Marja sits between the pillows and sobs.
“Now I don’t have a bed anymore.”
“But you have a husband who will build you a new one.”
“Him? Haven’t you seen him?”
“Demand it before you give him a yes.”
She runs her hand over her face. “You always have such good ideas. Without you we’d all be done for.”
“Don’t you start now, too.”
Marja looks at me sadly. “I want you to marry us.”
When earlier I mentioned the sense of time here, this is what I was getting at: barely aware of what’s happening, I’m standing on a lawn, next to me a long, covered table, and in front of me a buxom woman and an old man who looks more like a withered tree than a person.
Behind me stand the village residents. Only Petrow is seated because he is too weak. The others are on their feet. Between the living roam the dead, who seem quite curious. Jegor is directly behind me and looks over my shoulder.
Sidorow built a bed for Marja, an unbelievable bed. Nobody can figure out how he did it. He sawed a tree trunk into four pieces and then, on top, he laid planks he ripped off his shed. Everything secured with lots of nails. Marja’s mattress, pillows, and covers went over that. It is a giant, wide bed, the biggest I’ve ever seen. Marja can sleep well now. She assured me of that when she proudly showed me the bed.
“See what a marriage is good for?” It sounded like she was bragging.
“I never denied it.”
“Why are you laughing then?”
“I’m not laughing, Marja. I’m happy for you.”
For the wedding Marja wears her lace nightgown, which is nearly white and also allows her to show off her abundant body. On her shoulders is a black scarf with roses. She has braided her hair and coiled the braids on top of her head in a way that would let her run for parliament. A lace curtain serves as her veil. And flowers, everywhere flowers. Cornflowers in her hair and Sweet William on her nightgown and a dog rose in Sidorow’s lapel.
Sidorow’s knees tremble and he looks even smaller than he usually does, he props himself up on his cane with his last ounce of strength. The knuckles on his hand protrude, white. But his face is contorted into a victor’s grin. You could also confuse it with an expression caused by a death spasm. He is well dressed, moth-eaten gray pinstripe pants and a shirt with a colorful zigzag pattern.
The bridal pair stands before me and looks at me expectantly. Now it’s up to me to say something appropriately festive. I’m also dressed up in order to show my respect to the two of them, I’m in a long skirt and a silk blouse, the scarf on my head is freshly washed, and my neck is decorated with a necklace of big, colorful wooden beads.
The tattoo on my hand starts to itch again. I try to remember what the registrar said at my wedding to Jegor. But I can’t think of it. Then I think of other weddings I’ve been to as a guest or witness. That in turn reminds me of the fact that I wasn’t at Irina’s wedding.
The wedding of my cousin pops into my head, I must have been in my forties, and one sentence in particular that struck me. “Be good to each other” is how the overtired registrar had sent my cousin and her future husband on their way, no more and no less; dozens of couples waited every Saturday at the registrar’s office, and a lot of mothers-in-law got aggressive in the hallway. Those words stayed with me for a long time. Though I was already married and a mother at that point.
Much later I saw people on television get married in a church, I even saw a royal wedding. These days a lot of young people get married in churches here in our country, too. Back then you wouldn’t have been able to go to work anymore if you did that.
“Give me your hands,” I say, and they reach out their paws willingly, Marja’s soft and doughy and Sidorow’s as dry as a bird’s claw. I take them and place them on top of each other. Marja has donated two rings that she dug out of her stockpile.
I hand them to the bridal pair. Sidorow slides the thick ring with glittering stone onto Marja’s finger, the finger is too big, Marja grits her teeth. Success. Next Sidorow gets his, but his finger is too bony and the little ring dangles from it. Sidorow makes a fist to keep it from falling off.
“Be good to each other,” I say. Marja looks at me with wide eyes, like I’m giving the Sermon on the Mount. “You are now man and wife.”
I can tell Marja’s pulse is racing. I can’t detect anything from Sidorow, his skin is cold and dry. Again a sense of expectation hangs in the air.
“Can you remember?” I whisper to Jegor. “Can you remember what comes next?”
“Bless them,” he murmurs in my ear. “And don’t forget the kiss.”
He can’t be serious, I think, these are old people, and I have some decency. But they are still looking as if they are waiting for something in particular, and I sigh loudly.
“I congratulate you, and I . . . bless you,” I say, and Marja’s eyes begin to glimmer. “And, if you really want to . . . I would like to say . . . Sidorow, you may now kiss the bride.”
We have never done anything together as a village community. We even moved in on our own; first me, then the others. I greeted them, showed them the houses, and gave them some of my tomato crop. But we were not a community; everyone was happy to be left in peace. We have no practice sitting around a common table. Now we are doing it.
A large table has been set up in Marja’s garden and covered with multiple bedsheets. Lenotschka scattered rose petals on the sheets. We rounded up utensils from the whole village. In the middle of the table sit: a steaming teakettle with peppermint leaves swimming in it. A plate of fresh cucumbers and a plate of pickles. Tomatoes, cut into slices. Bushels of herbs. Hard-boiled eggs. A semolina cake with cherries that I baked. Two roasted chickens that Lenotschka sacrificed and that everyone is eyeing as if we were starving. And a few bottles of berry wine from Sidorow’s shed.
