Boys Don't Cry

Berlin

[Same rules as with Rostock! Foreign junk italicized]

Everything started to go after Karel.

Babi had a heart attack and died in the hospital about a month later.

Mihael found himself missing her and holding in everything that hurt at the short memorial before she was buried. Myrna was holding his hand, and he desperately wanted her to let go so he could warm them in his pockets. Rostock was wet and chilled- it never seemed to end at all.

Danil always had a drinking problem, took care of Mihael- if you can even call it that. Pappa was "too busy" to put something in the oven to eat, and forgot to pick anything up to bring home. Danil was the "disciplinarian, Mihael's sole security", of the house. He'd look over his grades and discipline him, he'd find Mihael in the bath and discipline him, he'd blame the tracked in mud on him and discipline him, especially for treating Myrna lesser. Mihael found himself with frequent headaches and getting teased in the play yards for being clumsy- how could he explain the bruises and how his nose would bleed, or how his head/arm/stomach/foot would ache and he wouldn't want to leave his desk?

"She's your mother now, I demand you treat her with respect!"

Myrna was always around in the daylight, but seldom at night, so he devised a little plan. Sleeping in late and staying in his room gave him much to grieve on with hunger, but did great to ward off attention from her- she would forget about him. When she came in at night, it would happen in the dark. It was worse, but less frequent. She had started to make it hurt as of late.

She never came once Pappa and Danil died. It was an accident at work- no one would tell Mihael exactly what it was. The social worker came to pick him up from school and let him shove what he wanted to take from the apartment in a canvas bag. He took a blanket, all of his clothes (not many, even with his two school uniforms and his rubber galoshes), and Babi's old rosary from before the wall fell. She had saved up to buy it as a mother- a treat for herself, she'd say with her eyes glittering.

He remembered vividly the scramble to each city orphanage, and they were all brimming with children. By midnight, he was stowed away in a big Boys-only orphanage in Berlin. The first night was cold and lonely, the pillow smelled like unbrushed teeth and watery vomit as tears dribbled across his dirty face and into his coarse hair. The rest of his new comrades were sleeping, breathing quietly. He felt a rubber band hit across his head, and another boy sitting up in bed behind him.

"Tie up your hair! Lice is going around- I think it helps."

"Uh... thank you."

He pulled it back, bangs and sidepieces falling into his face. The next morning, he was stripped naked and examined before his scalp was thoroughly examined and tugged on for lice.

"This one has seen some things... Haven't you?"

The small nurse-woman peered over his thighs where bruises lingered. On his prepubescent bicep lay a nasty grip no six year old boy could inflict on his own. Upon becoming a little more invasive, she found scratches in suspicious places, especially given that his fingernails were bitten ragged. He trembled at the touch of her hand and knocked his knees together in slow, useless means of protecting himself.

"Mm, Mikael?... Mihael, is it? Is that right?"

He nodded solemnly, pulling his forearms to his chest.

"You're six years old, now?"

"Yes..."

"You're from Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern?"