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

by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

  “No, I won’t get out. We will go straight to the Fifth, and there the chief will order you to take her home. Let’s go.”

  “Hand over her papers.”

  “No. I’ll give you her papers when we get to my house. Come on, it’s easier for everyone this way. What am I to do? She can’t walk—she can’t!”

  “We have paperwork for the Fifth; they’ll sign it there.”

  “Fine, let’s go to the Fifth, but they’ll send you back, I guarantee. Six hours in this cold. Just tell them at the depot that the patient was taken home, so you wasted a ride.”

  “We know what to say.”

  “And I’ll give you her paperwork. Please, think about it—look at the weather; she may die on you!”

  “That’s it, get out. We are going to the depot.”

  “No, you will go with us.”

  “Look at yourself. You yourself should be committed, you old . . .”

  I’m shaking, but the valerian drops are doing their job. With energy and calm I’m drilling holes in the drivers’ dim brains. They understand (I imagine their thought process) that something’s not right, that I’m trying to trick them. On the other hand, if they get rid of me quickly, they can get a nice, easy assignment: a family hacked to pieces by a drunken husband, for example.

  “I sympathize, I do, but you won’t get rid of me. I have her paperwork. In a moment she’ll take a dump all over your floor.”

  My old girl mumbles something from her cot. The drivers are glaring at us hatefully.

  “Just take us home, I beg you. It’s half an hour.”

  The driver starts the car reluctantly. I yell out the address, but they can’t hear it. Where are they taking us? I can’t see through the whitewashed windows; they whitewash the windows, so as not to upset the public. No one should see what takes place inside—the straitjacket, the final horror, the death. Paramedics are the ultimate power; they know neither weakness nor mercy.

  After ten minutes they stop. But where are we? How did we get here?

  “Please, are you sure we’re at the right entrance? I understand no one will help me get her out, and I would have taken a cab, but the pension, you see, is only two days from now. Please, where are we?”

  “Get out.”

  I drop my suitcase in the snow, then drag out my mother, who is weightless but unwieldy. The two men are sitting in the front cabin, smoking. As soon as I close the door, the ambulance scurries away, like an overfed bug.

  We are standing on a bridge at the end of a gray winter day. In every direction I see factory pipes; under the bridge run railroad tracks. A streetcar rolls past, muffled by snow. I don’t recognize anything. Those paramedics have seen it before—clever relatives like me, who try to save their parents and children from the miserable end; they know how to deal with us.

  We are shivering on the sidewalk. I had sat my mother down on the suitcase; suddenly she jerks, then droops again. I know she’s peed into her boots. Right now she’s warm; soon she’ll freeze. I grab her with one arm, wrestle the suitcase with the other, and drag her through the snow along the streetcar tracks in the direction of the stop. Someone will help us, I tell myself; the streetcar’s warm, and it will take us to civilization.

  There is a noise behind us. I look around, through the thickening blizzard, and see an ambulance. Thank God, some kind soul called for it. A man opens the door: it’s him, the paramedic. They came back. He lifts my mother and tosses her onto the cot. It’s warm inside. He covers her with a blanket. Her head sinks into a white pillow; I see her caved mouth and the slits of her eyes. Her face is wet with melting snow.

  “Sign it,” and he shoves a piece of paper at me.

  That’s why he came back. Everything needs to be signed.

  At home Alena is waiting—the children. How can I bring this filth, this old body, into that sacred nursery? Why did I terrorize poor Alena all day? I myself should leave.

  The paramedic takes the signed paper and climbs back into the ambulance to arrange my mother on the cot. He looks back at me, waiting for me to say good-bye, but I can’t move. Then he comes out, slams the door, and climbs into the front seat, then slams that door, too, and the heavy vehicle sets off.

  Into the nearest garbage can I unload my suitcase. I keep only a ball of cotton. Now Alena will drop all three on my back, but I’ll need to find time to visit Mama. Why didn’t I wipe her face? I was frozen on the spot—over what? Big deal—a sack of old bones is dragged to an almshouse. They must do it a hundred times a day. Why weep on the subway? It’s the law of nature: the old must make room for the young.

