LESLIE WHAT

UNCLE GORBY AND THE BAGGAGE GHOST

 *
Leslie What's short stories have appeared in Asimov's, F&SF, and several
regional publications. She has just finished a mainstream novel, and promises
more short fiction soon.

 *
About "Uncle Gorby & the Baggage Ghost," she writes, "The search for self
sometimes begins too late. My father's death made me feel as if the one resource
I needed was locked away in a private library, closed until further notice. I
sometimes wonder if ghosts aren't reference materials, accessed by memory,
imagination, and wishful thinking. In any case, I believe in ghosts, and always
look forward to hearing from them -- especially when they bring me good story
ideas."

Katya had been thinking about the little boy next door since the day last week
when she had learned he had been fathered by a turkey baster. This knowledge had
left her unable to enjoy her vacation, spent birding in Death Valley.

She deplaned and walked through the airport concourse. The carpeting, a deep
blue, looked more like sky than the sky. Katya stared past the floor-to-ceiling
windows to the outside, where a commuter plane taxied in a shimmering haze of
incomplete combustion. A plane circled and she watched, as if viewing a mirage
from inside a glass of water. She imagined her goldfish, Vlad, saw the world
this way: as liquid reality.

Vlad, with his tail rot and red-rimmed eyes, an unwelcome gift from Katya's
ex-lover. The fish had managed to survive her benign neglect for over a year.
Vlad was probably at that moment peering out his curved bowl, begging the little
boy next door for a serving of fish flakes. The boy had volunteered to watch
Vlad while Katya was away.

She walked toward the baggage claim, but paused when she noticed several sets of
imported Matryeshka dolls on the other side of the gift shop window. She slipped
inside the shop to browse. One set of Matryeshkas, with Gorbachev on the
outside, had been marked down by half. The newer sets featured Yeltsin, with a
smaller Gorbachev nested inside his belly. Soon those sets would be marked down,
Yeltsin moved inside instead of out.

Gorbachev had always reminded Katya of her father, who was born in Russia but
had moved to the States in the fifties. She had not yet bought him a Father's
Day present, yet here it was, already the November after. She might have
forgotten entirely about Father's Day, if not for her obsession with the boy and
his turkey baster father.

The boy, named Anther, had visited Katya in the morning of the day when she left
for vacation. He had asked to play with the smallest Matryeshka in her
collection.

She gave him the set of five nesting dolls.

"Wish I had my own one of these," he said, several times.

Katya, hearing the hint in his question, raised her voice, "Is that so," she
said, annoyed. She really needed to pack, and did not want to pay him any more
attention.

Anther, a small boy who had yet to grow into his adult ears and teeth, wore his
dark hair short in front, with a rat's tail braided down the middle of his back.
"We learned about Russia in school," he said.

The wooden dolls snuggled in his lap as he took them apart. The largest, about
ten inches tall, was painted with a red peasant dress and a yellow and red
flowered shawl. Inside that -- a doll wearing painted purple and green. He
worked the dolls apart quite gently until he found the baby, swathed in a
painted yellow wrapper and no bigger than his little finger. With the baby
nestled in his palm, Anther rocked his hand back and forth.

Katya heard a knock at the door: Anther's mother, Noni, who poked her head
inside. "Hello," she called to Katya. To Anther she said, "It's time to go
home." Noni wore her black hair spiked high, a section shaved out around the
middle. Anther called the style "The Stature of Liberty."

Katya tried to help put away the dolls, but Anther shook his head and pushed her
hand away. "No," he said, quite deliberately. "I'll do it myself."

So Katya invited Noni inside. Noni sat on the couch beside her sons Katya took
the wooden rocker. Noni's confession began innocently enough. "Those are very
nice," Noni said about the Matryeshkas.

"They remind me of my father. He was born in Russia."

"That's one thing about a turkey baster," Noni said with a quick glance toward
Anther. "They don't remind you of anything, except maybe Thanksgiving." She
laughed. "Course the good thing is, you don't need to remember your baster on
Father's Day."

