“I don’t care about the war—I don’t care about the Old Place, and what happened there. We live here, I was born here—that’s what Baba Laryssa always told us. You don’t know anything, you don’t even try. I wish you were dead. I wish you’d died instead of Baba!”
Sonia keeps herself from staggering; digs her bare feet into the soft, pliant sand. She has imagined Laura saying this—she has thought it herself, even wished it. She looks into her daughter’s face, sees the glasses perched on Laura’s nose like a thick-winged butterfly, the puppy fat that’s swallowed her bones, the frown of puzzlement, of stubborn inability to accept or understand. Suddenly, she is filled with anguish, and a desire stronger than any she has ever known, to become for her daughter what she can never be: the perfect mother, all-wise and all-loving. A mother with both her eyes open—unlike the eye of God on the cathedral dome—both eyes looking not just out, but in, as well. Knowing her own flaws and failings, struggling to change the bitterness and fear inside her to love.
But before Sonia can reach out her arms, Laura has run off into the lake, her chunky body churning through the still and silky water.
The distinctive feature, the theme, if you like, that distinguishes this year’s party at the Senchenkos’ cottage, is unmistakable. Yes, there is the same food and drink, the same banter at the bar. There are the same long dresses and Bermuda shorts, the same tours of the cottage to show off whatever choice piece of decor Jack has had installed over the summer. But this year the sameness is shot through with the excitement everyone shares about the Burton–Taylor affair, which is far more of a blockbuster than Cleopatra.
Jack is rigged out in a toga with a purple stripe down the edge, and a laurel crown made out of gilded cardboard. Nadia, he explains, won’t be down for a while; she’s still in her room, altering her costume. He had it made up as a surprise by a dressmaker in town: an exact replica of the blue-and-gold dress Cleopatra wears in the throne scene. Damn thing hadn’t been ready till this very afternoon—he arrived only a few hours ago, to discover when Nadia tried on the dress that it didn’t fit. “So she’s taking it in here and there,” he explains, pointing to his chest and hips. “She’s not built exactly like Liz Taylor,” he says, flashing a grin at the men.
Ivan Plotsky sits down at the baby grand and belts out the Cleopatra theme song, waggling his bristly eyebrows to the lyrics he improvises, in which “nail her” is made to rhyme with “Taylor,” “hurtin’” with “Burton,” “quibble” with “Sybil” and—something of a stretch—”kyshka” with “Fisher.” Joe Bozhyk is looking everywhere for Peter Metelsky, who, as everyone knows, does phenomenal imitations of Rex Harrison and has been known to drop beach balls down his shirt and take off Liz Taylor to a T. Even after Ivan leaves the piano, the conversation continues to revolve around the movie of the century.
“Joseph Mankiewicz—his name sounds Polish, but he’s really Ukrainian, you know.”
“I still think Taras Bulba is a way better film—Yul Brynner, now that guy can act.”
“What are you talking about, he doesn’t have to act, all he does is shine up his scalp and he steals every scene!”
“Didn’t Tony Curtis have a thing for that German actress who was playing the Polachka? Christine Something—Krautman, Kauffman, was that it? She was only a kid, too—not much older than your Laura, Max. Yep, old Toothsome Tony walked out on Janet Leigh the way Burton’s left what’s-her-face, Sybil. Christ, and they think we have funny names.”
Mostly it’s the men talking; the women are still nervous, exhausted really, with the aftershock of what they’re calling Nettie’s Breakdown. None of the men know anything about it, except Al Vesiuk, who’d driven Nastia to some friends who have a cottage farther along the bay. Dave Lazar is a skin specialist, one of the best there is. To a small crowd of women trying to cool off by touching their iced drinks to their faces, Annie gives the details: “He had to put in a few stitches, but it’s not too bad, Al says. There’ll be a few scars but nothing she won’t be able to hide with a stick of concealer. Thank God she missed the eyes.” She tells them that Dr. Lazar and his wife will keep Nastia with them while Nettie’s medication is kicking in.
