Katya_Derevko
Cadet
Sisters
I remember when I first cut my hair – the thick, dark tangles falling into our dirty sink, the pounding on the bathroom door, and then, at my final snip, the turning of a key in the lock. Looking in the mirror, the instant before he came in, I thought to myself, I am finally free of her. But even then, I knew it was a lie.
Years before you left – before our parents sent you away – how many times did we hide together in dark corners, tense as crouching cats, waiting to be punished? My earliest memory is of the two of us in trouble. Or to be more accurate, it was you who was in real trouble; I was just in trouble for being entranced by your latest scheme and going along with it. I was scared, not accustomed as you were to the beatings and the threats. I sobbed into your shoulder. You held me gently at first, but then began to grip me so tightly that your fingernails dug into the skin of my arms, making me bleed.
“Don’t cry.” Your voice was thick with contempt. “You’re not a baby.”
I felt my tears dry instant to salt, my throat obediently lock shut. You loosened your grip, holding me protectively now, and not in anger. Other times, it wasn’t as easy to tell the difference.
I don’t think I can remember a time when I wasn’t envious of you. It wasn’t that I coveted your appearance, or your demeanor, or your intelligence – although I thought each of these in turn was the reason I had held you in awe. It was that indescribable something, that spark of you, that way you had of twisting situations around so that you were always victorious. Some people spit in the faces of their enemies. You did worse. You laughed.
When you were 14 and I was 12 they sent you away. What was it, the final act of rebellion, the last breath that blew away the house of cards Mother and Father called “love”? You said that mother was jealous of you – jealous of your youth, your strength, your intelligence – jealous that you were doing all the things she had never would have dared to do, even if she had your abilities. But Irina, for all your keen observations, there were so many things going on in that house that you did not understand. There were so many things that you did not see.
When I was 10 and you were 12, one of the older boys at school tried to rape me after you rejected him. He was the first person you ever killed. I was never sure afterwards if you had meant to do it or not. The gun clasped so awkwardly in your shaking hands, the flash of red before I went unconscious – the last thing I remember was a piece of his skull resting by my foot. You’d stolen the gun from Father’s locked drawer. Later, when I asked how you knew he would come after me, you just shrugged.
I helped you to bury the body.
When news came that the boy was missing, they knew. Mother and Father knew it was you. Returning the gun to its “hiding place” with one bullet missing was just as telling as if you walked around with it in your hand. They had seen you one night, walking home alone with him, in the dark, too young for such brazen behavior, flirting so carelessly. You were bored with him the next day. Never mind the cuts and bruises on my face, arms, legs, and thighs. Your evening stroll alone was unforgivable. For the rest, which he could not prove, Father beat you unconscious, and he broke your leg. He thought he had broken you. For months after that, we spent so much time with schoolwork, so much time pouring over books. But he was a man who always underestimated the power of the written word. When you had healed, we began to practice the moves we had learned on each other. We trained ourselves to fight.
I was content to keep it hidden, sleek and secure in power, under the veneer of my waif-like appearance. You were not. You stole things. Cars, money. Teacher’s authority. Other girl’s boyfriends. Weapons – I understood the knives, but I didn’t know how you got your hands on that gun, the one with a silencer. When I asked what that was for, you looked at me as though it were quite obvious, and said, “So people can’t hear themselves die.”
You were so angry. Angry with our Mother, who said that she’d been ashamed of you even before you had been born. Angry at our Father, who thought he could beat you into submission. But when you were growing, you didn’t see. I was more sensitive, more observant than you. I saw how Mother cringed every time he raised his voice, his hand, every time he walked across the room, whether it was directed at her or not. I saw her hand shake the few times she managed to snatch the bottles from his hands and pour the last of it down the sink.
And when you grew into your beauty, when you began to be attractive, you thought Mother was jealous, in her flour-sack body, or your budding sexuality. Maybe so. But even more than that, she was afraid. Afraid for you. She knew how father had begun to see you; she knew the terrible power of broken men as you did not. She was relieved when you left, but for more than one reason. I see that now, though I didn’t see it then. Then I was in a rage, but not one like yours – my rage was muted by misery. I was your faithful sidekick, your companion, your shadow. Without you, I thought, I’d disappear.
