The Dark and Other Love Stories

by Deborah Willis

  Alexei runs after her, and is out of breath when he steps on the train. These facts—his aging, fallible body and the way the vendor ripped him off—have made him irritable. And the kitten does seem sick; it’s too docile, and its eyelids are heavy.

  “You should say thank you,” says Alexei.

  Svetlana looks at him, then blinks—her eyelashes dropping and lifting like theater curtains. “You seem like a nice person,” she says, without sounding impressed.

  This was not what he’d wanted. He’d hoped for a sweet girl, someone willing to be charmed, or at least to fake it. And he doesn’t understand why she insists on speaking English, as though to make him feel even more like a stranger here. They stand beside each other in silence, and as the tracks curve, she tilts toward him. Their hips touch, but he doesn’t put his arm out to steady her.

  “What about you?” he says, as they approach Frunzenskaya. “What’s your real name?”

  “I don’t tell men that.”

  “It’s only fair now.”

  “No, it’s not the same for me to know your name. I meet so many people. I’ll forget your name by tomorrow.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “If you want, you can call me Lana. It’s what I like.”

  “Sure.” The train speeds up and air whistles through the windows. “Lana.”

  She isn’t listening. She buries her face in the scruff of her nameless kitten’s neck, and whispers to it in Russian.

  “I love you,” she tells it. “I love you, my dear one.”

  It’s one in the morning when they reach their stop, and Moscow Square is nearly empty. There are only a group of teenagers drinking beer and performing skateboard tricks, and a woman selling dahlias from a plastic bucket. She entreats Alexei to buy a flower for his “princess,” but he speaks a resolute, “Nyet,” and walks toward Lenin.

  The statue is not as big as he remembers, but still, it presides over the setting sun. Lenin looks handsome and dapper in a three-piece suit, like a businessman ready for the office. He still has dignity, despite the teenagers drinking beer in his shadow. Despite Alexei himself, the prostitute beside him, and the kitten she holds in her arms.

  “I used to love this place,” says Alexei. “I used to play here.”

  “This is what you wanted to see?” Lana taps a nail, painted with glittery polish, against the side of the vodka bottle. “You could have bought a postcard.”

  The more she drinks, he notices, the more she hates him.

  “Were you alive then?” He points to the House of Soviets. “Do you remember any of this?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “I don’t like the expressions you use.”

  “Here.” He takes out his wallet and hands her five hundred American dollars. Far too much. “Here’s some money for a cab.”

  She stares at the bill as though she’s never seen cash before. “What for?”

  “This was a mistake.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “For one thing, I’m still officially married.”

  “Are you joking or are you serious? I can never tell with Americans.”

  “Please leave.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “You’re too famous for me?” Her voice has a simpering, insulting edge. “Too famous in America?”

  “Go home,” he says. “Go home to your mother or your pimp or whoever buys you that ridiculous perfume.”

  She grabs the money, and he turns and walks the way he knows by heart.

  “I buy it!” she yells. “I buy my ridiculous perfume!”

  As a boy, he took the Metro every Saturday. He counted the seven stops on his fingers, then got off the train by pushing past strangers’ legs. He walked up the station’s staircase into the bright outdoor light, and crossed Moscow Square. He stopped to salute Lenin, then marched down Demonstration Street, humming military songs and imagining he was the leader of a great parade.

  When he reached his grandmother’s courtyard, he began to run. He ran up the stairway, then knocked on her door. She always answered with her arms crossed and a smile on her face. “What’s this?” she said when she saw him. “What’s this precious thing on my doorstep?” Right then, his love for her threatened to make his heart explode. He’d throw himself against her legs and hold on to her skirt.

  This is why he needs to return to his grandmother’s house, because he hasn’t felt anything like that since. He loved his grandmother so dearly. He loved the pancakes she served him, covered in condensed milk. He loved the way she boiled water on her gas stove and served tea in china cups—cups she wrapped in newspaper and hid under her bed, so the neighbors wouldn’t see that she kept such beautiful things. He loved how she poured milk into those cups and how the milk formed clouds in the tea, clouds that moved quickly like those over Palace Square. He loved how the china felt hot in his hands and the way his grandmother crushed half a lemon into the bottom of her cup.

