The Faces of Strangers (5 page)

“The mind is funny,” Nicholas said. “Your brain is probably exhausted from everything that's happened. You'll be okay, Nor. We'll all help you.”

She looked at his sweatshirt. “What happened, did you get into Harvard while I was in the hospital, boy genius?” Nicholas looked sheepish.

“No, this is the one Claire gave you. I stole it while you were in there, 'cause it smelled like you.” He raised his arms above his head and peeled it off, offering it to her. She accepted it and buried her nose in it.

“Now it smells like you.”

“Really? What do I smell like?”

“Pert Plus and flute oil.”

He sniffed under his arms. “Add it,” he said, nodding toward the notebook. Nora scribbled down the observation onto Nicholas's page. “What about me? What do I smell like?”

Nicholas leaned toward her and breathed in. “Raisins.”

“I don't even like raisins.”

“I know. That's what's ironic.”

“I can't believe I didn't recognize Jason. That was some mind fuck.”

“It's okay. It'll take time. Though if you ask me, Jason is definitely worth forgetting.”

“I guess that's one way of relegating an ex-boyfriend to the recesses of your mind. Or literally forgetting about him altogether.” Nora smiled at her brother, but she could feel tears building in the back of her eyelids, threatening to weaken her resolve, forcing her to screw her eyes shut and bury her face in her hands. Nicholas held her tight, and while she tried to hold her tears in, they burned her eyes as they trickled out from behind her fingers.

* * *

The ironic thing was that when Nora was in high school, she'd known every single person in her graduating class of five hundred. She'd started introducing herself to everyone and, by the middle of her freshman year, waved to everyone in the hallways. That overfriendliness had begun as a defense mechanism at first. Saying hi to everyone seemed less obnoxious than saying hi to no one, so she began associating herself with them all—the cheerleaders, the football players, though she'd never been to a school game. She waved to the kids who dressed in black trench coats and who played that fantasy card game Magic on the sixth floor outside the English department. She waved to the theater kids, and the preppies, and even the teachers—the ones she'd had the years before. The ones she'd inherit the following one. She'd felt strange doing it at first, waving and acknowledging everyone. But that had been in high school. That had been before the accident.

Shortly after she'd been brought home from the hospital, her parents had given her space, encouraging her to take all the time she needed to heal. They let her postpone her return to college until she felt ready. But at the end of what would have been the second semester of her junior year, on a dark overcast Saturday afternoon, Stella had silently placed a few books on Nora's bed and walked out of the room. Nora had waited until her mother's footsteps had faded away down the hall before she vaulted herself out of her desk chair and limped over to read the titles.
Facing Your Fears
,
Understanding Facial Recognition
,
Face Prosopagnosia Down.
Nora had seen it as a personal affront.
This is what you have
, the books were calling.
This is your new label and you can't shed it until you recognize who you have become.
She needed some kind of protection from the elements, from herself, even, so she'd cracked open the covers and learned how to combat this feeling—this feeling of helplessness, of unfamiliarity. There were tricks and tools you could use. But a lot of it relied upon good friends and people that you could trust inherently. And at the time, she wasn't sure she could get that. She didn't know how to talk about her situation. She couldn't very well introduce herself to some stranger that didn't have any specific identifying demarcations and expect them to become friends with her.

She rolled over now and hugged her knees to her chest.
I can't do this.
She swallowed hard, pushing back tears that were poised to spill.
It's too difficult. I want mandatory name tags. My brain hurts.
It was exhausting, having to focus even harder on everything all the time, to have to imprint someone's face onto your brain. It wasn't the way it used to be, where you made casual eye contact upon meeting someone. Now she was forced to devour faces with her eyes.

After a few silent moments of crying, she sat herself up and went into the adjoining bathroom. Her face was tan from the summer, but crying had whitewashed it so it appeared pale and gaunt. She squeezed her eyes shut and examined herself in the mirror. Thank goodness for that beauty spot right on the crown of her cheekbone. But she would never forget her own self, would she? She gripped the edges of the ceramic basin with both hands, feeling as though she herself might sink through the tiles. Her mascara was bleeding down her face; she looked like a sad clown in a Marcel Marceau sketch. A limp washcloth hung from the edge of the sink where she'd left it this morning, and she polished her face with it. A new person appeared, clean of the mask of makeup. It was so surprising to her how different she looked without it, completely new, washed out, as if she'd just been born. But that thought made her start crying all over again.
How can I not even recognize myself,
she asked through blurry vision as she stared menacingly at the mirror, engaging with it, pushing herself to recollect some aspect of who she was, what she looked like. She used to think her features were so striking, but clearly they weren't. Clearly her features looked to her naked eye like anyone's features, because she didn't even look like herself. Not to her, anyway. When was this going to stop? Would this eventually turn into a dull headache that might only pierce the edges of her memory? Her memory was the one thing she had. Other than faces, she remembered everything. Vacations, graduations, those mundane family moments that suddenly seemed so precious. It was faces that escaped her entirely.

