Soviet Milk

by Nora Ikstena

  A little offended, Jesse left my room. I heard the clattering of dishes as she washed them in the kitchen.

  I forced myself to get dressed and we went out for a walk. It was a tranquil November, the kind that stirs an ache for the past. We walked in silence along the river in the direction of the kolkhoz fields. Beyond them lay the meadows. Hardly anyone went there any longer, maybe only in the summers to gather herbs for tea and wild flowers. But Jesse and I liked it here. The meadows led back to the overgrown riverbank, where bulrushes browned and shimmered, touched by the first frost.

  ‘Look,’ said Jesse, ‘they’ve not turned to fluff, they’vejust frozen.’

  ‘Jesse, what shall I do? My soul is sorrowful enough to die. It’s frozen,’ I said, looking on as she touched the bulrushes.

  Jesse was silent. The river was silent in front of our very eyes. The overcast sky was silent.

  We walked back home along the path by the river. Jesse walked in front. I followed in her footsteps. Suddenly she stopped and turned around.

  ‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together,’ Jesse said.

  Jesse then started telling me about the orphanage, where boys had tied her to a post, a rough post thick with splinters. They had tied her almost naked, in her skimpy undershirt. They made her say, ‘Better that I hadn’t been born!’ Jesse had stayed silent; as if her mouth was full of water, she’d stayed silent. But they had yelled, ‘Say it, you freak, say, “Better that I hadn’t been born.”’ But Jesse had kept silent, as if she had a mouthful of water. Then the boys had thrown stones at her. They’d hit her legs, her face, her arms. And they had continued to yell, ‘Say it, say it: “Better I hadn’t been born.”’ But she had suffered and in silence. Not once in her life had she said those words. Then she had lost consciousness.

  When Jesse finished speaking, she turned and went on her way. I continued to walk in Jesse’s footsteps.

  *

  Returning to Riga after spending the autumn school holiday with my mother, I was still uneasy about her. It was a comfort knowing that Jesse was with her. Not wanting to worry my grandparents, I told them that everything was more or less fine, that my mother was now working less and resting more, something she deserved to do long ago. I said we had had a wonderful time, that we had baked an apple cake, celebrated our birthdays, roasted potatoes on coals in the wood stove, and that I had breathed good country air and the days had flown by.

  I was now into my second term at school. I could not let my marks slip after finishing the first term so well. The wunderkind had begun to pay attention to me, which was a great honour. We had a heavy course load. Military training had been added to the curriculum. We all had to lie on our stomachs on the school’s smelly gym mats and spread our legs wide (which amused the boys no end, for the girls were not allowed to change into trousers), then aim a rifle at a target and pull the trigger when the instructor yelled ‘Shoot!’ Anyone who couldn’t follow his orders received the instructor’s favourite line: ‘Po druzhbe dvoyechku’ – ‘For friendship’s sake, do it twice.’ His cruelty paralysed us all. He was quick to dole out 2s – the lowest grade on your report card – which could ruin a high grade average. After the shooting exercise we had to don gas masks, removable only at the instructor’s order. One friend fainted because it turned out that her mask’s valve was closed. She nearly suffocated while waiting for the order.

  I hated that short, fat instructor. In my imagination he became the culprit for this Soviet absurdity of parallel lives. Then a ray of light pierced my hopelessness. A call for applications to a cultural history group appeared on the school bulletin board. The meetings would take place outside class time. Of course I applied.

  Three students came to the group’s first meeting: myself, the wunderkind and one other girl. We were introduced to Teacher Blūms, who looked as if he came from another world. He had a high forehead, bushy, longish hair and a thick beard. He didn’t even look like a teacher. He spoke in a quiet voice and what he spoke about was quite otherworldly.

  We were to begin with poetry. At these meetings we were to learn what our school curriculum had missed out. Our first text was a poem titled ‘Krasta runa’ – ‘The Seashore Speaks’ – written by a poet only ten years older than us. Teacher Blūms recited – and we three sat transfixed. Just a moment ago, we had been gasping for air in our gas masks, waiting for our orders. Now we were standing on the seashore, where waves rose and broke.

