I sit in a row of ten, and all is well in the world.
I sit in the last seat, on the left side of the row. It is dark. I hate myself for being afraid, but then, I am only eight, and once again, all is well in the world.
No, I am twenty-eight, not eight.
But I am eight.
I search my memory. I remember . . . how cold it was the winter of 1901, in Russia. I have on three pairs of thermal long-johns, in addition to my normal winter gear. But it is still cold.
Then I am no longer remembering, but feeling myself running through the white snow by my house. No! this is no memory. This is real. As real as you getting up in the morning, as real as going to bed at night, and as real as everything in between. The cold air hits my face as I run in the snow, my golden hair gliding behind me. I feel the numbness of my fingers through my mitts as I topple over to hug the snow. I feel as if I am home.
"Ariana!" I turn at the sound of my name. "Get in now!" a man on the porch of my house screams though the snowscape.
"But Papa," I reply in Russian; why am I surprised by this?
I could see the worry in my Papa's face. "Papa, I want to stay outside!" I scream so that he can hear me.
"No, get in now! You must get inside!"
Even though he was screaming, I couldn't really hear him.
"Why Papa?"
"The Bad Men are coming, and you must come inside!"
I begin to run. My Papa stands on the porch of my house and all was bad in my world. He begins to run towards me. I can see fear in my Papa's face. I have never seen him afraid before. I begin to run faster. Then I hear them behind me, and I know the Bad Men are here.
I run as fast as I can, but the Bad Men get me anyway. I feel the Bad Men grab my golden hair and yank me down. I scream for my Papa as I fall in the snow, my scalp on fire. I begin to claw at his hands, but my mitten hands do nothing. The Bad Men yanked my hair harder as I feel patches of my golden hair being ripped from my scalp.
They laugh as they see me wrench and scream in pain. He lets go of my hair, and I get up to run. I am almost standing when I see Papa getting beat up by three of the Bad Men. I hear the slicing of the wind before being kicked in the head. I fall on my back. As I fall back into the snow, I hear them laugh louder. They begin to stomp my face with their heavy boots. My nose shatters under their stomping.
I am only eight.
I nearly choke on my own teeth as their stomping tares them loose. I feel my cheek bone crack and my jaw almost snap. They begin to laugh louder.
God, I was only eight.
Then they stop.
And I lay there, in the red snow, choking on my own blood, and I know that Papa is dead, and I dying. The Bad Men rips at my blouse and tares it off. I ware a necklace of the Star of David; my mother had left for me. He tares it off. He looks at it then throws it in the red snow.
"Fuckin' Jew!" he says in Russian (why wouldn't he?).
I lay there in the red snow, dying, and in the corner of my eye, my house is being set on fire.
-
I shift in my seat in the row of ten.
I am the first (or last) person in the row. I look at the person to the right of me, but it is dark, and I am no longer afraid, for I no longer touch the person to the right of me. And the memory is all but gone. A ghost.
I sit in a row of ten, and my name is Jennifer Sinclar, not Ariana. I am twenty-eight, not eight. I was born in America, not Russia, in 1965, not 1893.
But the memory is all but gone. And all is well in the world.
I look at the person to the right of me, and I know this person is Ariana, the eight year old Russian girl with golden hair, who lost her Papa, home, and her life on a cold winter night in 1901. Do to the fact that she was Jewish.
I also know that I was Ariana. Once.
She, like me, sits in a row of ten. She sits on the second to last seat, on the left side of the row. I stare at the little Russian girl. All was bad in her world. She was only eight.
I sit there, in a row of ten, and try to think of the good parts in little Ariana's life. But the memory is gone . . . the memory is gone . . .
I touch the little Russian girl again. I feel myself being drowned by little Ariana: her memories, her thoughts, feelings, her life. But this time, it is different. This time, I sense the wrong in her life.
I know what I must do.
--
I die in three days.
