It’s morning. Sun streams through the window at the end of the hallway, weak and cheerless. Shadows dance on the greenish hospital walls and curtains move on the breeze from the cracked pane. It doesn’t help. The air stinks of antiseptic and wet floor rags and unwashed women’s bodies. The wall space between doors is occupied by portable beds. On each sits a girl my age or younger wrapped in a plush robe and accompanied by a worried mother.

A flock of sheep poised for slaughter.

I sit on a bed at the far end, alone, waiting for my turn for an abortion. I rub my eyes. I’m tired but I can’t sleep. 

The door by the window opens. A stocky surgeon pulls down his mask. “Ovechkina!”

The plump ruddy girl sitting on the bed across from mine answers. “Me.”

“Come in.” He withdraws.

Her cotton-socked feet search for slippers. She must be not much older than fifteen, no mother at her side, only a crinkly plastic bag of mandarins. She throws me a suspicious glance and shoves them under the pillow and staggers off. 

I smell oatmeal, black bread, and cafeteria tea.

“Breakfast!” 

A piggy lady in a greasy apron and a cook’s hat appears from behind the corner. She pushes a steel cart loaded with steaming pots, and stops next to me. “You for an abortion?”

I stare at the food, hungry. 

“Yes? No? You can’t eat before an abortion, didn’t the doctor tell you? You must go on an empty stomach.” 

I hesitate.

“Well?” 

I shake my head no and greedily watch her ladle porridge onto a chipped plate and stick in a bent aluminum spoon. She adds a slice of bread, pours tea in a glass, and hands them both to me.

“Breakfast!” 

Doors creak open. Sleepy women in housecoats shuffle out and receive their ration. I slurp hot tea, put the glass on the floor, place the plate on my bended knees, and dig in. The oatmeal is watery and salty and in every spoonful I find at least one oat husk. I don’t care. Within minutes it’s gone. I lick the spoon, then the plate, clean. I’m still hungry. I eat the bread and finish the tea, then shamble across the corridor and plunge my hand under the pillow and pull a couple of mandarins from the bag. I shove them in my mouth together with the skin. 

My cheeks grow hot. 

I hope I’ll wait long enough to catch lunch.

A nurse trots up, pulls Ovechkina’s empty bed into the surgery room, and a few minutes later, rolls it out with the girl covered to her chin with a thin cotton sheet and an IV attached to her dangling arm. She parks the bed in its place and my heart stills. The girl’s lips are so white they’re blue, her eyelids are paper-thin and there is no color in her face.

You killed your baby because you didn’t want it, like me. Maybe it’s mercy to kill the one whom you know you won’t be able to love. My mama didn’t want me. I wonder why she kept me. She should’ve disposed of me like I will dispose of Lyosha’s brat. 

I hit my stomach. I want the thing inside of me to feel it. 

“Myshko!” 

I start.

“Myshko!” The surgeon passes his eyes from girl to girl. They all look at their mothers and at each other.

The same nurse marches up to me. “Myshko, Irina?”

I nod, suddenly numb.

“Did you eat anything today?” She has a thin neck, like a goose, and large stupid eyes. 

I don’t know why but I point to my crotch.

“Do you need to go to the restroom? Well, what have you been waiting for, sitting here all this time? Go. Quick.”

I walk to the door where I’ve seen women come and go, close it behind me, and lower the hook in the rusty eyelet and hold on to the sink, a sour taste in my mouth and my gut twisted. 

What happened? What are you afraid of?

The toilet stinks of piss. A forty-watt bulb hangs by a cord from the ceiling. Cracked ceramic tile walls, cloudy mirror above the sink, and a yellowing shower pan behind a cheap plastic curtain printed with hideous flowers.

I don’t think long. 

It’s been over a month. They’ll wait. 

I pee, strip, turn on the water, and step into the scalding stream. It burns my skin. Steam rises in billows and fogs up the mirror. Somebody forgot a lump of soap. I pick it up, lather my hair and scratch my scalp until it stops itching, and scrub my skin with my hands and nails. It stings between my thighs. I bite my lip and carefully peel apart every fold and wash myself clean. My skin turns red. I stand under the water letting it roll over me. 

The door rattles. 

“Who’s there?” A woman’s voice. “How much longer?” 

I open my eyes and slam into the wall. 

Lyosha’s face looks at me from the shower curtain.

You can’t be here, get out.

It changes into Roma’s, then into one of his mates, and into Shakalov’s. It shifts and grimaces and elongates and slides off the perspiring plastic and curdles into fat, milky maggots. Their squirming bodies drop to my feet. I shriek and stomp on them and squish them. Gobs more squirt out of every crack between the tiles and boil out of the toilet bowl and flop over the edge of the sink and drop to the floor with wet smacks. 

I hate you. 

I trample them, shaking from revulsion. They pop with awful squelching noises and more of them slither out of every hole, pulsing and shiny. 

Leave me alone. Leave me alone! 

I press into the corner, my wet hair sticking to my face.

The maggots cover the floor, clump together, and coagulate into a shape that darkens and grows fur and legs and a snout.

The boar. 

It grunts and clops its hooves on the edge of the pan and labors over. 

