Page 4 of Downfall of a Princess

“I know, I know... But I need it now...” Dad’s voice dissolved into blubbering. “Take it. Whatever you want. Take the house...”

“This old shithole?” The man laughed. “What am I going to do with this rat-eaten log shack in Bumfuck Nowhere? Huts like this one are abandoned and rotting into the ground all over the place around here.”

“It’s a good house. Warm... big enough...” Dad was trying to talk up our “shithole,” which only made him sound even more pathetic.

“Hey, you have a daughter, don’t you?”

The stranger’s words shook every idea of sleep from me. I sat up, my eyes flying wide open.

Why was he talking about me?

“Yeah... Sure...” Dad mumbled. “I do. I do. Ira is her name. Ira, Irina,” he repeated, as if proud that he still remembered my name.

“Yeah, I saw her at my aunt’s house another day. She did some weeding. A young thing, isn’t she?” The male voice flowed lazily, like warm bacon fat, making me feel greasy just from hearing it.

Now, I recognized the man. He was Baba Nadya’s nephew, the one who lived in another village and came for a visit every now and then. I’d seen him smoking a cigarette on the backporch of Baba Nadya’s house as I was weeding her expansive tomato patch. At some point, he’d put the cigarette out and headed my way, but I was pretty much done with the weeding by then, so I just hopped the fence and ran home before he had a chance to get close. He was at least three times my age, fat, and bald, and I had nothing to talk to him about.

“I’ll take the girl for a bag of this,” the man said.

My insides froze, the chills spreading through to my limbs.

“The girl?” Dad sounded confused, not angry. Why was he not angry at that asshole? “What girl?”

“Your daughter. Ira.”

“Right. Ira... What do you want her for?”

“Just a little fun, buddy. Nothing you probably haven’t done with her yourself.”

My dad hadn’t touched me. Sometimes, I questioned whether he was my dad at all. I didn’t look like him. He was tall and lanky, with dark wavy hair. I was tall but more solid, with my mama’s lighter hair that held no curls whatsoever. My eyes were gray green, like bog water on a cold November day. Nothing like my parents, who both had blue eyes.

I wondered if Mama told him that I was his because it was the only way she knew how to protect me from the man I had to share the house with. Or maybe she did it to protect herself?

Either way, it’d worked so far. He never touched me, not inthatway, anyway. He’d hit me plenty with a fist, or a belt, or whatever happened to be close by when I misbehaved or when he was in a bad mood. But that was it. Until now.

Now, he was trading me for drugs.

“Like... a night with her? For this whole bag?” He was considering it. No, he sounded like he’d already decided. He was just trying to figure out the price.

Deep inside, I knew that the man he was negotiating with could simply walk in here right now and take what he wanted for free. Dad would do nothing to stop him.

“A whole night?” The man laughed again. What a derisive sound that was. I hated it. “An hour would be more than enough, dude. For now, anyway.”

“Do I get just one bag?” Dad whined.

I didn’t listen to the rest of their negotiations. I slipped out from under my tattered cover, crossed the creaky floor as quietly as I could, removed my makeshift alarm system by the door, and tiptoed into my bedroom.

Here, I threw on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, stuffed more clothes and whatever money I had saved by doing chores for others into my schoolbag, then climbed out of the broken window.

They’d be looking for me soon enough, but they didn’t even know whether I was in the house to begin with. With any luck, I’d have plenty of time to put a good distance between me and this place before anyone would notice my absence.

After a few days, Dad probably wouldn’t even remember he had a daughter at all. Just like he didn’t remember what happened to Mama.

I had a vague plan but a clear destination. I’d walk about fifteen kilometers to the next village. Then take the bus from there to the town. From there, I’d take the train to the city.

Quite a few people from our village had moved to the city. No one had ever come back. I figured the city was where happiness lived. And if so, that was the place where I should be too.

HOW BADLY I WAS MISTAKEN. The city, at least the version of it that I got to experience, held not a trace of happiness. On thecontrary, with the larger number of people, the misery seemed to multiply here as well.

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