Chapter Text
Villanelle Astankova was, famously, not a fan of poetry. When she was a child, she had coveted it. For a little girl in an orphanage, it had felt like a symbol of status to have the time and the energy to sit down and read a book of poems. How cosmopolitan it had seemed, how romantic.
But, when she actually read it, she found that she had no use for it. What good were other people’s recycled and regurgitated emotions to her? Villanelle’s feelings were different. They were prismatic. What could Pablo Neruda tell her about the body of a woman? Charles Bukowski about love, or hatred?
But then, in a college class, she’d read Mary Oliver. And Mary Oliver had asked Villanelle:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
And Villanelle had reflected, because what was she doing with it? Her upbringing had been so difficult, so marred with abandonment and hunger and want, and now she was wasting the twilight of her adolescence in a scholarship student’s dorm in Moscow? Reading poetry and studying furiously to become what—an academic?
At that moment, Villanelle decided that she was owed hedonism. Entitled to it. And she spent the rest of that decade pursuing it, successfully. She worked for the rich until she herself was rich. She acquired a nice flat, a job that only required her to use her good taste and spend money.
Sure, Mary Oliver had probably been talking about—bird watching, or something. But Villanelle was happy doing this. Gorging herself on precious things, taking and never giving. It was a fantasy.
For years, at least, it was a fantasy. The day that it wasn’t any longer came quietly. She woke up and she was alone. This was surprising for only one reason: her bed had been full when she’d gone to sleep. There had been two other bodies resting with her, bodies that had apparently risen and left as quietly as they possibly could.
Fair enough. She had only met the women the previous night, mere hours before they’d followed her home. They probably wanted to avoid an awkward morning after conversation as much as Villanelle did.
Still, that morning, she found the silence and the emptiness a little more jarring than she had in the past. When she stepped out into her living room, full of it’s lush, rich fabrics, it’s comfortable sofas, it’s $500 record player and collection of vinyls lovingly picked over a period of years, she felt—nothing.
That was the most surprising thing of all, and the awkwardness of the new absence of feeling haunted her throughout the entire day. Shopping for rich people was a job that Villanelle could scarcely believe existed because it suited her so perfectly—but that week, she’d floundered.
Fabrics on dresses seemed less bright. Cakes tasted beige on her tongue. Taxis between boutiques were tedious. Then the next week, and the next. Everything dull, everything repetitive.
And she’d tried, she really had, to right the course. Villanelle replaced her sofa and she purchased an expensive cake just for herself. She spent a weekend in Greece, tanning on the beach between boutique showings. Still, she felt nothing; only the tired, full feeling one might have after overindulging on a meal.
“You are slipping.” Konstantin slid a plate of pastry toward her across the kitchen island. She grimaced and pushed it back. Lately, she didn’t have much of an appetite. “This is the second time a client has complained. The dress was the wrong colour.”
“The dress was beautiful.” Villanelle insisted, but she was unsure. She couldn’t remember what dress Konstantin was talking about, or what colour it had been or was supposed to be. “Have you considered that perhaps the client was wrong?”
“The client is never wrong.” He wagged a finger at her. “Your paycheck and mine depend on believing that.”
“So give me somebody more interesting. I am tired of shopping for dresses.”
“You are tired of—for the love of God, what’s wrong with you?” Konstantin reached out one large hand to place on her forehead, and Villanelle ducked out of it’s path. “Are you ill? Tired of shopping for dresses?”
“I am!” She insisted. “I have ennui, Konstantin.”
“Ennui?” He barked out a loud, sudden laugh. “From what? The money? The beautiful women? You come into my house and tell me you have ennui?”
“Sometimes I feel like you do not take me seriously.” She grumbled, pulling the plate back toward herself and picking miserably at a croissant. In front of her, Konstantin sighed, and his body language eased into something more fatherly. She’d learned the best tricks to guilt trip him from Irina.
“You are almost 28, yes? Maybe you’re just getting tired of it.”
“Of what?”
“You know what.” He popped a piece of pastry into his mouth and dusted his hands. “It is fun, I know, but it has an expiration date. Have you thought about marriage?” Villanelle groaned loudly and rolled her eyes, sliding down in her chair. “I am serious, Villanelle!”
“You’re telling me to cure my ennui by becoming more boring.”
“I am telling you that sometimes having something to wake up for in the morning is nice, okay? A wife? A child? A dog? Something you are beholden to?” Villanelle said nothing. Despite herself her stomach twisted, as it always did, at the word wife. “Try it, you might like it.”
“Okay, Konstantin, I will give having a wife a try.” She rolled her eyes and sat forward. “Thank you for the advice.”
He opened his mouth to say something more, but a flash of red hair came bobbing through the front door. Irina snatched a croissant from the plate on the counter and punched her father in the stomach as she passed, causing Konstantin to double over in surprise and indignity. She spared Villanelle a passing glance.