I wake up in little Ariana's bed in the middle of the night. And I am home. My pillow is rough under my head, but I do not care. I am home. My eye's began water, I am home, and I remember everything. I remember the wooden chest that I do all my doodles on, the makeshift desk my fath . . . Papa made me, my bed, that had the wooden frame, but a cushion made from chicken feathers my Papa collected last summer (we never ate the chickens, we always gave them away to charity), but more importantly, the object under my bed. America! My hand blurs under my bed, but my hands does not reach. I continue to stretch, but my arm is too short. I stretch up to the point that I flip out of the bed. I shrug off the pain and look under my bed; it is dark, much like the row of ten with its ten chairs and nothing else but the darkness that encloses it. My hand brushes against the soft fur of my teddy America, who'd my Papa always put under my bed at night after prayer to ward away the evil that hides in the shadows. I take him out and begin to dust off his brown fur, his head begins to shake with his one left ear and matching one left eye, who looks worn and tired from the countless hugging of an eight-year old girl on many cold Russian nights.
I hug him till I fear he'd pop. I get off my wooden floor and waved the dust off of my white nightgown that my mother had made before my birth. I run to my only window, with America clenched tightly under my arm, and looked out at the beautiful snow fall that blanketed my Motherland, a Motherland that would never accept me. But this did not bother me; I had Papa, who spoiled me when he had no right, giving everything of value to me while he himself had had nothing, I had the farm, and I had God. Tears fall from my eyes as I look at such a glorious sight, and I silently thank Him for the farm's big crop that summer. God had blessed us and the other farmers huge crops, and food and supplies had been plentiful, even after the Motherland had taken what she wanted of it. I did not know that if the Motherland knew how well we did, that we would had had almost nothing this winter, but it seems at the time Russia was busy occupying Manchuria in north-east China which was all the talk in my farm community, and I had no clue as to why this was important or why it always seemed to put a smile on Papa's face. I remember asking him once, and he only said: "A girl of eight should not know the affairs of men!"
Papa . . . the thought of him made me turn away from the snow fall and cry, not out of beauty, but out of sorrow of a event that has yet to happen. I let America drop to the floor as I run to my bed and cry with my head buried in my rough pillow so not to wake Papa. The emotions of both a girl and a grown woman were at war inside me, tearing me apart. I feel alone and scared and helpless, and I want to go home—my real home—then feel hurt at the thought of it. This is my home, my place is with Papa, I have no other home, but with him. But I know this was not true.
"Please God," I cry, "help me. This is so much bigger than me . . ."
But there is nothing but the dark to answer.
---
I dream of a woman named Jennifer Sinclar. A tall slender woman with blue eyes, black hair and a oval face with dimples in her cheeks who had an incredible fetish for watches and sad love songs. She loved a good joke, and a good shoulder to cry on when the time called for it. She was so very afraid of rejection, that she decided altogether that she would rather be alone. She had long ago turned her back on family affairs and felt no sorrow about it. She regretted that she ever started smoking as a child, and hated the fact that she couldn't stop now. She lived the life of a lonely person and often became depressed because she had much free time to think on things. Most times, she found it easier to fight or to run away from a problem rather than confront it. And she had a habit of pushing her friends away.
Such a sad person I dream about, this Jennifer Sinclar.
----
"Ariana, you've been crying. Why? And I see America out from under the bed. Did you wake and find me gone? Is this why you cried?"
I feel his tough and callused hand on my shoulder. His hand is like ice and I jerked away as if I am hit by a blow. My face is still in my pillow, and I want nothing but to turn around and tell him something that could never be stopped.
"Oh, Papa . . . !" I say, as I turn and try my best to wrap my arms around his huge frame, but my fingers couldn't even touch each other. I buried my head in his chest and began to cry, the war between woman and girl was raging up again.
I feel my Papa stiffen, then he puts his hand on head before saying: "Come now, little Ariana, such crying for a girl such as you is not good. Tell me now, what is wrong?"
