The Squeeze

by Lesley Glaister

  But Mama pulled his fingers away and took him to an orphanage for a better life. There was a box in the door for new babies in the night. It was the only way, she said. I cried terribly. My heart was bust right open, never to mend. But I did believe he’d be looked after well in the orphanage and maybe adopted by kind people.

  After that I never cried again.

  Marta

  The workers on Marta’s shift, 6pm to midnight, were the young and the old and the feeble. Everyone else – including Mama – worked a full-length day or night shift. On Sundays – the only day she saw her mother for more than a few minutes – Marta noticed the grey skin, the harsh lines that dragged from nose to chin, and knew that soon she must offer to swap shifts. Although Mama was only forty she seemed an old woman already, the way she stooped, and sighed.

  Not that Marta found the twilight shift and the queueing for food, the housework and minding Milya easy, but at least it meant she could find an hour most days to study her English books. Once she’d swapped with Mama there’d be no more time for that. Giving up her English now would feel like giving up on Tata – giving up on herself – altogether.

  You couldn’t speak at work. Each side of the conveyor belts was a line of blanked faces. The heavy canvas masks, which looped behind the ears, obscured the nose and mouth. Each time she put one on, Marta wondered how much good it did – the canvas heavily saturated with the chemical dust that hung in the air and made the unprotected eyes smart – and so hot. The packers were meant to wear goggles, but the lenses were so scratched and dusty it was impossible to see through them, so the foreman ignored their flouting of the rules and was generous with eye drops when the chemicals were particularly noxious. The work – grading and packing industrial chemicals – was simple, unpleasant, tedious and Marta soon lost any curiosity about the use or destination of the chemicals.

  After Tata died she’d had no choice but to offer to leave school and earn money, hoping, hoping that Mama would say no. But Mama said yes. Tata would have been so angry. Marta struggled not to feel bitter at the irony that by dying in the name of freedom, Tata had left her trapped, any hope of university gone. She’d hoped at least for an office job, sometimes one came up, but at that time there’d been no such vacancies. So here she was, packing chemicals as Tata had promised she’d never have to do. But at least it was part-time; at least she could still study. Until she had to go full time. That day was looming. Still, she hadn’t given up hope, not yet, that something better might come along. Some chance.

  She nodded across at Sig. Her yellow scarf struggled to contain her springy curls, and above the mask, plucked black brows arched above her reddened eyes. Raising her eyebrows, Sig looked across at the clock. Involuntarily, Marta checked too, annoyed with herself for giving in: she tried not to look; the more you did, the more time dawdled, seeming sometimes actually to stop. You might look at the clock several times and see no movement of the hands at all.

  Now it was nearly 10, two thirds of the shift done, just the hardest, weariest third to go. If only we could talk, Marta thought, as she did each night, but the machinery that drove the conveyor belt drowned speech and the canvas masks prevented lip-reading. She continued to scoop blue crystals into plastic pots. This chemical was not bad, only a little stinging of the eyes and a sharp clean smell, on the edge of pleasant. There was an itch at the nape of her neck, but she could not scratch it with her contaminated glove so had to bear the itch that bloomed like a sparkly flower. Shrugging her shoulder blades together she concentrated on her dream – to go to England. To travel past Big Ben each day on a red London bus, to send home so much money that Mama wouldn’t have to work.

  It was how she bore the itchy, eye-stinging hours at work, practising her English verbs or dreaming of the UK and embroidering on the dreams. Sometimes she concentrated on the effect at home of the money she would send: Mama’s face smoothed out and smiling; a new carpet, no more smell of pee; Milya with a leather satchel and fresh school blouse – now she would go to university.

