He took her hands and squeezed them. “Do you understand? Telling lies brought back sensation to my nerve ends. Feelings of euphoria, like drugs. I was this new man, born of lies, then topping them with better lies! Look. Even, I am here at East-West Center as a hoax, a lie.”
She leaned back slightly. “You mean the things you told me, things you said while we made love …”
“No, Ana! All of that is true. I did not lie in my deep feelings for you. Or what I told you of Irini’s death. But much of the rest … my mother was not celebrated actress. My poor father, not decorated hero of the war. Please listen. Let me say the truth, so you will know.
“When World War II begins my mother was a nurse. But with this strange, asymetrical face. One eye lower, one nostril lower. Like two mismatched halves from strangers. When wounded soldiers see her face, they faint, thinking death has come. Doctors banish her from hospital. During Siege of Leningrad, nine hundred days of bombing by Germans, she was sent to Street Services Corps, dodging bombs, running errands back and forth across city. Running bandages and blood, even food to basement of Hermitage Museum …
“This the way how she met my father, who was carpenter. Poor peasant, his feet so flat he walked on insides of his ankles. Could not march, could not fit in military boots. So. Army train him to build artificial artillery to fool German spy planes. With planks, plywood, papier-mâché, he and hundreds of carpenters build warships, tanks, painting them gray. They build wooden heads and painted faces and stand them up in ‘tanks.’ They build entire artificial battle scenes. From the air such battles, tanks, and ships look real. Our armies and artilleries look massive. That’s the way how we saved our city from Germans. With magic! And so my father was hero in a way …”
He told Ana how one day on the street, his mother was wounded by flying shrapnel, and how his father dragged her into the basement of the Hermitage Museum. He had been sent there to help build wooden crates, for here were hundreds of curators and restorers hiding priceless works of art. And so Niki’s mother stayed there with her bandaged leg. They lived by candlelight.
“And it may be that in such flickering light, bombs exploding around them, my mother becomes beautiful. Maybe in her face, my father sees his feet. This allows them their humanity. And so they fall in love midst Rembrandts, Tintorettos, starving curators eating glue from bottles, eating their own shoes. In basement of Hermitage they begin to stack the dead. When my father goes back to build more artificial tanks along Neva River, my mother follows him …
“This is their true story, swear to God! A nurse whose face could kill wounded soldiers. A carpenter who built toy tanks to fight a war. But even then—where tens of thousands perished from starvation, food supplies cut off, coldest winter in two hundred years—even then, there was sorrowful majesty and beauty …”
Niki took Ana’s hands.
“Imagine fabled onion-domed cathedrals. The Hermitage, and Winter Palace, bombed but still intact. This fairy-tale city covered in ice, then snow, then upon that, ice again. A city so cold and deep in ice, it glows. Like Japanese vase that glows from depths of eighteen layers of resin …
“Leningrad. People so weak they dump refuse and excrement from shattered windows. Buildings became streaked with mounds of waste frozen down their sides. In time, new snow covers this awful slop so it becomes like ruffles of frosting on gigantic cake. Buildings now blurred and lost their edges. Great city floated like a dream. Then light hit ice covering the snow, and all of Leningrad turned blue! …”
He described how humans grew pale, transparent, so they too turned greenish blue. How they dragged sleds with pots and pans, searching for water, and even these turned blue. Immobilized streetcars, buses stood like blue whales, cast ashore in snowdrifts. At night when the full moon shone on the Neva River, the Winter Palace, former home of the Tsars, and the Hermitage, their beautiful museum, all stood intact on the river’s embankment, snowed under, frozen blue. Like a mythical sleeping dragon.
“Most ghostly were huge battleships immobilized in ice on frozen Neva. Real Russian battleships, not my father’s cardboard toys. Summer so short, nothing thawed. They sat for three years, moaning like prehistoric monsters. People beside them, stabbing at ice for water, their dying cries echoing like choruses. Even light round those ships was choral …”
As if stepping from a dream, Ana gently interrupted him. “But, Niki, you weren’t born yet. How do you remember all of this?”