"Papa, we must leave here, we must go far away from here, now!"
"Why, little one?"
I take my head away from his chest and look into his face, I can see the sun shinning in through my only window in back of him. "Because, Papa, the Bad Men are coming, they're going to kill us and burn down our house!" I look at him as a new set of tears fall down my face. He looks down on me with shocked eyes, then I see the rage in them. He stands up and I think he will hit me.
"How do you know this?" he asks without emotion.
"Because I have lived through it. Papa, please, we must go!" He backs away, but says nothing. "Listen Papa, please, in my dream an American showed me what will happen in two days, she told me in English . . ." That is as close to the truth that I dare get. I know that he could easily pass this all off as a bad dream, but the English . . .
"English? This American spoke to you in English?"
"Y-yes . . ." He knows that I had known a couple of words in English, enough to know it when I heard it. He also knows every English word that Ariana knows, for he was the one to teach them to her. I look at him. He has on his heaviest coat—the one he only wore for distance, and there is melting snow on his boots. Where has he been?
"Speak them," he simply says.
"The American told me"—I started in English, then I simply stop.
Oh, God, what am I doing? What am I doing?
"Oh, Papa . . . Papa!" I cry when the horror of everything hits me. A new set of tears fall from my eyes as I bury my head in my pillow and cry like the child I am. I feel my Papa sit on the bed again and take hold of my shoulders, and brings me to his chest and let me rest my head on his huge shoulder, holding me tight.
"I love you, Papa," I say through my tears and sobs and throw my arms around his neck, close my eyes tight and cry myself to sleep in his arms.
"I love you too, little one," I hear my Papa say to me, but knew it wasn't true.
-----
It is snowing the day before we are to die. But I do not go outside, for I am afraid that if I do, the Bad Men will come sooner; a silly fear.
And there is still much I must do.
I am not here to save little Ariana or her Papa from their deaths at the hands of the Bad Men; I never was. For now, the little girl is asleep and the woman must work. I turn away from the beautiful Russian snowfall and walk to my desk, the floor is cold under my bare feet.
I think of mother. She is why I am here.
My mother died giving birth to me on a cold dark night all alone as my Papa braved the snowfall in search help. When he returned with men from the village, the warmness had left my mother's pain filled eyes, and I laid on the cold floor, my life cord stealing the breath from me. The village people saved me, but to my Papa, that meant very little, for along with my mother—his wife—a part died in him as well that night and the dark never seemed so dark, the cold never so cold. My Papa loved his wife very much; and it hurts him to look at me, for I am the one that took her life, took my Papa's life. I am a reminder, nothing more. My Papa does not love me.
I feel the tears start again, but I hold them back, but it is so hard.
. . . My Papa does not love me . . .
I must make my Papa live again by putting my mother to rest. For her, and for poor little Ariana.
------
The Russian sun is high in the sky when my Papa tells his lie. He tells me that he is going to the village, but he is wearing his heavy winter gear and the village is not so far away. After he leaves, I mark well his course, and when he is just out of sight, I dress for the coldness of the Russian winter and follow.
It is a long walk through the harsh snowscape and it is hard to keep up with my Papa with such a little body, then I realize were he is heading and I slow my pace. He is going to the Old Tree on the Hill, where my mother is buried.
-------
"Oh, my beautiful Olga," I hear my Papa say to the snow covered ground where my mother does her final sleep.
I stand at a distance, that and because of the snow and wind, I do not make out much of what my Papa is saying.
"God is not fair for taking you away from me," my Papa is saying, "I have done nothing wrong, even through the hardest of times, my love for Him was still strong. Why, my beautiful, lovely Olga, did He take you away from me?"
My Papa says more, but I do not hear. I move in closer, just in time to hear him say the words, in no more than a sorrowed whisper, that freezes my heart when the Russian cold can not:
"Why did You not take the child?"
