Snow Job

by Jenni Ferchenko

  ‘I never knew that,’ I say, stunned, realizing this must be the reason my dad never came to see me … It was just impossible for him.

  ‘Kuznetsova to the exit,’ a commanding voice suddenly shouts. I serenely get up and hobble through the open gate, and meet Sergeant Petrenko’s eyes with poise.

  ‘There’ll be no court hearing,’ he says, straightening his oversized hat on his head. ‘You only need to pay a five hundred rouble penalty. It’s procedure, it’s the law,’ he says, frowning diligently. ‘I can drive you to the city center to pay at the bank.’

  ‘Can’t I pay here?’ I ask, hoping I’ll be able to forget about this experience as soon as possible.

  ‘No, we don’t accept payments here,’ he coughs.

  ‘OK,’ I agree.

  We slowly walk out to the fence, where I am given my phone back. I have several missed call notifications, which have clearly been checked by the glorious security service, including five text messages from Akbar:

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘My wife just wanted to come to the party. What’s the big deal about it?’

  ‘I miss you.’

  ‘Katya, please?’

  But there is no message from my dad. Maybe they deleted it?

  Still no response …

  We drive down dirt roads lined with hovels, passing by a miserable procession behind an old truck carrying a shoddy coffin. I have a sudden, unmanageable impulse to get out, scream, run away … but I suppress it with common sense, letting Petrenko drive me to the bank, where I duly pay the bloody five hundred roubles to a cashier.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE REASON

  ‘Hello,’ I say, perplexed, hearing my phone call finally picked up. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Is this Katya?’ says a young female voice, from very far away … beyond the dune, where a mirage of my dad is dispersing, walking away into a scarlet sunset.

  ‘Yes,’ I answer, leaning on a public bench. ‘Elena?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says distantly. ‘Dad died last night.’ Her voice is childlike, her words like gusts of wind blowing in the grass on this empty square. But a part of me already knew …

  ‘No,’ I gasp, feeling powerless, like a mermaid beached on dry sand. The deep waters I wanted to swim in pulled me under, so deep that I couldn’t see the sun … and now the sun has melted.

  ‘We just buried him this morning.’ She drops the words like red ink into the vacuum of my soul, where nothingness prevails.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say guiltily, my voice frozen. A frame of eternal frost is forming around the emptiness inside me … I just want to die here on the bench.

  ‘Would you like to see my stamp collection?’ she asks unexpectedly.

  ‘Oh … I’d love to,’ I say, shoving my numb leg forward.

  ‘We live on 15 Simashko Street. Can you bring me some chocolate?’ she asks, as if nothing has happened.

  ‘Of course I can, little sister,’ I say tenderly … I promised him to take care of her. That is the only force driving me onwards, on this short walk that feels like the longest ever.

  Why did you leave me, dad? Who is going to love me like you did? I am so tired of being strong. I am only a little girl, who will always mourn her dad, and always be longing and yearning for you. Who could ever compare to you? I love you so much … but what shall I do with this love now?

  ‘Do you need a ride?’ asks a tall, skinny man in shabby clothes, smoking a cheap cigarette in front of an old car.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, exhausted from walking on my crutches. ‘I’ve just found out that my father died.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Here’s two thousand roubles. Could you please go and buy vodka, salami and cheese for the table?’

  ‘That’s too much money,’ he says, looking at the notes as if it was a million dollars.

  ‘Yeah, please also buy a bar of chocolate, the biggest cuddly toy you can find, a couple of T-shirts and any black tracksuit - size M, to fit my leg,’ I say, pointing at the brace.

  ‘OK,’ he nods and disappears, letting me wait in his car.

  For, after all, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else.

  ‘Is the cemetery far away?’ I ask calmly, when the man returns with the bags.

  ‘No, everything is close here … do you want to go?’ He asks me a question I should know the answer to … but the idea of seeing my father’s grave just scares me. Why does he have to be dead? All this time, all this distance, all this struggle … if I could only hug him, only talk to him …

  ‘Yes,’ I nod, fighting my resistance to reality.