“Hey, dickhead.”
“Hi, asshole.” Villanelle greeted. She eyed Konstantin. “You’re right, this does seem nice.”
But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Konstantin always had an air of mysticism about him; he was the kind of man who was always finding dollar bills and four leaf clovers. When he said things, sometimes they came true.
Villanelle found herself sort of hoping that it would. A wife? That did sound exciting. It was not something she’d ever let herself hope for specifically, but to hear somebody else hope for it for her was nice.
That night, she arrived back at her empty flat. Villanelle didn’t bother taking off her jacket. She walked straight to the record player in her living room, turned it on, and put the needle to the vinyl that was already there. When the music started playing, she got down on the floor and splayed out on her back.
So it was only one wild and precious life? That was a lot of pressure. Cats got nine, and yet there she was, looking like a fool with only one. That thought bothered Villanelle. In fact, she fell asleep on the floor that night, still in her jacket, bothered by it until the very end.
***
It was not to be a wife.
The following week, Villanelle received a call from an unknown number. She ignored it. They called back again, then again. She finally picked up, a little annoyed—when had telemarketers gotten so persistent, anyway?
“Sorry, is this Oksana Astankova?”
The sound of her legal name startled her enough that she said “Yes.” Before asking who was on the other end of the line.
“Hi, this is Cass Sunderland with the Department of Children and Families. How are you today?”
Villanelle paused. As had been made quite clear the previous day, she had no children and no family. “Fine. How are you , Cass?”
“Fine.” The woman on the other end of the line cleared her throat. “Are you in a place where you can speak privately? I’m afraid I have some news that might be very upsetting.”
Villanelle glanced around her living room. She was a little excited—getting very upsetting news was better than being bored all day. She sat down, because that’s what she figured people did in this sort of situation. “Yes, go ahead.”
“There was a fire at your family’s home in Russia.” Cass informed her solemnly. “Your mother is dead, as well as your brother.”
Laughter came pouring out of her. It was very upsetting news because now she wouldn’t have the opportunity to kill her mother with her bare hands. Pytor was a loss for somebody, she was sure. “I’m sorry.” Villanelle said into the stunned silence on the other end of the line. “Yes, I am sure that is very upsetting news for somebody.”
“Were you aware, Ms. Astankova, that you have a half brother?”
The laughter in her throat died. She swallowed confusedly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No. Did he die too?” That would be a little sad. If her mother had another child after she’d dumped Villanelle at the orphanage, he couldn’t be older than 15.
“He was the only survivor.”
“So, what, is his father going to take him?” Villanelle picked at a thread on her couch. This conversation was beginning to make her nervous. It was making twists and turns that she couldn’t predict. She wished for it to end.
“He died in the fire also.”
“Oh. So…”
“You are actually his only living relative.”
She gathered from the rest of the call that they wanted her, Villanelle Astankova, 27-going-on-28, to take charge of a little boy she’d never met. As Cass said it, Villanelle glanced around her flat. She had so many fragile things, art that cost more than most people paid in two months’ of rent, a dildo sitting in her open dishwasher.
The answer was, of course, no. But then Cass had said something else: if she couldn't do it, Borka was to go to a group home in Russia. Villanelle wondered errantly if Cass Sunderland had read her file. And then she asked for a picture.
It was emailed to her a half hour later.
The first thing that struck her about Borka in the photo was how little he resembled her. It made sense in the way that they were only half of anything to each other. But sharing a mother had always seemed to Villanelle more significant than coming from the same wasted pile of ejaculate, so it still surprised her to see nothing of herself in him.
He was small. Not just in stature, but scrawny. The shirt and pants he wore were too big and clearly had come from a charity organisation. His hair was shaped into a hideous bowl cut and his pockets were swollen, it seemed, with candy and small plastic toys.
Villanelle thought that it must be nice to be a child in Borka’s situation. He had probably been getting attention all day, that candy passed to him by kindly-faced social workers. That was the difference between when your parents died tragically and when they just left you on the steps of an orphanage, she figured.
When they died, you got the all-star treatment.
She knew immediately that he would not last even an honest ten minutes in a group home. No, he was scrawny and avoidant. When Villanelle had been in the orphanage, she was strong like an ox and quick—she could guard her portion of soup and bread like a feral dog and she had once ripped a girl’s hoop earring straight out for tattling on her to the house mother. The girl had bled like a stuck pig.
This boy would get masticated into a fine pulp. She couldn’t believe they were even related. Villanelle wasn’t a particularly compassionate person, but who would do something so certain to destroy a child?
“I don’t know, Villanelle.” Konstantin sighed. They were on the phone, but she could perfectly see him rubbing his hand over his beard in her mind’s eye. “When I said earlier you should consider a wife and a child, I was not being quite this serious.”
“And I wasn’t taking you seriously. But I had this feeling when I looked at him—”
“You had a feeling?” Konstantin guffawed and Villanelle scowled.
