Something Unbelievable

by Maria Kuznetsova

  “Maybe it slipped off, Antonina Nikolaevna. If it’s not in the apartment, then the boys can search the perimeter,” Aunt Tamara said.

  I saw my grandmother’s stony eyes settling on Aunt Tamara. It was a logical conclusion. Not only was she her sworn enemy, but she was also the most likely of us to long for such luxury.

  “I know it was you,” my grandmother said, grabbing Aunt Tamara by the collar. “Tell me, what will my necklace get you at the market? My life’s inheritance for a handful of potatoes? Is that all I’m worth to you?” she said, shaking her with a mad fury.

  “Please,” said Uncle Konstantin, pulling the women apart. “Do not cause a scene.”

  “It’s all right, Babushka,” Polya said. “We don’t steal from each other here.”

  “Of course we do. We do anything to survive. That is why…” Baba Tonya said, her lip trembling, “that is why we took your precious cat. This is no different.”

  It seemed quite different to me, but Polya burst into sobs regardless. Mama and Bogdan comforted her before I had a chance to consider doing it. Instead, I kept searching the floor in vain. It was a relief Papa was not here to see what had become of us all—this ugly cacophony. Then again, if he were still around, we might not have fallen apart.

  “I know she took it! I know she took it! Shura told me in my dreams last night,” said my grandmother, returning her boa to her neck. But Baba was probably bluffing: she never spoke of her dreams. It was considered bad luck to report them, because they might come true.

  Baba shook Polya off and marched toward Mama. “But maybe it was you, eh? You never liked me, you little prig.”

  Mama stepped away from her and began to sweep, as if this would solve the problem. Though she was far from her industrious self, she had returned to work, and had enough strength to ignore my grandmother then. Thankfully, my grandmother did not linger on my mother for long and turned her vitriol to me.

  “You don’t like your grandmother much either, do you, Larissa?” she said, grabbing me by the collar. “Are you the one who slipped it off my neck, nimble one?”

  Before I could protest, a wild laugh escaped Mama’s lips, the first I had heard from her since Papa died. Everyone else stopped what they were doing and stared. Aunt Tamara dropped a bowl that did not break. Mama laughed again and again. The maniacal glee in her eyes chilled me to the bone.

  “What use?” Mama cried. “Tell me, old woman, what use would any of us have for your dumb rubies now? They can’t bring him back. They can’t save us. Your necklace!” she said again, throwing back her head and cackling wildly.

  “Please,” said my grandmother, her voice heavy with desperation. “It is the oldest thing in my family—in our family. An heirloom. Not to mention its price. We all need it, don’t you see?” Her eyes were wild as she looked for others to accuse, but Misha and his searching-the-ground father were the picture of innocence, and Bogdan seemed far too involved in caring for Polya to bother with stealing.

  Baba had lost the energy for her campaign and did not accuse anyone after that. As she lowered herself to the ground, into Polya’s arms, I felt a pang of pity for her. I knew she did not see her jewels as just another piece of finery. I understood it, her desire to maintain her connection to her long-gone mother—and perhaps, in some twisted way, she saw it as a way of maintaining the thread between her and my father, a genetic lifeline. She put a hand beneath her boa and continued her raving quietly. “It is irreplaceable. It is beyond value,” she kept saying, until Mama gave her some valerian root and returned her to bed.

  * * *

  —

  Baba Tonya had officially gone mad by the time we took our next trip to the market a few weeks later; and without school to keep me occupied, I wasn’t faring much better. Mama, who was basically back on her feet by then, insisted we take her out with us. Though we were in the middle of a gorgeous, almost life-affirming summer, Baba hadn’t left the apartment since her rubies were taken and spoke of little else. Polya was docile but functional. She continued wandering to the balcony in the middle of the night from time to time, and nobody stopped her.

