‘Alright, alright...’ She moved past him and walked up the step into the kitchen. ‘Just leave any dirty clothes in that room, I have enough to do than to worry about getting paint out of the carpet.’ She turned to Slava. ‘Are you staying? Should I make dinner?’
‘No, Mama, I can’t. I need to go straight back to the city tonight, as I have a meeting tomorrow morning.’
‘Lab technicians have meetings?’ her father teased.
‘Oh, god, not this again.’
‘Just get your drinks and get in the house already,’ Julia scolded and walked back into the kitchen, stifling a smirk.
That evening, there was dinner, and wine for the parents and water for Slava, and conversations about politics. And then later Henry poured himself whiskey and explained his philosophy about how the government was corrupt, Slava interjected her theories about how women in the workplace were undervalued and underpaid. Henry defended his position on how the government would never allow immigrants a fair stake in any country they reside, and Julia listened, and watched. She watched her daughter, a daughter both of them hadn’t given much time to understand, hold her own against a dominant personality like her own father. Henry labored to get across his points now, for he was too tired to be as clever as he once was and with many years of drinking and eating to excess, he’d grown tired.
‘Ay, come on with all the heavy!’ Julia exclaimed. She looked at Henry, his eyes growing heavy. ‘Look at him,’ Julia gestured. ‘Slava, you need to get on the road, and we need to go to bed.’
Slava stood up and came over to her father and put her hand on his broad, rounded shoulder. ‘Papa, I need to go in a minute. It’s 7:30, and I need to drive for three hours.’
‘I’ll walk you out.’ Henry stood up, reaching into his shirt pocket for a cigarette as they both walked down the front steps and then towards the car parked in the driveway behind the house to say their goodbyes. The pair stood next to each other for a brief second: the five-and-a-half-foot girl next to the six-foot-three tall old man. She elbowed him gently in the arm. ‘Papa, you shouldn’t smoke so much. It’s bad for you.’ He smiled. ‘Ahh, Slava. Don’t worry about me. Get back to your important work.’ He winked at her.
Slava slipped into the car and looked back as Henry walked up the steps towards the porch. ‘Julia, leave the basement door open,’ she heard him say. ‘You know I like when doors are left open. Closed doors are bad omens.’ And then he turned back, smiled, and walked inside.
After Slava had left, Julia and Henry moved with a contentedness that could be described as monotony: she had washed and tidied the dinner plates away, one by one, and then dried the glasses, as he sat on his favorite chair outside on the porch, the cool night air on his face. The porch jutted out just enough that when he sat, he could only see sky. He watched as the smoke from his cigarette drew a silver line from his fingers, reaching for the navy summer night, dissipating peacefully.
Julia opened the door and leaned against the frame, drying her hands on her apron. ‘Need some company?’
He reached over and pulled an extra chair to him, the sound wood on wood creating his invitation.
Julia walked over, untying the knot behind her back, dropping the apron on the floor, and sat down. She leaned her head back and looked up at the sky. ‘It’s lovely and quiet here, in this spot.’ She pointed across. ‘Even at night, you can’t see the garden, but it’s there. Waiting. And then beyond… the fields beyond.’
Henry nodded. ‘Home.’ He meant it in ways that Julia didn’t realize.
‘Yes. Finally.’
‘I wonder, occasionally.’
‘About what?’ It was unlike Henry to reminisce, or become nostalgic about the past, so Julia was curious.
‘About the paths we’ve taken to arrive here.’ He raised his hand and passed it through the air in front of him. ‘Like stars, moving along the sky.’
‘They were all hard, in so many ways. But we wouldn’t have arrived here without them.’
Henry nodded. ‘Regrets?’ He looked over at Julia, her face bathed in the half light of a waning moon.
She smiled and looked at him. ‘Don’t we all. But nothing that breaks my dreams.’ She saw that his eyes shone with tears, or maybe it was a trick of the moonlight.
Julia locked her fingers together, as if clasped in lazy prayer. ‘You?’
