The wrinkles in my brain were unfurling. Straightening. The fissures came together, white matter and grey matter blended into one. What I had once cast out, and thought irretrievable, was slowly coming back to me. Small recollections, like how during idle moments, Yuri would chew and peel away the skin on the sides of his nail beds, or how he could go from being focused one moment to having an army of ants crawling up his legs the next. And how his restlessness used to drive both his mother and our teachers mad with fury.
Out of all the many small details that were coming back to me, the most profound was the discomfort and the ease with which I grew accustomed to it.
Four years was but a blip in the grand scheme of things. It had no bearing on the familiar feeling, the phantom weight that latched itself on to my heart every time I became aware of him. Aware of him watching me, seeing me, and me, seeing him, fidgeting.
- Ru, are you okay?
Surimna's voice pulled me out of my reverie. Her inquisitive eyes searched my face. Hers were brown where her brother's had been blue, filled with concern whereas Yuri's had been too far away to read. I distracted myself from the warmth reddening my face by focusing on the stones, the sticks and decomposed pine cones that were cutting into my knees, staining my trousers with damp soil. The pain grounded me.
This wasn't the first time Surimna had caught me looking at Yuri. I was sure that my embarrassment was written on my face this time around, and even surer of her confrontation. She had the eyes of an eagle, as sharp and precise as the beak of a hummingbird. The longer they remained trained on me, the more acute the prickling and swelling of my lips got. Paradoxically, a part of me hoped she would say...something. Something to purge the guilt of what had happened in Yuri's room.
- Is...is it a bully? She asked.
- What?
My mind swarmed with a thousand thoughts. Loud, but not loud enough to drown out the crunch of footsteps on the brittle pine needles. We both knew who was drawing closer to the kennel.
Surimna adverted her gaze and looked down at the dog between us. The former street dog (once considered untameable and beyond hope) was lying on its side. Inu was looking up at me, much the same way an overfed, content mutt would. Surimna had her fingers buried in its dark fur. I followed her example and moved mine over its soft coat. To not appear as being too Arash, I substituted my timidness for vigour, a poor, misplaced vigour. The mutt responded by scuffing his back paw against the underbrush.
- A bully, Surimna repeated. Her eyes willed me to understand, but her words made no sense on their own. Exhaling a sigh, she pointed to my eye. - The person who did that, he was a bully, wasn't he?
- Oh.
- Yeah, I know, she added confidently, - there's one in my school too. Everybody hates him, he's Arash, and he's just soâ
Between us, the mutt let out a long whine. Surimna's eyes widened in alarm. I yanked my hands back from its belly, cutting its agony short.
- Don't do it like that! She said. She might as well have yelled because my whole body froze in response. She reached over and soothed the place I had touched with loving strokes and soft coos.
- He's not made of dough, Ru. You can't knead him like that. He's just eaten.
- I'm sorry. I didn't know...I'm...I'm bad withâ
The rest of my words were eaten up by the amplifying rustle of Yuri's polyester jacket, the crunch of his footfalls, his laboured breathing.
- He's hopeless, he said when he came to stand in my shadow. There was no sun to speak of, but somehow the sunlight still found his face. The rays shone on his temple, casting his angular jawline in geometric shadows worthy of Picasso's envy. The conifers around us painted his clothes a mural of swaying movement. My heart dipped and resurfaced in that uncomfortable way I was growing reaccustomed to.
- He doesn't consider it a dog unless it comes with a five-page birth certificate and a government stamp, Yuri said to Surimna.
- Really? I craned my neck to take him in fully, - you don't have all that and you're still a dog.
Yuri's lopsided smile was a like an electric current to the heart. The pain only soothed by Surimna's soft laughter.
- Come on, Inueh. He took a step closer to the dog and made a clicking sound which had the dog's ears standing upright, its tail wagging.
- Attack! Attack, that rascal! Inu heaved his body off the ground and whipped his head in my direction. His head, like his tail, wagged back and forth between the two of us.
- Come on-, Yuri patted his lap to grab the dog's attention, - defend your master's honour.
When the mutt moved, it was only to circle his 'master's' legs.
- No, attack! Yuri commanded. His voice was on the threshold of becoming a shout. Inu, having caught on to the order, veered to where Yuri was pointing, and before I could scramble away, charged towards me.
I toppled over like a domino. Its saliva trickled onto my face. Warm and foul, it rolled down my cheek and found its way underneath the collar of my jacket. I fought it off of me. I wiggled and shouted. Before I knew it, equal parts screams and laughter were erupting out of me. Inu huffed in my ear. His snout was centimeters away from my bruised eye. His tongue was extending and retracting, and I was laughing until my abdominal muscles caved under his weight and I plummeted back down again.
The sky sparkled, overcast by clouds equal in thickness across its vast expanse. One of Inu's paws kept scuffing up earth and decomposed leaves into my hair. The waft of pine and decaying autumn leaves grounded me. I surrendered my fear of contracting lice and buried my hands in its thick coat. The sagging folds of his cheeks confronted me.
I can't account for all the split-second decisions in my life, but this, choosing to press my lips to his wet muzzle is one of the few I still remember. I would regret it in the same instance I pulled away, but for however long it lasted it felt like peeling back the edges of infinitum.
