Yelena Moskovich - Virtuoso

…They are always giving me what I do not love…

Ach, není, není tu …”

When Zorka came home from the forest, she grabbed the remote and pressed power. Missy Elliott was pumping her knuckles at the screen, just above the MTV logo, then opening up her hands, one long white fingernail at a time.

Yeah, the last time someone called me loony, he got a quick one in the eye socket – Ludek. It was my last month in Prague before it all went to shit, Ludek was right outside our school and he whispered it at me, so I just balled up my fist, punched him in the eye and kept on walking. He lost his sight in that eye for the day, and his head puffed up, and of course his ass-kissing mama freaked out, and marched right into school, and my papka was dead already so my mamka was code red beneath her quiet and respectful widowhood. While Ludek’s mama was lamenting about her baby boy’s eyesight, my mamka completely stole the show, curling in, weeping, then springing out her hand slapping and scratching me like a wild cat, screaming, “I told you not to be weird!”

The principal and Ludek’s mama got her off me and I shrugged and told her in my good-girl voice, “Sorry Mamka.”

Then there was our geography teacher, Mr Bolshakov, who was always bringing the topic of Jews into lessons that didn’t concern them, and kept calling up Isaac for oral reports on the Transnistrian territories, that little Romanian boy with his dark curly locks and round caramel cheeks like a gypsy-cherub. I told Janka he probably wants to fuck Isaac and she said, “No way, he hates Jews,” and I said, “Duh, Janka, hate’s like a globe that spins all the way around, that’s why men go exploring islands full of dark-skinned peoples, and why they all wanna take naps on women’s soft boobs and then smack them, they fuck what they hate.” Janka took her time with her thoughts. She said I got a perspective on life that’s looking for trouble so it comes around for me and proves me right.

Mr Bolshakov himself was an implant from the Soviet bloc, and now that the Soviet tanks were gone and we were all proud Czechs, we didn’t like him much anyway. But, somehow, he served as one of the commissioners for the oral exams of the maturia , the final exam at the end of high school to get into university.

Mr Bolshakov had a Czech wife and a nice house and he was untouchable. He continued things in the old way – bribes, cash and gold preferably – he didn’t care much for promises or favouritism, he just wanted to get it in the real and wrap it up in his yellowing newspaper from the 1980s when this was still his country, and stuff it in his old army boots.

I knew cause I broke in and had a little peek for myself. I was curious about that top-dog Ruský , what can I say. I found where he kept those old army boots (in the closet, below his trousers and shirts, predictable dumb-ass), I pulled out his stash, but then he came home unexpectedly, had to think quick, so I slid myself under the bed.

I was pressed like a chicken breast, between the floor and the low metal springs, waiting for him to leave, except that he kept muttering around his bedroom, then he sat on the edge of the bed, and the springs almost collapsed my gut, and whether it was the powers above having a go at me or just his afternoon routine, Mr Bolshakov started rubbing himself off, emitting ointments of moans, all the while the springs pushing in and out of my gut, till I thought I’d wet myself or shit myself or split my spleen. But he finished off and stood up and finally left the room.

I slid out of that space, then felt it coming, so I pulled the bed cover down and vomited onto the sheet, then closed the comforter over that spot, ha ha.

Then I went back to those army boots and reached into my pocket and got out the matches.

Before the police or the school got whiff of it, I ran back to our building and pulled Janka into the bathroom with me and locked the door. She knew I’d done something irreversible. I said hush for a minute. We were squeezed in against the toilet and we waited in silence, to hear if there were any footsteps in the hallway. There weren’t any, so I unzipped my jeans and plunged my hand in and fished about in my cunt and pulled it out for show. Ta-da, I showed Jana the tight wad of money wrapped in plastic.

Janka said, “He’s going to kill you!” I said, “No one can kill me, I’m already an angel!” Then I kissed her. Janka said, “Where are we gonna hide this?” I said, “Where else?” and stuffed that money-roll back into my cunt.

Never never never, not under no circumstance, never be ashamed of yourself, Janka!

It was just one of those days when too many things happened at the same time. Mr Bolshakov found himself alone with me after class, pinned me to the wall and pulled a fork out of his pocket, trying to whisper with his onion-breath that he’d scrape my little cunt out. “Whoever said it was little,” I huffed back. “I got a fatty, Mr Bolshakov!” He pinched his eyebrows, what a dullard, so I grabbed the fork out of his hand, stuffed it in my jeans, gave him my signature two-finger salute, then got the hell out of there!

Yeah, I was running, thinking of my mamka actually, that she might even be a little delighted to have an extra fork in the kitchen, cause she was always complaining how the neighbours were stealing our silverware. But when I got home, Mamka was not in the best of moods, her fingernails were already itching at her woollen skirt. Then she saw me and her mouth wreaked of loathing. I pulled out the fork and said, “Here, Mamka, a present for you.” She grabbed the fork out of my hand and started screaming about how the police had come around for me again, and in the name of mercy couldn’t I stop with my shit and be less defunct. I said, “Listen, Mamka, I am a fallen angel.” She started chasing me with the fork, and I thought oh fuck. I ducked and jumped, and still managed to flip her off (cause, come on), then she screamed “you malá narcis !” and then I screamed back “I THOUGHT I WAS THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!” and then I could hear the neighbours coming out into the hallway to see what was up. I was running around our small apartment, bouncing from corner to corner, cause Mamka had a fork like a machete, and she was serious. I reached beneath the sofa to where I knew Mamka kept her vodka bottle, then flipped open the closet and grabbed her prized fox-fur coat and she howled, “You put that down, you put that down,” but I sprinted to the door, and down the stairs and I was gone.

Mamka must have run to the window just then. She never had good aim, in all the years I’d known her, but I was running in one direction, past the neighbours’ faces like a lie, crunching over the snow, cold slapping at my cheeks, when I heard the shriek, it could only belong to one person – my mother. Before I could turn around, I felt it, like some cold metal beast clenched its claws into my shoulder. It knocked me to my knees and my face slumped into the snow. I was pushing myself back up, saying to myself, get up, Zorka, get up. I reached my hand around to my shoulder and felt it there, the fork, stuck deep inside my flesh. I wriggled it, and almost vomited straight up. Come on, Zorka! I held my breath, grabbed that fork, and pulled that motherfucker out. It spat a perfect arc of blood into the snow. My shoulder felt like I just pulled a grown wing outta my body. Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit. I picked up Mamka’s fox-fur coat and got on running.

After that, well, I only came back once – some days later – and it was night-time. I doused that fur coat with the whole bottle of vodka; then I left it to burn in the hallway, fuck and adieu.