by Inga Abele
“May second.”
“And what’s this about the Caucasus, if it’s not a secret?”
“He was a really good person,” she finally said.
“I know. So what about the Caucasus?”
The woman thought for a bit.
She dreamt that in the Caucasus steppe—
He lay still, a bullet in his breast…
And yet, I am Ruslan’s now,
And will be faithful to my vow.
Andrejs propped the card against the windowpane so its edges were surrounded by the reflection of the candlelight.
The woman said:
“We liked poetry, like Pushkin’s ‘Ruslan and Ludmila.’ I’d read it to him when our kids were still little. Before he got mixed up in that damn gang and robbed that gas station… He was so surprised that there was a poem like that—about us, he said—just imagine! About us!”
The woman stood and opened the refrigerator. She pushed the champagne toward Andrejs, having suddenly grown very calm. He opened the bottle just as calmly and poured the chilled liquid into the glasses. In the reflection of the flame, the bubbles dancing in the sparkling wine seemed like lonely planets.
Andrejs lifted his glass:
“Well then—to us! To all of us.”
The woman nodded, and they both drank. Bliss—ice-cold bliss.
The woman spoke:
“And yours got better?”
“What?”
“Tuberculosis?”
Andrejs rubbed his cheek. The champagne made him feel very alive.
“There was actually nothing wrong with me. Time was running out. The last thing people had on their minds back then was prisons. There was famine in the prisons, actual famine, unemployment, and insanity. In order to survive I ground sugar into powder and inhaled it. A lot of people did it. And man, the lung spots it would produce on the X-rays! Say what you want, but the food in the hospital was much better. But after a while I started to think I really was sick. Every night the taste of blood in my mouth, at first in my dreams and later for real. You spit and see blood. Every night. Nothing during the day. During the day—powdered sugar.”
They’d emptied their glasses. The woman reached across and poured another.
“But the night Ruslans died… It was like—what’s so terrifying about it, people die! I was in for murder. That’s how it went.”
He said it before he realized what he was saying, and looked at the woman. She looked straight back at him. There was no fear in her eyes, no surprise, no questions, just an unwavering stare.
“But that night he died, it happened so fast. Didn’t even take five minutes. He was alive, and then all of a sudden I was holding him in my arms and everything was covered in his blood. The guards came and took him away. And then it was quiet again. I went back to my bed and found the half-written letter to my wife. I couldn’t finish it, the pen moved around the paper on its own, my thoughts had left me. Just five minutes—and it was like the letter was finished by someone else. Understand?”
He downed the champagne and gritted his teeth. Words, words. The devil had once again urged him to wear his heart on his sleeve. There was no point. He should have left when he had the chance.
“Another drink, artist!”
The woman poured the rest of the champagne. A good woman. A woman was supposed to be like that—warm as a bread oven. He wanted to tell her everything, but it wasn’t possible. There are certain thoughts you should keep to yourself.
“If I can, I’ll recite a poem for you.”
This kind of courage made him break into a sweat. Ieva had always encouraged him to write poetry, but he’d never been good at it. Ieva, on the other hand, was—you could even say that she put everything that happened down on paper. Like photography, but what you could do with photography was still entirely different from whatever prompted words. Write what you felt the moment you opened your eyes this morning, she’d urge him. He sat down with a piece of paper and sighed and complained until he was done. He thought it needed to turn out good if he gave into Ieva’s pushing. But it wasn’t good, he knew so. Ieva thought so, too; she was quiet for some time after she’d read it. “I woke up early, the alarm clock rattled like a chainsaw…” It went something like that, and it wasn’t like it didn’t make sense. What Andrejs saw was nothing like the morning or an alarm clock on the paper, but rather his own useless, Sisyphean battle with language, with words. And this nerve-wracking battle left that particular morning in its wake, that morning—one of many, but so unrepeatable. He hadn’t known how. But now?
—black woods surround you, wipe your forehead
black swamps surround you, stay here and live
the teeth of the white dog cannot reach to bite you
black fields hold their hissing hands out to you
take shelter behind the pine forest, gather dropwort
black swamps surround you, wipe your forehead
your retreat to the ninth breath was not in vain
keep your sorrow behind you, your joy in your arms
there will be a sharp fog when you open your eyes
the teeth of the white dog cannot reach to bite you
the breath and the palm, they will guide you
black woods surround you, don’t cry, but sing…
He had been left alone in the dark expanse and tore the lines from deep within his chest like flaming bullets, like his life depended on it. They died and were born from the death of the last, joined like the links in a chain of logic that only he understood, and they held fast. In it wavered his childhood, moments from the murder, serving his guilt and time, glimmers of Ieva and Monta, of his mother and father, and the black woods—places that, when he saw them, always caused a sharp ache in his heart because you could also love a place to the point where seeing it made your chest feel it was on fire.
Then the poem was over and he snapped out of it, thrown back into the shallows, into a strange kitchen where he’d said too much and, even worse, bared his soul through words.
Because of that third glass! Hadn’t life taught him all good things come in twos? Two cigarettes. Two glasses. Have a third and the rest of the numbers are redundant.
