There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In

by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

  “I only wish her well, this child of yours. People go to jail for this, inappropriate behavior with a minor. Child rape!”

  “Stay out of it, old fool!”

  “And then you’ll be surprised when she gives birth at twelve—and you won’t be the father.”

  I won, I distracted him; now he brims with a new desire: to punch my insolent mug. From now on, every time he wants to lay a hand on his daughter, he’ll remember me, and his desire will turn to hatred. Again I’ve saved a child! I always save someone. In our neighborhood I alone keep vigil at night. One summer night I heard a woman’s half-choked “Oh God, someone help!” My hour had come: I stuck my head out the window and announced loudly, “What’s going on here? I’m calling the police!” Our local cops, by the way, respond promptly to such calls, when the criminal is still there. Two more windows opened, another voice yelled, and I saw a couple men running in this direction. “Right here, Comrades, you are almost there,” I directed them, even though they were at least a hundred yards away. But my goal was to scare the rapist, to make him let go of her. And he jumped out of the shrubs and ran off. The woman burst into tears. Imagine her terror when he started choking her and banging her head against the wall of our building.

  And so we win. I bring knowledge to the ignorant masses, I give voice to their conscience, I orate like a Pythia at schools, camps, clubs. And how they tremble! But they listen, and they’ll never forget. My eternal misery, my Tima, always sits next to me when I perform, never leaves me alone, and the children receive us as an indivisible entity. Seven rubles with kopecks is my fee—three or four readings a month plus submissions, and one can live, almost. Who can stop a woman trying to feed her child?

  • • •

  This week I’m giving a reading at a children’s winter camp outside the city, thanks as always to the wonderful Nadya B., who has arranged it for me. We are being picked up at the propaganda office. They promised us that at the camp we’d be fed, hurray. And then the horror begins. Not the horror itself but the prelude to the horror. The phone rings, and the little one grabs the receiver. “Hullo, hullo. . . . You want Anna who?” Pause. The phone goes dead. I pounce on the boy: Never, do you hear me, never again . . . Phone rings; I grab the receiver and get a painful kick in the shin. The boy flops onto the floor and turns on his siren. My children never allowed themselves such tantrums, but the little one has the nerves of a hysterical woman.

  In the meantime a sweet provincial voice informs me that my mother, Serafima Georgievna, will be transferred from the hospital to a facility for the chronically insane.

  That’s it. That’s the end of the line. What I’ve been too terrified even to imagine has come true.

  “How can I address you, dear?”

  “Valya.”

  “Dear Valechka, what happened? Has she been difficult? Where is Deza Abramovna?”

  “Deza’s on vacation; we are all on vacation starting next month. They are renovating the clinic; all the patients are being moved. Some will go to another hospital, some will go home, the rest will go to a facility for the chronically insane. But your . . . your mom, your auntie—”

  “Does it matter? She’s a human being!”

  “Anyway, she cannot go to the hospital—they won’t take her. So you’ve got to decide. The paperwork’s ready; tomorrow they are taking her. Don’t worry, you don’t have to come.”

  “Is there anyone in the office?” The boy takes a step back and punches me in the kidneys with both fists. “Valechka, dear, what’s the urgency?”

  My mind is racing. If they move her, we lose her pension. This means we’ll be completely and totally screwed. Her pension arrives two days from now—can we still get it? Oh horror, horror. One lives from day to day, admittedly badly, but then something happens and the previous existence seems a quiet harbor. What a disaster. They die like flies at that facility.

  Suddenly I hear, “There’s no urgency. You were informed a long time ago. Really, you shouldn’t worry.”

  “No one’s informed me of anything! Which facility is she going to?”

  “Outside the city. We’ll get her ready and everything—”

  “That’s two hours one way!”

  “More like three. But there’s no need for you to be there. They have everything they need. Okay then, I’ll need your signature, but that can be done later.”

  “What signature?”

  “Saying you agree—”

  “But I don’t agree!”

  “Are you taking her home, then?”

  “No signature! Forget it!” I hang up.