  I reach my sacred hearth and tiptoe into my room. The apartment smells of babies and burnt milk. In the kitchen the refrigerator is rumbling like an empty stomach. I peel off my wet clothes, take a warm bath, lie down on my bed, and wake up, as always, at midnight.

  The time is night. I’m alone in the kitchen. This is my time of peace, of conversation with deity and stars. Everything is quiet, the fridge has been turned off, but from afar comes the blood-chilling sound: Niura pounding bones for tomorrow’s soup. How many times we’ve asked her not to do it at night. But why so quiet? Three children didn’t make a peep all night? Their mother not once visited the kitchen to heat up the milk? Everyone must be tired. But living children don’t sleep like that! What has she done? Stop imagining things. Niura must have lost her marbles. She can’t feed her children, so she finds soup bones somewhere and pounds them into jelly, then boils them. Good for her. But I can’t go there. Four coffins, one smaller than the other, and flowers. How to dig up the graves in the middle of the winter? Andrey would get drunk. The dud wouldn’t have the guts to show up.

  The pills, she always kept pills. But why take the children? The baby probably needed just a crumb in a drop of milk. The dead always look so relieved, as if they’ve just had a good cry. How long is she going to pound those bones? She’ll tell me to fuck off, a hardworking woman. Everyone is used to the noise and sleeps right through it.

  I do two things. First, I knock on Niura’s door. When she opens it, all sweaty from her pounding, I explain to her in the language she can understand that if she doesn’t stop her racket I’ll report her son for vandalizing pay phones. When she opens her mouth, I slam the door in her face. Next, I march into my daughter’s room. It’s empty. There’s no trace of them—only a squashed pacifier on the floor. She took them away, all three. Where? Doesn’t matter. The main thing is they are alive. All the living have left me. Alena, Tima, Katya, even the tiny Nikolai. Serafima. Anna. Forgive my tears.

  Chocolates with Liqueur

  1

  The Housing Question

  Nikita left his wife, Lelia, but for the time being he let her and their children stay in their two-room apartment.

  He didn’t mention divorce.

  Every night he came at seven and stayed in “his” room for two hours, watching television or talking very loudly on the phone.

  The children were forced to sleep in these conditions. But they got used to the noise and to the idea that Papa was not to be disturbed.

  He and Lelia agreed that he wouldn’t get there before seven. From seven to nine was his time.

  Occasionally, the upstairs neighbor took in the children for those two hours.

  To the children Lelia explained the arrangement as “Papa is working.” There wasn’t any need to explain anything, but Lelia tried at all costs to keep up an appearance of a normal family. The children, she thought, must not suffer—they must have a father.

  In Nikita’s presence, Lelia made no demands, didn’t ask for anything, barely lifted eyes at him. Yes, no, as you wish. Even when she was in bed with a high fever and there was nothing to eat in the house, she said nothing when Nikita arrived at his usual time and turned on the TV particularly loudly. She was calm, with the serenity of someone who has hit bottom.

&nb
sp; She and the children had nothing to live on. Nikita paid only for the utilities (having installed the weakest bulbs), and Lelia, a nurse, couldn’t work: her little daughter was constantly sick.

  Lelia came from an educated family. After her father died, her mother took up drinking and, for some reason, sold their apartment. She bought a room in a communal apartment—to live in while she looked for another place—and that’s where they stayed. The money quickly ran out.

  When Lelia was away at summer camp, her mother remarried. Her new husband was an out-of-town vendor who sold fruit at an outdoor market and rented a room in the same communal apartment. The mother registered him in their room—and his numerous relatives from his home village—and almost immediately died. All this happened within just two weeks.

  When the poor girl arrived home from camp, she found the room where she had lived with her mother packed floor to ceiling with dark-skinned people who replied to all her questions with “no speak Russian.”

