Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

  11

  UNCHARTED WATERS

  The summer dragged on, with day after day of baking heat. Every so often a rough southerly would blast in, the sky would darken, and the temperature would plummet ten degrees in ten minutes. A cool day or two would follow before the heat flared again.

  Since Leonard’s return to work, peace in the household had become less of an effort. They had not discussed what had happened, Sylvie suspected they never would. And besides, what would Leonard say? He loved her, he didn’t feel as if he had betrayed her, he believed these acts of his had no impact on his marriage and family life. And while she was inclined to believe him, they certainly had an impact on her marriage and her family life. The irritations that had niggled over the years had now ruptured. Her comfortable life no longer gave her much comfort.

  It was in this mood, on the evening of a cool change with the rain beating down, that Sylvie telephoned Galina to suggest lunch together the following day. She’d not seen the girl since Christmas, and had no particular reason for seeing her now; but then perhaps she didn’t need a reason — for this or anything else she might want to do. Her husband followed his inclinations, so why shouldn’t she?

  Galina sounded delighted. ‘Your call is such a coincidence,’ she said. ‘I was about to telephone you. To invite you here, to my home.’

  Galina, it emerged, wanted Sylvie’s opinion — not about cooking or furnishings or where to have her hair cut, but about her work. Galina had made a picture book. ‘And I cannot know if it is good or bad.’ There was a long pause with an audible intake of break. ‘I have called this book When Melbourne Meets Leningrad.’ She explained that her paying jobs went into recess over the Christmas–January holiday period. ‘So I have been working with no interruption.’

  Sylvie said she’d be honoured to see her work. ‘Although I know nothing about art, Galina.’

  ‘Galya, please, it is my familiar name. But you are a mother, and you will have seen many picture books for children.’

  Sylvie was about to say her picture-book days were long in the past, then decided not to argue. She wanted to spend time with Galina, and she was surprised, pleased too, that anyone might ask her opinion of anything beyond the domestic.

  The following morning, after making the beds and tidying the kitchen, cleaning the bathrooms and polishing the furniture, after baking an orange cake to take to Galina’s and fixing a scheduling problem for the drivers at the Blind Institute, Sylvie headed across town. Thirty minutes later, she was parking in the street bordering the cemetery. The grassy verge that separated the cemetery from the road had been energised by the recent rain; so too the gracious old elms. She stood a moment, her face raised skywards: she could smell the trees, she could smell the greenness. And the sky was a miracle. The centre of the dome was leaden, but closer to the horizon the grey blanket had puffed into lush white dollops; as she watched, the clouds parted to reveal a wedge of blue so brilliant it was as if the sky itself had been washed. Seconds later, the blue was gone in a whoosh of wind, but closer to the horizon another crack was opening up. The sky was a changing miracle; if only, she found herself thinking, life were equally vibrant and varied.

  She crossed the road and, following Galina’s instructions, walked up the lane. She felt a nervous excitement, that special eagerness when travelling somewhere new — London, Paris, or the home of a Russian émigré in Melbourne, Australia. Sylvie couldn’t migrate to Sydney or Perth with Leonard, much less cross the world alone. This girl had courage and stamina enough to face the most taxing trials. Sylvie wished she had a little more of both herself.

  But for what? The question came to her unbidden. What would she do with more stamina? And what with more courage?

  Once, she had wanted more of life than being a stay-at-home wife; once, she believed marriage to Leonard would bring her more. But now? She strove for perfection in the things that did not matter. Her house was spotless, her linen was folded with military precision, her biscuits never crumbled, her cakes never failed. Even her own son referred to her as a ‘domestic queen’. But if Leonard, or any man for that matter, were to be living like this, he’d be said to be wasting himself.

