My Little Girl
Zayka is a girl with eyes that stare too much, that are black and curious and look at everything. Zayka is a girl with ears that hear too much. Zayka is a girl with hands that touch too much, that like to reach out and feel things and brush them and stroke them and hold them. Zayka is a girl with a little tongue that likes to taste. I can taste things in the air, says Zayka, when she talks. Talking is something she does not do too much.
Zayka's father is Kolya, tired Kolya, who comes home late in the evenings, thin like the poles in the garden that hold up the bean and tomato plants, always rumpled and ruffled and wearing clothes that are too big for him. When Kolya isn't working, he's asleep in the big bed he shares with his wife, clutching the pillow and twitching under the covers. The doctors can't explain why Kolya has nightmares, but he does. He has nightmares all the time.
Zayka's mother is Katya, pretty Katya, who likes to wear pretty clothes and go to dances. She would like to go to dances all the time--once a week, she whispers at night when she stands by the front door and looks out at the vegetable garden, the big cabbages and the rows of carrots, and the tall thin poles that hold up the beans and tomatoes. But her husband is too tired to take her to dances, and Katya doesn't complain, because she is a good wife.
Zayka has a brother named Rodya, and Rodya is going to be a doctor someday, if only he can stop getting distracted. He has tried to explain it to his parents, and to Zayka, before: he likes to study, he means to study, but Rodya cannot think if there is even the smallest noise. When the other boys are laughing or talking or singing, he cannot study. When the taps get left on by mistake, he cannot study. When the crickets make noise, when the wind blows, when there are footsteps outside, when the pages of his books rustle, Rodya cannot study. He fails all his classes.
Sometimes Rodya is at home, but mostly he is away at school. When he is home, Zayka likes to make his room perfect for him. Her ears that hear too much know what noises he will hear, and she seals up the windows with clay she finds down at the creek. She keeps a close watch with her eyes that see too much for flies and wasps that like to get into rooms in the summertime. With her hands that touch too much, she spreads blankets on the floor so that people's shoes won't make any noise and the chair with the uneven feet won't thump when it rocks. With her tongue that tastes the air, she is able to find the smell of crumbs in all the corners, and she sweeps them up so that the mice won't come and squeak and scrabble with their tiny little feet to upset Rodya.
Katya keeps the vegetable garden, and Zayka likes to help her. Zayka can pull up carrots with her hands that touch too much, and she smells ripe tomatoes in the air with her tongue. She walks on her hands and knees in the warm, soft dirt and finds worms, so that she can tuck the good kind under the cabbages and between the lettuce, so that she can pull the bad ones out from the broccoli and the melons. With her eyes that see too much, she knows when the beans are ready to be stripped off the vines that cling to the tall poles that look like her father, and her ears that hear too much tell her that the silent rabbits have come with their sharp teeth to steal the vegetables, and she creeps through the warm, soft dirt and frightens them with her grey apron. Her ears that hear too much can hear the silent rabbits eating vegetables.
Kolya often does not eat his supper, because he is so tired when he comes home from work, so Zayka brings him bowls of vegetable soup and pieces of bread, and sits on the side of the big bed and shakes him with her slender hands until he wakes up. Her mother can only cook vegetable soup and bread, but that's all right, because they never have meat in the house, and there are always vegetables. Sometimes Rodya brings home a pound of rice when he visits, and they put rice in the soup, but that is the only change. Zayka likes vegetable soup. Kolya does not, but when she wakes him up, he sits up in bed and eats it slowly, sharing it with her.
"Zayka, Zayka," he says, as she watches him with her eyes that see too much. "What will I do with you? What will I do with your brother?"
Kolya has to work hard so that Rodya can stay in school, although he is such a bad student. Zayka knows, because of her ears that hear too much. He does very well with the papers he writes at home, in the room she has made perfect for him, but at school, he is a bad student, and professors get frustrated at him.
Zayka would be a bad student, too, she thinks, and she knows that because she is older than Rodya is, but she can't read or write as he can. Zayka would like to wear pretty dresses like her mother, but she can't dance as Katya can. She would like to work, but her father has told her that she would get hurt. Zayka is twenty years old, but Kolya has told her that she would get hurt if she worked, so she stays home and helps Katya with the vegetable garden.
