"Mandarin House" (Prologue)

"Look, Daddy, look!" The girl in the pink sundress points her finger at a deer that has just disappeared behind the trees.

"Daddy, was that a dog?" Teia asks, bursting into wild laughter at her own question.

"No, sweetheart, that was a deer."

"I'm a little deer," Alexa says, placing two index fingers against her forehead, demonstrating imaginary antlers to confirm her words.

Teia smiles uncertainly and asks, "Daddy, are there many deer here?"

"Well, we have at least one in our car," the father replies, nodding towards Alexa, then continues, "In the state of Pennsylvania, there are many deer, around three million, and they often cause accidents."

"What's Pennsylvania?" Alexa asks.

"And how do they cause accidents?" Teia asks. "Well, they often run onto the road and cars hit them."

"Poor deer," Teia concludes, "they must hurt a lot."

"What's Pennsylvania?" Alexa repeats, adding, "And is a million more than a hundred?"

"But what about the people who get into accidents because of the deer? Don't you feel sorry for them?"

"No, I don't feel sorry," Teia replies, "if deer could drive cars, then they could hit people too, but they walk on foot, so they can't hit anyone."

The man chuckles and ruffles the girl's hair. "Daddy-Daddy, come on, what's Pennsylvania, and how many is a million?" Alexa persists, bouncing on the passenger seat as if on a trampoline.

"Pennsylvania is a state in the USA, which borders other states, like New Jersey," the man answers, touching his daughter's shoulder to calm her down, "it's after Trenton, after we crossed the Delaware River, Pennsylvania begins. The river is a symbolic border between the states."

"So are we in a different country now?" "And do the deer get banned from Trenton?" Alexa struggles with the letter 'R,' so in words where it appears, she simply avoids pronouncing it.

"No, why would they? It's all one country."

"But why have these borders then?"

"Sweetie, people on Earth are always trying to separate something: they divide the planet into countries, they divide themselves by nationality, religion, skin color, who eats meat and who doesn't, they even categorize based on who prefers a certain brand of phone or clothing." "What foolish people," Alexa remarks, "isn't it better to be together? Deer don't behave like that, do they, Daddy?"

"No," the man replies, lips curving into a smile as he evaluates his daughter's reasoning.

"Then deer are smarter than people," the older daughter concludes, satisfied with her deduction, and takes out a piece of chewing gum from a paper wrapper, starting to unwrap it. Meanwhile, the white Dodge Ram enters Interstate 95, gliding on the darkening asphalt past Bensalem, Andalusia, Torresdale, passing Holmesburg and Tacony, and other neighborhoods in the northeastern part of Philadelphia.

"Wow, so beautiful!" exclaims Teia as they approach the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and to their left remains a massive red building with an image of the American flag and an equally large red pipe.

"Central Phila," Alexa reads from the green sign on the road, "are we going to Central Philly?"

"No, sweetie," the father responds, "we're heading to California." He tells Teia to wake up Mom.

"Cal-i-for-nia," Alexa mysteriously pronounces each syllable, as if it were an incantation, and continues to chew her gum with particular determination. Meanwhile, Teia disappears beneath a homemade canopy that separates the car's cabin from its cargo space.

"Daddy-Daddy, Mommy's not breathing," suddenly says Teia, her head popping out from under the blue fabric. The corners of her lips droop, and her eyes look imploringly at her father. The man looks over his shoulder and doesn't say anything.

"Maybe Mommy's just sound asleep," Alexa suggests, her gaze fixed on the shimmering lights of the skyscrapers on Market Street.

"No, she's not sleeping," Teia replies, "she's all cold and stiff, like a stone." The man tries to reach behind the seat, where his wife lies on a fold-out bed, to check if this is true. By touch, he finds his wife's long hair scattered on the pillow and traces her neck and the line of her neck, checking for a pulse.

"I think, girls, that Mommy has passed away," the man concludes, as a doctor might.

"That's bad," Alexa sighs heavily, as if not speaking out loud but pondering over it. She pinches a piece of chewing gum between her fingers and pulls it out of her mouth, like rewinding a cassette tape.

"Why did she die, Daddy, she was so young and not sick?" Teia asks, settling more comfortably on the lid of a portable cooler between the front seats.

"People die, sweetheart, not always when they're sick, although that often happens," the parent responds.

"And it's not about how old they are, whether they're young or old. They die when people stop thinking about them."

"Think-ing-ing," Alexa repeats, and simultaneously, like a shredder tearing through paper, she stuffs the gum back into her mouth, resembling a cookie monster from Sesame Street at that moment.

At the border between the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware, their car is pulled over by the police.

"Your documents, sir," says the officer, who has just approached from the passenger side, carefully studying the driver, his behavior, the car's interior, and the items within it. He notices a large number of mandarins scattered throughout the cabin: most of them are on the seat, some on the floor mat, a couple on the dashboard, and a few in the side compartment of the door. The officer asks, "Are you traveling alone, or do you have other passengers?"

He takes out a flashlight and shines it near the driver's face, making sure that his appearance matches the photo on his driver's license.