  My sister and I linked elbows with Baba, and the Orlov brothers dutifully walked two paces behind us, like bodyguards, though I did not know what we could possibly be protected from anymore. I kept a firm grip on my grandmother and looked out for obstacles. Aunt Yulia and Madame Renata had already wandered off with linked arms, having satisfied themselves that their product store was faring far better than the threadbare market, and good riddance.

  We faced the usual bustle. Onion Man Oleg handed me an onion the size of my fist for nothing, and the rest of the vendors, mostly women, peddled their sad, green-hued potatoes, cloves of black-spotted garlic, and wilted lettuce, as if they were doling out rare gold. The empty train tracks stood stolidly behind us, a gash among the dirt and trees. My grandmother looked far off, a slow smile sliding on her face. “I suppose one dance won’t kill me!” she said to an imagined suitor, tossing back her tangled hair. “But take it slow. Already I feel a bit dizzy….” Then she sucked in her breath and took my hand. She had not held it a single time before.

  No one else made note of this fantastic gesture. Bogdan and my sister were already searching for the least green of the potatoes, their heads leaning together like the beams of a steeple, while Misha inspected the onions. When I looked up at my grandmother, the grimace that had settled over her face since she lost her necklace had been wiped away, replaced by a steely calm.

  “Here it comes,” said my grandmother, loosening her grip on my hand. “My train.”

  “What train?” I said, peering into the distance. “There’s no train.”

  She smiled and nodded. “You just don’t see it yet, little one. It’s coming, I promise. Coming to take me away. I should have taken it long ago.”

  There was still no evidence of a train, but my grandmother was convinced. She moved closer to the tracks, until her toes were touching the platform, her black boa billowing about her like the feathers of a deranged raven.

  “Larachka,” she said sternly, “I need you to let go of my hand.”

  I could not explain it. Though holding her hand was giving me the chills, I could not bring myself to let it go. I took a step forward and joined her at the edge of the platform. Down below, not terribly far, a colony of ants swarmed over the body of a dead bird.

  Baba was right. I felt the ground vibrating first, then looked out to see the train approaching in the distance, its bright lights piercing through the morning fog. I should have thrown my tiny body in front of my grandmother’s, I should have pulled her away or asked for help, but I just stood there, not knowing what to do, feeling like I was watching something that had already happened play out.

  Not all of the trains stopped to deposit passengers. In fact, it had been months since the latest shipment had been sent to the village. Uncle Konstantin’s optimistic opinion was that this was yet another sign that the war was reaching its conclusion and we would not be dragging it out in the mountains all that much longer. His wife’s more pessimistic view was that there were simply no more men to send. Whatever the reason may be, this train would not be slowing down.

  My grandmother had finally wrestled her hand out of mine and lifted her boa arms in the air, a bird ready to take flight. The burst of air from the oncoming train made her stole flap in the wind. In one swift motion, it got caught in the gears of the train and pulled Baba underneath it and a deadly rumble rang through the market as the train plowed on. I should have screamed, I should have jumped down into the tracks once the train took off, but I could not move, my feet were rooted in the ground while I heard the commotion, the rush of footsteps storming the tracks.

  “What happened?”

  “My God, where did she go?”

  “How did it happen? Did she jump?”

  “Who is it?�
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  “It’s her, it’s her—the old woman with the boa!”

  The villagers were peering down to where my crushed grandmother was collapsed in a bloody heap of feathers and gristle. Before I could jump down there, Misha draped an arm around me and folded me into his chest, as his brother had once done on the train. I pretended to hide into his chest like a good girl should do, while I peeked and saw the state my fallen grandmother was in. The wild gashes along her middle, the bloody patches of hair sticking to her forehead, while her face was nearly untouched except for a gash along her lip. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the heavens. Having gotten her bloody peace at last.

  “What happened, Larissa?” Misha said quietly.

  “She just—got caught up,” I said. “Her boa…”

  He nodded and asked no further questions.

