Summertime

by Elizabeth Rigbey

  ‘That’s because you didn’t live within reach of the flat of his hand. I remember, only too well, how that hand felt when applied swiftly to the back of my legs. Of course, he had been both a victim and instigator of violence. To him smacking a small child was nothing. No, the family’s most magnificent multi-tiered, white-iced wedding cake of a lie is their best story. The Escape From Moscow.’

  ‘Sasha. What are you saying?’ I am almost speechless at this challenge to family mythology.

  ‘The train ride… it’s all nonsense. Probably they’ve eventually come to believe it themselves, so much detail does it contain, some of which I hope you have been spared. Aunt Zoya never omits the man who reached into his pocket and withdrew a sandwich before the round eyes of the ravenous children. He ate it while they watched, every crumb. It was days before they ate again and then it was only a few spoonfuls of kasha. I credit Aunt Zoya also with that last touch as she has always hated kasha.’

  ‘But…’ I protest lamely. ‘There was a train journey. We’ve always known about their train journey. Mother was telling us the story when we were still in diapers.’

  ‘It was exactly that. A story.’

  ‘But… what about the baby? The baby boy who couldn’t survive such conditions? And the railway official who took the body away and wouldn’t look at Grandma when she asked him to ensure there was a burial?’

  ‘No truth in it at all.’

  I watch Sasha as he forks food into his mouth energetically.

  ‘How do you know this?’ I ask at last.

  ‘You don’t need to know a great deal about Europe in 1941 to know how improbable their pan-European train ride is. Papa confirmed to me shortly before his death that it was all a myth and I have every reason to believe him.’

  ‘Oh, Sasha. Why would they construct such an elaborate lie?’

  ‘For all the reasons I have explained. They needed a narrative to lend structure to life’s chaos and, in their case, perhaps to cover the unpalatable truth.’

  ‘Was there ever really a brother?’

  ‘Oh yes. There was certainly a baby brother who died. And if you’re hinting that the story was concocted around his death then you’re absolutely right.’

  I cup my hands and put my face inside them.

  ‘So how did the baby really die?’

  ‘I’ll tell you if you want me to. But if you prefer, you know you can keep the train journey. Do you want to stay on the train or get off it, Lucia? This is the moment to decide.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well, given your fondness for the idea, you’ll be glad to know there actually was a train ride. But only from Moscow to Riga. Grandpa was indeed sent to Latvia to head a trade delegation and the family travelled there by train but it took perhaps only thirty hours, stopping often, and it was no great hardship. The travellers were Grandpa, Grandma and the three girls. No brother. In Stalin’s Russia even a valued and vetted member of the NKVD could not be sent away without some kind of guarantee against defection. One family member had to be left behind. Grandpa invited Grandma to decide who this would be. It was an informed choice. She understood that he planned to flee from Riga and therefore that the child she left behind in Moscow, and the relatives taking care of that child (I believe her brother and his wife), would be removed to labour camps and almost certain death. What a terrible decision. We can imagine her long, sleepless nights as she tried to select which children should come to America and which one would go to its death. She finally elected to pawn her baby son for their freedom.’

  ‘But what happened to him?’

  ‘The brother’s family and the baby all disappeared as anticipated. We don’t know what happened to them. But we can guess all too easily.’

  ‘So… Grandma effectively…’ My throat is dry. My words scrape against it as I force them out. ‘She effectively killed her son.’

  Sasha looks at me and blinks.

  ‘And the escape?’ I ask.

  ‘Soon after their arrival in Riga, one sunny Sunday, the girls were told they were going on a picnic. They thought the picnic hampers were heavy but they transported them anyway to the edge of the great river Daugava from where they planned to watch the boats as they ate. However, when they reached the river they were told to board a waiting fishing vessel quickly and quietly. Their father had bribed the fisherman to take them to Sweden. This manoeuvre was not without its dangers but once they were across the Baltic they knew they were free. They took a liner to America and I believe the ship was salubrious. Their escape involved little hardship. At least not to themselves.’

  Sasha produces a cigarette, which he lights, something he is not supposed to do anywhere in the apartment but his own room. He smokes slowly for a moment.