“Yes, okay? I pitied him.”
“But what happens when you stop pitying him and start finding him annoying, eh? This is, at minimum, eight years of your life.”
Villanelle hung up, huffing. What was eight years, anyway?
***
That night, Villanelle dreamt. She wasn’t a dreamer by nature. She exhausted all of her thoughts and feelings in her waking hours. Sleep was long and heavy and empty.
But her brain was restless and it conjured up images and colours and sounds that made no sense. She dreamt of herself, as a child, and she dreamt of Borka. She dreamt of a house full of people and the taste of sprat on toast, her favourite snack as a child but something she’d not eaten for years.
For the first time in weeks, she felt happy.
When she woke, again into an empty flat, that feeling drained from her like old dishwater. Villanelle lay in the dark, feeling the ennui beginning to seep back in. Then, she pulled out her laptop, opened it, and typed out an email.
I’ll take him.
***
For an act of generosity, there were a lot of hoops erected for Villanelle to jump through.
Social workers asked so many stupid questions that they didn’t even seem to want the answer to. It seemed like everything that Villanelle said to Cass was wrong.
Her hobbies? Drinking, listening to music, having sex. Her job? The schedule was flexible, but she occasionally had to spend a week or two at a time in Milan or New York City to get items for clients. God, the scribbling that woman had done when Villanelle had said that—one would have thought that she’d just admitted to a plan to assassinate the prime minister.
Then, the home visit. Cass came to her very beautiful, very expensive, very well located flat and poked around as if she lived in some sort of hovel. “It’s small.” She said, standing in Villanelle’s living room—Villanelle wondered if she knew that the rug underneath her feet cost upwards of three thousand euros—and looking up at the ceiling moulding. “Would you consider moving into a two bedroom?”
No, she would not. Villanelle thought of flats bigger than one bedroom the same way she thought of minivans—tacky, bloated, unsightly. Her one bedroom was fine. “I can just put up a curtain in the office nook.”
Cass frowned at her as if she wasn’t offering a major concession. She would have to move her desk and computer to the living room, throwing off the energy of the entire space! She found that she liked Cass less and less the more time they spent together.
Then there was the list. As it turned out, you needed lots of things when you adopted a child; a bed, a night stand. Curtains, if you lived in a one bedroom. Food!
Villanelle spent many hours at her laptop that evening researching what ten year old boys ate. There was a lot of information, most of it conflicting. Milk made their bones strong. Soy would make him effeminate? BPA would give him brain cancer. She read until she was dizzy with it and then settled on the one thing she felt certain that any child would eat—macaroni and cheese and frozen pizzas.
And a gallon of milk. Just in case.
***
Their actual first meeting was innocuous, toeing the line of being completely ordinary. It was at the Department of Children and Families, in a room that had clearly been constructed when they’d run out of space. The walls didn’t reach the ceiling.
Borka was offered to her with a box of dried food, a bag of clothes, and a backpack full of a few things that he’d managed to save from the fire. He looked pathetic. He wouldn’t even glance up at her, let alone speak to her, even with Cass’s gentle encouragement.
Cass smiled at her apologetically. “It’s been a little bit of a shock for him, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Borka said nothing for the entire taxi ride to the flat. He said nothing in the hallway and nothing when Villanelle pushed the curtain to his bedroom aside and showed him his bed—small, twin, with a blue sheet set. He said nothing when she produced a gallon of milk and nothing when she offered him a box of mac ‘n cheese.
Villanelle didn’t feel much like talking, either, and she certainly didn’t blame him. They were strangers who owed each other nothing. Even if he rejected everything she offered him, it would be better than an orphanage. At least he’d have heat and a warm meal, a pillow that nobody had ever farted on, curtains to hide behind.
“What’s this?” Hearing Borka’s voice, Villanelle perked up in surprise. She followed the boy into her living room where he stood in front of her record player, looking at the collection of vinyls underneath.
“It plays music.” She said, racking her brain for if they’d ever had one in the house when she was growing up. Borka looked enthralled by it.
For the first time, his eyes sparked a light. “Do you have any Elton?”
***
Villanelle couldn’t tell if she’d preferred Borka talking or not talking. When talking, he was stubborn—always asserting himself over something stupid. She wanted to take him to the barber to right his stupid haircut, the answer was no.
“Mama always did it in the kitchen.”
“Yes, I can tell.” Villanelle clucked her tongue and took a strand of hair between her fingers. Another way in which he was nothing like her: he was a brunette. Tragic, really. “You do not have to live like that anymore, though.”
“I liked living like that."
And so on. He had no interest in any clothes other than what came in five-packs from Primark or H & M. By the end of their second week together, he had an entire wardrobe that consisted of primary colours, t-shirts and jeans. It broke Villanelle’s spirit just to look at him.
“He was happy when we spoke.” Konstantin told her, sitting across from Villanelle in her kitchen. “He liked his new clothes.”