  We drive through the deep steppe on a, hidden, curvy road to a field full of metal crosses and plastic flowers, which looks more like a bombsite.

  We are not in picturesque Vicenza. There is a half-destroyed, dilapidated church which one could guess was intended to be in the Renaissance style. A small note on its doorstep asks people to switch off their cell phones, so as not to disturb the peace.

  I walk in, hoping to see something left over from the morning mass, but there is only a damaged wooden floor covered with old village rags … and one burnt-down candle at the altar.

  No one is around. Only graves. The new ones are easy to spot … you just have to look for fresh gravel, plastic flowers, no cross … and no name …

  A few hundred yards away, there are rows and rows of pine bushes, regularly planted one after the other, apparently to start a forest - but the whole place is dry and crumbled.

  But this is where God is … and despite my complicated relationship with him, despite not always believing in him … here He exists.

  ***

  The gate to the small peasant house at 15 Simashko Street is wide open. Changed into a black fake Adidas tracksuit over my dress, I haul myself through a tiny yard, followed by the driver carrying the bags of food, and knock on the unlocked door, which creaks open.

  A few people in black are sitting around a long table, mostly filled with vegetable dishes, in a modest but well-maintained low-ceilinged hallway. They abruptly suspend their hushed conversation and shoot me some hostile looks.

  ‘Katya!’ A tiny blonde kid rushes towards me and throws her arms around my waist.

  ‘Hey, this is for you, lil’ sis,’ I say, pointing at the big blue elephant in the driver’s hands.

  ‘Wow, this is so cool. It’s the biggest cuddly toy I’ve ever seen. Thank you,’ she exclaims, kissing me on the cheek, injecting some much-needed joy into the heavy atmosphere of the room.

  ‘Hello …’ I say meekly, putting a bottle of vodka on the table, next to a big bowl of boiled potatoes generously seasoned with dill.

  ‘This is my mom, Nadya,’ Elena says, leading me to a pale, tired-looking woman with Asian features, wearing a long black synthetic dress.

  ‘I’ve brought a few things for the table,’ I say contritely, letting the driver put the plastic bags down.

  ‘Thank you,’ Nadya says gratefully. She invites me to sit next to her and gives me a plate. ‘Your father really loved you.’ She warmly touches my cold hand.

  ‘I know …’ I say haltingly, as the tears start.

  ‘He spoke a lot about you … and struggled with not being able to spend time with you,’ she says, also welling up. ‘We have an icon of St Katerina in our room. He prayed to it for you every morning.’

  Her words set off a wave of shameless tears pouring down my cheeks, suffocating me with the pain that I’ve cultivated insidefor so long.

  ‘Here.’ A tall Asian man with bruises all over his face gives me a glass of vodka.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, and everyone silently drinks with me.

  ‘The deeper the grief, the closer is God,’ says a frail, elderly Asian woman from the other side of the table.

  ‘Th
e darker the night, the brighter the stars,’ I answer, finishing the famous line, downing another vodka shot, feeling a soothing warmth in my chest … and a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

  For a long time, we sit in silence. The old woman almost inaudibly sings some folk tunes in an unfamiliar language.

  ‘He was a great stepfather to me,’ chimes in Igor, the tall Asian-looking guy. ‘He brought me up like his own son, showed me how to be a man.’ A few weeks ago, such a statement could easily have made me jealous … but now I feel proud of my dad. Maybe he was needed here more … ‘Let the Earth be a feather for him,’ Igor toasts with the traditional Russian saying, and we silently drink again, united in our grief … I feel like my dad is just behind me … and above me … He is everywhere. Not just in one place.

  Nadya sits quietly all evening. At some point she modestly says: ‘There’s a towel for you in the bathroom. You can stay in Elena’s room for the night.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, realizing my father must have been happy here with this woman: caring, humble, not imposing her will on others, content with the little they had.

  Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

  Elena’s room is small and cozy, with girly pink wallpaper, old carpet stretched over puffed-up linoleum, and basic furniture; the walls are covered with her bright watercolor paintings. When I enter she is busy at her desk painting a new one. The big blue elephant is sitting nearby on a low, handmade wooden bed made up with cheap, clean yellow linen.

  ‘You haven’t eaten much,’ I gently scold.

  ‘I have,’ she protests. ‘You know I’m already a grown-up.’ She is completely focused on her painting - an intense, surreal vision in red and black, like a distressing reminder of the explosion … and of my responsibility.

  ‘I understand how you’re feeling,’ I say, ‘You don’t want to cry because you don’t want to upset your mom, right?’

  ‘I was playing outside … on the pear tree,’ she says, abandoning her drawing and getting under the blanket, ‘when Igor told me my father died.’ Her thin voice sounds like a high violin note, piercing my heart.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, feeling total numbness. ‘You’re not alone in this.’ I sit down next to her, wanting to hug her - but she snuggles into the elephant. ‘When father left me, I kept waiting for him to come back,’ I tell her, trying to convey to my nine-year-old sister something really important. ‘I wanted to be the best at school, at sports, with guys … I now realize all I wanted was for him to see how great I was. But the truth is, he loves you for what you are - and he always will.’

  ‘Will he come back?’ she asks sleepily, slowly rolling over to me.

  ‘He never left,’ I whisper, holding back my tears. ‘He’ll always be with you right here.’ I gently tap on her little chest. ‘He’ll appear to you in dreams, as your inner voice, coloring your mind for things that you should go for, and diverting you from things you should stay away from,’ I say, feeling these words are as much for me as for her. ‘He’ll be with you everywhere: at school, in the playground, on the pear tree, at your future wedding with the most amazing man in the world … he just won’t appear physically - but he loves more than you could ever imagine. You just need to feel it.’ I am barely resisting the tide of tears surging inside me. ‘You need to pull through your sorrow. If he sees your suffering, his soul will not rest,’ I weep.

  ‘You’re the sister I always wanted to have,’ she says, hugging me with her little soft arms, so I feel this love … as if our father was hugging us too.

  ‘I’ll always be there for you,’ I say, genuinely wanting to fulfill my promise to help her to get out of here.

  We lie on the squeaky bed, trying to sleep, accompanied by deep muffled voices coming from the kitchen. A tiny beam of light shines from under the door into our low, popcorn-ceilinged bedroom; someone’s passing steps temporarily obscure it.

  Elena keeps twisting and turning, then rolling onto her back and lying there with open eyes.

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ I whisper to her.

  ‘I don’t want to have the nightmare again,’ she whispers back.

  ‘What nightmare, sweetheart?’

  ‘The one where I fall down the middle of a spiral staircase …’ she says, frightened. ‘Then slowly waking up alone in the dark.’

  ‘I’m walking with you,’ I say, taking her hand.

  ‘Tell me about London,’ she asks suddenly.

  ‘Well, there are red telephone booths and royal palaces and everyone speaks English …’

  ‘And radiation?’ she innocently asks.

  ‘No radiation.’ I stumble over the stone in my throat.

  ‘So people don’t die in London?’

  ‘They do,’ I sigh.

  ‘So we all will die? Like dad?’

  ‘Mm … of course not. Dad, didn’t die, he is with us,’ I say, believing my own words and thus feeling more at peace.

  And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking into these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!

  In the morning I get up with neither energy nor appetite.

  Black tea, simple homemade bread, butter and a typical raspberry jam are on the table – the tastes from my childhood loom over me, but I cannot even touch them. Elena lethargically packs her bag and quietly goes off to school.

  Nadya is cleaning an ancient clay oven and Igor is feeding purée to his baby boy.

  A heavy silence reigns in the kitchen, multiplying the bitterness of our loss. I could almost convince myself that Dad has just gone to have a shower, that he’ll soon be back to fill his empty seat … but that won’t happen … and it is too painful to even think about … and it’s all my fault …

  ‘What happened to your face?’ I ask Igor, noticing he has a big bruise on his forehead.