  But tonight Marta had something else to think about. All day she’d fended off the thought but now she let it come. This morning a letter arrived, a letter in a smart blue envelope addressed to Miss Marta Sala. It was from Mr Antenescu, inviting her to meet him for tea on Sunday in the Hotel Bucaresti. The Bucaresti! This was a swanky place in the town – not the sort of place for the likes of Marta. Her first impulse was to tear the letter into shreds and throw it away: this was the sort of thing you were warned about. Strangers making promises. But he’d made no promises. And what if this was her big chance? What if she ignored it and the chance went by? She’d rescued the scraps from the bin and pieced them together. The handwriting was small, neat, educated. I wish to compliment you on your natural beauty and grace, he had written. Natural beauty and grace! It was nonsense, of course. Just the sort of flattery you must not fall for. But still, no one had ever said such words about her.

  Of course, she would not meet him. How could it lead to any good? She wasn’t naive. She knew what happened to girls who fell for such men. But still, natural beauty and grace. She tucked the scrap of letter that bore these words inside her bra where it made her feel beautiful. Tata used to say she was, but that was a father’s biased opinion. Tata used to say – but no.

  Eight months since he’d gone and she was getting better at bearing it; had learned to shrink the grief into a bean that she could swallow down.

  At last the hour hand dragged itself to 12 and the hooter blew. The workers filed out, dropping gloves and masks into barrels by the door ready for the next shift. Sig took off her yellow scarf and her bleached curls blossomed out. Marta shook loose her long, dark hair. The girls walked arm in arm across the bridge. The sour river smell smogged around them making the other figures frail and dreamlike in the lit-up dark. Sig, the same age as Marta, was already engaged to Gustav from the cement works and was chattering about him, as she always did, recounting every conversation, revealing who said what, how many kisses and where she’d let him put his hands.

  ‘It’ll be you next, Marta,’ she said, ‘then you’ll know the meaning of “turned on”. It’s like your belly melting and wanting to slide out between your legs.’

  Marta said nothing. There was a boy, Virgil, who’d made her feel the beginnings of something like that. She used to meet him on a dump of wrecked cars, a dangerous place, a place where gypsies hung out, but still she’d go there and sit in a smashed-up car with him. They never did more than hold hands, though surely soon he would have kissed her. She’d loved his hands, long fingers, little red hairs flecked on the backs, thick rough knuckles.

  Tata forbade her from seeing him, but still she did. In the car they played a game. Virgil in the driver’s seat; Marta, looking at his hands on the steering wheel, telling him where to take her, somewhere like the moon or a crazy made-up place, but most often London or Loch Ness or somewhere in the UK.

  ❦

  Suddenly she clambered onto the parapet of the bridge.

  Sig squealed. ‘You nutcase! Be careful!’

  The parapet was wide enough to stand on, but Marta’s stomach plummeted at the dim glimmer of the river through the smog. She held out her arms for balance and took a step or two, almost tripping on the broken ankle of a saint.

  ‘I can’t look,’ wailed Sig.

  ‘Everything all right there?’ Some busybody. Marta imagined falling. Not jumping, just letting go, the swoop of space, the splash and the cold plunge and then the death. Or maybe not death, more likely she’d get caught up in the rubbish on the bank, fished out and rescued, mortified, coated in slime and crap.

  ‘Jump down now, no need to be hasty here,’ said someone. Marta laughed wildly. Did he think she was a suicide? The donkey! It almost made her want to jump now just to show him, just to do it, and with a thrill of adrenalin she looked down again, it would be so easy and so much less embarrassing than being h
elped down from the parapet.

  ‘It’s Mrs Sala’s girl,’ said someone, ‘she’s on my shift.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Marta jumped down, jarring her knee in her clumsy landing. ‘Some people should mind their own business,’ she said as she strode away.

  Alis

  I gave my little boy the name Marcus. I thought he would grow up with kind people. I wished for him to be happy. I prayed every day for God to care for him.

  After he was born, after he was gone, Mama drank too much and drank and drank until she choked to death.

  God forgives her.

  I was not alone. I stayed with Mama’s friends. I was careful and had no more kids. It was a not bad life. But every year on his birthday I thought of Marcus, where he was, was he happy? I sent him love. I prayed to God to keep him safe.

  When they shot Ceaușescu and his wife, and showed it on TV, we did not believe our eyes. We screamed, we were so happy. We fucked for free that day. We thought we were free.