  ‘A story,’ he concludes, ‘that they were perhaps wise to conceal. But please note that, despite the fact that our sweet-faced, white-haired old babushka effectively, as you suggested, murdered her son, her grief was no less, and may have been greater.’

  I am silent. Finally I say: ‘Grandma should have refused to defect. Right?’

  ‘Not a good choice. If Grandpa was determined to go with or without his family, and I believe he was selfish enough to go alone, then all those who stayed behind would have been sent to a camp.’

  ‘But what would have been the right thing to do?’

  ‘The right thing to do. God, Lucia, can’t you imagine a time and a country so confused that there is no right thing?’

  I massage my temples. Finally I look up and say: ‘So what would you have done?’

  ‘Why, murdered one of the girls, of course,’ he tells me. ‘I’m surprised Grandpa did not insist on this because most men desire a child created in their own image. In Russia, as you know, fathers even assert their claims through patronymics: children take their father’s first name as well as his last. Grandpa was Dimitri and I’m sure it was always a matter of regret for him that the price of his escape was his Dimitrich.’

  Later, when I get up to go to bed, Sasha’s short, leather-clad arms close tightly around me.

  ‘Oh, Lucia,’ he pleads. ‘Stop, please stop, feeling responsible for your son’s death and start telling stories about it. Because it really doesn’t matter if they are true or false. If you tell them often enough you won’t even remember and the trauma will become more manageable.’

  The temperature is low now, lower than it has been for days. I take an extra blanket and fall asleep rapidly. As I do so I try to capture the tune which appeared in my head at Stevie’s graveside. Just once I think I hear my mother’s voice, clear, youthful, in the distance but before I can reach her she is gone.

  35

  The heatwave is certainly ending. Not only is the air cooler at Daddy’s house but it is more energetic.

  Jane is at the hospital today, the geologists are back and Larry is helping them out in the barn. I work in the den. I hope that, with concentration, I can complete my executor chores for Scott this morning and have him sign the last letters this afternoon.

  I am interrupted only once, when Larry brings me coffee and one of the enormous peanut cookies he likes so much.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he says guiltily. ‘I drove past the store on the way here and there was a parking place right outside. Who could resist that? It was meant to be.’

  ‘Larry, did you need to take the route past the store?’ I ask him. ‘Is that the only way to get here?’

  ‘Oh boy, you sound like me,’ he says, backing out of the door.

  I use Daddy’s printer for the last batch of letters for Scott. Then I close every file and start to stack them in the empty boxes, probably once intended for rocks, which I found in the barn.

  When I get to the oil royalties file I pause and open it. In Daddy’s financial life at least, loose, ends have now been tied and inconsistencies smoothed. Except for this one.

  I review the oil file’s long history. Daddy started by keeping his payments. Then, a few years later, just as t
he Simms-Roeder income started to soar, he stopped collecting. From that point on, I have failed to trace this income. All I know is that Daddy had it paid to the mysterious Marcello Trust. I try to calculate how old Ricky Marcello was when his family started to receive these payments. I was about seven. That means Ricky Marcello must have been a baby, or not quite born.

  When I step on to the deck the view has a new clarity. There is no haze and no mist. There is even an intimation of the hills on the far side. The straight lines of the valley, its right angles and the regular spacing of its trees, order my thoughts. As I stare, the valley seems to get closer, bouncing up to me like a dog.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Larry asks when I tell him I have to go out right away. Larry and the geologists have rigged up a temporary lighting system as bright as the midsummer sun and the barn is blazing. The strong light illuminates all the corners and crevices which have remained dark for so long. The three men sweat in their small circle of summer beneath the lamps, Larry and the bearded geologist on boxes and taking notes, and the quiet geologist on the dusty floor, surrounded by loose rocks, wearing a magnifier across his face.

  I answer Larry’s question without precision.

  ‘There’s just one file I haven’t been able to sort out,’ I say. ‘But I’m going to fix that now.’

  When I get to the Joseph house, Ralph is in the yard as usual. The dogs wag their tails and Ralph greets me. He is wearing overalls again today, and he is shirtless. The skin on his back and shoulders is deep brown. His neck and face are an almost supernatural white beneath his big hat.

