Maria's Story

by Robin Barratt

  “See you later then,” he said and turned over.

  “See you later,” she replied, wishing with all her heart that she never saw his ugly face again for as long as she lived.

  She tightened her buckle over her stumps, threw her small bag over her shoulder and wheeled herself out into the corridor and towards the exit. She could hear others stirring in the rooms behind her, a few calls from some of the children, shouts from the elders, moans from the women, but she kept on going, wheeling herself as silently as she could down the corridor. She unlocked the door and rolled out into the foyer, closing the door quietly behind her. She knew she had to be quick, she didn’t have much time. She had to get as far away as possible and as quickly as she could as the gypsies normally made their first rounds about an hour after she left the apartment.

  Against the driving snow and bitter cold she wheeled herself as fast as she could towards the metro. The snow was heavy and quickly built up against her small wheels, bringing her to standstill. She frantically wiped the snow away, always looking over her shoulder for the Lada which would take her to where she didn’t want to be. She continued a short distance more, until the snow built up, stopping her again. She pictured Zdanko getting out of bed, seeing the snow and deciding to take her to work after all. Or maybe he would suspect something as he looked out at the blizzard realizing she had lied to him about the weather. She had arranged to meet Lydmilla a few stops further on from her metro, where she was already waiting for her on the platform, pacing nervously up and down. Come on Maria, come on, where are you, she said to herself over and over again.

  The plan was for them to then catch the metro together to the other side of Moscow and then take a bus to the farthest outskirts where Lydmilla and her daughter lived. She would stay with them for a while and until she felt safe. They would go together to the country, to a friend of Lydmilla’s, where Maria could have her baby.

  Maria struggled with the snow until she finally got to the metro entrance. As Maria got heavier and bigger the platform was a lot more awkward and harder to control. She used to be able to negotiate steps with ease, flying down them sideways using her wooden block as a barrier to her toppling over, but as she got bigger steps became a lot more difficult to negotiate. She was desperate to get to Lydmilla, whom she knew was already waiting. She managed the first few steps with ease but she was over confident and her weight and awkwardness took hold. She quickly lost balance, spinning and crashing down the steps out of control. Trying hard to stop herself from toppling over completely, she jammed the block into the metal rails that some metro steps had for prams, jack-knifing onto her side, sliding and bumping her way down the remaining few steps to the bottom. She had slipped out from her buckle and off her platform and lay on her side on the dirty wet floor at the bottom of the steps. Confused and bleeding from a small cut on her forehead, she stared up at the flakes of falling snow on her face. A couple of people rushed over, asking if she was all right. Wet and muddy on one side from the melted, dirty snow, she pulled herself upright as someone brought over her platform and her small bag containing her only possessions. As she got onto her platform and tightened her buckle, she heard the squeal of breaks at the top of the stairs and Zdanko’s voice cry “Maria, Maria!” Maria’s heart leapt.

  “Please no,” she cried to herself as she frantically wheeled herself passed the kiosks, in and out of the legs of the commuters and into the ticket hall. She already had a ticket and zipped under the baggage opening and onto the escalator, turning round just in time to see Zdanko rush into the metro. She smiled and waved to him as she disappeared from view, hoping that he would think nothing out of the ordinary and return home rather than continue his chase.

  As she got to the bottom of the escalator a train pulled in. She hurriedly wheeled herself onto the platform. As it was the beginning of the line the train was completely empty, but the platform was full and as soon as the doors opened a surge of people pressed forward onto the train, pushing her out of the way and to the back of the crowd. She looked over to the escalators and saw Zdanko jump off the bottom few steps and rush along the platform looking at the passengers and into the carriages. He was getting nearer, surely he could see her? He turned to look directly at her through the crowd. Her heart raced as she pushed herself onto the carriage. Maria watched as he ran towards her. The doors closed. Hearing him smack the departing carriage window with his hands, she was paralyzed with fear as the train pulled away. Maria shuffled and huddled herself in the corner of the carriage, looking up at the sea of bodies hiding her, ignoring her, taking no notice. She felt like vomiting

