He said we think of things, places, as composed of solids. But are not solids, are just energy trails. By the time we see them, energy is moving on. So. A place is just where our corporeal bodies exist at given moment while our minds explore past, present, future. “Remember that,” he said, “and you will never be unhappy.” I try to remember such a thing as I prepare to leave you.
Ana, you have just sat up in your sleep, talking to a patient, then lay down again. This makes me smile. There is such quality, such depth to you. You do not know yet how to reach it. It is in the darkness waiting. One day it will come to you through work, or love, or sacrifice. Something will challenge you, make you rise to your extreme.
Einstein said all knowledge floating in the universe will only amount to half of what we are. Half of what I am is that boy born in ice hut in Archangel’sk. Half of me is my parents. And maybe part of me is gangster, stealing, maiming for a living. Part is a young man undressing his wife, watching her turn blue in snow. Flinging her ashes in the air so she will soar forever.
And part of me is coward. Who then lay down in grief and snow, trying to join Irini in her soaring. Should I tell you my scars were from Afghanistan, when I as mercenary soldier was taken prisoner of war? But I was never soldier. My scars are wild-dog scars. Who knows why I came conscious when he gnawed my frozen flesh? Or how I found strength to fight him while he lunged and danced away with bits of me. All I remember is warm cadaver breath, his mouth of clashing knives. My fingers closing on his throat.
Farmers found me mummified in frozen blood and insects. They carved this hard pelt of filth from me and with it came sections of my skin. They bathed my raw flesh in vinegar. Is true, a half-dead man can faint, many times. An old babushka poured oil in my furrows like how in the Bible. And, slowly, in such a way I healed. Sometimes even death does not want us. This is my true history. So maybe part of me is also dog, part insect. These were truths I kept from you. Now you even know my scars. My real name is Nikolai Volenko. I, who have loved you.
I used to lie beside you full of plans. I would fix my crooked teeth. Learn how to dress. Stop carrying spoon in my pocket. I would eat like human, not a wolf. Would cook for you, keep house for you. Would teach high-school mathematics. I would marry you. We would make love on little beaches in moonlight and would aways cry out so nature thinks we are virgins! Our children would be made in acts of love. Now my exalted dreams abash me. I am only a stranger looking in window. A man passing who leaves his face hanging there with longing.
I think of St. Petersburg, called Leningrad when my parents were alive. If I begin to feel less well, I will go there. I will want to die there. I will make my way from Moscow, relive their lives for them. Surely as children they were hungry. Did they steal offerings from cemetery graves? Did they suck icicles to quench winter thirst? And did they play the icicles like bells? As lovers, did they crawl half-starved from catacombs of Hermitage, scavenging for food while Germans bombed their city?
Leningrad no longer exists. Renamed Petersburg, is now a city of gangsters. But Leningrad must still exist, because I remember it! I will go and blow dust from its magnificent palaces and cathedrals. I will breathe in moldy air of rivers, parks. My cheeks will shine from light reflected off golden wings of bronze lions on Griboyedov Canal.
Ana, if you think of me, think of me there. Probably I will live to be an old man who sits down to urinate. But if my body begins to fail, if lungs to weaken, I will go where instinct takes me, to my mother and my father’s past.
I want to sit under a special tree in tiny garden, behind old Sheremetievsky Palace on Fontanka Canal in heart of the city. In this garden is a huge old maple tree. Here Anna Akhmatova sat, cold and hungry, writing her poems. If I can see this tree, I will be happy. I will drag my feet through the drowned city of Leningrad, shouting Russian curses at the past. Your face beside me to correct my grief. I will go out singing Russian songs of joy.
Maybe one day in some great obscurity we will meet again. We will stroll aimlessly by an endless sea, freed from all things so important to humans which we soon forget. We will talk openly like monks at confession. You will tell me your secrets and I will tell you mine. Then maybe you will finally understand me. I have been living in a world not mine. I have not earned your world. Even so, you thought you could rescue me, and heal me. I did not want just healing. I wanted you to love me. Again, my dreams abash me.