"I'm traveling alone, officer, hauling cargo from Newark to Fontana, California," the driver responds calmly, almost melancholically.

"Is the back door of the van open?"

"Yes," the man replies shortly, and the police officer walks away. In the right side mirror, you can see how he, along with the flashlight beam, disappears into the darkness, his shadow vanishing behind the car's rear fender.

Almost immediately, a muffled click and metallic creaking sound of a door opening can be heard. The flashlight's glow penetrates through the canopy and scatters on the windshield. The driver feels the floor of the car sink a bit, which corresponds to the sensation of someone climbing inside.

The officer returns, his disappointment evident in his expression. The policeman thinks, "Strange. This guy really does seem to be traveling alone, but when he drove past me, I could have sworn I saw him gesturing and looking at someone. It's as if he was interacting with someone, touching someone." Aloud, the officer says something else, specifically: "You were probably so engrossed in a phone call that you crossed the dividing line a few times and drove onto the shoulder." He finishes with the routine phrase: "Are you feeling well?"

"I'm fine, officer. Sorry, I must have been a little tired," the man responds, while thinking, "How did he not notice the woman's body? It was right in front of him."

"You should take a rest," the policeman advises, "to avoid causing an accident." Privately, he thinks, "There's something off about this guy, but if there is, let it be another patrol's concern, and in a different state."

Out loud, the officer adds, "I'll give you a warning, because your rear left turn signal isn't working, and two clearance lights on the roof are out. Try to get them fixed soon."

This road, it's been every year of his life, and it's been different over these six years. Rainy. He remembered how tropical hurricanes caught up with him several times in Florida and Louisiana. Sweltering almost every summer, be it Laredo in Texas or everywhere in the state of Nevada, where you'd roll down the window at speed and feel the air scorch your hand like it came from a hairdryer.

Foggy roads often came in spring and autumn in the northern part of Texas, only at night, and he remembered how he'd stop until morning, waiting for the rising sun in the east to melt the impassable milky wall.

In the winter months, the most dangerous stretch was Wyoming, snowy and windy. The winds blew here year-round, forcing you to slow down, threatening to overturn the car with their gusts. At the Salt Lake City pass, there was a spot with a long descent where accidents happened many times, catastrophes on a grand scale.

For six long years, he lived on the road in his "Mandarin House," as he affectionately called his car. Six unbearable years he didn't see his children and his wife, and now that he'd found them again, she was gone.

In the rearview mirror attached to the windshield, the driver kept catching his own gaze. In the dim light, his eyes seemed sunken, glassy, like a dead man's, black as if devoid of whites.

New, yet already deep wrinkles on his forehead from the bright American sun formed uneven lines, like those depicting waves on ancient Greek clay amphorae. And he was a new hero of the Iliad, another Odysseus, having left home, family, now slicing through the spaces of the unknown beneath and before him, sailing toward a horizon that was receding from him just as continuously as he was trying to reach it.

The mere thought that his wife, even if dead, was beside him in the darkness of the van—lying there motionless, covered in the dust that had settled from the upholstery—led him to a thought as sinful as it was desired. He reluctantly pushed it away, remembering how many times in the past he'd awakened her from sleep with passionate kisses, while she still didn't fully understand what was happening to their bodies.

Just before Nashville, from under the partition's canopy, first emerged Alexia, and then Teia. The girls looked completely different, significantly older. They had transformed from 5 and 7-year-old little ones into charming teenagers. The elder daughter slumped into the passenger seat, her slender and quite long legs no longer fitting as before. She tossed them onto the dashboard and leaned her fingers against the glass. She worked her jaw greedily, like a press, and as before, continued to torment the flesh of her chewing gum. She wore a white dress, quite short, enough to cover her sharp knees and rounded calves, clad in fair skin. Blonde hair cascaded in waves down the shoulders of the daughter, and her bangs were held with a thin strip of metallic hairpin.

"You've gotten so gray, Daddy," Alexia only said and slightly lowered the window. Immediately, a warm breeze of night and fragrant Tennessee air rushed into the cabin.

Teia didn't lag behind her sister in any way, wearing dark blue shorts and a white T-shirt with the inscription "Virgin."

"Where have you been all this time?" the father exclaimed in amazement.

"We were hiding," Alexia replied shortly, and after glancing at her sister, she smiled.

"From the policeman?" the parent asked.

"No! From what policeman?" the elder daughter was surprised, looking at Teia with wide-open eyes. "We were hiding from you."

They laughed at each other.

"Where are we going, Daddy?" Alexia continued her questioning.

"We're going to Monterey, sweetie."

"And what's Monterey?"

"Monterey is a city in the state of California, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean."

"Cool!" Alexia exclaimed. "I've wanted to go there for a long time."

"Why are we going there, Dad?" Teia asked, pressing her cheek against his hand and occasionally sniffing his armpit, saying "yuck" each time, then sniffing again, scrunching her face, and wrinkling her nose wings once more.

"We're going there because your mom always wanted to see the sunset there."

