(…and now, another peek into life in Agara.) *** NOT KAFKA The old statues still had their faces; and so, the ancient Fear lingered: memories of Hitler, Stalin, and Shandičov smoldered in their eyes. Now, the Number-3 tram sparked and squealed through the Gash at ten minutes before midnight. Here, it passed the base of Stalin. Toppled. There was a pedestal with footprints and damage from explosives. When Prague went free and other cities followed, the hollow, thunderous pop of military explosives threw Stalin from his ornate, Corinthian perch, and broke tram cables with his tottering, tumbling head. He hung—so the stories go—by his chin, before the cable snapped, breaking him on tram-tracks and cobblestones below. The Gash was full of stories—some concerning ghosts, some concerning Stalin, and some—Éosláv thought—concerning things that make no sense at all. Now—at nine minutes before midnight—the Number-3 tram passed the empty, crumbling pedestal. Pigeons have claimed it. The hammer and the sickle have been chiseled off and graffiti marked its four, marred faces. Litter fringed its base like some strange and brittle growth. There, ten lengths down Borisov Ulitsya, the tram will turn by the old Jewish cemetery and skirt—maybe a meter too closely—the most sacred monument in the Gash: dead bodies and dead history marred—once—by Nazi bombs and then, later, by Communist tanks. The turn always drew shrill, metallic protest from the wheels of the tram. Sparks will strobe from repaired overhead cables, illuminating—for a brief, stuttering moment—the ghost of Stalin’s statue, hanging by its chin. Borisov Ulitsya was a street defined by statues; they stood, resplendent in soot and city-grime, on pedestals defining the length of the wide, grassy median between flows of traffic. There were heroic maidens. There were men on horses—one hoof raised; others stood on horses with four hooves to the ground. One, the greatest poet-hero on local history rode a horse, rampant: front hooves gouging air as it reared on hind legs, its tail a wispy billow of bronze-cast arcs. In the secret language of statues, the horses told who died when, and how. One had only to look, to see if the horses stood still, if they walked at an easy trot, or if rampant, they tore air with hooves and tail. They stood like age-blackened teeth, Stalin an obvious gap between them. At fourteen minutes after midnight, Éosláv will watch the night’s first drunks spill from their seats and slash through the isle. He’ll hear the indolent sound of potatoes: a dull thump-thud, leavened with the dirty scent of metabolized sköy, vodka, and poor-man’s brandy distilled in some backwater village and kept in bottles emblazoned with the logos of Coka-Cola, or Ječekólá, the communist-sentimental equivalent. Hedgehog cola, as the name declared in the local language: the label on each bottle emblazoned with fat, spiny Ječekó, smiling in goggle-eyed cartoon glee. The hedgehog—ječekó—was the official city mascot, and so it was fitting that he’d also sell fizzy brown stuff in bottles appropriated (when empty) by bootleg distillers. This will happen (at fourteen minutes past midnight) as Éosláv will feel a lump fluttering in his throat. At thirty minutes past midnight, he will return home, climb the stairs to the third floor apartment he shares with Jacob— —and later (perhaps tonight, or perhaps in the morning) he will make his confession. * “When you flew from the USA and landed in Paris before coming here, you did not see the Magellanic Clouds,” Éosláv said. “It is a pity.” He sat in Saturday-morning sunlight, thumbing through one of Jacob’s obscure magazine. He sat beside the riotous growth of his favorite spider-plant. He wore sweat pants, gray, and a long-sleeve shirt, terrified of his disheveled hair and the pinprick twinges burning across his back, along his calves, and in the privacy south of his navel. He put the magazine aside. Jacob sat across from him, as brown as coffee in the sunlight, but warmer in tone, paler— as if with cream. Éosláv always thought of coffee and chocolate with milk whenever he looked at Jacob, always thought of warmth and the noises and whispers they shared between bedsheets, and with naked feet plunged into the river, a pond, or the Lover’s Fountain, three tram-stops south of the Gash. “The clouds aren’t visible from here,” Jacob said, smiling. “They’re invisible from northern latitudes…hidden below the horizon.” Éosláv nodded. Sipped coffee. There were magpies in the trees outside: mystery birds as Jacob called them. Those things don’t live in Chicago, he’d said, once. I like them, he’d said. “Slava?” Jacob’s voice drew him from his momentary reverie. “Are you okay?” For an instant—though no longer—it seemed as if Jacob’s words came from more than a world away. Éosláv flinched at the sound, that distance, and drew himself back into the full-on present. Jacob sipped his coffee. “Do you remember the night we met…how you told me things and I told you things?” Jacob smiled. “You’d stepped on the ember of a cigarette before mummy-wrapping a dead succubus in newspaper and stuffing it in the trash. I remember,” Jacob said, wistfully. “I’ll always remember that. We kissed, shyly, when we finally worked up the