With the last of my money I bought a lock for my room and invited a friendly plumber to install it. He charged me one ruble and joked that he was looking for a wife. What a dear, simple soul! He didn’t realize that I was quite old and almost a grandmother! The next day he showed up, fortified with drink, with a bag of candy in an outstretched hand, and was greeted by Alena’s loud phooey. My suitor vanished for good—he even resigned from our building. Well, declared my daughter when the door closed on him, what we just witnessed was a perfect example of a man on the hunt for a Moscow registration. I should be careful not to contract genital lice or some venereal disease, she continued, or she’d bar me from the bathroom and especially from her child—my own Tima!—until, that is, I produced proof of my moral and physical fitness. Because, you see, she had been warned at the maternity clinic about various forms of syphilis that were found, apparently, even in public soda fountains. Thus spoke a (finally) wedded wife who attended classes at the clinic and generally followed the path of virtue.
I left the scene of the battle and locked my door. For a long time I shed bitter tears. I was only fifty years old! My joints were only beginning to ache, my blood pressure was almost normal, I still had my health, my life! And yet—my life began to melt, to ebb away, but let’s have mercy, let’s leave that part in darkness. . . . You poor old folks, I cry for you. But how I failed to appreciate my relative youth, considering myself an ancient hag! At night, it’s true, I couldn’t sleep even then, but I didn’t give up, not yet. I’d comb the stores for scraps of fabric, hoping to stitch together a skirt or a dress, and I even nursed plans to crochet a blouse from some cheap yarn. Can you imagine? Me, thinking of crocheting, living as I was on a volcano, only moments away from welcoming to our disaster area two beloved beings, Tima and Andrey? I now save those scraps for Tima, for a shirt or something else, but a shirt’s too difficult for me, and Masha occasionally gives me her boy’s hand-me-downs. Not the nice stuff, but still. And I already have a school uniform stashed away—that’s right. I save and save.
Masha, for all her faults, is all I have left from my old life. It’s no use talking about it now, about how my friends and colleagues vanished, retreating into their cozy lives after I was unjustly sacked. These days I limit myself to a dignified telephone call once a month and a very occasional raid on their dinner tables, but of that I already spoke. Of my scrimping I spoke, too. Mr. and Mrs. Provinces drew stipends in addition to financial aid, plus their hordes of visitors supplied groceries in exchange for an evening in a warm house, even attempting to stay overnight in their room, on the floor, like some collective family. My two idiots were moved to tears by this behavior, seeing in it proof of their friends’ personal devotion to them. But I held my ground firmly and called the police, protesting the presence of hordes after eleven at night; once a whole police squad marched in, demanding to see everyone’s IDs. A regular Greek tragedy, with me the chorus. This is what my son was coming home to.
But I didn’t wish them ill. I tapped my reserves of oatmeal, the only form of nourishment Provinces disliked, and every morning I made a pot of plain cereal, as though for myself, for my sick liver, and every afternoon I found an empty pot in the sink. How I loved my daughter, all of her, down to her unwashed feet in old slippers, her bony shoulders beneath a threadbare robe—all seen from the back, for she no longer showed me her face. I’d scoop her up in my arms, lay her down on clean sheets under a satin comforter (stashed away for now), so she could spend those last days before birth resting, but she kept trotting to her finals, trying to finish early, appealing to professors with her neat pregnant belly to make concessions for her. News about her reached me in snippets of overheard phone conversations—our phone has a short cord, and I’m not deaf, not yet. So Alena worked on her exams and stuffed her beloved, and I sent letter after cheerful letter to the human sewer where my son was spending his days. I’d grown used to Provinces and begun calling him (to myself) “our dud,” in preparation for “our dad.” To Andrey I explained away Alena’s silence by saying she was overworked, and I mentioned my fears for her health, that she might end up in a hospital, which is exactly what happened.
