Dirty Work

by Julia Bell

  ‘Why is Mitzi so cruel?’ I asked mother.

  ‘Because she only has enough milk for five kittens and this one is weak and sick and might die.’ She saw my face and chucked me under the chin. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.’

  But it died a week later. Even though I’d been feeding it and had kept it wrapped warm in an old jumper.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to live,’ she said, although that wasn’t enough to stop me crying. ‘In life, everything has a time and a place. We can’t change it.’

  I looked at Victor and felt a weight of fear. He was so little and helpless.

  I promised her at the funeral, in front of God and the priest and her coffin, that I’d look after him. I stood up straight, tried to pull a face that said I knew what I was doing when I held Viktor to my shoulder.

  I trembled inside to see her face, pale and still, her eyes closed. I wanted the priests to stop with the incense and chanting, and the family to stop laying flowers at her feet. I wanted to run to her and shake her and make her wake up. I wanted to tell her that I loved her.

  I watched people filing past her coffin, tipping their hats, the family kissing her forehead. My father, in his only suit, which was too small for him round the waist, bent down and kissed her on both cheeks. Viktor gurgled in my ear and I cuddled him closer so I could feel his breath on my cheek. I don’t remember people’s faces. When I think about the funeral it was like I was in the middle of a dark sea at night, and all around me the water was moving with the noise of moaning and chanting and I was there clutching on to this little bundle that was Viktor, knowing that if I let go, I’d drown.

  On the way out I tipped the priest with Father’s money and I smiled at people when they told me they were sorry. I took Father’s hand. I didn’t cry.

  Afterwards the neighbours came to our apartment with bottles of vodka. Nosy Mrs Borodovna and her husband from downstairs, she’d even bothered to put on lipstick and her best shawl. Mila Voldimerov, my teacher from school, and her brothers, and Mum’s sister, Svetlana, who was married to Yaris, a banker from Moscow. There were so many people that some of them had to stand in the corridor.

  They drank toasts to Mother while I sat on the end of the sofa, still clutching Viktor, even though my arms were starting to ache. They talked about what Father was going to do, now he had two children to feed and no wife to look after them.

  ‘I can’t take them,’ said Tetya Svetlana, tossing her glossy hair and sniffing. She never understood why Mother married my father. ‘The Droski’s are all coach drivers. I don’t know why you said yes to him,’ she sneered last time she came to visit. ‘You should have waited like your sister for the right opportunity to come along.’

  Mother disapproved of Svetlana because she put her picture on the Internet and advertised for a husband in America. ‘Just because she has read the English-Russian phrasebook of love doesn’t mean she will be happy,’ Mother said disapprovingly. Then last year Svetlana met Yaris on a chat forum. He had a big flat in Moscow and three children and a plenty-of-money job.

  ‘I think Baba Droski should move in with you, just for the time being,’ said Tetya Svetlana.

  ‘Move in? Where?’ Father thumped the table. ‘You see yourself there is no room. I’m not sharing a bed with my own mother!’

  Our apartment only had three rooms. One for me, well, me and Viktor now, one for Mother and Father, and the kitchen with the sofa and the wobbly yellow table.

  Tetya Svetlana looked around the flat with her nose in the air. ‘Rubbish! You can fit an extra bed in there,’ she said, waving her hand vaguely towards my room.

  ‘No!’ I stood up, Viktor clamped to my shoulder. ‘I’ll look after him!’

  As I struggled forwards I knocked into the table, pushing it off the copy of Lenin’s speeches that had been holding it up. Svetlana and Yaris took a jump back as the bottle of vodka and all the glasses tumbled to the floor and smashed into brittle pieces.

  ‘Now look what you made her do! Interfering old bird!’ Father stood up, suddenly filling the kitchen. ‘You never did anything for Polina when she was alive! Now you turn up in furs in the hot weather, smelling like expensive shops, and think you are better than us! You want to come here and peck about where you are not wanted!’

  Tetya Svetlana gave him a dirty look. ‘Well you can forget about sending Oksana to us for holidays!’