  She was not a women’s liberationist, women like her were not, but the lives of women certainly needed an overhaul. If she’d been born ten years earlier, she might have found full-time home-making satisfying; if she’d been born ten years later, she might have managed both marriage and career. As it was, she was caught between the demands of her daily life and the desires of her daydreams. She would gaze out the kitchen window as she kneaded pastry, peeled vegetables, or pulled gizzards from a chicken, and she’d let her mind wander far from the view in front of her. It was a trick that simultaneously saved her and, she now suspected, kindled her dissatisfactions. Fuelled by the novels she read and the letters she collected, her imaginings rendered her life even more prosaic than it was.

  Despite those early aspirations of hers, she had, in fact, driven the middle lane throughout her married life, steering clear of any real challenge or change. Whether this was a failure of courage or a capitulation to circumstances, she did not know. But as she stood outside Galina’s door on this cool summery morning, she was aware of the allure of change.

  She smoothed herself down, and was about to knock when the door opened.

  ‘I thought I heard you,’ Galina said with a smile, and guided her in.

  The floor had no covering, neither carpet nor lino, and her sandals scraped harshly on the bare concrete. She noticed that Galina’s feet were clad in embroidered felt scuffs, and wondered if she should remove her shoes.

  ‘At home, we would have a spare pair of tapochki for you to wear,’ Galina said, looking down at her own footwear. ‘Leave on your shoes. It is the Australian way.’ She shrugged, as if to suggest this was just one of many changes she’d been forced to accommodate.

  While Galina made tea — ‘Proper tea in a samovar’ — Sylvie looked around. In truth, she went searching for Galina. She crossed to the open glass door leading to a tiny courtyard. Outside were tomato plants growing in pots, and hanging baskets with geraniums. An odd choice, Sylvie thought, geraniums being one of her least favourite flowers.

  ‘I see you are admiring my tomatoes,’ Galina said. ‘Tomato juice was a staple of our school lunches, and it turned me off tomatoes forever. Then Andrew gave me some home-grown ones, and now,’ she was laughing, ‘I have become a convert.’

  Sylvie moved over to the workbench, where an array of painted pictures was displayed. These were for Galina’s book, she guessed, When Melbourne Meets Leningrad. At the back of the bench was a framed print of Trafalgar Square, and pinned to the wall above the work area were postcards of paintings. She walked over to the bookcase. Here there were four framed photographs: one of a young Galina wearing a red kerchief and standing alongside a woman who, Sylvie assumed, was her mother; another of the mother alone; a third, much older photograph of what might be the mother with her own parents; and the last, a quite recent photo of mother and daughter. There was no image of a father figure. Next to the photos was a pretty enamelled teaspoon, and a well-worn wristwatch that had stopped at a little after 8.35.

  Everything looked as if arranged to a pattern, but then she’d noticed a superstitious side to Galina. At Christmas, as they were moving into the living room after the meal, Galina had tripped, and made an elaborate gesture in the air, ‘To propitiate the gods,’ she explained. ‘Otherwise next time I might really injure myself.’

  ‘I thought Soviets weren’t believers,’ Sylvie had said.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Galina had replied with a smile, ‘it is wise to be cautious. You Australians have an expression for this: two bob each way.’

  Sylvie squatted down to look at the books. Most of them were Russian, and some looked very old. There were also a number of Italian books, and an entire shelf of English books — classics mostly,
including, to her delight, a copy of Wells’ The Time Machine. She leafed through the pages; it was a beautiful edition with marbled endpapers. She turned to Galina.

  ‘This was one of my favourite books as a child.’ She felt herself smile at the memory. ‘I longed for my own time machine.’

  ‘So you wanted to have adventures?’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose I did.’

  ‘And have you?’

  For the briefest moment Sylvie was tempted to open up, but of course it wasn’t possible, not to this girl. She might well be a relative stranger — so much easier to unburden yourself to a stranger — but she was also Andrew’s girlfriend, perhaps even her own future daughter-in-law. She returned the book to the shelf, and shifted the conversation to safer ground.

  ‘How did you choose what to bring?’

  Galina poured the tea and brought the glasses to the table. The question was left hanging, and when Sylvie repeated it, Galina brushed it aside with a brief answer that mentioned hope and guesswork. It was her picture book she wanted to talk about, this book she had created even though she had not really intended to.

