The Woman Behind The Waterfall

by Meriel,Leonora

  At the end of the street they turn a corner to where the post office and a food shop stand back from the road in a little paved courtyard. Above the post office is a yellow sign with Poshta written on it in large, black letters. Sveta squeezes Lyuda’s hand.

  “Don’t be nervous,” she says. “They know who you are. You pick up your payments here every month.”

  Lyuda gives a little smile. “I suppose so.”

  “Either they’ve got a job or they don’t. But anyway, you look great. You look really good dorohenka.”

  Sveta pushes open the door, and a bell rings as they enter a small, dark room.

  T

  I push open the kitchen door and I immediately notice the plate on the table, covered with a cloth, next to the jar of white and blue flowers I picked for Mama. I lift the cloth and look at the wide cake, covered with ground walnut crumbs and sunken in the middle. It looks delicious. I carefully pick a crumb from the top and lean my head back and drop it into my mouth from my fingertips as if I was a bird catching a tiny fly in mid-air. Snap! The crumb is gone. I select another and snap this one, too.

  I lay the cloth back over the cake and, since I am alone in the kitchen, I imagine that the whole room is filled with flying birds. I stretch out my arms and my fingers and they become strong, brown feathers. I lift up, and perch on the back of a chair and the sparrows and swallows and chaffinches and blue tits are darting around the room with quick, flapping wings. I fly up from the chair to the window and then from the window to the top of the cupboard. My feathers brush against the tip of a swallow’s wing and then I fly out of the open window and up over the garden and into this wide, wide blue sky, and I can fly in any direction, for as long as I want, in this wonderful, endless clear air.

  And then I think, I will be the sky, I will be the ether, and I tumble out of the bird and I dissolve myself into the surrounding air, and all at once I no longer have these beating, soaring wings, but I have become this incredible expanse of blue. I am as perfect and complete as the entire world, and I stretch onwards forever! I am everything! I am wind and cloud, I am the life of plants, the breath of every living creature, I am the transforming power in everything.

  I! I! I!

  And I myself am breathing in and breathing out with this immense power, expanding and contracting, giving myself to every living thing and then taking back what is given in return.

  The air feels my spirit within itself and it smiles, and it speaks to me. Welcome little daughter! And I do not speak, but I breathe in with all the plants and all the living things of the world, and I breathe out again.

  T

  At the post office, the bell rings, and an old woman emerges from the back door and approaches the counter. The room is divided into three sections, with signs printed on yellow paper announcing Post, Bills and Stationery. At the far end of the room is a rusty-looking till. The woman’s face is swollen, with a wide nose and a mass of wrinkles beneath a brown headscarf. Her bright blue eyes look strangely young, staring out from the creased, bloated face.

  “Nataliya Stepanivna,” says Sveta, in a respectful voice. The old woman is looking at Lyuda.

  “Lyudmilla Hrihorivna,” she says slowly. Her voice is cracked and strangely high-pitched.

  “Nataliya Stepanivna,” replies Lyuda, looking back at the woman. Her hands are clasped in front of her and she rubs her thumbs over the skin of her palms.

  The old woman gives a little chuckle. “I thought you were dead,” she says. “I heard there was a funeral.”

  Lyuda takes half a step back, her head suddenly pounding. She feels dizzy again. “What are you talking about?” she says. “It was my mother who died. You know my mother. Zoryana Ivanivna.”

  “I know,” says the woman, smiling. Her blue eyes are fixed on Lyuda, who reaches out to grasp Sveta’s arm. “But I heard it was you. I heard it was you who died. I heard it was your funeral.” She leans forward over the counter. “Now, why would I have heard that?”

  Sveta steps forward.

  “Nataliya Stepanivna,” she says. “I don’t know what you heard. You know that Lyuda comes here for her payments. You have all the books. I don’t know what you heard.”

  The woman looks at Sveta as if for the first time. She runs her eyes up and down her figure.

  “Svitlana Petrivna,” she says. “That’s about what I would have expected from you.”

