Once in Europa

by John Berger

  Charge Peter with shovels, six tons, schest! Stay near and his heat dries up the sweat so it burns you. Step back and you freeze in the night air. Minus twenty-eight. Minus dvadtzat vossiem.

  He taught me to count in Russian, and I learnt like boys learn to imitate birds.

  May a mouthful of gnôle on your night shift keep you company between the hot and the cold! I wrote that sentence on an envelope and I stuck the envelope to the flask before I gave it to him.

  When he read the message on the envelope, he threw the flask up in the air and caught it in one hand. We were standing in front of the bus station in Cluses. Then he kissed me. On the mouth. Each time it was for longer.

  Father’s friend, César the water-diviner, used to hold a pendulum over a local map and wherever there was buried water in the earth, it began to turn in circles like a duckling. Am I circling over the Mole because on a Sunday in May Stepan and I climbed there to pick globeflowers? A woman I could shout to on the path below is wearing a dress I never had. How much we will be forgotten!

  Whilst we climbed, Stepan told me about his childhood. I was brought up, he said, to the smell of fish glue—the smell of the ocean bed. And I don’t know if you’ll believe me but it’s true: I could hold nails between my teeth as soon as I was eating solid food. I made my first chair when I was fifteen, and Father maintained—like a true disciple of Makhno—he maintained it was better than any throne in the world!

  The sun was hot and it was the time of May when the grass goes mad with growth. As a child I believed I could see it growing. The tin roofs of the chalets when we reached the alpage were crackling in the heat. Stepan didn’t know where the noise came from. Somebody’s throwing stones! he said. There was nobody. Just the two of us.

  My father and I disagreed about one thing, he went on, only one thing and what a thing! Stepan had never seen globeflowers before. I picked some for him. They’re like brass buttons, he said, who cleans them? I laughed. We disagreed about one thing, he went on. I thought of Russia as my country and I wanted to go back and my father, who was really my stepfather, was against it. When I was eighteen, after the victory over the Germans, I filled in the forms for repatriation. Repatriation! he screamed at me in Russian. You weren’t even born there! You don’t know anything! You have to be Russian to be so stupid!

  Stepan held five golden flowers to my shoulder and said in his singsong voice: Five Stars! The rest is ashes. You’re a General. Generalissimo Odile Achilovich!

  Did you get your passport? I asked him.

  No, they refused me. No homeland.

  I put our bunch of flowers in a little spring so they could drink, and we lay on our backs looking up at the sky, just as now I’m on my stomach looking down on the earth. Stepan put his hand on me and started to caress me. Today I won’t stop him, I said to myself. He was talking about cities, asking me which one I’d like to go to—to London, to Milan, to Rotterdam, to Oslo, to Glasgow? It had never occurred to me before that somebody could choose where to live. It seemed unnatural. No, said Stepan, it’s simple with these—he held up both huge hands over my face—I can work anywhere in the world. Where, where will we go, Odile? Instead of answering him, I scrambled to my feet and ran like a wild thing down the hill towards the pine trees. When he came after me I shouted at him: You’re a Bohemian! A Bohemian, that’s what you are. I never want to see you again! I left him at the bus station. I wouldn’t let him walk me to the widow Besson’s house. I gave her the flowers and the old lady thanked me and touched my forehead. Haven’t you a little fever? You look all flushed. I shook my head to hide my tears from her. Go to bed, Odile, and I’ll make you some verveine tea, she said. Perhaps you had too much sun.

  After the day of the globeflowers, Stepan posted me a letter. It was the only piece of writing I ever saw by him. I will look to see whether it’s still in the tilleul tin. He had written everything in capitals, as children do when they are first learning. The letter said: We need go nowhere, we’ll stay here, I’m arranging it, will be waiting for you by the bridge, Saturday. Mischka. I never heard him before or afterwards refer to himself as Mischka.

