The Girl and the Dark Corner

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Dedicated to all the homeless children around the world...

She was eight years old. A very thin girl, and always dirty. When her mother was sober and kind, she called her Ela, stroked her head, and fed her with rusks and sausage scraps. When her mother was drunk, she smelled bad and swore like a sailor, kicked her and called her Ida.

One day her mother came home, her face beaten and bruised. Her mouth was bleeding.

“Oh Mom, does it hurt?” Ela-Ida asked fearfully. “Why are you bleeding?”

But her mother said nothing. She sat down in the corner of their little room and began to sob under her breath. The little girl started to crawl around her, tried to peer into her mother's eyes. The woman stopped sobbing and stared at her angrily.

“What do you want from me?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“I want to eat,” answered Ela-Ida in a quiet, frightened voice.

“Again?!” screamed the woman, erupting in a hysterical fit. “You're always hungry, huh? Do you think I don't get hungry?!”

Out of habit, the girl hid shrank into a dark corner under the table. She didn’t want to anger Mom. She was afraid that her mother would start beating her again.

“Get out, you devil seed!” Her mother didn't want to calm down. “You're an adult already. Leave, and go look for your food yourself!”

Ela shook her head desperately. But her mother still pulled her out from under the table. Then she dragged her to the subway station and pushed her into the first car they came across.

Ela-Ida had never been in the subway before. She got very scared when everything around her suddenly began to rumble. She screamed and screamed, but the roaring did not stop. A random man took her by the scruff of her neck and slapped her sharply in the face. Ela fell silent. She was afraid that the man would hit her again, but it turned out he meant well and soon pulled her out into the streets.

It was already dark, but Ela-Ida still bumped into a passer-by on the street, reeking of the familiar smell of alcohol.

“Where's home?” Ida asked him.

“There!” answered the stranger and, belching loudly, waved in the first direction that took his fancy.

And so, Ela tried to go home. As she stumbled along the dimly lit streets, she grew colder and more tired. In the darkness, she could not see a thing, and bumping into the concrete slabs of the heating mains, she almost fell into an open manhole. The white steam billowed from the opening.

“It is warm over there!” Ela thought to herself and, finding a metal ladder, climbed down the hole to warm herself up and rest a little.

***

Ela never found the way back home. Not knowing where to go, she returned to the manhole. At least it was warmer than outside in the cold streets.

In the light of day, Ela-Ida discovered that one of the corners of her new dwelling had an old and tattered mattress, jammed between the pipes. She dragged it out and spread it next to a hot pipe, which she covered with wet cardboard and fragments of old plywood, so she would not burn herself. The cardboard dried quickly and became warm. Now she could sit on the mattress, pressing her back against the heated cardboard wall. It felt good.

As a distraction from her pangs of hunger, Ela-Ida began to inspect her new home. She noticed that steam came from some pipes, but not from others. There were also a lot of huge faucets. Ela-Ida did not have the strength to turn them, not even a bit. The outside light coming from above spread out unevenly on the dirt-laden floor. This left one of the corners in constant darkness. In this corner, there was a hole in the floor with black, stinking water in it. Ela-Ida poked a stick deep into the water, but could not reach the bottom.

“Deep,” she thought, and just in case, moved further away from the dark hole.

The stick that remained floating on the water suddenly sank below the surface for no reason.

“Who's there?!” Ela asked fearfully. “Give back my stick!”

Some bubbles burst on the water, but the stick never returned. The sharp smell of rotten meat wafted from the hole. Ela-Ida shrank from it, retching. Her empty stomach cramped as it tried to vomit up nothing. She retreated from the dark corner and lay down tiredly on the mattress. Making herself as comfortable as she could, Ela curled up into a little ball just like a kitten and tried to fall asleep.

And she had a dream, but it was hazy and disturbing. Ela dreamt that she was eating... She ate and ate, and couldn't get enough...

***

Ela woke up during the night because the water in the pipes started making loud noises, and gurgled and bubbled in the stinking black hole.

“Oh, no! Now that terrible Zid will come and drag me into the water like he dragged my stick under before,” she thought, shaking with fear.

Afraid to move, she peered into the darkness with growing terror, but she could not see anything in it. A scary thought gripped her: What if Zid had already gotten out?

She tried to get up, but for some reason, could not. Without warning, in the dark corner, something wet slapped loudly along the pipes. A disgusting stench immediately filled the entire space. Ela's stomach spasmed anew. Again, she tried to get up, and again she failed. Fearing that Zid was about to grab her, she began to sing, hastily adding some words to the song. Sometimes her gentle singing was interrupted for a moment as she seized by another convulsive spasm.

Nevertheless, the noise in the pipes gradually stopped. Only the gurgle in the hole opposite remained, growing louder. Ela suddenly realized that Zid was quietly singing along with her, gurgling with his stinking bubbles in the water. But as soon as she interrupted her song and tried to listen to him, the gurgling immediately stopped.

“Maybe he's shy.” Ela thought and continued to hum quietly. “Sleep, my dear, kind Zid. Sleep, my sweet friend, sleep...”

Zid started gurgling again, singing along softly. His gurgles gradually faded until he fell asleep.

***

In the morning, Ela found a bun, laying on the dirty cardboard that she had draped over the pipes. The bread was damp and smelled bad, and yet, to Ela-Ida it was the most delicious thing in the world.

To thank Zid for his gift, she again went into his dark corner and wrote his name on the concrete wall with a piece of red brick. Actually, she wanted to write: "Zid! Thank you a lot!" But the brick made a very bad pen, and Ela could only manage to write "Zid".

