Baby House No. 4

BABY HOUSE No. 4

by

Kennan Laudel

Psychological Thriller

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Why Here?. 5

Chapter 2: In Country. 21

Chapter 3: This Thing of Ours. 36

Chapter 4: Texas Tourette’s. 51

Chapter 5: Pyroclastic. 67

Chapter 6: Distant Thunder. 85

Chapter 7: Into Hell. 107

Chapter 8: Limbic Friction. 125

Chapter 9: Outside In. 143

Chapter 10: Dogs of the Dunes. 158

Chapter 11: Goat Rope. 162

Chapter 12: Preordained. 180

Chapter 13: Gotcha Day. 201

Chapter 14: Fatherhood as Purpose. 220

Chapter 15: Heavy is the Head. 239

Chapter 16: The Valley of Vung. 252

Chapter 17: Immaculate. 259

Chapter 18: Seeds of Epiphany. 276

Chapter 19: Cul-de-sac. 294

Chapter 20: Hiding in Plain Sight. 308

1. Why Here?

They met at the usual café to drink and commiserate about work. This ritual acted as a temporary drop cloth cast over the actual slow-motion tragedy of their lives, as “work” had become a euphemism for the extinction of hope. What started as an awareness that they may have lost the geographical birth lottery gave way to ceremonial drinking once they realized their occupation provided incessant reminders of the consequences.

“Then she said: ‘Oh, we just traveled to Italy last May. Have you ever been?’” Aleksandr mocked in a high-pitched, singsong manner.

“What the hell do you think, lady?! I’m a driver! You think I can afford European vacations on your tips?!” he answered himself, to the amusement of Sergei.

Aleksandr followed with, “They know the answer, yet they still ask so they can rub it in your face.”
Sergei took a long pull from his bottle of porter. He slouched down in his chair a couple more inches and exhaled with a pained sigh.

“Yes, yes…American women. I don’t understand how the men can put up with that. Especially from certain states…like California. They are the most difficult. I wince when I find out I have to spend the next six weeks in a car with them, driving them around. I stock up on vodka because I need to drink every night just to get through it. It’s always, ‘LOOK. Look at me! Aren’t I interesting?’ And so many confrontational questions. Questions about politics and about feminist issues. They have in their head this caricature of a Russian man as some kind of chauvinist boogeyman that needs to be broken like a horse. My English gets progressively worse for these types.” Sergei testified.

Aleksandr snickered, “Yes! My favorite answer these days if the question has anything remotely to do with our attitudes toward feminism or politics and is the least bit complicated is a confused delay followed by, ‘Hmm…maybe yes, maybe no.’” They both laughed. He added, “If they continue pressing, I say, ‘Maybe my English is not so good…I no understand question.’ “

“I’m going to use that one!” warned Sergei.

“You have my permission.” granted Aleksandr.
Sergei was noticing the telltale signs of a coming storm within Aleksandr-the shades of darkness across his face, the intense, gloomy foreboding of germinating rage, like the sky moments before a flash of lightning and subsequent thunderclap. He thought of taking another pull, but reconsidered because of Aleksandr’s changing state, which required pacing. When he got like this, it was best to hunker down under the cathartic inevitability and ride it out.

Aleksandr continued, “Besides, if they are so great and have such interesting lives, why do they come here for their children? Why Kazakhstan? Why this place? Why come for the children of our deadbeats and freedom girls? And why can’t you have your own child? Many times, I wanted to ask this question but bit my lip.”

Sergei arched his eyebrows, jutted his lower lip and tilted his head back in faint empathy.

“Eh…they pay the bills. It’s a living, I guess,” said Sergei, without conviction.

Aleksandr was a blue-collar man in his late twenties. He was a mixture of Slavic and German heritage that had found his route to Almaty, Kazakhstan, through Ukraine, via the historical winds of war and migration. Standing six feet tall, he had a medium, sturdy build, not stocky, and a weak chin, with eyes hinting at conscientiousness. The harsh, judgmental nature he wielded was devoid of foundation in experience or deep knowledge of any subject, but a tactic he employed to elicit information. Aleksandr was still struggling, more so than most young men are willing to, with not knowing what he did not know, feeling his way half-blindly through life with his cynically outstretched arms.