At the word medication the women nod, sagely. Not a few of them have had episodes that gave what their doctors call “cause for concern.” On their bathroom shelves, high up where they think their children can’t see and read the labels, are prescription vials of Valium and Librium and sleeping pills that they only take—they swear it—when they absolutely have to. And none of them has ever been a tenth as crazy as Nettie, who is sleeping soundly with the help of some NightEez administered by Halia Bozhyk. Stefka Stechyshyn is with her now—they’re taking turns, the way they do checking up on the children. And so far, none of the husbands has a clue. When Nettie had her attack, they’d been off, most of them, in the Senchenkos’ new speedboat, touring the lake, looking at some investment property Jack had his eye on. Al, thank God, had been home—and Al could be trusted, Al who’d sworn the Hippo-something oath.
It’s not that the women want to deceive their husbands—they don’t consider it a deception, keeping the news from them, but a kindness. Everyone understands the need for secrecy, for which another word is loyalty, not so much to Nettie, as to what Annie calls “their own kind.” Not just Ukrainians—and can you imagine the scandal it would cause if word got out to the Anhleetsi? Loyalty not just to Ukrainians, but to women themselves. For a mother to harm her own child—it’s unthinkable. Spanking, yes; discipline, a swipe with the wooden spoon, of course. But to lose control like that—to let go. It’s something far more scandalous than anything they’ve encountered through the Lending Library; something far more frightening, too, for nearly all of them can confess to moments, with their children, when they have only just kept themselves from lashing out in old country style.
But it is not to discuss Nettie Shkurka’s breakdown that Sonia Martyn is closeted with Sasha Plotsky in one of the two ground-floor bathrooms. Sasha is livid at what’s happened to Nastia, but she’s even more upset at what she feels in her bones is a whole series of disasters brewing.
“Bozhe kokhaniy, am I the only one with eyes in my head? Nadia’s in hiding at her own party and Peter, Mr. Life-of-the-Party, is missing—doesn’t that spell out anything suspicious to you? What did Peter say when you talked to him yesterday? You did talk to him? Sonia?”
But Sonia doesn’t answer immediately. She is studying her reflection in the mirror, the hang of the gingham shirtwaist she’s wearing. Sasha can’t help herself; she cries out, “For heaven’s sake, Sonia, can’t you stop worrying what you look like and give just five minutes of your attention to helping me prevent a colossal balls-up? Do you have any idea of what will happen if those two are allowed to get away with it? And don’t ask what; you know better than I do.”
In her ridiculously girlish dress, her face pale and her eyes burning, Sonia turns to her friend. For Sasha is her friend—her best, most trusted friend, and she is about to ruin this friendship, the way her beautiful golden dress has been ruined, beyond any wearing.
“From what Peter told me, Sasha, he’s in no condition to think of anything but saving his job and keeping himself from throwing in the towel. He isn’t the fool he pretends to be, you know. My brother’s in a bad way, Sasha. I’ve never been so worried about him—he’s much more likely to drive into a transport truck on the way home from the cottage than to run off with Nadia Senchenko. Nadia’s no fool, either—what could Peter offer her that she would want to take, that would make up for what she’d lose if she walked out on Jack?”
“Jack doesn’t have anything to do with this any more. Listen, Sonia, I’ve talked to Nadia—not that she’s gone into True Confessions—as a matter of fact it’s what she’s not saying that worries me. Sonia, Sonia, a lot of people could get hurt—a lot of things are at stake here. I know Zirka’s a royal pain, but there are the boys, too—and all this on top of Nettie Shkurka. Dear God, what’s happen
ing to us all?”
Sonia hasn’t time now to consider Nettie Shkurka, or her nephews; she’s too afraid for her brother, afraid he’ll miss this chance just as he’s messed up every other. “Look, I’ll bet you anything that he’s still at our place, telling the boys one of his crazy stories. They’re spending the night in the sleep-house, so Darka can keep an eye on them. I’ll go over there now, and see.”
“Just don’t say anything to Zirka—she’s like a Molotov cocktail waiting to be thrown.”
Sonia nods: she is about to go off when Sasha grabs her by the sleeve.
“Listen very carefully, Soniu. If Peter and Nadia are having an affair, that’s their business, so long as no one else finds out, and Jack and Zirka don’t have to do anything about it—in public, I mean. So you find your brother, and hold onto him—don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll go after Nadia, I’ll sit on her if I have to, or drag her down to the party where she belongs. She’s the hostess, goddammit! Tomorrow we all go back to the city and everything will blow over, and things will go on the way they always have.”