  ‘Is Mrs Joseph home?’

  ‘Sure. Morton just went.’

  ‘I’m leaving California soon, I came to say goodbye.’

  He does not move so I walk over to the house and ring the bell and then Ralph joins me at the door. We stand there together like a pair of Mormon missionaries, waiting while Mrs Joseph unlocks it.

  ‘Hi Lucy. Hi Ralph,’ says Mrs Joseph as though she is equally pleased and surprised to see us both. I smell the house’s own aroma. Old wooden house, loved, cared for, full of flowers.

  The three of us go to the kitchen, the kitchen where Mrs Joseph and Barbara Marcello used to spend so much time. Robert and I could hear their voices when we passed, on our way up to the bedroom or out to the hammock. They talked quietly, intensely and then, without warning, the voices would rise to peals of laughter.

  Now Barbara Marcello smiles down on us from high on the dresser, her long hair escaping from the scarf which secures it. She holds an arm over her forehead to shade her eyes and half-squints at the camera as though it is the sun. The picture suggests beauty and strength but the detail of her face is obscured by shadow.

  ‘When did she die?’ I ask, gesturing to the photo, as Mrs Joseph supplies us with cold drinks. She’s cooking today and the baking trays which are spread across her work surface have been half filled by something which might be brownie mixture. The kitchen smells of chocolate.

  ‘I guess it’s two and a half, no, almost three years ago now,’ says Mrs Joseph, pausing, as though in homage, at her friend’s picture. ‘Ovarian cancer. They thought they’d caught it in time. But they hadn’t. It seemed terrible when it happened but it wasn’t such an awful death and anyone over fifty is guaranteed to have seen a few of those, I certainly have. Barbara was calm about it and she worked hard on those closest to her to help them accept that she was leaving them. The end was peaceful. Of course, we all miss her. I miss her every day.’

  An unobtrusive death. Barbara Marcello was an unobtrusive woman. Suddenly it seems in character that Daddy, with his energy and bluster, should have a death marked by flashing lights and police tape across the drive.

  Mrs Joseph returns to her cooking.

  ‘I’ll fix some lunch when I’m through with this. I got behind with my schedule because I didn’t want to bake during the heatwave.’

  ‘Brownies,’ explains Ralph.

  ‘In a weak moment I told the Valley Easter Barn Dance Committee that I’d make a hundred and fifty brownies. I do them in batches and then freeze them.’

  ‘For Russian Orphans,’ Ralph adds.

  ‘Not the brownies. The money we raise,’ says Mrs Joseph.

  Ralph takes his hat off. The hair beneath it is pure white. The contrast with his childlike face shocks me.

  We sit in silence, sipping our drinks, while Mrs Joseph pours the brownie mixture from a big green bowl into the pans. When the bowl is empty she scrapes a spatula around it. The spatula leaves clean, green lines behind.

  I say: ‘Ricky isn’t Ricky Marcello’s real name. Do you know what his real name is?’

  Ralph shrugs.

  ‘I’ve always called him Ricky,’ says Mrs Joseph.

  ‘I saw on the sign outside the Marcello garage that it begins with an E. I think it’s Eric.’

  They both look busy, Mrs Joseph with the brownies, Ralph with his drink.

  I say: ‘Who is his father?’

  Mrs Joseph puts down the bowl. Ralph puts on his hat, hastily, as though it looks like rain.

  ‘I guess Barbara didn’t make a habit of telling people,’ says Mrs Joseph at last. She opens the oven and for a moment we all feel its hot breath. She slides the brownies inside and closes it rapidly. Then she takes off her oven mitt and sits down across the table from me. She looks open, receptive, but her brown eyes are concerned.

  ‘Are you still worried by Ricky Marcello, Lucy? Please don’t be.’

  ‘Ricky’s my friend,’ Ralph assures me.

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you,’ adds Mrs Joseph.

  I say: ‘I think he’s my brother.’

  And when I hear the words, when I’ve slipped them on to the kitchen table with the same swift precision that Mrs Joseph slid the pans into the hot oven, I know they are true from the way the silent room receives them.