Already I feel Russia reclaiming me, two squeezing claws of an eagle on my shoulders. I will take very little back. Back there nothing I possess will help me. There are not yet words to describe our new condition. Yet all Russians ever wanted was to be normal, to work, have food for our children. To have a bed, and sleep with our windows open. To talk in our sleep and not be afraid. Was it so much to ask, I wonder? It seems so little.
I feel chills, hours pass. The candle growing smaller. The dark becomes inquisitor, examining my thoughts. Forgive me, everything is pouring out. I don’t know why I write this. Why I fight to stay alive. Maybe living is just bad habit I cannot break. Maybe only Lopaka understood me, having seen real devastation in his war. Many nights we sat for hours, saying nothing, understanding everything. He will always be my bratlich, my dear brother. Gospodi! What a beautiful man he is. His children will be beautiful. He and Gena will make many children.
This, too, is my regret. Other than this film I make in bits and pieces—this film which will one day fade, because other, better films will be made about these crimes against ordinary people—other than this, I leave nothing behind. No family, no roots in time. I have nothing. You, Ana, have who you are. Family. Tribe. Hold these things precious. Fight for them.
For a while your Wai‘anae Coast, your Nanakuli, saved me. I stood in your life and even sometimes lived it. In your big house, I saw real closeness of humanity, all of life condensed. Joy, grief, rapture, love, and hate. All found expression here. How much you are! How much your people are!
Mine is a huge land. Your islands are small. We have lost almost everything. Your people will not lose. You must not lose. Remember what I told you. Death of each culture is a death of human conscience. In Russia they killed everything, but not our need to worship. Our churches are open again, the world now hears our bells. Each time your people march, the world will know Hawaiians, too, have heard the bells.
I bend close to candle now. Its flame shivers with my breathing, as if my life is balanced on its tip. I have spent this night writing so much my words walk around with a life of their own. I feel desperation. I feel like something skinned. I will lie down beside you now. And maybe for that while I can ignore my terror. It will ignore me. Yes, I am terrified. Not for where I go. But for what and who I leave.
We have Russian word, Pamyat, memory, much like your word, Ho‘omana‘o, to remember. Another beautiful Hawaiian word I will take with me. Ana. I will always remember you. You have been a riot in my heart. I have pictured us growing very old together, me still desiring you. I carefully pin up your silver hair, then take it down again, so slowly. Pin by pin.
My wrinkled hands cupping your hips. My lips kissing your dear scars, healed long ago. Your splendid laughter and your warmth making me a boy again. Innocent, unknowing boy. I have pictured us holding hands, staring down time together, carefully turning it inside out. For what is time, except this name we give our heartbeats?
One day when you are reading this, I hope it will stitch together pieces of this spreading night when you breathed soft, and I watched over you. I hope these written words will in some way tell you what my poor Russian tongue could not convey.
Oh, Ana, so much of life is foolish, except what is known by the human heart. Honor. Loyalty. And love. Thank you so deeply for honoring me. For allowing me to love again. In the little time we had, you gave me splendor.
I am truly yours, Nikolai Volenko
HO‘OHOLO
Decision
A STARLESS NIGHT, THE MOON A HALF GRAPE, EERILY GREEN AND watery. Lights on in
Lopaka’s office, she found him and Gena discussing a case involving civil liberties.
“Please. I need to talk to him alone.”
Gena quietly gathered her things and left.
He tilted his head, half smiling, a flicker of impatience. “Ana. What’s up?”
She moved closer as he took off his glasses and folded his arms, alert. His crutch leaned against the desk. She picked it up and flung it hard across the room. It hit a window that spawned a jagged crack. She picked up a paperweight, a hunk of shrapnel from his war. She stared at him, then put it down.
“Looks like we’re going to have a scene,” he said. “Can we handle it?”
