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High Tide

Page 25

by Inga Abele


  He found her in a little over ten minutes. Took Ieva by the elbow with his large, warm hand and led her to the center of the dance floor.

  No one was dancing, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. What was important was that Ieva was dancing with the stranger. She could think of a few times when a hopeful beginning had turned into a complete catastrophe.

  This wasn’t one of those times. They moved a little in one direction, and then the other, before they both suddenly spread their wings and took off across the creaking linoleum floor.

  After a good half-hour the two of them ran outside—to throw snow at each other and cool down.

  After that they spent half the night standing in the quiet hallway near the spare rooms like two horses standing neck-to-neck. He had his hands wrapped around her waist and was digging his strong chin into the hair next to her ear. At first Ieva was worried that she was sweating through her white sweater, or that her face was too flushed, but he just breathed into her hair and said nothing, and Ieva slowly relaxed, unwound, blossomed.

  “You smell like cookies,” he said, his voice thick. Ieva nodded. Before the dance she’d secretly taken a packet of vanilla powder from Gran’s hutch and sprinkled the fine, snow-white powder into the material of her sweater.

  And then they were kissing, their lips hot and eager.

  “Let me go!” she suddenly rushed down the hallway, feeling agitated. She didn’t smell like vanilla anymore, but like something even warmer and gentler than vanilla.

  In the bathroom she turned on the cold water, rubbed her cheeks and looked into the mirror.

  What now, Ieva?

  She could still feel his breath in her tousled hair.

  Best to go back and dance.

  His name is Andrejs. He’s from the inland, not from the seaside families.

  He’s almost ten years older than she is. Lives at the Zari house, which belonged to his grandfather and which he got back after the Awakening. Before Ulmanis, the property still belonged to Baltic Germans. When Mother Germany called her children back home before World War II, the Baltic German quickly sold the property back to Andrejs’s grandfather, and then boarded a ship with the rest of his household to never again return to this marshy corner of the world. Back in the collective farm times, the Zari house was home to a cotton workshop.

  After the dance, Andrejs walked Ieva home. It was an endless night, both wonderful and terrible, as if she’d been injected with something, a paralyzing substance—velvety black, volatile.

  He told her he’d been in the army, fought in Afghanistan, but that he never wanted to talk about it. She shouldn’t think the worst—but there had been a situation where four men had lost their lives on account of him.

  His friends.

  Men he had known very well.

  It’s not even possible for people in this country to comprehend that place, he said. He’d had a good instructor at officer training in Viljandi who started a lecture on Afghanistan with the following comparison: If there were a spring not too far from your house, and your house had no running water, what would you do?

  Carry it with a bucket, someone had answered.

  Eventually put in a water main, was another reply.

  So, the instructor had emphasized, you’re going to a country where people have carried and carried water from springs to their homes for thousands of years because that’s what their fathers and grandfathers did. As far as the water main goes, you can forget about progress. It’s not a country of progress, it’s a country of traditions. That’s something you’re going to have to experience for yourselves.

  And Andrejs had experienced it. He watched how a local grandfather passed a hemp pipe to his son, and then to his grandson. Accustomed to drugs from a young age as if it were bread. No drinking, though; alcohol turns a person into an immoral creature.

  But—enough about that.

  That’s that, he’ll tell her once and then no more! Sorry, but he’ll say it right now—he wasn’t going to talk about it.

  Ieva shrugs—if not, then fine. Only there was no reason to get so worked up about it.

  Andrejs used to live with his parents on the outskirts of Riga and worked as a car mechanic. Then they got back his grandfather’s property and he didn’t have to think twice—since the Awakening, everyone was rushing back to the countryside to renew, rebuild, and reconstruct. As the only son, this was also the path Andrejs had to take.