Villanelle snorted. Crossed and recrossed her legs. This had nothing to do with the fact that, whenever she bought something for him—expensive sheets for his bed, oysters for dinner, a Star War action figure because boys liked that kind of thing, didn’t they? Borka would respond with only tepid interest. Nothing like the joy on his pinched little face when he was able to con her into buying him a t-shirt with Angry Birds on it.
No, it had nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with the fact that Villanelle had to look at him, day in and day out.
“He doesn’t know what he likes.” She said.
Konstantin sighed. “Have you considered, perhaps, listening to Borka about what he wants from you?”
“No.” Villanelle responded plainly, picking a piece of lint from the lapel of her jacket. “I have not.”
At least his school uniform was cute. It made him look posh, though Borka itched at it as if it were full of bugs. Every morning at 7:45 AM, they would make the three block trek around the block to his school, him squirming the entire time, pulling at the arms of his blazer jacket.
“Stop that.” Villanelle would say, then again when he inevitably hadn’t stopped by the time they came to the front of the school yard. He’d stand in front of her, looking pitiful, and she’d stand in front of him, looking peeved. “I’ll be back to pick you up at 3.”
Then she’d slog home to find his dirty dishes from breakfast and his sheets and underwear strewn around the flat and she’d let out a scream. Just a small one, lasting two seconds at most.
This went on for three more weeks, until Eve Park called her on a Tuesday afternoon. Villanelle was at home, blessedly alone, eating a dish of ice cream and enjoying her peace and quiet.
Though, when she reflected on it, it wasn’t much different when Borka was home—he didn’t even do his homework at the kitchen table. He stayed tucked behind his tiny curtain like a churchmouse until it was time for dinner.
“Hello?”
“Hi…uh,” Villanelle rolled her eyes. She could hear the shuffling of papers on the other end of the line. “Ms. Astankova?”
“Mmhm.”
“Hi, this is Eve Park. I’m Borka’s teacher?” She asked it like it was a question. “I just wanted to make sure that you were coming to parent-teacher conferences tonight…”
Villanelle froze, ice cream spoon halfway to her mouth. At that moment, her flat door squeaked and Borka’s little, lying head poked through. When he saw her on the phone, frowning, he blanched.
“...I sent home a confirmation slip for parents to sign, but I haven’t received one back yet…”
“Oh, did you?” Scowling, Villanelle motioned for Borka to come over to her. The boy did, looking like he was walking bravely to the gallows, and she snatched the book bag from his back. Unzipping it, she found his lunch pail—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Christ alive and all his saints—some pencils, and, at the bottom, a crumpled piece of paper. Smoothing it out, she saw a permission slip, to be signed and returned the previous Monday. “I see. It seems like Borka—” She gave him a pointed glance. “ — lost it in his backpack.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Eve laughed a little uneasily. “I have Borka’s slot for 7 tonight, are you available?”
When they hung up, Villanelle put her elbows to the kitchen table and her head in her hands. She considered what to do. Her mother—their mother—would have whipped her and given her turnip soup for dinner for a week.
She was not her mother, and though the whipping was appealing, she feared that a week of turnip soup would make it so Borka would disappear when looked at from the side. “Come sit.” She said, gesturing to the chair across from her.
Borka complied, that miserable expression he always wore plastered across his face. He didn’t say anything.
“Aren’t you going to apologise?”
“For what?” He mumbled. She narrowed her eyes.
“Now I have to upend my whole night going to your school. I was going to watch Bake Off !”
Borka rolled his eyes and Villanelle gasped, slapping her hands on the table top. “What do you think this is?”
“What are you going to do, give me turnip soup?”
Her mother had been a fan of the old tricks right to the bitter end, apparently. “If I knew where to get a turnip in this city, I might.”
“I don’t want you going to my school.” Borka blurted. He was looking at the table and red was creeping up under the collar of his shirt. “I get made fun of so much already.”
“So, what? You don’t want everybody to know you have a hot older sister?” Villanelle blew a raspberry out of her mouth. “You are so dramatic.”
Borka stood abruptly from his chair. “You don’t understand anything.” He said in a small, fierce voice and kicked the table so hard that it shook. Taken aback and drained of bravado, Villanelle watched as he shed his blazer, threw it toward the living room, and stomped off to his corner of the flat. The curtain rippled behind him.
He didn’t emerge for the rest of the night, even when Villanelle ordered takeaways. She got him a burger, though she didn’t think he deserved it, and even left it on a plate in the microwave for when he eventually slithered out. The fries were probably shot, but the sandwich would reheat okay.
Villanelle felt like she was apologising for something even as she seethed. She worried about him not eating even as she fantasised about boiling turnips for him. It was so confusing that she was halfway to the school by the time she realised that her socks were mismatched. She’d put on one tall one and one short one, and the colours were quite different.
