Leave Your Sleep

by R. B. Russell

  ‘At which she started to cry.

  ‘ “You don’t remember how we met?” she asked. “No, why would you remember? As far as you were concerned we talked for a half hour, kissed briefly on the Bank Bridge …”

  ‘ “The one with the griffins?”

  ‘ “That’s right, over the Catherine Canal, although we now have to call it the Griboedov Canal. We kissed, and then I stormed off into the night with my friend Tonya.”

  ‘She looked into a bag she was clutching and pulled out a photograph unmistakably of herself when younger.

  ‘ “That was me at about the time we met.” And it was a bit of a shock looking at it, you know? It was then that I suddenly remembered that I had kissed a girl on that bridge with the griffins on the abutments, and that she had run off into the night after acting very strangely. I had a feeling like vertigo. But after all this time, dredging the event up from where it had lain undisturbed for so many years in my memory, I couldn’t recall any of the details…I admitted this and she became upset once more.

  ‘ “I was Gala Krylov back then,” she said.

  ‘ “I’m really sorry,” I told her, as carefully as I could. “We obviously did meet, but I’ve a poor memory.”

  ‘Eventually she calmed down, but then she started claiming that she’d never called me Nikolai, and there were tears in her eyes. “It’s silly,” she said, “but your friends called you Bednyi and I stupidly thought it was your first name. I always called you Bednyi after that.”

  ‘I asked her if this was on the night we’d met.

  ‘ “Yes, and afterwards,” she said, and paused. “I know that you have a long scar on your left arm, from an accident on your family’s farm as a child.” ‘

  ‘She’s got one hell of a memory,’ I suggested to Nikolai. I had seen the scar.

  ‘ “You used to love the music of Tchaikovsky,” she told me. “You prefer to sleep on the right hand side of a bed, no matter whether you are at home or staying somewhere different. When you were about thirty-two your wisdom teeth gave you so much pain they had to be removed.”

  ‘She asked if I was right and I said she was. I asked how she knew all this.

  ‘Her answer was “Because, my darling, after that night on the bridge with the four griffins in Petersburg we went to Moscow and lived together for nearly thirty years.” ‘

  I shook my head: ‘It’s alright Nikolai. You aren’t going mad. I can attest to the fact that for thirty years you were with Maya, not this other woman.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he smiled weakly. ‘But she then told me that I’d probably still have my late father’s cufflinks. They’re not real gold but I do wear them on special occasions. And she knew other things.’

  ‘Presumably she had some way of finding all of this out?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know how. She told me that I collected cigarette packets.’

  ‘Well, you used to.’

  ‘I did, but Maya was never particularly impressed, so I collected stamps instead. But this woman, Gala, claimed, “I was always very happy for you to collect cigarette packets. In fact, I encouraged you to… ”

  ‘I remember,’ I said to Nikolai. ‘After the play we were drinking and you went outside with this girl. You said you’d kissed her, but then she’d started accusing you of all kinds of strange things. She was really very angry with you, but she seemed to’ve mixed you up with somebody else. Back in the bar we made fun of you for trying to kiss a madwoman.’

  ‘But thirty years later, in my house near Strelna, this woman said that after we kissed she’d smuggled me back to the hostel where she was staying with her friends!’

  ‘She was fantasising.’

  ‘Perhaps, but then she said some more things that worried me. She said that I’d been writing light operatic pieces.’

  ‘Well, you used to in those days.’

  ‘She said there was a song about a woman called Nadezhda.’

  ‘I remember it.’

  ‘And another that was a kind of sea-shanty.’

  ‘It was called “Breaking Point”.’

  ‘And another very beautiful song, apparently, called “The Saddest Eyes”.’

  ‘I don’t remember that one.’

  ‘No, nor do I! But she insisted it was written afterwards, in a life that we’d lived together.’

  ‘She’s clearly very confused.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘You don’t mean that you gave credence to her story?’

  ‘I met her again last week. Gala says that when we first met we fell passionately in love and our relationship lasted for thirty years…Don’t shake your head like that until you’ve heard me out …

  ‘Gala said that in the last year or so of us being together there were misunderstandings and arguments. In a fury one day she insisted that she wished she’d never met me all those years ago. She said that she knew a way of turning back time and she was so angry with me that she did just that. She found herself nineteen again, back on Bank Bridge in Saint Petersburg, and instead of inviting me back to her hostel she shouted at me and ran off into the night. She remembered what had happened before, but as far as the rest of the world was concerned those thirty years with me had never occurred. In the confusion of suddenly being back in Saint Petersburg, and being nineteen again, she went back to Moscow where she met Vasili Gladkov. By the time she’d really understood all of the implications of what had happened, she’d also realised her mistake in leaving me behind on that bridge. But it was too late to track me down.’

  ‘And you’d gone on to meet Maya…’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you believe all this?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t know, but she does. She says that she was pleased to be young again, but she found herself aging at twice the normal rate. At thirty she looked forty, at forty she looked sixty, and so on. It’s taken its toll; it seems that you can’t turn back time with impunity.’