  He never understood how his grandmother acquired her own apartment, not to mention the tea, the lemons, and the good flour to make pancakes. She always knew which store had goods on which day, and was always one of the first in line. He never questioned this. He only knew that in his grandmother’s apartment, he never felt alone and always felt safe. He has lived in the United States for twenty-eight years, and has traveled extensively—Amsterdam, Paris, Prague—but never again has he found such a place.

  What he loved most were his grandmother’s stories. After lunch, over the sound of hot water dripping inside the radiator, she told him of talking wolves, women who turned into crows, and winter that appeared in the shape of a man, wearing a long fur coat and a beard. He was in love with those stories. Is that possible? Can a boy be in love with his grandmother’s words? If we expand that frail little word—love—if we breathe into it and stretch it like a balloon, fill it like a lung, then yes. Yes, it is possible. A boy can be in love with his grandmother’s stories, with his grandmother herself, in her apartment off Moskovskaya, eight floors up. Because when his grandmother talked, ghosts appeared, witches had teeth of iron, and geese could lift and carry little boys away in their beaks.

  He had worried that he wouldn’t remember the way, but finds it easily. He turns left down Demonstration, then takes another right. There is one long block before he reaches his grandmother’s apartment. He passes a small pink church that—since his acquaintance with American pastries—reminds him of a cupcake. Everything has changed. This is now a nice neighborhood. The trees, which had been thin when he was a boy, are tall and leafy. There is grass in front of the buildings, and it appears as though someone waters it, someone mows it. There are BMWs parked on the streets. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm rings.

  Only the apartment buildings themselves haven’t improved. They’re made of the same cinder blocks, with iron bars on the windows and small balconies. They’re all identical, but still, he recognizes his grandmother’s. He walks into the courtyard, where there’s now a swing set and a teeter-totter.

  Alexei doesn’t do what he’d planned to do. He doesn’t pause to look up at his grandmother’s window, eight stories up. He doesn’t even stop to consider the lucky accident that the building’s heavy metal door has been left unlocked. He doesn’t climb the stairs slowly, noticing the smell of cooking from the apartments. He takes them two at a time, the way he did as a child. If he had slowed down, he would have had time to be angry with himself, angry that he had come back like this: drunk, taking the train with a hooker on his arm, without dignity. The dignity he treasures. The dignity he’s worked his whole life to acquire, the same way some people work to buy a house or a car.

  He reaches the eighth floor and doesn’t wait to catch his breath. He walks straight to his grandmother’s apartment, number thirty-one. And without pausing to take this moment in, without stopping to check his watch—which would have reminded him that
it was nearly two in the morning—he knocks on the door.

  Alexei isn’t so drunk that he expects his grandmother to answer. So when she does—when his grandmother opens the door and whispers, “Who’s there?”—he can hardly breathe.

  “Babushka,” he whispers. “My little grandmother.”

  The hallway is dark—only a dim light comes from within the apartment behind her—and she has opened the door just a few inches. But Alexei knows it’s her. She wears her same white nightshirt that reaches to the floor. And she still has those fierce, intelligent eyes. She does not look surprised to see him.

  “It’s me,” he says, then reaches out to take her hand. “It’s Alexei.”

  A man appears beside her, opening the door all the way. “What’s going on?” He wears track pants, a green terry-cloth robe, and slippers. The robe is undone and shows his wide, sunburned chest. His hair is thinning, and there’s gray stubble on his face. He looks the way Alexei might, if he’d never left Russia. “Who are you?” he says.

  Alexei’s grandmother speaks in a stranger’s voice. “It’s just some fool,” she says. “He’s drunk.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Alexei. “I’ve made a mistake.”

  “Yes, you have,” says the man. “You’ve disturbed my family.”

  “I’m sorry.” Suddenly Alexei is sober. “I forgot about the time. I got confused.”

  “You woke my mother up.”

  “Who cares?” says the woman. “I was awake anyway.”