  ‘We got attacked on the job,’ he answers, unwillingly.

  ‘What’s your job?’ I ask, curious.

  ‘I’m a truck driver at the plant,’ he says, giving another spoonful to his impish child. ‘It’s Siberia. We’re used to accidents here.’

  ‘So what happened?’ I ask.

  ‘What happened, what happened,’ he growls. ‘We were passing by the border when, bam!’ - he claps his hands, scaring his son - ‘The truck goes sideways; the big rig’s tires are ripped to shreds on a spiked strip. Sanya, my co-driver, lost control and we drove into a ditch. Idiot, never puts a seatbelt on,’ he frowns.

  ‘They took the cargo?’ I ask, alarmed.

  ‘Yes,’ he affirms, trying to calm down his now crying baby.

  ‘What was in there?’

  ‘I don’t know, probably lithium or some other metal,’ he says, apathetically. ‘They give us the cargo, we deliver it and don’t ask questions.’

  ‘They deliberately blew up the reactors to get the isotopes for the explosives,’ Nadya says with a stony face, scratching the stove. ‘They tested them here in Seversk last week …’

  ‘Test what? You mean the … the dirty bombs?’ I ask, not wanting to believe Akbar could ever be involved in something like this … what if he was? What if the lithium is just a cover to deliver the isotopes to the Middle East?

  ‘None of us will ever be able to leave this city anyway … a few roentgen more won’t make a difference,’ she says, throwing down the sponge in resignation.

  ‘Do you think you could have been transporting some of the isotopes in the truck?’ I say, turning to Igor.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, pausing for a second. ‘There was one blue lead container smaller than the
others, though … they said there were some rods in there.’

  ‘Lithium isn’t transported in rods … it’s got to be radioactive material … dad said his colleague, who recently died, was tasked with putting Caesium isotopes into rods … Where were you supposed to deliver it to? To Italy?’ I ask earnestly.

  ‘To the Belarusian border,’ he responds, simultaneously entertaining his baby, who quiets down for a moment and looks at me with a serious, grown-up gaze, prompting me to get out my iPhone and search through my emails for the waybill.

  ‘Were there four large containers and a small one?’ I ask, looking at the specifications of the shipment in the email.

  ‘Yes,’ Igor nods.

  ‘Could you please look at these dimensions, are they right?’ I ask, giving him my phone.

  ‘Where did you get this from?’ he asks menacingly.

  ‘It’s from the Zilbermans’ representative,’ I say, feeling the tension. ‘I know the client in Libya, Ahmad, from my previous job, who was interested in buying lithium. But I swear I had no idea about the dirty bomb!’ I rush to explain, fighting for their trust, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘I don’t think my client in Libya knew either …’

  ‘How can they not know there’s Caesium in their cargo?’ Igor asks suspiciously.

  ‘They probably want to ship the lithium and non-lithium containers to Tripoli together under the same documentation, so they don’t have to declare the radioactive isotopes,’ I say, realizing this might well be the case. ‘Plus, they use various transportation companies,’ I note, checking the cargo route. ‘I guess once it arrives on Libyan soil the recipient must find a way to get it.’

  ‘So someone you know in Libya is buying the by-products of the reactor explosion which caused your father’s death, and you did not know about it?’ Nadya quietly asks, but her words roar in my ears like thunder.

  ‘I didn’t know …’ I sigh. ‘I should have known … but I swear I never wanted to hurt my dad, not in a million years.’ I burst into tears, unable to keep my poker face under Nadya’s intense gaze.

  ‘Dad wanted me to try to stop the radiation leakage,’ I continue after a long, heavy pause. ‘And I will do it,’ I say firmly. ‘The Zilbermans know they’ll have to fix it first … before my client signs the contract with them.’ I scroll down the document bearing Ahmad’s signature, but decide not to mention it so as to avoid further questions.