  But after Ceaușescu was killed, there was news on TV of things that happened in his regime, bad things, secret things the people did not know. He was very wicked man, more wicked even than we thought.

  Please God, never forgive that man.

  One day I saw a movie about orphanages on TV. The kids were not looked after. There was no love, no toys, the babies were tied up in cots. When I saw the faces of the kids, empty faces, rows of cots, like hundreds of tiny prisoners, I wanted to die. I wanted to stab myself in the heart.

  Forgive me.

  I wanted to kill God.

  Marta

  On Sunday Marta borrowed Sig’s blue dress. Although Sig was taller, it fit Marta more snugly round the chest, showing the crease where her breasts were squashed together in her too-small bra. Antoni was home, dressed in a cheap shiny suit. He’d got away from the neighbourhood, so why not she? He was eighteen, but his greased-back hair and spindly moustache made him appear almost middle-aged – until he smiled and then, with his snaggle of teeth, he looked about six.

  The Revolution had brought him freedom. He lived and worked in town – it did not do to think too closely about his work – and had made this Sunday visit bearing a joint of beef and a bottle of wine. Mama was flushed with the pleasure of these gifts (she did not ask how he got them) and with having her son back in her kitchen. Every now and then she reached out to touch his arm, to check that he was real.

  All this for staying away for months on end, for barely sending any money.

  ‘You can’t go out,’ Mama said to Marta now, tearing her gaze away from Ant, ‘we’ll have a feast.’

  ‘You look like a tart,’ Ant said, letting his eyes rest on the strained top buttons of Marta’s dress.

  ‘You look like a pimp,’ she said.

  ‘Marta!’ Mama scolded.

  ‘But he said . . .’

  ‘What’s a pimp?’ said Milya, clambering onto Ant’s knee.

  ‘And how would you know?’ Ant said. ‘Spend a lot of time with pimps?’

  ‘What’s a pimp?’

  ‘I’m going.’ Marta grabbed her bag.

  ‘Please stay,’ Mama called.

  ‘What’s a pimp?’

  She slammed the door and wobbled down the corridor in Mama’s best shoes, high-heeled, mock leather sling-backs. She took it as a good omen that the lift was working and stood within the scratched steel box holding her breath. It was a risk getting inside on a Sunday – once Ant had been stuck between the 2nd and 3rd floors for half a day and had to pee in the corner. But today it worked smoothly and soon she was stepping out into hazy sunshine.

  The shoes pinched as she walked to the tram stop. It was two rides to the centre of town. She could have spent the fare on sweets for Milya, or a glossy magazine. It still seemed amazing that you could openly buy magazines from the west. Once that would have been enough to make you disappear. She could spend her money as she liked, though guilt pinched like the shoes.

  Quarter to three; she stopped outside the hotel. What did you do in a place like this? Report to a reception desk and explain your business? It’s all in your attitude, Sig had told her. ‘Walk in there like you own the place, look down your nose at all the flunkies.’ Sig was all grand words, but now she was not only engaged to ordinary Gustav but had missed a period. So, she’d settled for this life and this time next year might be a mother. Not me, Marta thought, not me.

  Half hidden behind a lamppost, she waited. The polished white marble steps gleamed with silver in the sunshine. They were spotless. Every day someone must have to polish them. She caught sight of a smudge of brown, half a footprint and it pleased her. Nothing can stay that clean.

  When Mr Antenescu arrived, she’d step out, bright and breezy, pretend she’d only just rolled up herself. She held her elbows out from her sides to dry the dampness in the armpits of the dress. A doorman in a gold-frogged uniform stepped forward to help people into or out of the taxis that drew up, and to carry their luggage up or down the steps. These days any man with a car could call himself a taxi driver. So many tourists, willing to pay ridiculous prices.

  A horse-drawn trap drew up, and a couple of elderly Americans creaked out. They took a photo of each other beside the horse, the driver – in some version of Romanian national dress – grinning and raising his whip.