"What do you mean -- turkey baster?"

"I like to joke it was medical grade," Noni said, and laughed. "Five donors
contributed sperm. My partner at the time helped me mix their semen in a plastic
bag. We sucked the semen into a turkey baster and my partner inseminated me.
That's how I got Anther."

Katya stared at Anther, preoccupied as he worried the outer top-half of the doll
into its counterpart. "Doesn't he wonder who his father is?" she asked.

"What's to wonder?" Noni said. "Anyway, we think of him as the donor, not the
father."

Then Anther asked, "Think I could watch your fish while you're gone?" Katya's
stomach twisted. She understood what it meant to practically grow up without a
father.

"Feed him once a day, but not very much," she said.

"Oh I will. If you want, I could even change his water," Anther said.

The trip to Death Valley had been a bust. She had not met anyone interesting,
and the thought that maybe men weren't necessary in the scheme of things had
kept her awake several nights. Katya told herself now that she was right to have
let the boy care for her fish. Anther would have been scarred for life had Vlad
starved to death in her absence.

"We've had a lot of interest in those dolls," called out the woman from behind
the gift shop counter. "Especially after Gorby bit the dust. Collector's item,
you know."

"Really?" Katya asked, torn between wanting to keep the dolls or give them to
her father. He had left Russia as a young man, abandoning his elderly mother to
come to America.

Katya often wondered if there might be other relatives still living. Her father
was quite secretive, and if there were relatives, he had never mentioned them.
Katya didn't even know his real last name; he had been given another at Ellis
Island. She had not seen him much since her parents divorced when she was only
ten. Then five years ago her mother died, and her father remarried someone not
much older than Katya.

She looked at her Gorbachev doll and stared into the painted eyes, the dimpled
cheeks, the balding hair pattern shaped like a U from the back. The painted
birthmark lay in exactly the same place on his forehead as the place where she
remembered her father had a brown mole. She suddenly realized that Gorby was the
spitting image of her father. The two men were related, as sure as there were
little green apples and children conceived with kitchen tools. Uncle Gorby.

She paid for the doll and held the package cradled in the crook of her elbow.
Then she heard a voice over the concourse loudspeaker, telling her to pick up a
white courtesy phone. She found a phone on the rental-car counter near the
baggage claim.

"Hello," Katya said, and gave her name.

"Your stepmother has been trying to reach you," said the operator. "She knew
that your flight came in today. We asked that she call you directly, but she
insisted that we tell you this."

"Sounds just like her," Katya said.

The operator spoke softly, and the noisy terminal made her voice sound as if it
were wrapped in tissue paper.

Katya held the receiver close to her ear. "Speak up please!" Katya shouted. "I
can't hear what you're saying."

"I have very bad news," said the operator. "I'm really sorry to be the one to
tell you this."

"What is it?" asked Katya. People rushed past her to stand before the baggage
claim. The carousel began to turn. Katya tapped her fingertips on the receiver.
"I have to hurry, my luggage is coming. Please, speak up!"

And then the shouting, bare as a present given in a cardboard box. "Your father
is dead," the operator said. "Dead," she shouted. "Do you hear me now.'"

"That can't be," Katya said. She looked across the expanse of blue carpeting,
and knew it was untrue. There, sure as sky, was her father. He turned his face
away, but she clearly recognized his wide shoulders, his tan suede coat, the "U"
at the back of his head. He hadn't aged a day since the last time she had seen
him, two Christmases ago. "He's right there!" Katya cried as she hung up the
phone.

She ran forward and thrust her arms to part the row of people standing before
her. Two lanky pre-teen boys blocked her view.

"Excuse me," she said in her most pleasant tone of voice. When neither one
moved, she shoved her arms between their two T-shirts, now hunched together over
one match.

"Guy," said one of the pre-teens, who managed to squeeze more than one syllable
from the word. "Have a cow, why don't you?"