  Mrs Joseph continues to look at me, her eyes perhaps a little wider than usual. She waits for me to speak.

  ‘Men like children created in their own image. They want their children to take their name. If not their last, then their first name and sometimes both.’

  ‘Now just because they have the same first name, you can’t conclude that they’re father and son,’ says Mrs Joseph carefully.

  ‘Oh, there’s a lot of other evidence too which I didn’t know or wouldn’t see. Daddy stopped taking his oil well royalties and started paying them into the Marcello Trust just around the time Ricky was born. He taught Ricky to fix things and gave him the old tow truck. He came here with Barbara and when he was with her he was different, he was happy, he laughed, you said he laughed himself helpless. It was through Barbara he knew you, right? And when he used to leave me here… was he going on field trips? Or was he going to stay with Barbara and Ricky?’

  Mrs Joseph sighs.

  ‘Your face is red, Lucy. You look angry. You look hurt.’

  I glare up at Barbara Marcello. Smiling. Half in shadow. ‘I thought I liked her. She was nice to me,’ I say bitterly. ‘After the car crash, before Jane got there, she was so goddamn nice. I didn’t know she’d stolen my father and given him to Ricky.’

  I sense movement and see Ralph shrinking inside his hat. He looks so miserable that for a moment I feel bad.

  He says: ‘Aren’t you pleased your father was happy?’

  I want to cry with the pain but I’m too angry.

  ‘Why did we have to get the lonely, sad Daddy? Why couldn’t we have him happy too? It makes me feel I didn’t know him at all.’

  Mrs Joseph is compassionate. Her face droops as though she’s about to cry for me. ‘We never can know all of someone.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was a liar and a cheat. I thought he always tried to do the right thing. I respected him, I measured others by his standards.’

  Ralph and Mrs Joseph are silent. I become aware of the trees shaking in the new breeze outside. Plants and shrubs tap on the window as though they’re trying to clamber through it
. One of them sends its heady scent into the kitchen and it seems to settle on our silence. Then, quietly, Mrs Joseph starts to talk.

  ‘I don’t know what a husband is entitled to expect in a wife. A companion, a mother, a helpmate, a rock, a lover, a wealth-creator, a cook, a homemaker, a decorator, a friend. Whatever your definition, through no fault of her own, your mother couldn’t deliver. Your father met Barbara very soon after your mother got sick and very soon after that they had Ricky. The relationship continued until the end of Barbara’s life. It was close and it was happy. They were like man and wife but most of the time they didn’t live together and it worked for them.’

  Far off, across the valley, a dog barks.

  ‘But… he was our father! Jane’s, mine!’ I protest. ‘How could he have another family at the same time?’

  ‘He only saw them once a week, occasionally more. He’d have vacations with them when you were away at summer camp or staying here. Having them didn’t make him love you any less. He was a big-hearted man.’

  ‘He was a big cheat,’ I mutter.

  ‘He needed support and kindness. He was coping with your mother and bringing up two daughters alone.’

  There’s a sniff in my voice. ‘But it was such a betrayal.’

  ‘Because he didn’t tell you?’

  ‘He kept one whole part of his life secret.’

  ‘I guess he didn’t want your mother to know because it would have upset her so much. But when you were old enough not to tell her, I thought he could have explained it to you. I thought you’d understand and be pleased for him that he was happy. But he chose not to do that and I don’t know why.’

  ‘He came to stay with me in New York…’

  ‘Right after she died. It was a good vacation for him, Lucy.’

  ‘But she’d just died and he didn’t tell me. He was grieving and he didn’t show it, I didn’t realize.’

  Daddy in New York. A man staggering and smiling in the elevator.

  ‘I guess he’d trained himself pretty well to hide his feelings. He was adamant, even when Barbara was dead, that the two sides of his life should never meet. And that was sort of hard on Ricky because he knew about you and Jane. It’s been hard for him too, Lucy. But he promised his father that he would have no contact. No contact under any circumstances. I think that added to his feeling that you were Eric’s first family and he and Barbara were way back in second place.’