  Later the fruit seller took her to see her mother’s grave and showed her all the papers. Everything was in order.

  Lelia went to her only remaining relative, her grandfather, who lived in Sergiev Posad, forty miles from the city. Her grandfather went to the police, but they only shrugged: Lelia’s mother was an alcoholic. They advised Lelia to hire a lawyer—but with what money?

  There was nothing to do but register Lelia at Sergiev Posad, where her grandfather owned half of a house with an orchard.

  Lelia quit school and began training to be a nurse. As soon as she graduated and started her first job at a large hospital, her grandfather died of a heart attack.

  Immediately, the owner of the other half of the house, her grandfather’s niece by marriage, tried to lay her hands on Lelia’s property—but the grandfather had arranged things well and the niece got nowhere. For consolation, she moved the fence in the orchard, annexing all the gooseberry and black currant bushes. In order to sue her, Lelia had to show a deed to the house, but it miraculously disappeared during the wake, which the niece attended.

  Such was Lelia’s life story.

  One night Lelia asked her husband, Nikita, if she could rent his room for three months to some female students.

  “Maybe I will rent my room to fruit sellers from the market. How about it? Look at this mistress of the house! The apartment is mine, and I can do what I want with it.”

  “As you wish.”

  Everything had been said between them. After one terrible scene Nikita announced he would no longer give them a penny beyond utilities, and he kept his word. One more time, like a broken record, Lelia asked him to divide their apartment—or else she’d take the matter to court. Lelia knew that only the threat of legal action would have some effect on Nikita; but he knew, in turn, Lelia’s timid and inert nature and that she’d never be the first one to file for divorce. He just swore at her and slammed the door.

  Lelia perched on a stool in the kitchen, catching her breath. Something was seriously wrong with Nikita; he looked awful. What was he planning? To hire a killer to get rid of them? He didn’t have the money. His mother and sister would never sponsor him. And why wasn’t he eating or drinking at their house? Maybe he didn’t want to take the last crumbs from his undernourished children? That had never stopped him in the past.

  That Nikita was mentally ill Lelia had known for some time. There was plenty of evidence: changes in his appearance, sudden rages, ridiculous suspicions. He found a new pair of scissors and decided that Lelia was turning tricks for money; he stayed late, waiting for her lovers to show up.

  What he didn’t know was that for two whole months Lelia had been working. In the face of mortal fear and shyness, she plastered their neighborhood with handwritten ads for a home playgroup, every day from ten to five. Some days there would be seven children, plus Lelia’s two—a handful.

  Every day, rain or shine, Lelia took her brood to the park and kept them there for two hours. At home, after lunch, they drew, and Lelia taught them a little English. At five, the parents took them home. Lelia’s own children felt perfectly at ease among them.

  Lelia’s firm rule was that children had to be picked up by five. If a parent was late, she took the child home and charged for an extra full day.

  Nikita couldn’t know about the playgroup—there was no telling what a demented person might do.

  Lelia’s children, Anya and Gleb, quickly got used to the new regimen. In the fridge there was a container labeled “Teatime” with candy and crackers for the group, and the children knew not to touch it. Even though Lelia still lived in constant tension, things improved a little.

  Day in, day out, a string of children crossed through a tunnel and emerged in the park on the other side. There was a slide, a merry-go-round, and a gazebo in which to take shelter from rain. Ilya liked to fight and always had a runny nose. Methodius, an angel with flaxen curls, wept for hours on end. Kirill was dragged to the park an hour late, and Lelia ended up carrying around his lunch pail. His lunch always consisted of condensed soup and tinned fish; tea with sugar was a special treat for him.

  At half past four they had tea with crackers from the container in the fridge: children adore other people’s food. Anya and Gleb assisted Lelia during lunch and teatime, and the other children always closed their pails neatly and put them away.

  They even had a New Year’s pageant. Lelia taught the children some English nursery rhymes, and they recited “Little Mouse, Little Mouse” before their parents and grandparents. The kids were wearing costumes with masks and white tights; their parents brought their presents from home and placed them under the tree.