That night I dragged myself home after a full day at the library working on my courtroom news column—one needs to eat, somehow, and there was no way I could work at home, surrounded on all sides as I was by constant slamming and knocking, plus loud telephone conversations about the new favorite subject: nutty Mom and her syphilitic boyfriend the plumber. This time I came back to a blissful silence—at ten the house was empty. I had dinner, alone, in the kitchen, bathed quietly, and fell into my clean, cool bed, only to wake up, as always, at midnight, this time from a ringing silence. I got up and started pacing in front of their door. In a panic I pushed it open and discovered an untouched bed with a rusty stain on the blue bedspread. My first thought was that he’d killed her; my second, that she’d gone into labor. The dud showed up drunk at two in the morning, staggering past me into the bathroom and vomiting. “What happened? Where’s Alena?” I kept asking through the door. He emerged as white as chalk and announced that Alena had given birth.
“Congratulations. A boy or a girl?”
“A boy.”
“Where are they?”
“Twenty-Fifth Maternity Ward,” and he collapsed like a drunken swine.
I left him where he was. Then I scrubbed the bathroom and for the rest of the night washed and ironed a pile of secondhand baby clothes, the numerous donations solicited by me. The dud meekly took containers of food to Alena every day and even ironed, but every night he disappeared, only to repeat his rendezvous with the toilet. I loosened the purse strings, for the dud had nothing: his father, apparently, had drowned at sea and the mother spent her last days in hospitals. I asked him what was wrong with her; I was scared he’d say she had TB—but no, schizophrenia. Thanks a lot. Alena called from the hospital, her voice weak: the boy was beautiful, she told me; he had curls. (Later I saw those curls—three hairs, the rest of his head smooth and bare, like Chairman Mao’s, his eyes like Mao’s, too.) I told her that in our family all the men and women were beautiful, she and Andrey especially, and then broke into tears. I cry easily—it’s my weakness.
Together the dud and I went to collect our Precious. The nurse brought him out and placed him in the dud’s arms; I gave her three rubles and managed, in a stroke of luck, to flag down a cab that had just arrived with a mother-to-be. The poor woman could barely move—her water had broken on the way, and the seat was wet and sticky. I should have walked her to the door, but I was so overjoyed at finding a cab that I almost knocked her over, and was rewarded with a filthy seat. I complained to the driver, and he wiped off the mess, cursing his wretched passenger, who was crawling, semiconscious, the baby’s head probably craning between her legs.
I think of her often. The baby, assuming it survived, is six now, and she must be at least forty. Mothers—a sacred word, yet—when it comes down to it, you’ll have nothing to say to your brats or they to you. Love them—they’ll torture you; don’t love them—they’ll leave you anyway. End of story.
Sixteen days flew by like a bad dream. Day and night became one. There was constant washing and ironing. My daughter developed cracked nipples, plus constipation, plus mastitis with high fever. Screaming Tima, sick Alena, the shaking dud, and silent me. Imagine: Alena forbade me to touch the baby after I made a simple comment that when I was at the library the dud had again gobbled down all the food. In the morning—surprise, surprise—there was nothing to eat. Why do I have to stuff this throat, too? I appealed to Alena, who was in her warm little room that smelled of milk and fresh diapers, washed by me. My happiness snoozed in the corner. But I was torn to pieces. Andrey was coming home—where would he sleep? What would he eat? How would we manage? I couldn’t sleep and woke up in a cold sweat. And the dud was always hanging around, preparing for his finals, ostensibly. For God’s sake, my darling girl, kick him out!
We’ll manage! What do we need him for? To stuff his face with our food? So you could humiliate yourself night after night, begging his forgiveness? But I said only this: “Let him go and make some money. To Siberia, to the Far North, where his daddy had made a living. You are not allowed to sleep with him anyway. I refuse to feed him.” I overheard the dud on the phone whispering about long-term construction jobs in the north.
“No,” she said. “That’s not happening. He is my husband. Go and write your stupid poetry.”
“Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe. But it’s how I feed all of you.”
