HIS EYES were brown, with irises that seemed as thick as steel – they had none of the softness that would be characteristic of a child. When Isabel was taken to the group, they all simultaneously turned towards the door and a hush fell upon them. Isabel froze in the deadly silence, pierced by fifteen pairs of staring eyes. And then a movement rippled out from the corner, a short, slight stir as the boy pressed his tiny fist into his mouth and his eyes flashed. Hardness was probably his most distinctive quality; a grisly toughness. Isabel tottered and stepped backwards, involuntarily, as if she had taken a punch from a stronger opponent; the barely audible drag of her heel across the carpet broke the silence. Somewhere an eye blinked, a crinkle fell out of a shirt crease, a tiny finger moved and, as if a gust of wind had blown through, the afternoon came back to life. But the brown eyed boy stood still at the window, with his sharp, inquisitive gaze fixed upon Isabel. He had something clenched in his small fist.
‘Ilyusha, what are holding there? Where did you get that nail from? Don’t put it into your mouth!’ the nurse barked.
The child didn’t move; his narrow pupils drilled into Isabel.
‘Ilya, take that nail out of your mouth and give it to me now,’ said the nurse.
Ilya’s pupils widened, as if he wanted to give the nail to Isabel, but she averted her gaze swiftly to the rug, where long-legged deer were flying, pulling sledges with open mouthed Eskimos swishing their whips. So strange - the rug was brand new and squeaked like newly fallen snow, and for a moment she stood stupidly listening to the sound of its magical squeaks. Pull yourself together, she told herself, what’s the matter with you? She had only to hold the child’s gaze. That was all.
When, finally, Isabel plucked up the courage to meet his eyes, Ilya’s neck lurched. He hiccupped silently and then his eyes flashed as if nothing had happened.
‘Ilya!’ the nurse shouted. ‘What – have you swallowed it?’
She ran to the child and shook him as if hoping the nail would fall out of him like change from a slot machine. Ilya seemed to be used to this. He shrank and relaxed obediently - as if his soul had already hidden away in some unreachable part in his body.
‘Don’t shake him…he’s swallowed it,’ Isabel whispered.
Some minutes later she was standing in the headmistress’ office and watching nervously as her childhood friend poured coffee into cups with the precision of an alchemist. The thin spout of the coffee pot steamed.
Hearing what had happened, Beatrice Brasiskiene stopped fiddling with the coffee. Calmly she placed the pot on the tray.
‘You told me you wanted a girl,’ she said.
‘Yes, but now…’
‘I don’t get it, why would you need another boy? And what’s more, Ilya Voronovas is not the most suitable choice.’
Isabel nodded in agreement. She knew she would have to listen to Beatrice’s counter arguments, that she should keep her peace and then just repeat her decision. She was not bothered either by the fact that Voronovas’ background wasn’t clear, or that he most probably had gipsy blood in him, or that at ten months he had been found in the station so exhausted from starvation and frost that nobody believed he would survive and that this might have affected him psychologically – he had unprovoked aggressive fits. Or that, finally, at six, he was too old.
‘Forget about him,’ Beatrice said, her tirade over. ‘I’ll take you to meet the little ones.’
‘I want him or none of them,’ Isabel countered quietly.
There was such a stubbornness in her tone that Beatrice just held up her hands.
‘I found a child for us,’ Isabel told Liudas that evening.
‘When?’
‘At Beatrice’s.’
‘At Beatrice’s? You went to see Beatrice?’
Liudas’ pen froze in his hand, the tip digging into the exercise book, the ink spreading in a red pool.
‘I want to take you there.’
The next morning, as she turned towards the bank Isabel failed to notice a car pulling out of the side street. She waved her arm in the air, desperately seeking a child’s hand and stepped back onto the pavement.
‘Ilya, how careless we are,’ she mumbled to herself, as if the emptiness in her hand would somehow solidify into the brown eyed boy.