She paused, considered going back, then pushed on. It was just a meeting with a primary school teacher. Eve Park was probably an old spinster or some young ingenue, and either way not the sort of person who could pass judgement on Villanelle Astankova.
The school was pretty much empty by the time she arrived. A secretary in the office pointed her to Ms. Park’s class. She drifted down dark hallways filled with reminders for club sign ups and events, children’s crafts, school rules.
Outside of the classroom marked with a cheery sign that read Ms. Park’s Year Five Class, Villanelle paused to inspect a collage of handprints apparently made by students hanging on the wall beside the door. She scanned the names until she found Borka’s, far to the left and made in dark blue ink. She remembered the day he’d come home with an indigo tinted right hand.
It was the best one out of all of them, she thought proudly.
“Ms. Astankova?”
Villanelle turned sharply at the noise and, oh! Oh no. If this was Eve Park, she certainly was no old crone and no fresh faced nymph. She had a clean, beautiful face and a mane of hair that she’d pinned back into a bun. Even just peeking out from behind the classroom door, Villanelle could tell that she was dressed atrociously, but even that didn’t detract from her effect.
Villanelle was stunned. She watched Eve’s eyes flick down to her mismatched socks and back up to her face and withered.
“Villanelle.” She said. Then, with grace: “That’s my name.”
“Oh.” Eve raised her eyebrows and smiled. “That’s…unique. Would you like to come in?”
Sitting across a desk from Eve didn’t make Villanelle feel any better. She’d always had a thing about this exact scenario—classrooms, beautiful older women. Teachers. Eve was like a tornado of all her idiosyncrasies sitting in front of her, shuffling papers and looking for her little brother’s report card.
Konstantin would be so disappointed. Villanelle winced.
“You’re Borka’s…older sister, right?” Villanelle nodded, licking her lips. She had the urge to sit on her hands. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to your family.”
“That’s alright. The only one who didn’t deserve it was Pytor.” Villanelle said. “God rest his soul.” She added solemnly.
Eve stared at her flat-faced, then cleared her throat and went back to shuffling her papers around. Her desk was like a bottomless collage of pages and sticky notes. Villanelle thought, when Eve moved something just right, that she might have glimpsed the top of a desk calendar from 2016.
“Ah, here we go. Borka Astankova.” Eve held up a file triumphantly. She flicked it open, only looking for a second. “He’s doing very well with his academics. English seems to be a subject of interest.”
“Yes, he likes to do his homework. It is…a hobby of his.”
“Not a bad hobby for a little boy to have.” Eve set the file down and levelled Villanelle with a look that she could feel in the tips of her toes. “I have noticed some issues with other students in the class. He gets picked on.”
“Do you think it’s…” Villanelle trailed off pointedly, watching Eve’s face for a sign that she was picking up on her thread of thought. Finding nothing, she continued. “...because he’s gay?”
Eve straightened, touching the nape of her neck briefly before clearing her throat. “Oh, I—”
Worried that the other woman might think that Villanelle herself was being judgmental, she hurried to follow up. “It’s okay, I’m gay too. I think it must run very strongly on our mother’s side.”
This time, a little smile perked at the corner of Eve’s mouth. She quickly dipped her head down toward the desk to hide it, but Villanelle caught it right before. Even if she’d schooled herself back into indifference when she looked back up, it still comforted Villanelle to have seen it.
“I don’t know anything about that.” Eve said when she’d composed herself. “You might just talk to him about it sometime. Maybe consider getting more involved at the school. We have a lot of great parent organisations—”
“He doesn’t want me involved. I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“Oh. I know that the move was very recent—”
“We are having trouble connecting.” Villanelle pressed on. “He is so morose.”
“I’m sure it’s been a difficult transition.” Eve had a look on her face like she was suppressing mirth. Villanelle wasn’t sure what about this conversation was funny, but she found that the implication that Eve could laugh at any moment made her immediately and deeply likeable. It made Villanelle feel like she could laugh, too. “Have you tried connecting with him about his interests?”
Villanelle scoffed, frustrated. “Konstantin said the same thing. We have nothing in common.”
“Nothing at all? Ten year old boys aren’t exactly architects of taste, but…” Eve turned to her file, flipping through a few of the pages. “He did his last project on Elton John?”
This sparked something in the back of Villanelle’s brain. She leaned forward, pinching her face in thought. “Elton John. That’s music.”
“Yes.” Eve nodded. She was smiling now, a big one. The kind of smile that got a person’s eyes involved. It was good—it made her even prettier. “I think it is.”
“I like music.”
“Well.” Eve spread her arms out in front of her as if to say, there you go.
“Yeah, okay.” Villanelle leaned back in her chair, nodding. A million thoughts were running through her head. After weeks of stagnation, a rock had been moved and the river was running again. “Music.”