Her father had vanished, and not only that, her luggage was missing as well. The
luggage was the only good thing to have come from her relationship with her
boss, the ex-lover who had given her Vlad. He had won Vlad at the county fair on
their only public date, the same night when he promised to leave his wife of
twenty years. He had not kept his promise and had, in the end, abandoned Katya
for a younger lover, a new hire in personnel.

Her clothes, her half-finished mystery, her birder's field guide, her camera bag
with ten rolls of exposed film she'd been meaning to develop -everything gone.
She watched the empty carousel complete its cycle, then begin again. The area
cleared, and Katya stood staring at the carpet, swimming alone in a deep blue
nylon sea.

She hated airports, filled with people leaving without saying goodbye to one
another. She traced the Matryeshka's outline through the paper sack, her fingers
lingering on the crease where the parts fit together. At least now, there seemed
no reason not to keep the doll.

Katya looked around her living room, somehow different than one week ago. Anther
had piled her mail on the coffee table beside Vlad's bowl. Vlad picked up his
pace and swam the circumference of the bowl, greeting her with the goldfish
equivalent of tail-wagging. She looked through his glass to watch the red blink
of the answering machine's reflection in the water. She sucked in her breath,
then exhaled slowly as she sat on her couch and reached to press the button and
listen to her calls.

The Singles Warm Line called to ask how she had enjoyed birding with their
group. Could she come to a potluck in one week? Her secretary called to let her
know the office was running smoothly. The next call was from her stepmother
telling Katya what she already knew.

"Honey," her stepmother said, "I have very bad news. Call me when you get in,"
followed by another call that said, "Sweetheart, I don't know how to tell you
this. Something terrible has happened." And the last call: "The funeral is
today. You've never been there when he's needed you."

Her father dead? On top of that, the lost luggage, and now the horrible
realization that the last thing she had to remember her father by were these
calls from his widow. Katya played the messages back, then flipped off the
machine to prevent the tape from being accidentally erased.

"Did you miss me?" she said to Vlad without emotion. She had not missed him. She
unscrewed the fish flakes cap, but accidentally spilled in half the container.
"Eat up," she said, beginning to feel hungry herself.

Katya unwrapped Gorbachev and set him on the coffee table. She heard a child's
voice and looked out her living-room window, where she saw Anther, home from
school. Soon she heard the familiar clatter as he set his bike on her stoop,
then knocked on her door.

She hurried to answer with a chipper "Hello."

"Here," he said, thrusting a handful of snapdragons he had picked from the
flowerpot on her stoop.

"Thank you," she said. "Would you like to come in for some ice cream?"

Anther walked inside. He was very clean, except for a little mud on the bottoms
of his sneakers. She thought of asking him to remove his shoes, but clean
carpeting no longer seemed to matter.

A question burned within her: "Don't you ever wonder about your father?"
Instead, Katya asked, "Chocolate, or vanilla?"

"Vanilla," he said. His toothy grin made Katya feel guilty; she knew that Noni
did not believe in feeding the boy sugar. Anther pointed to her new Matryeshka,
and Katya nodded, meaning he could play with it. She walked into the kitchen and
dished out ice cream topped with marshmallow sauce. She brought the bowls back
to the living room. Anther sat in her rocking chair, she on her couch. "Excuse
me one minute," she said. She dialed her father's number and let the phone ring
until her stepmother answered on the tenth ring.

"So," Katya said. "What happened?"

"I suppose you heard by now your father died," her stepmother said. "Funeral was
yesterday. Had a houseful of mourners, then. Not much to do about it now. If you
lived close by you could take home some of this food before it goes to waste. I
wish there was some way to ship it to you."

"I'm sorry," Katya said. "Do you want me to come?"

"Well, it's a little late for that, don't you think?"

Katya stared at her ice cream. "Did he say anything . . . about me?"

"Now Katya, don't start this again. I didn't make a transcript, you know."

"How?" Katya asked. "How did he die?"

"Dropped dead of a heart attack," her stepmother said. "Ate himself to death."

Katya said good-bye.

"Aren't you going to eat your ice cream?" Anther said.