  They’d kiss under the big ash in the Zari yard—it seemed that this ritual was important to Andrejs, to kiss Ieva right under the ash tree. The house itself was in bad shape. The cotton workshop had left behind its dark, sooty imprints on the walls. Like a person who wakes up from a restless night with a face full of pillow marks. The half crumbling staircase in the middle of the house, the tattered wallpaper fluttering in a draft. But Andrejs was hopeful—he had a tractor, the Zari house, and fifty hectares of Kurzeme land.

  On a beautiful June evening Andrejs pulls Ieva down next to him in the apple orchard. They kiss as usual, but after a while a strange tension spreads from Andrejs to Ieva. She looks into the clear, clear eyes of her boyfriend.

  Andrejs asks:

  “What’s with you?”

  Ieva looks away.

  “I want it to happen now.”

  Ieva sees the leaves against the sky. They’re blue.

  Then she closes her eyes. After a bit she feels Andrejs’s excited breathing above her.

  “It’ll be alright,” he murmurs.

  Two currents struggle within Ieva. One is holding back, the other rejoicing—finally, it’s going to happen! Since the time the fire first awakened in her, it’s been suffering and waiting for release.

  A massive force tries to break into her, it hurts, she moves away. Andrejs persistently follows her body, as if to say that it’s only in fairy tales that breaking happens without pain. Ieva’s eyes are full of tears, something in her bends like a footbridge over a river, and then gives, breaks.

  Then the invisible river throws them ashore—the ground under her hips is hard and real like always. Andrejs lies on top of her, motionless as a rock. Then he kisses her, rolls off, and Ieva’s eyes again see the vibrant blue. A lonely bird circles high, high in the air. Ieva thinks—what is it like for birds? To grow up, love, and fly. So naturally. Does that also hurt?

  “Let’s get married, Iev’,” she hears Andrejs’s voice. “No one will find us here. A marsh on one side, woods on the other, let’s live here.”

  “I’m only seventeen,” she says.

  “I’ll wait.”

  It hurts.

  Two currents struggle within Ieva, two lightning strikes, two destinies. Until now, her life has always gone according to her plan. Now she feels like a caged animal. She can’t go on living the way she did before, but she doesn’t know how to live any other way and has her doubts.

  Exactly when did the first crack form in the wall of this house?

  And the discrepancies in the assumed moral obligation of a person’s life?

  At times fate gets underfoot like a stray dog, and sometimes it has rabies. It’s great if the cards that fate deals you seem good. But what happens to the simple freedom of your childhood?

  They’d already moved into the Zari house, already spent their days and nights together, but at the same time she told Andrejs: Don’t wait for me, I’m not promising anything, I don’t even want to see you anymore! Some sort of insanity came over her. She wanted it to be like before, before she met Andrejs, to live as free as a bird in a tree. She said those harsh words, and her own heart almost broke.

  It wasn’t possible to live simply anymore.

  Andrejs said nothing in return, but got drunk by himself. Came to see Ieva looking wrecked. The tractor jostled along the road like a horse. Andrejs followed her through the rooms, crying, tearing, swearing oaths. Threatened to drive right then over the ice and into the sea! Ieva had never seen him like that. In the end she took pity on him, lay him down, took
his heavy head into her lap, and watched as he fell asleep.

  The first time she had looked into Andrejs’s big, green eyes, with their flecks of brown and curious melancholy, she had sensed how cruel fate was, about how she would fight to pull away from it, cower in fear from it. But how she would oddly enough always be subjected to it.

  Now, with Andrejs’s head in her lap, she senses that twice as much. How can she escape it? Look at how comfortable he is right now, fast asleep! Does she love him? Supposedly yes. But at the same time she wants to run away.

  Where is her freedom?

  Even if she cried for help—she doesn’t think anyone would hear her.

  She tried to talk about it with Gran:

  “What do you think about Andrejs?”

  “What’s there to think, sweetheart, he’s a handsome boy, and hardworking at that.”

  “But something about him scares me, Gran. People say he’s moody.”

  “Well, other people can think about him what they want, but for you he could be gold!”