My eyes open wide and my mouth becomes an O. I stumble back, trying to reject the words. I shake my head and I feel a scream in my throat.
"PAPA!"
I fall to my knees as my Papa shoots around, his eyes seeing me fall to the ground, filling with tears.
"Oh, Ariana . . ." he says, but does not move. He simply stares at me with tear filled and sorrowed eyes. "You were not meant to hear that . . ."
. . . My Papa does not love me . . . my Papa wishes me dead . . .
"Mother is dead!" I scream at him as he gets up and starts to walk towards me. I want to hurt him like he hurt me. "Mother is dead and gone, but I am—"
I stop short as my Papa's slap sends me into the snow.
I lay in the snow crying and say more to myself than to him: "But I am not."
My Papa stands over me then grabs my arm and lifts me up and hugs me tight.
"I did not mean that, little one, it is not true. I am sorry I hit you. It is not true . . ."
"It is, Papa. You mean every word you said. It is not my fault I took mother away from you! It is not . . . it is not my . . ."
I stop, unable to talk through the tears and realize that I am shivering.
"I am taking you home," my Papa says, but I try to fight my way out of his grip.
"I am not going anywhere with you!"
"Little one . . ."
"No!" I scream, hitting him with my mitten hands though I know my little body can not hurt him. "No! Do not call me that again! How can you be so mean? How can you say the things you say to me, knowing that you hate me?"
"I do not hate you, I do not—"
"No more lies, Papa. No more! Let me go and I will just die right here with mother—that will make you happy, Papa! I'll die, just like you want! Just like you always wanted!"
"Stop this talk, girl! I do not hate you—"
"No more lies, Papa!"
This time my Papa says nothing but shakes me really hard to make me be quiet. I say nothing more, but continue to cry.
After awhile, my Papa holding me tight in his arms to stop my shivering, says in a sad whisper: "I do not hate you, Ariana. I never did. It just hurts. It is so unfair. I love your mother, Ariana. I always will. I do not want to think of as gone. It is so . . . hard without her, little one."
He stops talking to see if I would act up again. When I don’t, he continues:
"Your mother was all I held dear, your birth was suppose to be a time for great joy for the three of us—you, the ultimate result of our love; but instead, the night was dark, little one, and my sorrow great. And for the longest while, I didn't want to live without her, each night I wanted to walk out into the snow and sleep and finally be at peace. And I hated God for what He did to me, to us. We were suppose to be happy, we were suppose to live forever, happy under His wing. Why did He take my Olga away from me?"
I look up to see Papa looking down at me. My poor lost Papa.
"Oh, Papa," I say, "mother is not dead, mother is not gone, she never will be . . . as long as you remember her. How she must be worried up there in Heaven, looking down at her family . . . she would want us to be together, not apart. I am the result of the love of two wonderful people, Papa. Mother will never be gone. She lives through your memories, she lives through me. We are all together, all three of us, Papa, for now and forever. Let us be a family again, like it was always meant to be."
My Papa looks down on me as tears falls down his cheeks. He smiles.
"My wonderful little one," my Papa says, smiling, "how right you are . . ."
He says nothing else as he lets me down by mother's grave. We both kneel in prayer, and give our respects to my mother, his wife. I see my Papa get up and feel him lift me with his strong hands.
"Come, little one, we must go home, we must be a family."
I throw my hands around his neck and hold him tight. "I love you, Papa," I tell him.
"And I love you too, little one," my Papa says. And it is true.
All is well in little Ariana's world. And I am done.
--------
I sit in a row of ten and I no longer touch the little girl beside me. And the row is now bright, for little Ariana, who's body was once as dark as the rest of the row, shines like the sun itself, engulfing all in her warm, beautiful rays till she becomes nothing. Ariana is at peace now, and she will live forever.
In my memories.
Good-bye Ariana, good-bye Papa. Good-bye.
I sit in a row of nine.
I move down a seat.
The person that sits next to me is dark, and all is bad in her world.
fin
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