A gift for you

As a reward for getting through the cancer update, I offer you an exclusive, fanciful escapist cream puff of a crime caper story.

Hospital shadow self, with holiday framing

Last week I became a Charydis of fury and grief. I don’t know how chemo does this, but it doesn’t just affect me physically, draining energy and making even water taste disgusting, but it makes consciousness feel untenable. Every thought I have is helpless and dark and angry.

I can’t untangle which feelings belong to which parts of my life. My anger erupts at ridiculous times, misdirected. It’s useless to be angry at cancer, at chemotherapy, at the drug cocktail in my veins, so instead I get impatient with Tim or cross with friends—when the last thing I want to do is alienate people who care about me at the time I need them most. I spent half my time raging and weeping and the other half apologizing—to myself, to the world—for my turmoil.

By Friday, I was so sick of myself and my poisonous envies and rages and griefs that I would have walked out on myself if I could. Instead, I called myself to my inner principal’s office for a stern chat. “You’re wrecking yourself,” I said. “Raging and weeping at the state of things is not improving your odds here or making you any friends. Get ahold of yourself and stop being an asshole.” I was appropriately ashamed.

Theadora’s arrival Friday was like the dawn. She brought sun and energy and stories from school. We spent most of the weekend together. My phlebotomist Laetitia had sent me a list of her favorite vintage/second-hand stores in Montpellier, so that I could take Theo to find inexpensive used clothing. We spent Saturday wandering the festive streets of Montpellier soaking up the holiday vibes.

Weirdly, all the vintage store owners either spoke English or were American or Canadian. Is vintage an anglophone thing? They were also insanely friendly. One woman, after chatting with us, even asked if we could have coffee sometime. These little interactions buoyed me hugely.

Predictably, I took a dive yesterday during chemo as the steroids and antihistamines and taxol gathered in my blood to do their dark magic. Just because I talked myself out of being an asshole—albeit usually just in my own head—last week doesn’t mean I won’t need to do it again this week.

After chemotherapy, we headed straight to Theo’s lycée for parent-teacher conferences. It was good to meet her teachers and put faces to names. Theo was with us for most of the evening. When a couple of teachers mentioned she had been unusually anxious when she didn’t need to be—she excels academically—I thought it worth mentioning that I am in treatment for cancer. We’ve been dragging our feet about letting the school know my situation, but I think it is useful for them to know, so if she exhibits signs of grief or inquietude, they are aware of what might lie underneath.

But each time I mentioned this, the teacher listened with no change of expression, had no response—no “thank you for letting us know, we’ll keep an eye on her” or “I’m sorry to hear that, it must be tough for Theo”—and simply went on to talk about something else. Tim and I were both taken aback by the utter lack of acknowledgement. I didn’t tell them because I need sympathy, I told them so they could understand the context of my daughter’s life. I’m terribly sorry my cancer is awkward for people to hear about, but there are reasons I need to sometimes bring it up.

But I want to give you more than grim cancer tales for the holidays. I want to give you something light, something even frothy, with a big sparkly silver bow. To that end, I decided to offer you a little cheery Hannukah Kwanza Christmas present.

Below, I give you a ridiculous little story I wrote that was a finalist for two comic writing contests but which I’ve not tried to publish. It began as an assignment for a contest: I had 24 hours to write a crime caper including the word prescription and an ice cream truck. It’s not the kind of thing that would interest a literary magazine, but it might just be fun for you to read. It’s set in Uzbekistan and features ballet dancers, political prisoners, and a gaggle of lesbians. So without further ado, I give you “Prescription for Freedom.”

Happy Holidays! May you too hotwire an ice cream truck to bear you away from the ills of the world.

Prescription for Freedom

Feruza swore as an avalanche of grapefruits cascaded into her shins.

“Are you trying to end my career? How am I going to explain the bruises? Say I can’t dance Firebird tonight because of a citrus-related accident?”

“Sorry!” Umida peered down at her from the ramp at the back of the supermarket. “Should have warned you before I rolled them. Do you have enough?”

Feruza gathered the grapefruits around her as fast as she could and stuffed them into her backpack. “All I can carry. Come on.”

Umida hopped down from the ramp, glanced around her, and yanked down the metal gate, slipping a new padlock on it to replace the one she’d cut. She lifted the Russian mink cap (dyed a shade of red that surely never adorned an actual mink) to shake out her long black hair, picked up a few stray grapefruits, and hurried after Feruza. Their friend Sevara waited on the sidewalk. She was supposed to be on lookout, but her attention was focused on the orange polish she was applying to her nails. Umida elbowed her.