Every day, I raced the ghost of myself across the streets, trying to outrun it, outrun you, and outrun the tears that stung my sweaty face. Don’t cry. You’re not a baby. It hurt too much to remember, so I began to forget. I studied fanatically, achieved top grades, earned highest honors, and pleased our parents. I began to make friends. I stopped stealing. I lost my virginity to the richest and worst looking boy in my year, made him buy me presents, but then let him drop me without retribution. I babysat Ella without complaint. I became a pleasant, placid, shattered version of you.
In the two years that you were gone, you came back just once. After a full year away from home. To scare our parents, and to tell me what to do with myself. All that time, you hadn’t even sent me a letter.
“Why are you still here?” Your first words to me, the first words out of your mouth. It was near the end of your final, weeklong stay in the house. You acted as if you had finally been broken. You jumped at Father’s slightest word, sat and stared for hours, and you wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Why didn’t you run away, try to find me, come get me, what’s the matter with you?” Your eyes blazed with anger. You were still alive, still there, but you looked at me like I was a stranger.
Before I even felt the tears form in my eyes, you struck me, a clean, hard blow that knocked me to the floor. Then you kicked me in the head, hissing, “Does the good little girl still know how to fight?” And I showed you that I did. Oh yes, I showed you. You didn’t know I could get angry too. You expected me to still be the same after all this time, still your faithful shadow; inferior, but still revering you, and grateful for the protection of your power.
How dare you. How dare you take me into your heart so possessively, demand my allegiance, become my only friend and then leave me all alone. Now it was I who beat you unconscious. Now it was I who gave two black eyes, who cut my fingernails into your skin. Looking at you, lifeless on the ground as I caught my breath … I almost think I could of killed you. If it hadn’t been that I owed you for that boy.
When you left, there were no more tears in me. For a year, I was deadened by pain. But during this time, a plan fell in to place. I was much more patient then you; I knew how to bide my time. And when the right moment came, I was calm. I knew what do. One night, when everyone was sleeping, I slowly and deliberately took out all of Father’s bottles. I poured the alcohol all over the floor. I stole some sleeping pills, gave one to Ella, and put her out on the front lawn. Then I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and began the assault on my hair. When the door flung open, before Father could even speak, I lit the match. Then I crawled out the bathroom window and waited. As I waited, I thought what you would do, and that made my decision for me. I dragged first Mother, and then father, out of the house. Afterwards, I sat down, listening to the sirens get closer, and sank contentedly into unconsciousness.
“Russia is your mother.” It had always been said, but now it was really true. I smiled when I heard how many years father would spend in jail for arson. As for mother, well, at least she got to keep Ella – although we both know how that turned out. But due to my past escapades with you, I was “incorrigible,” and became a ward of the state. They said I had potential – the same potential as you. So of course I knew they’d send me to the same “school.” You never gave me enough credit, Irina. What makes you sure I didn’t have it planned that way all along?
So I saw you again. You didn’t recognize me, not at first. I saw the realization hit when your mouth formed an “O” and your pupils seemed to widen in shock. I think it was the first time I ever caught you off guard. It pleased me, knowing that I could do this. After several attempts at speech, something finally came out of your mouth, as flat and expressionless as you could make it sound.
“Your hair. You look like a boy.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.” You eyes grew brighter and you set your mouth in a determined line.
I moved closer to you, got my face right up in yours. We were just about the same height now. I made my features into stone and stared at you until you blinked.
“I do not.”
For a moment, you looked almost afraid. Then quite incredibly, you smiled. “Oh Katya, my little sister. How I’ve miss you. I’ve had no one, no one to keep my secrets for me in this place.” I must have been imagining it, that there were tears eyes, or a slight quaver in your voice as you spoke, but I said it anyway:
“Don’t cry. You’re not a baby.”
And the instant I was sure you would strike was exactly when you wrapped your arms around me in a welcome and bone-crushing hug.