She leaned over his desk. “Who told you you had the right to dictate other people’s lives?”
His eyes caught and held hers in an admonition not to pursue this, whatever it was.
She chose her words carefully. “I … I used to feel safe with you. Certain things you said could change my thoughts completely. Maybe I grew up. Now I find you vindictive, even cruel.”
“Do you want to break this down for me?” His eyes shifted back and forth, then came to rest on a filing cabinet.
“That’s right. Your files. Where you kept his letter.”
“What letter?”
She closed her eyes, then opened them. “Niki’s. The one he left for me. How could you do that?”
Lopaka slowly shook his head. “Such passion. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Don’t patronize me. You have no idea how much I hate you right now.”
Even saying it, she realized how hatred seemed to operate the same glands as love. It even produced the same reactions. She was perspiring and weak.
“For chrissake, Ana. Calm down.”
“Calm down? You kept something that was mine.”
“Yours?” he said softly. “When did you claim ownership? Of anything? You who are so attached to your detachment. So free of demands.”
“That’s not true. I cared for him.”
“Your feelings come and go like weather. Even you can’t tell if they’re real.”
She backed into a chair and slowly sat down. She would not be quick-tongued. There was too much between them, barriers, deep feelings, that prevented surrender and forgiveness.
“That letter was written to me, meant for me.”
“You don’t deserve that letter. You allowed Niki to go back to Russia, where he’ll probably die.”
“ ‘Don’t deserve’?” she whispered. “Who are you to say?”
“You played with him. You didn’t love him.”
“I did. I was learning …”
“Ana. You can’t ‘learn’ love. Maybe you picked up a certain residue … that wasn’t love. That’s why he left. The man was proud.”
“He had to go back. To finish that documentary.”
“Maybe. Or maybe that was his excuse to let you off the hook.”
“Oh,” she said. “I see where this is going. You’re the one who’s guilty, but you want me to apologize. You forget, Lopaka, you don’t intimidate me like you do everyone else.”
“… Don’t I?”
In that moment she saw how much alike they were, or had become—ambitious, coldhearted, each a spiky complex of defenses.
Now he tried to dismiss her. “Look. It’s over. I did what I did because …”
“What you did was immoral. And illegal.”
He leaned forward. “Do you know I even asked him to let me find a local girl to marry him. So he could stay here legally, get medical attention.
He laughed. Like I said, the man was proud. So what does it matter to you now? How has reading his letter changed your life?”
She lifted her head and met his gaze. “It matters because you broke my trust. You made a decision about my life without my knowledge.”
His jaw tensed, a vein pulsed at his temple.
“I’ll tell you why you did it, Lopaka. You wanted to punish me. You like playing God. You say you’re committed to our people, but you’re only committed if they do your bidding. You don’t really care about your fellow man. You don’t care about anyone. There’s something missing in you.”
She saw him flinch.
“I care about a lot. I came to love that crazy Russian. We grew close, we had things in common …”
“Devastation. War. You think I betrayed your ‘brother from the trenches.’ Your war is pau, Lopaka. It’s been over for twenty years.”
“You know, that’s something women just don’t get. Men come home, but our war is never over. It’s in the smell when my feet sweat. It’s in my dreams. Why do you think Ben drinks? Why has Noah sat at his window all these years? Because they know. Because war taught us.”
“What did it teach you?”
“That nothing’s out there. You see young soldiers dying in the thousands, and you know that humans are totally and completely alone. That we will never be not alone. That’s what you live with.”
“Then what’s the point of other humans?” Ana asked. “What is all this talk of love?”
“That’s what keeps us from sitting in dark rooms, wringing our hands. Another human allows a little tenderness in, a softness we don’t know we have. Someone telling us it’s okay to be idle, to lie back, a little quietness, a sweetness …”
She knew he was thinking of Gena.
“Maybe having someone say they love you means you found a reason not to kill yourself.”