  ‘Take it easy, eh? Lana is only trying to help.’ Yaris put his hand on Father’s shoulder, but he shoved him away.

  ‘Get off! Leave me alone! Go on, get off! All of you! Go away!’ He shouted so loud his face went red then purple. He looked like he was going to explode. Viktor started to cry and people muttered and grumbled as they shuffled away.

  Mrs Borodovna from downstairs grabbed my hand and pulled me into the corridor. She had survived two wars and several famines and had skin so wrinkly she looked like a raisin. Mother called her ‘the shrivelled-up-potato woman’. She was mean and cross and poked me hard with her bony fingers if I made too much noise outside her apartment.

  ‘For the baby,’ she said, handing me a box of powdered baby milk. She put her hand on my head and looked sad for a moment. ‘Your mother was a good woman,’ she added, before her face closed over and took on its usual sour frown.

  After everyone had gone, Father kicked the table until it was too broken to ever be fixed.

  ‘Stupid piece of shit!’ he shouted, glass crunching under his shoes. When I cleaned up the mess later, spikes of glass were stuck in the floor so deep I had to dig them out with a knife.

  11

  Oksana

  Father used to say that you didn’t need money to be happy, ‘All the things you need in life are free.’ He meant me and Mother, all together as a family. Like the way the Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love’. But then his wages didn’t come through. Nearly three months with no pay. And it was the middle of January.

  I knew Mother would have managed. All the food she had been making and saving, the blackberry jam at the back of the cupboard, the bags of flour she’d hidden under the floorboards in a mouse-proof plastic tub, the meat she was owed from last year. Now she was gone, I didn’t know who to ask or where to go.

  ‘It will get better soon.’ That’s what everybody said. Soon there would be Economic Progress. Economic Progress meant that we would all be rich like the Americans. At least, that’s what Father said. But what happened really is that slowly everybody left. Mila Voldimerov went to Moscow, and for two months there was no teacher to replace her, even Mrs Borodovna went to visit relatives in Kiev and never came back, until it seemed like it was just me and Dad and Viktor and a lot of old people and empty apartments. There was only one overpriced shop, but if you complained, the cow behind the counter would only shout at you and tell you to walk to Moscow yourself and buy it cheaper.

  The union at the concrete factory gave out food stamps to workers with children. But they wouldn’t take them at the shop. They said they were worth less than money, because the unions took so long to honour them. Sometimes father swapped them for roubles, though always for much less than they were meant to be worth. But that January even the food stamps had stopped. Now we only had one bag of mouldy potatoes and not enough flour left in the tin to make even one little bun.

  ‘There’s no food,’ I said to Father one morning while he made tea with tea bags stolen from the canteen at work. He gave me some, sweetened with two sachets of canteen sugar, before he said anything.

  ‘Maybe Mrs Borodovna downstairs?’

  ‘She moved away.’

  ‘Oh.’ He blew the steam from the surface of the cup. ‘Or Mrs Ivanski across the way. Your mother always got along with them. Maybe ask them if they can spare us a little something.’

  ‘I asked them yesterday.’ In fact Mrs Ivanski didn’t even answer the door. She shouted at me through it and told me that it was winter and she never opened her door in winter in case of thieves and beggars. ‘I wish I could help you,’
she said. ‘But Mr Ivanski has taken the key and you can see there is no letter box.’

  Father sighed and rubbed his face. ‘You’ll just have to manage. Your mother always managed.’

  I felt his eyes, sad and angry, like he was trying not to blame me. I sipped the hot sweet tea and struggled to pretend that it was a proper breakfast and ignore the band of worry that squeezed my head like a tight hat. Soon Viktor would wake and want feeding and I didn’t know what I was going to give him to eat.

  I hadn’t been to school since mother died, over six months ago. To begin with it was kind of fun. Like I had been chosen to live a different life. I had more important things to do looking after Viktor. But now it was winter and the days were short and boring I missed it. Adik gave me all the gossip – who was in love with who, who had moved away to live in Moscow and how the mayor had suddenly got very rich and sent his daughter to school in England.