I remember when I first cut my hair – the thick, dark tangles falling into our dirty sink, the pounding on the bathroom door, and then, at my final snip, the turning of a key in the lock. Looking in the mirror, the instant before he came in, I thought to myself, I am finally free of her. But even then, I knew it was a lie.
Years before you left – before our parents sent you away – how many times did we hide together in dark corners, tense as crouching cats, waiting to be punished? My earliest memory is of the two of us in trouble. Or to be more accurate, it was you who was in real trouble; I was just in trouble for being entranced by your latest scheme and going along with it. I was scared, not accustomed as you were to the beatings and the threats. I sobbed into your shoulder. You held me gently at first, but then began to grip me so tightly that your fingernails dug into the skin of my arms, making me bleed.
“Don’t cry.” Your voice was thick with contempt. “You’re not a baby.”
I felt my tears dry instant to salt, my throat obediently lock shut. You loosened your grip, holding me protectively now, and not in anger. Other times, it wasn’t as easy to tell the difference.
I don’t think I can remember a time when I wasn’t envious of you. It wasn’t that I coveted your appearance, or your demeanor, or your intelligence – although I thought each of these in turn was the reason I had held you in awe. It was that indescribable something, that spark of you, that way you had of twisting situations around so that you were always victorious. Some people spit in the faces of their enemies. You did worse. You laughed.
When you were 14 and I was 12 they sent you away. What was it, the final act of rebellion, the last breath that blew away the house of cards Mother and Father called “love”? You said that mother was jealous of you – jealous of your youth, your strength, your intelligence – jealous that you were doing all the things she had never would have dared to do, even if she had your abilities. But Irina, for all your keen observations, there were so many things going on in that house that you did not understand. There were so many things that you did not see.
When I was 10 and you were 12, one of the older boys at school tried to rape me after you rejected him. He was the first person you ever killed. I was never sure afterwards if you had meant to do it or not. The gun clasped so awkwardly in your shaking hands, the flash of red before I went unconscious – the last thing I remember was a piece of his skull resting by my foot. You’d stolen the gun from Father’s locked drawer. Later, when I asked how you knew he would come after me, you just shrugged.
I helped you to bury the body.
When news came that the boy was missing, they knew. Mother and Father knew it was you. Returning the gun to its “hiding place” with one bullet missing was just as telling as if you walked around with it in your hand. They had seen you one night, walking home alone with him, in the dark, too young for such brazen behavior, flirting so carelessly. You were bored with him the next day. Never mind the cuts and bruises on my face, arms, legs, and thighs. Your evening stroll alone was unforgivable. For the rest, which he could not prove, Father beat you unconscious, and he broke your leg. He thought he had broken you. For months after that, we spent so much time with schoolwork, so much time pouring over books. But he was a man who always underestimated the power of the written word. When you had healed, we began to practice the moves we had learned on each other. We trained ourselves to fight.
I was content to keep it hidden, sleek and secure in power, under the veneer of my waif-like appearance. You were not. You stole things. Cars, money. Teacher’s authority. Other girl’s boyfriends. Weapons – I understood the knives, but I didn’t know how you got your hands on that gun, the one with a silencer. When I asked what that was for, you looked at me as though it were quite obvious, and said, “So people can’t hear themselves die.”
You were so angry. Angry with our Mother, who said that she’d been ashamed of you even before you had been born. Angry at our Father, who thought he could beat you into submission. But when you were growing, you didn’t see. I was more sensitive, more observant than you. I saw how Mother cringed every time he raised his voice, his hand, every time he walked across the room, whether it was directed at her or not. I saw her hand shake the few times she managed to snatch the bottles from his hands and pour the last of it down the sink.
And when you grew into your beauty, when you began to be attractive, you thought Mother was jealous, in her flour-sack body, or your budding sexuality. Maybe so. But even more than that, she was afraid. Afraid for you. She knew how father had begun to see you; she knew the terrible power of broken men as you did not. She was relieved when you left, but for more than one reason. I see that now, though I didn’t see it then. Then I was in a rage, but not one like yours – my rage was muted by misery. I was your faithful sidekick, your companion, your shadow. Without you, I thought, I’d disappear.
