NINE

by Svetlana Alexiyevich

  People would attempt to talk to her about their own affairs, and once again Granny Olya would mention, let's say, the show she'd been to the day before yesterday, and where the film would be showing next.

  She herself was already aware that she was sliding downhill, especially in the eyes of her clients — aware that she no longer attended so assiduously to their tales, no longer discussed with such eager attention all their intrigues with neighbours, their lawsuits, betrayals, strategies; these days, she realised, she listened to all this rather mechanically, nodding and snuffling as she searched for her hankie, but amid all this dross, this flotsam and jetsam of life, the main thing — HIS torments — shone through. And, incidentally, HER torments too.

  And finally Granny Olya knew what she would do with her life.

  She put paid to the rules.

  Her chief purpose now, Granny Olya believed, was not to issue insurance policies and collect payments due, but to instil in her clients, submerged as they were in earthly cares — to instil in them the thought that there was another life, a different, heavenly, superior life, now showing — for instance — at 7 and 9 pm at the cinema on Karetny Street.

  Her eyes would shine through her thick-lensed glasses.

  Why exactly she did this Granny Olya did not know, but it had become essential to her to bring people happiness, a new happiness, and to recruit yet more and more fans for «Robbie»; and towards these occasional new recruits (all female) she felt a maternal tenderness, while at the same time displaying a mother's strictness, for she was their guide to that other world, and the guardian of its rules and traditions. She already possessed a thick notebook of quotations from newspaper articles concerning Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh.

  There too were pasted portraits of the actors and stills from the film; and here the son-in-law, for whom no use had ever previously been found, was put to work beneath the red lamp of that dubious darkroom — even the black sheep can come in handy!

  The down-side was the hordes of old dears and grannies who now flocked to the holy rites; it was a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah these days, with sobbing, raptures, and poems circulating from hand to hand.

  «Robbie's» date of birth was found, and this jubilee of theirs was duly celebrated in cinema foyers with sweet wine and vodka, and there was uproar before the film; but Granny Olya, like a strict high priestess, celebrated alone in her kitchen at home.

  When they met, they would tell one another how it had been for them. Granny Olya did not allow herself to share in this nonsense; she kept her secret to herself, but in the still of the night she herself composed verses and then, unable to restrain herself, would choose an appropriate moment to confide them to her clients.

  She couldn't read them to the other old ladies: if you read something to them, they're apt immediately to take revenge with home-made nonsense of their own: «And many girls did thrill to his sweet touch» — ugh! — or something of that ilk.

  Granny Olya murmured her lofty verses to specially selected clients. She read hurriedly, snuffling, and her glasses filled with tears.

  The clients suffered and looked away, as they used to do when, deeply moved, she would sing at full throttle; and Granny Olya understood full well the awkwardness of her situation, but was quite unable to take herself in hand.

  A person isn't usually aware of where, when, or how he's been overtaken by passion, but when passion strikes, he's incapable of controlling himself, of making judgements, of going into the consequences; he'll submit joyfully, finding at last his true path in life, no matter what that may be.

  «It's all quite harmless,» Granny Olya reassured herself, happily falling asleep, «I'm an intelligent woman, and this concerns no one else but me; it's my business and no one else's, when all's said and done».

  And she drifted off into dream, on one occasion even finding herself driving along with Robert Taylor in an open convertible; both of them were sitting in the back, and there was no one else in the LANDAU — not even a driver — and HE, seated devotedly beside Granny Olya, had got his arm half-way around her shoulders.

  That wasn't the sort of thing one told other people.

  Once she experienced a moment of shame, for — as the geographer-daughter remarked — night's not the time to go gadding about.

  On her way home after an evening show in the godforsaken outskirts (where there's a will there's always a way), Granny Olya was walking with a swinging step when she was overtaken by a young man, tall, heavy, in a hat with earflaps (Granny Olya herself was walking about la jeune, her hat at a jaunty angle, all but singing out loud the words she was crooning: «I opened the window…») and this young man, catching up with Granny Olya, remarked in passing:

  «What little feet you have!»

  «I beg your pardon?»

  He stopped in his tracks and asked outright:

  «What size do you take?»

  «Thirty-nine,» the astonished Granny Olya replied.

  «Little feet,» the young man responded sadly, and at this Granny Olya darted past him — home, home, to the tram, her briefcase bumping.

  But at night, when she had time for sober reflection, the pitiful, sick appearance of the young man, his shuffling gait, his unshaven, neglected face and above all his dark moustache disturbed poor Granny Olya. Who was he?

  She tried to weave some familiar story about him: his mother had died, he'd suffered a nervous breakdown, lost his job, his married sister couldn't be bothered with him, chased him away, and so on, but something just didn't quite fit.

  The following evening, disregarding the warning cries from her daughter, Granny Olya set off once again to the film — to the same cinema, and the very same show.

  Now it dawned on her, as she looked once more at Robert Taylor, who it was that had met her on the dark street after the film. Who it was that had walked there, ill and neglected, yearning, unshaven, but still with his moustache.