  How could he have mistaken her for his grandmother? It’s true that the white nightgown and the shadowy light make her look like a ghost. But this woman has the harsh voice of a lifelong smoker, a sneering expression, and bad posture.

  “And you frightened my wife,” says the man with the red chest—how did he get a sunburn in this climate? He must work outside. He must be shirtless on some scaffolding all day.

  “Now you’re getting angry,” says the woman who is not Alexei’s grandmother. “I’m going to bed.”

  “You woke me up.” The man stares at Alexei. “I work in the morning.”

  “I’m a Russian-American writer.” Alexei begins the speech he’d rehearsed for this occasion. “I was born here in 1963. I’ve returned now because I’m writing a memoir of the past.”

  “I remember the past too,” says the man, switching to thick, accented English. “But I don’t wake people up to tell them about it.”

  “My grandmother lived in your apartment.” Alexei tries to keep his voice steady. “That’s why I’m here. It’s meaningful to me.”

  A younger woman appears in the doorway; this must be the wife. She puts her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Who is it, Misha?”

  The man’s eyes don’t move from Alexei’s face. “He says he used to live here.”

  “Lucky him.” She yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry I woke you.” It’s not just the vodka that’s turning Alexei’s stomach. There’s something familiar about this scene: a man—like himself, about the age he is now—showing up at this apartment in the middle of the night. This has happened before, he’s sure of it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s writing a book.” Misha says this without irony. Perhaps he is a person who likes books. A reader. This gives Alexei hope.

  “I only wanted to see the apartment for a few minutes,” says Alexei. “Would that be all right? I would come back some other time, but I leave for America in six hours.”

  Misha has stopped looking at him. He is carefully belting his robe so it covers his chest. “You want a tour?”

  “I have some money.” Alexei takes out his wallet. “I’ll pay.”

  Misha looks at the wallet. “My home,” he says, “is not a museum.” There is a tired, long-harbored fury in his voice. He reaches out with a slow assurance and grabs Alexei’s neck. He grips a tendon hard enough to leave a bruise. “Why don’t you go to the Hermitage?” His face is close now, and Alexei can smell onions and tobacco on his breath. “They’ll take your money.”

  “Don’t do this.” Alexei uses the same hopeless voice he’d used during his first days of high school in America. When he showed up for class with a Russian accent and the wrong clothes, and was kicked to the ground for it. “Please,” he says, though he knows it won’t do any good. He knows the ending to this story. It has been years, but he remembers the way it felt to be punched in the face. He remembers the taste of blood, and closes his eyes in expectation of it.

  It doesn’t come. What happens instead is even more humiliating. He hears, in the stairwell, the click of heels on the steps, and the slosh of vodka in a bottle. Then the stairwell’s door swings open, and there she is. In her purple dress, with the kitten slung under her arm. She looks at Misha, his wife, then at Alexei. She smiles, showing those teeth. Then she laughs.

  “I knew he’d get in trouble,” she says.

  “Who are you?” Misha still holds Alexei by the neck, making it difficult to breathe. “Are you a friend of his?”

  “He says he’s famous in America,” says Lana. “But I’ve never heard of him.”

  Misha lets go of Alexei’s neck and looks at him as though perhaps this man is simply what his mother said: a fool, bothersome and insane. Alexei leans against the wall to regain his balance and what remains of his dignity.

  “You followed me?” he whispers to her. Was she listening from the staircase? Did she hear him embarrass himself?

  “I’m rescuing you,” she says. “You should say thank you.”

  Then, to Misha and his wife, she says, “Do you want a drink?” She holds up the half-full bottle. “And maybe you could give my cat some milk? She’s hungry.”

  The older woman appears in the hallway, silent in her bare feet and her ghostly nightgown. She takes the kitten from Lana’s arms. “Look at this,” she says. “Look at this precious thing.”

  Everything has changed. A wall has been knocked down and the apartment is twice the size it used to be. The bedroom where Alexei’s grandmother slept now belongs to Misha’s mother, and she has filled it with Orthodox icons. The kitchen has been modernized: a dishwasher and laundry machine stand side by side. The walls have been painted green and there is linoleum on the floor, but the tap still drips.

