Yelena Moskovich - Virtuoso

Say hi to the boys, the river and the forest.

Then it struck me like an alarm. What have I done? I mean about Jana, you know. Years have a way of speeding up at a certain point. I thought either I’m gonna kill Mamka or Mamka’s gonna kill me. Guess that’s when I started asking for angels. You wouldn’t understand.

Anyways I had the dream. Never saw children that had a lethal buzz to them like that – except for Jana maybe, ha. Lucifer’s kiddies – my kind of crowd. So, yeah, I made a wish. That’s what dreams are for.

And maybe it was selfish. But they don’t call me the Malá Narcis for nothing!

The short of it was I was scared I’d never outgrow my misgivings. I’m all alone and I’m a piece of shit, I kept repeating. I was asking for help.

Woke up to the smell of apples and oranges.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: Don’t tell anyone.

Dominxxika_N39: I will not gossip or speak of it, this I am promise! Please tell me…

0_hotgirlAmy_0: *smile

0_hotgirlAmy_0: I’m gonna whisper it to u…

Dominxxika_N39: My ear is ready for ur whisper.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: I…

0_hotgirlAmy_0: love

0_hotgirlAmy_0: you, Dominika.

Dominxxika_N39: O Amy.

Dominxxika_N39: O my Amy!

Dominxxika_N39: O my beauty, my angel, my sexy girl!

Dominxxika_N39: I love u so great I have not find words to say, if I say it, I have to say it million times, like million rosebuds, like million leaf tips, like million gold reflections in the quiet field, I love you Amy I love you!

0_hotgirlAmy_0: *mega smile

Dominxxika_N39: I want u, sexy Amy.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: Me too… I want to look into ur blue eyes. And touch ur dark hair. And I want to… do so many things…! All day long, I don’t care, like at all at all at all. I don’t even care. I just wanna go home and go online and be with you.

Dominxxika_N39: When I alone and my husband double-lock door, so I no go out, I put one arm around other and I feel u there, inside my embrace.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: I am I am I am!

Dominxxika_N39: I get so sad, because I am locked inside and cannot see u and cannot be with you. I want to feel u for real and be with you for real.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: We can be, we can! Archangel Michael is on our side. He’s guiding me to u every day. And I even looked on the map. And like if I fly into Prague, we can meet up. From Vaclav Havel Airport I can take the 119 bus to Nadrazi Veleslavin, then take the A subway 5 stops and get off at Staromestska, it’s near the old Jewish cemetery on the map. Will u meet me there? No one will see us. Will u?

Dominxxika_N39: Yes! Yes yes! But how I get out? U don’t understand, Amy. Every night I dream u are outside door. I can hear u and I can feel u on other side of door, but it is lock and I cannot get out and you cannot get in. When I awake, I want to tear down wall with my nails. But my sexy Amy, how can I explain to u how I live? My husband put iron bars on window because he is suspicious. And door frame he make of iron too. It is impossible. Even if I put fire to door, it is only I who burn inside.

0_hotgirlAmy_0: Don’t do that!

0_hotgirlAmy_0: Archangel Michael will help us! I’m sure he will!

There was a good half-year when Zorka was not aggressive or hostile, just a bit distant and pensive. She was doing her homework, not walking out of school, not flipping off the hall monitors, not yelling back and forth at her mother, not skipping dinner to sit in the forest.

But then Jared brushed against her in the hallway, as she was getting her history book out of her locker, and she snapped around, grabbed his hand, and slammed it in her locker door. It happened so quickly that the boy couldn’t even yell out, he just stood there with a blurry face, holding his slammed hand at his wrist, with his mouth gaping silent. Then he started shaking his hand out and shrieking, “You fucking psycho!!” Jared pushed Zorka against the lockers and all the kids backed up and a couple started chanting “fight the dyke, fight the dyke”, then a teacher came out and the students scattered. Jared showed the teacher his hand, already white and throbbing, with the red indent of where it was slammed. “She broke my hand!” he exclaimed in cramped voice.

Jared’s hand was indeed broken, the principal updated Zorka and her mother, who sat in his office with Gejza translating and Tammie with her eyebrows scrunched and high with concern.

The principal was a tall, round-faced man with a blue-toned suit. He proceeded in a measured tone, asking Zorka to explain what had happened.

Zorka was sitting with her chin down, looking at the desk legs.

“He touch me,” Zorka muttered.

“Touched you… Do you mean, in the hallway, Zorka, just then?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he… go under your clothes?”

“No,” Zorka said.

“Did he use his hands?”

“No.”

“Well, it seems to me that what you are describing is a classmate who happened to bump into you in the hallway, is that correct?”

Zorka looked up at the principal.

“Not correct,” she said. “He touch me.”

Finally, Marja caught up with what was being discussed and she shrieked out, “Narcis!” Then Zorka looked back and yelled something in Czech, then Gejza got between them and the two women were hushed.

“I’m sorry, Zorka,” the principal continued, “I know it’s unpleasant sometimes when someone bumps into us, but if we were to react violently to every person in life that accidentally—”

“Not accident!” Zorka said.

Marja yelled something at Zorka and Gejza repeated it in a hushed voice and Tammie bit her nail. The principal took a breath and leaned back on his swivel chair. He looked directly at Gejza.

“Perhaps you can translate this for Zorka and her mother. It is very important. Violence, of any kind, is not tolerated in America , not to mention in a public high school where children come to learn in a safe environment.”

Gejza nodded. Tammie added, “I’m so sorry for this.”

“She can’t just behave the way they do in… the Czech Republic ,” the principal pronounced the country with caution, wondering if he was saying it alright.

“Well, this is not the way we act—” Gejza was trying to explain when the principal cut him off with his hand. Then nodded.

“I hope you understand that I’m responsible for the safety of every student who goes to this public school.”

At home, they cut off Zorka’s cable, then they just took away the TV.

…the boys, the river and the forest…

Tammie talked to the principal and Jared’s parents on Zorka’s behalf, and the police were left out of it. Zorka got a month of detention and the family paid for the boy’s medical bills.

In detention, Zorka spent the first couple of days staring at Deandra, sitting diagonally in front of her, wearing loose tracksuit bottoms, white K-Swiss sneakers, and an oversized white shirt that had a blue and red “Tommy Girl” written on it. Next to her was Deandra’s girl, Tiff, taller, small-waisted, wearing tight dark jeans with a thick belt, leaving a gap at the back where her red shirt didn’t quite tuck into her jeans.