  A shrill cry told me that Polya had stopped flirting with Bogdan and had noticed the commotion. She screamed and started clawing toward Baba, while Bogdan ran toward the edge of the tracks with her and took her hand. But he did not shield her as Misha had shielded me; perhaps he was beyond shielding anyone, having learned that it did no good. He let her stare down into the bloody gristle while I continued to look out while Misha thought my eyes were closed, having wrapped both arms around me like the gentleman that he was. Misha tried to pull me away, to get me to go home, but I released myself from his arms and moved toward my sister, though I knew I could offer her no comfort. She met my gaze with soft eyes.

  “All of that over a necklace,” she said, and I flinched at the steeliness of her voice.

  Her whole body was shaking, but her jaw was firm, and something was happening inside her then, as she held Bogdan’s hand and then hopped down and fell over my grandmother’s body. Bogdan locked eyes with me only for a second before returning to my sister, putting an arm around her as she wept silently. I shook Misha off and continued to stand at the edge of the platform. Misha gave up on trying to shield me, and he, Onion Man Oleg, and one of the potato vendors jumped down and dragged Baba’s body out and up onto the platform, or rather, they dredged up a bloody and mangled mess that must have been my grandmother’s body, black feathers flying up in its wake. I looked at her up close, the white exposed meat of her neck and belly, and did not look at her again. I stood alone, hugging myself.

  What happened next? Ivan ran up and fashioned a gurney from a blanket and a vegetable-stand base with the onion man and radish brothers and I followed the procession as Baba was carried back to the apartment and left outside our door. She was immediately buried in the local cemetery, and only Polya and Aunt Tamara lost their composure that day. I nearly lost mine, too, but it wasn’t from the horror I witnessed so much as the fact that, somewhere between the market and home, Polya and Bogdan had become completely intertwined.

  That night, Bogdan entered our room and climbed into my sister’s bed, taking over Licky’s role. I was victim to their sweet murmurs and the sounds of their limbs settling into sleep and knew there was no chance I could rest under these circumstances. This just proved that Bogdan did not mean all that business about preferring me over my sister. I pictured him standing at the edge of the tracks with Polya, not shielding her from the darkness. I wondered what the look he gave me then meant—was he thinking of what I was thinking of now, the long-ago evening when he held me on the train, protecting me from some nasty truth? And if so, was he finding that it was easier to win over my weakling sister by letting her stare at her dead grandmother, to show her he knew she could handle it, after all?

  I was not naïve: I knew it was likely Bogdan was not thinking of me at all, that he had been hardened by the war and was more interested in reality than comfort. I knew I needed to get out of there, that it was untoward to stay below them. Mama had a big, empty apartment all to herself now, and I could have joined her, but I stayed in my closet room out of stubbornness. Night after night, after my reading sessions with Misha, the only bright spot in my days besides the news that Kharkov and Kiev had been taken back by the Red Army, I would return to my post below the non-lovers, just to unsettle them. But as the days wore on, I heard fewer sweet murmurs, and more of Bogdan’s criticism of our dear government.

  “Stalin is a madman and a narcissist,” he’d whisper. “He’s no more a man of the people than a chimp; his cronies are as fat as cows before the slaughter, while we’re starving to death. Once the war is over, I want to get out of here—to go somewhere enlightened.” My sister would mostly just murmur, but she never disagreed with him. “That sounds nice, darling,” she would say. “Quite nice.” Part of me wondered if he was babbling on for my benefit, to provoke me to defend our fathers, to remember the T-34, the importance of winning the war, of being on the side of Stalin and not some foreigner’s.

  As far as I could see, only kissing and Stalinist critique went on above me; lovemaking wasn’t in the picture yet. My sister, who was once entertained by my grandmother’s talk of balls, now heard Bogdan talk about the peasants, the Famine of the ’30s, which was caused by our government, the purges, anti-Semitism, party corruption, and seemed even more engrossed in what he had to say, and who knew why; perhaps it was because he let her see the state my grandmother was in, because he felt she could handle anything and wasn’t as weak as she appeared, perhaps confirming this on the nights when he would get back to the room late because of his wanderings and my sister didn’t seem to care, understanding it was for the good of us all. He continued to sleep above me with my sister for months, swiftly claiming my grandmother’s role as Polya’s nighttime companion and entertainer as summer caved into fall and eventually yet another winter, and that was how we slept until one fine morning, when Uncle Konstantin burst through the door to tell us that though the war was not quite over, it was time to go home.