You can’t really say the atmosphere is raucous. But there is atmosphere. Marja has removed her veil but the flowers still hang in her hair. Her cheeks are flushed with heat, wine, and bashfulness. Uncharacteristically, she doesn’t talk much. She looks from one person to the next and every now and again her gaze lingers on me as if she were trying to send me a message.
Sidorow is talking with Mr. Gavrilow. Everyone bets they are telling dirty jokes. Anger flashes across Mrs. Gavrilow’s face but she keeps breaking into snorting laughter. Petrow is unusually quiet and stares incessantly at Lenotschka as if he has never seen her before. Then they move toward each other.
The dead rooster Konstantin jumps into Marja’s lap and she doesn’t even notice. Konstantin pecks at her puffy arm. The goat chews on her nightgown from the other side.
I make sure the glasses get refilled and that everyone has something on their plate. And I have the feeling that someone is watching us. If I were religious I would say it was God. But God was abolished from our land when I was little and I haven’t managed to get him back. There were no icons in my parents’ house and we didn’t pray. Unlike many others, I did not get baptized in the nineties because I found it too ridiculous as an adult to be dipped in a trough and have scented smoke wafted into my face. Though I am definitely of the opinion that Jesus Christ was a decent man, with all that you hear about him.
I take a sip of wine. The fruity sweetness masks its strength. My head starts to get hazy. I see Jegor’s face before me. Sit down, I say. I forgive you.
“What are you babbling about?” Marja leans over and wraps her arms around me.
She smells like grass and sweat. My Marja, whom I took care of when she was laid up for a week in bed with a burning fever. I used up the last of my vodka to rub her with it. She smelled like an emergency room doctor on New Year’s Eve. When she broke out in a sweat I washed her. It was different from when I was a nurse’s assistant. No matter how much training and experience you have, sometimes you still can
not help marveling like a child at a body like that.
A distant buzz presses into my ear. The rooster Konstantin flaps his wings. Leotschka slides out of Petrow’s lap and her eyes fill with fear. Marja lets go of me. I stand up and shade my eyes with my hand.
Dust clouds are moving toward us. I blink again and suddenly I can see that they are the blue and white vehicles of the military police. They are bouncing down the main road. The driver’s-side doors open at the same time, armed men in white radiation suits get out.
A shot rings out and a bottle of berry wine bursts into a thousand pieces. Mrs. Gavrilow lets out a high-pitched, ear-splitting scream. The men yell orders at us but it’s as if I’m deaf and I can’t understand the words. The others at the table apparently can’t either. Only Sidorow stands up slowly and raises his hands.
That’s when I realize how old I am. Not because of the pain or the fat legs and heavy feet. But because it takes me so long to comprehend the situation. Admittedly, the others are no quicker. One of the soldiers begins to recite something. I hear the word “warrant” and also “suspicion” and “to have murdered.”
I look at them one after the other. The other soldiers have positioned themselves behind the one who is speaking. We are sitting at the table. Sidorow’s raised hands are trembling from the strain. You shouldn’t do that to an old man; I hiss at him that he should lower them but he doesn’t listen to me. Jegor shakes his head. Marja is indignant; she stands up slowly, her fists on her hips, the cornflowers fluttering in her hair. And Petrow looks even paler and holds onto Lenotschka.
It is at that moment that I wish I had a cane. I’m not so steady on my legs anymore, and even if I’m younger than Sidorow I should really think long and hard about getting a walker. I stretch out my hand toward his cane. I lift myself up, bracing myself with the cane, and walk over to the soldiers. Then I lift the cane. I just want to get their attention but they step back and point their weapons at me.
“Guests are welcome here, but you must behave like guests.” My voice is supposed to thunder, but it just rustles like autumn foliage in the wind. They must have to strain to hear me. “We are celebrating a wedding. And what are you doing?”
The man standing at the front of the soldiers waves a paper. “You are suspected of murder.”
“Who is?”
The soldier looks at his documents. Then he tries to look me in the eyes and immediately squints. “All of you.”
“All of Tschernowo?”
“I’m sorry, Baba Dunja, but you are not excluded.”
And he shows me a line with my name before snatching the paper away again. Apparently he is afraid that his hands will fall off if we both touch the same piece of paper.
“Honored comrade in the service of the military police,” I say. “Honored soldier, sir. This can only be some sort of misunderstanding.”
Suddenly he waves the paper wildly. “I’m just doing my job, old woman.”
“But please look at us, do we look like murderers?”
His gaze wanders over our faces, one after the other. It lingers a little longer on the bridal pair. I decide not to point out their status so he doesn’t feel like he’s being tricked.
“Don’t make this so difficult, Baba Dunja,” he forces out between his teeth. “We really have no choice.”
My dear granddaughter Laura,
This is your loving grandmother Baba Dunja writing to you from the village of Tschernowo-by-Malyschi. At the moment I’m not actually in Tschernowo but in prison. Please forgive me, then, for the gray paper, I had bought special writing paper with roses on it but I don’t have it here.
