Yelena Moskovich - The Natashas

César’s nose throbbed. He turned back around him to the camera on its tripod, behind which the cameraman looked at César annoyed. As a boy, this cameraman had looked through the lens of a coin-operated telescope for the first time while visiting a state park in California. He saw, as close as his own nose, a cliff-side full of crying sea lions. Now, he sees the same crying sea lions piled upon a rocky isle. He calls them actors.

César glanced past the cameraman over to the assistant. She was holding the script at her side and staring at him with the same eyes his mother had when she thought he would say the word “homosexual” out loud. César could see behind her, like an echo of her mood, the other crew people, all looking on with lukewarm interest. Everyone except the director, that is. The director had a wide grin on his face, showing off his two twisted front teeth.

The director began to nod enthusiastically, then he lifted his hand and added a quick-spinning wrist. The zest made César flinch.

“GOOD. GOOD. KEEP GOING,” the director mouthed.

César licked a droplet of blood off his top lip. Iron and lemon rind gathered on his tongue.

“But… I’m bleeding,” César whispered.

Yer doin good … a gritty voice said. Keep goin, César. Yer da only one I have in diz world.

“Ring… ring… ring…” the detective yells into Manny’s face.

The detective flaps the folder against Manny’s nose.

“Ring… ring… ring… ! It’s for you, Mr Rodriguez. Aren’t you going to pick it up…?”

Manny twists his face away from the slapping folder.

“What’s the matter, Mr Rodriguez, cat’s got your tongue ? ”

“Cat ate my tung,” Manny grits.

“I suppose there it is again, your fine sense of humour. I do appreciate it, except the problem I have here, Mr Rodriguez, is that you seem to be looking for trouble. Am I correct? Are you looking for trouble, Mr Rodriguez?”

“Nah man, I’m cool.”

“It doesn’t appear that way… On the contrary, it appears that you are looking for trouble. Didn’t your mother teach you…? As they say in your culture: No andes buscándole los tres pies al gato, Don’t go around looking for the three-legged cat . Remember your culture, Mr Rodriguez? The language you spoke to ask for a drop of milk. Didn’t your mother tell you then not to go looking for the three-legged cat?”

“I was lookin for da GATO who ate mi lengua .”

“Oh Mr Rodriguez, it’s time you take responsibility for yourself. Don’t you think your mother would be ashamed to hear you blaming cats for what you, yourself , have done…”

“Shutdafukkup ’bout my ma.”

“Okay, okay, easy. I think I understand.”

“You dunno shit.”

“Hear me out, I think I do. I see how it is… Maybe as a kid you weren’t given what every kid deserves to get. And that’s not fair. You reached out for your mother’s breast, and it wasn’t there. Why did some kids get a breast full of warm milk, and you, just cold air?”

“Why you talkin ’bout my ma’s titty?”

“I’m talking about more than your ma’s titty so to speak—again that’s not language I would personally use, but—circumstances permit. I’m speaking of love . You know what love is, Mr Rodriguez?”

“Sure do, hombre. Love is when da chica don ask fer money at da end, HA HA.”

“You see, it’s perfectly natural that you provide me with such an answer. It only goes to further prove the point I am trying to make. So let me be the first, and I am sure that I am indeed the first to tell you this. I’m sorry, Mr Rodriguez. I am sincerely very, very sorry that you never got your mother’s breast when you reached for it. You were only a baby, with a little, dry throat.”

“Fuck, man, you talkin extra-nada-bullshit now.”

“Every baby mouth deserves their mother’s teat. It’s only natural. But you pursed up your baby-lips and got nothing at all. It was not your fault, Mr Rodriguez. You needed your mother’s breast and you didn’t get it. So you continued grabbing. Pure instinct. Any animal would have done the same. Your mouth and your hands were only part of nature, weren’t they? That’s why you kept on grabbing. Because you were still that baby thirsty for your mother’s milk. And to me, that is a very sad image. I tell you, when I think of it, I am almost moved to tears.”

“Whachou talkin about deetektiv, I got my ma’s titty.”

“You mean you were breastfed, Mr Rodriguez?”

“Sure waz, and ma wazent shy neither. She gave it away to a buncho oder babies fore me. I got broders and sisters even uglier dan me, HA HA.”

“I see. Well.”

Just as Manny tries to add a smart word, the detective grabs his chin and squeezes his jaw open. Manny jerks his hands but they are handcuffed to the back of the chair he’s sitting on.

“Le-g-ovme” Manny jumbles between the detective’s hand.

“Now, listen to me, Mr Rodriguez. I know this must hurt, my thumb, pressing in the hinge of your jaw like this. I have to resort to these semi-barbaric ways, because there is quite simply no other manner with which to make you understand. You took milk from a good woman and made it bad. Do you understand the repercussions of such an act? There are babies who deserved to have that milk. These babies could have grown up to win the Nobel Prize… You’ve done something unforgivable, Mr Rodriguez. You’ve spoiled good milk. So now, we are going to leave the gato and your jokes out of it, and you are going to pay your dues, Mr Rodriguez, you are going to say her name.”

Manny’s face is turning red. The veins in his neck pulse and he releases a muffled whimper.

“You’re going to say her name now, Mr Rodriguez, because you were the one who took this name away from this world.”

The detective squeezes the points of his cheeks in so they splurge into Manny’s teeth.

Ah’wa— “Yes Good”— aaaa—tishhh— “Good very good”— Aaawaawawa- A A A — AAAAAAA — Achachach- ASH! “That’aboy”— ashashashnash— “Yes?” —Shashashasha— “Yes?”— Tatatatata— “Yes yes yes?” —NnnnnnnnnATaaaaSHa, NNTTAshhhhhhA—

“NATASHA IS HER NAME!” César is screaming.

The detective purrs in the back of his throat.

“Shhh, César…”

César stopped screaming. He looked blankly at the actor playing the detective.

“You… mean… Manny ,” César whispers to the actor playing the detective.

The detective reached out to César, touching his shoulder, smoothing his hand down to César’s bicep, then down to his twisted forearm. His voice was as soft as a boiled fish as he whispered to César, “Marcel was right about you.”

“He was?”

“Yes… you’re perfect for this.”

In a room with no windows, the young woman stands with one hand on the wall, her fingers delicately touching the concrete. The cheap satin nightie she is wearing is rolled down to her hips, leaving her chest bare. Her breasts are small and firm, as if holding resentment. Her skin is a faded tea colour. She is looking at the concrete wall as if looking through a window. Her eyes glide slowly back and forth across one sharp crack within the cement.

Behind her, a woman stands holding a purple plastic hairbrush. The woman is brushing her hair and singing. “ ¿Qué he sacado con la luna ay yai aye… ”

The young woman’s satin nightie shifts on her hipbones as she breathes. Her eyes continue to glide across the crack in the parched wall. Through the crack, she is watching a young man. He is sitting down, his hands cuffed behind him to the chair. His head is hung over his shoulders. A drop of blood falls from his nose. It rolls down her cheek like a tear. The woman behind her keeps brushing her hair and singing. “ ¿Qué he sacado con la luna ay yai aye. ” What have I gotten from the moon, aye aye aye.