Babayaga

of high tempo
    while she kept tongues tied up
    and firm limbs enthralled
    I would sneak and whittle chunks of fat
    from their ruble-thick wallets.
    Not the most honest way
    to make them pay their fare
    but we returned in kind, honestly, so,
    with benevolent blessings
    whispered into their sleeping, bare backs,
    kissing their shoulder blades over and again
    in fair and noble exchange.
    Truly we were better charms
    than any other diptych saints
    they stumbled upon.
    Nearly every crone bleats like a goose,
    “Oh, I didn’t choose to be this way,
    my papa went heavy with a spiked belt,
    my husband fucked my virgin daughters.”
    Ah, cry at the hurricanes, spit at the storm.
    You could pile these melancholies higher
    than all the tsar’s dead armies.
    We never had patience or time for complaints,
    such wasted words, tiresome as a winter’s rutabaga.
    Flee the darkness of the past, run or drive or fly away.
    Too many fools bear the burdensome bad of what was,
    it spills out of their saddle bags and stuffed steamer trunks,
    as they travel along slow bearing a heavy load,
    while life itself flies fast by.
    Running through nights with us you learned right,
    to ride light and keep your history shut tight,
    or leave it on the roadside far behind
    for the village clocks count in chimes
    all the time that is wasted,
    nursing grief to no profit.
    Elga never burdened us with her tale,
    and we respected her restraint,
    for the scars of fortune’s razor were not hard to see.
    And I never asked Zoya, either, nor did she talk,
    though we had guessed the shape of her history
    long before the beasts finished
    ripping out that old man’s throat.
    That’s about it, as for the rest, bah,
    our pack grows weary of the bitches’ barking,
    on and on sobbing sagas so sad any bard
    would bash his head in rather than recite.
    Cynical, yes, but we chose this life
    not because we were beaten or broken,
    not angry or aching—
    no man ever put me down, no—
    we picked this path only
    to drink at life’s fresh spring,
    ever and anon.
    We thirsted for the ripeness
    of a thousand soft fruits,
    oh, let me put my hands on a peach ripe this day,
    but, alas, see here, my palms are nothing but air now,
    and there would be tears in my eyes too
    if there were eyes for weeping.
    XVII

    Rita Hayworth, Monique Chevalier, and Belinda Lee all stared up at Noelle from the covers of the movie magazines that were strewn across her big hotel bed as the little girl sat, propped up by pillows, biting into another éclair. It was her third of the morning and the sugar had her bouncing. She had also gone through five butter cookies and two fruit parfaits. She was so excited by Paris. This was truly the life of a fairy princess. She had never stayed in a place so elegant; the suite had two separate bedrooms and a large center room with a crystal chandelier and a full, deep fireplace. She had asked Elga if they could always live like this but the old woman said no. “Enjoy it now, but this is not the way we will live. Money attracts too many curious noses. We get what we need but we stay low, out of sight. Like hedgehogs and moles. But there will be nice treats like this from time to time”—she patted the girl’s head—“so gobble them up when they come.” Then she let Noelle order any dessert she wanted off the big room-service menu.
    When the clattering cart had arrived, the hotel boy placed the tray at the end of the bed and Elga signed the bill. Then the old woman took her doctor’s bag and disappeared into the bathroom, with Max at her heels. The room-service boy had given the rat a curious look, but Noelle had said, “Ceci n’est pas un rat.” The boy looked a little confused but left without asking a question. Alone in the room now, Noelle was wiping the last traces of chocolate and powdered sugar from her lips when she heard Elga call out.
    “Noelle, are you finished?”
    “Yes!”
    “How was it?”
    “Delicious!” the girl gleefully shouted, kicking her little legs with joy.
    “Ha, good. Come here, girl, I need your help.”
    Noelle jumped up from the bed and skipped across the room. Pulling open the bathroom door, she found Elga sitting on the edge of the claw-footed bathtub. Towels covered the floor and a few of the old woman’s odd jars of colored powders lined the counters. The steaming water looked funny to Noelle, it was same shade of deep dark green as the little slimy salamanders that lurked in her mother’s country