  ‘It was the tremendous heat that made me do it,’ she said with a laugh. ‘It was too hot to go outside.’

  She collected the pictures from her desk and put the stack on the table. The sheets were unbound; she turned over the top one so Sylvie was looking at the facing pages of an open book.

  Each page was A4 in size and painted in bright colours. The style was realistic, even hyper-literal, rather like Henri Rousseau, Sylvie thought. There were pairs of pictures on facing pages, each titled in a natty crimson print. A Melbourne beach scene was paired with a Leningrad park in winter, waterskiers with snow skiers, a Melbourne tram with a Leningrad trolley bus. There were pairs of buildings: the Melbourne Exhibition Building with the Catherine Winter Palace, Flinders Street Station with Finland Station, St Isaac’s in Leningrad with St Paul’s in Melbourne, an Australian cream-brick house alongside a Soviet apartment block. Within a single pair of paintings, Galina had incorporated many more differences: in the beach scene there were sea gulls picking at chips, and children playing beach cricket, and a jar of Vegemite on a picnic rug, while in the corresponding snow scene there were children ice-skating, a steaming samovar seen through a frosty window, and ducks waddling across a frozen pond. Other paintings depicted single objects on facing pages: Australian beer was paired with Russian vodka, pasties with pirozhki, a bayside kiosk with a kvass cart, boots with thongs, scouts with Pioneers, and teabags with a samovar.

  Sylvie took her time over each pair of pictures. They were colourful, clever, and, to her admittedly untrained eye, very skilful.

  ‘Your book is wonderful,’ she said at last, looking up from the pages. ‘Every picture is a beauty.’

  The girl was on the edge of her seat. Sylvie put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘You need to resign immediately from real estate drawings and sewing patterns. You’re an artist, Galya.’ She turned back to the pictures. ‘And an educator too. Teachers and parents will love this book. It’s perfect for visual perception, for developing cognitive skills, and such a rich source for discussion.’

  Galina reached across the table and hugged her. ‘I knew you were the right person to ask.’

  An avalanche of questions followed. Galya asked about the choice of certain pairs and the inclusion of certain objects. She asked about the art, too, and it soon became apparent that what she was wanting was reassurance.

  Sylvie grasped the girl’s hand. ‘I would want to buy this book, Galya,’ she said firmly. ‘And,’ she gave the hand a squeeze, ‘I may be able to help you.’

  One of the volunteer drivers at the Blind Institute was the wife of a publisher. ‘I’ll speak to her and she’ll speak to her husband, and if everything goes according to plan, he will ask to see your picture book, he’ll love it, and he’ll want to publish it.’

  Again Galina threw her arms around her. ‘You have made me so happy.’

  ‘I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘I understand.’ Galina drew back. She was smiling. ‘Seems Australia has its own version of sistema,’ she said.

  Suddenly Sylvie grabbed her basket. ‘I forgot the cake!’

  ‘This is not a problem. We can eat it for lunch.’

  ‘You can’t just have cake for lunch.’

  ‘Why not? We can eat what we want.’

  For the umpteenth time recently, Sylvie asked herself who made these rules she had obeyed for so long? And, more crucially, who would care what she ate for lunch?

  Galina made coffee — ‘Coffee is better with cake’ — proper coffee in a pot on the stove, and not the instant powder Sylvie used at home. While it brewed, they talked about Galina’s garden. Sylvie asked about her choice of geraniums.

  ‘I like the bright colours of the flowers, and there is such a big variety. But as well,’ she was smiling, ‘geraniums are commonly mentioned in the English novels I read back in Leningrad. They are in window boxes and garden beds, they are even made into hedges. You do not like them?’

  ‘I don’t much care for their smell,’ Sylvie said. ‘And I suppose I’ve let the smell block out their attractive qualities.’

  A breeze from the courtyard wafted over them as they drank their coffee and ate the cake. Galina broke the silence.