Sonia removes Sasha’s arm from her own—she has grabbed her so hard that a seam has split in her sleeve. Ruined dresses; ruined lives—suddenly Sonia comes as close as she can to risking all.
“What if they don’t want things to go on as usual? What if they want everything to change, what if they don’t care who gets hurt? What if it hurts them much, much more to stay apart than to go off together?”
Someone’s pounding on the washroom door. Sasha yells out, “This house has six bathrooms and you have to use this one? Hai shlyakh tebeh trafyt!” Then she addresses Sonia, slowly and sternly. “Peter and Nadia aren’t movie stars; they’re only people, like you and me. They’re a part of us, they belong here, they can’t be allowed to do something they’ll regret the morning after—something that will rip this whole community into shreds. Now promise me you’ll fetch Peter while I look for Nadia.”
Sonia nods and Sasha puts her hands on her shoulders, affectionately. “Dab on a bit of lipstick, Sonia—you look like a ghost.”
The two women emerge from the bathroom, Sonia heading in the direction of the sleep-house while Sasha searches the den, the kitchen, the dining room, the bedrooms and washrooms upstairs, even the huge veranda with its boxes of moonstruck geraniums. Nadia is nowhere to be found. Sasha returns to the party, joking with everyone, being outrageous in her usual way and keeping her eyes peeled for the delinquent lovers. Shortly after ten, a half-drunken Zirka comes raging towards her, mascara running and huge half-moons of sweat showing under her arms. She, too, has been going from room to room, looking for her husband, looking for Nadia; now she is gunning for Jack. She’ll tell him everything, she swears, the whole dirty secret.
Somehow, Sasha manages to lead her off to one of the guest bedrooms, grabbing a bottle of vodka from a table as she goes. She pours Zirka a huge dose of what she calls medicine, and Zirka gulps it down with the resignation of a sick child. Sasha holds her hand and waits for her to fall asleep, murmuring, “There there, there there.” What she feels for the woman beside her, face streaked with makeup, hands clutching the edge of the covers, is exasperation mixed with sorrow. For Zirka, after all, has played her part in the community of Kalyna Beach: she had gone to take care of Nettie that afternoon, and she’d gone on the warpath after Peter this evening. He is her husband, after all—she has a perfect right to light into him, keep him from—.
Sasha lights a cigarette, which she holds in the hand with which she’s cupping her forehead, her elbow on her knee. It is her posture of defeat, of resignation. She knows by now that Sonia’s betrayed her: all she can do now is to delay the public discovery, try to stem the damage. For there will be damage, she has no doubt about that. In her mind’s eye, she can see a string of divorces, small at first, like a scrap of thread, and then longer, and thicker, till it extends so far there’s no way of telling where it will end.
Zirka sighs in her sleep. She’s out, all right—she might as well spend the night here, since the boys are sleeping at Sonia’s. Sasha takes a long drag on her dwindled cigarette, then stubs it out and leaves the room, turning out all the lamps but a night light shaped like a seahorse.
Close to midnight, Laura gets out of bed. She reaches between the mattress and the box springs and pulls out the long, thin package she’s hidden there. Bonnie and Katia and Alix are fast asleep, and there’s no light coming from the sleep-house. Darka has gone to her room, having spent most of the evening in front of the cracked mirror in the bathroom, teasing and brushing out and teasing again her dyed-back hair. Laura knows that her parents will return before long: if she’s going to go through with her plan, it has to be now. She has spent the whole evening working out a way to set things right, so that even the terrible blue eye painted on the dome of the cathedral back home will see that she’s tried to make up for what’s happened, for the fact that it’s been all her fault.
When, after supper—when no one but their father and Alix had eaten anything of the meal set down on their plates—Sonia had gone to her bedroom to dress for the Senchenkos’ party, Laura had risen from the table to follow her. She had waited outside the door, imagining Sonia reaching into the very back of the closet, pulling out the dress and—. But nothing like what Laura had imagined had happened: there had been one sharp cry, and then silence. Laura had waited for what seemed like forever, and then fled to the sitting room, where Katia was reading the same page of The Mystery of Larkspur Lane that she’d been working on since supper. Tato was complaining, in a joking way, about how long it always took their mother to get ready for a party, making his daughters promise never to torture their husbands like this. And then, at last, Sonia had come out of the bedroom, in the dress she wore to go on family outings to Santa’s Village or to visit the Martyr’s Shrine at Midland. Her old pink gingham dress with the dirndl skirt and the three-quarter-length sleeves.