  Only poor Kirill didn’t have a present—his harassed mom dropped him off at the last minute and ran home. Gleb found him a pair of white tights, and Kirill brilliantly played the part of Mouse (such semi-neglected children from educated families often grow up to become real talents). He received a hastily compiled present: a few caramels and tangerines. He couldn’t believe his happiness and immediately began munching.

  The children walked around the tree in a slow circle dance and sang; the parents and grandparents were touched to the point of tears. At the end they played parlor games. And at five sharp, mothers and grandmothers quickly rearranged the room, swept the floor, and promptly left. Kirill was taken home by a stern-looking big brother of seven. (In that family there were at least three other brats.)

  At seven thirty Nikita staggered in. His eyes were bulging. His forehead was paper white; the rest of his face was scarlet. The children, who were resting on the couch in front of the TV, jumped up and made for the door, but Nikita stopped them. From his shabby briefcase he pulled out a box of chocolates—a present. Anya took the box timidly and placed it on the table.

  “Eat,” Nikita ordered.

  Gleb swallowed one chocolate; Anya took one, too.

  “You too, madam,” Nikita said to Lelia. “Your favorite—with liqueur. Stuff yourself; don’t be shy.”

  “Oh, but why do you give them liqueur?”

  “Let them practice—their granny, after all, was an alcoholic. And their mommy’s a whore,” he added with pleasure.

  “Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not hungry.”

  “I know you’ll gobble everything down the moment I leave!”

  But first he made sure the children ate two more chocolates. Eight remained in the box.

  • • •

  As soon as Nikita left, Lelia carried the children to the bathroom, made them drink a liter of water, and then induced them to vomit. After that she gave them warm milk. Then she put them to bed. The children were pale; their pulses were weak; they needed intravenous treatment urgently.

  Lelia put the remaining chocolates in a plastic bag and hid them under the tub. She was collecting papers for hospitalization when Nikita thumped in with his heavy winter boots—Lelia barely had time to fall on the
couch and close her eyes. When Nikita leaned over her and felt her pulse with his icy fingers, she opened her eyes and gave out a moan. Nikita jumped.

  “Oh dear,” Lelia moaned, “it hurts! I think I have the flu.”

  “And the children?”

  “Long asleep.”

  He tiptoed to check, then asked, “Why so early?”

  “We had some children over for the New Year; everyone ate too much and got overexcited. . . .”

  “Ate too much? Where did you get the money to buy all that food?”

  He rummaged in the kitchen, looking for something; he must have found the empty box.

  “I see you really liked my chocolates.”

  “There were just a few left,” Lelia moaned.

  “Right. I have to go now. Be back soon.”

  Lelia jumped out of bed and tried the phone. There was no dial tone; he must have cut the cord.

  The children were still breathing. Lelia had pumped their stomachs thoroughly, and the milk must have helped. But what’s next? She couldn’t call the ambulance. Was that his plan—to wait until they died from poisoning and then walk in with the police to remove the bodies? He looked completely demented.

  Lelia closed the curtains, gathered their papers and money (the parents had just paid for the month), packed everything into an old backpack, and woke up the children. They were extremely weak. Lelia removed the poisonous chocolates from under the tub: they were beginning to melt; the poison was leaking. She quickly put on surgical gloves, wrapped the chocolates in some candy wrappers from the trash can, and put them in the “Teatime” container, which she shoved in the freezer.

  The children got dressed and were standing shivering. It was past midnight.

  Suddenly the lock creaked, and again Nikita staggered in. “What’s wrong?” He seemed genuinely shocked to see them.

  Hiccuping with fear, Lelia told him that they felt sick and needed to get to the hospital; they couldn’t call the ambulance because the phone wasn’t working. He walked them downstairs, flagged down a random car, gave the driver some cash, and told him to take them to the Thirty-Third Hospital. He walked around the car, memorizing the license plate.