The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

by Gina Ochsner

  “Everyone should have a chance. This is Latvia,” Mrs. Gipsis said.

  “Do we want equality or do we want quality?” Widow Rezniks asked.

  “Do you hear what you are saying?” Mrs. Lim asked.

  Widow Rezniks slammed her palms on the table.

  “Every cow licks her own calf,” Mother muttered.

  “What?” Widow Rezniks swung her head toward Mother.

  Mother smiled, slung her purse over her shoulder, and rose from her seat. “I need to pee. I’m going home now. All I ask is that nobody messes up the kitchen.” Mother plucked at my sleeve. “Let’s go.”

  We went to the bathroom, where we listened to the women. After all, they still had one more tureen of tea to argue through. Once the topic of politics had been introduced, however obliquely, the floodgates had been let open. Imagine the noise: fifteen women arguing the finer points of immigration law and the theoretical versus practical differences between occupation and annexation. I sat on the toilet and hung my head. Mrs. Lim and Miss Dzelz discussed why a woman would and would not make a better president than a man. And from Widow Rezniks, a bitter lament that Latvia could and never should join the EU as long as ethic Russians like her were being persecuted.

  “Persecution!” Mrs. Baltmanis bellowed. “Let me tell you about persecution!”

  Mother knocked on the divider between the two stalls. “What’s the best thing to feed a Latvian?” The answer: another Latvian. I groaned. It was a tired joke in the east.

  Mother unbolted her door and stood at the sink. “All this fuss over a baby,” she muttered. By how she said the word baby, I understood the trouble I was causing her and would continue to cause her. Tears welled in my eyes. I coughed and sniffled, did all I could to contain my tears. I made excuses until finally Mother went home without me.

  “Inara? You all right in there?” Miss Dzelz knocked lightly on the stall door.

  I dried my eyes with my sleeve, unlatched the lock on the stall. “I’ll bet the real Mary didn’t break down and cry,” I said.

  Miss Dzelz crossed her arms over her bony chest. “I’ll bet she did. I’ll bet there was never a girl so afraid and so misunderstood. But she had some strong supporters.”

  “You don’t mean the donkey.”

  “Think about it.” Now Miss Dzelz linked her arm through mine and guided me out of the bathroom through the tiny vestibule and out of the hall. “She had her guy who stuck beside her. And she had God.”

  “Is that enough?” I asked.

  Miss Dzelz stopped walking and peered into my eyes. “I don’t know. Is it?”

  We rounded the back side of the hall. Down the lane we spied Dr. Netsulis kneeling beside his red scooter. It looked as if he were praying over his scooter, or perhaps to it.

  Miss Dzelz squeezed my arm. “Who is that man?” There was no mistaking the admiration in her voice, her readiness to hand her heart over to him as soon as the introductions were made.

  “That’s Doctor Netsulis. He’s a part-time doctor and full-time genius. Joels and I clean his house and barn.”

  “Barn?”

  “He keeps cows. Latvian Browns.”

  “Cows!” she cried, rushing past me for the good doctor, who jumped to his feet as if he’d been shot in his britches by an arrow.

  The day the pageant arrived, I was a jumble of nerves. I couldn’t sit still. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I visited the latrine every ten minutes.

  “You are just nervous. Though I can’t image why,” Ligita said, on our way to the hall. “All you have to do is smile at a swaddled plastic doll.” I chalked up her withering encouragement to grief.

  Your grandmother stomped ahead of us, her boots punching through the thin crusts of needle ice. We passed the Ilmyens’, we passed Stanka’s. “Merry Christmas!” Stanka rushed out of her house and joined us. Jesus didn’t thrill her much, but she absolutely adored Christmas. Each year she contrived to erect not one but two Christmas trees festooned with mistletoe, wrinkled white snowberries, and bordello-red ribbons.

  Like a bucket on a bulldozer, your grandmother lowered her head and forged on. Having already achieved the pinnacle of her holiday spirit, she muttered, Go to hell. Now you know where my toilet mouth comes from.

  The Merry Afflictions lent their services for moral support. But the instant Ludviks tapped the opening drumbeat, my back seized. A cord inside my stomach, only lower, pulled tight. I bent over Dr. N.’s red scooter, now adorned with faux fur and long drooping donkey ears. “I don’t feel well,” I whispered to Ligita, as I straddled the machine.

