The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (6 page)

“It’s her. Snoring.”

Lena got up and stood next to him in the doorway.

“I’d never have believed an angel like that could make that much noise.”

“Maybe she’s not an angel.”

L
ena was ready for Olga when the girl came out of her room the next morning. “Well, look at you!” she exclaimed. “You look like the princess you are!”

Her face was clean—if somewhat shiny with cold cream—and she was wearing one of Natie’s plaid wool kilts, high socks, and a long sweater of Leona’s over a shirt. Still, she wasn’t dressed exactly as Lena wanted to see her: she wore her ballet slippers with their satin laces crisscrossed over her socks. And that baggy old coat covered everything.

Maybe in a couple of days, they’d be able to get her to let go of the ratty thing. It was a golly blanket, Lena thought. Both of her girls had had them and wouldn’t have let go to save their lives. She knew better than to yank away a child’s special toy. Or coat.

“Well, you look just like one of those girls at the Hermitage, except you’ve got a pretty smile on your face and your nose isn’t pointed at the ceiling. Come over here and let me work on your hair.”

She was glad that the girl got up early, because she had some work to do. Lena couldn’t let a child with matted, dirty hair stay in her home. An array of hairstyling implements, including the electric
clippers she used on Henry, lay on the table. She’d cut Henry’s hair as long as they’d been together; she could handle a little girl’s.

“Sit down, honey. There’s a bowl of cereal for you.” Corn flakes, just plain flakes. No milk. “There are some raisins in that bowl. You can eat them or leave them alone.” She was trying to figure some way of getting protein into the girl. No wonder she was so little.

“You eat. I’m going to work on your hair.” She bent over and whispered in the girl’s ear, “Sweetheart, how did you get so dirty? Did it happen on your way here?”

The child looked up and Lena saw her eyes in the daylight. They were light gray, not too unusual a color, but they had silver streaks in them that made them glisten.

“Yes, come long way,” the girl said. “Very dirty.” Her face contracted in disgust.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, you can be clean here. Let me work on your hair.” She tried to pick the mats out, but couldn’t. “Do you mind if I use these?” She held up the clippers. “They make a noise.” Lena plugged them in and turned them on. “See?” The girl was unconcerned.

Lena plied the clippers, clucking with dismay. “Well, I’m sorry, Olga. I had to take a lot off. But you’ve got a couple of inches left. I’ll see what I can do to style it.”

She bent over and whispered conspiratorially, “When Henry comes out, he’s going to shout, ‘Woman, I need to get out of here. Where is my breakfast?’ It’s right there.” A plate with another plate turned upside down on it sat across the table.

“French toast. I have to make it every morning. Imagine a grown man wanting that kid food every day.” She looked up, ran her fingers through Olga’s soft hair. “It’s been thirty-five years, honey. And we’re still in love.”

And then she put her mind to what she was doing. She peered at the girl’s hair. When it was matted, it had looked light brown. But, with the mats cut off, Lena could see it was a pale brown with silver strands through it. Olga didn’t have gray hair; she had silvery hair, like
her eyes. The combination was perfect, and striking. “I’m going to have to use scissors to give you some shape.”

Lena was surprised when Olga showed no fear at the blades flashing over her head, yet had been scared stiff of a bathroom.

She poured a little hair oil into her hands and ran it through the child’s hair. With the oil, it curled into ringlets. A few more twists, a bit of gel. “There, honey, look at yourself. A pixie with curls. Suits you fine.” She held up a mirror. Olga looked into it, eyes widening as though she’d never seen her own face.

She touched her image and then her face. “Me! Me!” she squealed.

“You like it?”

She nodded, and the little corkscrews bounced when she moved her head.

Henry burst from their room, “Woman—”

“It’s on the table, Hen, where it always is. Your lunch is on the counter. Along with Olga’s.” She’d packed the rest of the dry cereal and some crackers. She looked at the girl. “That’s not your name, is it? Olga? That’s a terrible name for you. You should be... Alana, or Cassandra.”

“Or Rosebud,” Henry added.

The girl looked at herself in the mirror in wonder. “Eliana,” she said. “Eliana.”

“That’s your name? Why, that’s a pretty name! That’s a perfect name for you.”

“Eliana, do you want to take Shaq out with me?” Henry said. “We’ve gotta go, or we’ll be late.”

“Gotta go,” she said. “Shaq gotta go.”

They laughed.

“Hen, you take her and Shaq down; I have to check her room. I’ll come and get him right away.”

Lena checked it top to bottom. Other than smelling of baby oil and something very nice that she couldn’t place, the room was clean. She grabbed her coat and purse and headed out the door. Henry
was on the sidewalk with a puzzled look on his face. He handed her Shaq’s leash and bent over to whisper to her.

“I don’t think she ever saw anything go before.” Lena’s eyes opened wide. “When Shaq lifted his leg, she about had a fit—the water thing, I think. When he took a shit, she squatted down and stared at him. She said, ‘Look. Look.’ Freaked out, you know. Like she couldn’t believe something was coming out of him.”

How were these people built? Lena could imagine how blocked up a diet like the girl’s would make a person. They had to get rid of all that food. Didn’t they?

“Well, I’ll try to talk to her about it tonight. I gotta put Shaq back in the house and get to work.”

He walked off with the girl and her dragging coat, heading for the Hermitage Academy. Shaq sniffed around and did some more dirty before wandering to the end of his lead. Lena was damned if she was going to pick up her dog’s poo like these crazy people wanted these days. They were just anti-dog.