  Now we must hurry to the reading. The usual tantrum unfolds: Tima refuses to put on his warm felt boots with overshoes and a wonderful fur hat that used to be Andrey’s. But it’s cold outside! Do you want me to stay up all night, bleeding my heart out, while you are in bed sick? I implore you, and so on. In the end we agree on the combination of a flimsy hat and warm boots. Subway tickets cost a fortune, but then we were promised a ride by car. The car turns out to be a drafty pickup truck, but even for this I’m grateful. We are accompanied by a lady in a torn sheepskin coat and a homemade foxtail hat.

  “Ma’am, your sleeve’s torn. . . .”

  “Again! I keep stitching it up. . . .”

  Her outfit betrays a feeble effort at luxury, but later she gets paid the same miserly fee as I.

  “What are you?” I ask her. “I’m a poet.”

  “I’m a bard.”

  “A bard?”

  “That’s what they call me. I tell stories using puppets. It’s very simple: I make these funny puppets with potatoes for a head. Your girl will enjoy it.”

  Right—can’t tell a girl from a boy, this so-called bard, although Tima’s curls have confused many. My girl stares with puffy eyes at the window; his hat is off, the car drafty.

  “Me, I’m a poet. (Put your hat back on!) A namesake, almost, of the greatest one. . . . (I’ll tell the driver to stop the car!)”

  “Which greatest poet?” the bard wants to know.

  “Guess. I’m Anna Andrianovna. It’s like a mark of fate.”

  “Oh, names are always a mystery! Take mine: Xenia.”

  “What’s the mystery?”

  “It means unknowable to all.”

  “Nice one.”

  My stomach is howling, my heart pounding in alarm. After the call from the hospital I didn’t eat; I tried to track down a psychiatrist I knew a long time ago, but at his home they said only “such and such doesn’t live here anymore,” very bitterly. But I’ve fed Timochka: sugared bread and cold tea. We call it pastry. He’s still hungry, but first we must rattle around in this unheated, stinking tin can, our stomachs rumbling. What a bitter, hungry lot. My mother is still in the hospital, in her bed; she is eating well, I was told on the phone. I’ve tried to find that Valya, but no Valya seems to be working there. I know how my mother eats: sucks in food greedily with her toothless mouth. Last time I saw her, her shoulders were nothing but bones. Look at her! Let her be, let her die in bed. No. That’s when we get punishment—right before the end, when there’s so little left of us that it’s unclear who’s being punished.

  “Children are the best audience,” the bard drones on. “You arrive: there’s chaos, kicking, screaming. But once you begin your story . . .” She is shouting over the roaring engine.

  Maybe Nina’s playing a practical joke? No, I’ve checked: tomorrow they are taking her away.

  “. . . folk tales,” Xenia finishes.

  “Excuse me, what’s your full name?”

  “Just call me Xenia.”

  “Well, it’s not really appropriate, is it? When did you retire?”

  “Me? I’m not retired yet,” answers the fatherless one, who looks like she should have grandchildren.

  “I’m retired,” I tell her. “When my collection o
f poems comes out they’ll recalculate my pension—I’ll be getting more. Tima and I live from hand to mouth, plus my mother is being kicked out of the hospital; my daughter stays home with two little ones, but she has child support for only one, and my son, he’s disabled.” I recite her a full list of my miseries like a beggar on a train.

  “And me,” this orphan informs me, “I won a car! I’m learning to drive.”

  “Right. I’ve heard about the lawsuits: people buy lottery tickets, then lie about winning; in the end they lose their prizes.”

  “We have a son,” she continues, her cheeks jiggling like jelly. “I’ll drive him to music lessons. My husband refuses to drive out of principle, because the lottery ticket was bought by my mother.”

  “I see, you must have had your son late. But it’s okay; by the time you’re eighty he’ll be all grown up.”

  “Mama”—sometimes he calls me mama, sometimes grandma—“I’m hungry!”

  “Your daughter, would she like a candy?” mumbles this unknowable.

  Tima licks the candy like a puppy and looks up at her.