You think I can’t hurt you? I can. I will murder your brat. 

The boar stops and tilts its head as if it listens. 

They’ll scrape it out of me and chop it up and flush it down the toilet for Moscow sewage rats to eat. It doesn’t deserve to live. It’s ugly like you, Lyosha Kabansky. 

There are voices by the door. It rattles. The rusty hook gives. I lift my leg to kick the boar and my other foot slides and I fall and hit the back of my head on the pan.

. . .

I come to with a throbbing headache. A rough hospital blanket tickles my chin. A face blocks the light. It’s Galina Viktorovna and she is furious. 

“Were you trying to kill yourself, or what?” 

Pain stabs at my temples. I wince.

“Shower! Who told you that you could take a shower?”

Please, don’t talk.

“You could’ve broken your neck.” She sniffs the air. “You could’ve had a miscarriage. And then what? What if not all of it came out? We’d have to scrape you clean and that could sterilize you. At sixteen years old! What if you wanted to get pregnant again?”

I don’t want any babies. Not now, not ever. Cut out my whole uterus if you want. 

No, says a small screeching voice.

I sit up, bewildered.  

The voice is coming from my stomach. I peer down at it, feel it with my hand. 

Butchering me won’t hurt Lyosha. He doesn’t care for me. He doesn’t even know about my existence.

Who are you?

I’m an eaglet.

But, my head spins, I thought you were a piglet.

No, I’m not. Although I’d eat one. Or a couple. Or a boar.

So you will grow into—

An eagle. If you let me.

If I let you.

And if you feed me. Boars, jackals, I’m not picky.

Any of them?

Any of them. Please.

“Are you listening? You missed your spot!”

I look at Galina Viktorovna and shake my head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I go through the pantomime. 

“You’re not going to do an abortion?” Her face turns spiteful. “Well, suit yourself. But you can’t stay here. We’re not a hotel, you know. Gather your stuff. I’ll sign you out.” She leaves.

I change in the restroom and look for the reception desk. Walking hurts. Every part of my groin is raw and chafing. I can’t ride the metro like this. I take out my notebook and pen and write a note.

“Please call The Chamber Theater and ask for Pavel Baboch. Tell him to come and pick me up. Thank you. Irina Myshko.” 

I hand the paper to the toad behind the counter. Her mouth is so wide that when she opens it I think her head will split in two. 

“Theater? You want me to call a theater?” 

I nod. 

She smirks and dials.

I wait, gazing at the patients and their visitors sitting on the benches along the wall. Talking, moaning, complaining.

“Hello? Chamber Theater? This is First Clinical Hospital calling. I have a patient here, Myshko, Irina Anatolievna.”

I don’t breathe. It’s Monday. He should be there.

“I told you, First Clinical!” She taps the pen on the counter. “What? Ma’am, how would I know? I see her for the first time in my life.”

Please, Ilinichna. Please.

“She’s asking for Pavel Baboch. Yes.” The toad woman fires off the clinic address and slams down the receiver. “Wait over there.” She goes back to her crossword puzzle.

My heart explodes. 

He’s coming, he’s really coming. 

I drop onto the empty bench in the corner and study the walls for something to do to calm down. A large round clock, a dead plant in a macramé pot, a bulletin board. 

VACUUM ABORTION OF A NINE-WEEK OLD CHILD. 

I fixate on it. My palms turn clammy. It’s a thick paperboard with four graphic illustrations glued to it. In one, a sharp metal tool enters a uterus; in the next one, a fetus is sucked out; next, it’s crushed; and in the last, its bloody body parts and a torn-off head are scooped into the trash. 

I shudder. Eaglet?

Silence.

Is it okay if I call you eaglet? I put a hand on my stomach.

Yes. Same voice. You can call me eaglet.

I’m sorry I wanted to kill you.

It’s okay.

I’m glad I didn’t.

Me too.

I can’t think of anything else.

. . .

Two hours pass. Every time the doors slams, I flinch. Shoes clack on the floor. The elevator whines up and down. People trickle past me. Visitors with flowers, boxes of candy, and oilcloth bags stuffed with food. I turn numb and only notice Pavlik when he squats in front of me. 

“Irina! What are you doing here? What happened?”

I’m afraid he’ll hear my heartbeat. 

He is dressed in a fine wool coat and a cashmere scarf, impeccable, a fresh scent of the street on him. I watch his lips part and his eyes dance with worry, and I want to touch his hair and stick my face in it and sniff it.

“Ilinichna told me you asked me to pick you up.”

I want to say how happy I am that he came. The words gets stuck at my teeth and I feel crippled by this debilitating muteness like never before, and I drop my face in my hands.

“Can you walk?” This touch, this look he gives me.

Can it be? 

I take his hand and—

. . .

The mouse is weightless. It floats after the butterfly, mesmerized by the black velvet scales of its wings. It sniffs. The butterfly smells of pollen, warm wind, and summer. It flutters, somewhat erratic, out of the hospital building and into the street parking lot, mostly empty save for a couple of dusty Volgas, an ambulance van, and a shiny new Mercedes.

A blue macaw is perched on the rim of the driver’s door, its head inclined and its eyes impatient.

Kostya.