Suddenly, she felt the burning sun of the empty schoolyard on her face. She saw again the house on the Holy Mountain. The meticulously framed photos on the walls. The perfect couple. The ticking of the clock — had there really been a clock, or was it her imagination? And the knife: what had the knife been like, how big? She didn’t know any more. And Mariam, had she screamed at the end; or was that her own voice? And the curlers in the blonde woman’s hair, did they all fall out? Had she been smirking right at the end, too, as the knife cut into her throat? Did she in fact die instantly, or had there been a death rattle? And how could she have left Mariam there, with the dead woman in the empty apartment, without batting an eyelid? How had she got home, in someone else’s clothes — in her clothes? How could she have done that?
What had been Mariam’s last thought?
As the warm, intense, overpowering feeling took possession of her and she forgot the world around her — her flat and the night outside, the pot plants, her little room in Tbilisi with the old, narrow bed, which she had loved so much, Andro’s eyes when she saw him again for the first time after the war, the green hills of her hometown, the little blue veins on her mother’s arms, her brother’s uniform — as she forgot the classroom, in that hot summer of sutured wounds, as she forgot Amy and the voice on the telephone to which she was still unable to put a name, she screamed so loudly she thought her eardrums would burst.
Fred stroked the hair out of her face. Kitty was sweating. Her body was trembling. She sank to the floor. Fred sat down beside her and pushed down her skirt, so innocent, so abashed, as if she hadn’t ripped off Kitty’s clothes just moments earlier.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ whispered Kitty. She lay in the hallway on the cold, hard floor.
‘May I ask you something?’ Fred responded.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Where did you get this scar?’
Fred went to put her hand on Kitty’s belly, but Kitty shrank away.
‘From an operation.’
‘What operation?’
‘They removed my womb.’
Kitty didn’t know why she hadn’t lied.
‘Why?’
For the first time Kitty heard something akin to fear in Fred’s voice.
‘Before they did that, they aborted my child.’
Kitty heard her voice coming from far, far away. It felt strange, after so many years, simply to speak the truth.
‘What happened?’
Fred’s voice remained quiet, tentative, but it wasn’t pitying. That made it more bearable. And Kitty told her, in an almost matter-of-fact tone, about her old life, the life that had led to the classroom and the blonde woman and Mariam.
*
‘Where’s your mother now?’ Kitty eventually asked, when she had finished her confession.
‘In the Jewish cemetery in Vienna. At least, there’s a plaque there with her name on. As to whether her remains are there as well: I wouldn’t swear to it. In all the chaos back then they weren’t keeping too close an eye on who went where, with so many Jewish corpses …’
‘But why? You’d —’
‘She hanged herself the night we were supposed to flee Mödling. With Martin’s belt. A good, strong leather belt. German workmanship, you know; it does what it says it’ll do.’
*
The nights that followed were sticky and clung to the skin, even during the day. They couldn’t be washed off; their languorous, salty taste could not be discarded. They were wordless and gentle, then urgent again, full of words that refused to run dry.
And during the day they had to be painted over with falsehoods; Kitty had to be ready with excuses to evade Amy’s watchful eyes. Until one day Amy informed her that her lover had returned, and she had no intention of ever leaving her side again, and Kitty was filled with bilious anger towards Amy, a vicious jealousy, and became painfully aware of her own unfortunate situation. She congratulated her manager, then retreated, and refrained from making any comment at all in the days and weeks that followed, as she sat with Amy in her house in King’s Cross, or in one of the many Soho cafés, discussing their work plans.
But then Fred started turning up at her flat in the night; she would throw a little pebble up at her window, as if to emphasise her role as secret concubine, and would stumble up the stairs in the dark. It was rare for all three women to meet: at Amy’s welcoming party for her returned friend, or a picnic together in Hyde Park. Then Kitty and Fred would exchange stolen glances, secret messages; their shoulders would brush accidentally, there would be almost imperceptible touches, words whispered furtively in passing.