“You’re going to pick that up, aren’t you?” The old lady across the street leaned out her window. “It’s against the law to leave it there. I’ll call Animal Control. They’ll take that little bastard away.”

“Good morning, Elvira. It’s nice to see you this lovely morning.”

“There were three, I counted. You pick them all up, or I’m gonna make that call.”

Lena fished around in her purse, looking for some tissue so she could pick up all three of Shaq’s little turds. She’d flush them when she put him away inside. She couldn’t find any tissues. Elvira Jefferson continued to howl at her.

Damn it! She felt like turning her purse upside down. Lena was digging in the corners, holding Shaq’s leash loosely. At that exact moment, Sheela Conroy’s prizewinning Persian cat made her break for freedom. All Lena saw was a fluffy blur bursting out the front door, down the stairs, and up the street.

The leash flew out of Lena’s hand.

“Oh, no! Shaq! Come back. Come back!” She pulled out her
training whistle and her clicker and tried to put on her strong, commanding energy, like Billy the Dog Master had taught her. “Come back. Shaq, come back!” She stood her ground. He was supposed to come back. He was a graduate of dog training school.

Mrs. Jefferson hollered at her, “Use your legs, girl! Run after that dog.”

Sheela Conroy ran out of her apartment building in her bathrobe. It flapped open the way it always did. Her hair was in pink rollers the size of tin cans. “If your dog gets my cat, I’m gonna shoot him!” She ran inside, presumably to get her gun.

Lena ran and ran. She ran up alleys. Talked to people. She couldn’t find Shaq, no matter where she looked. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed when she saw his collar and leash on the sidewalk. The leash was tangled on a little fence around a tree. “Oh, Shaq!” He was so good at slipping out of his collar. No one could catch him now.

She was late for work. She called her department head. “Just give me a few more minutes.”

“Lena,” her boss whispered. “They’ve been watching us. We got a report from the snipes and they are not happy with our performance. They say we have too many absences. You missed last week.” She had; her nephew passed. She had to go to the funeral. “I know you love that dog, but they’re watching. They’re talking about termination and automation.”

“OK. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She could see Shaq in her mind’s eye, running, with his floppy ears and crazy grin.

“Oh, thank you, Lena. If you get here in twenty minutes, we should still have jobs.”

She went to the corner to catch the bus, leaving Shaq’s poo by the tree. She had to get him back. She called Animal Control and begged them to look for her dog. They had to find him.

But she knew they wouldn’t. She had a bad feeling about this day. She felt like she’d never see any of them again, not Shaq, not Henry, and not Eliana, either. She had a feeling the “party” all of them had
planned for so long was going awry. Maybe she’d been afraid for so long that believing a revolution could succeed was beyond her. Lena marched to work, showing the upbeat determination everyone displayed in public. She felt like she was walking toward death, like the feds and their camps were around the corner.

She was so upset that she forgot that she hadn’t gone back upstairs to lock their door.

“I
’ll be standin’ guard out there all day. You need me, just give me a ring. You can call from inside; there’s a button and a squawk box by the front door, or go to the office,” Henry explained as they walked through the Hermitage’s front door. He took Eliana to the school office and said, “Here she is.”

“She sure looks cute, Henry. Lena did a nice job on her hair,” said Sylvia, the manager of the office.

“Yes, she did. But she was pretty already.” Henry smiled. “I’ll be out there all day. If she wants something, please call me.”

Madame No Mercy emerged from the director’s office on the far side of the secretaries’ bullpen.

“Oh, ma chère!” she cried, flinging her hands over her head as though greeting a long-lost friend. “I could hardly sleep last night, worrying about you. But don’t you look sweet?” She wrapped her arm around the girl and planted a magenta kiss on her cheek. She noticed Henry watching. “You may go, Henry. I’ve got her now.”

He walked back to his guard station like chains were hanging from his feet. He had such a bad feeling about the day. He couldn’t
go down to see Jeremy without everyone knowing. He wanted to see what his decoding session had revealed.

Madeleine walked next to the girl, noticing that she was clean and her hair had been styled. The skirt that peeked out from under that dreadful coat was appropriate. She nodded at one and all, strolling through the hallways with her protégé. Everyone knew how well the girl could dance. News of her performance had shot around the school like lightning.

“Hello, hello.” She nodded in response to the teachers’ greetings. “Yes, this is Olga.” She felt like a queen, parading the child through the mahogany hallways. No more has-been Madame Mercier.

They got to a door. Madeleine pulled Olga closer and whispered, “I’ve helped you a bit with your classes. This is a beginning Russian history class. I know you’re a native, but I thought it would be easier for you. I’ve set up your classes to make things easier for you.” She didn’t say, because you act like you can barely speak, much less write.

Mel was lucky. His classroom had a wall of windows looking out over the street. Some of the teachers on the inside of the quad looked out over air vents. He liked working at this old place. He loved walking up to the stately stone façade and into the high-ceilinged mahogany hallway. It felt like going back to pre-Second Revolutionary times, elegant and aristocratic. It was from the olden times; the building had been constructed in 1859, hundreds of years ago.

Mel rested his hands on the podium at the front of the room, waiting for his students to arrive. His Russian history and culture class was a required course. Conquerors’ privilege, he thought. When the British ruled the world, the history of England was taught all over India. Today’s American students had to learn about Russia.