Vaclav and Lena

Lena is sure that other people don't have many selves. She is terrified that she doesn't have a core self, an essential Lena. She feels that she used to but that she lost it along the way, that at some point it became buried, suffocated, and died, because when she looks beneath the chattering of the selves, nothing is there. Maybe the fractured feeling is taking hold because something is dead inside her, or missing.

Lena's real mom, Emily, knew that this was not the truth, but she also knew that Vaclav was not lying. Vaclav knew that he was telling the truth. Lena knew that it was a lie, but she loved it and believed it, like a fairy tale, like a song, like a bedtime story, like a magic trick. She loved Vaclav until it became the truth and so it was.

Maybe this is how it always is. Maybe someone always wants more. Maybe everyone has a time when they realise that they've been accidentally lying when they say I love you, I miss you, you're pretty, you're the prettiest one, I never want you to leave. Maybe this time ends and it all becomes true again, as true as you ever thought it was. Maybe this time does not end. If this time ends, it would be a smart decision to wait it out. If it does not end, then perhaps you should not wait, and you should find another person to whom you can say these things without lying. But perhaps it always happens, no matter which girl or boy you are trying to love, in which case you might as well stay where you are because you would repeat the same process with anyone else.

. . . and Vaclav's special new shoes with the lights on the heels and the Velcro everywhere, because in America no one, not even small children, has time to tie his own shoes, and everything must have flashing lights.

Vaclav has said goodnight to Lena every night since the night she went away. Out loud. In a whisper. [...] He filled the words with all his love and care and worry for Lena and launched them out to her, and like homing pigeons, he trusted them to find her.

[Vaclav] thinks sometimes you know that it is a very long road to become a famous magician, and sometimes you have to spend your last dollar on buying a soda so that you have something to be grateful for that day, even if it lasts just one small piece of time.

She is not ok. She feels something, and it is bad. She feels as if she has unzipped herself from her belly button to her throat and found nothing inside. The feeling is like reaching for an orange and finding it hollow, rotted out, giving sickly beneath your fingers.

Lei, in prigione, gli mandò un ultimo messaggio per dirgli che era incinta, di te. Il messaggio diceva: Saremo insieme, nelle stelle, nell'erba, nel cemento, nel suono degli alberi di notte, in nostra figlia. Lui le mandò un ultimo messaggio. Diceva: Ti amo. Ho vissuto la vita più bella che si potesse mai vivere. Loro non possono portarci via niente; abbiamo avuto tutto.

This is what men do, they die, long before women. This is how it is meant to be, so that women can finally rest.)

Vaclav is always telling his father that the word in English is bladder, and his father always responds that learning how to name piss and shit is not why he came all this way from Russia.

Vaclav pensa em como, às vezes, quando está frio lá fora, você pode se sentir aquecido porque há pessoas ou lembranças de pessoas que o aquecem como uma fogueira, ou fazem você se sentir como um esquimó que não se incomoda muito com o frio extremo, mesmo que você sinta um frio extremo. Outras vezes você pode sentir que tudo no mundo inteiro está frio por certo motivo, e que está frio só para você, e você vê todas as pessoas com um fogo para aquecê-las, e você tem a sensação de que vai sentir frio para sempre. Ás vezes a gente pode sentir um frio assim até no verão.

No one knows how smart Lena is, because she doesn’t answer questions in class, and the teachers always frown at her, and she is always the last to finish her worksheets.