There are certain moments in life whereâif you were to squint into memory and gaze at the impressions left from that timeâone feeling stands out like a crimson stroke on a white canvas. Each time I revisit this moment, my heart is both heavy and light with omniscience, of knowing everything that has transpired and that which still awaits. I look back with fresh eyes and think: So, this...this is what happiness felt like.
Yuri's face, cracked open to reveal a fish-eating grin, came into my field of vision. He heaved Inu off of me. I stayed lying there, my eyes fixed on the sky, on the point his head had vacated. The tree crowns swayed with one unison body.
- Why do we pretend he's a guard dog? I heard Yuri mutter to his sister. Whatever Surimna responded with made Yuri scoff.
- He's not. You made him fat and lazy. Papa shouldn't have built him a kennel, he's not protecting anyone anymore.
Their bickering faded over the mighty roar of the surrounding trees. The wind lashed at my body, its touch like a thousand needles to the skin. I closed my eyes and welcomed the discomfort. Many thoughts traversed my mind in that small moment suspended between bigger moments. I imagined that I sprouted roots and became one with the undergrowth. Like the leaves all around me, I wished to be drained of substance and nutrients till I decomposed to mere molecules, incorporated into the roots of the evergreens. My essence forever a part of Mother Nature's metamorphosis.
- Ru? Yuri's shadow fell over me, prompting me to squint up at him. His asymmetric eyebrows were pinched together, and perhaps because it, because of his rugged beauty, he appeared all the more handsome. My heart clenched from muscle memory.
- Anja's been calling you.
As if resurfaced from underwater, I heard her shouts. Distant.
- Are you alright? He extended me a hand and helped me up.
- Yeah. I was hyperaware of his calloused palm against mine. I expected him to let go, but he didn't. He pulled me closer. His other hand reached for what I instinctively assumed was my face. I pulled away, hesitant.
- Wait. He stepped closer and made a second try, this time bypassing my face for my hair. He disentangled a mangled leaf and held it up for me to see. His eyes seemed to say, did you want to walk around with this? Relaxing a notch, I stepped back, trading the warmth of his hand to brush back my tousled hair. I hated that his expression dimmed. And I hated it even more when his hand returned to his side. Why was I so nervous around him?
- Ru!
Anja pulled her billowing cardigan closer to her as she made her way over to us. Her movements were big, urgent, her strides long. She was the only Karamova who wore trousers. The only one who wasn't ashamed to be seen in them.
- Your aunt's here.
- At the front door, Anja clarified after a beat, crushing the sliver of hope that her words had been said in jest.
The wind caressed my face. Its icy fingers pasting my surprise on my expression. I ought to have known that someone would come for me, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I did. The longer I kept stalling my departure, the more persistent the threat of someone being sent to bring me home grew.
I imagined that the task would fall on Petra, and if not Petra, then someone from the long line of people to substitute her. Never did it cross my mind that my aunt, of all people, might inconvenience herself so. Had I taken a second to access the direness of the situation, the idea might not have seemed as implausible as I had made it out to be. After all, they hadn't seen me or heard since I'd left Rujga.
Flames of panic licked my chest. I nodded, trying to buy myself time to calm my arrhythmic heartbeats before I followed Anja down the knoll. Yuri, Surimna, and Inu were at my heels.
My footsteps were weighed down by dread as I rounded the corner of the log house. My aunt's modest stature came into view. She stood on the porch, her hands folded behind her back. Beside her stood Viktor and their housekeeper. It was only was we drew closer that Breja's small frame came into view from behind the front door. Next to her stood Krié, face to face with my aunt.
Snippets of their conversation drifted over to us.
- And his mobile phone, do you know what happened to it? I heard my aunt ask. Her long, dark, woolly coat flapped open around her legs. The corsac fur adorning her lapels and hat stirred in the wind. She wrung her gloved hands behind her back, awaiting an answer.
- Here he is, why don't you ask him yourself? Krié nodded in our direction, drawing my aunt's attention to our presence.
I knew it was bad, but I didn't expect the sight of me to render her speechless when she turned around. There was a pause in which a myriad of emotions flickered in and out of her expression.
- Child.
One word. A thousand times more potent than a beck of the hand. It lurched my immobile body forward. The steady crunch of my footsteps were the only sounds to pierce the silence.
I climbed up the steps. My aunt extended her hands to me, meeting me half-way up the landing. I took them and was enveloped in her rich floral scent. She drew me close enough to examine my face. Her eyes raked over my bruises like a high-resolution scanner.
- Oh, child, she said. Her leather clad fingers gripped my chin in a way that now, looking back, I would have described as forceful. Her grip hurt but forgivably so, seeing as she, too, was in pain. The wrinkles around her mouth and her eyes were deepening. Her irises mirrored back my fright. She tilted my head to the side and withdrew her hand just as quickly.
- Your father-, she cleared her throat, centering herself, - Stefan is on his way. You don't want him to see you like this, do you? She reached over and pulled a pine needle out of my hair. Somewhere between the mention of my father and seeing the trifling, browning needle leaf fall to the floorboards, the flares of panic I had felt throughout the day surged back, tenfolds stronger. It besieged my stomach and spread outwards to my cold peripheries.
