If Only You Knew

by Alice Jolly

  I find Jack near the entrance to the Metro, reading posters displayed in a glass case on a wall. The bottoms of his trousers are splattered with mud, and his shoes are dirty. He carries two small suitcases, both are battered and brown, one has a broken strap. When he turns around, I see the shadow of illness in his body. It’s there in the hunch of his shoulders, and the way he moves – tenderly, as though the pavement might burn his feet, or the wind sting his skin.

  We walk up Miasnitskaia Ulitsa, heading away from the crowds, searching for a place to eat. We talk about the demonstration. I say that, in one way or another, the reform process is certain to continue now because the population is firmly behind it. Jack is doubtful. For every one person marching here, he says, there are hundreds more who feel nostalgia for the old ways. And Moscow is quite different from the rest of the country. Protesters walk past us with buckets and people throw in coins and grubby banknotes. Jack tells me that the money will be used to help the coal miners in Western Siberia who are on strike, demanding the resignation of Gorbachev. I ask Jack whether the police will try to clear the protesters off the streets. He says the worst they might do is use water cannons or tear gas. Gunning people down in the Baltic States is one thing, the streets of Moscow are a different matter.

  We stop at a café which must be newly opened. The tablecloths are red-and-white gingham and the seats of the chairs have been covered in red plastic. We sit down at a table near the window. The only other customer is an exotic young man with a handlebar moustache. He wears a striped suit and is accompanied by two wolf-like dogs with sparkling collars. I stretch my hand across the table to touch Jack’s fingers. His thumb brushes against mine but he’s looking around for someone to serve us. The waiter comes and Jack says he doesn’t want to eat, but orders a coffee. I say perhaps I won’t eat either but Jack insists, so I order bitochki and a cup of tea.

  I want to tell him about those words I’d heard as the toe of the child’s shoe banged against the chair. I want to say, ‘What was there in my father is there in me as well, isn’t it?’ And I want to hear him say that that isn’t true. But those words frighten me so much that I can’t even begin to form them in my mouth. Through the window we watch the protesters filing past. People sing and blow whistles, flags wave and a child riding on a man’s shoulders grips the string of a rabbit-shaped balloon. Across the road, a newly restored gold dome stands sober above the crowd. The waiter arrives with our drinks. The stripe-suited man is feeding pieces of bread to his dogs.

  ‘So we’re leaving at five?’ I say.

  ‘Eva, I’m not taking you with me. You know that.’

  I sit in silence, waiting for those words to retreat. It’s as though I’ve been stabbed. Pain digs in deep under my ribs. I feel blood seep from the wound, its warmth spreading on my clothes. The pulse is fading from my fingertips and toes. I stare at my hand as it lies on the table, close to his. I don’t understand why the stripe-suited man, wiping his moustache with a napkin, doesn’t seem to know what is happening. The waiter arrives with my meatballs. Surely he can see the blood running from me? But he places the plate in front of me and retreats. Outside, the carnival music plays. I stare down at a gravy stain on the tablecloth, then pick up my knife and poke at the meatballs in their pool of watery sauce. Out of the side of my eye, I see a blade of sunlight on the façade of the church. Later, that’s what I’ll remember, I think.

  Jack is talking but I can’t hear all of what he says because of the screaming in my head. ‘Eva, you know that even if you and I had been together properly, it wouldn’t have worked. You know that, don’t you?’

  I don’t admit to that.

  ‘What you feel for me is need, not love,’ he says. ‘All I am is a distraction for you, that’s all. What’s happened doesn’t need to turn into a disaster. You’ve changed. You don’t know that, but I can see it. You think you love me, but really you love something I’ve done to you. That process of change is going to continue with or without me.’

  He tries to touch my hand but I pull away from him.

  ‘Eva, you know that very often, passions of the type you feel don’t respect the person who is loved. If you can’t let go of something, then you don’t really love it.’

  I’m not listening. My mind is sorting through the future. All I can see is blackness. ‘You’ve always thought that this is just about my father.’

  ‘No. Your father is incidental, just as I am. There are always layers and layers to these yearnings.’