Kitty was surprised by how easy it was for her to lie. She was surprised by how quickly she had become a part of Fred’s world, despite her constant resistance, her pride in refusing to allow that to happen. How carelessly she deceived her friend and patroness; how effortlessly she forgot Amy the minute Fred appeared beneath her window. What had happened to her resolutions and principles? Why was she jeopardising her relationship with Amy?
Kitty knew that the coming months would be full of splinters, that she would have to learn to walk on them so that they didn’t leave scars. Secretly she longed for the moment when this edifice of lies, these false promises, this wordless, deceitful arrangement would collapse and implode. Because Fred never mentioned Amy; she didn’t feel the need, as if this divided life were normal, as if this dreadful situation were a logical consequence of her character, her thoughtlessness, the egocentric blindness that sometimes drove Kitty mad. But they talked a lot, and for Kitty these conversations with Fred became a necessity; she needed them as she needed air to breathe, needed them even more than she needed the sense of abandonment as they overstepped the boundaries together. For so many years she had been mute, and now, at last, she could speak again. Without false pity, without false expectations. She could exhale: for a few hours she could break free of the shadow world inside her head and return to life, to the here and now. Completely.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.
KARL MARX
Elene and her father sat in front of their Rekord television set in the eastern half of the world, while Kitty and Amy sat in front of their Ferguson television set in the western half, all staring, spellbound, at a friendly man in the impressive outfit of a cosmonaut boarding a spaceship in Tyuratam, waving and calling out, ‘Let’s go! Goodbye to you, dear friends, and see you soon.’ The spaceship was called Vostok 1, the calm, friendly man Yuri Gagarin. When the engines were fired up shortly after nine o’clock that April morning and the retention arms released, the Americans sighed and the Russians cheered. But all over the world people held their breath at the start of the first orbit of the Earth in history, and heard Gagarin cry, ‘I see Earth! It is so beautiful.’
*
Her time in Moscow had shaken Elene’s deepest principles and convictions. She became acquainted with doubt, and through doubt she realised something fundamental, something that cut her to the quick and profoundly changed her. She realised that the world was not a protective place, that people didn’t always keep their promises, that love was replaceable, that intimacy was a silken thread that could break at any time, that feelings changed from day to day and affection could breed contempt. She understood that she had been wronged. This thought was liberating for her: ever since she had formulated it and written it on the back of her maths book, she felt surer of herself. Because it meant that it was not she who had failed, but the others: she had not deserved to grow up far from home and be replaced by a curly-haired boy; she had not brought this strict life in Moscow, these cold foreign climes, this loneliness upon herself. It also meant that this wrong that had been done to her could one day be redressed. This thought was sweet as hon
ey; it gave her strength and coaxed a smile to her lips. The child who in Moscow was so reserved, so painstakingly polite, almost deferential, soon became a cheeky, lively, noisy, domineering girl again. Encouraged by thoughts of some time in the future, she returned to her roots.
Whereas in the past she hadn’t wanted to be a Young Pioneer, had never wanted to go to summer or winter camp, now she was first in line at Pioneer parades and managed to become leader of the girls’ group at camp. She was the first to put up her hand in class, and if one of the boys looked askance at her, played a joke on her, teased her, or gave her a condescending smile, he would receive a reply that made him lose any desire to do it again. Elene also became more assertive in dealing with her father — although there were certain boundaries that she would never cross. Kostya was surprised and pleased by his daughter’s sudden transformation. It would serve her better in life to be like this, he thought. He failed, however, to see Elene’s anger, bubbling deep below the surface.
But Nana — who only saw Elene in Moscow in the autumn, when she took time off from university, or in the summer holidays, which Elene spent with her — couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. There was something exaggerated about Elene’s constant cheerfulness and feverish energy. She sensed the strange artificiality in her child’s behaviour, the slightly forced aspect of her carefree manner. Nana, who struggled with her guilt over allowing Elene to go to Moscow, knew that the battle for their daughter had never been about her wellbeing: it had always been more about her and Kostya, even though Kostya never tired of repeating how good Russian discipline was for Elene.