My aunt turned to Krié and Breja and said something, something that got drowned out in the all-consuming worry about my father, and the conversation that awaited me in Ljerumlup. And then added to that pile of worry; Yuri's footfalls closing in.
I never ceased to be aware of him, but this time his closeness hurt, physically. I flinched and swatted away his hand when it landed on my shoulderâonly for me to turn around and find my cousin's flabbergasted expression staring back at me. Yuri stood behind Viktor, close enough to have noticed my reaction. His expression fell, and I felt the same viscous feeling that washed away his easy-going smile settle in the pit of my stomach.
- Let me see, will you? Viktor said, infringing on my personal space.
Yuri put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His eyes averted to Surimna who stood at the foot of the steps, holding Inu by his collar.
- Hey, come on! My cousin insisted when I pulled away from him.
- What is there to see? I growled. - Huh? It's just a bruise. Get over it!
I hadn't meant to yell at him. Hadn't meant for his face to tighten and contract like the lacing on a boot. The gust that passed through his dark curls blew in my face, chilling me to the core. Viktor took after his father. He was a reserved child growing up, it could take him days to warm up to strangers. With Adriana and I in high school, and him still in middle schoolâeach of us pursuing different extracurricular activitiesâthe different trajectories of our lives were beginning to wear on our bond. I couldn't tell you the last time we had a real conversation, and yet here I was, angry at him when I had no right to be. And I believe this; years of accumulating growing pains needing a catharsis, undid Viktor.
- I'm sorry, Vitja, I said, and stepped closer to remedy the intensifying colour in his cheeks.
- It's justâ
He swatted my hand away, his lips pinching into a straight line. He made for the steps, but was immediately confronted by Inu, his snout pulled back into a snarl. In his hurry to get away from the dog who was about to tear himself loose from Surimna's hold, Viktor stumbled and nearly fell on his back.
- Ge-get that thing away from me, he stammered, trying to pick himself up.
Inu tore himself free, and this time, Viktor did fall on his back. He slid down the first step and was swarmed by Inu's growls and barks. I lurched forward but was cut off by Yuri who was one step ahead of me.
Anja and Surimna were trying to restrain Inu and abate his barking when Viktor grabbed a fistful of leaves and debris, and hurled it at the dog.
- Get it away from me, he barked. He wriggled out of Yuri's arms and heaved himself up against the railing.
- He's usually very well mannered. I don't know what's gotten into him, Anja said from where she crouched beside Inu, who although had stopped baring his teeth hadn't stopped growling.
Viktor brushed the dirt off the back of his jeans. He regarded her, his expression awash with disbelief. His cheeks were painted the most vibrant red I had seen them.
- What breed is he? He asked, his breaths laboured. Anja quickly glanced at me and A foreboding chill crawled up my spine.
She shrugged.
- Well, that explains it then, doesn't it?
- Viktorâ
- What? She asked.
- A dog is only as good as its pedigree, and this lice-infested cretin just demonstrated that perfectly.
- Child, my aunt called.
- Child!
Viktor side stepped Inu, and while ignoring his mother's calls made his way down the rest of the steps and onto the trail.
We watched him disappear behind the pine trees in a silence engulfed by second-hand embarrassment. Though arguably, for my aunt who had to watch her son behave in terms she would later call 'barbaric', it was a lot more visceral than that. Her hands wrung like a mill sifting flour with the anger that she wouldn't allow into her expression.
I can't tell you how the conversation picked up after that, but it did. No apology was said, and although warranted, the Karamovs didn't appear to be holding their breath. I like to think our humiliation was evident from our stiff postures. From the way neither my aunt nor I moved so much as a centimeter.
Surimna said something to Yuri in Brommin. His head lowered, and his hands disappear deeper into his pockets. To his right, his mother ordered the girls in their language. They responded by letting go of Inu. Anja wiped her hands on her trousers and climbed up the steps. She passed me with a margin of two-centimeters on the landing, and I felt her silent judgement as fiercely as the cold breeze in her wake.
I looked to Yuri to see if he noticed it too, but his eyes were downcast.
- I'll get your shirt, he said. When he looked up, his eyes flicked over my face. Then, all too soon, he turned and followed Anja and his mother into the house.
The silence that settled over the porch was as self-aware as a joke told in the wrong company. Surimna's eyes refused to leave my face. When she drew close enough, she whispered, - I told you he was a bully.
I swallowed, but nothing but air went down my throat.
In my naivety, I thought my aunt would let me wait for Yuri. If not to amend our peace and wash my hands of Viktor's childish behaviour, then at least to get my shirt back. But their housekeeper remerged from inside the house together with Krié, and before I knew it, my aunt was saying her thanks and her goodbyes.
What followed were curt nods, and bows and a back and forth of superficial niceties. And like always, my aunt pulled me into her side, cocooned me in her strong fragranceâshielded me. I didn't have the leverage to bargain with her steadfastness, not when worry had my tongue in knots. And so I did what I had always done; I complied.