  My eyes blur and my head throbs. I wipe my hand across my eyes. Jack shakes his head and drinks some of his coffee. For a moment I raise my eyes from the table and look over at the church with its jeering ray of sunlight. Yes, I think, I know where I am, I know what’s happening. I’ve done this before, I know how it goes. I must stay bright and calm, not make it too difficult for him, appear to be taking it well. That ray of sunlight dances at the side of my vision, jabbing at my eyes. Words begin to join up in rhymes in my head. Yearnings-learnings-turnings.

  Jack watches the knife in my hand. ‘Are you going to eat that?’

  I shake my head without looking at him.

  ‘Please, eat it.’

  I take one mouthful but the meat tastes of soap, so I lay down the knife and push the plate away. ‘All your talk about the difference between need and love, that’s rubbish. You can push me away all you like, but you need me as much as I need you. Because without me, what’s going to happen to you? You’re just going to get more and more ill, and lie in some rented room waiting to die.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It won’t be like that.’

  The pain is making it difficult to breathe. A pressure is building behind my eyes but this is too bad for tears. The music from outside thumps in my ears and the man with the dogs gets up to go. Still he hasn’t noticed, still the waiter hasn’t noticed. Yearnings-learnings-turnings. I sit staring at the red checked tablecloth.

  Jack looks at his watch. ‘I must go. I don’t think I’m going to be able to take the Metro. It’ll be better to walk.’ My lips feel swollen, my throat thick. The bill comes and Jack picks it up, but I take it from him and pay. We stand on the pavement outside. ‘Jack, I can’t – please, let me come to the station.’

  He shakes his head and closes his eyes. His face is white and shrivelled. Beads of sweat have gathered beneath the line of his hair. I stretch out my hand. For a moment he stares at it, then wraps it in his. He walks fast, pulling me with him. The protesters are behind us now, but the streets are swelling with people leaving work. The sun has turned red and is sliding down behind a cliff of stained walls and dirty windows. The streets are littered with bottles and paper. My feet are unsteady, my fists clenched. We cross a wide square, passing under the shadow of one of the Stalin Skyscrapers. Jack lets go of my hand, looks at his watch, then catches hold of me again, and hurries on.

  In Komsomolskaia Ploshchad’, we push our way past taxis, food stalls, prostitutes and homeless drunks. A veiled woman, dressed in black, kneels on the pavement and bangs her head on the ground again and again. Under heavy coats and fur hats, men wear brightly coloured trousers which glitter with gold. Above us, the fairytale tower of the Kazan Station stands up sharp against the evening sky.

  We enter the marble hall of the 1960s Leningrad Station and Jack’s eyes scan the departure boards as they flicker and roll. Around us, people sit on wooden slatted benches. Whole families huddle around piles of plastic bags, sacks and cardboard boxes. A woman cooks on a gas camping stove. I hear the scream of a train braking and am caught in a shuffle of hurrying feet.

  We push through towards the platform. I wonder how I will get on to the train without a ticket or an internal passport, but I’m sure that if I give Jack some of my dollars to use as a bribe then he can sort that out. A guard at the entrance to the platform is checking tickets. I keep tight hold of Jack’s hand. He produces a couple of kopeks from his pocket. The guard hands me a platform ticket and together Jack and I are swept through
an arch towards the train. It’s fat and green, with ridged sides and high windows. People hurry past us, scrambling for the doors. It’s a long train, and we walk the length of it, as Jack tries to find his seat. Doors are slamming and women in khaki uniforms, holding flags, stand at the end of each carriage. We reach the door of the last carriage. A khaki woman stands close to us. From further down the train, a man hollers and a child wails. Jack’s breath is short and he wipes at his forehead. A man in a fur hat pushes past us, bundling his wife and two small children on to the train.

  ‘If you go, you know what will happen, don’t you?’

  He looks at me and his eyes are steady. ‘Yes, I know.’

