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

Finally, after several tours around the house and finding nothing of interest, I go to Anna’s room. I’d figured they would turn it into a guest room or an extra office or something by now, but it looks like no one’s been in here since she moved out. It’s still totally filled with her stuff. There are piles of old canvases and art supplies and textbooks, even some old dolls. Her bed is there, unmade, like she could return at any moment, and the closet is full of clothes, thrift-store items, full of holes and stains.

Next, my glance falls on Anna’s desk, adorned with more paintbrushes than I can count and a small tabletop easel held together by duct tape and two lamps. And a computer that looks as though it’s been hastily dropped off, not even plugged in.

Then it hits me. That’s my computer. The one I gave her before I left. Surely, as her only computer, she had taken it to school with her? Which means she must have brought it here along with all her art supplies before she left town. That’s why there’s so much stuff in her room. Wherever she was living before she disappeared, she is no longer living there, that’s for sure. Which means everything she owns is basically in that room.

I plug the computer in and wait for it boot up, hoping she hasn’t changed the password, and ideally, that some of her logins are saved. If I could get into her emails or maybe her MySpace account, there might be a chance of finding some kind of clue. A nineteen-year-old girl, in this day and age? Her whole life would be on this computer.

I’m so used to laptops that for a moment I think the computer might be dead. Apparently it’s just slow, because eventually it starts to make a very loud whirring noise and text begins to appear on the screen. There’s not even a password required to login and the house Wi-Fi automatically connects, so in seconds I’m all set to go. I open an internet browser and open MySpace. A message prompts me to update the browser, which I decline. I write in Anna’s screen name, then wait to see if the password bar is populated automatically. But no, it remains blank. Crap.

I try the same password I used to use, buffy1983. I get an error in red: incorrect password. I try another version, with her birth year instead of mine. No go. It makes sense, I suppose. Anna was never as big of a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I was. What is Anna into? I can hardly remember; it’s been so long since we had any sort of innocuous conversation about TV or anything really. I look around the room for clues. There’s a Salvador Dalí calendar hanging on the wall above the desk; I try combinations of Dalí with our birth years or her favorite number, 23; at least, what I remember her favorite number being in school. A stack of DVDs on the floor ignites five more minutes of password combinations; characters from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and X-Men . I’m about to give up when I have the idea to try my own name. Masha23, I type.

Bingo! I’m in.

Before I have a chance to feel guilty that she would use my name as a password—a black hole of guilt that I do not have the time to fall into—I open her profile to see if she is friends with anyone named Zoya. She is, indeed. I go to the page, but there’s only the barest minimum of information on there, no pictures or anything like that. I could try talking to her on the chat sidebar, but what would I say? Have you seen my sister? If only I could read their previous messages… on Facebook, the messages automatically save themselves on the server. Not on MySpace, though.

Without thinking too much about it, as I doubt it will get us anywhere, I open a chat with Zoya and write Hi . I leave it open while I move to Facebook. As far as I know, my sister never joined this platform. But I never really use any of these websites. I always preferred good old-fashioned phone calls or email. So what do I know?

Apparently, nothing. Facebook’s login page loads, and lo and behold, Anna’s email address is typed into the login bar. I try the same password I used for MySpace, and now I’ve logged into her Facebook, too. Facebook congratulates me for reactivating my account. Because she had only deactivated her account and not deleted it, all her info is still available.

I move straight to the messages and find a conversation with “Facebook User” at the top. This is easy to do as there is only one other person she was messaging on here anyway, someone named Ashley who was trying to reconnect from high school, who Anna had ignored. Whoever it was she was talking to on here, she deleted her account. Her name is gone, but the conversation is still there. Getting excited now, I scroll all the way up to the top.

The best way to understand something, I have always thought, is to start at the beginning.

<> Hi! Do you speak English?

<> Yes, but badly. Do you speak Russian?

<> Yes, but badly.

<> Haha. We can try to use Google, yes? Did you understand my message?

<> Yes. I did. I talked to my dad about it.

<> And what did he say?

<> He said I don’t have any cousins named Zoya.

<> Naturally he would say that. I’m not your cousin. I am your sister.

<> Sister, like my dad is your father or my dad is your uncle?

Here I stop for a moment. It’s definitely Zoya, but her messages are all in Russian, whereas Anna’s are in English. In Russian, “sistra” can mean either sister or cousin, depending on who is using it. So I can understand Anna’s confusion, though I am pretty sure I already know the answer. My stomach clenches in anticipation, or possibly hunger, or a combination of both. But I am too invested now to stop and track down food, so I continue reading.

<> Sister like your dad is my father.

<> But that’s crazy. Did you tell him that?

<> Many times. He’s been ignoring me already for months. I’ve been emailing him all the time, and he doesn’t answer. I want a DNK, that’s all.

<> Hold on, let me see what that is.

<> Oh. A DNA test?

<> Yes. Just a DNA test. I will pay for it myself, I don’t want money.

<> But what makes you think he’s your father? We left Chernovtsy a long time ago, and he’s been married to my mom forever.

<> This was before you left. My mother was his accountant. You can ask him about it. Her name was Olga. She died last year and I found some old letters and photos with Pavel Rosenberg written on them.

<> Sorry to be so blunt, but aren’t there hundreds of Pavel Rosenbergs in the world?

Here I stop again and stifle a laugh. It’s so typical Anna to come out with that question straight away. It makes me miss her, and hope that she’s okay. I also start to wonder what on earth is going on with my dad. It isn’t like him to have secrets. Maybe there is more to him than this middle-aged Russian dad who enjoys Everybody Loves Raymond and mini golf. Maybe Zoya really is his daughter, from an ex-girlfriend perhaps, and he has known about it all along. Maybe he has another secret family out there. It would definitely explain some of the strange things going on at the moment, especially why he wouldn’t explain who Zoya was to me.

<> I know he is. Since I was little, my mom told me I had two sisters in America. And then I found his name in the letters, and discovered his profile on Odnoklassniki.

<> Yeah, okay, but this Pavel Rosenberg? You’re sure?

<> You can ask him about Olga Oleskin, see what he says. I have photos of them together at work.

<> That doesn’t really prove anything, but okay. Let’s say it is him…