"No," she answered, and handed her bowl to him. She noticed Vlad had stopped
swimming and lay belly up, his red eyes gone white. "Vlad is dead," she said, as
if noting it for an official record.

Anther brought the spoon to his mouth. "That's too bad."

Katya took Vlad's bowl away to empty into the toilet. She flushed and watched
him swirl in the tank, before spiraling downward into fish hell.

"Where's Vlad now?" asked Anther when she returned.

"He went for a little swim," she said.

"Oh," he said. "Maybe we should drive to the pet store and get another fish. I
could pick one out."

"Maybe," she said. "Finish your ice cream first."

Katya joined a support group for people who had sighted their relatives after
death. in all there were twenty: five members. Their leader, a woman named
Sunny, made her living as a clairvoyant who performed past-life regressions. She
explained to Katya the five stages after death.

"Denial comes first," Sunny said. "Where you don't really believe someone is
dead because the hospital wouldn't let you in to view the body, so you suspect
they made a mistake."

It turned out that this had happened to one young man, who swore that the nurse
had pronounced his mother dead. He found out hours later, when the doctor made
his visit, that the nurse had been wrong. The shock of it all was what ended up
killing his mother.

"The second stage," Sunny said, "is anger. Where you find yourself furious every
time you see someone older or fatter than the relative you've lost."

"It isn't fair," said the plump woman sitting beside Katya. "Why did my in-laws
get to eat French Brie and live? And my poor husband, dead at only fifty-eight."

Bargaining, Sunny said, was probably the most embarrassing one to admit. "You
plead with God to take your cheap uncle instead of your father, because your
cheap uncle never bothered to send you a birthday gift, even though you'd sent
presents to him and his wife, and their three children -now grown --for twenty
years."

There was depression, the stage the support group told Katya they thought she
was stuck in. Food was one cure for depression, or shopping, or time, or
anti-depressant drugs.

"Don't worry about putting on weight," the woman who had lost her husband said.
"It's better than taking up smoking."

"I'm not sure I agree with that," said the man whose mother had not really been
dead. He pulled out a cigarette from his shirt pocket. "Smoking's not so bad,"
he said with a look toward the plump woman, "compared to other things."

Last of the five stages was acceptance, but there were no guarantees one could
get to that one, despite having gone through all the others.

"But this didn't happen when my mother died," Katya said. "Why didn't I see her
ghost?"

"Maybe she had nothing left to say to you," Sunny said.

After the meeting, Katya drove home and ate a bowl of ice cream while she
listened to her stepmother's voice.

"Honey. I have very bad news. Call me when you get in." Katya listened to the
tape, and after, could not get to sleep.

She saw her father's ghost the next day, when she took Anther to the
"It's-A-Dollar" store in the mall. She found It's-A-Dollar a great place to shop
whenever depression overwhelmed her and she needed retail therapy, but didn't
have much cash.

She gave Anther a five and kept thirty dollars to spend on herself. That was
enough to buy twenty-nine items, which the salesclerk packed into the large pink
plastic tub Katya had picked to hold her purchases. Anther chose four plastic
hockey sticks and a blue flowered tissue holder for his mom.

She led him toward the exit. They debated over whether to stop and buy a
half-pound of bridge mix or spend the money on an Orange Julius, Anther's
choice. Then she saw her father standing in front of Hickory Farms with his back
to her, barely two hundred feet away. Her father had once told her how much he
liked their beef-stick, which reminded him of the salami his family had cured
back home in Russia. She remembered little of that conversation. "If I'd had a
son," he had said, or something like it, "I'd have taught him the butcher
trade."

"Hurry," Katya said, gripping Anther's arm. She pulled him roughly toward the
tan coat, toward the 'U' of hair. She waited her turn behind shoppers clogging
up space at the sampling counter. When she finally stood at the front, her
father had vanished.

"You forgot to get a fish," Anther said as she led him toward the parking lot.