He looked back at the night sky, and watched as the cigarette he held burnt out, the embers turning increasingly black. ‘Nothing that breaks granite.’ He exhaled a final plume of smoke. ‘Besides, if I had any, they are something that God and I will have to discuss one day.’
His other hand reached for hers, and they both finished their evening in silence.
33
The night was still. Which was why, when Julia woke, she thought she was dreaming. It sounded like the beginning of a storm. Muffled. Troubled.
‘What was that?’ she didn’t move her head off her pillow and sleepily waited for a response. When she heard nothing, she assumed she’d been dreaming and started to fall asleep again.
There was little wind that evening, and she could still see the moon as it hung in wait for the dawn: thin, silvery slices through the folds of the curtains. She’d heard a kind of thin forced wheeze, then heavier, guttural, and it had woken her. She wasn’t sure if it was the house settling. It could possibly be; it was always settling, and there were occasionally small animals in the garden.
The silence was more than that, though: she’d recall later that it carried with it absolutely no life. It was hollow. She opened her eyes again and listened. Nothing.
She closed her eyes, the relief of being half-asleep and hearing nothing, except for the wind shuddering through the trees. She’d never known him not to snore, so this felt wonderfully luxurious.
Five minutes later, she opened them again as if she remembered something, for something had suddenly changed.
She turned over to face him, her hand reached out for his chest. No sound. She shook him a little. ‘Henry. Hey.’ He was stiff, the skin underneath his shirt felt unyielding. She listened to his breath. Nothing. ‘Henry. Henry answer me.’ She sat up and shook him with both hands, and then she knew, and slid off the bed and turned on the light as she ran through her bedroom down the small hallway, her nightgown flying behind her ankles, the glut of material irritating her for some reason, her grey hair wild around her face. She jerked open the door to the front room and reached the phone, dialing frantically. She’d memorized her number by heart.
‘Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, help me,’ she repeated as she waited for an answer.
‘Hello— ‘
‘Slava, Slava help me…’ She was gasping for air and hysterical. ‘… help me… it’s Papa, he’s… I can’t… I heard a sound, I don’t remember… I tried to wake him… Slava… what do I do…’ her voice heaved and broke and sobbed and did the thing that voices do when no words come out, only sharp intakes of breath and heavy exhales.
Julia heard Emilian’s concern in the background, and then Slava’s. ‘Mama calm. Wait. What—’
‘I can’t wake him, what do I do, oh Slava,’ She wailed on the line, her voice broken.
‘Mama— what happened?!’
‘I don’t know, Slava, I don’t— ‘Julia’s felt as if she were drowning.
‘Is he breathing?’
‘Slava, I don’t know! I think so, but I can’t tell.’
‘Okay, fine, call 911. Now. Do it. Call me when you’ve done it. Hang up. Dial 911. Do you understand? 9-1-1.’
‘Yes.’ The dial tone rang in her ear. She was alone. She didn’t remember dialing the numbers, she didn’t remember what Henry was wearing, she didn’t remember how many men arrived at their house, the blue and red colors painting the sky like silent fireworks. She didn’t remember how they got Henry onto a stretcher, she didn’t remember if she cried, and how she looked, and if they’d had an argument the night before and what they’d said to each other before they went to bed. All she remembered
was that his body had lost its spirit next to hers, and she’d felt it and it made her feel a loneliness that crippled her.
Glens Falls Hospital, they said. She remembered that too. She didn’t ask if she could go with them. She was in her nightgown. It wouldn’t be appropriate, she thought, soberly and completely irrationally.
She remembered when they shut the door. She remembered watching the red lights fade down the road, wink feebly from a distance, and then disappear into blackness. She saw a neighbor’s window light go off, as if they’d been watching the entire time. She turned the house lights off, erasing her silhouette from anyone’s view. She leaned against the closed door and felt her body slowly disintegrate, her legs gave way until she sat on the floor, rocking forwards, her head in her hands.
Henry.
Oh God, Henry.
Slava.
Oh, she remembered. Call Slava.
‘Mama?’ it didn’t even ring fully before she answered the phone. ‘Where is he, what’s happening?’ Julia heard Emilian in the background, concern in his voice.
