Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

“They're adorable,” Maxine's mother said.

“Bat will meet them when he comes to Soviet Union to live with us.”

“Well, we'll see about that,” she said.

Maxine's mother came home from work and propped her aching feet in their nurse's shoes up on a chair. Maxine brought her a glass of iced tea. Her mother sipped it and asked her to spend more time with Yuri and Bat.

“I'm afraid they're becoming too attached,” she said.

“I thought you wanted them to be attached. You wanted Bat to have a friend. You imported a friend for him from another country.”

“Don't be so dramatic, honey.”

“I have things to do.”

Maxine's mother drained her tea and raised an eyebrow. “You're seventeen years old,” she said. “Get out of the house.”

So Maxine took the boys to the Living Desert, where they wandered listlessly down the nature trail and stared at the antelope. The antelope stared back just as blankly. Yuri stumbled and stuck his hand into a prickly pear, its spines puncturing his palm, but he said he was fine. They went up to the cages at feeding time and watched a snake choke down a bird. Then they walked around the nature center, looking at rocks split open to show the minerals inside.

“Okay, this is boring, Max,” Bat said.

“Yeah, it is boring,” Yuri echoed. His accent had picked up a Southwestern tinge, making him sound like a Russian cowboy. They went to the Dairy Queen and had blizzards. This was what there was to do in Carlsbad. Out of here, thought Maxine, looking at the white plastic chairs and the soft-serve machine. Soon.

She offered to take them to the Caverns, but Yuri refused, explaining that he was afraid of the dark. She didn't believe this for one second — he spent hours at a time with Bat in his murky room, listening to Pink Floyd — but she didn't protest. The boys went off together, arguing about something. Bat's face was less pale than it used to be, with all the time they spent out in the desert. Yuri, too, looked less pale, the circles under his eyes having faded to light purple. When she saw them now she remembered being with Bat on the Fourth of July, driving down to the beach with their parents to watch the fireworks over the Pecos, Bat as a little kid, with a summer tan and still Brian then, laughing his head off at the explosions.

Then Yuri knocked on her bedroom door, late.

“Bat's sick,” he said. “He drank too much beer.” He led her outside to Bat's car, where her brother was slumped heavily against the passenger window.

“Who drove home?” she said.

“I did.”

“You know how to drive?”

“I have seen Bat do it.”

They dragged Bat into the house and laid him on the bed.

There was vomit matted in his hair. His lips hung slackly down to the blanket and he started to drool. “We have to keep him on his side, so he won't choke on his vomit,” Yuri said. “I learned this at your school.”

“I'm glad American education's so useful,” Maxine said.

They arranged Bat on his side, and he snorted a little.

She got a bucket from the hall closet and put it on the floor next to the bed. “Well,” she said. “Good job, Yuri.”

They went outside and sat on the curb in front of the house. It was three o'clock in the morning, in April, and the air felt humid and warm. Yuri smoked a cigarette. When he was done he lay down on his back on the thick grass and looked at the stars. Maxine wanted to ask him about the constellations, whether they looked the same from the USSR or different, but when she started talking she realized that he was asleep.

The next morning Bat couldn't leave his bed. He tried claiming he had the flu, but the stench of beer on his clothes gave him away.

Maxine's mother lectured him for a long time. Then she turned to Yuri. “I thought you were different,” she said bitterly. He looked confused and said nothing. “I thought you would help him.”

“Give him a break, Mom,” Maxine said. “He's not from here, he doesn't know.”

He stared at his shoes, as if they were discussing some other, absent person.

Maxine decided it would be good to get him out of the house, so she drove him out the winding road to the Caverns. “It's the only place you haven't been in Carlsbad,” she said. “People come from all over the world to see this. You have to.”

Yuri lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window. He shrugged. “If I have to.”

She led him down the winding steps to the mouth of the Caverns. Families lingered in the sun outside, pressing the audio guides to their ears. Inside, it wasn't very crowded and they followed the spotlit path into the dark chambers. Maxine had been here a million times. The air was clammy and smelled acridly of bat guano.

“At sunset,” she told Yuri, “the bats fly out into the sky, hundreds of them. The sky is all blue and orange and pink and full of bats. They spend the night looking for food and then come back in.”

“Like your brother looking for beer.”

“Yeah,” she said, “something like that.”

“Will they attack me, the bats?”

“I think they sleep during the day.”

“Also like your brother!” Yuri grinned, and she smiled back at him.

She tugged at his sleeve, shyly, and walked to the start of the trail. Secretly, and even though it was always full of tourists, she liked the Caverns. She liked the twisted, gnarled formations, the marble colors in them, the improbable shapes. She liked the ones that stretched from floor to ceiling in tensed arcs, like rubber bands. They looked like they could move — and they were moving, in a way, if you thought about it; they were the movement of water made visible.

“The water drips all the time,” she whispered to Yuri. “Can you hear it dripping? It leaves deposits behind. It takes years and years to make these things. Stalactites are from the top, stalagmites are from the bottom.”

Yuri grabbed her hand, and his palm was sweaty. “I do not like caves,” he said.

“It's okay,” she told him, “Come on. It's a little slippery, so walk slow.” She pulled his reluctant hand and led him farther down. The path circled lower and lower until it brought them to the darkest part of the cavern. The formations were barely visible, pale and pink, like shy ghosts. Above them people stood higher on the trail, their voices echoing through the chamber. The lights up there looked as clustered and distant as a faraway town, as Carlsbad did when you were driving in from Artesia. Yuri stood behind her. He put his hands on her hips.

“Do you feel okay?” she asked him.

He nodded and his hair brushed against her cheek. He clasped his hands over her stomach. She thought of his two sisters, their braids flying as they ran across the snowy steppes, their pale faces turned to the sky. She thought of the beaded necklace he'd given her, curled up in her jewelry box for safekeeping.

“You are very pretty,” he said in her ear.

She loved his accent. He put his hands on her chest, one palm cupping each breast, his fingertips making tiny, almost unbearable movements over the fabric of her shirt, like water flowing in slow, insistent drops. She stood still.

Six months later, Maxine received a letter from Yuri. It was written on thin blue paper in blocky handwriting, just like the ones he used to get from his family. On the stamps were pictures of the crown jewels of Russia.

Dear Maxine,

How are you? I am fine. It is quite cold where I am right now. There is already snow but I do not mind it because the sun shines on the white snow and makes it very bright. I am often wearing my American sunglasses which makes other boys in my school very jealous. I hope that your mother will let you visit me in Soviet Union one day. I am still practicing my English for when I may go back to the States but I am getting worse because no one here speaks as good English as I do. I am the best. Oh well.