But behind her child’s smile Nana sensed the black tangle of thoughts woven together from unspoken reproaches and injuries. She just couldn’t put this insight into words. How could she explain to her husband that their marriage was now no more than a perpetual conflict of interest over their daughter? He would never believe it if she told him that the child lacked for anything, that she wasn’t happy, that she was nurturing something dark inside.
And during one of those visits, as she watched her daughter sitting alone in the garden one evening, lost in thought, staring icily into space and apparently not even noticing the rain pelting down on her, Nana realised she had to do something or she would lose Elene completely.
She ran through all the options, held conversations with her husband in her head, tried to pit her arguments against his. She needed a strategy in order to formulate her plan in Kostya’s language; she had to be unyielding, she had to be stubborn, at least as steely as Kostya himself. Just as spring turned to summer, she flew to visit her husband in Moscow.
As was to be expected, Nana’s concerns met with little understanding from her husband. Kostya ridiculed her worries as the misguided fears of an egotistical mother who was prioritising her own wishes over her daughter’s future. But Nana kept insisting that this was about their daughter, who was just as much hers as she was his; that this child had lived apart from her — against her will — for long enough. Elene needed her mother: Kostya may have refused to discuss it back then, but now it was her turn. Tbilisi wasn’t just some village, after all; there were good schools there, too. Besides, she should be speaking her mother tongue again, and she should be among women. A single Lyuda was no substitute for all her female role-models.
Although it was hard for her, Nana refused to give in. Worn down by the long discussions with her husband and his egregious insults, she was repeatedly assailed by doubt as to whether bringing Elene back to Georgia was the right thing to do; but then she would remember the black look in her daughter’s eyes and cast her doubts aside.
One night, she was sitting at the kitchen table, still awake, frustration having driven her to eat the blinis Lyuda had made for Elene’s breakfast, when Elene appeared in the doorway in her flannel pyjamas and laughed at her mother in surprise. She fetched a plate and took a blini for herself as well.
‘Everything all right, Deda?’ she asked solicitously. Her Georgian had long since acquired a Russian tinge that made Nana livid.
‘I just can’t get to sleep, my sunshine.’
‘Have you and Papa been fighting again?’
‘We’re not fighting, Eleniko, we’re just having some discussions.’
‘What about?’
‘This and that. Mostly about the fact that I miss you so terribly.’
‘And what does Papa say?’
‘That he would miss you terribly, too, if you were to come home with me.’
Elene appeared to consider this. Her feet were dangling from the high chair; she skilfully rolled the blini and dunked it in the little varenye bowl with its dark red liquid. At that moment she looked so peaceful and happy that Nana’s heart clenched: her thick, uncombed hair, her long eyelashes, the pyjama trousers that were slightly too big. Nana would have liked to bundle her into her coat that instant, run outside with her, and drive her straight to the airport.
‘You want me to come with you to Tbilisi, right? For ever, right?’
‘I just want you to be happy, my pet.’
‘I am happy.’
‘Really? Do you like it here?’
‘Of course.’
‘I mean: don’t you miss us? Me, Stasia, Christine, Goya?’
‘Sometimes. Yes.’
‘I don’t want you to feel you’re lacking anything.’
‘Why don’t you all come here? There’s plenty of space here. There’s plenty of space for all of you, it’s just …’
‘It’s just what? What do you mean, Eleniko?’
‘Well, the boy — Miqa, I mean — he couldn’t live here. And he can’t speak Russian very well, can he? So he can’t go to school here either, and anyway Papa said that his papa is a nasty man, and they don’t take children like that here.’
‘Papa told you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s not true. Miqa’s papa is just poor, my pet. Miqa doesn’t have as many opportunities as we do, that’s why we’re looking after him. He’s going to school in Tbilisi so he can get a better education than he would in his village. You hardly even know him, Elene.’
