Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

“You mean your old house?” she laughs. “Yeah. Bob hasn’t raised the rent once, because of…” she stops, swallows. “Because of what happened.”

I nod, pushing away memories of the place. I’d really loved it there, until I didn’t. “I’ll go take a nap then, I guess,” I sigh.

“My brother lives in your old room, and my friend Vince is in… the other room, but they went to Chicago yesterday, so you’ll have the place to yourself,” she says. “He’s a rapper now, did I tell you that? My brother, I mean. He’s so fucking good, too. I know you hate rap but you’d like this, Mash.” Then Rose looks past me, towards the front entrance, where three more people are entering the bar. “Better get back in there,” she says. “Money doesn’t grow on trees, like everyone loves to tell me.”

I watch her leave and am about to do the same, when someone grabs my shoulder and pulls me back.

I could tell you that when I first got the message, the one that changed everything, I was sitting there at my desk trying to do homework. But this just isn’t true. Yes, I was sitting at my desk, and yes, I had my computer open to an Intro to Website Design assignment. But really, I was staring at the screen, listening to Regina Spektor and thinking about this cute drummer I’d been seeing and why I hadn’t heard from him that night. There, I said it. Lame, I know.

I like to think that had I known our lives were about to get turned upside down, I’d have done something more… memorable. But I probably wouldn’t have. What memorable thing could I possibly be doing anyway, living in Milwaukee? A sophomore in college, I basically live in a bubble, all BYOB basement shows and coffee shop homework marathons. If it were up to me, I’d be painting giant canvasses in some warehouse loft in Brooklyn or waiting tables in Paris, but alas, because I’m the good sister, the one who didn’t drop out of school and leave the country, here I am, having to live out my parents’ dreams instead of my own. Which is to say: I never do anything memorable.

This is unfortunately (or fortunately?) about to change.

At first, the message seems like nothing. Like spam. It’s 2007, and I’m on MySpace, so a message from some girl named Zoya would more than likely be junk mail. There’s not even a profile picture up on her account. Normally I would delete it without thinking twice, but I don’t, only because it’s in Russian. That’s my native language, shared with many delightful historical figures, such as Joseph Stalin—who starved and murdered more people than Hitler—and Ivan the Terrible, so bad they put it in his name— and don’t even get me started on this Putin fellow. Because I know nothing about him other than he is also quite bad. Did I mention history and politics are not my strong subjects? I can memorize dates and names for a test, but they’re usually gone a month later. Apparently, my brain would prefer to use that space for other, more useful information, such as every line of dialogue uttered by Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . If my high school Social Studies teacher Mr. Blankovich didn’t like me so much, I’m not sure I would have been able to keep my 4.0 GPA. All I know is that the USSR was pretty bad, so here we are, in the Cheese State, far more likely to run into a cow than an undercover KGB officer.

Anyway. Jokes aside, I quite like the sound of Russian. Also, it’s a strange letter, so right away my curiosity is peaked. Above all else, I am a lover of strange things. If you don’t believe me, you should look inside my closet.

“ Dear Anastasia Pavlova, ” the message starts. “ Please forgive me for contacting you like this. I’ve known about you for a long time, but you don’t know about me. It would just be interesting for me to talk to you. If you are able, please message me back. Thanks! ”

Well that’s a ridiculous message to send a person, is my first thought.

My second thought is that it is probably spam after all.

But, no, that doesn’t quite make sense, for two reasons: first, the girl, Zoya, is from our hometown: Chernovtsy, Ukraine. Chernovtsy, just over the border near Poland and Moldova, is not a very large or famous city; its population is a third of Milwaukee’s. Almost no one has even heard of it, so that would be a strange coincidence for a spammer.

My third thought is more complex: What if she is some long-lost relative? My grandma is the youngest of seven or eight siblings, all born in Chernovtsy. Although none have lived there since the 90s’ Ukrainian Jewish exodus, and hardly any are still alive, it’s definitely possible I have cousins I don’t know about, and probably a few that have entirely slipped my mind. How else would she know my patronymic? I haven’t used it on any documents since we moved here, and one would have to know my dad to guess it. (I mean, do you blame me? It brings to mind a dog, if you’ve had any sort of classes in psychology and have read about classical conditioning.)

Which is all to say that I should probably just ask my dad. Either he will laugh it off or tell me she’s some long-lost distant relative. In either case I can dismiss the whole thing right away. It takes me about five minutes to find my phone, as it turns out I left it under the trash can. When I do find it, I call him right away.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” my dad asks, picking up on the second ring.

“Does something have to happen for me to call you?” I ask, innocently. I move the phone away from my face and light a cigarette. Logically I know he can’t see me, but it still sometimes feels that way, and he would kill me if he knew I smoked.

“You’re not coming Friday, is that it?”

“No… I’m coming,” I reply, trying to remember what it is I am coming to. Is it someone’s birthday? Anniversary? It’s always someone’s birthday or anniversary. Russians really like to party, and they will find any excuse for it. I’ve been to one-year-olds’ birthday celebrations that could rival a wedding.

My dad clears his throat, and responds to me in Russian, which means he must really be busy, or at least very tired. “Anastasia, what is it? I’m swamped here.”

“Do I have a cousin or aunt or something named Zoya Oleynik?” I ask. As I have him here on the phone, the whole idea feels ridiculous. I take a quick drag on my cigarette, and stand to blow it out the window. It hovers in the thick autumn air before lifting up over Center Street.

“No you don’t,” he says. “Not on my side anyway.”

“I figured. She just messaged me, that’s why I asked.”

My dad clears his throat. “What did she say?”

“It was kind of weird, she didn’t really say anything, just that she knows about me and wants to talk.”

There is a moment of silence on the phone that I will later find far too long. Liars pause like that. Well, bad liars do. I have since learned to notice these things.

“Hello? Dad?” I ask.

“Just ignore it,” my dad says finally. “I get messages all the time from Ukraine. They think we’re rich because we live in America.”

“Does her name sound familiar at all?” I ask, to be sure. “Do you—”

This time, before I can even finish getting these questions out, my dad interrupts. “Just forget about it. It’s nonsense. If you respond she’ll only ask for money, trust me.”

“Okay…”

“Don’t talk to this woman. Please.”

This is when I start to wonder: Why does he care so much if I talk to her? The tiniest feeling of something isn’t right here starts growing in the back of my brain. I don’t follow this feeling to its source, or investigate it further, but it’s definitely planted there for later scrutiny, like a seed.