  The Extinguishing

  How beautiful the clouds are!

  Along with the wind and the sun, they’re the best painters in the world. The sky is a canvas. Sometimes the clouds are joined by the full moon and the reflection of the earth in droplets of fog.

  Masters of the chiaroscuro.

  And then there comes a day when, as the clouds are painting, a person happens to tilt his head back to look up at the sky. Rays of light slide across his face. A never-ending cycle of extinguishing and flickering. You don’t know where to take your next step because the earth blazes up in front of you, but in your eyes—it opens up wide. When it dies out it gets as dark as a peat bog pothole. You end up jumping from one spot to another so often that the earth trembles. When the clouds are painting light and dark.

  The same thing happens in a person’s life—a sunny corner can suddenly become overcast.

  The only remaining letter after Ieva’s brother Pāvils was born (from Lūcija’s sister to Lūcija).

  Lūcīt!

  I’m once again rushing out to visit you. Yesterday I ran around like a mad dog, but wasn’t able to find everything you asked for. I bought two bras, I could only find them in one store and only in a size 5. The sales lady said I should buy two sizes up. If they’re too big you can cut off and re-sew the buttons. I couldn’t find the straps you wanted, not even cotton or gauze. I’ll run over to the pharmacies on Ļeņina Street, maybe I’ll find something in that neighborhood, but I doubt it. There hasn’t been any cotton or gauze in the city for two months. We’ll have to think of something else.

  I can’t get myself to calm down—I keep thinking and crying about the negligence of those doctors. It’s interesting that they all say the same exact thing, that the trauma will fix itself, but you say that your son is completely crippled. Maybe it’ll really be like that, a month or so will go by and he’ll be a normal boy. Definitely name him Pāvils. It’s an old, good name. But you haven’t even asked what his father thinks. Okay, I’ll stop here, I won’t wait for you to write back. If you can, call me, I’m putting in 2 kopeks.

  With love to both of my heroes

  (give the containers back right away, and wash the grapes)

  This letter is addressed to Lūcija in the 7th ward. The word “ward” has been stubbornly crossed out, and the word “room” is penciled next to it in different handwriting. As if to say—there’s no one sick in here! And yet, and yet…

  It’s been only a little over a year since Ieva was born, but that sunny corner is now overcast. Ieva’s mother has already yelled at her husband. Ieva’s father has managed to upset her. Any woman sitting at home with a child has an imagination more vivid than any writer—it doesn’t take much to get upset. They barely talk to each other anymore. Only when absolutely necessary: when it’s about food, the time, or sick relatives.

  After a long and tormenting period of thinking it over and finally deciding to have a second child, Lūcija puts her trust in destiny and doctors, and her in mother’s words that everything with a second child is twice as easy, and silently, deep down secretly hopes that after the baby is born her sky will clear up again. Like it had with Ieva.

  But it doesn’t. It grows even darker. Pāvils is in no hurry to be born. The doctors don’t properly monitor her. Then the baby is far overdue and the poisoning starts. The labor itself is difficult, and Pāvils survives, but his movements for the rest of his life are palsied, even though his mind is exceptionally sharp.

  And there’s something else—a kind of malicious termite inhabits Lūcija’s brain after his birth. There are a few days in the first month where her head aches so intensely she throws up and she isn’t even able to take care of Pāvils herself. She lies motionless in a dark room. A typical, unexplainable migraine—so says the doctor. The forever-busy, mercurial Pauls is not happy about this. Even though he loves his daughter and son, he’s not ready to quit his job for them. And what’s more, Pāvils needs special care.

  They decide to send Ieva to the seaside village where Lūcija’s parents live. At first the grandparents are concerned, but when their granddaughter arrives and laughs for the first time, they feel as if they’ve been given an unexpected present. Every night, Gran gives her granddaughter a bath in a large tin bowl set on a warm stove. As she scrubs Ieva’s back, Ieva faces the stove, inspects the kitchen utensils—clangs the pots, plays with the foam skimmers, touches the enamel cups and saucepans hanging from hooks.