* * *

She felt daunted by the day's task of attending this group, already drained by the prospect of conjuring features, memorizing jaw formation and the way dimples poked like divots into faces. She would have to concentrate extra hard when someone addressed her, her eyes keen for signs of nail biting or cuticle peeling that might tip her off on his or her identity. She had promised her mom and Dr. Li that she would attend the group and see what it was all about. She hadn't promised to commit to it, but if Dr. Li thought it would help, she would go. Maybe she'd start to feel a little like herself again. Maybe that light would finally start to turn back on in her life.

NICHOLAS

Tallinn
September 2002

When Nicholas's plane departed after the hour-long stopover in Stockholm, the light had already been waning, highlighting islands floating like clusters of paint chips. Tiny crystals of ice spider-webbed across the glass window, splintering the dark outside into tiled mosaics of uncertainty. With the plane starting its descent over Tallinn, the sun was completely gone, and Nicholas felt the darkness seeping into his chest and sticking to his insides, eclipsing light and hope. He had considered that he might be homesick, but he was more fearful of the unknown, of the foreign, of the discomfort that might await him. He stretched his arms overhead, his fingers striking against the light and air panel. As the plane circled over a postage-stamp-sized tarmac, the fear saturated him completely like a sponge. He focused on shaking it off with the same concentration he used to approach a wrestling match: fiercely and with conviction. But fear clung to him like a straitjacket, pinning his arms to his sides and rendering him helpless.

As he stepped through the doors of the plane, warm air whipped through the slats of the air bridge, attacking him like another fold of ammunition. Even the immigration hall with its warm halogen lights didn't soften the pall that seemed to have settled over him. He handed over his passport with his Estonian visa plastered inside. The control guard scarcely glanced at him or the pages inside before stamping it heavily and passing it back across the divider. Nicholas felt warm and turgid from the compression of the plane as he made his way down a long ramp that led to Arrivals. The hall was practically empty; just a few limp businessmen holding laptop bags and searching for their drivers; flight attendants walking briskly past him, their heels clicking against the floor as they wheeled their bags away from the airport as fast as they could.

Either the passengers on his plane had been incredibly fast to collect their belongings, or no one had checked in any bags. Nicholas's suitcase was the only one making a plaintive, circuitous path, and as he pulled it off, he noticed Paavo walking toward him. Paavo was even wirier than Nicholas had remembered, as though the slightest flick of a finger might upset him. His fine, blond hair was so light that he appeared bald. He remembered how Barbara had mentioned her pleasure with this partner match, how much she had thought Paavo and Nicholas would have in common. Nicholas could hardly believe that he would share any common ground with this boy. He remembered how skittish Paavo had been at orientation, how pale and wan he'd looked, and how that hulking Russian student had come bursting into the conference room to announce that the Estonian boy had passed out in the bathroom. Paavo had been all right—mostly dazed and extremely embarrassed. But Nicholas couldn't help but think that he'd gotten the short end of the exchange student stick.

“Nico,” Paavo said. “Welcome.”

“Nicholas.” He gripped the handle of his suitcase and put his hand out. “Paavo. Good to see you. You feeling better?”

The boy nodded and looked away. “It was nothing that day. I hadn't eaten.” He took Nicholas's hand and reached for the suitcase handle with his left. “Was the flight all right?”

“It was long,” Nicholas said, stifling a yawn.

“I hope you are hungry. Mama has been cooking all day for your arrival.”

“I'm starving. I slept through the meals.”

“Come,” Paavo said, turning toward the door. “Papa is in the car outside.”

“I forgot how good your English is.”

“I told you—mostly everyone in Estonia speaks English. After all—” Paavo turned around to face Nicholas, who stopped short behind him “—it is easy when there are only three words in the English language. What are they?”

“Huh?”

“It's a riddle.”

“Oh. I give up.”

“The English language,” Paavo exclaimed triumphantly. “Get it? One—The. Two—English. Three—Language?”