  I missed the classes too. I missed learning about history, about the revolutionaries and the tsars, about the war with Hitler and all the brave Russian soldiers who gave their lives for our country. I wanted to get better at English too, because Adik said that speaking English meant one day you could go to America, and if you wanted to study at university you could read Law over there, and lawyers made the most money of all. More even than gangsters sometimes.

  In the kitchen there was a corner with all Mother’s religious pictures. Painted icons of Mary and Jesus and all the saints. She used to kiss them every morning and say a little prayer for God to bless our family. Since she died Father had been ignoring them, and I suddenly wondered if this was why we had no money.

  I touched them with my fingers. There was one of Jesus on a cross floating above the fires of hell with little black demons nipping on his toes.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked Mother once.

  ‘Jesus descending into the fiery furnace of hell.’

  ‘Oh. Didn’t it hurt?’ The expression on his face was kind of resigned yet serene.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well how come he looks happy then?’

  ‘I don’t know, kroshka, it was a cheap one I bought it in the market.’

  I touched it now, even though the little demons scared me, and prayed to God for a miracle so I would find food for Viktor today.

  But it didn’t seem to work. Viktor grizzled at me all morning until I got so fed up with it I took him out. We walked round and round all the apartment blocks and then down the main road towards the shop.

  Once we were there, the shabby adverts in the window for cheap yoghurt and vodka made us hungry and before I knew it we were inside, touching the packets of food.

  The assistant in an ugly grey sweatshirt with a yellow logo flashed across the chest stared at me as I pulled Viktor away from the sweets. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him open a packet right there in the shop.

  ‘I need milk for the baby,’ I said, grabbing Victor and holding him under my arm.

  ‘People need many things,’ said the woman behind the counter, flicking over another page of her magazine. ‘What am I supposed to do about it?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, hot with the shame of asking. ‘I can pay you back.’

  ‘They all say that.’ She looked up and gave me a weak smile. ‘Sorry.’

  I thought about stealing then. Just walking out of the shop with all the things I needed, but I knew she would call the police because the shop took the losses out of her wages. Viktor snuffled and mewed in my arms. He was still too small. His baby bones showed through skin that was slack and wrinkled instead of plump and smooth. One mashed up potato a day isn’t enough for a baby.

  ‘Please.’

  She looked at me then like I was a piece of shit.

  ‘My father works at the concrete factory. Soon he will get paid. I will pay you back.’

  She snorted. ‘At the concrete factory? They will never get paid. They will be closing it down soon! Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘That’s not true!’ They couldn’t close down the concrete factory. Russia always needed concrete. Father said that. ‘Every generation they knock the whole country down and start building it again. Concrete is God’s gift to the Russian people.’

  She snorted when I said this. ‘God’s gift?! I can think of better things he could give me. Your father sounds pretty stupid. What d’you think?’ She curled her lip at me. ‘What I don’t understand is why people like you have so many babies.’

  ‘He’s not mine. He’s my brother.’

  She stared at me impassively. ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘He’s my brother,’ was all I could say. ‘My brother.’ I held Viktor up to the counter, so she could see how pale and small he was.

  She sucked her teeth. ‘Well I suppose I can take vouchers. If you don’t have any cash.’ She made this out like she was doing me a big favour.

  ‘We don’t have any left.’ Her face froze over again. ‘Maybe if I could just take the milk? And then we can pay you back when I get the voucher? My name is Oksana Droski I live—’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  She folded her arms across her chest, like that was the end of the conversation.

  I stared at her. I couldn’t believe she could be so cruel over one lousy pint of milk. I gathered up all the saliva I could suck out of my cheeks and spat it at her. Slimy strings of it landed in her hair. ‘Bitch,’ I said, very loudly and deliberately.

  I didn’t stay around to hear what she said next.