“Ow!”

“Serves you right for drawing the easy job. Where’s the car?”

“Ah. The car.”

Feruza frowned, glancing up and down the street. “Sevara? The car?”

“I thought I was just supposed to stand guard.” She blew on the wet nails of her right hand.

“And bring the car.”

“I loaned it to a friend. She had a work thing in Samarkand. It was kind of an emergency.”

“You’re telling us this now? What are we supposed to do, call a taxi?”

Sevara shrugged. “I guess.”

“With stolen produce? And a bag full of prescription anti-anxiety meds? The driver’ll know what we look like.”

“Half the world knows what you look like, sweetheart. Call Komil.”

“He’s in prison, remember? I don’t think they give him the keys to the van.”

A few minutes later, a battered white car pulled alongside them.

“Get in, before someone sees you.” The driver, a scrawny woman with spiky hair, tapped her fingers on the wheel.

“Thanks, Zeb. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Who fucked up this time?”

“More driving, less talking. Sevara’s office, then our house.”

“Why do you feel like it’s not enough to be a dancer?” Sevara twisted to look at Feruza in the back seat.

“Because it isn’t. And stop looking at me with those probing, secretly-diagnosing therapist eyes.”

“I really want to know.”

“Because I want to be useful. Art doesn’t feel useful.”

“But it is useful. It allows people to experience beauty and emotion.”

“Tell me how that advances life in this country?”

“You’ve worked all your life to be a soloist. And you’re risking it to be the Robin Hood of Central Asia.”

“Aren’t you in this car? Why are you risking your psychologist’s license?”

“Everyone who lived through the last regime deserves anti-anxiety meds.”

“Aren’t they addictive?” Zeb turned to look at her.

“Eyes on the road, Zeb. Not all of them.”

“Why not just tell everyone to do yoga?”

“Yoga never calms me down. Too much space to worry, all that lying around, breathing.”

“I just realized something.” Sevara whipped around again. “We can’t deliver grapefruits and the drugs to the same people.”

“I can’t wait to hear this one.”

“Grapefruits are contraindicated with this drug.”

“You with your fancy words.”

“Sorry, I forgot ballerinas aren’t taught to read. If you eat grapefruit with this, it won’t work. Or you might die.”

“So we give half the people medicine and half the people grapefruit? How do we decide?”

“Medicine can go to my patients, but the grapefruit we’ll give to—people who look like they’re coming down with scurvy?”

“We had to go and pick grapefruits. I knew we should’ve picked bananas.”

“Bananas bruise too easily. And they don’t last.”

“This feels so useless.” Feruza tipped her head back to stare at the roof of the car. “I mean, medicating people, giving them food, they’re temporary fixes. I want to do something that lasts. Something that will change lives, even one life.”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t know. Making life safe for us. Or rescuing Komil or something.”

“Rescuing Komil?” Umida lifted her head from Feruza’s lap. “Komil who is in a high-security prison? Why not a bank, a jewelry store? Something easy?”

“He’s our friend. And he didn’t do anything.”

“He got caught with his pants down in his boyfriend’s office,” said Sevara.

“Yeah, but that shouldn’t be a crime. Just like what we do shouldn’t be a crime.”

“It isn’t. There’s no law against lesbian sex.”

“That’s only because they can’t imagine anyone having fun without a penis. Or maybe because they like to imagine it?”

“I’ll let you ask them that one.”

Feruza was silent for a few minutes, watching the blocky white Soviet buildings flash by the car window.

“I’m going to do it,” she said. “I’m going to rescue Komil. Who’s in?”

Feruza had trouble focusing during the night’s performance, almost fell out of a triple pirouette and was nearly a second late flying into a lift. Ivan was grumpy about it. But Ivan was grumpy about everything, especially about her refusal to sleep with him. After the curtain calls, she slipped away without even removing her stage makeup, and pedaled her one-speed bicycle all the way across Tashkent.

The prison where Komil was, where most of the political prisoners were kept, was on the outskirts of town, next to the construction site of a new hotel. New hotels were opening every week. Everyone said the bad old days were over. So why were so many political prisoners still locked up?

It had not been easy to persuade the others to join her. There were too many good reasons for them to be terrified.

“Barre exercises don’t prepare a person for prison breaks,” Zeb argued. “You’re overreaching. Firebird would be enough for most people.”

“You’re always telling me I’m not most people. Besides, we’ve got Umida. She’s doing security at the British Embassy now. She knows stuff.”