Our conversations always came down to my poetry, of which she was ashamed. But I had to write or my heart would burst.
“Anyway. Let him go. Andrey’s coming home. Amnesty’s been declared. I saw the lawyer.”
“Amnesty doesn’t mean anything. Stop talking about it or you’ll jinx it!”
“Is that what you’re hoping for? That Andrey won’t come back? He will. And I don’t want him to end up behind bars again, because of the dud!”
I spoke loudly, counting on the minuscule size of our apartment. The dud, it turned out, was standing right behind me, not saying a word, as usual. A lot of sweat was spilled in those first weeks, but at least I saw him, my Precious, I saw him always and in everything. Even in the dud’s face I learned to see his mouth, his beautiful, wide brow. The dud had emerged from his provinces with those assets, and he put them to good use. Now he is grazing on greener pastures: he married a foreigner, although his salary, judging by Tima’s child support, hasn’t increased by much. My Alena was a springboard for him, nothing else, but obvious as it was, it hadn’t crossed her mind, and she danced before him on her knees day and night.
• • •
But finally the day came, and there was Andrey, sitting at our kitchen table, while the dud was banging on the bathroom door, trying to lock it. I appealed to my son, “Please, my darling, please listen to me. I didn’t want to upset you, so I didn’t mention in my letters that Alena was pregnant by God knows who.”
“Hold on. And who is this dude?”
“Just a minute. I’ll tell you from the beginning.”
“Can you wait? I’m hungry.”
“Here. Here’s some soup. Eat. You don’t know the worst of it! Here’s some bread. Have you washed your hands?”
Silence. We were back at square one: the problem of washing hands. He glared at me and took bread with dirty fingers.
“Fine. As you wish. Anyway, I had to do something.”
“About Alena?”
“That’s right. It’s always up to me!”
“I don’t remember you bothering on my behalf.”
“Andrey, darling, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“All I know is that I was the only one to end up in jail, and there were eight of us.”
“Don’t go there. Please. The story is that you were alone against five, right?”
“I’ve heard all this before.”
“Please. Listen to me. That’s why they gave you only two years. If it was eight against one—who, by the way, was thrashed by all of you—”
“He got what he deserved.”
“Oh, how wrong you are, how wrong! I saw him at the hospital. Anyway, with eight defendants you would have gotten five years. Minimum.”
“Just shut up. Bitch.”
“Please, my love, I beg you. You are back. The light of my life is back. My only one. You’ll show him, you’ll show that bastard!”
More banging in the bathroom—the dud was trying to get out.
“I had to take measures. The girls, her classmates, confirmed what had happened in the hayloft and that she had washed her bloody clothes—”
“Mom, enough! I’m dizzy.”
“He married her because of the witnesses. Eat, eat, my love: here’s potatoes, herring, butter. He hasn’t wolfed down everything yet!” I couldn’t cry. “What we’ve gone through! That bastard. A fatherless wretch from some provincial dump. Barely got accepted into college. If they kick him out he’ll be drafted.”
“Better the army than prison.”
“He doesn’t think so.”
“So you’ve snagged yourselves a new sonny. Well done. Bitch.”
“Eat, my love, eat. Everything’s homemade.”
At this moment the fatherless wretch finally extricated himself from the bathroom and approached Andrey. He offered a hand and said a strange thing: “Glad to see you. Welcome.”
Alena burst in, buttoning herself up after a feeding, and threw herself on Andrey’s neck.
“What can you do? A silly cow.” Andrey smiled.
“Silly cow she is,” the dud agreed amicably.
They looked so young, so innocent, so full of hope, even in the squalor of our kitchen. If only they knew what awaited them—and what could possibly await them in this life of ours? Darkness and cold, betrayals and death—and the breathing of my Precious, which alone could provide consolation.