  I was able to get home on that Friday night. Mother was still not talking to me. Emile grinned as he always grinned, and after the soup conspiratorially offered me one of his cigarettes. I was still smoking it when Régis came in. It was several weeks since I’d seen Régis. He was furious. It’s got to stop, Odile, do you hear me? He was shouting very loud. It can’t go on, do you hear me? You’ve got to put an end to it, do you hear me? If Father was alive, he’d have stopped you long ago, and you would have obeyed him, do you hear me? Father wouldn’t have shouted like you do, I said, and he wouldn’t have thought like you and Mother do. Don’t be stupid, Sister. Jesus, don’t be stupid! Father knew I’d be married by the age of seventeen. There was a silence. Emile was cleaning his nails with a pocketknife. Do you realise that your dolt from Sweden is married? It’s a lie, you’ve made it up! What do you expect, Odile, he’s nearly thirty. You don’t know anything about him! We’ve often worked on the same shift, we call him the Snow Shovel, he’s crap. Why do you say he’s married? Listen, Sister, to what I have to say, married or unmarried, if you persist in going out with that shit we plan to give him a lesson. Back to your field, Swede. He’s Russian! All the better, back behind his Iron Curtain!

  Was he a married man? The priest later asked me when I confessed, and I had to confess further that I didn’t know, and that I’d never asked him. I went to meet him by the footbridge the day after the evening of Régis’s threats. I told him nothing because as soon as Stepan was there, palpable, before my eyes, I realised that, should it come to a fight, Régis didn’t stand a chance.

  We crossed the river, left the Barracks behind us, and climbed to the forest. There we walked along its edge until the factory and the house were out of sight. By the old chapel with its broken windows and the wall behind its altar pocked with bullet marks, we turned in and crossed the forest to come out on the path that leads to Le Mont. There we owned a small barn for storing hay. Now it is in ruins. I’d been there as a child with my father in the days when he brought down hay on a sledge. In my pocket I had the key.

  I’d never before seen a man naked like Stepan. I’d seen my father and my brothers at the sink washing all over, I’d seen everything, but I’d never seen a man naked like that. The sight of him brought back to me the night I’d first met him in the Ram’s Run, for I was filled with the same kind of pity—was it a pity for both of us?—and this pity was mixed with fear. Yet it wasn’t with fear that my heart was pounding. My heart was pounding with excitement at the news it received: its life would never be the same again, the body it pumped for would never be the same again.

  Father was an expert grafter of fruit trees. He scarcely ever failed. Onto our wild apple trees he grafted pippins and russets, onto the wild pears, dolbos and williams. He knew at exactly which moment to graft, where to cut, how to bandage. It was as if the sap were in his thumbs. He’s grafting me! I said to myself with my arms round Stepan’s body. Along the new branches fruit will come like we’ve never known, neither he nor me. It wasn’t easy for Stepan. I wasn’t easy to break through. For a moment he was discouraged. I could feel it. Everything about men is so obvious that even I, at seventeen, could understand. And I shared his impatience, that’s what I shared with him. So I helped him, like I used to help Father when he was grafting. I’d hold the shoot at the angle needed—whilst Father bound with the cord.

  The sunlight streamed through the knotholes of the wall planks and the hay smelt like burnt milk and I felt that everything good that could ever happen was being grafted into me. And next week, we were eating the fruit, weren’t we? If only you could have taken more! He gave us very little, dear God. Yet perhaps not. Sometimes when I tell myself the story of the two bears I say: perhaps the one thing he doesn’t understand is time! How long did we lie behind the grey wood with the sunbeams? You never seemed so small as then, Stepanuschk
a. I was going to be your wife and the mother of your children, and the ocean which I’ll never see of your ferry boat. The days were nearly at their longest. When we left, it was dark and there was a moon, we could see the path. On the way down I undid your belt. What I saw, dear God, is where? Where?

  They started to build. I don’t know with what words Stepan persuaded or inspired them. They started to build a room. Each shed of the Barracks was designated with a letter. I think that when they were first built the letters of the sheds went regularly from A to H. Then some man lodging there had an idea to make a joke which consisted of changing the letters. From the time I could first read as a child the eight sheds were marked IN EUROPA. I could see where the original letters had been painted over. As for the joke, the man who thought it funny had long since left and nobody now could ask him to explain. The letters remained as he had painted them. The N of the IN was written the wrong way round, . The Company scarcely ever intruded into the Barracks area. There was only one law in the factory that counted: that the ten furnaces be tapped the required number of times every twenty-four hours, and that the castings conform to standard when chemically analysed.