Later, she stowed that emptiness in the back seat of her old Golf, among the bags of shopping and an umbrella, and drove back along the snowy road through the woods to the farm in Puskai. That Ilya-shaped-emptiness followed her across the yard in to the house and shrank with repulsion when Isabel bent down to kiss Gailius and enquired, as she always did, if he had remembered to take his medication.
A couple of days later Isabel’s car turned once more into the car park at the orphanage. It was two in the afternoon; the snow was melting under the sun, shrinking like a sodden blanket. Isabel was so nervous that it was only when she turned off the engine in front of the office that she noticed she was wearing the wide-legged, colourful, patched cotton trousers she only wore around the house.
What will he think of me? she thought miserably. I look like a scruffy clown. She was just about to turn around to go and get changed when Beatrice spotted her through the window. Beatrice smiled and waved, encouraging her to come in.
The electric kettle was gasping. In the air there was the smell of coffee and on a plate there were two cakes with sliced strawberries on top.
‘I would like to take him out for a walk,’ Isabel said, as she entered the room.
‘It’s wet,’ said Beatrice, doubtfully.
‘But it’s sunny!’
‘He’s sleeping.’
‘I’ll wait.’
They drank coffee and smoked and then brewed some more coffee. Isabel was suspicious that there was some kind of connection between her arrival and the fact that Beatrice was obviously annoyed. Beatrice seemed to be hesitant about letting her see the child – that boy whose face had been hidden among the light folds of her dreams. She wanted to lift the folds and take a closer look at the hidden features of his face, but she couldn’t find the words to explain this, either to Liudas or, even more so, to Beatrice.
‘Do you remember how Liudas took us to that amusement park once?’ Isabel asked suddenly.
She and Liudas had just met; he had come up to her as she was standing by a fountain and started talking to her.
‘Excuse me, could you possibly take some books out from the library for me?’
It wasn’t so much the nature of the request, coming out of the blue, as it did, that confused Isabel, but rather how good looking the speaker was and how attractive his confidence was. And what was more – there were other girls gathered at the fountain but it was her that he had approached. The library only allowed five books to be borrowed at a time, but the intellectual stranger claimed he had a list of seven he wanted. Isabel agreed to help. It soon became clear that the stranger’s request was not as innocent as all that. Isabel borrowed one of the books from him, Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer’. It had sounded exotic. She was drawn in from the first page of the book, though she didn’t understand much of it. She was mesmerised by the protagonist’s tone and by his sick imagination. But with each page the tone grew cruder and the fantasies more explicit, so that one evening she slammed the book closed with such a smash that it woke up her room-mate. She used to shut the pantry door in the same way when she was a child – slamming it on the rats and other unpleasant creatures which appeared from behind the sacks and the curtains. She never finished the novel and was nervous about what she was going to say if the young man decided he wanted to know what her opinion of it was. She was hesitant therefore about returning it. In the end she lied - all sweaty - that she had lost the Miller and Liudas had to pay the fine. He didn’t get angry at all, but Isabel insisted she would cover the expense.
She offered him some money.
Liudas told her to put it away.
Then she invited him out for a glass of wine. He arrived at the riverside rendezvou
s with a couple of books in his bag. In this way they found the pretext for a series of dates, inspired by guilt and literature. Isabel learnt that Liudas was one year older than she was. He was a student at the Pedagogical Institute, studying language and literature. He, meanwhile, was very impressed that she had been admitted to the Academy of Art that year. For some reason she was ashamed to admit that she had chosen to study graphic design. Neither of them had any idea what they wanted do as a profession and, for the time being, this strengthened the bond between them. Secretly, Isabel wondered what this ultra-masculine, reserved and self-confident man was doing studying in the humanities department. At first she kept an eye out for any strange behaviour that would justify his choice.
There didn’t seem, however, to be anything strange about him.
Having struggled through the first chapter of Ulysses - and only stubbornly sticking at it because she wanted to hold up her side of the intellectual discussion – Isabel plucked up the courage to introduce her new acquaintance to Beatrice. She wanted to check what her friend would think about her taste – though as far as men were concerned they never agreed.
