Dasha Siromaha

A Little Island Of Humaneness

 

The sun was already down, and the stars were coming out. Sinister-looking silhouettes of the piles of trash drew dark, gloomy figures and shapes on the deep purple of the skies. The limbs of the trees resembled veins on somebody’s skin. The only bright spot of the dump was a warm orange fire. Two men sat next to each other on the wooden boxes eating some rotten leftovers from a great big birthday party of a kid named William. They knew it by the names printed on the napkins. The half-full bottle of some Scotch whisky was accidentally thrown into trash, too, maybe by somebody who drank the first half. Joe and Trevor were glad that they could join the party; despite the way they were joining it.

          It was getting colder, but the comforting fire and expensive whisky felt great. Exclusively cooked food was very delicious.

          “I ain’t had such a damn great night forever.” Trevor said.  

“That’s exactly right. As long as they are alive we will be, too.” Joe answered. He moved a piece of wood in the fire with a stick, and the spark lit up his face for a moment. When someone tries to describe it, they usually fail. It is not very nice to say “ugly”, because you cannot possibly call Joe ugly. Hard to explain why – he is just not that way. But his jaws look worse then just unpleasant. You want to look away. Ugly is a wrong word for Joe himself, but exactly right for his face. Only his eyes are deep, gray, full of sense and intelligence, sad and beautiful.

“Never had Scotch in ma’ life.” Trevor’s dirty long-nailed hand was holding the bottle, turning it horizontally when moving up and vertically when down. “Is you sure you ain’t want any?”

“No, thank you. Wait… Maybe just a little bit. I have never tasted it before, you know. And I do not expect another opportunity in the near future.” He took a sip and made a wry face. “Oh, to tell the truth, I would not be able to distinguish it from any cheaper brand. Too strong for me.”

“Jesus Christ, how can you handle it? You live in such a damn hole, and you ain’t even drink! I would go crazy reading all this junk you read – if I could read, of course. You…”

“Trevor. Please. We have had this conversation before. We agreed not to have it again. And besides – you’re drunk. I apologize for being rude.”

 “All right. But I can’t understand how did you end up here, with these piles of crap. You’re so smart.”

“I am ugly, too.” The bottom of his eyes suddenly started sparkling. He clinched his teeth. “Do you want to hear the whole story?”

“Sure. If it’s not too long. Oh, just joking.”

“Very funny. Well, do you know what rubella is?”

“I heard of it. Red skin, right?”

“Well, not quite, but close enough. Do you know what congenial rubella syndrome is?”

“What the hell did you just say?”

“Congenial rubella syndrome. Something you are already born with. Something your mother had before you were born.”

“Oh… So what about it?”

“My grandparents were a happy couple. They met in college, got married right after it. They wanted a child, and were ready to have it in all ways: physical, mental, moral, and financial. They decided to have one. My beautiful grandma got pregnant with my mom when she was 25. Some of her school friends who already had kids were invited to her 26^th birthday party. One kid had rubella in incubation period, and nobody knew about it. He infected my pregnant grandma.

“It was a huge tragedy. Too late for an abortion, and a big chance of a baby with a number of pathologies. You know, very sick baby, who might even be born dead. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t even know now, my momma was born alive and healthy but blind. A few surgeries done on her eyes wasted my grandparents’ money but did not help. She was blind. They had to cope with it. Momma went to school for blind kids, and did well there, as much as she could. She always was an A-student, always a leader, and had supportive parents. She almost felt normal. I could not believe that she read Braille translation of Shakespeare!  Momma was smart enough to be curious about what happened to her, why was she blind. After being told the story about the party, she got interested in medicine, and her parents were looking for the Braille medical books, and if they could not find any, they ordered the translation and paid big money for it. My momma was about eighteen then. She studied rubella, and congenial rubella syndrome, and was glad that other things like mental retardation, or deafness, or heart disease did not happen to her. She was a young, smart, and attractive female. Her blindness was just another challenge for her, not a big deal.

“Until one august night, when everything she had was ruined. Her parents went out to the theatre, and she stayed home. At three o’clock in the morning she got a call from the hospital. Her parents got into a car accident. It was drunk driver’s fault; he was making a turn and ran to the wrong side of the road. He hit my grandparents’ car right in the front and didn’t break a bone. My grandparents both died in the hospital in a few hours.

“What was left for my momma? Some money, but not much. Some friends who could help her. A house and a dog. She could not drive, could not afford hiring a driver. Well, it is a little thing. Can you imagine living by yourself when you’re blind? Opening a locked door, choosing clothes for a day, cooking a meal. Try to spend just ten minutes with your eyes closed. Not just to spend, but to live our everyday life. I’ve tried and I could not do it.

“Well, the worst things were still ahead. Her friend told her about some University that had been testing a new medication that was supposed to help regenerate the eye cells, and allow the patient to be able to see again – especially if the reason of blindness was CRS. She went in, and signed the contract that was read to her for being a volunteer for the experiment. They explained to her the principle and the chemistry of the drug, and it sounded right to her, which I consider strange – she knew medicine well! They lied. What they were really testing was the new vaccine against rubella, but they did not test it on animals beforehand as they claimed. She never found out why did they need to lie. She was vaccinated. It does not happen very often, but two weeks later she got raped walking home from the store late at night. Of course, she never found out who it was, and the dog that saw the guy would not tell her. Momma’s psychic was already ruined. It did not get any better when she found out that she was pregnant with me, and that I happened to be in those lucky 2% of babies that get CRS just after their mother was vaccinated with rubella culture. She didn’t know about the vaccine, that’s why she expected a healthy baby from a stranger. I was born relatively healthy, only with facial and jaw pathologies. It could have been fixed, but she could not see me, and imagined a beast, after the doctors told her about my CRS. When I was about a year old, too old to adopt and be expected to attach well, she called her babysitter one day. When the girl came in, she saw me sitting on my bed and crying, and her…lying on the floor next to a revolver with a hole in her head.

“There was a sealed packet on the table. My teacher at the foster home gave it to me when I turned eighteen, as it was written on it. My mother recorded a voice message telling about her life and reasons for her suicide. It made perfect sense. The only thing, or better to say, person she was wrong about is I.

“I don’t have a home, a job, a family, I live on the dump. But I am not a cripple. I am a human! I can read and write, I think and I live, not just exist! Do you hear me, I live, and I enjoy it!”

Trevor was already snoring, Joe did not even notice it. The fire was still burning bright, lighting up the night and warming up a little island of humaneness in the bottomless ocean of the dump. Silhouettes of trash piles were the only listeners, along with the stars in the indigo sky.

  3 May 2002