Rodya likes to bring her things when he comes from school. Once he brought her flowers. Zayka has never seen flowers, except clover flowers in the grass and the ones which Rodya brought her, because she has never left home, and flowers do not grow at home. Once Kolya brought her a picture of flowers, but that was not the same. Rodya brought her three Easter lillies, and Zayka put them in water in a tall pitcher that Katya's grandmother left to her. They lived for a whole week. Zayka sometimes would like to have flowers again.
Once Rodya gave her a mirror. He showed her how to look into it, and her eyes which see too much stared back her, black and curious. Zayka saw a little face surrounded with perfectly brushed black hair--Katya likes to brush her daughter's hair--and saw her little pink ears with which she heard too much, and her mouth, coloured red like tomatoes when they first begin to ripen, and when she stuck out her tongue, she saw that it was the colour pink like the collar on one of Katya's dancing dresses. She stared in the mirror for a long, long time. Zayka likes mirrors. She keeps it on a shelf in her little room, and looks into it on days when she has nothing to do. She can look for hours, turning her mirror to catch the sunlight from the window or to look very closely at her eyelashes so she can count them or to meet her own eyes, her own black eyes that see too much.
Zayka doesn't know anybody but Rodya and Kolya and Katya. There are three tall men who sometimes come up to the house to talk to Kolya, and there are a lot of men who walk past the house once in a while, but she doesn't know them. The men who come to talk with her father make sure she is told to go out of the room before they do anything, though one of them likes to give her funny sweets. Zayka doesn't like those as much as she likes Katya's vegetable soup and bread, so she hides them in her pillow. It is a good thing that Zayka's ears which hear too much can make out the sound of mice feet skittering, or they would take the sweets in her pillow, but she catches them and puts them out the window. The men who walk past the house sometimes see her in the vegetable garden working, and they shout things at her and wave. Zayka waves back.
Once they did it when Rodya was home. He jumped over the stone garden wall and hit one of the men with his fist, and there was a fight. Zayka hid among the bean poles and stared with her eyes. Rodya hurt his face and his arm, and Katya washed and wrapped him up with cloth, and scolded him as she does Zayka when Zayka breaks something. Zayka brought him vegetable soup and bread to his room as she did for her father, and Rodya sat her on the side of the bed and touched her hands.
"Zayka, Zayka," he said, as she touched back with her hands that felt too much, "What will I do with you? When big-talking fellows call you stupid and talk about what they could do with you, and you smile at them? You just don't understand, my sister. What will I do with you?"
Katya sometimes will make Zayka something pretty to wear. Katya makes her nice aprons with flowers cut out and sewn on to them to remind Zayka of the Easter lillies Rodya brought her once. Zayka loves her aprons. She wears them every day, when she is in the garden, when she brings Kolya his dinner, when she cleans Rodya's room and makes sure it is perfect so that he can sleep in it. She likes to more than anything else. Katya has made her an apron with rabbits on it, silent rabbits like the ones in the garden, and Zayka likes them too. She strokes them with her hands and shows them to her father, who shakes his head.
"What will I do with you?" says Kolya.
Rodya got better from his hurts from the fight. He got better soon after staying in bed in his perfect soundless room eating Katya's vegetable soup and bread and watching Zayka in her aprons with the flowers tasting the air with her little tongue.
Katya sometimes will not let Zayka out of the house.
"Zayka, Zayka," she says, as she gently scrubs the ears that hear too much, the ears that are always listening. "What will I do with you? You will never have a husband, and you will never do anything. What will your father and I do with you? We will have to keep you for-ever, poor daughter."
"What will I do with you?" says Rodya, better from his hurts, about to go back to school. At school, he will not have the good room Zayka has made for him. He will fail his classes again and stay in school another year.
"What will I do with you?" says Kolya, sitting up in bed, eating his soup. He will go to work to-morrow before anyone else is awake, and he will come home too tired to say hello. He will always be thin as the poles that hold up the beans and tomatoes.
"What will I do with you?" says Katya, sewing aprons and dresses. Soon, Katya will be at the door, wishing to go to the dances, staying home again. She will talk to the vegetables and make bread and wish she were dancing.
Zayka smiles. No one will do anything at all with her. She gathers herself together, her hands that touch too much, her eyes that see too much, her ears that hear too much, and she goes out into the vegetable garden. She tastes the air with her tongue that is always out, tasting too much. She sits in the warm, soft dirt and flaps her apron at the rabbits. She will wave to the men who come by sometimes, and hide her sweets from the men who visit Kolya. She will make Rodya's room better while he is away. No one will do anything at all with her.
Zayka is always happy.
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