  She watched and waited, aware of suspicious looks from the doorman. 3:05. How long should she wait? Her stomach twisted with the sudden certainty that he wouldn’t turn up – but there was also relief. Two trams and she could be back for beef and wine, tomorrow she’d boil the bone for soup . . . her mind ran on to carrots and onions, dried beans, dumplings flavoured with dill.

  ‘Can I help you, Miss?’ the doorman said.

  ‘I’m waiting for a friend.’

  ‘Perhaps you could wait inside?’ His eyes rested on her bursting buttons, ‘or else come back later. Loitering around like this, it doesn’t look good.’

  Marta flushed. ‘I was only enjoying the sun, but if you have a problem with that . . .’ With a dignity ruined only by the wobbling shoes, she made her way up the steps, through the revolving door and into the plush of deep blue carpet, muted light, a smell of smoke and polish. It took a moment for her eyesight to adjust to the gleaming wooden reception desk, big as a bed, the pairs of deep sofas facing each other across low tables, the lamps with their respectfully bowed faces. There were people sitting around, some formally, some lounging as if in their own homes, tea trays and liquor bottles. The elderly American couple shared a huge bottle of Coca-Cola from an ice-bucket on a silver tray. A uniformed waiter moved towards her. About to throw her out, she was sure. She saw the sign for the Ladies toilet and fled inside.

  It was beautiful in there. Her heart hammered. It was like a temple. The marble walls and floor. The folded pile of paper towels. The cakes of white soap. A red rose in a vase. Her stupid face, blazing in the mirror. Who did she think she was? She locked herself in a cubicle. Her stomach was cramping. She pulled down her pants and sat. It seemed almost sacrilegious to soil the crystal water in the porcelain bowl, but she had no choice and hunched, ashamed of the smell, jumping up quickly to flush the toilet.

  She washed her hands with the white soap, webbing her fingers with scented bubbles. In the bright space the mirror lit her cruelly, the way the dress strained across her chest made her look fat and you could see the ridge of the safety pin holding together her bra. Natural beauty and grace, indeed! What a fool she was! Thank goodness he had not come. She would go straight home, take off the dress, eat beef with Mama, make peace with Ant. She slid a cake of soap into her bag, and a wad of paper towels. The only other thing to take was the rose, plastic it turned out and moulded into a clear Perspex vase. Mama would love it. She bent the stem to fit it inside her bag and scuttled out quickly – startled to find Mr Antonescu right outside the door.

  He took her ha
nd and smiled down at her. ‘I’m sitting there.’ He indicated a table tucked away in the farthest recesses of the room. ‘I asked a waiter to point you my way, but . . .’ He gestured at the Ladies.

  Marta looked down at the shoes, noticed a splash of water on her skirt, screwed the material up in her hand to hide it.

  ‘Well. Here we are,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

  In his corner they sat side by side on a leather sofa. She sank deeper than expected and gave a little gasp. He sat close beside her, trousers tight as sausage skins round his thighs. Breathing in his smell of expensive cologne, she crossed her legs, letting one high-heeled sandal dangle in a way that seemed casual and sophisticated.

  ‘Coffee, cakes and perhaps a brandy?’ he said. ‘You look as if you could do with it!’

  Marta nodded. She supposed that he would be paying – but what if he expected her to pay her way? How much did things cost in such a place as this? Was this a date? Could you call it that? She kept her bag, fat with stolen goods, clenched under her arm.

  Pavel beckoned the waiter and made his order. Then he leaned towards her on the sofa. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all week,’ he said.

  Smiling sideways at him, Marta hid the little thrill that ran through her. He seemed younger close-to – perhaps not much more than thirty. She’d thought 40 at least on the bridge. But look at Ant, how much older the suit and moustache made him appear. Pavel’s eyes were small, deep-set, a very pale blue that reminded her of Mama’s best tablecloth. And that cloth would surely be unfolded today in honour of Ant, in honour of the beef.

  ‘How old are you?’ Pavel asked.