courage, and I fell in love with you. Deeply.” “Up to your eyebrows?” Éosláv tried to laugh. “And I’ll never try to dig my way out.” “There are things we said.” “Confessions.” “You told me all of yours,” Éosláv said. “Those I could remember,” Jacob said. “The important ones.” “I was silent,” Éosláv said, fearing what must come next. “There is a confession I did not tell you.” Silence. A sip of coffee: measured. Éosláv could see the sudden flare of nervous dread stenciled across the elf-keen set of Jacob’s dark features. Silence. “It is important, Yasha, that you hear what I must tell you. I want you to understand it, and for that, there is something I must show you. I love you, more than life…and so I must say that I am afraid.” Jacob smiles faintly, eyes focused on his shimmering reflection on the surface of his coffee. “We’ve all done things,” he said, “that maybe we aren’t so proud of…we’ve all lied, or at least distorted the truth to work toward some petty goal. And unless you’ve lied about something fundamental, there’s no way I can hold any confessions against you.” Éosláv closed his eyes. “My confession,” he said, “isn’t about something that I’ve done. It’s about something that I am.” * I am an editor, Éosláv said, once. I work with insects. Now, with coffee on his breath, he stood in the bathroom with Jacob. He stood quiet and trembling in harsh, artificial light. The bathroom had no window, no way for sunlight to enter and caress the towels, the aged enamel of the bathtub, or the porcelain of sink and toilet. With the door closed and the light switched off, the bathroom was as dark as a tomb. That was how Éosláv preferred it now. He stood, however, in harsh light, expecting harsh judgment when he took off his shirt, his sweat pants and stood, naked in front of Jacob. For his part in the moment’s unfolding drama, Jacob sat on the toilet, its cover-seat lowered. He smiled, encouragingly, masking—Éosláv knew—the fear balling his hands into fists. “I love you,” Éosláv said, taking off his shirt. “I love you,” Éosláv repeated, stepping out of his sweat pants. He wore boxers, and removed those as well. Jacob, watched, as impassive as a statue. His expression—detached and calculating at first, warmed with a faint smile and then a look of confusion. “Your bush,” Jacob said, but didn’t continue. Éosláv turned so that Jacob might see the itching flared across his back, and down the length of his calves. He was thankful, for what he didn’t have to see; thankful that Jacob—behind him—didn’t gasp or make noises of disgust. Jacob made no sound at all, beyond a faint, lisping whisper that spoke of movement: Jacob rising to his feet and taking one step, two steps closer. The warmth of fingers touched Éosláv’s shoulder, gently, softly, and with scrupulous care. “What’s happened to you?” Jacob asked, more apparent wonder in the question than anything else. With his back still turned, Éosláv pulled a deep breath. “In Agara, only two thirds of the native people are human.” “And the other third?” A quiet question as Jacob’s fingers withdrew. “They are like me.” Éosláv felt wetness on his cheeks. Runny snot clogged his nostrils. It wasn’t until the first, wet sniff that he realized he was crying. “Like you?” Jacob asked, fingers stroking the thick, black hairs grown from Éosláv’s back. Fly-hairs, Éosláv knew…cockroach-hairs, each strand as thick as a child’s finger, and as black as the sky, one hour past midnight. “This is as far as I’ll ever change, Yasha…but it is enough to remind you of what I am.” Silence. A slow inhalation, and then—inevitably—Jacob’s terrifying question. “And what is that, Slava…what are you?” “In English,” Éosláv said. “You would call me an insect.” * He spent the day—after that—alone. “I need time,” Jacob said, “to think.” “I know,” Éosláv said. “I’ll be back…tonight, at the latest. This afternoon, maybe.” “Take the time you need.” “Will you be here when I get back?” “Do you want me here?” Jacob didn’t speak an answer. He caressed the side of Éosláv’s face, instead; he touched so easily, no hint of recoil or revulsion. The warmth of his fingers and the fullness of contact between palm and cheek pulled tears from Éosláv’s eyes. The kiss that followed was tender, light, and chaste in its restraint. “Yasha…” Jacob silenced him with a finger to his lips. “I’ll be back, Slava…just give me time. We’ll work something out. I promise.” * I promise, Jacob said. And returned an hour past sunset. “It’s hot,” Jacob said. “You must be burning up. At least,” he said. “Take off that sweater.” Éosláv had spent the day alone, cleaning, arranging things, touching his belongings: clothing, small gifts Jacob had given him. Books. It had been torture to touch these things and not move them, torture to leave the duffel bag and airplane luggage in the bedroom closet. He knew—or so he thought—what needed to be done, but it was an impossible thing, and so he cleaned, he shaved stubble from his face and showered, twice. He avoided himself in the bathroom mirror, and the mirror behind the bedroom door. He dreaded—for the whole day—the familiar sound of Jacob’s key in the lock, the click of shifting tumblers, and the faint squeak of the door hinges. Jacob carried things with him: plastic