‘Take good care of him,’ I said.
She nodded, a little severely. ‘Of course.’
Outside, the weather had begun to clear. I found a quiet café off the main street, ordered a coffee and lit a cigarette. It had been to Tanya’s grandparents’ cottage that Vassily had taken me when I was discharged from hospital after Afghanistan. The cottage was roofed with corrugated tin sheets that were brown with rust, blending naturally into the autumnal colours of the overhanging trees. The door stood open, a net curtain trailing across the packed-earth doorstep. Tethered to a stake in the garden, a large dog barked furiously. A young woman stepped out, barefoot on the worn earth. Her hair fell around her shoulders, framing a hand some face. I paused for a moment, seeing her. There was something familiar about her face. It attracted me and frightened me simultaneously.
‘Tanya,’ Vassily said.
‘You’re back, then,’ she said.
‘Da,’ he said, with a grin, ‘I’m back, as I promised.’ His tongue licked nervously at his lips, but I could see his eyes devouring her. After a moment he collected himself.
‘And this,’ he said, with a flourish of his large hand, ‘is Antanas, my comrade in arms, my brother and friend, as I have also promised to you.’
Tanya appraised me for a few seconds, her eyes travelling up my emaciated body, resting finally on my own. ‘Vassily tells me you have been ill.’
I shrugged, sheathed still in the dark haze of the neuroleptics the hospital had been feeding me. Slowly her features worked their way into my mind, teasing out the memory of other features, of feelings numbed over the long months – years – of medication.
We followed her as she stooped through the low doorway, brushing the curtain aside. After the bright afternoon light, the gloom of the small room into which we stepped was, for several moments, impenetrable.
‘Senele,’ Tanya called, ‘Vassily is back. He has brought his friend, the Lithuanian boy.’
The shuffle of broken slippers on the stone floor drew my eyes to the doorway leading off from the kitchen, through which a woman appeared, a twig broom in her hand. Moving closer, she nodded to Vassily. She examined me.
‘Just look at the state of you,’ she said, and despite the twist of her lips and the angry way she said this I could see she was concerned.
Tanya led me through to the back room and laid me on a large sofa beneath the window.
‘Vassily has told me a lot about you,’ she said, kneeling beside me.
I nodded, unsure how to respond. I found the idea of conversation difficult. She lingered a moment longer and then got up and went back into the kitchen, leaving behind only the scent of her body. I lay listening to the sound of her voice in the next room. Transfixed by it.
When I had finished the coffee, I ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and left the café. It was early enough to go back to the workshop for a couple of hours, but I could not face it. I caught a trolley bus home and waited in the gathering gloom for Daiva and the baby.
Tanya telephoned again the next morning. Daiva roused me from the sofa, where I had been sleeping. In the kitchen Laura was crying. ‘It’s Tanya,’ Daiva said, her voice coloured with too many implications. My heart shrank and my hand trembled as I picked up the receiver. Tanya’s voice was thick with sorrow, choking on the news of her husband’s death. I stood on the cold tiled floor, barefoot, in silence.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. I heard the catch in her throat and there was a short pause as she steadied herself. ‘This morning. Early.’
‘Tanya,’ was all I could think to say. After that the silence grew too oppressive for us both. I heard her sobbing, far away down the crackling line. I longed to be there with her, to hold her and comfort her.
Daiva stood by the kitchen window, looking out, her back to me. She did not turn as I put down the receiver. For some moments we stood like that, without saying a word. She did not offer me comfort. Instead she picked up a plate and rinsed it under the tap. Laura had stopped crying and was muttering into a bowl of porridge. I picked up my jacket, slipped on some socks and shoes and left the apartment.
For some time I paced back and forth outside, unsure where to go. It had always been to him that I turned. And now he was gone. In the end I headed for the bus stop on Freedom Boulevard. Catching the number 16 to the station on the edge of the Old Town, I made my way along the familiar route, through the old ghetto, towards the Gates of Dawn where he and Tanya had their apartment.