  As the train pulled into her usual metro station and the doors opened she was almost compelled to leave the train, to go to work as usual, to continue her life begging for the gypsies. It was a dreadful, undignified, degrading life, but it was a life she knew and she was now frightened of the life she didn’t know; of running, of hiding, of always wondering what would happen if they found her. The doors seemed to stay open an eternity, as though they were tempting her, beckoning her. People stood silently waiting for the doors to close and the train to move. She felt they were all waiting for her, as though they all recognized her from the street above, that they had all given her money, and wished her well, and now they were looking down at her questioning as to why she wasn’t getting off the train as normal. She strangely felt it was her responsibility to get off the train; she somehow felt she had no right to be anywhere else. Like a clap of thunder breaking her dream, the recorded announcement warned that the train was leaving and the doors were closing. As she watched the doors shut she felt that a chapter in her horrible life was also closing and, as the train slipped away from the platform, she felt she was off to a new life, a better life, a happier life. For the first time in almost two years she smiled as tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheek. Tears of happiness.

  Lydmilla paced up and down, looking at her watch and at every train that came and went, scrutinizing the doors, as they opened and closed, and the passengers as they came and went. “Maria, where are you,” she said to herself over and over again. Suddenly from behind her, she heard the screech of Maria’s trolley and the frantic thud of the wooden block against the ground. She turned to see Maria’s racing towards her, “Quick, quick, he’s coming for me,” she cried. Logically Maria knew that Zdanko couldn’t follow her once she had got onto the train, he would never know when or where she would get off, but the fear of just the possibility of him finding her was greater than the logic that he couldn’t. They both turned and raced along the platform and up the escalator.

  Lydmilla helped Maria up the stairs, hooking her arm under Maria’s left shoulder while Maria used her block to climb the steps, swinging her body strapped tightly to her platform. Although Maria was almost eight months pregnant she wasn’t really that big compared to some pregnant women she had seen but, because of her size and her already limited capabilities, it was now virtually impossible for Maria to manage going up steps on her own, she nearly always needed help. At the top of the steps they turned right and rushed through the snow across the square to the bus-stop, Lydmilla ahead slightly grasping Maria’s left hand while Maria pushed herself with her block trying to keep up.

  “Everything is going to be all right now,” Lydmilla said to Maria as they approached the bus stop and joined the queue. “They won’t find you now, you are safe,” she whispered, as though cautious and suspicious of the others standing around them. She crouched down and wiped the spots of dried blood from Maria’s forehead.

  The bus arrived and quickly they climbed on. Maria and Lydmilla stood silently staring out through the glass of the rear doors. Maria remembered staring out of the window of the old Lada two years ago when she was first brought to Moscow. Now the snow made everything look clean and new. She watched as people huddled here and there, rushing from the bus to their homes and from their homes to the bus. She remembered the winte
rs in Siberia, her mother or grandmother pushing her wheelchair, hurrying the short distance home from school, always moaning about the weather and the cold, day after day, year after year. She remembered when she had a home to go to, the warmth and smell as she came in from out of the cold. She closed her eyes and remembered her grandmother fussing over her hat, making sure it covered her eyes, and fussing over her scarf, making sure it was wrapped tightly and that her coat was buttoned to the top. As the bus made its way to the very outskirts of Moscow, stopping to let passengers on and off, battling against the blizzard and the pot-holed icy roads and other traffic weaving in and out, she wondered why she had no reply from the letters she had asked Lydmilla to write. Where were they and why hadn’t they written? Maybe they did move to another village or town.

  Lydmilla and Maria got off at the very last stop. Maria looked up and around at all the apartment blocks, like centurions keeping guard on the city, row after row of high-rise concrete blocks, each with their own little front entrance and each entrance leading to the front doors of countless different lives and lifestyles. People came and went; neighbours yet strangers, anonymous lives in an anonymous world.