Both men had been together since they had entered the army for their mandatory service at eighteen. Their love of the outdoors and shared Russian heritage made them fast friends. After the army, Sergei tried his hand at running an outdoor adventure company for Russian, European, and American tourists. The idea was to guide backpacking and rafting tours throughout the Trans- Ili Alatau mountain range. Unfortunately, his business skills didn’t match his love of the outdoors, and his company failed after two years, obliging him to chauffeur for International Associate Adoptions. The Army trained Aleksandr as a mechanic, and he had dreamed of owning his own garage and working on high-end cars like Mercedes, BMWs, and Audis. Unfortunately, Aleksandr’s luck was no better after the army, as he could only manage various part-time jobs peppered with bouts of unemployment. It was Sergei who secured the job of driver for Aleksandr at International Associates. The two enjoyed sharing the same “tourist route” schedules employed by the adoptive couples when they were free of baby house (orphanage) visitations, court dates, or any other official obligations. This enabled them to hang out and grab a meal or a drink together. They had been doing this for eight years now, and it had become routine. However, they had always had a difficult time reconciling their plight with the lifestyles of the wealthy foreigners that came and went monthly through the turnstiles that were their passenger doors, arriving as tourists and leaving with yet another chosen child of the city.

“They have a way of trying to make you feel inferior…like you are their slave or something. What did they actually *do* to be born into a system of more economic prosperity? Nothing! Was there something I could have done prior to being born to select my destination in this world? Maybe I missed the survey where I prioritize my top three worldwide destinations? You know - that questionnaire you take in utero. Yet, they act as though the final number from the random spin of the roulette wheel resulted from some superior force within them. As if ‘luck’ were simply genetic ‘winning’ bred into them over generations. Pop out of a womb in Tyva and we’ll see how superior you are,” said Aleksandr.

“Exactly. Many times, I ask myself, Why me? Why here? Why Kazakhstan?” said Sergei.

Once the storm opened up, there were moments when it seemed Aleksandr was no longer speaking to Sergei, but to some unseen adversary that was inextricable from his own soul.

Aleksandr interrupted, “… some come off that plane dripping with arrogance. They try to disguise it as friendly conversation, but it’s seeping out in every question. ‘How long have you been a driver? Do you like being a driver?’ Of course not! I’d rather be working on cars than carting Amerikosy assholes like yourself around in them.”

Sergei’s bald, clean-shaven head, piercing, deep-set eyes, and classically Siberian, moon-shaped face and high cheekbones belied his easy-going nature. At about five foot eight, he stood shorter than Aleksandr, walked with an athletic gait, and had the build of a middleweight boxer. As a driver, he looked out of place in the city of Almaty, or any city for that matter. He resembled the type of man you would find out alone in the taiga — the wild, snow-covered forests of the Russian Far East, the last stronghold of the Siberian tiger - trudging around in snowshoes, clad in furs, and checking traps. Or maybe he carried a vague resemblance to a World War 2 Soviet sniper hero you had seen once in a grainy, old black-and-white documentary about the Battle of Stalingrad. Your first hint that your visual predispositions had led you astray was when he smiled, and you were pleasantly surprised that he had all his teeth and absolutely none of them were gold. Further interactions with Sergei soon revealed his openness and sociable nature, which contrasted with the detached stoicism of other Russian drivers. These qualities, combined with his affable disposition and willingness to go the extra mile, made him a favorite among the International Associates’ clientele. Sergei also had one quality in particular that ensured his popularity among the other drivers- he provided the comic relief valve when drunk. However, in these sessions with Aleksandr, even he needed to blow off some steam as a kind of recharging mechanism.

“The men aren’t so bad. They don’t say much and don’t ask a lot of questions.” added Sergei.