I was about to stop in the small beer hall close by their block when, looking up, I noticed the light in their window. For some moments I stood in the centre of the narrow cobbled lane that twisted down, away from Filharmonija Square, looking up at the third-storey apartment. Dull clouds, which had moved once more across the city, hung low and threatening now. The old grey plaster falling from the walls of the buildings was dark. Only the moss seemed enlivened. It was verdant, growing up thickly from the foundations.
Knowing I should leave her, that I should not intrude, still I pushed open the heavy wooden door and found myself in the familiar musty gloom of their stairwell. When the door closed behind me, I was in almost pitch darkness. I pressed the light switch, but nothing happened.
Slowly I made my way up the stairs. Grimy windows on the second floor let in a pale light. I stopped and peered out into the street, at the beer hall where I would have been better off going.
I pressed the buzzer and stood back from the door, so that she could see me properly when she put her eye to the spyhole. For some moments I waited. I was about to press the buzzer a second time when I heard her footsteps. She moved the flap over the spyhole and there was a moment’s silence as she peered through. A key turned and the door opened.
‘Antanas,’ she said. She stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind by a small lamp on a table in the hallway. It was only when I moved closer that I noticed the state of her face. Her cheeks were red and her eyes swollen and dark. In contrast the blood seemed to have withdrawn from the rest of her face, leaving it deathly pale.
She allowed me to step into the apartment, then embraced me. I held her tight. Her hair smelt of the disinfectants they use in hospitals and the Russian cigarettes Vassily smoked.
‘You smell of him,’ l said.
She smiled. ‘I smoked God knows how many of his cigarettes when I got back this morning. I feel sick, but I needed to smell him.’
We sat in their small lounge drinking coffee, and I smoked the last of the cigarettes in the packet he had left. Everywhere there were signs of him, and it struck me then how much of him there was in this apartment, unlike my own, which showed barely a trace of me. Before I left she stopped me in the corridor.
‘He left something for you,’ she said. ‘Wait.’
She disappeared into the bedroom and emerged after a few moments with a long, thin envelope. He had written my name on the front.
‘For an hour or so yesterday he was quite lucid, although he was in rather a state. He wrote it then. He made me promise to make you find Kolya, an old friend of yours.’ She shrugged.
I slipped the envelope into the pocket of my jacket. ‘Thank you, Tanya.’ I kissed her cheek, which was cool and paler now. ‘If you need anything…’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
Leaving the apartment, I crossed over to the beer hall, but at the door I stopped, suddenly afraid to enter, knowing I would not find him there. Walking quickly back across the town, I went to a bar we had never visited, a modern one on Gedimino. I drank quickly to hold back the tears. Digging the envelope from my pocket, I pulled from it a thin sheet of paper. The sight of his large flowing handwriting caused a spasm of pain to tighten my chest.
‘Antanas,’ he wrote, ‘the years have been good ones, haven’t they? You must not hate me. Find Kolya. He will tell you what I have not been able to. Find Kolya. And forgive me, my little brother.’
I stared at the writing for some time. The words slowly took f
orm and ordered themselves into phrases. But still I could not find the sense. I could not think for what he could want forgiveness. Folding the paper, I put it back into its envelope. For years it had been Vassily who had helped me hold back the flood of memories. Those years in Afghanistan were a dark hole around which we stepped with care.
The bright peacefulness of Tanya’s grandparents’ cottage, where Vassily had taken me in his rattling Zhiguli, had allowed me to slough off the bleak desperation of the hospital. Tanya’s grandfather sold tourist trinkets and he put us to work producing cheap pictures from chippings of amber.