All of them had stared at her, unable to say a word, even Tato. And she had stared back, but in a way that made it clear she didn’t really see them. Her face was white and pinched, and her eyes like lightning: not the way they usually were, wet with tears she only just kept from falling, but dry and terribly, terribly bright. No one said anything about her dress, or her face; everyone was waiting for an explosion, or at least an explanation. But all she told them was not to give Darka any trouble, as she walked out the door, with their father shrugging at them and following close after her. It had been worse, a thousand times worse, than what Laura had foreseen down at the beach.
A light burns in the main room, but there’s no one here. No one to witness Laura reaching up to the brass jar on the mantelpiece, taking out a box of matches and bending down to the hearth with the package she’s locked under her arm. The wrapper is one of the brown paper bags in which she’d carried groceries home from Venus Variety; before she opens it, she smooths the paper with her palm. And then she draws out what’s inside, slowly, carefully, as if it were alive.
But it’s not, of course. It doesn’t breathe or speak or smile, or weep. It’s just a pile of paper, stapled and printed, filled with paragraphs and photographs and, on the cover, a painting of two men standing on opposite sides of a woman with beaded, braided hair, sitting on a throne. The men are peering down at the woman with expressions of awe and adoration on their faces. The woman looks straight ahead, the beautiful woman in her magnificent blue-and-gold gown, staring blankly into the distance, holding a golden crook and sceptre in her arms.
It takes forever to burn. As usual, Laura admits to herself, she’s made a mess of things. The first two matches flare and die away without so much as scorching the paper. She has to reach into the cinders and bits of charred log on the grate, and tear up the book; to do it all at once proves impossible; she must work page by glossy page. She must ignite the scraps with one lit match and a dozen others that she scatters nearby. Her hands are grimy now; there’s a nasty smell from the photographs. Laura had thought they
would burn as vividly as the colours they contain, but the pictures vanish in the same, sour flame as the white paper, the black words. She sits for a long time, stirring the chunks of charred paper with the poker, making even more of a mess of herself and the hearth in the process.
She is not just burning Cleopatra and her lovers. She is burning Nettie Shkurka’s steel-toothed comb and the boys who threw a frightened girl into a muddy river and left her to drown. She is burning the way she betrayed Katia and Yuri’s secret, and the way she’d pushed Bonnie away that morning at the beach. But even when the Souvenir Booklet has turned to ash, and the ash has been pounded into dust, nothing has really been destroyed. Nor has anything been saved. Laura feels neither relief from guilt nor any lessening of pain. The sacrifice has all been for nothing. But that, she realizes, is why it’s a sacrifice, and not a bargain.
There’s a small, shuffling sound behind her; Laura wheels round to find Bonnie, in her nightie with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves printed over it, for once not a hand-me-down from her older sisters but a Christmas gift that’s still almost as good as new. Bonnie doesn’t say a word: she comes to where Laura is kneeling and sits down beside her, staring into the hearth. She waits a while and then offers her own small sacrifice.
“I’m sorry I pulled at you down at the beach this morning. I’m sorry, Laura.”
Laura takes the poker and hits at the ash. “Go back to sleep, Bonnie,” she says. “You get into my bed—I’ll be there in a minute.”
Only as Bonnie shuffles back to bed do tears start rolling down Laura’s cheeks. She pulls off her glasses and shoves her palms into her eyes; she keeps her mouth shut, for fear of Bonnie coming back to her. What is she weeping for? Not just for Nastia, and for the child that Sonia was. Not only for Bonnie, burdened with the need to keep peace between her sisters, with the need to love them all. But also for herself, and for what she’ll turn out to be. For she knows, now, who and what she is: her own self, however ugly and awful and stubborn she may be. And she knows how close she’d come that afternoon, folded in Sonia’s arms, in the warmth of her lap, to giving herself to the World of the Mothers.
The Ladies' Lending Library Page 26