HER FIRST BULGARIAN OCCUPATION

"My hair stands on end when you’re talking to me," Josie’s adopted daughter Maia has just announced. "I see your face and want to scream." Even if she doesn’t scream, Maia stiffens when Josie walks into the room, more and more since Maia’s breasts began to bloom. Now that she’s crossed menarche, her dark eyes launch spears.

Lately, it’s been even worse. Josie’s house is invaded, occupied, nearly possessed by a stubby Bulgarian woman named Svetla, who is Maia’s birth mother. Svetla dumped the child in an orphanage when Maia was six years old and too much in the way. When Josie fights with Maia now, Svetla is always somehow in the room, watching from the shadows or slipping out the door. Josie’s therapist keeps saying: "The past won’t go away. Try to honor it while you build your new life together. Be patient, this phase can be a struggle." Actually, it’s trench warfare; it’s a world away from the peace Josie feels now only when she watches Maia sleep, turning and sighing, clenching the teddy bear that Robert and Josie gave her on their first night together as a family.

These days thick gray smoke from Svetla’s Balkan cigarettes clouds the air inside the house and makes it stink. Josie feels Svetla at her back, making ugly faces when Josie fights or even talks with Maia about homework, chores, the epic bouts of screaming when Maia doesn’t get her way, the books and toys she regularly hurls from her room, the broken promises or wild threats she makes on the slightest provocation. Nearly every talk ends with Maia shouting: "Shut up, Bitch, I hate you!" or "If you don’t like me how I am, put me in an orphanage. I know you’ll do it someday. See if I care." Then she stomps up to her bedroom. When Maia’s door slams shut, the whole house shakes. From behind the door come muffled sobs, but if Josie tries to enter, shoes are thrown at her, books, balled-up wads of homework, once a glass that shattered on the wall.

Since Maia’s was "an older child adoption," a judge asked: "Maia, do you understand what adoption means? Do you want this new family? Do you want to go to America with them?" Back then, Maia answered, "Yes, oh yes." Now she screams, "I didn’t know what a shitty mom you’d be."

"Too bad!" Josie shouts back when she’s mad enough. "I’m the best you’ve got."

Of course they have some lighter moments. When they shop or cook together, Maia giggles and plays. When she’s sick, she lets herself be held or even read to, old as she is. Once she did concede, "Nobody ever read to me before, not ever." Sometimes Maia takes a pink, sugar-reeking wad from her mouth and waves it at Svetla, right in Josie’s face. "See?" Maia gloats, "I get real gum now!" She crams it her mouth, then blows enormous bubbles. In Bulgaria she pulled chunks of asphalt off the street and chewed them. She didn’t know better and nobody told her not to.

But there were other things she knew. She knew when to leave. Svetla brought men home or moved in with them. If she couldn’t stash her kids with relatives or job them out to neighbors, she hauled them to the newest man. Cramped, drunk, tired of noise, one of these men hurled Maia’s baby sister through the window on a winter night. Maia and her mother scavenged in the dark, feeling the frozen ground through shards of glass until they found the cold, bruised baby, too stunned to cry. At five years old, Maia had a plan: "Let him drink. Pretty soon he’ll fall asleep," she whispered to Svetla. "Then we run away." They did just that, packing quietly, muffling the baby and hurrying through unlit streets to a new man’s house— "my real father," Maia insists.

"Good for you," Josie says carefully to this story. "You knew how to take care of yourself." She doesn’t mention what the lawyer said: this man, if he was her real father, ran away from her birth certificate, leaving no trace of his name behind.

It’s November. Maia’s grades are in free fall. "I don’t care about school," she announces, "I’ll be poor anyway when I grow up. I can be a beggar. And don’t say, ‘Study with Dad,’ because I won’t." A year ago, she’d spend at least an hour with Robert doing homework after dinner, sullen, but at least mildly attentive. No more. It’s also true that after Robert’s promotion, he’s more often gone. He’s gone right now. He just called from Chicago to say he’s sorry, but he’s trapped: a project due to end this Friday will last through Monday. Svetla stays away when Robert’s home. Now she’ll be bold all weekend.

"Oh yeah, right," Maia mocks when Josie explains the change of plans. "I just bet ‘Something came up.’ I bet you even believe it." In fact Josie does believe, but how could Maia, when every man she ever knew either hurt or used or left her? When Josie’s washing dishes, Maia appears in the doorway with Svetla grinning behind her. Maia says, "I bet Dad’s with another woman now. Why should he come home if you’re all stressed and I’m so bad?"

