Yelena Moskovich - Virtuoso

0_hotgirlAmy_0: Well, as I was running, and everyone was yelling, and sticking their tongues between their fingers, well, he was whispering to me… I felt like I was blind maybe. Everything was quiet. And white.

Dominxxika_N39: What Archangel Michael whisper?

0_hotgirlAmy_0: …He was whispering:

0_hotgirlAmy_0: “Go online, Amy, go online…”

0_hotgirlAmy_0: When I came home, my mom was bitching at me for skipping school again. Cause I’m getting a D in gym class now cause I skip classes or I just stand in the corner and don’t participate. She’s like, Amy who gets a D in gym! It’s gym! I don’t even talk back anymore. I just wait for her to be done, then I say I gotta do my homework, cause in my head, he’s still whispering to me, and cleaning up the noise all around me, so it’s quiet and white. He keeps saying, “Amy, go online…”

The school bus picked Zorka up on the corner of Dexter Avenue and 24th Street. She waited there with another girl who was a sophomore, long blonde hair, thick fringe. Sometimes the girl wore jean-shorts and a sweatshirt that said Abercrombie & Fitch across the chest, which to Zorka looked like the name of two scientists who had conceived an anti-virus. Then she wore a baby-blue T-shirt with the word “GAP” written on it, which Zorka deduced to be an acronym for some sort of government service. On warmer days, she wore a melon-green tank-top, with pink bra straps crossed beneath the tank’s straps, and faded blue jeans with a flower patch at the knee. Zorka wasn’t sure what to make of her then.

Soon enough though she got the hint. True capitalism was all about names on stuff, on clothes, on notebooks, on cars, on backpacks, on shoes. Tammie bought Zorka a powder rose zip-up top that said “Hollister” on it, and a pair of flared L.E.I. jeans. When Zorka tried the outfit on, the jeans bagged oddly right below her buttocks, and the zip-up drew everyone’s eyes to the patched letters that puffed out in awkward angles around Zorka’s flat chest.

Zorka said thank you, went back to the garage, undressed and put her own clothes back on.

It was a big high school with a web of groups and subgroups, and yet Zorka could not quite be placed into its network. Her figure beneath the layers of men’s shirts had promise – long legs and a straight neck. Her face too was clear, dark brows arching up, strong pupils, no pimples, high cheekbones. But her oddly cropped hair, with a nuanced duck-tail that she let grow until some called it a mullet, made it impossible to call the girl “hot”. A couple of the punk kids tested out the potential of this girl to belong to their group, but when she said, “Get lost, hedgehog,” they gave her space.

Zorka was not a geek, and she was not a punk, she was not a goth, she was not smart or stupid, she was not hot or ugly, she wasn’t a prude or a ho, she was a fully fledged loner, and by the spring of her junior year the Columbine shooting had happened, and some kids started whispering at her when she passed, “Don’t shoot us!”

Meghan told Kaylee that she heard the girl hated Americans and America, and that she was military trained because in those countries they start the army when they are children. Kaylee agreed and was grateful we now had metal detectors. But then at lunch, the whole table was taking turns guessing how deformed Zorka’s breasts might be if she always wore such baggy shirts. Meghan said that one boob was most likely a totally different shape from the other. Then Kaylee said that one of them was definitely like a little flappy pancake. The discussion continued until it was decided that they were closest to goat-teats, just then Jared said, “Hey, what if they’re not real. I mean what if they’re like bombs?”

Gejza had installed a TV in the garage and Zorka stayed in for hours after school watching the cable channels, MTV and VH1, every now and then getting off her bed, dancing to the music with her fists and elbows, then lying back down.

Tammie was making popcorn for their movie night. Her regular movie-night schedule was primarily “French films”, her favourite genre. She was eager to watch the last Truffaut she had not yet seen, she had been eyeing the VHS at Blockbuster, the jacket cover of Fanny Ardant leaning over a young Gerard Depardieu, both troubled and aroused, but Tammie decided it was important for Zorka and her mother to improve their English and gain an understanding of the American culture, so she put off renting The Woman Next Door and opted for Sleepless in Seattle , It Could Happen to You , Jerry Maguire… She selected films she thought represented America for its character of hope and strong values, films where children set up adults, where adults meet on planes and show up at each other’s doorsteps wet from the rain, where women say “I love you” and men say “I love you” back.

Zorka understood that phrase, “I love you,” from the rest of the mumbling, and would snuff “bullshit” under her breath whenever she’d hear it, because she had never in her life, ever, seen a man and a woman say “I love you” to each other, where it wasn’t a threat or something you do in the hallway to show your neighbours you are reliable tenants.

Still, the films played with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, with Nicolas Cage who won the lottery and gave half to the waitress and then they fell in love, Tom Cruise, Renée Zellweger, single mums who get saved by do-good attractive bachelors, Hugh Grant rambling in a British accent, scene changes with tinkling piano music, Richard Gere pensive, concerned, Julia Roberts a sex worker who charmingly shocks the upper classes. Then everyone laughing, even all the old people, who are clean, their grey hair well brushed, rings on their spotted wrinkled fingers, pearls in their ears, lipstick to the ridges of their lips, perfect rows of prosthetic teeth, looking around at each other, smiling and patting each other’s thighs.

Do you like sad music?

Zorka snuck out regularly in the evenings and walked up to the tall thin electric poles around the railroad tracks where there were foresty patches, just beyond where the road turned. She waded into the branches until she was submerged and hidden. She sat down in the dirt and put her arms around her knees, and her hands into the two holes of her jeans, stared and listened. There was the sound of tyres over the road, a car making a slow turn around the corner, its headlights brushing through the branches. The wind rustled through and the sky, like a pool of dark ink, trembled above as if having to hold up its own liquid. Another car passed, with its windows down, the music pulsing with the fussy voice of Britney Spears singing against the reverb.

Then the car turned, taking the song with it.

Zorka sunk her head between her knees and closed her eyes. She thought it was still that same pop song stringing through her head, but the rhythm pulled and stretched with every round, the voice seemed unsteadily full again. It was her mother’s voice, singing that old Czech song about love she used to sing as if telling mercy where to find her…

Ach, není, není tu

She used to sing it to Zorka like a lullaby, and even though the song was more for her, she still held little Zorka against her chest, her legs noodling as she tried to stand up, Marja kissing her little girl just above the ear, baby Zorka giggling toothless with a full heart, and Marja singing:

“…What is ploughing without a plough…

…Loving without kisses…