Anther spent Friday night. He and Katya had changed into their two-piece pajamas
and were playing their third game of crazy eights when Katya asked, "Do you ever
think about what your father was like?"

Anther laid his cards face-down on the coffee table and reached toward the plate
of brownies they had baked right after dinner. 'I don't have a father," he said.

He stuffed a whole brownie into his mouth and the crumbs dribbled down his shirt
and onto her carpeting. As Katya watched the boy eat, she felt something gnaw at
her stomach.

"Everyone has a father," she said, her voice tight and high.

"You don't," he said. He grabbed at the plate.

"But I do," Katya said. "I do have a father. I've seen him," she said.

Anther shrugged. "I believe you," he said. "Can I have some milk, please?"

"Yes," she said. "I'll get it."

She walked into the kitchen and looked at an old picture of her father which she
had taped to the refrigerator. Katya touched the glossy paper and felt a chill
course through her. She felt so very alone, almost as if she were an incomplete
being, like a Matryeshka whose halves did not fit together.

She opened the refrigerator to pour Anther's milk With the door open, the
light's reflection formed a halo over her father's head. A lightness started in
her chest, then floated downward toward her belly. It occurred to Katya that she
ought to write to Uncle Gorby, ask if he remembered a brother -perhaps someone
who left suddenly --someone the family no longer talked about. She wondered if
her uncle had children of his own.

She brought out Anther's milk. "Excuse me for a minute," she said, then dialed
her fathers number.

"Hello," her stepmother said.

"Hi," Katya answered. "Could I ask you something? Where exactly in Russia did my
father say he was born?"

"I don't know, honey. He never talked about that."

"But I heard him talk about Kiev once," Katya persisted. "When I forgot your
wedding. Father said something like, 'If I had a son, he could learn a trade
just like my father taught me back in Kiev.'"

"No," her stepmother said. "It wasn't quite like that, as I recall it, and I
remember the day quite clearly. It was my wedding, you know."

"Well, what exactly did he say?" Katya asked.

Her stepmother hesitated. "Now do you really want to go over this again?" she
said. "Honestly. I warned him he was being too harsh."

"Tell me," Katya said.

"Now honey. I hate dragging this out again. He said," she began, "that he wished
he had never had a daughter."

"Oh," Katya said. "I guess that's right. Maybe you mentioned that once before."

"Water under the bridge," said her stepmother.

"Was he still angry with me when he died?"

"Of course he was angry. But you know deep down inside he really loved you."

"Yes," Katya said. But she didn't know, not really.

She had Anther brush his teeth and she laid out his sleeping bag atop the sofa
cushions. He clambered inside, smiling up at her as she smoothed down the pillow
and turned off the light.

"Goo'night," he said, his voice tentative and small. She resisted an urge to
lean over him and smother his forehead with tender kisses.

"Good night," she said, and walked to her room. She sat at her desk to begin her
first letter to Uncle Gorby. Wouldn't that be something? she thought. Wouldn't
Daddy be pleased if I found his brother? She put her pen to the paper, but her
hand shook from cold, and she found it difficult to write.

"Dear Uncle Gorby," she began at last. "It might come as a big surprise to learn
you have family in the States. Perhaps you could come visit. There's something I
want to talk to you about." She shivered and tucked the hem of her pajama top
into the waistband to ward away the chill.

And then a voice floated above her, clear and real. "I am all right, my
daughter," her father reassured her in his broken English.

"Daddy?" she asked. "Is that you?" Katya looked around her room, but saw
nothing, except maybe the flicker of the floor lamp. She felt close to tears as
she hunched over her desk, hugging herself.

The lamp crackled and the light sputtered off. Katya closed her eyes to the
darkness of the room.

"Daughter," said her father. "Why are you doing this ? I am gone and you cannot
bring me back."

"How could you leave without telling me goodbye?" she whispered. "How will I
know if you forgive me?"

"I will, if you forgive me," he whispered, and at once the cold lifted. She felt
her father's countenance, noticed the slightly sour aroma of leather, the
prickling feeling on her cheek like a kiss. She warmed inside an unconditional
embrace as her father took her hand and led her toward her bed to sleep.