She thought how only a woman with a huge tolerance for conflict would choose this man. “You don’t deserve her, you know.”
“I know that. But some women don’t back off. And they are rare. ”
Her head hung. Anger could not sustain her now.
“You know, Ana. Niki was the first man I ever met who I thought might deserve you, though he’s not Hawaiian. He was trying to help us, but when he needed help, you let him down. You could have saved him. I guess I lost respect for you.”
“And I, for you.”
Finally, he cleared his throat. “Okay. Maybe I was wrong. But I hated the way you kept him at a distance so he wouldn’t burden you. You do the same thing with the family.”
“You’re crazy. I’d die for any of them.”
“But you don’t live for them. Sure, you visit. Then you leave. They’re too real for you up on that hill.”
She suddenly felt exhausted. “I don’t care what you think. I loved him. I didn’t know how much till he was gone.”
“Well, Ana, sometimes life doesn’t wait. Funny, I always thought of you as fearless. I was wrong.”
“Then, tell me … how do I stop being afraid?”
“You have to start living like you mean it.”
DAYS PASSED IN PARENTHETICAL FLASHES OF REMEMBRANCE AND regret. She recalled Niki’s flesh against her flesh, his grumbling sighs, words he whispered against her temple while she slept. Her body seemed to mourn with her. An aching in her breast, a tightening in her belly. Each morning she threw up. Recognizing the signs, but too incredulous to believe them, she arranged for a physical exam. Afterwards, Ana stared at her face in a mirror as the realization took hold that she was carrying a child.
That night she dreamed she was moving fast, without the pull of gravity … A skater on sharp blades, a sea of ice, moonlight sowing a path ahead. A voice compelling her to go. Go on. A forward motion. Never-ending …
She woke in a state of shock to find it was a dream. And maybe that is when she set out on her journey. It was simply a matter of focusing, taking each thing in order of importance. A travel agent. A lawyer. Emergency passport, visa. In a heightened, breathless state, feeling slightly mad, she arranged a leave of absence from Obstetrics.
One day she delivered a premature baby, and holding it up to the light—skin so transparent she saw its tiny, fluttering heart—she turned and smiled, handing it to its mother. And while she stood there, Ana felt the sun lean on her back, a warm explosion in her spine. This is what hope feels like …
&
nbsp; She called Lopaka. “I need to know. Have you heard from Niki since he left?”
“No. I wrote, but he warned me letters don’t get through. Postal workers open them looking for currency, they steal stamps off the envelopes. His phone is out of order.”
“Then … as far as you know, he’s still in Moscow at that address he left?”
“As far as I know …”
She tried the Moscow number several times. Nothing but static, then a disconnect, international operators telling her all circuits had been broken.
SHE DROVE OUT TO NANAKULI AND SHOWED ROSIE THE LETTER. When Rosie looked up, her eyes were wet.
“Lopaka had that letter all this time. He said I didn’t deserve it.”
“And, what do you think?”
“I think I have been very selfish,” Ana said. “I thought surviving cancer entitled me to that.”
“Maybe it did, for a while. When Makali‘i died, I wished all children dead so parents could suffer like me. But then time passed. What will you do now?”
“I’m going there. I’m going to bring him home.”
Rosie seemed to take it calmly. Distances were all the same to her—Los Angeles, Moscow, all a million miles away.
“I knew you loved him. I knew before you knew.”
“You aren’t shocked I’m going?”
“Oh, Ana. What is left in life to shock me. And you have always taken the hard way. Only tell me you’ll be safe.”
“It’s safe. Tour guides day and night. They’ll bus us everywhere like children.” She suddenly moved close. “Rosie, I’m scared! Suppose I can’t find him?”
She took Ana in her arms. “You will find him. Life will help you.”
She thought of telling her cousin about the child, but its existence was so new to her—so seemingly miraculous—that Ana felt furtive and protective.
House of Many Gods Page 29