  They made their way fifty or so metres past one apartment block to another. Lydmilla typed the code to the building into the small key pad on the wall and, on the dull sound of a click, opened the heavy front door and struggled into the entrance hall. Lydmilla stamped the snow from her shoes and Maria brushed the snow from her coat and around her platform. They passed the abandoned concierge’s office to the line of metal post boxes where Lydmilla once again checked her mail, as she had done every single day since posting Maria’s letters many months ago. Nothing. She looked down at Maria and shrugged. They made their way up to the twelfth floor in the rickety elevator.

  Going into Lydmilla’s apartment was the first time she felt that her past was leaving her, that she was now safe and secure and that everything was going to be fine. Smelling the familiar warmth of a home, the sense of serenity and calmness, the feeling of sanctuary was overwhelming for Maria. She felt confused; lucky to have found this tiny speck of kindness in a harsh and horrible world, but sad with the thoughts that her friends were still on the streets begging and living in that squalid one-roomed hovel. The past two years seemed a surreal, bizarre dream; she was never married, her husband hadn’t raped her time and time again and he wasn’t now searching for her, she was never on the streets begging, the gypsies never actually kidnapped her and she never agreed to go to the carriage for a beer with that boy - this was all unreal, a weird surreal fantasy in her mind. She was there with Lydmilla in her apartment in Moscow for other totally different reasons, what had happened never actually happened. And then the baby kicked and moved and she rested her hands on her belly and felt the life that was growing restless inside her.

  “Hi mum,” a young girl’s voice called from the living room. Maria looked up.

  “This is my daughter Natasha,” Lydmilla said. “This is Maria.”

  “Hi Maria.” Natasha bent over and kissed Maria on the cheek. “Mum’s told me a lot about you,” she said.

  “Let’s get those muddy clothes off you,” said Lydmilla. “Natasha, get Maria some fresh clothes.” Natasha spun round and rushed into her bedroom searching through her cupboard and drawers for fresh underwear, joggers and sweater. “And run the bath,” she called.

  “A hot bath, some good food and clean clothes and you will feel like new,” Lydmilla said ushering Maria into the living room.

  Maria sat at the small kitchen table in the first really clean clothes she had worn in two years. She had had a long bath and felt fresh and had just finished her second bowl of the best borsch soup she had ever tasted. She stared out the window at the falling snow and wondered whether her mother and grandmother were doing the same; also staring out of the window thinking about her?

  “I remember there was a telephone booth at the Post Office in my village. Can you help me find the number?” Maria asked. “I can try to call them. I am sure they will know whether my mother and sister have moved.” Lydmilla nodded.

  Natasha was just a couple of years younger than Maria and immediately they developed a close friendship. Natasha helped Maria whenever she could. For the first few days Maria just slept and ate and sat around watching television, while Lydmilla went to work and Natasha to school. Lydmilla came home every evening with tales of the gypsies rage and anger at the disappearance of Maria. Zdanko had apparently waited at the spot where Maria usually begged for hours, pacing up and down in the snow, while his mother and the elders searched the vicinity, travelling backwards and forwards from the apartment to the beggars house and back to the metro. They had also questioned Svetlana and Olga and the other beggars, but of course they knew nothing. They told the local police, who just shrugged, and the local mafia boss, who laughed and demanded that they continue to pay for Maria’s place anyway, which enraged the gypsies even further. Lydmilla heard from someone, who had heard from someone else that Zdanko ripped up and destroyed everything that belonged to Maria. Maria smiled at all the stories but still felt a sense of fear that one day the gypsies will catch up with her and make her pay, and she had a very deep sense of sadness that her friends were still on the streets living that horrible life.

  Maria was given an appointment to have a scan at a hospital nearby. With the gypsies, Maria wasn’t given any opportunity to visit a hospital and so, after Lydmilla had briefly explained the situation to the doctor earlier over the phone, he couldn’t actually believe that Maria had been working on the streets for so long and in the condition she was in; with her disability and without any kind of pre-natal care whatsoever. He and urged Maria to visit as soon as she could.