  The khaki woman comes up to Jack and he produces his ticket. Two young men, dragging a heavy box between them, jostle against me and push their box up on to the train. Jack lifts the heavier of his two bags up the metal steps. I keep hold of the smaller bag and place my foot on the bottom step. The khaki woman blows her whistle. Around us people shout, arms wave, the hum of a diesel engine shudders through the train. The khaki woman is asking me for my ticket. I cling to Jack’s hand. She shouts and pushes. Jack eases the bag from my hand.

  I’m shoved aside and the metal steps are pushed up, fitting into the side of the train with a clank. The door slams. I reach up to open it again but the woman hits at me with her flag. I look up and see Jack at the window. His face is transparent in the darkness of the glass. I imagine throwing myself against the side of the train. Jack, Jack. But instead I raise my hand to him as the train creaks into motion. His face stays in my eyes as I watch each carriage pass – flashes of light, faces, waving hands, carriage doors. Then the train is gone and I’m left alone, staring into the black tunnel at two red lights, flickering smaller and smaller, dissolving into the dark.

  *

  Just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Right, then left, then right again. Keep your body steady. Do not look to either side. Most importantly, do not look down. Around me, everything has been shaken loose. The city is jaunty, its balance perilous.

  So he has gone. It’s finished. I rub my hands together, twisting my fingers as though washing myself clean of him. As I walk, I whistle silently, convincing myself that I don’t care. I’m light as a leaf, the wind could catch me and blow me away. The rustle of feet and the murmur of car engines press against my ears. Bare trees zig-zag above me. The lines of buildings sway and contract as though reflected on water. Dance music plays in my head. Keep them gathered together, the arms and legs, don’t let them wander off. I catch at my hair as though it might blow away. How I wish they would turn the music down, switch the lights off.

  I walk all the way home and don’t feel tired. When I get to the flat I have difficulty organizing my hands to open the door. The keys juggle, my fingers slip on the catch so that I graze my knuckle. That music is still playing inside my head. I feel a desire to dance, to spin around in a circle on one foot. The inside of my head is turning and turning. The flat is just as I left it. My cardigan still hangs on the back of the chair, unwashed pots remain stacked in the sink. Everything is just the same, nothing has really happened.

  In the bathroom my feet slip. I grab at the loo seat, head bent down, eyes shut. He has split my mind in two and the past is spilling out. In my mouth I taste soapy meat, and a rush of acid. My stomach rises up and then dives down. Liquid rushes into my nose and presses inside my ears. The back of my throat burns, my stomach gathers itself together and I feel myself turning inside out. Everything empties from me. I spit and then fall back, crumpled up beside the loo, my head against the wall.

  The child hides beside the cupboard on the landing. The stick of the lolly is still gripped in her hands. From below she can hear Mrs Reynolds calling. She mustn’t go up to her father’s room. He’s busy and tired. He mustn’t be disturbed. But a light shines through his half-open door. Mrs Reynolds calls again and the front door bell rings. Her mother’s shoes tap over the hall floor. The child steps across the landing towards that strip of light. The air smells of dust and mulled wine.

  She moves forward and looks through the door. The curtains are open and the telescope is assembled at the window. A figure moves close to the telescope but the child can’t see his face. He’s dressed in a frockcoat, blue satin knickerbockers and a three-cornered hat. On his feet are black shoes with square toes and silver buckles. The figure is her father but she’s never seen him wear those clothes before. The blue silk shimmers in the light. Gold buttons glitter on the back of the frockcoat and a line of blue lace edges the deep sleeves of the coat.

  Her father is adjusting the telescope, talking to himself. The child knows that the sky isn’t clear and that he’s frustrated because he can’t see what he’s looking for. Books are open on the desk, and charts, and maps. The child wants to call out to him but she also just wants to stand there watching. From below she hears the front door open. Laughter and voices swell across the landing, and a cold draught moves the curtains.

  The child knows that soon she will go away with her father. She hears the back stairs creak. Mrs Reynolds is coming up to look for her. And now her mother’s voice is calling as well. Eva must go to bed, she must go to bed. The child steps forward into the room. She wants to touch the silk of her father’s jacket. She wants to look more closely at the gold buttons and square-toed shoes. She calls to him and he starts to turn. The lace on his sleeve flutters, his hand hovers in the air. She puts up her arms to him.

