I began reading… The first things to enter my mind were not pictures, but sounds. And the barking of dogs… Some kind of weeping… not human weeping, but the weeping of a violin… My brother and I, we'd run out of the house, sit on a tree stump and listen. We lived on a hill. Surrounded by the taiga. In a military settlement: a few houses for officers, a commissary in the center, and soldiers' barracks. Down below was a prison compound. A camp. In the evening someone there played the violin. Papa said: «A music professor from Moscow.» The first real music of my life. We didn't have a radio, or a gramophone and records, I'd never heard music like that before. As if someone were playing not down below, but up above… In the sky… And the barking of dogs… The camp was guarded by fierce Alsatians. And there were watch-towers…
We had a good view from up above, it was interesting.
«Look what a big bird house,» my brother pointed.
«Where?»
«Over there. A man's sitting in it with a rifle.»
Mama found us and led us away…
Papa treated sick horses. The winters in the Urals were bitterly cold. Men streamed into the taiga. In endless columns… gray… black… They were going to work. The work was backbreaking. In the taiga they made trestles out of logs, then pushed timber-loaded trolleys on metal wheels along that wooden road to the main road. There the horses helped, they pulled the draughts to the station stop. Papa always said: «I'm sorry for the horses. Car engines will stall in the cold, but these are animals.» Men in the columns collapsed. The Alsatians got them up, forced them to stand up… Black Alsatians, black men… Some of them would strip naked, their bodies exuding steam… That was how they protested when they no longer had the strength to work… Or else they wanted to die without anything on… without those black clothes… I don't know… And I still don't understand… One man put his hand down on a stump… And chopped it off… They picked up the hand, tied it to his back and made him walk the whole way to the hospital. Six miles from our settlement… Papa told us about it…
Once we saw an Alsatian tearing a man to pieces… A man who'd collapsed… «Wolf! Wolf!» I screamed. «People, help! Help!!»
Mama found us and led us away…
When Stalin died, everyone was afraid. A neighbor came and told Mama. Mama began to cry. But one officer… he was so happy he started dancing… He laughed and danced by the commissary… They locked him up in the guardhouse… (Pauses). I was a little girl… but I remember this clearly… Two men walked out of the compound carrying something. One was young, the other old. They stopped. My brother and I were playing nearby and I had two lumps of sugar in my pocket. I jumped up and ran to them. I gave them to the young man. He smiled. The old man began to cry.
Mama found us and led us away…
Maybe that's it, um-hum… From then on… from then on whenever I saw a lot of men, at a train station or a stadium, I always thought of that… Even now… I think of that… Decades later… (Happy or sad, you can't tell). I didn't pick a very good husband either. I didn't fall in love with him, I felt sorry for him… We met at a dance; he was five years older. I'd just started university, he'd already finished. He would walk me home and then stand around, he wouldn't go away. I'd look out the window and he'd be standing there in the dark, when I turned out the light he'd still be there. He froze his ears off that winter. I wasn't planning to marry anyone yet, certainly not him, but he said: «Without you I'll become a drunk. I'll fall apart.» And, actually, as soon as we became friends he stopped drinking, stopped smoking. His sisters — there were four of them, he was the only boy in the family — couldn't get over it: «He loves you, he's become a different person. Completely changed.» I thought so, too. That spring, on my birthday, he arrived with two buckets of flowers, he'd carried them around the city that way: a bucket of bird cherry in one hand, a bucket of lilacs in the other. «You're crazy!» I couldn't stop laughing. «Marry me. I'll fall apart without you.» Mama tried to talk me out of it:' That's how he is now, but one day it'll start all over again. He'll go back to drinking. And you'll feel sorry for him. My mother knew me through and through. But we got married… Maybe that's it, um-hum… I was fond of him, cooked him delicious meals. The house was always neat. I baked the pies he liked. I thought: that's what love is. A clean house and hot pies. I wanted a daughter first… The doctors made me happy: «You're going to have a girl.» I moved into my belly… (Laughs). My soul moved into my belly. Mama's advice: «When you've had your baby, ask them to bring it to you right away and make sure you kiss it. You may not want to, but you must. If you kiss it, you'll love it.» They brought me my daughter and I kissed her on the cheek. One child… Then another… A boy… My heart was full… I thought: and this is love… But he began to drink. A lot. Life was hard enough and now he wasn't bringing any money home. We lived in Perm, a big industrial city. When we were first sent there after university, it was considered well supplied, but gradually everything disappeared. Food, things. You'd walk into a store and there wouldn't even be any cans, no canned vegetables, no canned fish, nothing but three-quart jars of birch juice. As soon as any meat turned up, there was a huge line, if you started to complain — that you'd been given a bad piece