garbage can, slipped the lid open and, with her bare hands, pulled out the shards of the statue. And then she’d had
highsterics,
as Laura called them. When she’d finally got around to asking which of them was responsible, Katia had yelled “Laura,” and Laura, “Katia.” They had both been punished: made to stay indoors the whole of the next clear, sunny day, with Laura forbidden to visit Nastia, and Katia to run off to Tania’s. As for the statue, its pieces were put in a cardboard box, labelled in Sonia’s uncertain script,
broken statu
, and placed on the shelf beside the screen door, so that every time they went in or out of the kitchen, the girls would see it, and feel appropriately guilty.
But they didn’t: they were preoccupied with other feelings. It hadn’t been the punishment so much as the sense of injustice that had poisoned the aftermath, each of the sisters convinced that the other was to blame, both unwilling to bury their differences and unite against their mother. There’d been something else, as well, something ugly and invisible, like a terrible smell that seeps into a room. For the first time in all the years of their beingsisters, Laura and Katia had understood that in spite of what people were always telling them, there
was
something thicker than blood. There was the possibility of something sharp and hard and persistent, something you couldn’t un-feel. Instead of deflecting their shame at having broken their baba’s treasure, instead of whispering to each other, “stupid old statue,” and “who cares if The Monstrosity got broken,” they’d put an icy silence between them, broken only by jabs at each other whenever an audience cropped up.
Smerdiucha dupo.
Laura’s taunt hovers in the air, a party balloon that won’t pop. Hearing it in Ukrainian is far more exciting for the girls than if Laura had used the English words—it’s as if they’ve overheard their grandparents swearing. Everyone waits for Katia to hit back, knowing she’s taking her time, waiting for effect, preparing an insult far more devastating than “smelly bum,” when Bonnie pipes up in her sweet, clear voice. “Tell us a story, Laura,” she pleads, picking up a fistful of sand and letting it dribble out her fingers, the white and black grains finer, even, than salt and pepper pouring from their shakers. “Tell us Ball Erectory.”
Tania sniggers. When Laura pokes her with her elbow she puts her hand to her lips, as if the snigger were a fly that had flown into her mouth and disappeared.
“It’s called Ball
Rectory,
Bonnie, and I told it yesterday, and last night, and I’m sick of it.”
Laura’s been elected storyteller this summer—from the “English” girls at school she’s picked up dozens of ghost stories that they’ve learned at summer camp along with how to make pine-cone necklaces and miniature teepees out of birchbark. Ball Rectory is about Albania, whose lover is killed by an evil lord in a duel. She has a child out of wedlock in a convent, and both ofthem perish of hunger and cold at the hands of the Abbess, who is the sister of the evil lord, and who is tortured ever after by the wails of the perished Albania and her newborn child.
“I’m sick and tired of that story,” Laura grumbles. “I’ll tell you Cleopatra instead.” Bonnie exhales slowly, careful not to let her sisters see her relief; determined to keep the peace for as long, and as invisibly, as possible.
The girls lie spread out on their towels, sometimes spitting a few grains of sand from their mouths, or twitching their bodies when flies crawl up their calves. Laura alone sits cross-legged, reciting from the Souvenir Booklet. Her voice takes on a deep, reverent tone, ringing out over the blankets and echoing between the dunes:
We, as we read of the deeds of the Queen of Egypt, must doff our modern conception of right and wrong; and, as we pace the courts of the Ptolemies, and breathe the atmosphere of the first
highsterics,
as Laura called them. When she’d finally got around to asking which of them was responsible, Katia had yelled “Laura,” and Laura, “Katia.” They had both been punished: made to stay indoors the whole of the next clear, sunny day, with Laura forbidden to visit Nastia, and Katia to run off to Tania’s. As for the statue, its pieces were put in a cardboard box, labelled in Sonia’s uncertain script,
broken statu
, and placed on the shelf beside the screen door, so that every time they went in or out of the kitchen, the girls would see it, and feel appropriately guilty.
But they didn’t: they were preoccupied with other feelings. It hadn’t been the punishment so much as the sense of injustice that had poisoned the aftermath, each of the sisters convinced that the other was to blame, both unwilling to bury their differences and unite against their mother. There’d been something else, as well, something ugly and invisible, like a terrible smell that seeps into a room. For the first time in all the years of their beingsisters, Laura and Katia had understood that in spite of what people were always telling them, there
was
something thicker than blood. There was the possibility of something sharp and hard and persistent, something you couldn’t un-feel. Instead of deflecting their shame at having broken their baba’s treasure, instead of whispering to each other, “stupid old statue,” and “who cares if The Monstrosity got broken,” they’d put an icy silence between them, broken only by jabs at each other whenever an audience cropped up.
Smerdiucha dupo.
Laura’s taunt hovers in the air, a party balloon that won’t pop. Hearing it in Ukrainian is far more exciting for the girls than if Laura had used the English words—it’s as if they’ve overheard their grandparents swearing. Everyone waits for Katia to hit back, knowing she’s taking her time, waiting for effect, preparing an insult far more devastating than “smelly bum,” when Bonnie pipes up in her sweet, clear voice. “Tell us a story, Laura,” she pleads, picking up a fistful of sand and letting it dribble out her fingers, the white and black grains finer, even, than salt and pepper pouring from their shakers. “Tell us Ball Erectory.”
Tania sniggers. When Laura pokes her with her elbow she puts her hand to her lips, as if the snigger were a fly that had flown into her mouth and disappeared.
“It’s called Ball
Rectory,
Bonnie, and I told it yesterday, and last night, and I’m sick of it.”
Laura’s been elected storyteller this summer—from the “English” girls at school she’s picked up dozens of ghost stories that they’ve learned at summer camp along with how to make pine-cone necklaces and miniature teepees out of birchbark. Ball Rectory is about Albania, whose lover is killed by an evil lord in a duel. She has a child out of wedlock in a convent, and both ofthem perish of hunger and cold at the hands of the Abbess, who is the sister of the evil lord, and who is tortured ever after by the wails of the perished Albania and her newborn child.
“I’m sick and tired of that story,” Laura grumbles. “I’ll tell you Cleopatra instead.” Bonnie exhales slowly, careful not to let her sisters see her relief; determined to keep the peace for as long, and as invisibly, as possible.
The girls lie spread out on their towels, sometimes spitting a few grains of sand from their mouths, or twitching their bodies when flies crawl up their calves. Laura alone sits cross-legged, reciting from the Souvenir Booklet. Her voice takes on a deep, reverent tone, ringing out over the blankets and echoing between the dunes:
We, as we read of the deeds of the Queen of Egypt, must doff our modern conception of right and wrong; and, as we pace the courts of the Ptolemies, and breathe the atmosphere of the first
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