“Music.” Eve agreed. She shut Borka’s file. “It can be very helpful for processing emotions. Especially in younger people.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
After that, Eve simply asked her again if she’d consider talking to Borka about his classmates and volunteering for some school events. She agreed, but wasn’t really paying much attention.
Villanelle, lost in thought, let herself be guided to the classroom door before she remembered that there was something else. Eve chattered all the way about PTO and different class trips that were coming up that they would need chaperones for.
“Wait.” She said before she left, turning to Eve. The other woman stared up at her, a pleasant expression on her face. “Are you single?”
“Divorced.” Eve said quickly, then frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
“Why, it’s not true?”
“No, it was an inappropriate question that I shouldn’t have answered.”
Villanelle grinned wolfishly. “But you did answer it, so—”
“I think it’s best if we say goodnight now, Ms. Astankova.” Eve didn’t seem truly perturbed, just amused. She was doing that thing again where she tried to hide a smile. Villanelle wondered when the last time was that somebody had flirted with Eve Park, and was going to ask her, but she was in the middle of having a door slowly shut in her face. “I’ll see Borka in class tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, you will!” But the door was already shut. Villanelle huffed out a little, excited breath. Maybe good deeds would pay dividends, after all.
***
When she returned home, Villanelle found the remains of the burger sitting on the kitchen table. Borka had scavenged at it, picking off the pickles and some of the onions, and hadn’t eaten the bottom bun. He was nowhere to be found, though she could sense small movements from behind the curtain.
Villanelle tipped the remnants of what was on the plate into the trash before calling out for him. At first he didn’t emerge, but when she called again he peeked a head out from the curtain.
She was already in the living room, thumbing through the albums on the shelf beneath her record player. “What?” He asked.
“Come here.” Villanelle found what she was looking for and beckoned for him, then pulled the black vinyl from it’s sleeve. Slowly, almost suspiciously, Borka emerged and shuffled toward her. “Lie down.” She said when he was beside her. His face pinched.
“What?”
“Lie down.” She repeated. The record was on the turntable and spinning, but Villanelle hadn’t yet placed the needle to it. “We are going to listen to music.”
“On the floor?”
“Yes.” Villanelle regarded him. He was in a two piece pyjama set—silk. One of the few things she’d bought for him that he actually wore. He looked adorable. “I do not have any Elton John, but this is what I listen to when I am sad.”
That was a reductive word. It was what Villanelle listened to when she needed to shake something loose inside herself—when she was trying to feel an emotion fully but it was too far down for her to reach.
“But…” Borka’s brow crinkled. “...on the floor?”
“Yes, trust me. It’s part of it.”
Instead of arguing further, Borka sat and then laid his body prostrate onto the floor. He let his legs stick out straight and folded his arms over his stomach, blinking up at the ceiling. Villanelle set the needle to the record and then joined him, laying beside him at a respectable distance away.
The sound of Leonard Cohen singing Hallelujah filled the room. The floorboard was unforgiving under her shoulder blades and lower back. Eventually, she figured, she’d have to put a pillow under her knees for this to be tolerable—then again, the discomfort was part of it. “Close your eyes.” She said, turning her face to make sure he did.
She closed hers too and let her mind drift, trying not to control where it went. She thought of the orphanage, of her mother. She tried to recall a few things about their house in Russia, but all she could imagine was it as it must have looked after the fire. All rubble and coal and ash. The thought of it made her feel peaceful.
Villanelle peeked one eye open, just to see. Next to her, Borka’s eyes were still closed and hot tears ran down his cheeks. He wasn’t making noise, just breathing heavily through his nose. She guessed that something, maybe many things, had just been shaken loose.
“It’s a good song, huh?” He nodded without saying anything. She wanted to reach out and touch him, a feeling that both surprised and appalled her. Villanelle clasped her hands together and looked up at the ceiling instead.
***
The next day, after Borka went to school but before she left for work, Villanelle went to a copy store. She selected three pictures of Elton John from Google Images that were, in her estimation, the most flattering, then had them printed on glossy paper.
On gut instinct, she didn’t buy any frames, just putty for Borka to stick them to his wall. She placed them on his bed and awaited his return home. He gasped when he found them, barreling out of his room to wrap his arms around her legs and bury his head into her stomach.
Stunned, Villanelle held her limbs away from her body. She tried to remember the last time she’d been properly hugged. It’d been a while. It didn’t feel quite as awkward as she’d imagined it might. Stiffly, she placed one hand on his head and another on his shoulders.
“This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
She scoffed. It had cost less than 10 pounds all together. Little boys really were pretty stupid—that’s why her chest had a little, creaky ache in it. How easy they were to fool; how easy they were to please.
***
They established a schedule almost without noticing.
At 7 AM, Villanelle would make her first pass at waking him. She’d come in through the curtain and shake his calf and then disappear into the kitchen to pour them both a bowl of cereal. Then, fifteen minutes later, she’d try for real, grabbing him by his big toe and forcibly pulling him from the twin bed.