or that the meat was old and refrozen — you'd be kicked out of the line. Take it, or get out of here! Everyone was angry. I guess I'm strong… A good friend of mine couldn't take it: «Life is hopeless. My husband drinks.» I remember the moment… I'm strong… He got down on his knees: «I'll fall apart without you.» I didn't believe him… not anymore. I decided to get divorced… He didn't fall apart, he found another woman who took him as he was. Here any man is in demand… Like after the war… Still… But two years after we'd divorced we were still living together in the same apartment, two small rooms — we couldn't swap them for anything. On days off he'd buy himself a carpetbag full of wine, cheap apple wine, and stretch out on the couch. Come evening I couldn't help saying: «Go eat something. You'll die of hunger.» I felt sorry for him… That was my whole first marriage… My whole love… (Laughs).
I was left with two children: a daughter in first grade and a son in kindergarten. Somehow I didn't complain, I was used to it. Whether or not I had a man in my life, the children were always my responsibility. Every year I took them to the sea, to Sochi. I never bought myself new clothes, I economized wherever I could, I wanted my children to grow up healthy. I scrimped all year to pay for our vacation. If I took them to the sea, they didn't get sick, if I didn't, they'd be home with colds all winter. And that was that. I met my second husband in Sochi; we're still together. Whether it's love or not is hard to say… I know that the woman has to feel sorry for the man… Or maybe it's just the men I meet? (Laughs). The only strong men I see are in movies… On posters… In the Marlboro ads on TV… (Laughs).
We were lying on the beach. I felt wonderful: the sea, the sun. The children were in heaven. Bronzed, beautiful, my son looked like a little black boy, that's the kind of skin he has, it loves the sun. One day, a second day… A week… Some guy was following us around, if we went on an excursion, he'd go too, if we went into the restaurant, he'd sit opposite us. Every morning we'd look for a new place to try to lose him, but he'd pick us out of the crowd. He always found us. Maybe that's it, um-hum… How can you escape fate? You can't… My son cut his foot on a sharp stone and we stayed home for a few days, didn't go to the beach. We read stories. One evening the landlady of the apartment where we were staying called to me: «Come quick!» I went to the door and there he was.
«Good evening! I found you!!»
«What of it?»
«I was afraid you'd gone away. And I don't have your address.»
«What do you need my address for?»
«I'm going to write you letters…»
«…»
«What are you doing?»
«I'm reading the children a story.»
«May I listen?»
«…»
No one ever courted me the way he did. Like in an American movie.
He took me to the most expensive restaurant. We danced a lot. It was raining. We were the only ones there. We danced by ourselves: «See, I reserved the whole restaurant for you.» No one ever kissed my hands the way he did, every finger. Over and over again. He even kissed my footprints by the sea… In the sand… The first night we talked until morning… His young wife had died of cancer two years after they were married. His father, too, was in the military and had always been working. His mother raised him. His mother had wanted a daughter and brought him up like one, he was her only child. He played with dolls until he was ten and he still likes to buy them as presents. But to look at him, he was so manly, so strong. And dashing. My soul began to sing, it never had before, though my soul is easily stirred. Just touch it! Touch it and it starts to ring and sing. But at the end of the vacation I came to my senses: «I have two children. No! No!» And that's how we left it… I went to Perm, he went to Chita. We were hundreds of miles apart. I thought I'd never see him again. It had been a wonderful dream… And now I'd woken up… And didn't remember the dream… I remembered something colorful, sunny, nothing real… Just a dream…
Six months went by… He called me every day… Courted me and courted me! Every day: «I love you.» And I got used to it… I would just be thinking of him and the phone would ring. He also wrote to me. Every day. I have a suitcase full of his letters. Then he came to visit… I went to meet him… I forgot my gloves in the taxi. It was chilly out. October. He got off the train… Smiling for all he was worth… He took my hands and started warming them… Kissing them… That night he confessed: «I saw your hands and I was stunned. Everything inside me stopped.» We passed a flower shop and he bought me a bouquet of lilies. By the time we got home it was lunchtime. We sat down to eat. We laughed. Talked about last summer. Suddenly he stood up: «I feel so well here. So comfortable.» And headed for the door… As if someone were calling him… Then something absolutely incredible happened… He began to fall… Arms flailing in all directions… For a second I thought: what a joker, now he'll try to pull something! But he was already on the floor. «What happened? What's wrong with you?» «With me?» He only half heard me. Then he lost consciousness altogether… Now I was frightened: I didn't have a phone then. By the time I got down from the ninth floor, by the time I found a pay phone… A man I barely know comes to see me, and dies… Dies in my arms… I didn't know where to run? What to do? I shook him by the shoulders and screamed:
«Wake up! Wake up!»
