Babayaga

Her concerns for caution turned out to be valid. As she walked down St. Germain, a little old man sitting at Café de Flore, who was trying to dim the racket of his busy week with a few strong glasses of Fernet-Branca, happened to see her pass by. She did not notice him, although, with his eyes bulging and his mouth agape, he would have made for an amusing sight. “My God,” he said after she had passed, “I swear I have seen a ghost.” The sleepy mule sitting beside him looked down at the old man’s empty drink and said, “My friend, keep putting that poison down your throat and you will be the ghost.”

XII

“Is this really a police car? Can your rat understand what I’m saying? Where did this bone come from? Where are we going to sleep tonight?” The young girl had Elga’s small satchel open in her lap and was going through it randomly. Her hands were everywhere, waving items around, fiddling with the dials on the dash, asking so many questions that Elga was tempted to pull the car over, strangle her, and leave her body on the side of the road. “What’s this little book for? Is this pink vial makeup? What does this knob do? Is this some sort of perfume?”

“No, that is a concoction for my gas.”

“Does it work?”

“I do not think so,” Elga said, releasing a tremendous fart. “Do you?” That quieted Noelle for a little while. They were heading back into the city. Elga wanted to act fast, before Zoya got suspicious and fled town. It would not be enough merely for Zoya to leave; Elga knew she had to see her die. She knew she was not being rash; it was time for Zoya to go. Why, look at the harm she had already done, putting the man’s head on a spike? Leading the police to her with that stupid clock? Zoya had always been spoiled, always aimed too high, too fond of the chocolates, the rubies, the furs, and the smoked salmon with the caper cream sauce, especially that. But her latest actions were surprising even for her, and even if they weren’t malicious, they were certainly dumb. That woman was bounding around like some wild doe with an arrow stuck in her ass. Taking her down would be an act of mercy, for clearly Zoya was losing her mind. Or, Elga thought, maybe I am losing mine. She shook that idea out of her head with the quickness of a burned finger lifted off a hot pan and looked over at the young girl riding beside her. Noelle now had the rat in her lap and was stroking Max’s head as he lay curled up, sleeping. Yes, thought Elga, it is time for Zoya to go, this new girl will be so much better. “Go ahead, little one, ask me another question.”

“How old are you?”

“Ah, that is a good one. I do not know.”

“Before cars?”

“Before trains, before guns. Before people stole the curves from the high clouds and the angles from the flying flocks to build all their little alphabets.”

Noelle pondered this silently for a moment before returning to her questions. “And where are you from?”

Elga chuckled. “You’re going for the tough ones, huh? You are clever. I am from the far away, way beyond that edge of the sky where the sun rises.”

“But where were you born?”

“The place I come from has changed its name many times; I don’t even know what it is called now. When I lived there, it was named for the colors of the bay’s water, then it was given the name of a fire goddess and then a soldier, then a saint and then again another soldier. You want to kill a place, name it. A name only draws the people there who will kill it again. They slice it up or tear it down; they rape the women, burn everyone on pyres, and then, thinking they own it, they name it again. Stupid. Enough to know ‘there is a hill and good water, a cross in the road and a strong oak tree.’ But do not say it out loud. A home should always stay secret or someone will come to steal it.”

Noelle was quiet again. Elga suspected the girl was frustrated with the answers she was getting. Tough, the old woman thought, the real answers are never what we want them to be. She would teach the girl all she needed to know, how to read and write properly, how to curtsy and blush, how to slow time so that a wrinkle takes a century to grow, and how to cast the curses so that men would give you their fortunes, and their lives. As they reached the outskirts of Saint-Denis, Elga hoped that the spell she had put on her police car was holding, she did not need any attention. She only had to get to a bank, find a hotel, and set Max off on Zoya’s trail. Perhaps they could do some shopping at Les Halles too. There were some market stalls where Elga knew she would find the necessary ingredients.