"You're so funny, Daddy, - the elder daughter smiled, - she's dead now. How can she see the sunset? She can't even walk."

"That's okay, - the father replied, - Daddy will hold her in his arms, and we'll all go to the ocean together."

"And leave her there?" - the teenager exclaimed in excitement.

"That's a great idea, Teia. You're amazing!" - the man laughed and playfully tried to pinch her nose.

"Dad, stop it!"

They stopped at the "Johnny Cash" rest area. Among all the attractions there was a small one-story building under a gray roof, a telephone booth with a black receiver on a thick cord, attached together with the apparatus to a metal plate, and pathways leading in different directions among the grassy turf and massive stone flowerpots.

He didn't dare to go to the part of the van where his wife lay, not out of fear, but because he had nothing to say to her. They all slept together in the front seat, and the man woke up earlier than the others because he felt someone stroking his head. In the dim light of early morning, a thick fog spread before him, eating away at the ground, and it seemed like there was nothing left beneath, as if they were clouds and they were already in the sky.

When a soft knock came at the window, he flinched. Through the narrow slits of his half-closed eyes, the man saw a woman he had once loved deeply, a woman who was now dead. She stood there, semi-naked in a thin, semi-transparent nightgown, looking at him through lowered eyelids and smiling. There was something demonic, sinister, otherworldly about her. The dead woman pressed against the glass, and instead of the steam that should have condensed on it, tiny ice crystals appeared, like frost.

"Daddy," Teia addressed the man, having fallen asleep on his chest and probably awakened by the knocking. "Who is that, Daddy? Is that our mommy?"

The father struggled to shift his gaze to his daughter, but instead of her, he saw a bloodied infant, as if it had just been born, its eyes glowing red, and huge yellow teeth stacked on top of each other gleaming in its mouth.

He must have awakened abruptly, sitting up with a shout. There was no one around, only a young African-American man changing garbage bags in the green steel bins lined along the sidewalk. The janitor was so engrossed in his work that he seemed oblivious to everything happening around him.

"Teia, Alexia," the man tried to call out, but no one answered.

And once again, the road stretched ahead, and once again, the loneliness remained with him, an ever-present companion.

Most of the day, Texas landscapes flew by the window, always different no matter which direction you were headed. The southern part drowned in marshy forests, intersected by the deltas of coastal rivers. Closer to Mexico along the southern border, the humid climate gave way to dry, scorching heat. Palms grew more numerous, standing in lonely groups, waving their tufted heads high into the sky, bidding farewell to travelers.

Approaching San Antonio, the man once again noticed how a gentle swathe of blue fabric rose, revealing the sun-kissed face of a girl with bright red lipstick on full lips and hair braided into thick Cuban cigar-like African braids.

"Who are you?" the man asked, somewhat bewildered.

"Quite amusing, daddy," replied the girl, examining her tight-fitting white jeans.

"No, really, there will definitely be a stain," she added, then proceeded to chew something with diligence.

"Alexa, is that you?"

"Oh, come on, dad, of course it's me," exclaimed the grown-up daughter. "You act as if you didn't recognize me, huh? Your little deer. Forgot?"

Her laughter rang out in the cabin, and from under the blue shawl came another lovely head, dark-haired, with cascading loose locks, big eyes, and a smile on sensually outlined pencil-like lips.

"Teia?" the driver asked.

"Ignore it," Alexa said to the girl. "Dad's just joking today."

"Hi, daddy," said the younger daughter, her deep, velvety voice resonating through the car's windows.

"Hi, Teia. Hi, Alexa," the man responded with difficulty, not understanding what was happening.

"So, are we still headed to Monterey, daddy?" the owner of the African braids asked. Without waiting for an answer, she added, "And Teia's getting married soon. You know, daddy?"

He looked at Teia's face, now flushed either from embarrassment or joy, and felt tears welling up in his eyes.

"Don't cry, daddy," his daughter's deep voice sounds, and she adds somewhat randomly, "don't cry, mom will definitely wake up."

She strokes his hand and presses her hot cheek against it.

"Boys shouldn't cry," Alexa observes seriously, pulling a long tape of chewing gum from her mouth.

In the night, merging with the horizon, the red lights of wind turbines glow. They flicker like the identification lights of aircraft, and their white silhouettes rise above the valley, disturbing the air with the movement of huge blades.

The enormous moon hangs in the sky like a hole in the surface of black fabric. "Black holes exist for sure, and probably, just like the moon, there are also white ones," the driver muses, inhaling the air in the cabin, filled with the scents of hair lacquer, perfume, young girls' skin, and the old cracked leather of the seats, much like his own skin.

"Daddy, why didn't you come for us earlier? Teia and I grew up without you for six years."

And he doesn't know what to say to them, and the only thing that comes to mind is that he got lost.

"Got lost?" the older daughter skeptically asks. "You have a navigator on your phone, and you could have bought a map."

"Well, you see, my dear, sometimes a person, when they're not living their life right, can easily get lost even with the most detailed map."

"I don't know," Alexa says and opens the window...