You are a big girl now and I would like to write to you directly. I find it nice that we are now corresponding. It should be easier for you than for me in one regard because you’ll quickly find someone to translate the letter in case you can’t understand it. Maybe you can even read Russian but not write it? You young people have it easy when it comes to languages.
I hadn’t intended to bother you or your mother with the news. But I heard through the grapevine that it had spread beyond the Russian border. I don’t want you to worry unnecessarily. I was told that there are television reports about us. Less on Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian stations than on the many foreign ones. Apparently there are a lot of journalists and television crews in front of the prison, and the court can’t do its work.
I decided to write you this letter for that reason, so that you hear about things from me and not (only) from your mother or the television. Because the television is a good source of information, but it is also good to hear about the events from someone who was actually there.
I’ve never been to prison before. It’s called pre-trial detention because the crime is not yet proven. But I can’t tell you exactly what is different about it from real prison.
Let me describe it.
There are ten women in each cell. The cell isn’t very big, more like cozy. Aside from me, Lenotschka and Marja are here, they are two women from Tschernowo. Lenotschka always looks sad because she has no children. She used to worry that they would get sick, so she never had any. I have to say, it was probably a good decision.
Marja is my neighbor. I’ve already written to you about her. The other women we only met here. Many of them are nice. Tamara had a fight with her husband. Natalja picked up a stranger’s baby without asking, Lida mixed up some medications, and Katja insulted a good man, probably by accident.
At first they were worried that we wouldn’t be a good fit in the cell together, but the situation has improved.
I haven’t seen the men from Tschernowo but I hope they are doing well.
I must confess that your old grandmother has been feeling a bit down here. I sometimes find myself in a bad mood. It’s Marja who cheers me up. She makes sure I eat my soup and that I have space on a bottom bunk to sleep, and when we talk she keeps me from getting too melancholy. She says I shouldn’t shut down, after all she’s the one who just got married and should be far more depressed than me.
Naturally the marriage isn’t recognized in prison, and Marja and her newlywed Sidorow are strangers in the eyes of the court and must testify against each other.
My dear granddaughter Laura, I don’t know what they are saying on German television. I sometimes glance out the window when I am taken for interrogation. But all I can see is barbed wire and walls.
That’s enough for now. I send you a hug, your loving grandmother Baba Dunja.
I know how it feels to be helpless and not to know what to do. But I’m not familiar with the feeling of not knowing what is right and what is wrong. I should have told Laura that I can’t read her letter. But I’m a little ashamed about it. And besides, I have to assume that Irina will read my letter, too. I’m not used to thinking about so many angles, I’ve always been straightforward.
I just hope I haven’t disgraced Irina and Laura with this stupid arrest.
It is night in our cell, and I hear the others snoring. It’s strange how quickly people get used to one another when they have to. In our cell, I get along particularly well with Tamara, Natalja, Lida, and Katja. Tamara killed her husband with an electric iron. Natalja stole a baby out of a stroller in front of a butcher shop. Lida sold sugar tablets as American aspirin, and Katja spray-painted obscenities on a bishop’s garage door.
At first they didn’t want to talk to us, they didn’t even want to be in the same cell with us because they were afraid of radiation. They banged on the door and screamed until a guard came and switched off the light.
Somewhere in the distance metal utensils clatter. I’m caged like a guinea pig. We never had a hamster or bird at home, no animal that you had to keep in a cage. I was against locking up animals.
When Marja turns over while she is sleeping the entire cell shakes. I feel very sorry for Marja. Lenotschka less so; she looks no different
here than in Tschernowo.
I take out Laura’s letter, which I always have with me, and go slowly to the door with it. The light is out in our cell but dull light from the hall comes in through the grated window. I try to read the words but they still make no sense to me, just like so many times before. So I linger on the signature in Latin letters—Laura.
A guard has picked up on the movement in our cell. She walks up to our door with steady, heavy steps. Many of the women here have bodies like men, thick in the middle. The window opens.
“It’s me, Baba Dunja,” I whisper quickly so she doesn’t start shouting and wake up the entire block.
“Go to sleep, granny.”
“I can’t. Grannies are wakeful.”
“Then lie down and button your lips.”
“What is your name, daughter?”
She pauses. “Jekaterina.”
“That is a beautiful name. Do you know German, Katja?”
She is a big woman. Her face hangs in the window, bloated, round and pale like a full moon. You can tell that she works nights and drinks a lot. And that nobody is waiting for her at home.
“I learned French in school. And if I hear another word out of you, granny, I’m coming in.”
I fold Laura’s letter until it is small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. My greatest fear is that it will disintegrate before I find out what it says.
My dear granddaughter Laura,
I handed in the first letter, but I doubt you will have received it yet. It is a little difficult for me to write you because I don’t know for sure what you are up to. It takes a long time for mail to get from here to you in Germany. My interrogator, the head investigator from the military police, is getting nervous because he’s not getting anywhere in clearing up the crime and the dead man’s next of kin are getting impatient. I think the dead man must have had a lot of money and people knew his face. What good was it to him?
Baba Dunja's Last Love Page 9