  Stepan lived in shed A, which was the last one, on the edge of the factory grounds. Beyond was a plantation of pine trees. The men in shed A were building a room for Stepan. It took them a week of their free time. A partition of planks, a hole in the roof for a chimney and a new door. This room was to be separate from the rest of the dormitory, it was to be private. Stepan was making a bed, a large bed with a headboard made of oak and a carved rose at each corner. It was the first bed he’d made and it took much more time than the room. You want us to be married? he asked me. I would like to be your wife. I will marry you, he said, it’s a promise.

  Shed A is still there, the furthest from the bridge. People said he took advantage of me. They knew nothing, those people. They didn’t see him carving the roses. If he didn’t marry me immediately it was because he couldn’t—perhaps because his papers weren’t in order. Because he was already married, people said. Perhaps, long before, he did have another wife in another country, in another century. All I know is that he didn’t deceive me.

  One day you and I, when our grandchildren are off our hands, one day, he said, you and I will go and visit the Ukraine.

  From the window of the little makeshift room at the end of shed A, I watched the swallows flying between the Barracks and the lines of spruce. It was ridiculous now for a woman living my life to still be at school, and so I left without taking any exams. As I walked away from the school for the last time through the tall wrought-iron gates, made for horsemen carrying flags, I felt Father very close. It was as if he came with me to ask for a job at the Components Factory, it was as if because of his presence they gave me a job straightaway.

  My first was pressing holes in a tiny plate to fit in the back of radios. One thousand seven hundred plates a day. I wasn’t badly paid and the place had the advantage of being on the riverbank. When I was ahead of my quota I could go out, smoke a cigarette, and watch the river—we were seven in the factory, seven with the boss and his son. Listening to the water, I decided how I was going to show Stepan where he could catch trout without being interfered with.

  The only bad thing was the oil, it splattered my hands and wrists, I couldn’t wear gloves for they slowed me down too much, and my skin was allergic to the oil. Little spots came up which itched. Stepan said that if the spots didn’t go away within a week, by July 17th—I remember the date of each day of that month of summer skies, endless days, swallows, and the unimaginable—he would categorically forbid me to work there!

  I kept my room at the widow’s house and I spent every night IN EUROPA. On two Sundays when Stepan was working the day shift, I watched the swallows: on two Sundays when he wasn’t working we stayed in bed till nightfall. He talked a lot now. In his sleep he talked in Russian. We’ll stick it out another year, he said, then we’ll leave and I’ll find a job. You ought to make beds like this one! I told him. We’ll find a house by the sea, he said. Why not by a lake? I suggested.

  Sometimes he talked of the factory. I asked him if he’d heard about Michel’s accident. I’d just arrived, he said, it was my first week and I was in his team. It was Peter we were tapping, and the wall broke. When that happens it’s like hell let loose. Hell itself, my little one. To pierce the wall you have a probe—do you know how long the tip lasts? Less than eight minutes. Vossiem. He was still conscious. May God help him. We got him clear and put the fireproof gown on him. He’s still in hospital, I commented. With two legs gone, said Stepan.

  Towards evening he shaved. I liked watching him shave. We had a jug and basin on the table by the door and he went to fetch some hot water from the bathhouse, a stone building next to the shop. Naturally I never set foot inside there. Stepan would fetch water for me to wash, and for the calls of nature I went into the plantation. This time the water was for his shaving. How much I liked to watch him shave! Perhaps any man shaving? If I’d gone into the bathhouse I’d know. It’s the only moment men show their coquetry. The way they pull their skin and focus with their eyes, the noise of the blade against the stubble, the white soap on the rosy skin. After shaving, Stepan’s face was softer than mine, soft as a baby’s.