Borka would capitulate, and they’d eat breakfast together in silence at the table. He’d dress, they’d walk to school. He hugged her now before he went running through the school gates, much in the same way as he had after she’d given him the pictures; quickly and fiercely.
Then, Villanelle would work, or, if it were her day off, she’d lay around the flat and read magazines. Sometimes she’d bother Konstantin and Irina. At 3:00, she’d beat the pavement back to the school to meet Borka, walk him home and listen to his day.
He’d always do his homework first thing. It fascinated Villanelle and disgusted her all at the same time. She’d only ever focused on the academic subjects she’d been interested in; languages, mostly, and english. At least, she thought, it would be a long while before he asked for her help with something she was useless at, like maths.
After that, it was dinner, and after that, they’d put on a record and play cards. Or they’d put on a record and have a handstand competition. Or they’d put on a record and see who could punch the other the hardest. The record was the only necessary ingredient; Borka had broadened his musical tastes, though Villanelle was still pushing for more.
In addition to Elton, he liked ABBA, and One Direction. Real classics were lost on him so far, so they had to alternate who’s turn it was to have control over the stereo. Their system had so far avoided any major outbreak of violence.
It was a good schedule. A tidy one. And after a few weeks of it, Villanelle had begun to think that maybe Konstantin was right. All she needed to shake the ennui was something to take care of, a responsibility to tether her closer to the world.
“Is this a gift?” The cashier asked. Villanelle smiled, looking at the package in front of her. It was a star projector, the kind that made it look like your ceiling was full of constellations. She’d come here to buy a birthday present for a client’s son, but become sidetracked by the thought of getting something for Borka. They could put this on while they lay on the floor to have something to look at.
“Yes, for my little brother.” Villanelle said, rustling in her purse for her credit card. She looked up and saw the cashier fully for the first time. She was pretty, with curly, dark hair and dark eyes. And she was smiling at Villanelle in a way that she recognized.
“That’s so cute.” She breathed. “Is it his birthday?”
Villanelle felt a familiar warmth and stretch in her chest, the kind that only came when she caught the attention of a woman. She inconspicuously checked her watch—it was only 1 PM, she had plenty of time before she had to pick Borka up from school—then turned her attention back to the other woman.
Everything that happened after was not Villanelle’s fault. Really, it wasn’t. She was only a mortal woman, made of flesh and bone and warm, sticky blood. And if God hadn’t wanted them to go home together, then why was the woman’s shift over 15 minutes after Villanelle had come in? Why was she the kind of person who was eager to follow a stranger back to her flat and go to bed with her?
Honestly. Villanelle could only be expected to withstand so much. So the first time she heard the buzzing, she thought, did we accidentally turn my vibrator on? And ignored it. It was only when it persisted that she realised it was her phone.
The first thing she noticed upon picking it up is that it was 4:15. The next thing was that the person calling came up as EVE PARK. She blanched. Her stomach dropped to her feet.
She’d never run three blocks so quickly. She’d never run three blocks at all, actually. Villanelle was rather unflattering looking by the time she arrived at Eve’s classroom, out of breath and sweating.
Borka was there, standing at the white board, and Eve was perched at the edge of a desk watching him. They both turned to look at her when she careened around the doorframe, collapsing forward with her hands on her knees. “I’m—” Villanelle sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
“Hi ‘nelle.” Borka said. To her relief, he didn’t sound all that perturbed. When she straightened, Villanelle saw that the white board held a half finished game of hangman.
“Ms. Astankova.” Eve smiled thinly. Villanelle realised that she might not escape punishment after all. She gulped. “Borka, do you want to go wait in the hallway for a little while?”
“Why?” He looked between them, confused. Eve smiled at him reassuringly and guided him out of the classroom with a gentle hand at his back.
“Me and your sister just have a few things we need to talk about.” She crouched before him. “I promise it will only be a few minutes. Can you sit in the chairs by Mrs. Hempstead’s classroom?”
Borka cast one last unsure glance in their direction before straightening his backpack and slouching out. Eve shut the door behind him. She did not look happy.
“Look, I’m really sorry.” Villanelle said hastily. She licked her lips—she wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt so panicked. Eve had returned to lean against her desk. For a woman in a turtleneck with a jumper over top and glasses on a chain around her neck, she sure did hold an alarming amount of power over Villanelle. “I lost track of time and—”
“We tried calling your phone several times.” She said, “I had to talk the headmaster out of getting social services involved.”
“Social—it was an hour!”
Eve sighed with her whole body. She didn’t look angry, just tired. There was no trace of the good humour that had marked their first meeting. “I know that this is new to you. Primary schools take it very seriously when a child’s only guardian doesn’t pick them up from school and can’t be reached.”
“He didn’t seem very upset.” It was a weak defence, and she knew it. The feeling brewing in Villanelle’s stomach—was it guilt? She was very unused to it.