  With Teacher Blūms, my new parallel world burgeoned at lightning speed. In the Gorky Street library I found the poet’s first published book. The slimmest of slim volumes, already the worse for wear. I shoved it into my boot and strode out of the library. And I read it from the first poem to the last and back again from the last to the first.

  *

  The director at the ambulatory centre now seemed to look at me with suspicion. Several times she commented on my slipshod appearance, which, according to her, didn’t do credit to a doctor who was seeing patients. My workload was reduced to a minimum, but during consultation hours the corridor was packed to overflowing. Therefore, at least for the time being, the directortolerated my presence.

  I had once more fallen under the spell of Winston. Jesse had taken great pains to hide the half-book, but I found it nonetheless. Winston followed me everywhere. Like a shadow that walked ahead of me whenever sunlight fell on my back, as if mocking each step I took. He accompanied me to and from the ambulatory centre. He stood behind me in the consulting room and, shamelessly, didn’t even turn away when my patients undressed. In the evenings, I often saw him slithering by outside my window. In my dream he had become the man from my grandmother’s story, the one who slept in a ditch, covered with a church windowpane. He protected his face, protected it from a view of the future, where a boot trampled the face of humanity. He had been warned to do so. Now Winston firmly told me to do the same.

  Poor Jesse tried hard to pull me away from his spell. On my days off she appeared early. She encouraged me to go into the garden or for walks. She forced me to get involved in making our lunches. She bought a live carp from a neighbour. The carp king himself: he was enormous, with a moustache. He was so beautiful that we decided to lengthen his life. We slid him into a tin tub full of rainwater. I sat by the tub and looked on as the big fish circled. Jesse warned me not to grow attached, for his end would come no matter what. But I sat and occasionally churned the water, so that the king would have enough oxygen to breathe. Gratefully he opened and shut his mouth and flashed his golden mirrored sides in the tub.

  ‘But Jesse, how can we kill him? Look at his beauty,’ I said.

  ‘With a big knife.’ Jesse said. ‘You’ll hold him, while I will smack him on the head with the knife handle and then slit him at the gills. We’ll roast him in the wood stove on the coals.’

  ‘Jesse, you’re not listening to me. What a beauty, how can we kill him?’

  ‘Better come and hold this: he will make several suppers,’ Jesse persisted, tying an apron around her waist and arming herself with a big knife.

  It wasn’t easy. The king resisted and evaded us like the devil himself. He slapped us with his tail, he jumped into the air. It was a difficult battle. But Jesse’s big hands were powerful. The head was off – but the king was still moving. The mirrored scales flew to all sides under Jesse’s sharp knife.

  Our evening meal was delicious. The king melted in our mouths.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Jesse said, ‘I’ll go fishing myself. There are a lot of fish in the river.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ I said to Jesse gratefully. At least for the moment, Winston’s shadow had disappeared.

  *

  Attendance at our cultural history group increased with every meeting. Already we were twelve. Each Wednesday meeting with Teacher Blūms introduced something new. So all week we had a new poem or painting, a historical building or symbol to think about. This was so exciting that my interest in the ever more senseless subjects taught at school
diminished markedly. For example, in social studies we had to recite our new state leader Comrade Gorbachev’s first speech, which he began by extending his sympathy for the death of his predecessor, Comrade Chernenko, who had for a short while replaced the rapidly deceased Comrade Brezhnev’s successor, Comrade Andropov. We had to learn by heart that:

  the Communist party of the USSR is by its very nature already an international party. Our confederates abroad can be assured: Lenin’s party in the struggle for peace and social progress, as always, will collaborate closely with the brotherly Communist, worker and revolutionary democratic parties, will stand for the solidarity between all the revolutionary powers and for active cooperation. In order to resolve the complex tasks that have been presented to us, we have to further strengthen the party, increase its organizational and leadership role. The USSR will always be based on and continues to be based on Lenin’s idea that principled policies are the only right policies.

