's penance for a crime. They were composed of metal, riveted, each one the length and width of an average-size dining room table, the edges ragged and rusted, serrated like steak knives. Upon closer examination, it appeared that the edges had been intentionally sharpened with some kind of tool. My wings were ghostly, naked to the average eye, felt from the inside out. Wheaton's wings—if you can imagine something so ugly being called a pair of wings—were connected by three butt hinges, leaving the faintest smell of WD-40 on my hands. Beneath the hinges, there were two industrial-size red-and-white-striped canvas straps that Wheaton presumably wore over his shoulders. Skye and I could not lift the contraption, but she assured me that he had in fact spent a good deal of time donning the metal wings. She showed me where a pulley had at one time been attached to the wings—causing them to open and shut. There was no way to tell Skye that I'd been born with wings. It wasn't her business.

I asked to be alone.

Skye obliged, calling Wheaton “a sweet kid.” After Skye had gone, I rifled through his things, searching for clues, coming up empty-handed. His vanishing was like a scene from a bad science-fiction movie, where someone disappears from their bed and winds up on an alien spaceship. I started to think that maybe his letter was forged.

His mattress was on the floor. I sat down to catch my breath, to gaze at the mechanical wings. What was Wheaton doing? Men don't fly, not without meeting their doom. Bird girls hardly fly, only for a few seconds, only a few feet off the ground. I fell back onto the mattress, wrapping myself in his blue pinstriped sheets. He was gone. I was alone.

Freddie and Veronica sat in our old den. It was theirs now. They were in love or something. Freddie tried to reason with me. “Wheaton must've had his reasons.”

“Like what?”

That was the question no one could answer.

Veronica suggested I call the Old Man. “If there's anything the Old Man can understand, it's the business of getting on with life.” At this, Freddie laughed. “I'm serious,” Veronica said.

I have always taken my studies seriously, and so I returned to the University of Florida and completed my spring semester. After my last exam, I flew to New York to see the Old Man. I rehearsed a hundred ways of explaining my feelings of helplessness. When he opened the door, I fell into his arms. I felt guilty because I was upset by the loss of one friend when the Old Man had lost nearly everyone he loved. Loss, I soon learned from him, is not measured in numbers. It's not comparative. It's in here. I'm touching my chest now.

I showered and my Oma fed me. In the den, the Old Man acted the part of maestro playing his favorite records. He smoked his pipe and drank his Black Label beer. “You are chasing a ghost,” he told me. “When it is the right time, you will find Wheaton again. You are not in charge of the universe.”

“I never said I was.”

“You are arrogant because of you being young. You can't help it. You think you are the bandleader. You are not.”

“No, I don't. I'm not like that.”

“Quiet,” he told me. “I want to hear the music.”

My Oma smiled at us. “I'll get a snack for you.”

The Old Man puffed on his cigar. “How many years did you know Wheaton?”

“Twelve.”

“Were they good years?”

Of course they were good years.

The Old Man said what I was thinking: “Of course they were good years. You love him, and he loves you. So what is wrong with you? Are you greedy? Is twelve good years not enough for you? What number of years will make you happy?”

There was no magic number. There was nothing to do. Like humans, birds mourn the loss of fledglings and mates. There are a thousand variant weeping songs to sing. I had to sing mine and get on with it. That is what I did. Now I am supposed to do it again, this time for the Old Man.