  But the man is not her father. Instead, she’s standing in front of an ogre with the wrinkled face of an ape. The child raises her hands to her neck and chokes on a scream. The ape has tiny eyes, a jabbering mouth, strands of thin black hair. His face is waxen, his teeth long and yellow. He reaches out towards her. The child stumbles back, turns across the landing. She wants her father. Her hand reaches for the stair-rail but it closes around air. Pictures on the wall swivel upwards, the landing window drops down, rolling like the wheels on a slot machine. The child’s cheek bruises against the stair-rail, her fingernails scratch against the threads of the carpet.

  12/20 rue de Lausanne, Geneva

  November 1991

  My question is this: how is it that I knew him through to the marrow of his bones and yet now, as I come to assemble the facts, I realize that most of them are missing? I kneel on the parquet floor in the hall with the contents of his boxes spread around me. That grey plastic filing tray, his blue notebooks, newspaper cuttings, letters. So many pieces of paper but no answers. The truth is that I don’t even know what these boxes are doing here. And I never even knew his real name.

  That day in the No Name Café, when he was there with that man and woman, he made it all into a joke, but he never did tell me who those people were. And how did he always have access to things other people couldn’t get? I think of the hotel room, that air ticket to Vilnius, Estelle and her gossip. Then later – those days in August – he felt them coming. And that last morning, he was so determined to go back into Moscow. It’s only now that I begin to ask myself – why was that? The truth is that even the kindest face, seen in the wrong light, begins to take on the look of an ape.

  I open the cover of a book, hoping for an inscription which might place him somewhere. Instead I find a letter. It’s in a brown envelope, addressed to him, and the postmark is 23 August 1991. Surely that can’t be right? Then I see that the letter was sent from San Francisco and has never been opened. I know what it must contain. I should open it, of course, because it’s intended for me, but the risk is too great. You can pursue someone through the unending labyrinth of your mind and theirs, but finally all you discover is a child’s shoes kicking against the back of a chair.

  Just write it down and you’ll understand. How did I ever believe that? Shiny, shallow words. They go up like fireworks, exploding in a hundred meanings. There are no conversations, only monologues. I start to hate you now, Jack. You said that we’d go away to France together. We had it all planned and then
in that café … You didn’t care, you just didn’t care. All of that Gypsy Rose act, that cheap mumbo-jumbo. Those theories you had – you needed to try them out, and I was the beagle with an electrode taped to its head.

  My father and I, far out on the beach, in the bronze evening sun, waiting for the tide to turn. You should have left us alone, Jack, for we were happy there. Maya was right. You pass the same point again and again. What was it you said to me? You think all men leave? Well they do, they do. Jack, you promised you’d wait. You promised. Just one night. I thought it couldn’t make any difference.

  The easy writing is finished with now. These words are scratched in blood and tears. The story of that day at Tsaritsyno – oh yes, we all want to hear that. Or the day my father carried my mother through the flooded porch at Marsh End House. But no one wants to know what happens afterwards. No, of course they don’t. Secretly we all believe that grief is infectious. Don’t stand too close, or you’ll catch it as well.

  30/16 Ulitsa Pravdy, Moscow

  1 April 1991

  The first two or three days were not the worst. It takes time to discover the dimensions of a loss. I walked through my life as though it were a house which had been burgled. At first the damage didn’t seem too serious, but then I saw the locked drawer prised open, the curtain hanging loose, the crack in the glass door. Slowly I realized that the job was thorough. The diamonds had gone from the safe, the gold bracelet from the jewellery box, the cash from the knife drawer.

  Most days, after teaching, I went to Sibirskii Pereulok and sat in the doorway of the flats opposite his building. Of course, he’d only said that he was going to Leningrad for two months in order to get rid of me. He was already back in Moscow, I was sure of that. I tried to learn the exact patterns of those curtains at his window so I’d know when he’d been there. Surely when I came yesterday, the curtain on the left was fully drawn and the other one was a quarter of the way across? Now both curtains were a quarter drawn – but was that right?