  My head threatened to burst. What we had learned from the comrade’s speech was slowly eroded by what Teacher Blūms was reading to us: ‘Whoever takes hold of the realm and wants to manipulate it will have no peace. The realm is a sacred vessel that should not be interfered with.’

  I started to hate my school subjects. I needed my head for the other, more meaningful things being planted there by Teacher Blūms.

  One Wednesday he asked all of us to meet at the bus station the following Saturday, bringing knapsacks with sandwiches and tea. Our group was to make an excursion. I had already planned to go to my mother’s house, but Teacher Blūms’ invitation was enticing. After all, as it was the winter holiday, I’d still have time to visit my mother.

  That Saturday morning, after several hours, the bus halted at a remote country stop. Outside it had iced over, although there was still no snow. Following our teacher in single file, we crossed an untended field to reach an old church. The door was half-open. The teacher closed it temporarily. We stood outside the church. He told us about the people who had built and cherished it, who had come here to pray, to christen their children, to hold weddings and funerals. About the bell-ringer, who had gone deaf from the ringing, about the minister, whom the bell-ringer had betrayed, and about the altar painting that had disappeared.

  Having concluded its story, he opened the door to the church. Inside were ruins, on which bushes and saplings had sprouted. Through the broken windows we could see a bleak sky. A mute church bell hung above us.

  We all looked up.

  ‘See,’ our teacher said, ‘the bell had its tongue torn out. It can no longer ring.’

  Later, by a campfire near the church, over sandwiches and tea, the teacher asked us what thoughts the bell had inspired.

  As always, the wunderkind had to be different. He said that the bell had been lucky in a way, because it never had to worry about holding its tongue again.

  Everyone, including Teacher Blūms, laughed heartily.

  ‘And what do you say?’ the teacher asked me.

  Everyone gazed at me in silence. The fire was crackling. The flames and the silence burned my cheeks.

  ‘That bell reminds me of my mother.’

  The silence and the crackling grew louder.

  *

  My daughter came during the winter holiday. For Christmas Jesse had set up a spruce branch with large cones in her room. She had dusted and washed the floors.

  In the kitchen Jesse’s cooked peas were drying in their pot. Jesse had wanted to make it a beautiful Christmas, but I had shown no interest. She was probably offended. She had left our clean, tidy house and the holiday treats she herself had prepared. She had not returned for the holy days, not even for New Year’s Eve.

  My daughter was busy in the kitchen. For the first time in days the enticing smell of food invited me to get up and dress.

  ‘I doubt Jesse will come again,’ I said from my room. ‘You too will soon stop coming.’

  ‘Mamma,’ my daughter called back from the kitchen, ‘now, you can’t give up just like that. I’m stewing ribs with sauerkraut. Before the New Year your stepfather queued at the butcher’s for hours, and we bought the sauerkraut in the market. They send their best wishes to you, and also a little gift.’

  Stewed ribs and sauerkraut. A gift. The small things in life. I felt a pang of pain at the thought.

  With great effort I put on warm trousers and a jacket. I had already hurt Jesse, my good, faithful friend. I didn’t want to hurt my daughter too.

  She was quietly humming in the kitchen. Just as Jesse did, she was breathing life into it. The pot was simmering away. Warmth emanated from the wood stove. The coal and the ribs in the sauerkraut wafted their aroma.

  ‘Mamma, the coals are ready. Let’s put in potatoes in their skins. Do you have potatoes?’

  ‘Potatoes? Maybe. If Jesse brought them, maybe we have some.’

  My daughter exclaimed happily, ‘Look! Here are some in the pail in the pantry. I’ll wash them.’

  I sat down at the kitchen table, lit a cigarette and gazed at my daughter’s movements. They were womanly and domestic, joyful and considered. How she raised the pot’s lid and tasted the contents, how she added salt, how she scrubbed the potatoes and lined them up on a neatly folded towel to dry. How she organized the dishes, knives and forks on the table, how she put butter in the small dish, and the candle and spruce branch in a tiny vase.

