The Woman Who Waited

by Andrei Makine

In the main room, nothing had moved since our last meeting. “A nun’s quarters, or an old maid’s,” was the malicious thought I had, sensing that the judgment was accurate as regards the sparseness of the place but essentially wrong. For a dense and troubling feminine presence could be felt here, despite the apparent order. Through the half-open bedroom door, I saw a high bedstead, village style, with iron posts. A blouse hung from a hanger close to the stove…. No, in the end, it was not my spying on these intimate details that offered the key to Vera s secret. It was rather the memory of a woman hauling in her nets on the lakeshore by the light of an August sunset. Her body uncovered by the bunching of a wet dress. Another woman, her nakedness gleaming blue in the moonlight outside the bathhouse door one night in September. Another, the one who passed me an oar, whose wood retained the warmth of her hand. Yet another, sitting at the far end of the bench, her eyes fixed on the crossroads. And the one I had tried to hypnotize with my hesitant caresses.

  All these women were there. Not in this room, but in me; they had become a part of my life without my being aware of it. Only yesterday Mirnoe had still seemed to me no more than a brief episode, soon ended.

  Before leaving, I turned to make a mental note of the silent intimacy of this room. Strangely enough, this final glance reminded me of Katerinas miniature dwelling. I pictured Vera alone here in the depths of winter, trying to see out through the windows coated with ice.

  Not giving myself the time to think, I took hold of the edge of the long bench and pushed it farther into the room. Then I moved the big table to match. Furniture of thick planks, colossally heavy. Now when one sat at the very end of the bench, one no longer saw the distant crossroads but the expanse of the lake, already filled with a purple sky.

  On the third day, I did not go, misled by the constantly changing light. The west was overcast with low, leaden clouds, promising an onslaught of snow. Then a breeze arose from the south, bringing sunshine; the trunks of the fir trees turned red and warm, oozing resin. Out of the wind, it felt like spring, like the start of an endless day on the brink of a new life. With the carelessness of travelers who give no thought to the return journey, I hurried off along the track that led to the White Sea. An hour later, the sky darkened, the air became permeated with the acid tang of ice, and I retraced my steps. To await the next illusory spring.

  Just as I was attempting to ford a watercourse, once again a luminous mirage lit up the forest. I was familiar with this narrow river, which had the transparency of strong tea. We used to cross it when heading for Mirnoe and taking a short cut through the forest. But its level had risen markedly, and the ford I had had occasion to cross in the past was currently hidden beneath a long rippling stretch of water weed. I kneeled down, drank an icy mouthful, as scalding as alcohol, then, with the bad conscience of a giant destroying the fragile beauty of the waters and the delicately ribbed sand, I began to move forward, anxious not to stir up the bottom, where a few dead leaves lay Now the sun had broken through, it was spring again and all this a carefree ramble, with flashes of dazzling bronze shimmering in the depths of the stream.

  I was within a few paces of the far bank when the sound of running reached me. The spot where I set my foot down was the river’s deepest point; the water now slid very close to the top of my rubber boots. I froze in an irresolute and farcical posture, unable to advance, not daring to retreat. Then the crashing of broken branches rang out and petrified me even more. I imagined that some wild animal, hunted, hunting, or hunting me, was about to emerge onto the riverbank.

  I took a halting step backward and turned toward the footfalls as they drew ever closer. In a quick spasm of fear, all those hunters’ tales flashed through my mind: a wounded elk, in the agony of death, crushes those who stand in its path; a bear disturbed at the start of its hibernation becomes a man-eater; a pack of wolves in pursuit of a stag … Should I run away, filling my boots with water, or take advantage of my terrified paralysis, which, with a bit of luck, might make me invisible? Although my glance was a frenzied one, I had time to notice an ants’ nest on the bank the noise was coming from.

