Babayaga

the morning. When, finally, the door opened and she saw Elga’s stooped silhouette waddle in, a ray of light shot through Noelle’s heart, but it was not enough to illuminate the darkness.
    Now she sat watching as the old woman dug into the big suitcase, took out the old pistol, and tucked it into her belt. Elga patted the gun and a little smile crossed her lips. Then she emptied all the clothes from the dresser and the armoire into their suitcases.
    “So, what?” Elga looked over at her occasionally as she packed. “Your chicken laid an egg?”
    The little girl nodded.
    “And you ate the egg.”
    The girl nodded again.
    Elga shut the suitcases and buckled them up. “Okay, so now, what, you think the stars are made from the bites of crocodile teeth, the sun is a boiling gob of God’s spit, and we are—I don’t know—slaves to all the white maggots that are down there writhing in our guts? You think things like that now, yes? The universe is so awful, so black and bad?” She stopped to look at the girl. Amazed, Noelle nodded a final yes. The old woman shrugged. “Ya, well, before you thought ballerina shoes and cream puffs made the world spin round. You are maybe closer to the right answer now. Go backward a bit, find your balance. It takes time.” She pulled the suitcases down onto the floor and started hauling them toward the door. “Come on now, I need help.”
    “I’m not going,” said Noelle.
    Elga stopped and looked at the girl. Noelle feared that the old woman would get angry, slap her or yank her hair to force her to go, but instead Elga’s features softened into an expression that could almost be described as kind, even sympathetic. Leaving the suitcases, the old woman came back and sat on the floor by the chair. She took the little girl’s hands in hers.
    “Okay, how about I tell you a story? This is a true story, not a fairy-tale fable. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Once upon a time, I had daughters too. I didn’t tell you that before, did I?”
    Noelle shook her head no.
    The old woman moved her lips, as if she were talking, but no sounds came out; she stood there mouthing silently for a few moments until finally her words began. “Well, I had daughters. But I never knew them. They were taken away, it was bloody and simple work, the way a stupid farmer would kill that chicken of yours. My girls were buried in a swamp. When I found out, it made me so angry, angry that I didn’t get to hold them, adore and cherish them, they were a part of my heart, torn from my hands, so I was filled with fury that I could not raise these girls and give them all my kindness. You see, I wanted to give them treats, like I give you treats. So what did I do? I bared my teeth and I bit at the world. I bit the guilty, I bit the innocent, I bit the whole ugly world. These things still haunt me. But you know what I think now when I wake up with the nightmares?”
    Noelle shook her head.
    Elga’s voice was heavier now, as if her words might spill into tears. “I think, yes, I was wrong, maybe very bad. Bah, I don’t know. An evil was done to me, to my blood, to my soul, and so I hit back, and kicked back, and then I bit back, hard. Maybe too hard. Yes. Maybe. And then I think of how the sky up above us teems with hawks, eagles, and vultures, all with sharp talons, while all around us fierce and quick animals stalk the grasses with their fangs and claws, and then too, below us, the earth, the black soil, squirms with the insects wielding their pincers and bitter venom. All these creatures, all around us, lashing out and biting at the world. We say we are civilized, but most of all, we are dumb animals. We have nice soft pillows and black telephones, and now toothbrushes too, but that does not mean we are not simple, desperate to fuck, to eat, to kill, all the time, never stopping. So don’t forget that.” She stopped as if she were finished, but then a thought seemed to occur to her. She crossed the room and pulled back the window’s thick curtain. “Come, look outside here, I can show you how dumb and simple they are.”
    Tentatively, the little girl got up and went to Elga’s side. The old woman pointed down to the broad Place de la Concorde, which sat right across from the hotel. Automobiles buzzed busily around it. “What do you see down there in that square?”
    The little girl squinted; she had been sitting in the dark for such a long time that the brightness hurt her eyes. “Statues?”
    “No,