  “Just hold it in!” Ligita hissed.

  The angelic host, with their glad tidings for the shepherds keeping watch, huddled in the wings. Miss Dzelz gave the signal, and the angels lined up in formation behind the curtain. The little opening between the two partitions had been built to allow the passage of normal children. But these were no longer ordinary children. They were angels and they had sprouted wings of enormous proportion. In actuality, Mrs. Friemane had obtained used Thighmasters from somewhere in the USA. The architecture of these contraptions was such that, once strapped to the backs of the children, the wings were fixed in the open position, and it took tremendous arm strength to fold them in. In no time, they’d bottlenecked themselves in the narrow passage leading onstage.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mother sighed, placing her foot on the backside of each little angel and unceremoniously pushing them through.

  I squeezed the throttle and rolled slowly down the aisle. In the middle of my grand entrance, the scooter bucked then stalled. I gripped the handlebars and panted. And I groaned.

  “No, no!” Miss Dzelz called from the wings. “It’s not time for that yet, Inara.”

  “Too soon!” Ligita hissed.

  “I know,” I moaned. A warm rush of fluid ran down the insides of my thighs.

  Dr. Netsulis rushed to my aid, his stethoscope on the scooter’s engine. “Where did all this water come from?” he asked me.

  “It’s the baby,” I panted. “It’s coming. Now.”

  And then what? I suppose Miss Dzelz ushered all the children outside. Mrs. Arijisnikov and Mother bustled around the kitchen putting on pots and looking for clean towels. Ligita hung a sheet for privacy purposes. From Dr. Netsulis’s trouser pockets appeared latex gloves.

  I folded my body in half as I lay on the straw. Joels rubbed my back.

  “I am very uncomfortable with this,” Dr. Netsulis confided to Joels. “It’s been a while since I’ve delivered a baby.”

  And then I felt a dagger ripping me in two.

  “Push!” Stanka said.

  “But don’t push too hard,” Mother cautioned. “Breathe,” Father advised gently from the kitchen.

  “But don’t forget to push,” Stanka said.

  I felt trapped within a Latvian parliamentary session. Everyone was full of advice, most of it contrary. Thank God, nature will do what it must. My internal chorus of self, of my too-many, too-loud, too-self-aware selves merged. Collapsed. To a tightly funneled sensation of pain.

  “God!” I screamed.

  “Oh, yes,” Father said. “Turn to God. He hears. He most definitely does.”

  “God!” I screamed louder.

  “But he isn’t deaf,” Ligita chimed in.

  “Breathe,” Joels and Dr. N. whispered in unison.

  The pain shot through me from stem to stern. I did not feel strong enough to bear it.

  “You can do it. I believe in you absolutely,” Joels whispered.

  And that is when I looked at Mother and saw her face changing before my eyes.

  There was something she could see that I couldn’t. “What—what?” I demanded.

  “The baby,” she said, and she began to cry. “I can see the head.”

  Dr. N.’s brow furrowed. “Don’t push anymore,” he said. Stanka and Mother piled towels beneath me. Joels held my hand and counted beats to imaginary measures. Jingles in the making.

&
nbsp; Then Mother said, “A boy!”

  Stanka held you while Mother cut the cord. Father wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief and even Ligita seemed subdued in a nice way. At last Stanka placed you in my arms and I saw for myself what a beautiful boy you were. You had a shock of black hair and gray eyes, so unlike the eyes of anyone in our family. The whole time you held as still as stone, your eyes trained on mine.

  Mother cupped a tiny heel in her hand. “What will you name him?”

  “A good name,” Stanka said.

  “A strong name,” Rudy said.

  “A family name,” Father said.

  I looked at you, so tiny, so wrinkled. I did not deserve such a miracle. And yet, I held one in my hands anyway.

  “Maris,” I said. And nobody said no.

  Chapter Nine

  I DREAMED OF MOTHER AGAIN LAST NIGHT. She hovered over water, wreathed in fog, her hair ink black, her hair like coal. Her mouth moved. She was singing. I said, Come closer, I can’t hear you; come closer. She took a step into the river and I heard: Bring a mouse, sweet sleep to a little baby. Dove gray and soft were her words. She stood in the shallow water on her side of the river; I stood on my side of the river. I sang, Sweet sleep to a little baby.