The girl also presented this brick to Zid, by throwing it into the black, foul-smelling water. A grateful gurgle showed the gift was accepted.

***

Zid started coming every night. Sometimes, in the morning, Ela even saw his wet footprints on the concrete slabs. Each time, closer and closer to her mattress...

By now, Ela was not afraid of Zid anymore. She believed that Zid loved her. She thought that he might be lonely and very sad.

Now they often sang together at night. And sometimes Ela tried to teach Zid how to talk. He was bad at it, and all he learned was to call her by her name.

“Hel-l-la-ah.” meant that he was calling for her.

“I-t-t-a-a-ah.” was his whisper, to say goodbye.

Zid often left her gifts. Usually, these were buns and crackers, but once he even left real oatmeal cookies. It was not a lot of food, but Ela was afraid to ask him to bring more. She was afraid that Zid would kick her out if she would eat too much.

Ela gradually got used to the nasty smell that came from Zid, and soon she even began to find his stench pleasant. Ela told Zid about herself, her mother and her former home, and once even admitted that she always dreamed of having a doll. Ela secretly hoped that Zid would give her a doll, as he had given her buns or cookies.

Instead, Zid returned the stolen stick to her, placing it silently almost at the sleeping girl's feet. It was the same stick as before, but by now covered with green ooze and gnawed in several places. And smelling strongly of Zid.

Ela found some torn, dirty rags in one of the corners of the chamber and swaddled the stick as if it were a doll. She knew that, if Zid had a real doll, he would definitely give it to her.

***

One day Zid did not leave in the morning. Ela knew he was hiding behind a pipe because she saw the dim outlines of something black and wet peeking out from the deepest shadow in the darkness.

“Zid,” she called quietly, not daring to approach. “Come out, Zid!”

But Zid did not move. The darkness made him almost completely invisible, and that made Ela very sad.

“Zid,” she said again. “I know that you are beautiful, Zid!”

“H-e-e-e-l-a-a-a-a-a…” Zid's call was a barely audible whisper.

“He's calling me,” decided Ela. “If he wanted to say goodbye, he would say Itah!”

“Helhhhhhhhhh...” Zid complained sadly. “Helhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...”

Ela got up slowly from the mattress and crawled on all fours towards the dark corner.

“H-e-e-e-l-a-a-a-a-a…” repeated Zid and stripped slightly.

Ela got a bit scared and stopped halfway. From behind the pipe, there suddenly appeared something black and disheveled, from that distance looking like a bunch of wet feathers.

“H-e-e-e-l-a-a-a-a-ahh…” moaned Zid plaintively and turned.

The wet feathers rustled softly down the pipe, and Ela could hear water hissing. At the same time, the smell of something burning filled her nostrils.

“Hhh...” Zid sighed resignedly.

“I see now! You're an angel, Zid!” Ela exclaimed delightedly and boldly continued on her way into the dark corner.

“I-t-t-a-ahhh...” Zid answered her gloomily and abruptly fell back into the black stinking water like a big shapeless sack.

Blup!

***

Ela woke up in the evening because someone was climbing down the metal ladder into her home. She screamed in fright and rushed to the dark corner in the hope that the kind Zid would save her. The person who descended into the bowels of the camber also let out terrified scream. He then shone a mercilessly bright lantern into the dark corner and destroyed the comforting darkness.

The terrified lantern-bearer was just a worker checking the pipes. The beam of his lantern snatched out from the darkness the image of a small, wild creature that was once an ordinary child. This dirty, skinny girl, screwing up her eyes in fright, pressed her whole body against the cold concrete wall that had the strange word “Zid” scrawled on it.

***

Ela-Ida was shipped off to a boarding school. She constantly ran away from there, but not homeward, like most other children. She went looking for Zid. The details of the incident faded with time, and Ela could never find that exact spot on the heating main. She was constantly caught and dragged back to the school.

Gradually she became “rehabilitated”, as her high-minded doctors cleverly said. They did not believe in angels and could only stand amazed at how the little girl did not die of hunger in that terrible place where the heating network workers accidentally found her.

For a long time at night, it seemed to Ela-Ida as if Zid was calling her quietly from the darkness. Little by little, even this faded away...

She grew up to be a gloomy, misanthropic teenager. It was very difficult for Ela to approach or communicate with anymore. She worked at a factory where the boarding school had sent her, but in her free time, she was continually searching. She was looking for that one place, with a dark corner – so mysterious, and so dear to her heart.

Once, having stumbled upon another similar place, Ela-Ida looked down, hopefully, but this particular place did not look familiar at all. At that moment, an old woman passing by her suddenly lamented, taking the girl by the hand.

“Oh, my dear! Just imagine – a little girl was found down that manhole. Oh, the poor, poor child!”

The shock of realization stung Ela like an angry wasp. Leaving the granny alone with her lamentations, she went down the ladder in two leaps.

Everything was clean in the chamber – no mattress, no stick, no plywood or cardboard. Ela lit a match and gazed into the darkness, holding her breath.

There, on the shabby concrete wall, written in the clumsy handwriting of a child, was a single word: “Zid”. Ela immediately rushed to the wall, lighting another match along the way.

“Zid!” she shouted, feeling tears well up in the corners of her eyes. “Where are you, my dear Zid?!”

But her cries went unanswered. On the floor in the corner was a huge metal sheet covering the hole, tightly welded to the pipes that went down under the slabs. And nothing more.

People don't believe in angels. And especially not the stinky ones...

***

original russian text by Daniel Vice, 2004

english translation by Daniel Vice, 2021

translation edited by Johan, 2021