"Ignore the provocation," Josie’s therapist says. "Get out of the house if you need to." Josie needs to now. She goes grocery shopping, then meets a friend for coffee. When she comes home, it’s six on a Friday evening and Maia’s already asleep, her face pressed into the bear. Schoolbooks are spread out on the bed. Josie covers her and hopes for a better tomorrow. Svetla’s nowhere around.

Saturday morning, very late, Josie tries to rouse her daughter: "Maia, remember, you need to rake the leaves before the soccer game."

Turning, groaning, Maia kicks her books on the floor. "Later," she mumbles. "And forget soccer. It’s boring. I dropped the team." By afternoon, a brown curled carpet coats the lawn. Maia’s watching television. "I did rake the leaves; wind must have blown them back," she insists, pointing the TV control at Josie and pressing "Mute."

"Maia," says Josie as calmly as she can, "you know the leaves weren’t raked and there wasn’t any wind today."

Maia screams: "You always say I’m lying! Why can’t you believe me?"

Now Josie feels wind at her neck, her hair on end. Svetla’s behind her, blowing acrid smoke and angry words that Josie’s sure she understands, even in a language she can’t speak: "Forget this Americanski. She’s nobody to you, just documents. It’s blood between us. I’m your real mother. I made you and you’ll be just like me. Besides, one day she’ll take you to an orphanage. Count on it. You’d make any mother crazy, you lazy, stupid, worthless girl." Leaning closer, breathing in the child’s face, she must be saying: "Aren’t you grateful you’re adopted? Why not rake like the nice lady wants?"

Svetla stalks away, leaving Josie and Maia stinking in her smoke, dazed and fighting over leaves again. Josie breathes deeply and tries to remember, as Robert often says, just who’s the child here. I’ll try tomorrow, she’s about to conclude; there’s no point fighting everything today. But now Maia kicks over a flower vase, screaming, "I won’t rake your goddamn lawn, not now, not ever. Get it? Get it!" In the ringing silence all Josie can do is the dull obvious. She writes "no" on a chore calendar provided by the family therapist. Each week has more no’s. "And I won’t get my allowance, you don’t have to tell me," Maia shrieks from the next room.

"Demonstrate cause and effect," the therapist keeps insisting. "Give consistent rewards and consequences. Eventually it sinks in." While Josie demonstrates cause and effect, she hears a banging in the garage, then a fast, hard raking in the yard. Suddenly exhausted, she crosses out the "no" and goes up to her room to read. She should be relieved, she should call Robert to report this little peace, but all she can do is try to read, gripping the book so tightly that her fingers start to ache.

An hour later, when Josie comes down to the living room, she can’t see the carpet — it’s covered with dry leaves. Outside the yard is clear. Maia’s watching television. The leaves beneath Josie’s feet crackle when she walks, breaking up in tiny shards. Now she feels Svetla behind her, close as a shadow. Josie smells heavy rose perfume, tobacco and sweat-soaked synthetics. She spins around. Svetla steps back, pudgy face smirking. This is the first time they’ve been so close. That smirk — Josie sees it daily on a smaller face. She tries to remember that face and how it seized both her and Robert when they first went to the orphanage: Maia’s fragile beauty, her tiny smile and brave lift to the chin, and yet such haunting longing in the eyes, the way her slight fingers slipped into their hands and waited for their grasp.

Svetla points to the curled brown leaves and bursts out laughing. Her bracelets jangle like dull bells. She digs another pack of smokes from inside her shirt. Is she padded with packs? There are a thousand fights to choose from, but this one’s right in Josie’s face: "Don’t smoke in my house!"

Svetla shrugs as if she doesn’t understand. But when Josie bats at the now-black smoke rolling over them, Svetla smiles and mimics: "Don’t schmoke in my house!" Her ashes vanish in the leaves.