Andrejs rushed out of the kitchen and started pulling on his coat in the dark hallway. The woman followed quietly behind him like a cat and turned on a tiny, yellow wall lamp. She stroked his shoulders, neck, unshaved cheek, everywhere she could touch his skin.
She whispered:
“Such a beautiful poem. Did you come up with it in prison?”
“No, just now. And what about you?”
“Me—what?”
“He’s dead, but you’ve moved on?”
“Yes, slowly. What else can you do?”
“Prisoners. We’re prisoners in this life. Us. Everyone.”
He yanked on the door.
“Unlock it!”
The woman obediently found the key in a basket and put it in the lock. When Andrejs was already on the threshold, she suddenly and quietly asked:
“What about the roast?”
Andrejs hugged her to him. Strange lips like an undiscovered steppe.
Screw the steppes, Ludmila, let’s forget the steppes and our words, you were Ruslans’s Ludmila, but you’ll be my Demeter, the fertile earth herself! Someone discovered us long ago, gave us words hundreds and thousands of years ago. How I ache, how I search for this Giver of Words, I want to shake his hand and thank him for his creation—I sense that we won’t be the ones to give words, that time will grind us down and scatter our dust thrice over a broken field, the goddess Demeter and me, your mortal beloved—but I’d still like to look into the face of the Giver of Words, he is all-knowing! Look into the eyes of the Giver of Words, and finally find peace.
And then came the abyss, she embraced him, absorbed him, took him in and swallowed him like Calypso swallowed Odysseus, while he inwardly longed for the coldness of night, the bridge over the river and his moment of existence, his
long-standing sentence of loneliness.
Too tired to object, he quietly prayed to the Lord, and the Lord came over him and he finally grew calm, having sunk his thorn into His hot center.
When he woke up the next morning, he was alone in the room. The smell of the roast and the woman’s singing floated from the kitchen.
It was a harsh morning, misty and cold. They ate. The food was delicious, rich, like her.
He asked:
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
“But today’s Saturday,” she answered.
As if he didn’t know.
“These days some people have to work Saturdays, too.”
“Oh, that. I work in accounting at the prison.”
Andrejs was speechless:
“So you do!”
“When he died in the hospital in Riga, the kids and I left the city. Took a train on a whim, the farther away the better. Got off at the last station, rented an apartment, asked around for work. Turns out this town has a prison and the prison was looking for an accountant. Might as well, I thought! If it’s a prison, it’s a prison. No reason trying to run from your destiny. Nothing wrong with work, either. It’s a good job, stable.”
“Yeah it is,” Andrejs laughed.
“A person’s got to eat. We’re prisoners in this life, you said it yourself last night.”
They watched some TV. There was a commercial for some movie playing at Cinema Riga.
“Would be good to see a movie,” she suddenly said.
“Go to Riga?”
“Why not? I haven’t been to the movies in ages! Or to Riga.”
He was horrified by the idea, but she was already getting dressed and humming. So be it, he thought, feeling very unexpectedly generous.
The woman had dressed up nicely for the event—she’d done her hair and put on makeup, put on a light dress under a short jacket, silk stockings and heels. Like a girl, he thought. It didn’t suit her. But what can you do if a trip like this to Riga happened only once in a while?
The train was full, but they were able to find seats facing each other by a window. Andrejs was embarrassed to look at the woman, her legs seemed too naked for the winter weather, so pornographically, screamingly lewd. This nakedness radiated toward Andrejs and completely unsettled him because something in it was meant only for him, aggressive like a good poem. Oh, Demeter, he thought, staring stubbornly at the reflection of his own dark face in the window, not looking at her once, even though she now and then touched his leg with her shiny, stocking-clad ankle. He even ignored her questions until she grew annoyed and glared straight ahead, the smile gone from her face as she was rocked by the rhythm of the train. Then he could safely scowl at her hair in the reflection in the window.
There was no snow, and after three and a half hours they stepped out onto the black asphalt of the Riga Passenger Station platform. The wind was biting, and the train’s passengers burrowed deeper into their coats and quickly disappeared into the belly of the station.
“The movie theater’s back this way,” Andrejs said. “Let’s go along the tracks, and then we’ll head down into the city.”
“Why that way?” the woman was surprised.
“No point in wasting money for the tram.”
The woman hesitated. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her, just leered at her sidelong like a wolf. She was close to tears, trying to keep her jacket closed with one hand and beginning to think something wasn’t quite right.
“Let’s go! It’s not far.”
They started to walk along the side of the tracks. Andrejs in front, hands jammed into his pockets and shoulders hunched forward. The woman behind him, with her exposed, white legs and heels, jumping over the ties and rusted iron of the switches. The wind blew open the slit in her dress and her legs were covered in goose bumps. Her nervous footing caught in the gaps between the ties.
The woman finally spoke up:
“So this is taking a trip to Riga, to the movies, huh? You could’ve come up with a better idea!”
Andrejs answered curtly:
“This is the fastest way.”
“We could’ve taken the tram like normal people!”