He shrugged. “Ah, but life does not just stop and start, it is a thing in continuity, always in progression, no? I was there, in my parents’ genes.
“I watched through my mother’s eyes as she ran through burning streets, dodging bombs and shrapnel. I felt broken glass and rubble underfoot. I remember coldness of the nails my father hammered into wood, making artificial tanks. I see mouths emerging as he painted faces on dummy soldiers, using his own blood to rouge their cheeks, glittering light from frozen Neva almost blinding him …
“And I remember city was grisly, cut off from the world. Germans had surrounded us. For three years no one did bathe—scurvy, typhus everywhere. And horrible hunger. All pets, even rodents, disappeared. The starving eyed the newly dead, tender-fleshed corpses of children …”
Niki glanced at her, then lowered his eyes.
“Yes, Ana, there was this man with red shawl who bargained with my mother. Yes, I dream of him. There were many men with shawls, full of the unspeakable. People dragged themselves to barter at place called Hungry Market. Here were ‘sausages,’ ‘meat patties’ sold by pink-cheeked, bright-eyed vendors. Yes, one does such things to live …”
Then one day they heard sirens. Russian soldiers came on tanks. After three years, the Germans had withdrawn, defeated. Niki explained how it was almost too late. Leningrad was an open grave. People had no flesh, neither the dead nor the living.
“This what I remember, blinking skulls, walking sticks. Nonetheless, they thought they had survived, my father and mother. That they would have future together. Now carpenters were ordered to tear down all artificial wooden ships and tanks, and burn them. My father was carpenter, yes, but great lover of trees. One day he carelessly passed judgment. All trees they had felled for lumber for toy tanks, toy soldiers, were a waste, he said. ‘Tragic waste.’ These two words sentence him to death. He was denounced as traitor. Dangerous subversive. Stalin’s paranoia killed more millions than Germans ever did.…”
Niki bent forward, shaking his head.
“They sent my father to nightmare place up near Barents Sea, below Arctic circle. A gulag called Archangel’sk. Stalin already sent two million kulaks here to die. Though west of Ural Mountains, was bleak, forbidding as Siberia …
“At Archangel’sk, armed guards dragged prisoners to woods where stood great stands of fir and pine. Each day, chained men were forced to chop them down. In time, whole forests disappeared. Men died from starvation, beatings, horrible disease …”
He spoke more slowly now.
“After his sentencing … my poor mother, Vera, she follows my father, Sergeivitch, from war-torn Leningrad to this place, Archangel’sk. Ana … how I can explain such incredible journey? Thousands of war wives—wounded, crippled, tubercular—dragging selves across the land, following condemned husbands. Across taiga and tundra, through great virgin forests. Through Vytegra, Savinskiy, Novodvinsk. They trudge through ravaged towns, mined fields, till half of them were dead. This journey taking over one, two years.”
Niki recounted how, in time, his mother had found his father in chains, in the forest, chopping trees. How they had made love beneath giant firs, and that was how he was conceived. He never knew his father. What he remembered most indelibly from those years were the women who rubbed bear grease on his cheeks and taught him how to hunt and trap.
“They were like Goths, so fearless! But when they learn their husbands have perished in the camp, they give up … lie down and turn to logs. Or they step out into arctic winds. Some nights I smell
these women in my sleep. I hear their hunter heartbeats. I see them frozen into standing blocks of ice.”
While Niki talked, Ana had covered her face with her hands, and shook her head, disbelieving.
“So, Ana, this was my birthplace, and it was my father’s grave. Starving humans dragging their chains. Guard dogs sporting with a corpse. Yet it is where I believe I have never felt so safe, so cherished.”
He fell silent for a while. Then finally, he described the two-year struggle back to Leningrad and how, so young, he watched his mother taken as Stalin purged cities of the wounded and deformed.
“But I was clever. I survived. You see, long before Irini I learned how lies were my salvation.”