  We were two girls singing the same song. Come closer, I called to her. I don’t know the rest of this song. She said, Throw the rope, a rope knotted at each end and I will pull you over and tell you the rest. So I knotted the rope and put a spoon in the knot. I cast the rope over the river where it landed at her feet. I hung on to my end, to my knot, because the knot is where one grasps any rope, the knot being what connects the girl to the daughter. And what did she do?

  She fell to her knees, unknotted the spoon from the rope. Then, spoonful by spoonful, she drank the river dry. I’m just so thirsty, she said, sitting on a rock. Why won’t you die and be still and rest like dead people are supposed to do? I asked. Oh, that’s so clichéd, she said, winding her hair into a thick braid, a noose she draped around her neck. People think that when they die they’ll simply shut their eyes and sleep. That’s not it at all. It’s work and more work. Her fingers unraveled the ends of her braid. If I don’t work, I’ll die. I walked through the dried riverbed and I sat on the rock next to her. But you’re dead already, I said. I know it, she said, but what else can I do? She shrugged, her shoulders rising and falling in helpless wonder at her impossible situation. My little wolf rumbles, my little wolf hums. My little wolf has a white paw. If this doesn’t make it better, it won’t make it worse. She smiled a sad, tired smile. And then she took the spoon and dug in the mud, looking for more water.

  I woke up. Her thirst, my thirst; her branding, my branding; her wounds, my wounds. So much misunderstanding between us and yet we are so much alike. Though I am tired, I know I have so much work to do still. The song she sang, incidentally, is a cradle song. We all took turns singing this one to you in those first few months of your life. Joels sang his coffee-flake jingles to you and even your uncle Rudy sang.

  The bee, the bee,

  The dweller of forests,

  Hums on the heath,

  And stings our fingers

  And faces and ears,

  And gives us honey.

  That is his work.

  Oh man, Oh man,

  Look at the bee—

  You sting enough

  In the heart, the heart;

  Nevertheless, give sweetness

  To your own brother.

  That is man’s work.

  When Rudy sang, he rubbed his palm over the fuzz on your little head, the fur on your ears, and I thought his singing was evidence of some tenderness left in him. The truth was, I worried about your uncle Rudy. He drifted from Madona to Balvi to Daugavpils looking for work. Mr. Zetsche took pity on him and hired him to work in the Rimi store, a Swedish grocery franchise featuring Swedish-style shopping. What this meant was that we could openly salivate over the gloriously displayed rolls, buns, bins of German candy, and fruit. Fruit! Row upon row of apples of two and sometimes three varieties with root vegetables, cabbage, and lettuces forming tidy edible phalanxes. So, too, the cheese wedges and bright cellophane packages of biscuits and crisps. We could, and did, stand dreamily in the aisles, bright yellow baskets on our hips, and moon over the neatly arranged abundance that we could touch, put in our basket, then take out of the basket and tenderly put back on the shelf. I couldn’t help noticing that Rudy often came home with small items: packs of chewing gum, lip balm, cigarettes. I feared that your uncle Rudy was exploring—quite regularly—the elastic boundaries of a free market in this new social context.

  When Rudy wasn’t at Rimi, he sat on the divan watching cartoon episodes of Well, Just You Wait! in which the clever rabbit always outwits the flea-bitten wolf. It was the only time he laughed. Even then, his whole body pulsed with a quiet anger that in time, in an older man, would lead to resignation. But when Rudy held you, his hands were calm and steady. Every mother believes her own child to be remarkable, but you had a palpable effect on anyone who touched you. This was the miracle of a baby, of you. A baby slows the quick and mutes the loud. People even breathe more gently and rhythmically around infants as if they were in the presence of something both holy and fragile. I suppose this is why I kept you as close to me as possible. Wanting neither sound nor air to break the connection between us, I kept you strapped to my back or chest. One morning, with you bound to my back, we took the long way through a thick swale of tall grass to Dr. Netsulis’s. That is, I went through our yard, through the old/new cemetery, and walked slowly past the new shops of the Riviera. In addition to the Rimi grocery store and the kafenica, the Riviera now boasted a confectioner’s shop, and Mr. Vaido, a self-taught magician, operated a small pharmacy. On the sidewalk outside the shop, Mr. Lee sold newspapers: Diena, the daily from Riga, and Kurzemes Vards, a newspaper Mother didn’t like because of the racy ads for gentlemen’s clubs. There was a Hasty Pasty pushcart and LazyQuick, a shop that made photocopies and could crank out résumés faster than people could think up false credentials to list. And, in a stroke of entrepreneurial brilliance, Stanka convinced Mr. Zetsche to allow her to sit in a lawn chair and tell fortunes and advise on lotteries and stock markets.

