Page 54 of Clever Little Thing

She nodded. “Stick Thing will keep me company.” She picked up the twig doll she’d made with Irina.

I went to Muswell Hill Broadway to shop for gomgush ingredients. I’d found a recipe online. I bought potatoes and beer and queued at the expensive butcher, a shop I had never entered before, for three pounds of cubed lamb.

When I got home, I told Stella she had to crochet in her room.“I’m working on the surprise. When it’s ready, I’ll come and get you.”

The stew was supposed to be made in an unwashed tandir, the clay oven that was also used for bread. I wished I still had Irina’s black pot, but all I had was my pale “dune”-colored Le Creuset. I simmered the stew for hours. For the final touch, I poured some Armenian wine, just a splash; I hadn’t lost sight of the fact that this spirit—Blanka—inhabited Stella’s body.

I set the table for one: folded napkin, spoon, fork, and cup. I heated the lavash bread I had bought. This meal for one was the opposite of the family meals I longed for. People should eat together. But I set the table with care. I wanted to show her that I respected her. Gomgush was for feasts. Fine. Blanka-in-Stella would feast. For the first and—I hoped—the last time, she would eat at our table. She would eat out of a handmade ceramic bowl, not a yogurt pot.

Finally, I knocked on her door. “It’s ready.” She had changed for the occasion into her favorite dark dress. When we got downstairs, she didn’t question that our long table was laid for only one. I wondered if I could read a flicker of something in her impassive face—hope, excitement—but I wasn’t sure.

“Before you eat,” I said, “I want to say thank you. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done. I never said that, but I’m saying it now. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for everything.”

Stella sat down and squinted at me with her newly dark eyes. I realized she wanted to be alone. “I’ll—I’ll leave you to it,” I said.

I sat on the sofa and waited, listening to the spoon clinking in the bowl, her slurp and smack. Was she licking her fingers? But in some cultures, slurping was actually polite, a sign of enjoyment. I hoped shewasenjoying it, because this was her—Blanka’s—last meal with us.

When I came back, her bowl was scraped clean. “More?” I asked, and I grimly dolloped gomgush into her bowl. She ate three helpings in total, alone at one end of our long table, hunched over. One arm cradled the bowl as if she feared I’d take it away. I thought of an etiquette question I’d once answered: “Dear Charlotte, I’m a woman with a big appetite, and friends sometimes say to me, ‘Wow, you eat a lot.’ Is it rude to comment on how much a woman eats?”

For my answer, I’d interviewed a feminist academic who had said people feared voraciousness in women. “They should not take up too much space, have too many desires.” At the time, I’d thought this absurd: when people see a woman tucking into a hearty meal, they hardly fear she’s destabilizing the patriarchy.

But now I saw how therewassomething frightening about seeing someone eat so much, too much, more than could possibly fit in any eight-year-old’s stomach. Then she rose, heavily. “What now?” she said, and even her voice seemed deeper.

“Now we’re going to one of your favorite places,” I said. She didn’t ask why we were going out in the dark, and she let me stuff her into her parka. I led her to the playground. We walked in silence. She didn’t ask where we were going either: I think she knew. I chose our destination out of respect for her, to show that I’d considered her desires, for once. But also, this was between us, and so we needed a place where nobody would interrupt, or watch. As sheshuffled along by my side, I felt a kinship with Blanka that I’d never felt before. We were working together towards a common end.

The air smelled of burning leaves, and streetlights made greasy pools of light on the wet pavement. I looked into people’s windows and felt jealous of their happy, normal lives in desirable Muswell Hill. They had no idea what terrible rite was taking place outside.

The name Muswell came from Mossy Well, a natural spring believed to have miraculous healing properties. If only I could take Stella there, dip her in it, and wash Blanka away. I took her to the duck pond instead, and we walked around it, our breath clouding before us.

Stella was bulky in her parka with the hood up, her long skirts trailing in puddles, her trainers getting soaked. Her face was stony, resigned.

There was a place where you could leave the concrete path and walk right down to the edge of the water. My heart squeezed as I remembered how we came here when she was little. We scattered oats and millet for the ducks and wondered if SkyPo had a base on the overgrown island in the middle of the lake. Stella had chattered on and on about their dastardly plans, and we hid in the bushes for a while, feeling deliciously afraid.

But I now had to focus all my energy on the task before me. I took her cold hands, and in the dark, they felt too large for a child. I began to speak. “I didn’t notice you or think about you. I used your cheap labor. I didn’t pay you enough, and I didn’t offer you more because you didn’t ask and also because honestly, I thought you weren’t doing a very good job.

“But I valued the wrong things. It doesn’t matter that you didn’tclean the bath toys or unpack her lunchbox. You were patient with Stella. You loved her. You didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her. I let you go without finding out why you weren’t happy.”

In a deep apology, you laid your heart bare. You probed into the insecurity, the pettiness, the self-absorption—whatever shameful or embarrassing feelings had driven you to hurt the other person. You took your time and you parsed the darkness within. Only then could they know that you’d done the work to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

I spoke for some time, I said everything I could think of. The feeling left my fingertips. Inside the hood of her parka, Stella’s face was drawn, goosefleshed.

“I didn’t pay attention to you,” I whispered. “But you’ve got my attention now. I’m sorry.”

She gave a meaty sigh, and shifted from foot to foot. “Can we go home?”

“That’s not all.” I thought she might react like this. “Words,” Irina had said when I tried to apologize to her. I had to show that I was sorry with my actions too.

I took her hand and drew her further around the lake until we reached the café, closed right now, but all I needed was the brick wall. I pulled a piece of pavement chalk from my pocket and drew a cross there about the height of my nose.

“I’m sorry, and now I’m accepting my punishment. See?” I shone my phone flashlight on the wall so I could bring my nose right onto the cross, and then I turned off the flashlight. The brick wall felt rough under my nose. Even in the dark, I felt Stella’s gazeon me. With my back to the world, I felt vulnerable, like a child waiting for a smack.

But as I stood there, the fear and shame faded. I felt the satisfaction of accepting a just punishment. Was this how Blanka felt? Maybe there was something safe, comforting even, about standing with your nose on the cross. You knew what you were supposed to be doing. It was not like the rest of life, in a vast grey city where the language was difficult and the food strange. All these people lived in such luxury and privilege, ignorant of a place where people had dragged your father from bed in the night and burned him because he was ethnic Armenian. Irina had such a fierce drive to live that she’d succeeded in bringing Blanka over the mountains, taking her to Armenia and eventually to London, but here, maybe that fierce drive to live was too much, and had left Blanka with none.

“I understand you now,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I leaned my forehead on the wall for a moment, exhausted, and then I turned around.

There was nobody there. Nothing except rain beginning to hiss into the puddles. “Stella!” I called. I turned the corner of the café and walked around to the back. Nobody. “Stella?” I couldn’t even see anyone walking around the lake. I slipped on a patch of slimy dead leaves and fell heavily on all fours. My knees and palms burned, my breath came fast, my belly tightened so I couldn’t breathe.

Then the pain around my midriff receded. “Stella!” I screamed. “Stella! Stella!”

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