“He’s a child.” Eve countered. “How would you feel? What were you even doing?”
“I was…I met a woman…” Judging by Eve’s face, this explanation was going nowhere good very quickly. Villanelle shifted on her feet and kept trying nonetheless. “...I was buying something for Borka, and she was the cashier.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, and then we—well, she came back to my flat and we were…indisposed.”
Eve’s mouth was hanging open just slightly. She snapped it closed and shook her head. “I’m just going to tell the headmaster that your phone died. Is that a normal thing for you?”
“What?”
“Do women often just…actually, never mind.” Eve launched off the desk and went around the other side, shuffling some papers. It was a sign of dismissal. “I’m not going to make an issue of it because I know that this is an adjustment period. But I do have something to ask for in return.”
Villanelle scoffed. “Are you extorting me?”
Eve raised her eyes to her witheringly. Villanelle shut her mouth. “We have a school social coming up next week and we don’t have enough chaperones.”
Villanelle winced and groaned. A night spent watching a bunch of sweaty palmed fourth and fifth years drink punch and squawk like a gaggle of pigeons? She’d rather be taken behind the school and shot. But, then again—
“Will you be there?”
“Yes, I’m one of the chaperones.”
“Then I guess it could be tolerable.” Her head was still bent, but Villanelle caught Eve’s smile nonetheless. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why the other woman was trying so hard to hide them from her. She was bad at it, anyway. Eve shook the last remnants of it from her face and looked up. “Sign me up, Ms. Park.”
The sound of her proper name leaving Villanelle’s mouth seemed to destabilise Eve. She blinked several times and her fingers twitched around the papers she was holding. Over her shoulder, Villanelle noticed something that diverted her attention.
“What was the word?”
The hangman game was unfinished. It read _ K _ A _ A . The man had most of his important particulars; his arms, legs, and a smile but only one eye. Borka had been going easy on her.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Eve was acting—was she embarrassed? “Borka picked it.”
“Did he give you a hint?”
Eve turned red. She was embarrassed. She cleared her throat several times before speaking. “I asked him if Villanelle was your real name.”
Villanelle huffed out a little laugh. “Such a little tattle.” She said. She wasn’t sure until now if Borka had even known her old name. If her mother had told him. He’d been born so long after she’d been dropped off at the orphanage, there was the possibility that Tatiana had never said anything about her at all.
She herself hadn’t considered it in a long while. Thinking of it now felt like working a muscle she was unused to. Not necessarily painful, but certainly achey. Villanelle crossed the room to the white board, took a marker, and dutifully filled in the rest of the letters before replacing the cap and setting it back down.
“Wow.” Eve said, upon seeing it. “I wasn’t close at all.”
“Hmm.” Villanelle agreed. “For a primary school teacher, you are shit at hangman. He was giving you one eye at a time.”
Eve scoffed. “You know, you and Borka are nothing alike. He’s so quiet and polite, and you’re—”
“I’m what?” Villanelle raised an eyebrow.
“Annoying.” Eve said flatly. Villanelle wondered whether she talked to all of her students' parents like this, or just the ones she found attractive. She hoped it was the latter.
“If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t be begging me to chaperone the social with you. I have to go get Borka now.” She was already crossing the room, and she was at the door before Eve spoke again.
“It suits you.” She said, “Villanelle. It suits you better.”
Villanelle made a thoughtful noise. “In a way.” She agreed, then grinned. “I’ll see you next week?”
Eve rolled her eyes. “I’m already beginning to regret it.”
But to Villanelle, it didn’t sound like it.
***
That night, at dinner, she broached the subject. Artfully.
“What do you think about Ms. Park?”
Borka paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and looked at her across the table. Such a mistrustful child. “She’s nice.” He said.
“Mmhm, mmhm. Treats you well?”
“Villanelle, don’t.” He set his fork down on his plate and regarded her seriously. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Think about what? I am not thinking about anything.”
“You like her.” He pointed out grimly. “I can tell. You are always so strange when you come back from talking to her.”
“Strange?”
“Like somebody has spun you around and you’re dizzy.” He looked daggers at her. “I told you, I already have no friends at school because of my accent and that my parents are dead. What will happen to me if they find out that my sister is kissing our teacher?”
Villanelle suppressed a laugh. Kissing was about one tenth of what she would do to Eve Park if given the opportunity. Ten year olds were so dramatic when they didn’t know even half of the disgusting things adults did when they liked each other. “You have no friends at school because of your stupid haircut.” She said, “Let me take you to get it done.”
“No.” Borka responded flatly. “And leave Ms. Park alone. I don’t even think that she likes you.”
“Well, I think she does.” Villanelle stabbed at a vegetable with her fork. She wondered what Konstantin would say, if he were at the dinner table with them. He would probably also tell her to leave Eve Park alone.
So, she would try. Villanelle doubted very much that she was going to be successful, but she certainly would give it a go.