  Brother and sister grow up apart from one another. Lūcija and Pauls never separate, even though their married life isn’t harmonious and Lūcija only feels happy once in a while. No sunlight shines into their Riga apartment because it’s unforgiving to Lūcija’s melancholy eyes. How does that first crack in the structure of a person’s life form? Is it the moment when assumed moral obligation is replaced by reality?

  When the clouds start to paint, the sun grows overcast.

  Ieva’s Birth

  For the moment there are only three things to prove Ieva’s birth—I’ll whisper to you what they are—and they can be found in the attic of a building in Riga, in a yellow-painted wooden chest with stylized Latvian folk engravings on the lid. Attic mold hasn’t held back—the contents of the chest are almost entirely overgrown with this fuzzy evidence of time. Fifty or so letters written in different hands have turned into a greenish-black turf; the letters are unsorted, stacked in a pile and secured by a half-disintegrated piece of twine. A foamy grey covers the glossy greeting cards, rings of moisture paint over the ugly color; time brings everything together with a robust drawing. The ugliness betrays its owner, the Soviet era, the era of ugliness. Moisture has eaten away at the black-and-white photographs—amateur handiwork from those times, when every self-respecting Soviet citizen had a small darkroom in his Khrushchev-period brick apartment building. A darkroom with an enlarger, a processer, chemical baths, and an infrared light bulb. With a wave to his family, such a perfectionist would disappear behind the curtain Friday evening, latch the door and, in the reddish-black light, rest a veneer sheet covered with all his treasures across the bathtub. There he’d sit on the closed lid of the toilet and watch intently as the developing chemicals conjured lost time onto the paper. The magnifier could be used to select individual faces from the crowd, and the developer used to regulate the level of bleakness in the facial features. Some photo paper was hard, which made the scene turn out a coffee brown. Other paper turned out gloomy, bluish and slightly pliant. The air in the bathroom would be positively charged, chemically fragrant. And the family would be annoyed because the only way they could get into the combined bath and toilet room to take care of their natural needs was to beg and beg. The photography enthusiast would make up for his offense by letting the children dry the wet photographs, lay them on the cutting board, and let them trim the edges with a straight-edged razor or a special blade. Additionally, whoever was trimming the picture got to choose how wide the white border would be. Bu
t God help anyone who forgot and flipped on the bathroom light!

  Now the photographs have been cut up by time and humidity—here and there are the white teeth of broad smiles, the black scarves of funerals. The most popular subjects in photographs from that time are various foods and bottles set on banquet tables surrounded by happy guests, or funerals with a somber and grey forest in the background.

  What has outlived this moldy turf is a time of receipts, a time of sending postcards, a time without e-mail.

  And three little pieces of evidence to Ieva’s birth.

  The first piece of evidence—or rather, the first announcement of Ieva’s birth—are small tags, the ones that were attached to gold jewelry in the Soviet Union. Tiny, calligraphy lettering on the cards explains that the gold items were rings made in the Riga Jewelry Factory: item 0611, 583-proof, weight 5.66 grams, price 11 rubles and 50 kopeks per gram, total item price 65 rubles and 00 kopeks. The second ring has a weight of 6.12 grams, total item price 70 rubles and 38 kopeks. Ieva’s mother and father, like two tagged birds, slid these rings onto each other’s fingers, following the worldwide tradition to thus express their trust in a single being among all other beings.

  The second bit of evidence is an orange piece of laminated material bound with gauze thread; on it in black ink and in Russian are written Ieva’s mother’s name and surname, her father’s name, that they have a newborn baby girl, weight 3 kg and 50 g, her birth date and time, and her mother’s patient number—71. Red ink lettering indicates five seconds, apparently the amount of time that passed before Ieva’s first cry.

 

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