“Sure, doors, metal detectors. But prisons?”

“How high-tech can’t be can it be? We didn’t even get ATMs until last year. It wouldn’t take much to keep a sweet, gentle novelist from breaking out. Komil isn’t exactly hard-core.”

“But he’s in the hardcore prison, the one with all the political prisoners.”

“So we let them all out.”

“Oh great. Because it’s so easy to release a bunch of political prisoners in a country that has had only the most superficial taste of democracy, a country still shivering with fear from its last dictator.”

Feruza kissed her. “You always say we should work to create the country we want to live in.”

Zeb sighed. “We can’t let out Alsu. We have to make sure she stays.”

“She’s there? With men? She’s not exactly a political prisoner, just rotten as an Aral Sea fish, with what, 97 corruption charges?”

“What could be more political than corruption?”

“Maybe they’re hoping the political prisoners will teach her something.”

They’re all standing in the hotel construction site outside the prison when Feruza arrives.

“Why are you late?” Zeb looks cross.

“Nine curtain calls.”

“Motherfuckers.”

“Yeah.”

Feruza looks around. Zeb has set up their small trampoline at the side of the building. Umida is ready, her pockets stuffed with tools. Sevara has gone to get transport.

“Okay, so I’m lightest, I’ll go on the roof.” Feruza peers up at the nearest edge.

“You’re also the clumsiest, so no sharp tools for you,” says Zeb.

“Thanks, dear heart. When was the last time you leapt five feet through the air?”

“Who are we rescuing, anyway? Do we have names? Do you even know how many people?” Umida twists her hair up and tucks it under her mink cap.

“Well, Komil, and he can tell us who else we should take,” says Feruza. “Maybe the journalist? The cartoonist arrested for mocking the president? The guy who runs the theater that did that play? The Dictator’s Daughter?”

“That was so good,” says Umida. “He must have known the government would guess it was about Alsu.”

“Brilliant, though.” Feruza pats her hairspray-stiffened bun.

“Brilliant if you’re on a suicide mission.”

“Zeb, you are a ray of sunshine. Wonder how he’s getting along with Alsu?”

“She’s in solitary. Why aren’t we rescuing women?”

“Men’s prison, Zeb, dictator’s daughter aside. Guess it doesn’t matter where you are if you’re in solitary. But if we find women other than Alsu, we’ll release them.”

“Could we stay focused?” Umida fidgets with her tools. “I actually don’t want to end up in one of these cells.”

Feruza is staring above them. “I think that diving board would work even better than the trampoline. It’s higher.”

The others look at Feruza and then the board, some thirty feet above an empty pool.

“That’s dangerous.”

“Unlike breaking into a prison in a country known for torture with no working judicial system?”

Feruza flexes her knees. Good thing she’s warmed up from the performance, if also exhausted. She fills her lungs, adrenaline coursing through her muscles, pliés, and launches herself upward. It’s the best jump of her life, and only four people see it, witness her dark shadow against the stars, flying.

She had thought she would land on something solid, but whatever she lands on shatters instantly. Her hips dangle through the roof, while her hands cling to the edges of the window. After removing a rope ladder from around her neck, she ties it quickly to the window frame before tossing it to the ground and letting herself fall inside.

“And it isn’t even my birthday.”

Feruza looks up. Just her luck.

“Alsu?”

“I’d offer you tea but…”

Before Feruza has a chance to take a breath, Alsu is on top of her, using her body as a stepstool to get toward the roof.

“Oh no you don’t.” Feruza grabs an ankle and flips her, just as Zeb and Umida come crashing through. There is the jangle of keys at the door, and then a guard.

“What the—”

Feruza is sailing through the air, her legs arrows. A pointed toe hits his temple like a target. He crumples as Feruza lands in a perfect fifth position. “And people don’t think jetés are a practical skill.”

She looks down at his limp body. “Zeb, you stay with Alsu, I’ll need Umida. Where is Komil?”

Alsu spits at her. Zeb tightens her arm around the woman’s neck until she starts to sag. “Under,” she whispers. “Next to the canteen.”

When Feruza finds the right cell—after waking several more prisoners and taking out a few more guards with the stiff toes of her pointe shoes—she stops outside the door. She thinks for a moment, and then taps out the Morse code for wake the fuck up, grateful for the first time that her father had served in the military.

“Komil?” Umida begins trying some of the keys Feruza snatched from guards.

“Who is it?” He sounds scared.

“A fan.”

They hear a body heave itself upward.

“I’m not granting autographs.”

