Life Stories

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  Godfather had already had time to run back to the garden, his eyes bulging.

  "What the hell did you do, Orkhan? Huh? Do you work with tractors or not?"

  Orkhan gave it another try, but this time the tractor was completely silent.

  Orkhan crawled out of the tractor and circled around it several times, frightened. Godfather wouldn't back off, embarrassing Orkhan every which way and demanding he fix the damage right away.

  "I worked on it yesterday, Orkhan!" yelled Godfather. "You saw me doing it! What did you do that it crapped out? Fix it!"

  "I have lunch, and then again I work!" said Orkhan, choosing the Russian words with difficulty and trying to sidle away, but Godfather could not be deterred.

  "What work? What am I supposed to do? You broke it, you fix it. That's not a neighborly thing to do, Orkhan. Is this how your people back in the Caucasus treat their neighbors?"

  Ten minutes later, Orkhan lay under the tractor, his hairy legs twitching the flies away. Godfather had taken up a post nearby, smoking a cigarette, one arm thrown behind his head.

  "Some tractor driver you are, Orkhan," he said softly. "No kind. You can't do anything. Started up a tractor, right away it broke down."

  "Huh?" said Orkhan from beneath the tractor.

  The women laughed. Only my grandmother pretended she didn't understand what was happening.

  My father came back from the market, bringing three healthy watermelons with him; after scooping the flesh out, you could have crossed a small stream in each of them.

  Oh, the crunch of watermelon, the blazing, icy inside, the black seeds... Nobody could hold back when my father hacked open the luxurious, weeping fruit.

  Hastily finishing their patches, the women collected around the watermelon and fell still, transfixed.

  Only my grandmother kept on nimbly digging potatoes, raking the earth with her strong hands.

  My mother went to get some white bread; the soft inside is good with watermelon.

  "Gran!" my sisters called to my grandmother. "Come on already!"

  "I'm coming, I'm coming," she responded, but finished her patch, took the pail to the still unfilled sack, skillfully grasped its edges, and poured the potatoes in. Everyone else would have needed help with this simple task, one person maybe holding the sack while another poured the potatoes, and even then they sometimes fell on the outside. But not my grandmother, she'd gotten used to getting by alone.

  Orkhan was also called to have some watermelon, but he'd finally got the tractor going and immediately set off for work without even glancing in at home. My mother barely caught up with him. She'd put a parcel together with eggs, a generous slice of sausage and bread, and a bottle of milk, and gave it to him. I hadn't even noticed when she brought it all to the garden and placed it in the shade under a bush.

  We ate the watermelon, gazing at each other with happy eyes. How else can you eat watermelon?

  My mother spread out a pretty red and black oilcloth, my grandmother sat nearby on a stool, and my father stood.

  Drawn by the icy smell of watermelon, wasps began descending one after the other and circling over us, intruding and dangerous.

  My father was the first to give in. Wasps were really the only thing in life he was afraid of. Once, when he was drunk, he'd been stung, and he, a healthy man well over six feet, passed out. By nightfall, his head had become huge and pink and his eyes had disappeared between enormous, puffy eyebrows. He almost died.

  "I'd better go have a smoke," he said, and disappeared behind the tractor. The wasps flew after him, but then returned, displeased with the iron and the smoke.

  "Always smoking, always smoking," my mother said after him.

  Cheerfully waving the wasps away, my godfather followed my father. By his face I guessed the men were about to take a nip from the stash that was probably hidden somewhere in the tractor's iron crannies.

  My godfather's wife watched his back attentively, suspecting something. But just then a wasp lighted on her face and she got distracted, and started bustling about and waving a handkerchief.

  Annoyed by the wasps, my sisters yelled and ran from place to place, and my mother tried to frighten the pushy insects off.

  I tried to keep my composure, but I didn't do well either. I blew on some wasps that had settled on a watermelon. They didn't detach themselves for long, but made an annoyed circle and almost landed on my head.

  Only my grandmother sat motionless, slowly raising the red sickle of watermelon she'd been served and smiling as she nibbled the luscious fragility. The wasps crawled over her hands and over onto her face, but she didn't notice. The wasps settled on the watermelon, but when my grandmother bit into the flesh they crawled further away, avoiding her teeth and lips at the last minute.