  The branches of the young fir trees stirred; a living form emerged, ran headlong toward the water. It was a woman. A moment later I recognized Vera. She knelt down twenty yards upstream from where I was stuck, drank jerkily, stood up, gasping for breath like an animal at bay. Her face, on fire from running, looked incredibly youthful, simultaneously reinvigorated and blinded by an unknown agitation—on the verge of a great shout of wild joy, or of bursting into tears, I could not tell which. I was about to call out to her but felt too ridiculous, grounded as I was in fifteen inches of water, and decided first of all to extricate myself, then to catch up with her on the path. I did not have much time, for as soon as she had caught her breath, she hared off once more, crossed the river at the ford I had failed to find. I saw she was wearing ankle boots with high heels, hardly designed for the forest. The water spurted up beneath her feet, then settled, carried an eddy of sand in my direction. She was already running through the forest; within a few seconds the wind hissing in the tops of the fir trees obliterated the sound of her flight.

  Suddenly a trickle of icy water filtered into my left boot, sharp as a razor. I came to my senses, dragged my bogged-down feet along, headed toward the bank with no more thought of the ford. And when, calmed down by walking, I tried to understand Vera s appearance, a notion came into my mind, which showed me the degree of idiocy of which a man is capable when he thinks he is in love. Quite seriously the notion occurred to me that she had left the city for fear of not seeing me again before my departure, that she set great store by having one more meeting with me.…

  The sight of Mirnoe, of its izbas clustered beneath a sky once more clouded over with gray, made me less sure of my own importance. “Probably one of the old women has fallen ill. Vera heard about it on the return journey and, devoted as she is, hurried home, cutting through the forest. In any event, it wasn’t for the sake of my pretty face. …”

  An hour after my return, someone knocked at my door. On the front steps I saw Vera. With the light pink coat thrown over her shoulders, she wore a knee-length skirt and the elegant blouse I had seen draped over a hanger beside the stove in her house. Her hair was braided into a broad plait, interwoven with a scarlet ribbon. Her eyes, slightly enlarged by a pencil line, fixed me with a smile that struck me as both aggressive and vulnerable.

  “The official celebrations are over,” she said, in rather too theatrical tones. “But maybe we could cele brate the city’s anniversary ourselves now. Come and see me. The dinner’s ready”

  She turned on her heel and walked away, apparently unconcerned whether I was following her or not. Far from certain as to the reality of what was happening and, above all, of what might happen, I hurriedly changed, snatched up the great cape of tent canvas, and rushed outside. There was a risk that the figure in the overcoat might vanish at any moment in the already dark street.

  5

  WE WERE AFRAID of one another. Or rather, afraid/or one another. Afraid of seeing the other one make a false move that would have shown up the whole duplicity of this candlelit dinner. Afraid that the other might suddenly draw back, observe the room, the table with dishes and bottles on it, the body just embraced. Afraid of reading in the other’s now alienated look: “What on earth are we up to here, in this remote house at the end of the world, in this night battered by a wild wind? What are we laughing for? This laughter of ours is such a sham! What is this hand doing fondling the back of my neck? What games are we playing?”

  A single pointed glance, a single gesture out of place, would have been enough to transform this tête-à-tête into an insane charade. Its end was known: we were going to spend the night together. It was the whole point of the scenario, but it was looking increasingly improbable. Increasingly expected and impossible. This woman smiling at me, laying her head on one side to squeeze my hand between her cheek and her shoulder. Impossible. Like the sugary tast
e of the lipstick she had just left on my mouth.

  We were afraid one of us might stand up and murmur, with a yawn: “Fine. That was all just a joke, wasn’t it?”

  From time to time, this fear showed through briefly in a tone of voice, a gesture, and we hastened to skirt around it. We had a choice between two clichés: sometimes this dinner took on the air of a well-lubricated peasant-style meal, with noisy mirth and the natural familiarity of close neighbors, sometimes the atmosphere was reminiscent of a student celebration. We felt in league with one another. We had to transform this old izba, the wind rattling the windowpanes, the tenuous warmth of this room, the warmth of our two bodies, into an amorous encounter, to blend this precarious mixture into a fleshly alloy Our hands, our bodies, went through the motions; our words quickly overcame each onset of silent embarrassment. Only our eyes occasionally exchanged a chilling admission: Why are we doing this? What’s the point of it all?