Patiently Isabel waited until Liudas had had enough of books and thought of something a little more exciting to do. He suggested going to an amusement park. The suggestion didn’t seem to be a particularly romantic one, but when Isabel innocently enquired if she could bring a friend, Liudas seemed to grow suddenly doubtful about what he had been planning. Of course, he agreed. But then he immediately grew upset at his shyness, and felt a fool for letting Isabel keep their relationship on nothing more than a platonic basis.
At the amusement park Beatrice didn’t say much, which was strange for her. When Liudas went to buy the tickets and left them under a tree, she didn’t say anything, and later, when they were walking back to the hostel at dusk, she was quiet too. They had lied, pretending that they lived on the other side of the campus and were not allowed to invite anybody back to their rooms.
It seemed to Isabel that even though Liudas was her boyfriend - however unclear her rights to him were - he kept glancing at Beatrice and trying to impress her with his humour. Isabel felt the sharp sting of competition. When she was with Beatrice she often felt this sting; it was painful. Occasionally she would provoke it to torture herself.
‘You and Liudas took half an hour to convince me to go on that horrible ride. I agreed because I told myself that if I went on it and survived, Liudas would choose me.’
‘He had already chosen you by then – have you forgotten?’ Beatrice replied. She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘Anyway – how is he?’ she asked, her voice indifferent.
‘Our little Gailius seems to be stronger this year.’
‘And Liudas?’
‘Liudas? He’s fine, thanks.’
‘We’re looking for a teacher; one of ours is going on maternity leave.’
‘You want Liudas?’
‘I think it would be the right place for him.’
They lowered their eyes and lifted their cups, hiding a strange awkwardness.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ Beatrice said finally.
Ilya was sleeping in the far corner by the fish tank with the clown fish. Isabel’s dream world trembled and swelled in the sensual breeze – she immediately recognised his short, crow-black hair. From the doorway Beatrice indicated that she approved of what Isabel was doing, and, once she had gone, Isabel, watched by an old nurse, floated along the narrow passage between the beds towards Ilya.
He was lying facing the fish tank with his tiny, sharp nose tucked into the crease of his elbow, having crept from between the sheets like a gift sticking from ripped wrapping paper. His tiny body looked strange even when asleep; it seemed suspicious and ready to jump up any moment and bite. The nurse rustled a packet of biscuits and Isabel jumped like a thief. Ilya opened his eyes suddenly. His gaze was serious, as if he had only been pretending to be asleep.
‘Hello, Ilya,’ Isabel whispered.
His eyelashes flickered.
‘Did I wake you up?’
‘Mama?’
The child lifted his tousled head, attempting to lean on his elbow, but his hand slid helplessly from the pillow.
‘No…but I really like you,’ Isabel murmured stupidly.
They inspected each other intently without blinking. Isabel smelt the soapy smell of the just woken child – the smell of a healthy boy.
‘I saw you.’ Ilya’s lips barely moved. He was referring perhaps to the day he had swallowed the nail in front of Isabel.
‘Would you like to go for a walk with me?’ Isabel asked.
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘I’m not allowed.’
‘The headmistress said you could. Get dressed, I’ll wait.’
Isabel expected a friendly gesture, some kind of sign of agreement. Happiness, perhaps. But there was nothing. Just the steely brightness of his dark irises.
‘Wait in the corridor or he won’t get up,’ the nurse whispered.
The nurse had managed to hide the biscuits and appeared silently behind Isabel carrying his clothes. Isabel nodded obediently; she cast a conspiratorial glance at Ilya and then floated back out in the same way she had come in, between the beds with their heavily breathing children.
Ilya got dressed fast. On the landing, at the top of the stairs, Isabel offered him her hand but he sniffed with disgust and loped downstairs.
The sun tore at their eyes. They crossed the deep slush in the car park, blinking, happy that the excessive brightness of the light prevented them from talking. The sun made things easy; it focused their attention on the struggle to see. An unspoken bond grew between the woman and the child as they struggled against the light.