Furious, Josie grabs for the smoking hand, but Svetla skitters away to the dining room, crunching on leaves. Stupid, what would I do if I got her, Josie chides herself, shake her like a rag? What good is that? Think of her life, get into her skin, just try. Imagine: poor and ignorant, no skills to sell, no social services in a disintegrating post-communist world, losing her looks, hunting men who’ll trade for room, board, and smokes, children screaming, thrown from windows, chewing asphalt, her lovely little daughter too much noticed by boyfriends, uncles and old men. All this may be true, Josie concedes and yet here’s another truth: two mothers, but one signed papers: I relinquish, I renounce, I give up this child forever. The other signed: yes, we want her, forever. And whose house is this, about to burn, and whose daughter now? Josie shouts to Svetla: "Get out!" She points to the door. This much the woman has to understand: pointing, doors. "Neh," no, Svetla shouts back, stamping her feet and planting herself like a tree in the dead leaves.

The shouting brings Maia, gripping the station changer. Will she mute them both? When Svetla turns to stare at her, Maia’s hard, lovely face begins to thaw and crack, like winter passing, all her pre-adolescent sureness melting down to bewilderment and rage. Now she bursts out screaming: "Why did you give me away? Why? What did I do? Tell me!"

Svetla doesn’t answer, just tugs at her necklace, clacking the beads. All the business with the leaves, all of Josie’s other business shrinks to smaller than a necklace bead. "Tell her why you did it! Give the kid some peace!" Josie shouts. Svetla turns to glare, as if to hush a whimpering child. "Tell her!" Josie shouts again. "I want some peace myself. Tell her, then go! Leave, get out of our house!"

Svetla turns away, but not to leave. There’s a table near the front door, waist high in the crook of the stairway, piled with mail, keys and objects on their way upstairs. Svetla shoves all this aside and climbs onto the table, filling up the space.

"Tell her she can’t stay," says Josie.

Maia translates. Svetla rests her head against the banister and lights another cigarette. "What now, Lady, call the Police?" she must be saying.

"Say I won’t feed her, ever," Josie tries.

Now Maia stiffens. "Don’t be stingy."

"I’m very stingy. This is the House of Stingy, tell her that." Smoke is thicker now, like a cloud. Svetla’s barely visible inside it. Keys fly, knocking, scraping; is she ripping the house down?

"Stop that!" Josie shouts. The smoke clears. She knows what Svetla must be saying: "I would have kept you if I had a house like this."

"Oh yeah?" Maia screams, then slides back into Bulgarian. Josie doesn’t understand a word, but from the little screaming face she reads her daughter’s childhood, pain on pain. Svetla stares, smoking hard. Afterwards, Maia is exhausted; she’s panting and her slight shoulders shake. Josie grabs her, holds her tight and says, "Shh, you’re here now, home. We’re your family. She won’t stay; soon she’ll leave for good."

Maia sighs, pure Balkan teenager: moms and Americans, don’t they get how dumb they are? They think: study hard, do your chores, get a job, pay your bills, don’t mess up and things work out. What do they know of life in her country? Not everything works out. "Maia’s wounds are deep," the therapist has warned them. "I can’t promise that she’ll make it."

"No, Mom, she won’t leave for good," Maia concludes, precisely as she’d say, "No, Mom, I’m not studying."

"Well then," Josie says, "what should we do?"

Maia cocks her head. Is it so rare she’s asked for opinions? Perhaps so. She’s still breathing hard. "I’ll tell her she can stay on the table if she leaves us alone in the rest of the house," Maia hazards. "We could put all that stuff on the coffee table." Josie could have guessed — Maia hates any kind of cleaning, straightening or putting away possessions. She wants everything she owns in full view.

Josie considers the cherry-dark wood of the coffee table, a smooth oval lake, calming to see. "I guess we could do that," she agrees. She and Maia move keys and mail while Svetla glares at them. "And now," says Josie, "it’s time to take the leaves outside."

"No, Mom, it’s not time," Maia answers, seizing the remote. "It’s time to watch TV."

"Really?" says Josie. "Think about it." She makes herself leave the room and find a long, noisy job in the kitchen. An hour later, most of the leaves are out of the house and scattered back on the lawn.

For the rest of the day, each time Maia stomps past the table, she barks into the smoky cloud: "Why? Tell me why!" From the cloud comes, "No," or "I don’t know." Never more than this. On Sunday afternoon, Josie and Maia rake the lawn together — grimly — but they do it.

Svetla slowly drifts away from the table and finally out the door, although the acrid smoke remains. Seasons pass and clumps of curled old leaves remain as well, in corners or sometimes crunching underfoot, even if Josie and Maia do lay out a few clear paths for daily use inside their living room.