‘You all do, though.’
Nana froze. That aggrieved tone. She wished she could have recorded that sentence and played it back to Kostya. The deep-seated anger in Elene’s voice!
‘I’d rather stay here, in any case, with Papa. Why don’t you and Stasia and Christine and Goya come? Why don’t you come here?’
Elene ate the rest of her blini and put the plate in the sink like a good girl. She gave her mother a tentative kiss on the cheek, wished her good night, and went off to bed. Nana stayed sitting at the table for a while, thinking. How alarmingly deliberate and confident Elene’s every word, every gesture seemed to be. She felt impotent, helpless. Had she ever considered that Elene might reject her suggestion that she go back? If she insisted, would it just increase Elene’s rancour? Would she then switch to Kostya’s side, against her, out of protest? She mustn’t let it come to that: open division in two opposing camps would just make the whole thing even more unbearable for Elene.
To avoid Elene’s curious questions, and looks from Lyuda, the couple had decided to share a marriage bed again in Moscow. Seldom had Nana found anything more difficult than lying down that night in the bed where Kostya was peacefully sleeping. A week later, she returned home, humiliated and exhausted. Elene remained in Moscow.
*
When I asked him about it, in the last years of his life, after the story had long since caught up with him, my grandfather admitted to having been in Severodvinsk in late 1958 when the keel of the K-19 was first laid. But a certain Captain Zateyev had been responsible for the K-19, he said; he himself had never had anything to do with this model.
The K-19 submarine, which acquired the less-than-flattering nickname ‘Hiroshima’ following a nuclear accident, and whose faulty construc
tion cost many sailors their lives, was strategically important in the Cold War, since it carried nuclear weapons and was capable of transporting them over long distances, as far as the coast of America. K-19 was the first nuclear-powered submarine, meaning that it had to undergo special security tests. However, because of growing pressure from the Kremlin in the arms race with the American Navy, these were not always carried out.
In 1960, the naval authorities said the K-19 had already passed all the security tests, and the submarine was launched in July 1961. My grandfather, Kostya Jashi, was charged with recording the first training manoeuvres, so he went aboard. The manoeuvres were to take place in the Greenland Sea. Just off Jan Mayen Island, the commander reported an incident in the submarine’s reactor. The cooling system had failed, and the reactor had to be switched off. They were facing a nuclear meltdown. Within the Soviet Union these manoeuvres were kept absolutely secret, and the crews of such submarines were under strict instructions not to transmit the international SOS signal, even in life-threatening situations. In any case, the ship’s wireless antenna was broken; it was impossible to transmit a long-range radio signal, so they couldn’t even call on the Soviet Navy for help.
The only way of saving the submarine was to send some of the crew into the reactor well to jury-rig an emergency cooling system. Until this provisional arrangement was in place, and because the temperature inside the reactor had now risen to a perilous 800 degrees, technicians used ordinary hoses to spray water onto the reactor. This hapless attempt caused a violent reaction when the cold water from the hoses came into contact with the reactor: the water evaporated instantly, releasing a massive dose of radiation.
Kostya never talked about the disaster. Never reminisced. Never said a word about this voyage from hell. But his memories of that day had buried themselves in his eyes, which, as a child, I learned to read. I wondered how close Kostya had been to the reactor well. Wondered what it must have smelled of there — burnt flesh, or something neutral preceding something appalling, or perhaps just ordinary chemicals? I imagined the ruined faces of the men in the reactor well, their cold sweat, their shaking hands, the careful steps, the muffled voices, the nearness of death, the radio silence, the icy quiet of the Arctic Sea, and the dignity of the icebergs, among which the submarine resurfaced, rescued from the loving embrace of the deep. I believe that on that day — for it was daytime — the stars were shining despite the sun, making the icebergs glow like Christmas trees. That the islands off Spitzbergen on the Norwegian side of the sea looked as peaceful and perfect as a film set.
The Eighth Life Page 51