«What's the matter?» he opened his eyes.
«Were you joking?»
«I don't remember anything. I only remember coming here…» He got up and sat down on the couch.
«What's wrong with you?»
«That's it. I'm home.»
He had lived alone for seven years. He was tired of loneliness. Of longing. Again we talked all night. Until dawn.
«What was that all about?» I asked him in the morning.
«I realized that I'd finally found you. And my heart stopped.»
At first I was very afraid of hurting him, he's so… hmm… tender… so vulnerable… The first year he was always giving me flowers, even if it was just one. He confided in me: «I don't think I loved my wife this much. She was the first woman in my life. But this is real love.» Every day some new thoughts… New words… «Now I understand why some people kill themselves because of love. Hang themselves, shoot themselves or find some other way. I didn't understand before.» Maybe that's it, um-hum… You can't remember everything… Just the bits that flash through your mind… As if you were flying along on an express train and could't distinguish anything out the window, except sometimes, like a child: «Mama, there's a car… there's a cow… there's a house…» He loves me, I believe him… We've lived together seven years. Do I love him? Let me think… Sometimes I wonder… I don't know… I don't want to admit to myself that I'm used to him, that I feel sorry for him, but don't love him. I'm spinning the wheel of life… There should be a man in the house… That's life's law, nature's law… I'm spinning that wheel… I get up every morning at six — and stand over the stove. I go to work — everything's under control. I come home — and work one more shift. He loves me, I believe him… (Laughs). He still courts me… He is so touching sometimes… But he's never hammered a single nail, he doesn't know how, if the iron burns out, I'm the one who fixes it. (Laughs). Yesterday I repaired the telephone. My sister has a PhD, she's a feminist: «You have a slave's psychology.» Yes, at home I'm a slave. Whatever my husband wants, I do it; whatever my son wants, I do it. My daughter… But at work I can stand up for myself; at work, men are afraid of me. I'll break their back. What can I do? I've grown a shell. Claws. I have a family to take care of. A home. But at home I'm a slave. That's right! I admit it. I'm an actress. Without that my house would collapse of its own weight. Maybe that's it, um-hum… I have to manage to act like a man in the outside world and like a woman at home. (Laughs). What can I do? My husband isn't a fighter. I've made my peace with that; it's not in his nature to fight. For him, life is a book. Dreams. He loves to philosophize. He was better off in Soviet times, when everything was equal and everyone the same. People didn't stick their necks out. They read a lot of books and sat around each other's kitchen tables discussing world problems. They collected stamps. But now everything's different; every day is a battle. You need to survive. To go on behaving the way we did before would, I think, be odd, absurd and dishonest. We're proud but poor. Our vacuum cleaner is twenty years old, barely turns over, the refrigerator is thirty years old. But I value my husband: he's an honest man, a good man, not an operator, not a dodger. I have a habit of taking the weak person under my wing. Sometimes when he's sad I ask him: «What are you thinking about?» «About death. Some day we'll be gone.» It's typical of a man to think about death. I think about how to economize so we can buy a new car, remodel our little dacha. Where can I earn some extra money? How can I save it? My neighbor's husband, like mine, is a teacher. Both men teach history and are paid practically nothing. Well, at night he paints apartments and hangs wallpaper, before that he sold things at an open-air market. But my husband? Never… He couldn't bear to do that. He'd be ashamed. Besides he doesn't know how. He's taken a back seat. I'm the one who keeps our house together. I've made my peace with that because I feel sorry for him… And he can be so touching… So tender…
Maybe that's love? Also love… (Pauses). I've gone over everything I've said in my mind… But to be completely… and totally honest… I'm still waiting for something… What am I waiting for?