  The sky was clear and the snow sparkled in the sun. Their breath lingered in the air as they slowly walked the few blocks from the apartment to the hospital, Natasha and Lydmilla either side of Maria as she wheeled her way over the hard icy pavement. She hardly slept the night before her appointment, tossing and turning and when she finally wanted to sleep, her baby kept her awake, kicking and moving, somehow sensing that the time was near. Maria was uneasy; she would soon see the result of her forceful and uncaring husband, but over time she had grown to love the child inside her, it had become part of her as she had become part of it, and now, for the first time, she would see this being and understand what and who it really was, and that they were inexorably linked. Her past was no longer just her past but her past was now her future. What was growing inside her would be with her, and part of her, forever; until she was old and grey, and long after she was gone from this world. The child would grow and have children of its own and they would have children of their own and the past could and would never ever be just the past but always part of the future.

  And anyway, she wondered, was it a girl or a boy?

  ***

  It took almost a week for Lydmilla to find the number of the Post Office in the centre of Maria’s village. Like many Russians, she didn’t have a phone at home so had to make lots of calls from the payphones in the metro and a few trips to Moscow’s central Post Office but the day before they were due to go to the hospital, Lydmilla had finally got the number and had spoken to the Director of the Post Office in Maria’s village. Of course, the whole village had heard about Maria’s disappearance and the despair of the family - one tragedy after another, poor souls - and Lydmilla was told that Maria’s family had not moved after all, but there was bad news; he had heard that the grandmother had passed away shortly after Maria had vanished. It seemed the stress was just too much and she had a massive heart attack. But there was even more bad news which should only be told to Maria directly from her family in Siberia. And so Lydmilla decided not say anything at all to Maria until after she had visited the hospital. As they walked silently together, Maria with her thoughts about the child inside her and Lydmilla wondering how Maria would take the death of her grandmothe
r and what new tragedy would awaits her.

  ***

  Maria stared at the image of the baby filling the screen in front of her. It was a boy, a beautiful baby boy. She cried as she watched his tiny heart beating life inside her. Lydmilla and Natasha stood either side of the bed holding Maria’s hand, captivated by the screen.

  “You have a healthy baby boy, as far as we can tell there is nothing wrong with him, he looks beautiful,” the doctor said.

  “He is beautiful,” Maria replied, looking up at Lydmilla.

  “Now you must rest, take it easy. We will get you a wheelchair to get around on, it might be a bit easier and certainly a lot safer than that thing,” he said, pointing to her platform propped up against the wall in the corner.

  Lydmilla and Natasha helped Maria off the bed and onto her familiar wooden platform. She strapped and buckled herself on and, following the doctor and Natasha, wheeled herself out of the clinic and down the corridor. At the end of the corridor the doctor turned to go into his office as Maria promised to return to pick up her wheelchair. She wouldn’t; she didn’t want a wheelchair, she was quite happy with her wooden platform; she could go almost anywhere on it but in a wheelchair she would go nowhere.

  At the junction of the path to the apartment and the metro, Lydmilla told Natasha to take Maria back home as, lying, she said she wanted to make a few more telephone calls, just in case there was news on the telephone number to the village. Maria insisted that she go with her but it was now the afternoon, Lydmilla said, and even if she did get the number there would not be anyone at the Post Office in Eastern Siberia at that time of the day anyway, as they were two hours ahead of Moscow.

  Holding hands, Maria and Natasha wondered back to the apartment laughing and giggling and chatting about the baby and how amazing it was to see it on the screen. Maria was 19 years old, she would be twenty just a few days after her baby was due to be born. As they walked towards the apartment Maria looked up at Natasha who, at 17, was the same age she was when she was almost raped in the carriage and then kidnapped. As she looked at Natasha, her innocence and naivety, Maria wondered how she had ever survived the previous two years. And it was almost a new year so what would next year bring? Maria thought. For the last two years she had lived in misery, would this new year bring something better, a life with a beautiful baby, a new life? Her adolescence had been taken from her, the purity of youth and the innocent experience of discovery, but what would she do now? She wanted to go home, to her mother and grandmother, to her sister and her little apartment. She wanted to curl up on her bed and smell the fresh linen and pick flowers in the summer and cook soup for everyone in the winter and get back to a normal life, a life with a new beginning, with a wonderful, beautiful son whom she could adore and spoil and play with and love; just as her mother had done with her when she was little.