“Right,” Nicholas said, forcing a smile.

“Anyway, you'll pick up some Estonian while you're here. I think you're taking a class at school. But I can teach you some things, as well.”

“I'd love that.” Secretly, Nicholas wanted the information, vocabulary and pronunciations to travel by osmosis from Paavo's brain to his own so they could skip all the embarrassing times when Nicholas would feel inferior to Paavo, when he would feel beholden. Nicholas had a good ear—that's what Senora Hall told him in Spanish II—but he wasn't sure where his talents lay in a language that sounded as though it had more vowels than consonants.

Nicholas followed Paavo meekly toward the door, feeling as though he were being brought to the gallows. In the small embankment outside baggage claim, the brisk air sent a shiver down his spine. Was it still September in Estonia? It felt so much colder. He zipped his jacket up to his nose, breathing in the salty, damp flavor of his unwashed self. He squinted at the streetlights; their contrast against the inky sky was blinding. A small brown Lada chugged at the curb, streaked with gray stripes of dirt as though it were aging. Paavo swung his suitcase into the trunk and nodded toward the passenger seat.

“Please sit in the front.”

Nicholas opened the door and ducked his head, folding his legs in front of him. The car was warm and smelled like petrol and peppermint. “Papa, Nico. Nico, this is my father, Leo.” The man in the driver's seat looked nothing like Paavo. He was broad and brown and hairy, reminding Nicholas of a big Russian bear. Leo grunted and grimaced, which Nicholas translated into a greeting and a smile. The evasive Estonian smile would emerge eventually. Coaxing it out of Leo would be one of Nicholas's first challenges in the Sokolov household. Paavo's father pulled at the gears, squeaking the car out of the airport road and onto a slip of a highway.

“Don't mind the car,” Paavo said. “Papa refuses to trade in his trusty Russian beast for something a bit more modern.” Leo threw off a few long sentences into the air. Nicholas tensed at the sound. Was that English? He couldn't be sure. Paavo sighed from the backseat and spun off a few of his own, ending with, “Papa, English please. For Nico.”

“Nico, I am saying,” Leo said, shifting the car into the next gear, “that this car has been with us for the past fifteen years. There is no problem with it.”

“It's actually Nicholas,” he said. “And hey, I'm with you. If the car gets you from point A to point B...” he said.

Leo glanced at him. “How was the travel? Are you wanting tired? Wanting sleep?”

“I'll be okay,” Nicholas said, though the moment he uttered the words, he found himself stifling a yawn. “What time is it anyway?”

“Eighteen thirty. We'll take it easy tonight. Mama's made dinner and you can go to bed early. There is a mall where we shop.” Paavo pointed. “And they are building a market there. And another mall there.” Shadowy, mountainous structures sulked in the recesses of deep parking lots. Silhouettes of cranes stood out against the harsh blaze of floodlights. Nicholas could see large pits below them, which would eventually be filled in with cement and the foundations of more shopping centers.

“You've come at an interesting time,” Paavo said. “The city has finally begun to fix some of the damage done by the Soviets, so there's a lot of building and renovating going on.” The land was otherwise flat, but punctuated every so often with a slightly taller structure in the process of being overhauled. There were cranes and heaps of construction material all along the side of the road. The entire city was in a state of flux.

“They have made the old salt-storage building into a museum of architecture, and we have a new multiplex in the city with eleven screens,” Paavo said. “I'll have to take you there.” Nicholas nodded, deciding not to share the fact that there were numerous movie theaters in New York City that boasted multiple screens. Old brick buildings that had been factories, storage space, silos, were being converted into retail space, lofts and offices. In ten years, when independent businesses would start to do the same to factories and large building spaces in the outer boroughs of New York City, it would be considered “hipster” and all associated retail and services would be priced at triple their actual value.

Tallinn didn't look very different than Queens, especially near the airport. The existing buildings—from what he could tell in the darkness with intermittent streetlamps shining through—were monstrous industrial edifices, looming in the background as the trusty little Lada zoomed down the road. There was a cloak of darkness settled over everything, as though in September, the country had already settled into hibernation.

Nicholas had been anticipating a long drive, like the one from JFK to Manhattan that could take more than an hour. But the industrial-sized buildings began to shrink in stature, the road narrowed, and soon they were driving over cobblestones.