My love. It’s a physical pleasure for me to hold his weightless little arm, to gaze into his round blue eyes, with eyelashes so long that even when he sleeps they cast shadows like enormous fans. All parents, and especially grandparents, love little children with a physical, sinful love. The child understands that and becomes callous and spoiled. But what can we do? Nature meant for us to love, and so we love—even the old folks, who just want a little warmth.
So my two darlings were having a reunion in our filthy kitchen, and I wasn’t a part of it.
“Andrey,” I said, “I object to his registration here. And she, in return, objects to your registration.”
Oh, the power of words. The reunion was over.
Andrey was shocked. “You do? How can you?”
“Don’t worry, it’s just a form of protest against her. You know how we live here, like bulls in the ring.”
The young parents drooped like wilted flowers and slinked into their room. Andrey resumed eating. I perched opposite him.
“Andrey!”
“Mama!”
“Two minutes, Andrey. It’s serious. She wants to register him in our apartment. If she does, he can get a room later, through the courts. That’s all he wants, that bastard. She’s just a springboard for him, nothing more.”
“He’s got his looks going for him.” (Strange laughter.)
“That he does. He could have anyone—and he will! If it were not for my witnesses . . . But never mind. He’ll get something off her—a Moscow registration, at least—and then he’ll leave her!”
I was speaking loudly, for I was right. Everything happened exactly as I predicted. But to prove it! To prove it took a lot of effort. For he became attached to Tima, took pride in him, took him for walks, showed him off to their hungry so-called guests. How complicated everything was.
And me? I was left with nothing.
“Keep it in mind,” I said to Alena one night, “your husband has the makings of a pedophile. He loves the boy.”
Her jaw dropped.
“He loves the boy, not you,” I explained. “It’s unnatural.”
She laughed with relief, even though a moment ago she was crying—it was eleven, and the dud wasn’t home yet. She grabbed the phone and dragged it to her room, leaving the door half open. I was the favorite subject of her conversations, endless like winter evenings.
But how old was I then? I was only fifty. Andrey was twenty, Alena nineteen. I had two of them in two years. I had just been fired from the paper for having an affair with a married poet, the father of three children, whom I had every intention of raising myself, stupid idiot. Naturally the wife went to the editor in chief to complain, and almost immediately they received a long-promised three-room apartment. Until then they had all lived in a single room, including his mother-in-law, and he would work in my room, while my own mot
her loudly berated him for taking advantage of me. . . . So I resigned and joined a remote archaeological dig, just to get away, and the result was Andrey and Alena. We lived four of us in my room, with my mother behind the wall, while a divorce drama unfolded in my husband’s hometown. Then his wife decided to pay us a visit. The doorbell rang; I opened the door, heavily pregnant; and there they were, the wife and his teenage son. Next, the wife smashed the window, slashed her wrists with a shard, my husband tried to grab her, the son squealed, “Don’t touch my mama.” My mother rushed over with some gauze, then took them to her room to revive them with tea. . . . It was actually a stroke of luck, the wife’s visit. Between us things were deteriorating rapidly: he missed his son, worried about finding work in Moscow, chafed under alimony and child support, and plus there was my swelling belly. But then she shook everything up. Women like her, with an instinct for destruction, they create a lot in the end. I’m one of them, alas.
• • •
It all seems like yesterday. I look back on my life—men are like road signs; children mark chronology. Not very attractive, I know, but what is, if you look closely? To Alena, I know, my habits, my verbal expressions are deeply distasteful. Especially the question “Is he good looking?” which I used on the rare occasions when she’d open up about her best friend Lenka’s admirers; that was back when she was in eighth grade. All I meant was who in their right mind would approach that Lenka of hers, who at fourteen smelled like army barracks, wore size-ten shoes, and sported a mustache? My Alena (all girls born that year were Elenas in different variations; this year they are all Katyas) was head over heels for that girl, and strained as our relationship was, I was occasionally treated to a breathless rendition of Lenka’s adventures. Until, that is, my inevitable question: Is he good looking?
“Mama! What does that have to do with anything?”
There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In Page 4