  “Say thank you and put your hat back on; then the lady will give you another.”

  Tima freezes in disbelief.

  “You can’t get sick now—Granny Sima is coming home. Remember Granny Sima? She doesn’t allow you to go out without a hat. Put it on, and the lady will give you another candy!”

  The lady mumbles something about her ulcer and about her mommy, who makes her carry around imported candy everywhere. “He won’t have a reaction to chocolate? My son does.”

  “Unfortunately, he may.” We are not beggars!

  “I only have chocolate left.”

  Tima’s eyes shine like two diamonds. The tears will come in a second. But he turns away. He’s ashamed of these tears; this is the beginning of pride. Head up, my little one. His hand finds mine, and he pinches it painfully.

  The lady stuffs herself with chocolate.

  “All right,” I announce majestically. “Just this once. It’s not real chocolate anyway—mostly soybeans.”

  Tima chews with his mouth open, like his great-grandmother.

  They are expecting us at the camp. It’s dark out. After the city, the clean country air intoxicates. Snowy dust swirls in the yellow light of the streetlamps.

  “Do you want some tea?” they ask us. “The children have just had theirs.”

  I tell them no, thanks, we must get ready for the reading, but the bard interrupts me: Of course we’ll have some tea; it’s good for the voice!

  We are sitting in an enormous dining hall. I’m drinking cup after cup of hot tea with candy and have already pounced on two huge slices of bread—they serve big, round loaves here. I love bread more than any delicacy. The room is warm, and my nose starts running. I carry a clean rag in my briefcase, but I’m ashamed to produce it here, so I take a piece of scrap paper that they use for napkins. I can hear the children’s voices; they are being herded into the auditorium. Xenia and I quickly visit the bathroom, where she lifts her skirt and removes warm long johns. I glimpse her girdle. How often we forget our ugliness and present ourselves to the world au naturel, fat, flabby, unwashed. I’m sure her husband strays from her, repelled by the horror—for what’s to like in an old person? Everything’s bursting like an overripe orange; it’s not spoiled, not yet—it’s yesterday’s good milk. In the east they’d wrap us in three layers and paint our hands and feet with henna.

  I give my reading; the kids have quieted down. Tima is with me on the stage, as always, playing loudly with the water pitcher, slurping poisonous tap water—not his worst behavior. The teachers are poised behind the brats like overseers, oozing displeasure. In the end the art wins out, and I get my share of applause; Tima and I go to the wings to await our dinner. I want to send him down to the audience, to watch Xenia’s performance—I need to collect my thoughts. But he climbs on my lap, jealous and demanding, and so we watch Xenia from behind. She pokes a large potato with a fork, arranges a bit of coarse fiber for hair, adds a ladle and thongs, and to my surprise performs a very original little skit. Even in our ancient bodies some intellect glimmers. Remember my great almost-namesake.

  After the performance we celebrate in the dining hall. The children come over to look at the puppets, and I deftly drop into my briefcase three huge slices of buttered bread, plus some candy, for the evening feast at home. And then, with maximum flattery, I extract from Xenia a large potato, clearly bought at a private market—in order, I lie, to repeat the tale to Tima, but in fact for our second course. Alas.

  Homeward. Morning awaits me, the morning of the final decision. The pension, the pension. But there is the smell to consider. Like in a zoo. Mama didn’t make it to the bathroom, neither did her ward mates, and oh, how it stank in that ward. They were terribly ashamed, those grannies, and would pull up their covers, smearing themselves on the chin. In my presence a nurse pulled down the covers of Mama’s neighbor, Krasnova, screaming at her, Look at yourself, you such and such, up to your neck, such and such. At that moment I saw in my mother’s dull little eyes a glimmer of triumph. How well I knew that glimmer! How often I observed it through her ostensible pique—pique on my behalf—when she was defending me from my poor husband. The glimmer signified the triumph of her righteousness, of her right over my wrong. I honestly think that her few acts of kindness were performed out of spite—for me. Kindnesses are often performed in protest; the little one will befriend his so-called mother, my daughter, simply to protest against me and my righteousness, and whether for better or for worse I’m not sure.