“We live in Kadriorg,” Paavo said. “One of the nicest neighborhoods in all of Tallinn. We are very near the park, where there is a castle and a pond and most importantly to most Europeans, a football pitch.” Modest wooden houses began to flank them on either side of the road, making Nicholas feel as though he was entering a fairy-tale village. The houses differed in color, size and design; they'd just passed a moss-green cedar-planked one across from a humble mauve ranch-style. Nicholas found himself disappointed when Leo parked the Lada in front of a plain brown wooden cottage, turned the engine off, and the three sat in the silence as the muffler slowly ticked to a halt. Nicholas dreaded going back into the darkness, but Paavo and Leo had unloaded his suitcase and were waiting for him on the driveway.

“Come, come,” Leo said. “We will be late for dinner.” He held his arm out toward the front door, where a tall woman stood. Her hair was either so blond it looked silvery or so silvery it looked blond. Her rosy cheeks were the only color she wore. Her lips held the trace of a smile, but her head was erect and alert as though she had been trained not to slacken her facial muscles. Nicholas had studied the Dust Bowl in United States History the year before; that famous photo of the woman staring into the distance with children clutching at her shoulders reminded him of the woman's hardened face.

“Tere,”
the woman called to him. “You are welcome.” She nodded, as if she were calling a puppy home from its romp outside rather than her new adopted son for the next four months. Nicholas approached her, and at the threshold, wafts of cooked meat mixed with the stark coolness of outside air. “I am Vera, Paavo's mother. Welcome to Tallinn.” She held out a small posy of orange marigolds. “This is the traditional welcome here in Estonia. You are very welcome to Tallinn and to our home.”

“Thank you. It's good to be here.” He accepted the flowers, clutching them in his fist and expecting to be enveloped into her chest. Instead, she stepped aside so he could enter the house.

He had imagined a warm, cozy gingerbread-like house with antiques on the walls and framed black-and-white photos yellowed with light. But the decor was minimalistic; the white walls provided little dimension to the room, the dining table took up as much room as it needed and while there were casserole dishes and pots on the table, everything else was concealed behind cabinets and drawers. He had only been in Estonia for an hour, but Nicholas furiously missed the chaos of his home.

The same lump that had arisen in his throat when Stella had hugged him goodbye appeared in his throat again, but he swallowed it back. There was no way he was going to cry now. But his body was bucking being here. The tears he blinked back had sent some kind of signal to his stomach and it rumbled like an approaching storm. He had slept through the meal services on the plane, and he was ravenous. He swallowed the saliva that had been collecting in his mouth. He felt light-headed, as though he might faint right there on top of the table.

“Would you like to eat first, or sauna?”

“Sauna?” Nicholas looked around, bewildered.

Vera swiped an errant piece of hair away from her forehead and placed her hands on either side of Nicholas's shoulders. “And will you have coffee or
kvass
?” Nicholas spun around to Paavo, who was stepping through the door, lugging his suitcase with him.

“I... I don't know. What's
kvass
?”

“We have a sauna out back,” Paavo said, breathing heavily from the weight of Nicholas's suitcase. “It was actually the first on our street, but since then, the neighbors have been building their own. It's sort of like our religion. In Estonia, we believe any bad day can be made right with a sauna. It's absolutely best after a long flight. Unless you'd like dinner first?”

“I am pretty hungry.”

“And
kvass
, is like nonalcoholic beer. Papa makes his own. It's delicious. You should try it.” Leo had already poured a stein, which he held out to Nicholas.

“And Nico,” Vera said. “What would you like to—”

Paavo interrupted. Nicholas was able to decipher the difference between the Russian he had spoken in the car to his father and the Estonian he spouted out now. Both had been delivered rapidly, and both had left Nicholas wondering how in the world he was going to catch on in four months' time. Vera pursed her lips and spouted something back. Paavo shook his head. “
Lõõgastuda
, Mama,” he said, pressing his hands in downward motions like undulating waves.
“Lõõgastuda.”

“My son is telling me to relax,” Vera said. “You, too, Nico. You relax. Okay?”

“Sure,” Nicholas said, though the instruction made him tense a bit more, his back going rigid against the chair.

Vera began carting dishes to the stove, ticking the burners on one at a time. Nicholas sat at the round table in the middle of the kitchen, gripping the mug of
kvass
with both hands. The ale had a pale yellow tint with tiny effervescent bubbles escaping to the top of the glass every so often. He lowered his mouth to the lip of the mug and took a sip as Leo and Paavo watched. Caraway seeds and yeast filled his mouth, as though he were drinking a loaf of rye bread.