“Are you kidding? You should have spent six weeks with that writer from New York,” sneered Aleksandr. “He was as bad as any woman from California. He would look at me and just nod at his bags, like I was his trained gorilla. That guy brought over four enormous boxes of books. Can you imagine? What is the point? Oh, look at me! I can digest more knowledge than the gorilla could ever carry! He didn’t read a single book the whole time he was here, as far as I could tell. He drank more than he ever read and seemed miserable. And he was always complaining about my parking. ‘Can’t you get any closer? Why do we have to walk so far?’ He adopted a Russian boy who was about ten months old. Can you imagine having this prick as your father? I felt sorry for the kid. Sometimes I wonder if the children are better off staying here.”

“I’m not so sure,” replied Sergei. “Again, what are their options? Institutionalized until the teenage years and then kicked to the streets without proper education or skills.”

“I always dreamed about having a son and sharing a high-end auto repair garage business with him. You know, training him, working together to build the business, and handing it over to him. Teaching him all that I know, day by day. I always had it in the back of my mind that I would like to have a son. We could build something together that would last long after I was gone. I always believed I would have a son. My dreams always included that thought. Then, some asshole like that flies over here and just buys a son. There is something very wrong about that, to my mind,” said Aleksandr.

“A son would be nice. Someone to backpack with…teach him outdoor skills and introduce him to nature. But it’s not been a dream of mine. I’ll just take life as it comes,” said Sergei.

“Well, at least you have a start–a good woman.”

“You will be back on the horse again, Aleksandr. It can all happen faster than you can imagine. Next thing you know, you are complaining about changing diapers.” Sergei laughed at the prospect. “These little sessions of ours will never really change… the only thing that will change is the object of our complaining.”

“It all seems so out of reach today. The years are flying by,” lamented Aleksandr.

Sergei followed with a hasty toast to pump some air into this rapidly deflating raft. “Anyway, a toast to Russian women!”. Both men clinked bottles and quaffed down the last of their beer. Aleksandr knew deep down inside that this was a false conviction on his part, yet he never hesitated.

There was a momentary pause while each man relished the residual malty warmth leaking down the back of his throat.

“I heard we are getting new clients assigned in the meeting tomorrow morning.” Sergei offered.

“I prefer the couples from the middle or southern parts of their country.” replied Aleksandr. “At least they are tolerable. Sometimes, Southerners can be quite amusing. Did I ever tell you about the guy from Alabama who confused Cossacks and Kazakhs? He wanted me to take them to a show where the Kazakhs dance their famous Russian dance. I didn’t understand what he was getting at and kept arguing with him that Kazakhs weren’t Russian and could not possibly have a Russian dance. We were at a restaurant, and he was drunk and insistent, but in a funny way. He tried to show me what he meant by dancing the prisyadka. To the horror of all the other people dining, he folded his arms and took up a squatting position in the middle of the restaurant. He was a little overweight, so the first couple of times he tried to kick his legs from under himself, he lost his balance and grabbed the tablecloth of the adjacent table, and took everything–their entire dinner for four–to the ground with him. The whole place went quiet. He just lay there under a pile of garbage, blinking at the ceiling through a yogurt facial. They threw us out of the restaurant, of course. He was so embarrassed that he offered me a large tip. I told him to keep it, as I would have paid much more for such a performance.”

“(Laughing) Yes, you have told me that one…at least six times. I’m pretty sure I can tell it better than you by now.” Sergei answered.

It went on like this for over an hour, the men exchanging their “Ugly American” stories over beers. These cultural stereotypes were of the cartoonish variety, created by squinting through a keyhole at their subject under abnormal circumstances. Sergei paused, glanced out the window, and looked at his watch. “We’ll see what awaits us tomorrow morning. Hey, it looks like it’s drizzling out there. We’d better get going now,” Sergei concluded.

“OK. I will see you at 8:00 AM tomorrow at the meeting.” Aleksandr stated while signaling to the waitress for the tab. He paid the bill, and they rose and hustled to their vehicles.

Aleksandr got in his car and hesitated a moment before turning on the ignition. The patter of rain on his roof increased to a small boil as he thought about how long he had been doing this job. He stared mid-brain freeze out the windshield in a car wash induced trance as his mind drifted off.