‘Slava, they took him—’ her breath became labored again. ‘—took him to the hospital. The one on St. Andrews. I can’t drive, I don’t know how to drive—’ tears fell down her cheeks, the receiver wet as she spoke. ‘— How have I never learned how to drive??’
‘Mama, listen…’
‘Shouldn’t I go now? How do I get there?’
‘Stop. Listen.’
‘Okay.’ She sounded small. Slava listened patiently as Julia swallowed her sobs and tried to breathe. She was drowning.
‘There’s nothing you can do there right now, so we’ll drive over, fast as we can, and we’ll take you to the hospital. Is that alright? Just try and stay calm. It’ll be okay.’
‘Okay.’
‘Mama. You’ll be okay.’
‘Will I? Oh Slava. Please hurry.’ And she put the phone down.
She was alone. The house felt like it would swallow her whole, her thin body felt invisible against the weight of his presence in this house. He was still here, and yet, he was gone.
She went into the kitchen and searched the cupboards blindly, found the tea, and set it next to the kettle. Then she withdrew the milk from the refrigerator. She took a teaspoon and dipped it into a pot of honey and watched it coat the bowl with a thin golden sheen and then slide slowly off it and back down into the pot. It was a ritual that her mother used to do with her. Troshky, troshky davai. Bit by bit, let yourself feel. Moments and memories lived in simple actions, but there was no one to witness it now, apart from her, in an empty house, sipping tea from a honeyed spoon like she’d done when she was a child. It was the only memory she could recall then, and it brought her some comfort, as her tears fell.
The early morning sky was still a pale navy, and yet the entrance to the hospital was as bright as if it were already noon, bright as the sun. There were EMTs standing to the side, surrounded by rings of smoke. Emilian and Slava were by her side as they parked the car and led her to the entrance. Emilian and Slava had exchanged a private look to each other, you go with her, I’ll stay here, and Julia was grateful that it would be only her and Slava walking together.
‘Mama, this way,’ Slava motioned, seeing that her mother was distracted.
‘Ah, okay.’ She was blinded by what was ahead, not only by the lights but by what was happening. She had no idea what to expect: it was a childlike reaction to something serious; she was oblivious to the world around her, only the world that existed in her head. She was still in her nightgown and coat. Slava had brought a bag with some clothes for her to change into, but she didn’t care.
They stopped at reception and Slava spoke. ‘Henry Rudnick? Which room?’
‘Oh sure, yeah, Rood-nick’ the woman casually flipped through a chart. Americans don’t know how to trill their r’s, Slava thought. ‘Room 3F, on the Intensive Care floor, he was sent there from the Neurodiagnostics department. You have to sign this and—’
‘What did the scans say, then?’ Slava interrupted and snatched her pen and scribbled her name without looking down.
‘You’ll have to talk to Doctor Lee ma’am, he’ll be on the third floor.’
‘Thanks,’ she shot back. They had already started towards the elevator.
The Intensive Care Unit was almost reverent in its construction. Smooth, sterile white floors as if no one had ever stepped on them before. The walls were the same color, with pale wood paneling placed every 5 feet or so, to break up the monotone. Pictures of flowers and landscapes and happy, healthy people were framed, mocking anyone’s pain with saccharine smiles.
Slava saw a doctor walking towards them, a clipboard under his arm. ‘I need to speak to Dr. Lee, where’s Doctor Lee?’ The man stopped, placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Dr. Lee will be right with you, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him, who are you here to see?’
‘Henry, Rudnick, 3F they said.’
‘There,’—he gestured down the hallway—’on your right, one of the last ones.’
As they walked, they saw each room had small, wire-laced ‘windows’: as if thin, incompetent barriers to see what was within. But anyone could still see, and it did nothing bought obstruct the view that people needed, of loved ones losing their battles.
3F
PATIENT: Henry RUDNIC
‘Can’t even spell his goddamn name right,’ Slava sighed.
She heard footsteps and saw Emilian walking down the hallway, his crisp jacket and worn jeans a comfort in the sterile, grey hallway.