  This play-acting remained resistant to reality until the moment when we found ourselves standing, face to face, on the threshold of the bedroom. There was a silence, swiftly broken by the wind’s wild moanings, the crackle of the logs in the fire and, more deafening than these sounds, our disarray. Despite the dullness of intoxication, one very clear notion struck me: This woman doesn’t know what to do next, she no longer knows her part. The memory of a very youthful affair surfaced within me, the shade of a first lover, and of this same ignorance in the face of desire.

  She overcame her hesitation almost immediately. Became a mature woman again, a woman who knows, passed off her hesitation as the voluptuous slowness of a body influenced by drink. She even gave a little snort of laughter when I tried to help her undress. Naked, she drew me to her, swept me into that high double bed I had so often imagined. There was even the scent of male eau de cologne I had imagined. My own. And the fragrance of her hair, her skin, dried birch leaves steeped in the steam of the bathhouse.

  At the first embrace, this self-possessed woman vanished. In the act of love she did not know who she was. Statuesque feminine body with a young girl’s inexperience. Then a muscular, combative passion, imposing its own rhythm on pleasure. And again, blankness almost, the resignation of one asleep, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, biting her lip hard. A remoteness so complete, as if of a dead woman, that at one moment, drawing away from her, I grasped her shoulders and shook her, deceived by her stillness. She half opened her tear-stained eyes, smiled at me, and, respecting our game, her smile was transmuted into a drunken woman’s hazy grin. Her body stirred. She gave herself with the frenzy of one who seeks either to win a man’s forgiveness or to mock him. Several times, the ecstasy twisted my features into grimaces of male gratification. At these moments, I met her look, one of astonishing compassion, such as only mothers and the simpleminded can bestow.

  Right up to the end, I managed to forget who this woman was. And when I remembered, the pleasure became unbearable in its sacrilegious novelty, its terrible carnal banality.

  The end came with the slamming of a door or a window, at first we did not know which. Vera got up quickly, crossed the bedroom, went into the hall. When, half dressed, I caught up with her, she was sitting on the far end of the bench, her bare body covered by her long cavalry greatcoat. She was staring out of the window and seemed totally disconnected from what had just passed between us. “But nothing at all happened,” the thought even came to me, in a momentary hallucination. This woman had spent her whole life glued to this bench, waiting for a man to return…. I mumbled an ambiguous greeting somewhere between an attempt to stay and a farewell. She murmured, “Good night,” without stirring, without taking her eyes off the window.

  6

  OUTSIDE, HIGH IN THE SKY, the wind is feverishly chopping the yellow of the moon and the greenish flocks of clouds into pieces. The air has a sobering effect, and with sardonic clarity, I find myself comparing this flickering landscape to a romantic film with a lush moonlit setting, sped up by a mad projectionist to the pace of an animated cartoon. When I get home I cram the stove with large logs; the fire burns easily, merrily. And happiness, earlier clouded by the improbability of what I have just lived through, finally wells up without restraint. I have just made love with such a woman! And already there is a casual and obscene echo: ‘Tve slept with a woman who spent thirty years waiting for another man!” With an effort I manage to feel ashamed of this.

  I am twenty-six, an extenuating circumstance. An age when one still takes pride in the number of women one has possessed. With the return of postcoital cynicism, it is more or less this notion of keeping a tally that occurs to me. But I do manage to avoid the crassness of counting this woman alongside the others. Such a woman! Again I reflect on the absence of any man in her life. With self-satisfaction, I note my status as the lucky one.

  I fall asleep in a state of perfect mental and physical contentment, the epitome of what a woman can give to a man prepared to ask nothing more of her.

  My satisfaction is so serene that on waking and recalling Otar’s words, I cheerfully accept his definition of man-as-swine. This facile joy lasts barely an hour. The memory of a day returns: a boat caught between the sky and the heaving water of the lake, a woman pulling firmly, rhythmically on the oars, the body of a dead person in my arms…. Projected onto a different scale of things, I suddenly feel very small, petty, clinging to a pleasure that is already beginning to fade. Compared with that long crossing of the lake, I am nothing more than a minor mishap. This notion upsets and alarms me: I should not have ventured into a dimension that is so far beyond me. I am saved by the physical memory. The supple, dense warmth of a breast, the welcoming spread of a smooth groin…. Throughout the morning, I contrive not to stray beyond the refuge of these bodily sensations.