VOICE THREE
He's walking along and… Sometimes, when I turn round, he's floating above the grass, his feet not touching the ground. That's the only way I see him in my dreams… I, of course… Talking about it has the same effect on me… (Fails silent. Then fast and full of joy). It's all sounds, sounds… But the music is inside me, I put that record on and it all comes back again. All I have to do is close my eyes… I used to be afraid of death, until I realized that nothing disappears, nothing turns to dust, everything remains. Everything that ever happened to us. You can't begin anything again. From the beginning. Sometimes I think: you don't write symphonies, don't paint pictures, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, there's so much we can't even guess at, and that leaves us hope. My God, how lucky I am to have this. I revel in my thoughts, revel in my memories, revel in myself now that I've understood. It's an androgynous existence, how could I want another man? I can't get any higher. I get as far as myself, try to catch those bits and pieces… I'm in despair sometimes, but never for long. I go on and on. The way is there and I'm in no rush…
My first husband… That was a wonderful episode. He courted me for two years, then we married and lived together for another two years. I badly wanted to marry him because I needed all of him, I didn't want him to go anywhere. I remember it as a sickness… I don't even know why I so needed all of him. Why I couldn't bear to be separated from him, why I had to see him all the time and pick fig
hts, and fuck, fuck, fuck, endlessly. He was the first man in my life. The first time was really so… um… just interesting: I didn't know what was going on. The next time, too… and, basically… a sort of technique… And it went on like that for six months… For him, though, really, it didn't have to be me, it could just as well have been someone else. But for some reason we got married… I was twenty-two. We were students at the same music college; we did everything together. I can't remember now how it happened, the moment escapes me, but I fell in love with the male body when it belonged to me… At that point I didn't even know… I sensed it as more significant than just one man, to me it was something cosmic… You break loose from the earth and spin away somewhere… Try to spin away… (Smiles suddenly). It was a wonderful episode. It could have gone on forever or been over in half an hour. So then… I left him. Left him of my own accord. He begged me to stay. For some reason I'd decided to leave. I was so tired of him… God, was I tired of him… I was already pregnant, already showing… What did I need him for? We'd fuck, then fight, then I'd cry, then we'd fuck again. If we'd had a child… I probably should have waited but I didn't know how to then. How to wait. To have patience. I walked out, closed the door behind me and suddenly felt so glad to be gone. Gone for good. I went to my mother's, she lived here, in Moscow. He came after me that night and was completely bewildered: I was pregnant, but always dissatisfied somehow, as if something were missing. But what? I turned the page… I was very happy to have had him, and very happy not to have him anymore. My life has always been a treasure trove. Of beginnings and endings, beginnings and endings… I turned the page… (Again smiles).
Oh, giving birth to Anka was so beautiful, I liked it so much. First, my water broke: I'd been walking in the woods, for miles, and at some point, at mile X, my water broke. I didn't know what to do — did that mean I should go to the hospital right away? I waited till evening. It was bitterly cold. But I decided to go anyway. The doctor looked at me: «You'll be in labor for two days.» I called my mother: «Bring me some chocolate. I'll be here for a while.» Before morning rounds, the nurse said: «Hey, the head is already sticking out. Come with me.» I could barely walk… It was as if someone had stuck a soccer ball up there… «Quick! Quick!» the nurse screamed. «Call the doctor.» My stomach was so huge, it blocked everything, but then I saw the baby, it was coming out, that's when I began to shriek… Something started gurgling, quacking… The doctor said: «Here it comes. It's almost out,» and showed it to me: «It's a girl.» They weighed her: nearly nine pounds. «Listen, not one rip or tear. She took pity on you.» Oh, when they brought her to me the next day… Her eyes, the irises were like saucers, dark, floating, that was all I saw…
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