  Stanka spied us from a distance and leaped from her lawn chair and hurried toward us.

  “A prophecy! Good news and bad!” she cried. “Which do you want first, the good news or the bad?”

  You fussed and squirmed. “The bad,” I said.

  “Trouble with stones.” Stanka’s voice turned deep and mysterious.

  “Like in my kidneys or what?”

  “The graveyard. There’s terrible unrest there.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “I see your porch steps bathed in butter and oil. And twenty white ponies—sorry—twenty white bunnies.”

  “Bunnies?”

  Stanka’s nose twitched. It was the season of dark morels and their pongy, musty scent beckoned. “Do not question my sources!” she cried. And off she went in search of dark treasure.

  I think I’ve told you that I didn’t pay too much attention to Stanka’s special powers, but even a spent arrow manages to hit its target from time to time. I made short work of Dr. N.’s house then we went to examine the cemetery.

  In almost any eastern Latvian graveyard, marker by marker, name by name, you can travel to Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and even Mongolia. And, of course, the plots say as much about the living as they do the dead. Your grandmother thought these stones were ostentatious means to measure loss. A weird celebration of one’s grief. She would cite the competitive manner in which various families erected swags of fir boughs, staked plastic wreaths on stands, and in some cases placed stone benches to allow for longer, more comfortable contemplation. Though it was expensive to do this, a few of the Russian families had even ringed their grave sites with waist-high black metal fencing, the kind with the slim vertical bars punctuated with little metal spikes. They hung candles fr
om the trees, built icon boxes, all in an attempt to make the gravesite look a little more Orthodox, hallowed, separate. I tiptoed around the stone for Rudy’s little one. I tiptoed past the stones for Velta and Ferdinands. I showed you your namesake’s stone. I could see that the grass around his grave had been disturbed, as if Uncle had been turning in his sleep. There were lash marks, boot blacking or paint, on the side of his stone.

  I have tried to tell you things as I saw them then and as I now understand them to be. Every memory invites correction, adjustment, validation against the memories belonging to others. The trouble is, of course, there are few of us left. My telling of these stories I realize now is a flawed one. The act of telling is an act of preserving, but sometimes words wring out unintended meanings from an idea. And who will correct me when I am gone? I’ve set forth what I can recall in a particular, peculiar order, and I’m not certain what configurations they will impress upon you. I have tied knots into a long rope. I have said, Here and here. This is important, and this. The knots are the places on the rope where you will grab hold. The rope will pull, will run through your hands, as you grasp the knots while one after the other they will tear your palms. They will burn you; they will brand you. But a story started must be finished and told as fully and completely as possible. And so I must tell you, though it is not a nice story, about the swing your uncle Rudy built.

  Traditionally, Mr. and Mrs. Vicins hosted the Push the Swing ceremony. You wouldn’t remember them: a few years after you were born, he threw himself in front of a milk truck. She became extraordinarily Catholic and refused to eat or drink anything but the Eucharist: a bit of bread and a thimble of wine each morning. She starved to death, poor thing. Anyway, a spring ritual, this swing, a very Latvian expression: the master and mistress swinging to bring good luck for the fields and all who worked them. This year Mr. and Mrs. Zetsche lobbied hard to host the celebration on the rolling green beside the Riviera, the same green that once had been the cemetery. Because so many of us were in some way employed by the Zetsches and because the Zetsches wore us down with their endless petitioning. “This Riviera—it belongs to everyone,” Mr. Zetsche implored on one occasion over the black telephone. “It is our commercial heritage. It only makes sense to push the swing at a place where people would be gathering anyway. To shop, that is. Plus, we’ll provide the beer.” So it was decided.