“I hadn’t realized you were a comedian. Don’t make too much noise.”

“Feruza? Are you kidding me? You need to get out of here.”

“And Umida. We’re almost—there!” The door creaks open. “Why are you still sitting like a lump? We’re here to rescue you.”

“You woke me. I haven’t had tea.”

“Get up, get your things. Um, do you have things? I need your help.”

“I’m a novelist, what am I supposed to do, stab someone with a pen? Besides, they won’t let me have one.” He stands, stretches his arms above his head.

“If you want to stay a novelist, a live, practicing novelist, you’re going to need a few more skills.”

“Feruza. I’m touched, really. But do you have a plan?”

“Could we discuss the details later?”

“Where are you going to take me? Tell me it’s not Turkmenistan.”

“We’re not stupid. Now, tell me where we can find the others.”

A few minutes later, they’re creeping down the hallway. Footsteps sound above them. Komil insists on fetching his prison boyfriend Naufal first, as well as a woman they hadn’t expected to find sharing his cell. Umida unlocks each door as Komil and Feruza stand lookout. When Naufal emerges, he and Komil embrace.

“Can’t you wait? Umida, take these three to Zeb, there are too many of us. Start getting them out.”

They slip away. Feruza tries to walk quietly, but the newish box toes of her pointe shoes give her away. Footsteps clatter on the stairs. She has to keep moving. She has to find the last two.

When at last she reaches their cells, they’re not there, the two adjacent doors hanging slightly ajar. Have the guards taken them? Or has Umida—

She hears soft laughter from the canteen at the other end of the hall. Keeping a shoulder to the wall, she tiptoes down. Two men are leaning over a long table, pushing their fingers through a sticky liquid. Moonlight through the skylight illuminates their drawing: A shopping cart superimposed on what looks like planet Earth, which they are busy branding with a large barcode.

“Is that—”

The two men startle and look up.

“I didn’t realize Giselle was on tonight.”

“Firebird, actually. But come on, I’m getting you out.”

“But we’re not done, I was just about to add someone sweeping a bunch of foreign flags off Central Asia. What do you think?”

“That you need better light. And something to work with other than blood.”

“It’s ketchup,” says the one with a beard. “We’re not monsters.”

“I’d be happy to leave you here really, but Komil—”

“Komil’s out?”

“He should be by now, at least on his way. And if you want any hope of getting a bedtime story from him ever again, you’d better hustle.”

Obediently, they stand, wiping their hands on their prison trousers. Footsteps approach. She pushes the two men behind a door as it swings open and a guard peers in.

“They’ve done it again, Anatoly! Those fucking artists.”

As the guards examine the cartoon, the bearded man takes a couple of packets from his pocket and reaches his arm as far out as he can. Quietly, he squeezes out something dark.

The guards straighten.

“Let the cleaners take care of it in the morning. We’d better make sure they’re all back in their cages.”

As they turn towards the door, they spot Feruza with the two prisoners.

“What the—” The first guard takes a step toward them and slips in the ketchup, his arms flailing. One arm catches the second guard, taking him down too.

“Now.” Feruza shoves the men toward the door and they start to run.

When they get to the chamber they first entered, Zeb is holds back a raging Alsu while Komil’s boyfriend climbs up the ladder. Once up, he yanks it away before Alsu can grab ahold of it.

“Thought you’d never get here. Hurry, or I’ll be tempted to take this lady out permanently.”

Feruza helps the men to the rope and climbs up after them.

“Let her go,” she calls down. A moment later Zeb joins them, the end of the rope in her teeth. She slices it off with a knife and tosses it over the roof.

The men gaze down at the trampoline.

“I’m afraid of heights,” frets the cartoonist.

“More afraid of heights than you are of the government? Step aside.” Zeb crouches and sails over the edge.

One by one, they bounce into Zeb’s waiting arms, and their small group sprints toward a van on the other side of the hotel lot.

“You’re kidding me.” Feruza stares at the vehicle. “An ice cream truck?”

“Picky, picky!” says Sevara. “It was the easiest thing to hotwire. Which I don’t understand. Anyone who fails to properly secure ice cream underestimates children.”

“We could make some money along the way.”

“Get the fuck in, will you, before we get swarmed by a bunch of kids?”

They climb in, Feruza in the front with Sevara and Zeb, the others in the back.

“Who’s driving?”

“Not Sevara. Remember when she crashed that car full of butter and it was summer and it all melted before we could get it all picked up?”

“Umida?”

“I can’t drive,”

“You can’t drive? You work at the embassy!”