  And indeed, when you come to think of it, who else could have dragged himself there, in search of his beloved, when the whole world had forgotten all about her? Who else could have been wandering in those godforsaken outskirts in 1954? What other poor, sick shade in a tatty coat, abandoned by everyone, could have wandered there, in time to present himself, on Waterloo Bridge, to the last soul of all, herself forgotten by everyone, rejected, abused, a mere rag, a doormat — to present himself, moreover, at literally her last step in life, when she was just about to fly away…

  THE HOUSE WITH A FOUNTAIN

  Translated by Ellen Pinchuk.

  A girl was killed in an explosion, but then brought back to life. [t was like this: the relatives were told she was dead, but they couldn't claim the body right away (they were all together in the bus, but she had been standing in front and they'd been in the back when the explosion happened). She was a young girl — just 15 — and she was thrown back by the blast.

  While waiting for the ambulances and for all the wounded and dead to be carried away, her father held the girl in his arms, although it was clear she was dead, and the doctor had pronounced her so. But they had to take her to the hospital anyway, and her father and mother got into the ambulance and rode with their child to the morgue.

  She was lying on the stretcher as though alive, but there was no pulse or breathing. The parents were sent home, though they didn't want to go, but it wasn't yet time to claim the body. Not until the autopsy was done and cause of death determined as required by law and medical practice.

  But her father, driven mad by grief and also being a devout Christian, decided to kidnap his daughter. He took his wife home — she was practically unconscious — survived a conversation with his mother-in-law, woke their paramedic neighbor and took her white coat. Then, taking all the money in the house, he went to the nearest hospital, found an empty ambulance (it was already two in the morning) with a gurney and a young male nurse. Dressed in the white coat, he penetrated the hospital where his daughter was being held, passed the security guard, descended th
e staircase into the basement, and easily entered the morgue with no one around. He found his child and, with the help of the male nurse, laid her on a stretcher and carried his load into the cargo elevator up to the third floor, to post-op intensive care. He had carefully studied the layout of the hospital while keeping vigil in the waiting room.

  He let the nurse go and, after a quick conversation with the emergency room doctor on duty, he passed on the wad of money and placed his daughter in the doctor's arms.

  As there weren't any medical charts, the doctor apparently decided that the father had called an ambulance and brought the patient (or probably the corpse) to the nearest hospital. The doctor knew perfectly well that the girl was not alive, but he needed money badly — his wife had just given birth (also a girl) — and his nerves were on end. His mother didn't like his wife and they took turns crying on his shoulder, and the kid was also crying, and then there were his night shifts. He had to find money to rent an apartment. The (clearly) crazy father of this fairy tale princess was offering him enough for six months' rent.

  Without saying a word, the doctor began his work, as if a live patient was before him. He told the father to put on surgical clothes and sat him on a bed in the unit, since this sick man was bent on staying with his daughter and was saying they had the same blood type.

  The girl was lying there, white as marble, with a face of extraordinary beauty, and her father watched her from the bed with a strange expression on his face. One pupil kept drifting to the side, and when he blinked, his lids separated with great difficulty.

  The doctor observed him and asked a nurse to give him a cardiogram, then to give this new patient a shot. The father passed out, but not right away. The girl looked like Sleeping Beauty, all wired up to equipment. The doctor took care, doing everything possible, and no one was watching the father with that lopsided gaze of his anymore. Basically, the young doctor was a fanatic. Nothing was more important to him than a serious, interesting case, than a patient (no matter who, name and status did not matter) on the verge of death.

  The father slept, and in his dream he met his daughter. That is, he went to visit her, as he had at summer camp. He took some food, a meatball sandwich, for some reason. And that's all. He got on a bus (a bus, yet again) on a beautiful summer evening, somewhere near the Sokol metro station, and went to some heavenly place. In a field between soft green hills there was a huge grey house with arches up to the sky, and when he passed through the giant gates and entered the courtyard, there, on an emerald meadow, was a fountain, as high as the house, and it had a single jet culminating in a shimmering plume. The summer sunset stretched on and the father strolled with pleasure toward an entrance to the right of the arch and walked up toward a high floor. His daughter was there, looking off somewhere. As though this were her life, which no longer had anything to do with him. Something of her own.

  The apartment was huge, with high ceilings and broad windows, and it faced south, toward the shade and the fountain on the side, now lit by the setting sun. The fountain was even taller than the windows.

  «I brought you a meatball sandwich, just the way you like it,» said the father.

  He went up to a table near the window and put down his package, thought a minute, then unwrapped it. A strange sandwich was lying there, with its two pieces of cheap black bread. To show his daughter the meatball, he opened the sandwich. Inside was (and he saw it immediately) a raw human heart. The father worried that the heart was uncooked and couldn't be eaten. He folded it back up in the paper and said, awkwardly, «I brought the wrong sandwich. I'll bring you another one.»

  But his daughter came closer and stared at the sandwich with a strange expression on her face. Then her father stuffed the package in his pocket and covered it with his hand, so that she couldn't get it.

  «Give it to me, Dad. I'm hungry. I'm so hungry.»

  «You can't eat that stuff.»

  «No. Give it to me,» she said, heavily.