  Our bellies full (macaroni with ground beef, sweet tea, three slices of bread with butter—the children in our country have it good), we crawl home. Tima used to go to a day care, too. They would feed him, while I would catch up on sleep, go to the library, visit Burkin, and even concoct a very decent skirt out of scraps. But Tima was constantly sick. Every week of freedom cost me two months of his illness, when he would stay at home, pitiful and thin, and torment us both. What do they do to these children that they come home exhausted and full of aggression, and get sick as a result? Or is it the children who torment the other children? We lost our spot; there is a long waitlist to get in.

  All night I churned on my sofa like on a hot plate, trying to decide. Then I glanced at the window and shuddered: something ugly and white clung to the glass, and I realized it was dawn. My judgment day had arrived. If my mother lived here with me, if I could endure that hell—the constant screaming, the insults—then I’d also have to deal with her paranoia about ambulances and policemen. We tried at first, idiots that we were, to convince her that the cop outside the supermarket was simply standing there (Andrey would work himself to a froth coming home from interrogations), and I begged her to believe me that the ambulance hadn’t arrived for her, but then, of course, it did.

  • • •

  That’s how matters stood. Alena wept herself into prostration every night; then she went into an eating frenzy, which drove Andrey mad. He always made sure everyone got their equal share of dessert; at the table he would torment little Alena by placing his unfinished cake in a prominent spot, like a sadist. Something has always been wrong in our family when it came to food. Poverty was to blame for all those petty reckonings, who ate how much of what; my mother constantly accused my husband of stealing food from his children. But I never accused anyone except for the dud, who did in fact deprive his child of nourishment, but that was later; that was a reaction to the shock I experienced when I found out everything, in a conversation with Veronica, Alena’s classmate who also worked on the farm that fall. I called her to ask to talk to Alena, as her comrade, about her disturbing behavior, and she replied venomously that in a few months, when Alena felt better, she should take a moment to consider her future behavior with boys. (I was clueless! If I’d only read that diary earlier.) Veronica informed me that Alena and the boy we
re to be tried by the Komsomol court, but that she personally wasn’t going to have anything to do with that charade; unlike my daughter she had refused to go with Shura to the hayloft, although Shura approached everyone in turn. It was disgusting to watch, but she never threw herself at him, because for her a cute face in a man is not the most important thing, that’s right.

  From this speech I drew the right conclusion, and for the next several weeks Veronica became my main ally. That was the month when Andrey came home from the interrogations and lay down facing the wall; when my mother sat in her room in the dark and ate almost nothing, and then one time, when I brought her food, she looked at me sideways, and I saw her eyes, bright red. What she knew, what she understood was hard to tell; everything happened quietly; we scurried around like mice, and Andrey disappeared into the maw of the investigation machine without a sound. I flew from the detective to the lawyer to meetings with Veronica, and Alena, now alone in her room, cried softly.

  We—Veronica and I—never let the matter reach the Komsomol court. Veronica personally went to the administration to argue that Shura must marry Alena at least temporarily, which suited me just fine, for what use could I have for that bastard. Veronica, meanwhile, enjoyed her new access to that secret idol of every girl in their class, who said little, and whose eyebrows, I must admit, were like a swallow’s wings, and whose cracked mouth . . . Oh, mother’s hatred for a son-in-law, it’s jealousy and nothing more. My mother had always wanted to be the only object of my love and trust, wanted to be my entire family, to replace everything and everyone in my life. I’ve seen such families: mother, daughter, and small child. The daughter goes to work like a man; the mother stays home, nags the daughter that she comes home late, doesn’t spend her money responsibly, doesn’t pay enough attention to the child, and so on. At the same time the mother is insanely jealous of every girlfriend, let alone man, in whom she correctly sees a rival, and the result is one big mess. My own mother had pushed out my poor husband; in a good moment she looked at me slyly and asked, “So, who’s the head of the family?”