  "Grandma, you have wasps!" I looked at her admiringly.

  "What?"

  "There's wasps on you!"

  "Well yes, it's sweet for them." She laughed, really only just noticing the wasps.

  "Why aren't you afraid, they could bite you!"

  "Why would they bite me?"

  Grandmother raised her beautiful hand with its slice of watermelon; two or three wasps crawled along her arm and two more sat on the rind, feeding on the trickling sweetness.

  She bit off the watermelon and yet another wasp, who had lighted on her cheek, simply flying away with no hard feelings, made a circle, and landed somewhere in the grass by the watermelon rinds.

  Everyone became nervous and quickly dispersed. Grandmother sat quietly alone.

  In the morning, discarded watermelon rinds have a slovenly look, their white insides turned to gray and the flies crawling along them in place of wasps.

  That's how the village of my memories looks now. As if someone had scooped the honeyed flesh of August out of her, leaving the gray behind along with the last of the flies.

  Everyone died. The ones that didn't die were murdered. The ones who weren't murdered, finished the job themselves.

  My sisters were flung several times against a corner and were scattered someplace far away.

  The only ones left were my grandmother and Orkhan and his Russian wife, whom he beats every day for drinking.

  The gardens where the sap of life seemed to have just been churning beneath the earth had fallen silent, overgrown by unfamiliar grass. No vigorous potatoes rumbled onto the bottom of the pail.

  We entered the village in my white Volga, moving through the dust we raised, a strange and unusual thing here, as if we were on the moon.

  Grandmother's tired arms trembled rather than flying up in delight. She got up to greet us, blinked away a tear, and smiled.

  She saw my wife for the first time. They immediately started speaking like two women do, while I was quiet and stroked the walls.

  "Women's work is invisible," my grandmother said to my wife.

  "Women's work is invisible," I repeated to myself, and went outside with a cigarette.

  This is what my grandfather built: a fence, a shed, a porch, a house.

  My father painted the pictures in the house. They show: my grandfather, the house, the meadow, the orchard.

  My grandmother's heart, broken into several pieces but still alive—there you have the persistent work of men.

  By not moving or bustling about in the rare moments when it was possible to enjoy a small sweetness without moving or bustling about, she'd lived through an enormous life. Glancing back, a mortal gaze couldn't distinguish even the first bend in the road, after which had come thousands of others.

  We weren't able to live like that.

  "A woman serves, but a man lives in fear, except he hides his fear," I heard my grandmother's quiet voice say from beyond the opened door. "A man can't understand a woman's life; nobody has any pity on us. And we can't spot a man's struggle."

  "His struggle?" asked my wife.

  "His struggle, his turmoil, his pain," grandmother explained.

  "A woman lives in service, but a man lives in pain...
Or maybe only mine were like that, I don't know." She sighed and fell silent.

  My wife and I left the house and went down to the river. We crossed over a bridge that was barely alive and climbed up a hill. An enormous wasteland was visible from the hill.

  "Even the sun is aching and sagging, like a dislocated shoulder." I said this out loud.

  "What did you say?" asked my wife.

  I didn't say anything. And she asked me again. And again I didn't say anything. No reason to repeat every stupid thing.

  My wife sat motionless, enchanting and mortally beloved by me.

  Just wait, I'll break your heart too.

  Night was already falling when we returned. I walked ahead and she hurried behind me. I knew it was hard for her to walk fast, but I didn't stop.

  I sat down on the grass by the river. Nearby there was a rowboat, old, dried out, dead. It was beating against the jetty, bobbing slightly, moored with a rotted rope.

  I dipped my hand in the water, and the water flowed between my fingers.

  With my other hand I grasped the grass and the earth that held my loved ones, who so recently had been so cheerful, so loving, and so sweet; and suddenly I felt an angry sting and a burning in my palm. Cursing foully, I brought my frightened hand to my face, not understanding a thing. I turned around and glanced at the place where I'd been grasping the earth, and in the grass lay a wasp. I had crushed it.

  My hand began to swell up and sting. A dull pain began growing in my palm, just as if the wasp had settled under the skin and was thirsting to break free, swelling everywhere and releasing its hot, burning, wasp blood beneath my skin.