  She reached for his pocket with her deft, very deft, hand, but her father understood that if his daughter managed to get the sandwich, she would die.

  Then, turning away, he took out the package, opened it, and quickly started to eat the raw heart himself. His mouth filled with blood. He ate the black bread with blood.

  «Now I'm dying,» he thought, «How fortunate that I'm going before her.»

  «Open your eyes, you hear me!» someone was saying.

  He unglued his lids with difficulty and saw as if in a fog, the distorted face of the young doctor.

  «I hear you,» said the father.

  «What's your blood type?»

  «The same as my daughter's, I told you.»

  «Are you sure?»

  «Yes. Sure.»

  He was immediately taken somewhere and his left arm was tied with a tourniquet. A needle was inserted into his vein.

  «How is she?» asked the father.

  «Meaning?» asked the doctor, busy with the task at hand.

  «Is she alive?»

  «What did you think?» answered the doctor in passing.

  «A live?!»

  «Lie down, lie down,» exclaimed the kind doctor.

  The father laid there, listening to someone snoring nearby, and he wept.

  Then they worked on him and he again went off somewhere. Again, he was surrounded by greenery, but he was awakened by a noise: his daughter, on the next bed, was snoring loudly, as if she didn't have enough air. Her father looked at her from the side. Her face was white, her mouth slightly open. Live blood flowed between the father's arm and the daughter's. He felt light, and tried to make the blood go faster, go entirely into his daughter. He wanted to die so that she should live. Then, he found himself in that same apartment, in the huge grey house. His daughter was gone. He went quietly to look for her, searching all the nooks and crannies of the luxurious apartment with its many windows, but couldn't find a living soul. He sat on the couch, then lay down. He was calm, happy, as if his daughter were doing fine somewhere, living well, and he could rest. He (in his dream) was falling asleep when his daughter appeared like a whirlwind swirling through the room, and was suddenly next to him like a spinning column of wind, howling, shaking everything around her, digging her nails into the bend in his right arm all the way beneath the skin, pricking him hard. He screamed in horror and opened his eyes. The doctor had just given him an injection in his right arm.

  The girl was lying beside him, breathing heavily, but no longer wheezing. Her father raised himself onto his elbows and saw that his left arm had been freed from the tourniquet and bandaged. He addressed the doctor:

  «Doctor, I need to call right away.»

  «What for,» exclaimed the doctor, «it's still too early. Lie down, or I'll lose you.»

  But before he left, he nevertheless gave over his cell phone and the father called his wife. No one was home. His wife and mother-in-law had probably gotten up early and gone to the morgue and were probably frantic, unable to understand where the child's body had gone.

  The girl was doing better, but had not regained consciousness. Her father tried to stay near her in intensive care, pretending he was dying. The night doctor had gone and the poor father had no more money, but they gave him a cardiogram and left him there. The night doctor had apparently made arrangements with someone to let him stay, or else the cardiogram showed bad results.

  The father thought about what to do. He couldn't go downstairs, wasn't allowed to call. Around him were strangers and busy ones. He thought about what his two women must be feeling, his «girls», as he called his wife and his mother-in-law. His heart was throbbing. He was given an IV, just like his daughter.

  Then he fell asleep, and when he awoke, his daughter was gone.

  «Nurse, where is the girl who was lying here?»

  «Why do you ask?»

  «I'm her father, see? Where is she?»

  «She's in surgery. Don't worry and don't get up. You shouldn't.»

  «What's wrong wit
h her?»

  «I don't know.»

  «Dear girl, please call a doctor!»

  «They're all busy.»

  An old man moaned. In the next room the young doctor was doing some operation on an old lady and was speaking to her loudly like to the village idiot, trying to humor her.

  «Well, granny, want some soup? (pause) What kind of soup do you want?»

  «Mmmm,» mumbled the old lady in a tinny, non-human voice.

  «How about meatball soup? (pause) Want some meatball soup? Did you ever try soup with meatballs?»

  Suddenly, the old lady answered in her tinny bass.

  «Meatballs, eat alls.»

  «Good for you,» the doctor exclaimed.

  The father laid there worrying. His daughter was being operated on somewhere, his wife was going mad with grief somewhere, his mother-in-law next to her… The young doctor checked him over, gave him another injection, and he fell asleep.

  In the evening, he got up quietly, barefoot, wearing only a shirt, and left. He got to the staircase without being noticed and descended the cold steps, like a ghost. He made it to the basement corridor and followed arrows saying «Office of Decedent Affairs.»

  Some guy in a white coat called out to him.

  «Hey, what are you doing here?»

  «I'm from the morgue,» the father replied suddenly. «I'm lost.»

  «What do you mean, from the morgue?»

  «I came from there, but I left my documents. I want to go back for them, but where is it?»

  «I don't get it,» said the white coat, taking him by the arm and leading him down the corridor.

  «So you just got up,» he asked.

  «I came to life, no one was around. I got up, but decided to go back to be examined.»

  «Strange,» answered his escort.

  They arrived at the morgue but were greeted with obscenities from the paramedic. The father listened to his protests and asked, «Is my daughter here? She was supposed to be brought here after her operation.»