  ‘What sort of work would you choose, if you could do anything at all?’

  What immediately struck fifty-two-year-old Sylvie was the tense Galina used: not What would you have chosen if you could have done anything? but What would you choose? Meaning Choose now. Galina’s English was too good, better than the average Australian’s, for her to have made a mistake.

  As a child, Sylvie had wanted to be a doctor, but girls didn’t become doctors, so when asked she would say she wanted to be a nurse — and wife and mother, of course. She also wanted friends and adventures like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. A couple of years later she wanted to be like Jo March in Little Women, and in another year or two, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, but these remained secret desires. After reading a book about Madame Curie, she wanted to be a famous scientist, and during the period she learned ballet she wanted to be a ballerina like Margot Fonteyn. More realistic ambitions formed once she reached adulthood, like wanting to be a teacher. But now? Common sense and maturity had erased all the old desires, and as a woman deep into middle age, the fire of her imagination was pretty much burned out.

  Clearly, Galina thought otherwise. She was leaning forward, her head resting on her hands, waiting for an answer. Sylvie felt unnerved by the question, probably because she did have a desire, a long-held desire as unrealistic as wanting to be Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet or Madame Curie. Galya was moving her head in a faint, encouraging nod; everything about her was telling Sylvie to trust her.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to write about letters.’ Her voice was quiet, as if it might minimise the desire.

  Galina looked confused. ‘You want to write letters?’

  It took an immense act of will to confess again. ‘No, I want to write about them.’

  ‘This concerns your collection of letters?’

  Sylvie nodded, couldn’t speak, wanted to withdraw the words and return them to secrecy. ‘It’s silly. Just a fantasy. We all have fantasies, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ Galina said, ‘we do, and they are not to be treated lightly, certainly not where work is concerned.’ Galina put her hand on her stack of paintings. ‘Most new work emerges from daydreams and fantasies.’ She smiled, a sweet, encouraging smile. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you want to write about letters?’

  What did she have to lose? It was a dream, and what could this girl do to a dream? So Sylvie let it spill out. How she’d always been fascinated by letters. ‘As a little girl I thought it was magic how mail, coming from far away, would end up in your letter box. I imagined letters flying throu
gh the sky, high above the clouds, swarms of letters that would swoop down and land in a special letter field. And the postman would collect them and deliver them to everyone’s home. Magic.’

  And there remained a sense of romance — the adult’s magic, after all — attaching to the post: the walk to the letter box, the lifting of the lid, the peering inside, and leafing through the bundle for the postcards and proper letters.

  ‘Every letter is a pocket-sized package of a person,’ she continued. ‘You find disappointments, fears, desires, events, relationships, work. You find faraway places and strange practices and unknown pressures. It’s all there in the words and sentences, and of course in the spaces between the lines.’

  Long ago, it occurred to her that she seemed to know more about the strangers in her letter collection than she did about her friends. And the letters seemed to know more about her. These letters written by strangers to other strangers spoke directly to her, they seemed to be written for her. If not for this quality, she probably wouldn’t have bothered with a collection.

  Galya was waiting for her to continue, and Sylvie, realising how much she wanted to talk about this passion of hers, how greatly she wanted someone to be interested, decided not to stop.

  ‘Letters are written without artifice,’ she said. ‘The writers of most letters, and certainly the ones in my collection, have no claims to posterity, most of them wouldn’t even know what posterity is. Yet they’re so revealing. I can read a letter, and know the writer.’

  How much more should she say, she was wondering. But if collectors of Victorian underwear can talk about their collections, and collectors of glass eyes, too (she’d heard both interviewed on a recent radio program), surely she could divulge her reasons for collecting letters.

  She drank some coffee, drew in a deep breath, and started afresh.

  ‘Reading’s an intimate business,’ she began.

  This long-held belief of hers, never before uttered to anyone, now sounded ridiculous. But Galya was nodding, she seemed to be agreeing. So perhaps it was not so stupid. Or maybe it was something everyone already knew.