  After getting back to my father's house, I was in a hurry, didn't finish my tea, and practically ran outside and started the car, even though my grandmother was still chatting with my wife.

  I drove, holding the wheel spitefully with my injured hand and pressed mercilessly on the gas, winding down the black road.

  We got back at night and I fell right into bed. Clutching my head with my hands and dropping off, I suddenly heard the beat of my heart. It was hurried and stubborn. I dreamed of a moored rowboat beating against a jetty. Tuk-tuk. Tok-tok.

  Just wait, we'll cast off soon. Soon we'll sail away.

  Translation by Deborah Hoffman

  Fog

  Dina Rubina

  1

  The alarm clock chirped gently; its first attempt to raise Lazarus was doomed to failure.

  Then the chirp became a tapping out of three little bells—a kind of do-mi-so into his temple closest to the nightstand... But even this wasn't yet the real torture. After the inquisitional arpeggio, a vulgar cancan would burst forth, and he couldn't allow that...

  "Arka!... I have to take off in three minutes!"

  Arkady worked his hand out from under the blanket and, without looking, found the hateful button and gave it a push.

  "What time did you get in last night?" Nadezhda asked, standing in front of the mirror, arranging several strands of Bedouin beads on her sweater. She loved large, garish Eastern jewelry that Arkady couldn't stomach. Sometimes he would ask her, "Why are you always jingling with necklaces, like the fifth wife of some lame Bedouin?"

  Odd that he hadn't become a misanthrope, given this damned life of his...

  "Around 4 am...."

  "Something amusing once again?" She stopped in the doorway with only one boot on. She held the other in her hand. Still lying in bed, Arkady regarded his wife through the bedroom door. At last he pushed the blanket away abruptly and lowered his legs. Greetings, new day: how on earth shall I ever get through you?

  "Yes, suicide. A young woman did away with herself and in a very unusual way... But don't you go blabbing about it at your drug store. Nothing's known for sure."

  "Who did? Where?"

  Nadezhda, it seems, had forgotten that she was planning to "take off" three minutes ago.

  Arkady was silent. He grinned bitterly, brushing his teeth in the bathroom; she waited for him to spit.

  "Maybe you remember that old policeman Walid... we met him in Acre, at the harbor, after the picnic for Yulka's last birthday."

  "I don't remember," she said. "And?"

  "It was his daughter. The older one, unmarried... She was getting on in years, about thirty-five... There's a younger daughter, and now she can get married. It's their custom that the younger one can never marry before the older..."

  "Well, so what?" asked Nadezhda, already feeling irritated. "Why are you so upset? Did they do her in, or what?"

  He gazed through the window and sighed: a wall of fog—literally, as if someone had planted a thick gray shield a foot away from the house. The round light near the balcony seemed shrouded in cotton and looked like an opaque white apple.

  "How shall I go today?" Arkady asked himself. "What? What did you say? Did her in? It looks like it..."

  "Lordy!" cried Nadezhda, standing in the open doorway. " Why do you stand there swaying, mountain ash so slender?' You said yourself this kind of thing happens all the time—they choke, stab, and burn their women just like flies! So, what now?"

  "Enough, get going, you'll be late," he muttered.

  Nadezhda loved to delve into his "tender psyche," more suited for teaching music to wunderkinds than dealing with charred bodies.

  "Wait..." she even took a step back into the apartment. "You can't interrogate him, can you? Didn't you tell me that cases concerning policemen are handed over to the Ministry of Justice?"

  "Nadya!" he cried cheerfully, pulling on his sweater. "Give up selling enemas. Come join my investigative team! You know the law so well that even I envy you."

  She left, slamming the door.

  That's it; he should be leaving for the weekly section meeting, especially since he'd have to feel his way through the winter fog. But he kept lingering... five more blissful minutes... A cup of coffee in his own kitchen...

  Well done, Nadka, the star pupil with a fantastic memory. Yes, most likely the case would be handled by the Ministry of Justice. But, at this stage of a preliminary investigation, he'd be the one to sweat over it, that is, his group, by no means very large. Safed was a small town; only him and two sergeant investigators—that was the total brainpower on hand.