THAT NIGHT ANA LAY SLEEPLESS. SHE FELT PHYSICAL PAIN, FELT slightly beaten-up by Niki’s stories. Her heart hurt for him. She wanted to reach out and somehow heal him, but she was not equipped for such a task. She wondered what a man like this would ultimately ask of life, of a woman who shared his life. He would probably ask too much. He would take her hostage. Knowing he would soon return to Russia, she felt a deep sense of remorse, and yet relief, already imagining her days filled with the quietude his absence would create.
MIHI
Remorse
THE RADIOLOGIST WAS BALDING, A CENTRAL STRAND OF PEWTER hair. He held X-rays to the light, trying to be tactful, but seemed handicapped by a congenital brusqueness.
“See these small cavities in his lungs? From toxic invasions. Without proper treatment, he could become susceptible to viruses, bacilli, even pulmonary edema …”
She studied the X-rays. “What else?”
“Well, his liver … typical Russian. Years of oversmoking, overdrinking. And I would say he’s borderline anemic. You want the rest?”
Her heart turned.
“His immune system is weak. White cells aren’t reproducing fast enough. Soon they’ll be too low to fight off infections.”
“Is there any good news?”
“Amazingly, he’s got the constitution of a bull. I’m not saying he’s dying, but he could begin to fail if he’s not looked after.”
He saw the expression on her face. “I’ve seen much worse. Toxic-exposure victims, radiation, people so polluted, or fried, they have no immune system left. Your friend is not that bad. He could recover.”
“What exactly does he need?”
“Rest. Clean air. Diuretics to draw the fluids from his lungs. AZT or Interleukin to build up his white cells. Iron supplements, calcium. Fresh fruits, vegetables. Beef, liver, leeks. And he needs to check in for a complete workup, and to review his medications.”
“He has no medical insurance.”
“It could be done on an outpatient basis. Still, it would be expensive.”
Ana gazed out the window. “He was on a grant here at the university. But his year is up. He has to go back to Russia.”
“That would be a death sentence. Tourists are coming back with serious respiratory problems.”
She looked down and sighed.
“He needs real supervision, Ana. Someone to pay his bills. A big responsibility.”
Later, she stood in her apartment, everything tasteful, but bought secondhand. Even her car was secondhand. Most of her paychecks went back to Nanakuli, young cousins—their education, clothes. She helped the family buy a van when all the trucks broke down. She had no more room for responsibility.
WHEN SHE TOOK HIM IN FOR HIS LAB RESULTS, SHE FELT PART OF herself step back.
The radiologist spoke softly, asking Niki to sit down. They hunched forward eye to eye like two men at a chessboard, discussing his X-rays, his blood count.
“You need rest, Niki. And stronger medication.”
“Da. Perhaps in Russia …”
The man half laughed. “My friend, Russia will kill you.”
Something surfaced then, long-buried and resentful.
“Kill me? My own country kill me?” He rose to his feet and spoke softly. “This is what you think of Russia only? That all is death? That we don’t dream of little houses, rose gardens? Is true, when you look at Russian, you do not see a rose. But we are not cliché. Russia is not cliché. We are not all dying. We have hope. And dreams.”
In the silence, he felt Ana’s acute embarrassment and clasped his hands.
“Sorry! I am dramatic. I sometimes abash myself. But look. It is not so bleak. Soon I return to Moscow to finish important footage for my film. We have national health, hospitals are free. I will get proper medication … life will be good.”
The radiologist shook his head. “Just breathing that polluted air again …”
“Not problem. Not problem.” He shook the man’s hand. “Spasibo! Thank you. Thank you.”
As they walked down the street, she allowed him to talk to cover her embarrassment, the fact that she was letting him go.
“Don’t be sad, Ana. Russians are like wolves, takes more than dirty air to kill us. I will go back, finish film, get well. You will see.”
Taking his arm, she spoke halfheartedly. “Niki. You won’t get well. Stay here. We’ll fix your visa. We’ll raise money for your medical expenses.”