We sorted the amber chips into coloured piles. Little mounds of each shade dotted the card table on which we worked. Vassily picked up a thin sheet of plywood and laid it down on the table. With a cheap emulsion he painted a crude black outline of the Madonna’s face and shoulders, copying a picture Jurgis had given him. When the paint had dried, he brushed a portion of it thickly with glue and we proceeded to build up the image using the chippings of amber. Around the rim of the picture we built up a luminous halo with deep orange amber that glowed warmly. As we worked in towards the black outline of her head, we switched to the brighter yellow pieces, while for the face and shoulders we used the larger dark pieces, which when stuck into the thick layer of glue flamed bloodily red. The robe that fell from her shoulders we fashioned with the small bone-white fragments.
When we had finished, Vassily carefully assembled a flimsy pre-prepared wooden frame around the picture. A sheet of waxy paper was glued across the back, hiding the poor-quality wood the picture had been built on, and two small tacks were tapped into the frame. Taking a length of string, Vassily measured it off and cut it. Deftly, his thick fingers tied the string between the two tacks. Once he had finished he held it up, turning it slightly, allowing the amber to catch the rays of the late afternoon sun cutting across the tops of the trees and falling heavily against the peeling paint of the cottage. The amber glowed, each transparent yellow piece gathering its own little parcel of light.
‘The best trinkets on the Baltic coast,’ Vassily commented ironically.
He took the picture to a small hut attached to the cottage. Opening the door, he indicated I should come and look. Inside, stacked neatly on shelves, were more pictures. They differed in size. While some were large with stylised pictures of pine trees framing beaches, others were tiny little miniatures. A crucifixion, another Madonna, the Pope, Lenin. Most were executed crudely. The pasting was visible and the shades had been built up with little care. It was obvious which ones had been produced by Vassily. I picked up a miniature he had done of the head of the crucified Christ. In the small space he had been able to capture a look of sorrow, dark amber beads of blood trickling down from the crown of thorns.
‘This is beautiful,’ I said.
Vassily grinned. ‘Jurgis moans I take too much time over them. And it is true, I do. They will only go for a few roubles, what is the point in working so hard on them? I don’t know, I can’t help it.’
He shrugged, taking a larger piece of amber from his pocket. It was orange and clear, with only a few blemishes in it.
‘Look,’ he said, leading me outside into the sunlight. He held up the amber so that it caught the sun. ‘Isn’t it beautiful ? So warm; it is like a piece of sunlight solidified. From this we get the word electricity. The Greeks called it elektron when they discovered it, lustrous metal. And look.’ He rubbed the amber hard against the ripped woollen jumper he wore and then held it over a little fluff. The fluff clung to the amber. ‘Static electricity. It is a source of power, of healing, of life. It is an elemental force for good, preserved from the very beginnings of time, from the prehistoric forests which grew thickly here, across the plains to Scandinavia before the sea poured over them.’
His eyes glowed. He folded the amber into the palm of his large hand. ‘I will teach you how to work amber,’ he said. ‘I will you teach you how to make jewels. We will be jewellers, the two of us, craftsmen of the highest order, the best jewellers on the Baltic coast. I will teach you all you need to know.’
Sleep came quickly in those days, unaided by narcotics or spirits. The tranquillity of the village and the compassionate solicitude of Vassily encouraged the slow process of healing, closing the wounds, slicking over the pale ghosts of our past. And when the dreams came, he woke me and held me through the dark hours.
Tanya was the centre of attention in the small cottage. Her grandparents doted on her, and it had not escaped my notice that when she entered the room, or addressed Vassily, his face flushed with pleasure. When he spoke to her he was especially polite and she, when she addressed him, was playfully rude. She was beautiful. When she smiled, the smile would grow from her eyes and spread down across her glowing cheeks to her lips. Fearful of the feelings she stirred in me and of hurting Vassily, I stifled my attraction to her.
In the modern bar on Gedimino I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and wept, my body stiff and awkward, aware of the scene I was causing. Vassily, my friend, my teacher, was gone.