  A gray wall of rain comes down. Unfaltering, not a moments respite. I picture Vera on the way to her school. “A woman who gave herself to me.” A hot surge of male pride, in the lungs, in the stomach. An urge to smoke a cigarette, gazing out into the street, an urge to be blasé and melancholy, despite the joyful turmoil stirred up by the thought of this conquest. At about three in the afternoon, after hundreds of different imaginary scenes, this other: her return home along flooded roads, she in her izba, in her kitchen, preparing to cook this evenings meal, a dinner for the two of us…. The pleasant routine of a relationship beginning.

  At about four, the notion of her solitude after my departure. The rain stops, the sky is polished steel, pitiless. She will walk along this street, soon to be covered in snow. Her footprints, the only ones in the morning, the only ones on the way back from school. She will remember me. She will often think of me. All the time, perhaps.

  This realization is vaguely daunting, but flattered vanity prevails for the moment: myself as the distant lover, gone without leaving a forwarding address.

  At six o’clock, there is a knock on my door. It is Zoya, the tall one. She enters with slow ceremony, only stepping into the room after the third invitation, in accordance with custom. Sits down, accepts the offer of tea. And when the tea is drunk, takes a newspaper out of her pocket, not the local weekly but a daily paper from Archangel, which she unfolds and spreads out carefully on the table. Accounts of the celebrations for the city’s anniversary, photos of well-known personalities born in the area who have distinguished themselves in Moscow, Leningrad, and even, in the case of this bald-headed engineer, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

  I leaf through the pages, I express my admiration for the engineer: born in a tiny village on the White Sea, he is now the designer of a space communications system! The insistence of Zoya’s stare makes me uneasy. She glares at me with condescending hostility, as much as to say: All right, stop your idle chatter and let’s cut to the chase. I fall silent, she turns the page, points at one of the photos.

  An elderly man, photographed with his two granddaughters, as the caption explains. A round, fleshy face, a fatherly expression. His jacket is weighed down by the broad disks of several decorations.
“A typical Soviet apparatchik/’ I say to myself, and the caption tells me that this is a certain Boris Koptev, party committee secretary in a big Moscow factory….

  “It’s him.”

  Zoya’s voice betrays a sudden breathless weakness. She recovers at once and repeats in the firm tones of a verdict: “Yes, that’s him, all right…. The man Vera’s been waiting for all her life. …”

  Her story is concise, and I feel as if I am listening to it with my whole body. It reverberates like a blow, like a fall, like a shock wave, leaving no space within me, nothing untouched.

  The final battles of the war before Berlin’s outer defenses: that day dozens of men fall from a pontoon gutted by an explosion. Soldiers from the corps of engineers engaged in preparing for crossing the Spree River. Among these bodies torn to shreds, drowned, is that of Boris Koptev. News of his death is conveyed to the next of kin in a terse notice, a standard form of which millions of copies were printed: “Reported missing in action…. Died a hero’s death.” His only remaining next of kin is his mother, soon to be carried off in the famine of 1946. And also this strange fiancée, who will retain, like a holy relic, that earlier death notice (sent in error, as the military authorities later inform her) in which the soldier was described as “reported missing in action.” And so the waiting can begin.

  But what also begins is a new life for Koptev, freshly discharged from the hospital: repatriation, celebrations in Moscow, the heady sensation of being the victorious hero, acclaimed at every step, the host of female faces beaming at him, all those women ready to give themselves to men still whole and free, as he is, to these male survivors, now so rare…. Once an obscure young kolkhoznik, he has become a glorious defender of the Fatherland; once a clodhopper directed to remain in his hamlet in the far North like a serf, now he is taken to the capital, where his medals open the doors of the university to him, guarantee him a career, erase his rustic past. It is only this past he dreads. On the road back from Berlin to Moscow he saw villages in Byelorussia in a state of devastation, peopled by starving ghosts, walking wounded, and children with rickets. Anything but that! He wants to stay among the victors.