  “Nataliya Stepanivna,” says Sveta again. Her face has gone red. “We’re interested in a job here. I know that Tanya has left to have her baby and you’re looking for someone. There was a notice. Lyuda is interested in the job.”

  The woman chuckles again and flattens her hands onto the counter. Her fingers are short and swollen and it looks as if the joints have set into painful curves.

  “There’s a job,” she says. “Now who’s interested in it?”

  Lyuda takes half a step forward. She feels another rush of dizziness going through her but she shakes her head.

  “I am.”

  She leans forward to rest her hands on the counter and she notices that her fingernails are dirty. She closes them into her fists and looks up at the old woman. “I am,” she says again. “I need some work.”

  The woman looks from Lyuda to Sveta and then back again. Her eyes narrow to slits, and without their bright, youthful blue softening the old face, her skin becomes a sea of brown creases, the narrow lips barely distinguishable. Lyuda notices a dark mole on her cheek, with three black hairs growing out of it. The woman speaks, and her voice is filled with malice.

  “There’s no job here for you,” she says. And then she pauses, watching Lyuda’s reaction through her narrowed eyes. She sees that Lyuda’s hands have started to shake.

  “Your mother would be ashamed of you,” she says. “Look at you. Everyone knows what you do.”

  She leans her head to the side and taps her neck with two fingers, just as Sveta had done the day before.

  “Look at yourself,” she says. “There’s no job here. Not for you. Your mother would be ashamed. I knew her. Your father too. Piyak!” she spits. “Drunkard. I can smell it on you.”

  She sniffs and nods her head, her eyes still fixed on Lyuda.

  Sveta takes a step back and reaches for Lyuda’s arm and pulls her towards the door.

  “You’re a miserable old woman,” she hisses. “You’re an old witch. You shouldn’t be working here.”

  She pushes open the door and the bell rings and she shoves Lyuda through it and out into the courtyard.

  “Let me know when there’s a funeral,” the woman calls out after them, and Sveta slams the door and turns and puts her arms around Lyuda.

  “Oh my god. Bozhe miy! Lyudichka, I don’t know what happened. Oh my god. Lyuda, are you alright?”

  She pulls back and she sees that Lyuda’s eyes are closed, but that two streams of tears are running down her face and dripping onto the lace of her blouse. Without opening her eyes, Lyuda reaches up into her hair and starts pulling the hairpins out of her bun.

  “Lyuda, stop it! She’s an old witch. Lyuda, dorohenka! You don’t understand what things are like, any more. Things are different. She probably lost everything herself. She’s probably got her husband at home knocking her head in every night. She probably drinks herself. For god’s sake, Lyuda, it’s not about you. I’m sorry, but it’s not about you.”

  Lyuda opens her eyes and lets the tears fall out. In her hands are the metal hairpins. Her hair has tumbled down in curls around her shoulders. She suddenly looks very young.

  “I’m tired,” she says, and she reaches up and wipes the tears off her cheeks. “I want to go home.”

  T

  Lyuda closes her front door and stands on the other side, listening to Sveta’s footsteps moving away. She glances at the cake lying on the table, covered with the dishcloth. She hears the gate open and the sound of the broken latch being fastened.

  It’s alright, she whispers to herself. It’s going to be alright. This is one
day. I can fight this.

  She wipes her face, waits a minute, and then opens the door again. She steps outside and goes over to the fence and looks down into the neighbouring garden.

  “Kolya?”

  She hears the squeak of a door being opened and Kolya comes out of his house, rubbing his hands on his trousers. He nods at her.

  “You’ve come for another rabbit?” he asks, and winks.

  Lyuda gives him a small smile. “Kolya,” she says, “I want to buy some...”

  Kolya nods and coughs onto the back of his hand. He is wearing a thick tweed suit and black rubber boots pulled up to his knees. He jerks his head to the side.

  “Come round,” he says. “I’ve got it here.”

  Lyuda turns away from the fence and walks up the garden path and through the gate, and then the few steps over to Kolya’s. His front garden is marked out with neat lines of green potato plants. He is waiting for her on the front step.