In the woods the sun struck the crowns of the trees and scattered through the branches. Escaping from the brightness, they were confused; they paused and instinctively leant away from each other. They were forced to open their eyes and look round.
Isabel searched for an expression to wear; under his hat Ilya’s eyes leapt about, as if he was an animal that could smell danger. Suddenly she saw the soft freshness of Ilya’s skin which was like peeled fruit. Seeing that softness a gentle expression slipped across Isabel’s face.
‘Do you like swings?’ she asked quietly.
‘No,’ Ilya answered. His voice was quiet too.
‘Do they have swings here?’
He didn’t answer.
‘There must be swings. Can you take me to them?’
‘I don’t want to,’ the child muttered, kicking at the crust of snow.
‘I do. Let’s go.’
They found the swings in the clearing. There was a wooden climbing frame with a straw roof, a skating rink, and a roundabout.
‘Hold this.’ Isabel stuffed her bag into Ilya’s hand and settled on the swing.
She swung up between the sun blotched tree trunks and then back down to the boy waiting on the ground. He shuffled his feet, his eyes fixed on the earth, clutching Isabel’s bag as if it were something foreign.
Suddenly he glanced up at her and pulled a face.
‘What?’ she shouted, short of breath.
‘You look stupid,’ Ilya mumbled.
‘What? What? I can’t hear!’
She was suddenly worried that by being careless she had missed something important. She stopped the swing and gazed at the child intensely, as if in apology.
‘Open the handbag,’ she said. ‘There’s something in there for you.’
There were some chocolate Zephyrs in her bag. Isabel had wandered around the supermarket for a long time before choosing them – Beatrice had told her not to bring anything, so she knew she had to hand Ilya the gift stealthily. She chose something that could be destroyed easily. Tired of circling the pastries section, Isabel had at last spotted the Zephyrs. They were beautifully shiny on the surface and blindingly white inside. She didn’t like them herself, but they were perfectly lovely and reminded he
r of sea shells.
Speechless, Ilya fixed his eyes on the Zephyrs. It occurred to her that this was probably the first time he had been given sweets.
‘They’re Zephyrs. Sweets.’
Ilya paused and glanced at Isabel angrily, as if she was stopping him from doing something.
‘You know what – I won’t look. I’ll have another go on the swing and you try them, okay?’
Isabel swung so high that the toes of her shoes were level with the lower branches of the pines; as she dropped down through the sun dappled thorn bushes, her eyes shut instinctively.
She closed her eyes against the sun and opened them in the shade.
What am I doing? She thought suddenly. I’m on the swing trying to show him how to be free and simple. I‘m only thinking about myself again.
Cross with herself, she got off the swing and looked round; Ilya was stood some distance away with his back to her, his head was bent, his hood shining as red as a calf’s tongue. A strange anxiety rose in her heart - the child’s shoulders were twitching. Briefly he lifted his head and then lowered it again, as if it was too heavy for him and then he cowered down. Against the backdrop of straight, identical tree trunks this repeated movement looked odd and, somehow, sinister.
Isabel flew to him, her feet barely touching the ground.
Bursts of vomit spouted from him. Snarling like a furious fox cub, he drove Isabel away with a rapid movement.
An empty bag smeared with chocolate rustled on the ground.
I shouldn’t have left him alone with those damned Zephyrs! Isabel cursed herself and glanced around to check if somebody might have seen them.
She was mesmerised by the spreading pool of chocolate vomit.
The wind flattened the bag against the rough bark of a tree. Isabel leant down to grab it and, as if teasing her, the wind ripped it from her hands. It flew across the snow, lifting and rising into the air. Isabel clapped her hands together and the cellophane wrapper popped and collapsed between her palms; she laughed victoriously, waving the bag at Ilya.
He gaped. That was all. He watched Isabel approach, all sweaty after the chase, wearing a white jumper beneath her unbuttoned coat which looked like a nurse’s uniform. Ilya hated white clothes; the people who wore them usually expected something from him, but they were never clear about what it was they wanted.
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