Chapter 5
I did not return home until late that evening. Daiva was already in bed. She lay silent in the darkness, and though she said nothing, I knew she was awake. As quietly as I could, I undressed, sitting on the edge of the bed so I would not stumble. I opened a window and kept a distance from Daiva so she would not smell the vodka on my breath.
When I slipped between the sheets, she turned to me. ‘Vassily?’ she asked quietly.
‘He died this morning.’
For some moments she said nothing, then, half turning away, she said, ‘And how is Tanya?’
She attempted to control the tone of her voice, but it shook with the force of the repressed accusation.
‘Tanya was upset when I saw her this morning,’ I said.
‘This morning?’ Daiva shot back bitterly, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘You didn’t spend the day comforting her?’
‘No,’ I said, quietly, ‘I didn’t spend the day comforting her.’
We lay, then, for some time in silence. I moved my hand over to touch hers, but she drew it away sharply.
‘I can’t stand it any more.’ ‘What?’
‘I can’t stand this deception.’ She turned her back on me. In the light of the street lamps that glowed dimly through the gap between the curtains, I saw her figure outlined. I felt a heavy weight settle on my chest, press down on it. I felt weary.
‘I can’t do this, Daiva,’ I whispered, my voice tight. ‘I don’t want to talk now.’
Daiva sat up. I saw the stiffening of the muscles in her neck, her jaw jutting forward slightly.
Her voice was low and measured when she spoke. ‘You never do want to talk about it.’
I eased myself out of bed and went over to the window. Pulling back the thin curtain, I looked out blankly into the night.
‘You never want to confront things,’ Daiva said. I lifted my hand.
‘Daiva,’ I said, finding my breathing constricted, feeling the heavy hand pressing down on my chest, squeezing the breath from me, ‘I don’t want to talk just now. Let’s stop.’
‘I need to talk.’ Her voice was furious. Quiet, low, controlled, but furious.
I balled my fist and pressed it hard against my chest. A sharp pain pierced through the muscles above my heart.
‘For five years now we have been walking around each other. I have kept my mouth shut, watched you drinking more and more, sitting here in silence because I’m not allowed to talk. It’s killing me, Antanas. It’s killing me.’
I spun around.
‘Killing you?’ I spat at her. ‘Killing you? You don’t know the meaning of that word.’ My voice rose. ‘Do you want me to tell you what that word means? Do you want to know what killing means? Do you?’
‘Don’t you shout at me,’ she said, her voice very low and tight now.
I was trembling. My pulse raced; my teeth were gritted so tight against each other they hurt.
>
Daiva pulled the sheet away and got out of bed. She moved silently across the room to the crib. The baby had stirred. I could hear her moving, a small snuffle. Daiva leant down, arranging the covers over her, muttering soothingly. I turned back to the window and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply, trying to control the rage.
The door of the bedroom clicked and a light came on in the hallway. I turned to see Daiva entering the kitchen. I followed her. She had opened the window and was staring out, a soft breeze blowing her fine light hair away from her face, making the silk of her pyjamas shiver. Hearing me enter, she picked up the kettle. Filling it from the tap, she placed it on the hob and struck a match to light the gas. Only then did she turn to me.
Leaning back against the sink, she folded her arms across her chest. For some moments she did not say anything. I stood in the doorway, my pulse racing.
‘It can’t go on,’ she said at last.
She pushed her hair back from her face. Her cheeks were flushed delicately pink. Her throat was the colour of marbled amber.
‘I can’t live like this any more.’
‘You think I can?’ I retorted, wounded by the implication of her words. I felt the ripple of desperation pass beneath my feet, the swell of the bubble of darkness. ‘You think I can live like this?’ I repeated, not knowing what else to say.
The gas flame roared faintly. A gust of wind blew through the window, billowing the net curtains, rasping the gas.
‘It’s not just the drinking, Antanas, although God knows the drinking is difficult enough to bear. I just can’t stand how you give in to her.’
‘Give in to who? What are you talking about?’
Amber Page 3