bags and a cone of wrapping paper, white and thick like something from a butcher’s shop. He smelled like sköy: cheap stuff from a cheap bar, a dive near the Gash, or maybe far to the city flanks, where tourists never went. He smelled of smoke, and something rusty, like blood. There was exhaustion on his face, and something else, but Éosláv couldn’t read it. With the door closed behind him now, Jacob—laden with small, plastic bags—made his way into the kitchen. “I can see your toes,” Jacob said casually. “That means you aren’t planning on going anywhere.” “I’ve made those plans,” Éosláv said, past the lump in his throat. “I’ve called my cousin.” “Tatjáná…?” “Yes.” “How is she?” “She is fine. She is worried.” “Is she expecting you?” “I told her I’d wait, that I’d call her back.” “You’ve packed?” “No.” He couldn’t tell if Jacob smiled or not. He stood with his face to the window. His shoulders had been tense; and now—slowly—they relaxed. Jacob turned around, a look of bewildered wonder on his face. He smiled, softly, and there was a new shyness in his expression: something timid, something skittish. “You’ve thought things over?” Éosláv asked. “Yeah,” Jacob said. He laughed. “It’s difficult to get a handle on things here. There was a succubus in the park, a scabby little male with something on his horn. It looked like motor oil, like something that might kill him. I looked for logovores but I didn’t see any, I didn’t even see a cockroach but I saw earwigs in the park; I don’t think they were too happy to meet an American. They ran away.” A pause. A slow inhale. “ It’s hard to get a handle on things when you’re in a place that has succubae and bugs that eat language, but I think I made some progress. At least—” he paused and drew a step closer, his shy, skittish smile emboldened (Éosláv thought) by some decision he had yet to speak into the open. Silence from Éosláv; he held his breath. “You burned your foot on the night that we met,” Jacob said. “You killed a succubus that gave you a message. You showed me where you work, and you…did a favor; I remember the favor, but I don’t remember what it was. Something with words, I think. It’s all hazy, like a gap in my brain, but I remember other things too…watching television with you; sitting on the sofa with your legs across my lap, while you watch the local news, or British mysteries on Prímá—you always laugh at the dubbing and smoke like a fiend. I’m not really into Brit-mysteries, but I like to sit there, with your legs across my lap; I like it when you let me play with your toes, when you never say a word when I trace the fading burn on your sole with the tip of my finger. I like it when you laugh, and you always laugh when I kiss that mark. It tickles, you say…but you never complain.” Jacob broke into a long pause, stepped forward and placed his hands—firmly, and without hesitation—on Éosláv’s shoulders. Silence… Jacob smiled. “You’ve shaved your face,” he said. Éosláv nodded. “I brought dinner. Chinese food. Noodles and cashew chicken. That hot stuff you like.” Jacob laughed. “I bought a bottle of sköy, and when we break the cap, we’re going to drink the whole thing.” The lump in Éosláv’s throat diminished. “You’re not repulsed by me?” he asked. “No,” Jacob said. “I’d be lying if I said I understand what you’ve shown me, but I’m not repulsed. You’re beautiful,” Jacob said. “Strange…but beautiful…a little bit scary, a little bit hard to comprehend, but you’re you, and so I want to learn what that means, I want to learn how to enjoy it, even the hairy bits.” “You’re not afraid of me?” “No more than I’d be afraid of anyone…you can hurt me, Slava…you can decide to break up with me. That’s scary, but it’s what makes life; and I think that’s as far as it goes. I won’t pretend that it’ll be all butterflies and rainbows from here on out, but we’re in this together, Slava; you and me, and that really dumb ensemble of sweater and sweatpants you’re wearing.” “I will revert,” Éosláv said, and there was laughter in his voice: the sound of it didn’t spill from his throat, but he felt it…a sigh of relief as silent as fists unclenching. “The hairs will wither,” he said. “They’ll come back, maybe in a couple of years. They always do…but that’s all that happens…I promise.” Jacob laughed. “So what you’re saying is that you’re not a blood-sucking mosquito.” “No,” Éosláv said. “I’m not.” * “I brought flowers,” Jacob said, extending a cone of wrapping paper to Éosláv…they’d eaten; Éosláv could still taste ginger on his breath. “It’s funny,” Jacob said. “I brought them, because as I walked today, I thought that insects like nectar. It’s stupid,” he said, his gaze falling, his feet shuffling. “But, I meant well.” They sat, now, on the sofa; music spilled from the vertical black speakers, like furniture in opposite corners of the room. It was soft music, classical—the brooding, creative output of a local composer. Jacob liked it, and in all honesty, Éosláv liked it as well. He’d learned—from Jacob—how to listen to it, how to sense something other than the brooding, nightmare voices of violins and cellos in a low, sonorous register. It was, Jacob said, as close to romance as you’d get if you lived in a country disliked and mistrusted by its neighbors. There