There was a weak knock on her bedroom door in the morning. Katya stirred as
Anther asked, "Are there any brownies left?"

She opened her eyes and sat up quickly in bed. "I'll make you breakfast," she
said. "Oatmeal, with bran added. Fresh fruit, whole wheat toast."

She heard him groan. "What time is my mom coming to get me?" he asked.

"Later," she said. "Aren't you hungry for something healthy? How about waffles?
With real maple syrup?"

"Great," he said. "Health food, just like at home."

She followed him into the kitchen. He plopped into a chair and she walked past
him to the cupboard. She heard a crunch and lifted up her foot to look. Anther
had been playing with her Uncle Gorby doll and Gorby's head had rolled off the
table and onto the floor.

She cried out, a high-pitched moan.

"It was an accident," Anther said, as he stooped to grab the broken head. The
face was cracked down the middle, and the back of the head had broken off.
Anther handed her the pieces. "I was going to put it away."

She clutched Gorby's head; her breath quickening. "What have you done.?" Katya
screamed. "You little bastard!"

The boy looked up at her and his lips quivered in slow motion. His eyelids
welled with tears, and he pulled up his shoulders as his body convulsed.

She cradled Gorby in her palm, tracing the cracks with her fingertips. Her dad,
her lover, her luggage, her goldfish, Uncle Gorby -- all gone. And now she was
about to lose Anther.

She set the broken Matryeshka doll on the table and placed her arm across the
boy's back. "I'm so sorry," Katya said, but he did not calm at her voice. "I
didn't mean it. Please don't cry." She patted Anther's back and felt him start
to relax. His breathing caught in a shudder, then returned to normal.

"It's okay, sweetie," she whispered. "I can glue the head like new, and then you
can have the doll to keep."

He looked up at her, and smiled, halfheartedly. "Really?" he asked. "Do you
promise?"

"Yes," Katya said. "I want you to have it."

His eyelashes were shiny. He hugged her tight around the waist and she felt his
warm tears seep through her pajamas. "Wait till I tell my mom," he said.

"Your mom," Katya answered, having almost forgotten that he had one.

"You're my very best friend," he said.

She smoothed down his hair. "Your best friend," she said, disappointed. Yet even
that was better than nothing.

"Did I ever tell you that I always wanted my own set of Matryeshka dolls?"
Anther said.

"Yes," Katya answered. "You've told me that before."

He pulled away and moved to open the refrigerator door. "So, what do you want to
do today?" Anther asked as he rummaged inside.

"I want to go shopping" Katya said. "I need to buy something."

"Like what?" Anther asked.

"I don't know. Maybe something for the singles potluck. I just need to shop. It
doesn't really matter what I buy."

"I understand," Anther said. "My morn does that, too. But we could buy a fish.
You do need another fish."

"Yes," Katya said. "You're right. That's exactly what I need." She brightened.
She would find a smarter fish, maybe something tropical and pretty.

She squeezed past him to the counter, where she heated up the waffle iron and
started the batter. The fragrance of vanilla, freed by baking, filled the
kitchen as she cooked the waffles to a light oak color. Katya gave Anther a
small plate with one waffle, a tablespoon of syrup drizzled over the top. She
kept the other waffle plain for herself.

"Can I have seconds?" Anther asked, before he had finished eating.

Then he helped her with the dishes, and after, ran ahead into the living room to
straighten up.

She left him alone to change. "Get ready," she said. "I'll be there in a
minute." She dressed and joined him at the front door. On her way out, she
turned around, feeling as if she had forgotten something.

She walked back to the coffee table and cleared away enough room for a small
aquarium.

"Katya?" he called from the stoop.

"Just a second," she said, and looked outside the front window. The day was
clear and sunny. She took a step toward the door, then stopped and reached
around to plug in her answering machine. It was ready now, in case anyone
called, wanting to leave her a message while she was out.

Dedicated to the memory of Kent Patterson