Every day, I raced the ghost of myself across the streets, trying to outrun it, outrun you, and outrun the tears that stung my sweaty face. Don’t cry. You’re not a baby. It hurt too much to remember, so I began to forget. I studied fanatically, achieved top grades, earned highest honors, and pleased our parents. I began to make friends. I stopped stealing. I lost my virginity to the richest and worst looking boy in my year, made him buy me presents, but then let him drop me without retribution. I babysat Ella without complaint. I became a pleasant, placid, shattered version of you.
In the two years that you were gone, you came back just once. After a full year away from home. To scare our parents, and to tell me what to do with myself. All that time, you hadn’t even sent me a letter.
“Why are you still here?” Your first words to me, the first words out of your mouth. It was near the end of your final, weeklong stay in the house. You acted as if you had finally been broken. You jumped at Father’s slightest word, sat and stared for hours, and you wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Why didn’t you run away, try to find me, come get me, what’s the matter with you?” Your eyes blazed with anger. You were still alive, still there, but you looked at me like I was a stranger.
Before I even felt the tears form in my eyes, you struck me, a clean, hard blow that knocked me to the floor. Then you kicked me in the head, hissing, “Does the good little girl still know how to fight?” And I showed you that I did. Oh yes, I showed you. You didn’t know I could get angry too. You expected me to still be the same after all this time, still your faithful shadow; inferior, but still revering you, and grateful for the protection of your power.
How dare you. How dare you take me into your heart so possessively, demand my allegiance, become my only friend and then leave me all alone. Now it was I who beat you unconscious. Now it was I who gave two black eyes, who cut my fingernails into your skin. Looking at you, lifeless on the ground as I caught my breath … I almost think I could of killed you. If it hadn’t been that I owed you for that boy.
When you left, there were no more tears in me. For a year, I was deadened by pain. But during this time, a plan fell in to place. I was much more patient then you; I knew how to bide my time. And when the right moment came, I was calm. I knew what do. One night, when everyone was sleeping, I slowly and deliberately took out all of Father’s bottles. I poured the alcohol all over the floor. I stole some sleeping pills, gave one to Ella, and put her out on the front lawn. Then I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and began the assault on my hair. When the door flung open, before Father could even speak, I lit the match. Then I crawled out the bathroom window and waited. As I waited, I thought what you would do, and that made my decision for me. I dragged first Mother, and then father, out of the house. Afterwards, I sat down, listening to the sirens get closer, and sank contentedly into unconsciousness.
“Russia is your mother.” It had always been said, but now it was really true. I smiled when I heard how many years father would spend in jail for arson. As for mother, well, at least she got to keep Ella – although we both know how that turned out. But due to my past escapades with you, I was “incorrigible,” and became a ward of the state. They said I had potential – the same potential as you. So of course I knew they’d send me to the same “school.” You never gave me enough credit, Irina. What makes you sure I didn’t have it planned that way all along?
So I saw you again. You didn’t recognize me, not at first. I saw the realization hit when your mouth formed an “O” and your pupils seemed to widen in shock. I think it was the first time I ever caught you off guard. It pleased me, knowing that I could do this. After several attempts at speech, something finally came out of your mouth, as flat and expressionless as you could make it sound.
“Your hair. You look like a boy.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.” You eyes grew brighter and you set your mouth in a determined line.
I moved closer to you, got my face right up in yours. We were just about the same height now. I made my features into stone and stared at you until you blinked.
“I do not.”
For a moment, you looked almost afraid. Then quite incredibly, you smiled. “Oh Katya, my little sister. How I’ve miss you. I’ve had no one, no one to keep my secrets for me in this place.” I must have been imagining it, that there were tears eyes, or a slight quaver in your voice as you spoke, but I said it anyway:
“Don’t cry. You’re not a baby.”
And the instant I was sure you would strike was exactly when you wrapped your arms around me in a welcome and bone-crushing hug.