“What a princess! Keep moving!”
The massive train track field was at least half a kilometer wide at this point; electric trains went back and forth, signaling their approach from the bend with a whistle, then coming into sight themselves. A fence ran along the tracks, as did paths worn down by bums and bushes containing piles of garbage—below it all were the wavering city lights and din of traffic.
The train to Moscow slowed down and passed them on its way to the station. Andrejs froze in his tracks. He and the woman looked in the direction the train was going. The last car slowly rolled by.
“What are you looking at?” the woman asked.
He didn’t answer.
Dogs.
Guards who shove you against each other, throw you, toss you like lifeless sacks… But first—dogs, the wild barking of dogs, sinister, horrible… Dogs—the devil incarnate… Cerberuses… Then the soldiers, their boots…
On the ground!
On your knees…
Hands behind your head!… Move, right, left, we’ll shoot without warning!… Days and nights of waiting in the half-dark without food, water… Then suddenly a light, shouting, barking, the wind in your face like rye bread, so fresh, so alive and rich… You eat it half-blind, chew it, swallow it—fresh air… Until you’re herded into a new cell, where they de-lice you, re-clothe you, shave your head, and save you from yourself. On the ground!…
On your knees…
Prisoner transport cars.
And, having lost all other characteristics of being human, you’ll latch onto your kind, will remain nailed to your kind.
“What are you looking at?”
“Prisoner transport,” he finally said reluctantly. “You see that last car there on the train to Moscow? The last one’s a prisoner transport car. It gets hooked on at some point—in Daugavpils or maybe Krustpils. When all the passengers get out, a locomotive will come, unhook it and push it onto the side tracks. Maybe overnight. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe they’ll take it right away to Central Prison. Who knows—maybe only the day after tomorrow—to Jelgava or Liepāja.”
This Russian woman had the knowledge of transport cars in her blood; knowledge about where prisoners spent the night before they got put in the stocks, before the sentenced whippings, before being branded with the symbol of shame and exiled to Siberia, when every condemned soul is to be pitied, when you feel compelled to give them a warm sandwich, to drop an apple into their laps, to force your way through the crowd so you, too, can press a coin into their hands.
But she’d lived with that two thirds of her life, and she’d had enough. She didn’t want to deal with it tonight, and launched a rebellion. She whined:
“Let’s go. I’m cold. C’mon, let’s go, good God are you going to stand here for hours? We’ll miss it!”
She walked forward a few steps, then stopped.
“That’s where all your memories are, all your friends, right? Transport cars and shackles, and dogs, and railroads—right? Well go, run, beg them, maybe they’ll let you into that car, huh? That’s where your entire life is, snitch!”
“Shut up!”
“But it’s over now,” the woman said from somewhere behind him, and started to cry.
“What’s over?”
She grew scared and got quiet.
“Don’t cling to any fantasies or hopes! Don’t! You’ll get exactly as much as you need. And leave the rest of it alone! I’ve put prison behind me. And I won’t tell you anything more!”
The woman stood on the tracks in the fall drizzle in her see-through stockings and stupid shoes, and trembled. The wind tore at her jacket, hair, and tugged at her thoughts, she looked so pathetic in her fancy get-up and red lipstick… and so close.
“Sweetheart,” she said, “but it’s over now.
”
He spun around angrily and wanted to head back to the station. Ditch this drama and leave, like he’d done so many times before. But he suddenly felt that he couldn’t. It surprised him. He’d told her everything on his mind, but these words suddenly meant nothing, and disappeared like they’d been dropped down a well. Sweetheart, she’d answered, and was still standing there.
And he couldn’t go anywhere.
Strange. What’s left to not experience, he thought sadly.
He turned back around and started to climb down the steep embankment. She stumbled after him, crying out quietly when her foot slipped in the mud, and balanced meekly on one foot like a child when he brought the stray shoe to her and put it back on. Taking each other tightly by the hand, they dove downward, into the bright city.
Father
Several ducks and a goose idly putter along and nibble stalks of grass by the canal downtown. The weather is hot and humid as a greenhouse. A storm shifts tensely high overhead, but it can’t pull itself together.
Monta and Andrejs, having left the apartment, sit outside at the café. Andrejs rubs his thumb over his train ticket—he always buys it ahead of time for the trip home.
Old men play checkers on a bench under the lindens by the café terrace. Squealing children run around the adjacent playground, where the blue and red plastic tunnels, steps, and towers radiate a poisonous heat into the absentminded dust of the city. Punks and National Bolshevisks lounge in the grass in their striped woolen sweaters. But for now, father and daughter have the café to themselves.
Monta tries to inconspicuously wipe the sweat from her upper lip. Andrejs watches the ducks, watches his daughter, does up and undoes the top button of his shirt. As if waking from a trance, they now and then hastily pick up their drinks. The tonic swims with the reflection of the trees overhead and the broken shadows from the straws. Andrejs’s straw is yellow, Monta’s blue. Andrejs has a strong, almost violent mouth set in a darkly tanned face. Monta’s lips are sensual and soft, with traces of red lipstick.