Emilian touched her arm, and he felt her muscles suddenly go slack at knowing he was there. He smiled softly as she looked at him. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I’m here. I couldn’t just leave you both here, I felt like I could be helpful maybe. But you probably need to do this the way you need, so I’ll be here—’ he pointed at a molded plastic bench bolted to the wall in the hallway, with thin padding on each seat, magazines beside it, ‘— in my very own, luxurious lounge chair.’
They both laughed in the thin way that only happens when you grieve, and Slava was grateful for it.
‘Do you want coffee? You haven’t eaten anything. You need to look after yourself.’ He winked, stroking her arm.
‘No, I’m fine.’ She smiled at his reference, kissed him, and turned back to face the door.
It was silent. And then, it was as if the ground softened under their feet. Julia inhaled sharply when she saw Henry, and whispered Bozshe miliy, moya lyubov. Oh God, there is my love.
‘Henry…’ She pressed her hands and forehead up against the glass, helpless, her tears wetting the window. ‘Slava can I go in? I need to see him.’
Slava backed away.
Julia opened the door quietly, as if not to wake him from a deep sleep or stir the plastic tubes from their metal hangers. He was covered in starched white sheets and grey felted blankets, his hands flat on the bed beside his body, eyes and mouth closed. His chest moved artificially, clear plastic snaking around his arms and his face and in his nose, all connected to constantly beeping machines. Numbers and lights flashed on two separate screens and an IV stand hovered limply, feeding yellow-tinted fluid. It was like a white curtain delivering the final act of a play. Serene. Sad. Final.
She saw a small metal chair, pulled it to his bedside and sat down, her two delicate hands covering his one wide one. Their wedding rings collided as their hands met. ‘Znova, do mene.’ ‘Henry, come back to me,’ she whispered. She laid her head down next to his hand and felt warmth. He was still here. So, she waited for a response. She waited for his eyes to open and for him to say my little Julia. She had waited for Maria this way, forty years ago.
Only the machines spoke in clicks and flutters and metallic whines.
‘Henry, I can’t do this without you here, you know.’ Julia dried her eyes. ‘Look at the state of me, I’m in a damn nightgown,’ she laughed. ‘It would really embarrass you if you saw me right now.’ She stroked his hand and turned it over
and saw that his callouses had softened. His hands had been so worn and toughened, the skin split and repaired so often, and now, as he had wished, he had slowed his pace. His body had started its recovery. Or, at least part of him had, she mused sadly.
‘None of this makes any sense. Here we are, finally at a place where we can stay. And have peace. No more turning back. Just like we wanted.’ She struggled to keep her voice even. ‘Please don’t leave now. Not yet.’
The sun broke through the window, followed swiftly by a cloud. She suddenly felt someone next to her. It was Slava. ‘Mama let’s just be with him, that’s what he needs right now. Talk to him, because he’s still here. We don’t know what will happen. Just pray. All we can do is pray.’ She pulled a chair over to sit down next to her.
The door opened, and a short balding man with a round, smooth face stood there, holding a clipboard. His tie was undone, as if he’d just finished a long shift. ‘Ma’am, are you the daughter?’ Slava nodded and walked over to him as he stuck out his hand. ‘I'm Dr. Lee.’ He gestured to the door. ‘Let’s speak in my office. I’d like to talk about your father.’
Slava looked back at her mother, still holding Henry’s hand, still in the same spot. ‘Mama?
Julia nodded. ‘Yes. Go. I will be here.’
Slava clenched her fists and felt like pacing the floor, but she was sat rooted to her spot. ‘Mark, I’m aware of what a brain aneurysm is, I worked in a hospital as a clinician.’
Dr. Lee’s office was decorated in the typical style: various certificates in frames on the wall, three shelves with thick medical textbooks, anatomy encyclopedias, leather-bound journals, a light box for x-rays, and a few awards. But there were things that said much more about who Dr. Lee was: a metal tray on the desk that held envelopes and forms and file folders with neon tabs stuck to the sides, a stress ball, three unfinished cups of coffee, and a few pictures with children in them, as well as colorful drawings
stuck to the wall with scotch tape.
Motherland Page 27