  The book that his daughter had been glued to for the last five days was lying on the table—Witches and Wizards. Charming title.

  While finishing his coffee, he reached squeamishly for this masterpiece with a bearded old man resembling a shaman on its glossy cover. He opened it to the table of contents. Yes, of course... "Black Mass"... "The Fire of Satanism"... "Witch-hunts"... very, very nice! A merciless beating, that's what his own fourteen-year old witch deserves, especially given the work she still owed in mathematics, if memory served correctly.

  He thumbed through a couple of pages at random. It was all crystal clear, the usual collection of trash, casually combining a bunch of items from some provincial Russian newspaper together with some articles from scientific journals. Yes, indeed... "Witch-hunts in Western Europe." Good Lord, why does the child need this stuff? What does she see in it? "In the town of Braunschweig so many bonfires were built on the square for public executions that contemporaries compared the place to a pine forest. During the decade of the 1590s, there were times when 10 12 witches were burnt in one day. The town council of Neisse built a special oven in which, over the course of nine years, more than a thousand witches were burnt to death, including children aged 2 to 4 years old... In the free imperial city of Lindheim, the period from 1631 1661 was noted for unusually cruel persecution. Women suspected of being witches were thrown into pits, witch towers,' and tortured until they..."

  He slammed the book shut, stood up, put on his shoes, and began to tie his laces...

  And while he was putting on his uniform jacket, walking out the doorway into the damp cotton of the winter morning, turning on his windshield wipers and warming up the engine... scenes of last night's events floated before his eyes as if surfacing in the pea-s
oup fog.

  Walid's spacious, slightly empty, and quite spotless home, with photographs of old men in gilded baguette frames on the walls... In the middle of the large living room on the first floor stood a small stove with a whole set of copper pots; the smallest had traces of coffee that had boiled over, still warm.

  Walid and his son were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, unconcerned with the appearance in their house of all these new people; they were totally withdrawn as they were supposed to be: men in mourning.

  The deceased was in a room on the second floor, lying in her bed, covered up to her chin with a blanket. The high collar of her green sweater made her lifeless face appear sallow.

  The younger sister, who had been weeping, was wearing a long djellaba and a white headscarf covering the lower part of her face; she was sitting hunched in an armchair, following the investigator's strange shuttling around the room out of the corner of her eye.

  "So, yesterday she was still alive and well?" Arkady clarified for the third time.

  As if on duty, the girl began howling again. He waited, looking at her with patience and compassion. Because of the headscarf that concealed her lips and chin, her lovely large eyes somehow reminded him of the grandfather clock in his grandmother Katya's house not far from Moscow, under which he took naps during his childhood summers.

  "Alive and well, yes, indeed," she confirmed earnestly. "Only she was sad... She kept saying that she was fed up with life, and asked that I look after her, because she felt that she might do something to herself."

  Arkady, who had completed God knows how many circles around the room, stopped opposite the girl.

  "And why didn't you look after her?" he asked sympathetically.

  "I did, I did, but then I dozed off..." she replied. "And when I woke up in the morning she was dead."

  Aha, that's why those eyes reminded him of the grandfather-clock: all the while, the girl kept his partner Varda in sight; Varda had just spread her large frame in the armchair next to hers and, it seemed, wouldn't have minded having a snooze. Oh, Lord, could he last until she left on her pension next year, so he could request a bright lad as a new partner, whom he could send on endless errands and not have to rush around everywhere himself! During the last few years he'd come to feel sorry for Varda and didn't bother her unless he had a good reason. What could you say? The old girl had accumulated a respectable résumé: thirty years in the same job. By the way, she had very good intuition and a woman's amazing memory for apparel; she could tell you without hesitation who was wearing what when she happened to bump into someone accidentally in the supermarket last year. Once this ability did play an important role in the investigation of a hopeless matter, and Varda made sure that no one ever forgot about it. Thus, the fat woman had become a living legend even before her retirement. However, the one thing she was lacking was a brain. But right now she was needed, even though she was dozing off: Walid and his son, even though distraught, immobilized by the unexpected commotion in their house, would never let any man be alone with the young girl.