  He was killed on July 31st. He didn’t take the leather-covered flask with him. He left it on the table beside his shaving brush. He was killed at four-thirty in the morning. Régis telephoned the news to the widow Besson’s house just before I was leaving for work. I spoke to him myself. Is it certain he’s dead? Certain? Certain? I asked six times. I went to work. The pieces I was pressing, tiny as earrings, were for electric irons. After work I went to the Barracks and into our room. There was a knock on the door. I opened it. Giuliano stood there. It was he who obtained the oak for our bed.

  Where is he? I asked, I want to see him. Niente, Giuliano said. I want to see him, I said again very quietly. Niente! he shouted at the top of his voice. Over his shoulder I could see other men from shed A and sheds P, O, R, U, E, N standing at a discreet distance, looking towards me, caps in hand, shoulders hunched. Where is he? Giuliano’s eyes filled with tears as he shook his head. Not for a moment did he take his eyes off me. And suddenly I understood. He had disappeared. There was no body. Like it happens in an avalanche.

  I did not cry, Holy Mary Mother of God, I did not cry. I said to Giuliano: Who’s got a motorbike in our shed? None of us. Who then? Jan in U has a motorbike. Ask him if he can take me to work tomorrow morning, I’m going to stay here.

  I slept in our room. Every morning Jan took me to the Components Factory in Cluses. On the second day Emile came to the Barracks. We want you to come home, he said, and shyly, without a word, he deposited a goat’s cheese on the table. Later, I told him, tell Maman and Régis I’ll come home later, for the moment I must stay here.

  I lay on the bed with the carved roses at each corner and stared at the planks of the roof. I found a suitcase under the bed and into it I packed his clothes, with no idea of what I was going to do with them. Perhaps his father or his wife would want them? I still did not cry. The nothingness into which he had disappeared filled me. Every hour was the same. Every minute was the same. To piss I went into the plantation just as I did when his boots weren’t open mouths screaming. Odile did not scream, she waited, IN EUROPA, shed A. I went on waiting. Every evening some of his comrades came to see me. They came in pairs. They brought me plates of food which I couldn’t eat. One brought me a newspaper in a language I couldn’t understand. They said I should go home. They said they would come and see me if I went home. One of them gave me a lace shawl in black. I folded it up. Each day which passed brought me more hope. Each night I slept in the shed. In the nothingness into which he had disappeared, in the nothingness in which he had left me, I was listening for him. And at last I heard. Now I could go home, now I could weep, now I could wear my black shawl.

  I went to the factory manager’s office. His secretary aske
d me what my business was. I said it was private. Would you like to take a chair? I could hear the avalanche roar of the big furnaces. I knew that it never stopped, yet, as I sat there waiting, I thought it might. Impossible things happen. I believed that if the roar stopped I would hear his voice. On the walls were framed photographs of other factories. The frames were oak like the bed. I waited for an hour. He shouldn’t be much longer, said the secretary. Where is he? He’s on a long-distance call, she replied and continued her typing.

  If I’d taken a back-of-the-arse, I could have done her job. Would you like some coffee? she asked. She knew me, everyone in the factory knew by now that I was Stepan Pirogov’s concubine. It wasn’t of course the word they used, but it was the legal term which I would have to use. Please, I said.

  After another half-hour the manager saw me. His wife used to order fresh eggs from Mother. When Father was alive, Mother had to wait until he was in the fields before delivering her eggs. Food for the enemy! Father would have screamed.

  He never looked at you when he was talking, the manager. It was as if he were trying to read the captions of the framed photographs on the wall. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. It was hot everywhere with an August heat. I had put on a skirt and jacket so as to look more legal, and I was wearing the black shawl over my head. He motioned to the chair in front of him.

  What can I do for you?

  I’ve come about Monsieur Pirogov, Monsieur Norat.

  I know. May I offer you, and the family, my sincere condolences.

  I understand that if a worker is killed at work, the Company pays his wife a pension.

  It is discretionary. We are not obliged to, and the pension terminates when and if the widow marries again.

  Monsieur Pirogov was killed at work, I said.

  The cause has not yet been ascertained.