  Misha leads Alexei and Lana to the table, takes out three shot glasses, and Lana fills them. The kitchen lights are bright and buzz like mosquitoes.

  The wife takes out a can of mushrooms to eat with the vodka, and the three of them—Alexei, Lana, Misha—drink the first shot unceremoniously, without even a toast. Lana refills the glasses immediately.

  “Drink,” she says to Alexei, as though offering medicine. “It’s your birthday.” Then, to Misha, she holds up the second shot and says, “To your home.”

  The kitten laps at a dish of milk, and Lana and the couple talk and laugh—Misha is drunk now, and friendly. But Alexei hears them as though they are far away, in distance and in years. He is listening to the slow drip of the kitchen tap, and he is a boy again, six years old. His grandmother stands here—in this kitchen—with a man who has arrived in the middle of the night. A man who seems somewhat older than Alexei is now, wearing a pressed suit and a wool coat. It is always the same man. He looks to be someone high-ranking, and Alexei despises him.

  “He’s a celebrity in America,” says Lana, and Alexei hears her cruel laughter, feels her hand on his leg. “He’s very important.”

  Alexei watches this man and his grandmother from the doorway—they don’t see him because they have left the lights off, because they think he is asleep. He climbed from his bed without making a sound. He moved silently to the doorway and he stands there without breathing. He watches as his grandmother and this man whisper as though they are friends. She even laughs at something he says as she accepts payment. He gives her currency, of course, but also marvelous things that she’ll share with Alexei the next day: a fresh pineapple, mandarin oranges, or a box of candie
s.

  “He’s asleep.” Lana touches Alexei’s neck, which is still tender from when Misha choked him. “Wake up,” she says, without gentleness. “Wake up.”

  Alexei opens his eyes and drinks what they put in front of him. “Let us live long,” he hears them say. “Let us meet again.” Alexei thinks of that man, the face he didn’t know he remembered, a shadow in his mind, and he feels sick and unsteady in his chair. He has avoided this place for years. He remembers, now, his reasons.

  By the time Alexei and Lana leave the apartment, the Metro has stopped running. They negotiate with a driver on his way to an early shift at work, and he agrees to take them as far as the Zagorodny for two hundred rubles. He drives quickly, blasting ABBA’s “Mamma Mia” from the stereo system. In the backseat, Lana leans against Alexei, her face pressed to his chest as though she is listening to his heartbeat. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and Alexei thinks she’s asleep until she says, in Russian, “I’m going to throw up.”

  The driver pulls over near the Obvodny Canal and tells them to get out; he doesn’t want anyone being sick inside his Ford. Alexei pulls Lana from the backseat, and watches as she vomits on the road. Then he sits beside her on the curb. She rests her head on her arms, her knees curled to her chest. The kitten seems to sense that she isn’t well, and brushes up against her legs and her sides, leaving fur on the stiff lamé of her dress. Alexei tries to flag down another ride, but the few cars that pass don’t stop. Lana lifts her face and squints into the morning sun.

  “Come on.” The makeup around her eyes is smudged and her lipstick has worn away. “We’ll have to walk.”

  She takes off her heels and goes barefoot, watching the ground for broken glass. Alexei carries her purple shoes and her gold handbag, and she holds the kitten. Neither of them speaks, but walking sobers them up.

  There is hardly anyone in the streets: they pass only a man collecting garbage and a group of girls who walk tipsily home from a bar. At this hour, in this light, there is something sad and spectacular about the wide, empty avenues. The buildings look worn but proud behind the mesh and scaffolding and advertisements for anti-cellulite cream. They walk slowly, and Alexei has time to read the graffiti. He’s especially fond of the words I love you eternally, sprayed over a crumbling bit of sidewalk. He sees where plaster has chipped away from walls, where red brick shows through like scabs that have been opened. Without people and cars, the city seems to have generously slipped off her clothes for him. She seems to show him her truest nature, her deepest secret: that she hates him, and everyone else. That she is not meant to be inhabited, only admired.