were succubae. Outside. In the distance. Silent, but—as succubae might be—ever-present: a whisper, a hint of a whisper in the dark. It was safe, indoors, Éosláv thought, on the sofa with a cigarette. Jacob sat at one end, Éosláv occupied the other, his legs across Jacob’s lap. His feet, bare, warmed with Jacob’s touch and occasional kisses. His toes, pale and knotted at their joints, pointed wordless, idiot accusation at the ceiling, at the neighbor upstairs. “We have something in common,” Jacob said, quietly. “We do?” “You and I,” Jacob said. “Yes.” There was—for a long moment—silence and the sound of music. The darkness was incomplete, broken—here, there, and there—with candle flames, wavering in eddied currents of air. “Back there…in the United States, we have a history that hasn’t been faced; atrocities that have been named, but no one has actually reckoned with them and found a place for them in the past. It haunts the whole country, the past, and no one talks about it…no one names what happened.” Jacob spoke in low, remote tones, his shadowy gaze—Éosláv saw—locked on some inward target, something difficult and diffuse. “It isn’t my country because of that…it was never my country, even though I was born there.” Éosláv nodded, grinning as Jacob’s fingers invaded the spaces between his toes. He wanted to laugh at the tickle, at the spreading twitch it threw through his nerves. He wanted to squirm, but he remained still… “It never happened. I never saw it, but once, people like me were put on auction blocks, and examined in closets by dour Baptists looking for signs of Satan, signs of some strange and inhuman bestiality. I’ve read narratives—for a history class, once—about how women might stand in dark closets, while devout Baptists would poke them, prod them, look between their legs for unusual genitalia, or look into their mouths for forked tongues and spiky, fang-like teeth…they’d shave the heads of women, in search of knobby little horns, and if those women, those men, or those children were human enough in appearance…they were sold with cattle and with horses, with pigs and with slabs of salted meat from one butcher or another…if the men were strong enough, if the women were comely enough, they fetched a higher price because they were good stock, good for breeding strong pretty kids for more work in more fields. “If they carried marks of the devil—ringworm marks, or unusual warts. They were shunned. They were branded as the work of Satan, as demons themselves. They were killed. “They were people who looked like me…people, however long dead, related to me. But in those days and in the country that became mine when I was born, they were not human…and it scared me, Slava, when you stood before me, naked in the bathroom, crying because you were afraid. “Did you think I would find a forked tongue? Did you think I’d look at your feet and see cloven hooves, a monstrous, venomous cobra between your legs? Did you think of yourself as some Kafka nightmare—a giant cockroach, revolting, and ugly?” As he spoke, Jacob massaged the spaces between Éosláv’s toes and slowly, slowly, his fingers wandered from their playful, massaging intrusions and brushed the edges of a burn now faded and nearly gone. “I wanted you to see me,” Éosláv said, quietly and with hesitation. “I wanted you to know me, and to say that it’s okay.” Jacob shifted. Éosláv moved. Jacob got to his feet, planting Éosláv’s legs firmly on the sofa cushions. In the darkness and in the waver of candle-light, Éosláv saw the wistful, sad smile on Jacob’s face, and a spark of deep and pained understanding in the shadows of his eyes. He moved close, leaned forward, and like a blanket, like protection itself, maneuvered himself on top of Éosláv—mating with him, crotch to crotch through denim jeans, but without the dumb urge of an animal rut to determine the course of his action. Éosláv shifted as Jacob’s arms found their way around him, pressing rope-thick insect hairs, tapering to frayed bristly points. He felt Jacob there—on top of him, gently and with care not to crush—he accepted the kiss that came wordlessly and with an eloquence only silence might have imparted. He flinched, only once, as Jacob’s hands found their way beneath his shirt, and his fingers—gently, like the fingers of a harpist—found the invasion of soft, alien bristles, and stroked them…gently…like the pelt of something soft and beloved. “Its okay, Slava,” Jacob said with violins and celli in the background, with traffic noise beyond the window. “It’s okay.” The words were a whisper, soft and private, and finding their existence only in the warm space of their mingled breath. THE END **I began this story in Prague. It lived—for years—as a fragment in a journal. Some of you may recognize some of the opening. It appeared in my most recent photographic post. I had no idea, when I began this story that Agara would come to exist. I didn’t know Éosláv and Jacob. I didn’t know Atalik, Miranda, or any of the other Agarans I’ve since written about. I know that there will be more, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this little peak into Agara. As always, thank you for reading and commenting, and I hope you’re on the verge of a great weekend.