  We sat at this festive table in this island of our lives. She talked enthusiastically about her school, about the wunderkind and Teacher Blūms, who was the cleverest person in the world.

  ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘do you remember how you made me up to be two people – a split personality – for our school carnival? Now I really am a split personality. One half is taught at school, the other is taught by Teacher Blūms.’

  Suddenly she became embarrassed. She asked, ‘Mamma, will you be offended if I tell you something?’

  ‘I won’t be offended.’

  ‘Teacher Blūms took us to an abandoned church, where we saw a bell that had lost its clapper. Afterwards he asked what we thought about the bell.’

  ‘What did you answer?’

  ‘I said that the bell reminded me of you. Everyone was silent and I didn’t have anything more to say. It was quite a dreadful silence, but I couldn’t explain briefly why that bell reminded me of you. That’s why I kept silent.’

  ‘And why did the bell remind you of me?’

  ‘Because it often seems to me that someone has stolen your joy in life. They’ve torn it out of you like that bell’s clapper. And you can’t ring any more – just like the bell. Are you offended?’

  I gazed at her. My flesh and blood. Her longing for life was stronger than the evil that gnawed on me.

  ‘You’re not offended?’

  ‘No, of course not. You’re my joy.’

  After the meal we dressed warmly and went outside. It had snowed for three days. The bright sun covered the white earth with its veil. We headed for the river down our accustomed path.

  ‘Along the way let’s stop by Jesse’s,’ my daughter said. ‘Jesse is a good person and no one should hurt her.’

  My daughter threw a snowball at a window of Jesse’s modest house. After a moment she came out, warmly wrapped and happy to see us.

  ‘Jesse, what a lovely day!’ my daughter called out brightly. ‘Let’s go to the river.’

  We went as a threesome. My daughter walked in the middle, her arms around the two of us.

  The golden ball of the sun rolled out over the white river. We stood dumbstruck, moved by the radiant silence.

  Then my daughter exclaimed, ‘Let’s slide on the ice! Mamma, Jesse, let’s slide!’

  She grabbed our hands and we raced for the river. We slid back and forth until we collapsed in the soft snow. For a moment all three of us lay there, holding hands. Gazing at the sun.

  *

  After the winter holidays at my mother’s, I continued to attend Teacher Blūms’ group and to distance myself
from the school curriculum. This began to bring down my high marks. My form teacher was concerned. I promised to pull myself together. My grandparents were also worried. Had I too much to do – with the school and the cultural history group as well? No, I insisted, everything was fine. Privately I fretted about one thing: that my form teacher and my family might start to look askance at Teacher Blūms. I forced myself to master the school curriculum. I learned all that foolish history and social studies, wrote required compositions, became a model of obedience in military studies, somehow scraped through in chemistry, physics and algebra – and my grades began to improve once more. All this in aid of a single objective: Teacher Blūms had promised to take us to Leningrad and to the Hermitage during the spring holiday. If I received a good report, no one would object to the trip. Grandmother sighed, because she remembered how badly Leningrad had turned out for my mother.

  ‘Please stop,’ I said to her. ‘Don’t ruin the trip I’m so excited about.’

  The trip was a good excuse for not visiting my mother during the spring holiday. I wrote to her explaining that a wonderful trip was on the cards for me – to Leningrad. She sent me a postcard with a view of the River Neva and its bridges, surely from her time in Leningrad. On it were only two sentences: ‘Have a wonderful trip. My greetings to Neva and Teacher Blūms.’

  I could hardly believe it, but it did happen. On the second day of our spring holiday, we were sitting in a second-class carriage on the Riga–Leningrad train. I had studied until I was sick to my stomach and Teacher Blūms had kept his word.

  The next morning, having hardly slept, we headed straight for the Hermitage. We stood at the end of an impossibly long line, ready to draw on all our reserves of patience, for it was very cold. Beside us, a stream of foreigners flowed rapidly into the building. They had arrived in comfortable buses and were welcomed inside without spending any time out in the cold. As we queued and froze, we took turns to leave the line to hop and run about a bit. It was well past lunchtime when we got into the Hermitage.