  “Want to take a look?” he asks, and motions his head towards the kitchen door.

  Lyuda moves past him and leans around to look inside the kitchen. On the stove, a huge red pot is set over a low flame. A thin metal tube is protruding from its lid and threaded into another pot, set on a high chair next to the stove. The room smells of sugar, beetroot and alcohol.

  “I never saw that before,” she says, coming out of the kitchen. “You’ll have to teach me one day.” She smiles at him.

  “No, Lyudichka,” says Kolya. “Man’s work. Not for pretty girls like you.” He runs his eyes over her tight skirt and her breasts under the lace blouse.

  “You’re looking very lovely, Lyudichka. Someone coming round tonight?”

  “Sure, of course,” says Lyuda. “You know me. Someone every night.”

  Kolya sniffs, and points to the shed at the bottom of the garden. “It’s down there. Let’s go and get it.”

  He waits for Lyuda to go first, and then he walks after her down the path, watching her hips and backside moving in the skirt and the high-heeled shoes. At the bottom of the garden, Lyuda stops and waits while Kolya pushes his shoulder against the door to open it. He goes in, and then holds the door open for her.

  She can see that the floor of the shed is stacked with garden equipment. Plastic and glass bottles, filled with clear liquid, are lined up on wooden shelves. She takes a step into the enclosed space, and Kolya reaches up to a shelf and takes down two bottles.

  “How many, sweetheart?” he asks.

  “Two or three,” she says, and then he turns, holding the bottles, and leans into her and kisses her on the mouth, making a growling noise.

  “You’re so...” he says.

  Lyuda pushes him away. His hot breath is all over her face, tasting of vodka and garlic.

  “Kolya, get off me! What are you doing?”

  Kolya slides the bottles back onto a shelf and then reaches round and pulls her hard against his crotch. Lyuda struggles to shove him away but he holds her with both hands and kisses her again, his bristles and tongue scratching her skin. Lyuda frees an arm and pushes his mouth away and then she reaches up and hits him across the face as hard as she can. Kolya grunts and releases her and she backs out of the shed, panting.

  “You dirty old goat! You’re disgusting. I’m not that desperate!”

  She twists round and stumbles up the path, the tight skirt and heels hindering every step. Halfway up the garden, she trips on a tree root and falls forward, but then catches herself on the edge of the fence. Her whole body is shaking, and her breath is jerking in and out. She can taste him in her mouth – the garlic, the alcohol, his tongue – and she screws up her face, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The buttons of her blouse have come undone, but her hands are trembling too much to fasten them up.

  Kolya has come out of the shed, his face twisted in anger. He is holding a hand up to his cheek.

  “Little bitch! That’s why you can’t keep a man. Chase them all off, don’t you? I heard you screaming all those times. I heard everything you said to him.”

  Lyuda puts her hands over her ears and hurries past the kitchen door and out of the gate, running the few steps down the path to her own house. She opens the front door and then slams it behind her and slides the bolt across. She collapses at the kitchen table, panting, and tries to calm her breathing. Pushing off the high-heeled shoes, she picks them up and throws them as hard as she can at the door. They make a dull thud and fall to the ground. She rips open the blouse she is wearing and pulls it off and throws it onto the floor, and then gets up and pulls off her skirt and walks into the bedroom in her underwear. She grabs her housedress from the back of the chair and pulls it over her body.

  She wipes her mouth again and gathers a glob of phlegm into her throat, and then she unbolts the front door and opens it and she spits it out into the garden. Turning back, she catches a glimpse of Kolya coming up the path, a bottle of samohon in each hand. His face looks sunken and old.

  “Lyudichka!” he calls out. “I’m...”

  Lyuda slams the front door before she can hear a word, and pushes the bolt back again. She looks around her kitchen and sees the cake on the table, and the memory of the post office comes back to her and she shakes her head. She waits a few moments, just breathing in and out, and then she swallows, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and goes over to the door and puts on her house shoes. She pushes the black high-heels into the corner with her foot, and then goes to the stove and reaches for a saucepan filled with green borsch, and she starts to heat the soup.