  Outside the weather was like hell. The sky already grey, the wind cold enough to slice you into pieces. I pulled Viktor closer to my chest and tried to figure out how to make three potatoes last us until next week. If the bitch was right and the factory was going to close, then what would happen to us? All the way home I worried so my mind was knotty from turning the same problem over and over in my head and all I could smell in my nose was baking bread, tantalizing, making my stomach grumble. If Mother was here I wouldn’t even be allowed outside in such weather.

  ‘Hey!’

  Adik sat on the floor with his back to our door. His face was blue and purple with cold. He was holding his arms round himself and shivering like a dog.

  ‘Hey! Where have you been? I’m freezing to death out here!’ He was trying to be cheerful, but that just made me feel worse. He looked like death. ‘Can I stay at yours?’

  ‘I don’t know what for. We don’t have anything.’

  When Mother was alive she would always find enough for Adik, an extra slice of bread, some leftover solyanka – leftovers! My stomach ached. She said we should love Adik because he had even less in life than we did. Now, suddenly, neither of us had anything and I didn’t want him hanging around making me feel bad about not being like my mother.

  ‘It’s OK. I brought you a present,’ he said, like he was reading my thoughts. He handed me a plastic bag. He was grinning so it had to be something good. When I looked inside I could have jumped on him and kissed him. Bread, milk, packets of soup, a small wrap of cheese, and, oh miracle! a piece of meat.

  ‘And . . .’ he zipped open his thin tracksuit jacket. ‘Some drink.’ He flashed a bottle of vodka.

  I did not ask him where he got it. Which person who fell asleep on the bus on the way home from work had their shopping stolen from under their feet.

  Adik helped me chop up onions and potatoes and I filled the pan with water and powder from the packets of soup. I cut a small corner off the meat and put it in the pot. The rest I wrapped up and saved for later in the plastic flour tub. I thought how surprised Father would be when he came home, the flat warm with the smell of cooking.

  We fed Viktor while we waited for the stew. Small chunks of bread soaked in milk. He sucked them down so quickly he was sick all over Adik and then he cried so much we couldn’t get him to eat anything at all. Adik bounced him on his shoulders, trying to calm him.

  ‘Hold him tight and still and tell him a story.’ It was a relief to have som
eone else take him, even if it was only for a few minutes. My arms were long and heavy from carrying him all day.

  ‘Once upon a time there lived a grandmother and grandfather,’ Adik started, but Viktor just yelled even louder.

  ‘WHO WERE VERY POOR AND HAD NOTHING AT ALL IN THE WHOLE WORLD.’ Adik yelled the story at Viktor. ‘THEY GOT POORER AND POORER. SO POOR, THAT EVENTUALLY THERE WAS NOTHING AT ALL LEFT TO EAT IN THE HOUSE. SO THE GRANDFATHER SAID TO THE GRANDMOTHER, “BAKE ME A BUN, GRANDMOTHER! IF YOU SCRAPE OUT THE FLOUR BIN YOU’LL HAVE ENOUGH FLOUR.”’

  Adik paused to wipe snot and tears and sick from Viktor’s face. His crying had stopped just a little bit, now he was sobbing gently.

  ‘So the grandmother scraped out the flour bin, and mixed some dough and made a little round bun. She lit the oven and baked the bun and then put it on the window sill to cool. But you’ll never guess what happened next!’

  Viktor gurgled and grabbed Adik’s finger with his hand. Even though I had heard the story a hundred times, Adik still made it sound like a different one every time he told it.

  ‘The little round bun knew it was going to get eaten by the grandmother and grandfather with no teeth and stinky breath, so it jumped right out of the window and away it rolled along the road! On and on it rolled until it met a rabbit coming towards it.

  ‘“Mmmm, a little round bun!” said the rabbit. “I’m going to eat you up!”

  ‘“Please don’t eat me, Rabbit,” said the little round bun. “I’ll sing you a song instead.”

  ‘“A song?” The rabbit twitched his whiskers uncertainly. He wasn’t sure that the little round bun with a squeaky voice would sing a very good song. But sing it did.