He turned away, insulted. “Please. Like you, I have learned to survive alone. But most importantly, I must go back. There is final footage I must shoot. It will define entire documentary.”
“More victims?”
“The scientists themselves. Many are dying. Leukemia. Bone cancer. They want to finally speak the truth, of what ungodliness they created. Such a coup if I can pull it off.”
“How can you? Such interviews will be admitting to the world that your leaders self-destructed.”
Niki laughed. “All over Russia, bigwigs selling their confessions. And, these scientists not so important now. They have been erased as serious cases of mediocrity.”
“But how would you get such tapes out of the country?”
“Same as before. Make copies, friends acting as ‘mules’ smuggle them out. Besides, today anyone at Customs, Immigrations can be bought.”
She saw that he was really leaving. And she began to draw back, so that their nights were nights of tempered passion. They became more like friends lying side by side trying to talk, but with a confused sense of not being able to understand each other.
Finally, he took her in his arms. “Ana. Don’t despair. You are strong and true. You have taught me to be true. To embrace pamyat, memory, instead of lies. With you, I finally honored my mother and father by telling their true story. And I have honored my dead wife, Irini.”
“I wish I could give you more,” she said.
“You have given me riches. You have shared your childhood, and your dreams.”
“I mean … I wish I could end your suffering. I wish I could offer you some kind of future.”
His voice turned soft, trying to hide his sadness. “One day when you are ready, you will find a man deserving. I know it would not be me. But you have saved me for a while. And maybe now and then you will think of me. Maybe that is the reason we exist at all … to be remembered.”
Now he moved through her apartment carefully, his hands lightly touching objects, memorizing them. Ana watched, suspecting that in some far-off time these moments would be recalled as exquisite, barely capturable. How he clasped his elbows when he stood silent, like a boy with a chill. How he smiled down at a glass of pure, clear water just before he sipped it. How tenderly he held a bar of soap, marveling at its scent.
One night he took her to dinner at a nice hotel. A band played, and after their meal they watched couples on the floor. During a fox-trot he asked her to dance.
Ana looked astonished. “I didn’t know you knew how …”
Niki laughed. “Does a Russian dance? Is the pope Cathol … ic?”
He danced beautifully, daringly, holding her like something rare. Then he asked the band to play a tango and swept her down the floor, turning her hip to his hip, the two of them gliding in profile. When she stumbled, he lifted her, carrying he
r over the misstep, so that their movements were unbroken, even seamless, bodies melting and molding, their rhythm sheer. Couples stopped dancing and watched. How they fit. How they moved as one.
Ana felt immense calm descend on her, wanting to stay like that forever, in that rhythm, in that time. She glanced up at his face, almost stern in pitiful decorum. He seemed to have stripped himself of everything, as if he were naked, offering her all he had, all he was. At the end, she felt so weak and vulnerable she abruptly let go of him and walked off the dance floor. She saw how the gesture shocked him, how it hurt him. This would be the hardest thing to remember. This moment.
That night as they fell asleep, he whispered, “You have been my guide, my companion. But finally, we are each alone. We are all paupers in the end.”
At the East-West Center, he gave his final lecture on his “book in progress,” attended farewell dinners, got thoroughly drunk with colleagues. The morning he left Honolulu he was wearing a shirt that smelled so clean, Ana wanted to bury her face there. She could not take him to the airport, could not bear to, and so she had scheduled early appointments. Gena and Lopaka waited downstairs in their car.
She suddenly felt desperate. “Niki. You’ll write, won’t you? And you’ll come back. We will always want you to come back.”
“Of course. When I am well. When I have means. One day I will come back and show my film.”
Gently, he took her by her shoulders and spoke to her in Russian. “That was a poem to your shoulders. You wear them with such pride. Oh, Ana. You must give all you have to life. Work to exhaustion. Think to exhaustion. And one day you will love to exhaustion.”
She stood dumb, afraid to speak, then walked him to Lopaka’s car and finally embraced him.
His hand was still waving as the car pulled into traffic.
House of Many Gods Page 26