“I do security, I’m not a driver.”

“Zeb can drive.”

“I think I just broke my wrist.” Zeb holds it up, bent at an odd angle. “The theater director landed on it. He could stand to lose a few pounds.”

“Fine. I’ll drive.” Feruza switches places with Sevara and slides behind the wheel.

“Did you get your license renewed?”

“I was going to do it next week.”

“Which is so useful tonight.”

“We’re in an ice cream van, it’s not like we can get up speed.”

“Is there anything chocolate?” the theater director pipes up. “This box is all rocket pops. Komil, want a rocket pop?”

“Watching my figure.”

“Prison food wasn’t enough of a diet plan?”

“It’s all carbs and fucking plov. And the floor is too hard for yoga.”

“Fuck,” says Feruza, foot on the brake. “Checkpoint.”

“We can’t be at a border already,” says Sevara. “Didn’t anyone look at a map before we took off?”

“Which border? Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan?” Feruza squints out the windshield.

“I dare you to ask the border guard.”

Feruza peers ahead. “The sign says Kazakhstan.”

“You ladies are filling me with confidence.”

“You’re welcome, Komil.”

“More places to hide in Kazakhstan,” says the theater director, licking his pop.

“Then what?” says Komil. “We’re supposed to just rebuild our lives in Kazakhstan? We don’t have visas or passports and we’re about to get caught. Did anyone think this through?”

“We could sell ice cream,” says Umida.

“You know they’ll check for a permit. Look, you guys are gonna have to get into the freezers.”

“Feruza! I am not a creamsicle.”

“What is wrong with you, Komil? It’s almost like you’re ungrateful. Get in the freezer or get sent back to prison, your choice, but it’s not like we’re going to forget you’re there.”

“The woman hasn’t said anything,” says Zeb, trying to straighten her wrist against her lap. “What’s her deal?”

“She’s in the freezer already,” says Umida. “I think she got in with the rocket pops.”

“She said something to me,” whispers Sevara in Feruza’s ear. “She was a patient. Trans. Depressed, stuck in the wrong body. Gave her meds.”

The freezer door lifts an inch. “I would have died without that prescription. I would have killed myself.”

“Pleasure,” says Sevara. “Lid down! Border!”

“Okay. Feruza, you remembered your passport?”

“Ummm.” She rolls down the window and smiles at the two men in uniform. One of them leans down, shines a flashlight in her face.

“La Oiseau! No! Can it be? Is it you, really, really you?”

“Uh, yes, it’s really me.”

“Still in costume! Such dedication, such discipline. I am your hugest fan. You have no idea. I follow everything you do. Your Giselle was incomparable.”

“This tour is kind of private.” Feruza smiles more broadly. “We’re undercover, thus the truck. If you can keep a secret, I’ll send you a special invitation.”

“My mother will never believe this… Here’s my email address.” He scribbles something on a piece of paper, ignoring the protests of his fellow guard. “Also, I’m on Facebook.”

“I’ll be in touch. Thank you.”

He hesitates for a moment. “I don’t suppose… you don’t have any of those chocolate chip cookie sandwich things, do you?”

“Umida?”

A hand extends into the front seat and drops two Chipwiches on Feruza’s lap.

“I’ll never forget this. These are my absolute favorite. It’s an honor to have you in my country.”

“See?” says Sevara as they drive off. “Power of the arts.”

Kazakhstan is dark and empty, quiet. Feruza’s shoulders loosen. “Hey, let them out, will you, Zeb? And grab me a rocket pop?”

The men and the woman emerge shivering, incredulous to find themselves already across the border. They stare out the windows at the night.

“I’ve got a great idea,” says the theater director. “I’ve got a great idea for a play.”

“About?” Komil rummages through the popsicles.

“An ice cream truck to freedom.”

“Tricky to stage. Where shall we put it on?”

“Maybe here?”

“Are we all staying here?”

“Only those who want to. Or we could take a boat to Azerbaijan, and on to Georgia. Armenia. Turkey. Anywhere.”

“I want to stay,” says Feruza. “Zeb, there’s so much sky.”

“And a world-class ballet company.”

“Maybe. Komil? What do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter. I stay home and write no matter where I am. Might as well be here.”

“What choice do we have,” says the cartoonist, “with no passports?”

“Hurrah, another country without a free press,” says the journalist.

Feruza turns to the trans woman. “What did you do? To get yourself locked up?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she says, lips sticky with rocket pop. “I forge passports.”

This week, Tim read to me from Murder at Christmas during chemo.