  ‘If she’d lived with you for thirty years and knew you as well as she says she did, then of course she’d have been able to track you down. She’d know where you lived, where your parents and friends came from.’

  ‘Gala says that at that moment on the bridge my two alternative lives diverged markedly. The first time around, the life she experienced with me that I wouldn’t remember, I had success with my songwriting and acting. We moved down to Moscow together and I really made a name for myself. We were successful and busy and didn’t see anything of old friends or relatives, and then the war came and we got through it comfortably. We did well under Stalin, and managed even to be favoured by Lenin.

  ‘So, do you really believe that you might have had another life with this woman?’

  ‘It’s theoretically possible.’

  ‘But practically it’s impossible.’

  ‘She’s told me how it might be done. In theory I could go back to that time on Bank Bridge. I could run after her and beg her to stay. I could see what that life might have been like, with her, with success.’

  ‘And what about your life with Maya?’

  ‘Or I could go back to that bridge and live my whole life again, with Maya. I’ve been agonising over what choice I would make.’

  ‘But why put yourself through the agony? You can’t go back so there’s no reason to worry about choices.’

  ‘Gala entrusted me with the secret before she died.’

  ‘She’s dead?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Once she had explained her process she insisted on going out of the house. It was still raining and I wasn’t inclined to follow her. I watched her from the window as she walked across the back yard towards the well. I had no idea what she intended to do. She sat on the side of the well and allowed herself to fall backwards into it.’

  ‘How horrible!’

  ‘She did it just as her husband returned with the carriage repaired. We got her out with trouble, but it was too late.’

  ‘But if she really knew how to turn back time why didn
’t she do it again? And then a few years later do it again, and again?’

  ‘She said that after you’ve done it the first time you realise that it’s only available to you the once. She said that if I ever tried the process then I’d understand.’

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking about trying it?’

  ‘Why not? What’ve I got to lose?’

  ‘Everything that you have here!’

  ‘But there’s nothing here for me without Maya.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure how I’d feel about you wiping out my life for a start! I assume that nobody else gets to go back with you? What happens to this thread of history if you return to Bank Bridge thirty years ago? What makes you think you won’t start a whole new third thread in which you end up without either Maya or Gala?’

  ‘I’d take that risk. At the moment I have neither of them.’

  ‘But I’m quite comfortable here with Anna and my carpentry. And you’re happy to destroy that through snapping your fingers?’

  ‘If I do manage to go back and make my choice, then you’ll inevitably be back there in Petersburg with me, only you won’t remember any of this.’

  ‘But will you remember? Would you be able to make an informed choice?’

  ‘Gala says that I’d know. And as for you, you’ll still meet Anna and become a carpenter and come to live here. The only thing I’ve got to decide is whether I want to go back and watch Gala run off into the night, or follow her.’

  I didn’t know how to react to Nikolai’s story. I was about to laugh at it all when I realised that he was completely in earnest. I did gently suggest that he ought to talk to a doctor, but he was upset at the suggestion that he was ill and needed help. We did discuss the matter further, going around in circles because, as he said, there was a very simple method of ascertaining the truth. All he had to do was start the process that Gala Gladkov had explained to him. If it failed then he said that he would know himself to have been a fool. But if it worked …

  I went to bed that night annoyed with my old friend, but also interested by the theoretical questions posed by his story. I wanted to discuss it all with Anna but she was already asleep.

  Waking up the next morning I still had his story going around my head and walking past his room I saw that the door was open. The curtains had not been drawn and the bed did not appear to have been slept in. I had an awful presentiment of what might have happened.

  Nikolai had obviously walked out of the house at some time during the night, and he never returned. His bag was still in his room with his clothes, his papers and some money. We informed the authorities and there was an extensive search, but nothing was ever found of him. A dog tracked him into the forest but then the scent suddenly stopped.

  I had to explain what his state of mind was to a detective who quite rightly dismissed Nikolai’s preoccupations with the stories of Gala Gladkov. Some time later, though they did confirm that the woman had recently died in an accident at Nikolai’s place in Toksovo.

  I don’t know if Nikolai Bednyi ever reappeared or was officially pronounced dead. It wouldn’t matter to him, Anna grimly joked one day; presumably the thread of time we inhabit was no longer of any interest to him.

  I do not believe his story, but I do not know what happened to him. I do think, though, that he was convinced that Gala’s process, whatever it was, would work. And I’m intrigued to know what decision he would have made: to live his life quietly again with Maya, who he obviously loved, or to take a chance with Gala and follow a potentially successful career. I didn’t really know him well enough, not in recent years, to be able to suggest which thread he would have chosen to follow.

  Reunion

  Shaffer returned home at five, just as it was getting dark. He had to put down his bags to unlock the front door, and picked them up again feeling annoyed that he had set so much homework for his pupils; after all, he was going to have to mark it all.