  T

  It is evening and Angela is sleeping.

  At the kitchen table, Lyuda sits, holding a glossy blue headscarf. She is running it through her hands, back and forth. Outside the front door, on the step, is a dead rabbit and three plastic bottles full of vodka.

  There is a knock at the door and someone tries the handle, but the door is bolted.

  “Lyuda?”

  It is Sveta’s voice, and it comes to Lyuda across the room slowly, as if it is not a real sound, but fragments of other noises that have come together at this moment to make up the strange sound of her name. Ly-u-da.

  She doesn’t look up. Her face doesn’t move. She pulls the headscarf back and forth between her hands and winds it around her fingers.

  “Lyuda?”

  There is more knocking at the door.

  “Are you alright? Open the door. I know you’re in there, Lyuda. There’s a rabbit on the doorstep and some bottles. Come and bring them in.”

  She knocks again. The noise of the wood resonates through the kitchen.

  “Lyuda, open the door.”

  Sveta goes to the window, but she can’t see in through the dirty glass and the curtains. She knocks on the window and Lyuda thinks of the bird pecking there.

  Peck, peck, peck.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “I’m coming back tomorrow morning,” Sveta says. “I’ve got to get back to the children. It’s going to be fine, Lyuda. Eat the cake. I made it for you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  There is a pause and Lyuda thinks that she must have left. Then another knock; faster, harder.

  “Bozhe! Lyuda, you’re not the only one with problems, you know. I’m sorry it was a rough day but you can’t spend your whole life hiding. Just pull yourself together. No one has it easy. You think I have it easy?”

  Lyuda can hear the heavy breathing outside the window. She weaves the headscarf between her fingers.

  “I’m taking the rabbit. Otherwise a fox will get it.”

  She hears Sveta returning to the front door and the sound of her bending downwards and lifting something from the step. She hears the gate latch being lifted and dropped.

  Lyuda stands up. It feels as if everything around her is growing and shrinking in great breaths of confusion; as if everything is growing unbearably large and open, and then shrinking down until she is so cramped that she has no room even to draw in air. And it is as if this is happening at the sam
e time – the opening and the closing, the awful expansion and the shrinking – and she sees that her hands are shaking and she puts the glossy headscarf down onto the kitchen table and she goes into the bedroom where Angela is sleeping. She stands above her daughter, watching her for a few moments, and then she reaches down and touches her cheek with her fingertips. She runs them over the skin and she touches the edge of her ear and strokes a single hair away from her face. She kneels down next to the bed and then she bends her head down and pushes it into the mattress. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, trying to stop any thoughts from entering her mind, pushing out everything except for the sound and the smell of her sleeping daughter.

  At last, she lifts herself up from the bed and goes across the room to a wooden chest. She opens it and rummages down beneath piles of dusty blankets and jumpers until she finds a length of yellow material, patterned with small flowers, and she pulls it out and shakes it open over the floor.

  She closes the chest and carries the cloth into the kitchen where she drapes it over the back of a chair. She looks at the window where she wants to hang it, to cover the flaking paint. She looks at the grey net curtains drawn across and the frayed hole that Sveta found that morning. They must have been white once, she thinks. She tries to remember back to her childhood, to find a colour in her memory, but she cannot. There is only the white paint of the window, and the smell of the paint, and something red.

  This will change the room, she thinks. These curtains will make it brighter. I’ll throw the others out. Yellow cloth. Sunshine.

  She takes a pair of scissors out of a drawer to cut down the old net and she steps out of her slippers and clambers onto the sideboard, hitching up the skirt of her housedress.

  Close up, the windowpanes are filthy, streaked with dust and grime. She wipes one of them with her finger, and as she touches the cool glass, something passes through her. Her eyes narrow and she feels a pressure in the back of her head. She looks at the line her finger has drawn across the dirt, and then she runs all of her fingertips down the glass, drawing five lines down to the bottom of the pane. She shivers. She is on her knees on the sideboard and outside, the evening is just starting to fade into darkness. It was here, she thinks.