  * * *

  —

  I pressed my head against the window of the train car, wondering what going home would mean. It was the beginning of January 1944, thus far a hopeless, freezing year. The workers of the Institute packed up their things, leaving the factory in the hands of the local workers once more. Kiev was safe, but the war raged on. Who knew what condition the city would be in by then, or if our apartment was even standing? I wasn’t thrilled about returning home with Mama and Polya. Mama was functional but never showed weakness; sometimes, I’d catch her gazing out the balcony with longing and expect her to mention Papa, but she would just turn to me and say something like, “The dishes need a bit more scrubbing.” Polina was also a near stranger to me. At night, I heard the wet smacks of her and Bogdan’s kisses, so they had progressed from friends to lovebirds. Not only did I feel a million miles away from Mama and Polya, but the thought of entering our communalka without Papa would only widen the hole in my heart.

  It was hard to believe this was the same train that had carried us to the mountains over two years earlier, when I was just a girl. The train brought back more innocent memories, of trepidation but also the sense that nothing could be too terrible because Papa was beside me. Now Misha was holding my hand in his warm, comforting one, bringing some solace. Evening was turning into night and everyone was settling in to rest. But I was not yet tired. I was content watching the barren fields roll by, their patches of snow catching the moonlight.

  Our car was emptier now, courtesy of the dead as well as Aunt Yulia, who had taken a different car home. What was I to make of this wreck of a coterie? I had always believed, perhaps from Tolstoy, that the strong survive, that character means something, while weakness is what gets you thrown under a train. And perhaps that was true in my grandmother’s case, but then why did Uncle Pasha survive over my dear papa? Why did a wench like Aunt Yulia survive while her sweet husband and daughter perished long ago? No, no. Life was random and cruel, and none of us would get out alive. We were all its playthings.

  Misha understood me. He knew I wanted quiet. I did not want to read or discuss what had passed or even
quietly mock our siblings. I could feel him studying my face, as if to divine the contents of my mind. Or, perhaps, to find the right moment to speak to me. He cleared his throat but said nothing, though the sound did make me turn to him. He tucked a folded piece of paper into my hand. I unfolded it slowly, slowly, so the sound of the rustling paper did not wake anyone up. It was a poem of Tsvetaeva’s we had read together. He had copied it on a thick piece of parchment, in fine ink. I wondered how he had the means to do such a thing.

  A kiss on the forehead—erases misery.

  I kiss your forehead.

  A kiss on the eyes—lifts sleeplessness.

  I kiss your eyes.

  A kiss on the lips—is a drink of water.

  I kiss your lips.

  A kiss on the forehead—erases memory.

  It was meant to be a sweet gesture, but the poem unsettled me. Why write so much about kissing instead of doing it? Though it was hard to build up much romantic momentum after everything we had been through, of course. And why end on the bit about erasing memory? What is it that the speaker wanted to so badly forget? All of us could stand to forget a thing or two, but surely this was not what Misha had hoped to communicate. I didn’t have a chance to ask before he opened his mouth.

  “You and I make a suitable match, Larissa Fyodorovna,” he said. “You are my equal in spirit and mind. You are a serious, studious woman with a sense of proportion. Once order returns, I have a promising future ahead of me at the Institute and hope to take over one day. You have a promising future ahead of you as well, and I would be honored to have you by my side. Together, we can achieve greatness.”

  Though I watched his lips as he spoke, he hardly looked at me. He delivered this speech with a wavering voice I had never heard before, staring straight ahead. His hands were shaking, but I was certain it was from nervousness, not hunger. We were passing an icy lake, one of the few bodies of water along our route.