  As he started climbing the stairs to his rooms he noticed that the sound of his landlady’s television set was louder than usual; the door to her basement flat had to be open. He tried not to think about it but by the time he had reached the first floor landing he realised that something wasn’t right. He deposited his bags outside his own door and grudgingly went down the two flights to investigate.

  He reluctantly peered around Miss Simpson’s doorframe and could see his landlady lying unmoving on the floor just inside. His heart raced. Although he could tell that she was unconscious he still called out to her, asking if she was all right. When she didn’t reply he carefully opened the door as far as he could, with her in the way, and sidled inside.

  The old woman was lying on her back, her mouth open, and she didn’t immediately appear to be alive. Shaffer took a moment to compose himself, then looked around for the telephone. It was a bright-red old-fashioned one, and it seemed to take forever for the dial to turn so that he could ask for an ambulance.

  He had to reach over and switch off the insistent television. He gave the operator Miss Simpson’s name and address, and then his own. When asked, he said that he didn’t know what was wrong with her. The person on the other end of the line enquired whether the woman was still breathing and he squatted down on his haunches and looked across the room at her. Miss Simpson’s bulk was considerable, but he could see, measured against the paisley material of an armchair behind, that her chest was slowly rising and falling. He was then asked if there was anything obstructing her airway. When he said he didn’t know he was told to look.

  It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to arrive. He was kept talking on the phone; he was asked questions and given things to do such as see whether there was any obvious medication lying around. He also had to go out and leave the front door open for the paramedics. He kept checking on Miss Simpson’s breathing, certain that she was about to expire. The aspect of the front room seemed to change, to become gloomier and shabbier than ever. He had been inside his landlady’s flat on the first of every month for many years, paying his rent, and he reasoned that it was her personality that had previously made it seem quite friendly and welcoming. She was a large woman and was usually animated by a considerable, if mindless, joie de vivre. Now her unmoving bulk seemed almost menacing and tainted everything around it. He thought of her whole house as dark and precarious. He felt as though it was in danger of collapse if she was no longer there to act as its foundation.

  When the paramedics arrived they too had to sidle around the door. The first inside the room remarked that Shaffer was sitting in the dark and switched on the lights. With calm efficiency they took her pulse, looked into her eyes, listened to her chest with a stethoscope and took her blood pressure. They asked what her name was.

  ‘Miss Simpson.’

  ‘Does she have a first name?’

  ‘Kathy,’ he replied without thinking, and then wondered how he had known that. He supposed she must have told him at some time.

  ‘You don’t know if she’s on any medication? Any history of illness you’re aware of? No fainting or falling in the past?’

  Shaffer shook his head and watched as the other paramedic looked around the flat, presumably to see if there were any bottles of pills she might have taken. His attention was then given to the first paramedic who gave Miss Simpson an injection, although he didn’t say what it was. He tried talking to her in a loud and demanding voice, calling her ‘Kathy’ which seemed too familiar and almost rude. His partner had obviously looked elsewhere in the flat and returned to the living room only to go back out of the main door. When he came back it was with a stretcher.

  ‘She’s a big girl,’ he remarked as they moved her on to it.

  ‘Do you mind locking up after us?’ Shaffer was asked. ‘You can come in the ambulance, if you want to.’

  ‘I’m not sure where the keys are. I’ll see if I can find them and come along later,’ he excused himself.

  ‘Right-ho,’ the man replied amiably. ‘We’ll look after her.’ W
hen they had strapped her on to the stretcher they had to concentrate on negotiating the angles to get her out of the door and up to the ground floor.

  Shaffer followed them outside and watched the ambulance leave. He felt uneasy returning to the basement flat; Miss Simpson’s cat had come cautiously into the front room, but darted back out into the kitchen when she saw him. It didn’t seem right being there on his own, he decided. But if he couldn’t find her keys and simply left, letting the dead lock close after him, then nobody would be able to get back inside without breaking in.

  As the keys were nowhere obvious in the room he put his head around the kitchen door. The arrangement of her flat was the same as his and probably identical to the one above that under the roof. It was only on the ground floor that the arrangement was different; there was a small, un-let shop with its own access onto the street.

  Like Miss Simpson, Shaffer had a living room and a bedroom at the front of the building, but unlike her he was able to look out over the road and the park beyond. All she had was the view of a small space above which a metal grille let through both light and litter. His flat and hers had the same arrangement of kitchen and a bathroom at the back of the building, although she did, at least, have access to a paved yard where she hung out her washing.

  Shaffer was spooked by a sudden, strange sound, but then realised that it was the cat going outside through the flap in the back door. Then he spotted Miss Simpson’s handbag on a chair and decided that he ought to take it into the hospital for her. It was open and peering into it he was relieved to see that her keys were inside. Back in the front room he turned off her little gas fire and unplugged the television at the wall. Then he switched off the lights and left.