“Wow, eight years,” he thought to himself. He marveled at how fast it had all gone. When your life is aimless and without purpose, the years vaporize in your wake at an alarming rate, as if you’ve cut the rope bridge behind you. You crane your neck to look back, and there is only a chasm and the grim realization you will slam into the other side sooner and lower than you planned.

A thunderclap slapped him out of his reflections like a glass of ice water thrown in his face. His eyes blinked and then darted from side to side, and then down at the steering wheel. Reluctant to return to his empty apartment, he started the car and pulled away from the curb as the intensity of the storm increased. Melancholy thoughts floated in his mind for a couple of miles, converging with a stream of dark water that flowed through the center of the fissured narrow road in a funeral procession that led to his apartment.

***

The piercing shrieks of his alarm clock awoke Aleksandr the next morning, jolting his body into reality as if he’d received electroshock therapy. Blinking, he lay for a while, trying to comprehend the dimension he had entered. He bolted halfway up and sideways, supporting himself on one elbow, and examined the space beside him. A sense of relief washed over him. “She’s still gone,” he thought. “Thank God.” It had been well over a year since she’d taken off, a welcome climax to the most tempestuous three months in his life. Well, technically, a year. But the first nine were so blissfully different, it appeared he had two distinct relationships in the span of twelve months.

When he first met her, Nadja was an effervescent cocktail of optimism and boundless energy. Outgoing and attractive, benevolent to a fault, Nadja seemed complementary to Aleksandr’s reserved stoicism and cynical nature. She was athletic and sturdy, with slightly bowed legs, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and a gap between her front teeth that gave her a quirky, unorthodox appeal when she talked. She grew up on the outskirts of Astana as the eldest of four daughters. But Almaty was a small, big city where there was a strong sense of community, and Nadja’s arrival and background seemed shrouded in a bit of mystery. However, everything seemed so natural when he was with her that he repurposed that mystery into something of positive value in his mind. She was not like the others in his life, and he conflated this with trustworthiness. Conversations with her were effortless, and Aleksandr spoke more to her in a single year than he had uttered to the entire world from the time he was born. He disclosed to her things that he had bottled up for years. She had been the only one he had ever felt comfortable confiding in about a fragmented memory of a horrifying episode from his childhood, an event so traumatic that the only other living participant-his own sister-had tacitly agreed to a mutual pact of silence.

They had similar tastes, and there was very little time spent deciding what to do or squabbling over where to go in their spare time together. They resolved their few disagreements through mature, direct dialogue and conflict resolution. Aleksandr had never experienced a relationship with a woman that seemed to fit him like a glove.

Nadja became committed to forging his dream of owning a garage into a realistic framework from which they could launch their life together. She seemed a limitless fountainhead of ideas for raising the money and was quick to execute some of these plans. It seemed natural that she was an ideal partner, and it made sense for her to move in with him. However, over time, it became apparent that the murky clouds of confusion over the exact direction of execution were the portent of a much more ominous storm on the horizon.

Soon he realized invisible forces at work inside her for which he had no means of negotiating. They started by manifesting themselves through a nascent religious fervor, which seemed out of character. First, it was the steady drip of biblical quotations, chapter and verse, texted to his phone or scrawled on pieces of paper or napkins and sprinkled about the kitchen table, his car, and near the bathroom sink. Then, as some became engraved in her memory, the recitations began. All of them seemed to have one common thread running through them with an oppressive, disquieting intensity: Aleksandr must repent, or he was going to hell. She then began trying to use scripture to bolster any irrational opinion on random issues. At first, he tried to mitigate the fire and brimstone with logical nudges, attempting to illustrate the error in her judgment. However, this would only enrage her into open argument, and it became evident that her martyrdom required the volcanic energy of these disputes, and she appeared to get a secret charge out of these encounters. He stopped feeding the beast and went into a tooth-grinding silence. However, this failed to produce the hoped-for peace and tranquility, perversely