by Rose Tremain
“Yes. I agree,” said Larissa. “What work do you want to do, Lev?”
Lev said that he was qualified in only one kind of work, which was that of an engineer at a lumber yard. And then he found himself describing how the trees at Baryn had all been cut down and never replanted so, in the end, the sawmill had nothing to saw and all the machinery was silent now and rusting away as the seasons came and went.
“That is so typical of our country, isn’t it, Larissa?” said Lydia. “Nobody thinks about the future and nobody ever has, and now the future is here and the people are leaving.”
“Well,” said Larissa, “I left ages ago.” And she told the story of how, in 1992, Tom had come to an international conference of therapists at Glic and she had gone with a friend from her yoga class to a late-night bar and met Tom drinking there on his own and fallen in love with him in the space of one night.
While she told this story, Tom sipped his wine and smiled, and his blue eyes looked bright, in the candlelight, like the eyes of a child. And Lev thought, My life will never be like theirs. It will be humdrum and devoid of love. But he didn’t want these people to see how he envied them, so he feigned great interest in Larissa’s story of the meeting in the bar and Tom’s courtship of her and the way they gave each other language lessons in bed. And the subject of his own want of a job floated away, as though nobody could bear to spoil the evening with anything so wretched—not even Lydia—and Lev thought, Well, never mind, the food is beautiful and the wine, and the light in the room is golden; I’ll sleep under the apple trees, and in the early morning Lydia and I can go through the jobs in the paper.
After supper, they sat on the leather sofas drinking coffee and Lev smoked and they talked about yoga. Larissa said, “The practitioner of yoga lives in a state of what we call ‘alert passivity.’ That is, we are wide awake—not sleeping, as so many people in this country are emotionally and spiritually sleeping—and yet not questing perpetually after this or that thing. You understand? We’re alive and waiting, and when you wait in this kind of way, ideas for your own endeavors and solutions to problems of all kinds come to you without difficulty.”
Lev liked this. He wished it could be true in his own case. But he felt obliged to say, “I don’t think many people are in the state of mind you describe, Larissa. I’ll mention my friend Rudi, for example, who is most definitely ‘questing perpetually after this or that thing’ every moment of his life!”
And everybody laughed, and Lydia said, “Oh, tell Tom and Larissa the story of the Tchevi, Lev.” So Lev began on the long drama of going with Rudi to buy the car and the door falling off into the snow and pouring vodka onto the windshield to melt the ice. And as he talked, he began to embellish the story with new details, as if he were an actor improvising on a theme, and he felt the power of the tale—its disasters and its moments of hilarity, and the way it drove to a good ending—and when it was over, he saw that Tom and Larissa had been held by it so completely that, after it, no other conversation felt entertaining enough and the room fell silent. And this was very satisfying to Lev, and he thought how moments of importance had, through all his forty-two years of life, so often belonged to other people, but that these last few minutes had belonged to him alone.
Soon after this, a church clock somewhere on the sloping streets of Muswell Hill chimed midnight, and Larissa got up and began to gather the wineglasses and the coffee cups.
Lev stubbed out his cigarette. “I must go,” he said. “Thank you for the beautiful dinner.”
He saw Lydia look anxiously at Larissa. Larissa caught the look and turned to Tom. “What I suggest,” she said, “is that we make up a bed on the sofa for Lev. Don’t you think, Tom? It’s too late for him to find some place to sleep.”
“Yes,” said Tom brightly. “Good idea.”
“Oh yes!” blurted out Lydia, pressing her hands together. “I was going to suggest it, but I didn’t dare. I think a bed on the sofa is a good solution. Then, in the morning, I can do some translating for Lev.”
Lev’s head now rested on clean pillows, and his body was covered with a white sheet and a tartan rug. He kept the window open and the curtains drawn back, so that he could fall asleep looking out at the night. He heard planes pass.
Around three o’clock he was woken by a posse of young men shouting drunkenly in the street. He tried to make out what they were shouting about.
“Fuh’!”
“Yeh, fuh’!”
“Effing cun’!”
“Effing fucking cun’!”
Slowly, they moved on, kicking a can along the road. Lev heard the sound of vomiting.
The Paradise of Muswell Hill.
Lev was wide awake now. He reached for his cigarette papers. He was wondering whether Lydia had heard the commotion when the door to the room opened and he saw her standing there in her dressing gown.
“Lydia? What is it?”
“I’m sorry,” said Lydia. “I couldn’t sleep. I feel so bad.”
Lev sat up and switched on a light. Lydia’s dressing gown was quilted pink satin and her slippers were white and fluffy. Her face looked shiny.
“I feel so bad, Lev, that we didn’t pay any attention to you.”
“What do you mean?” said Lev.
“We should have talked more about your work and tried to make plans for you. And when I heard those people shouting and swearing in the street, I remembered how horrible streets can be, and how you have been out there all the time and we just didn’t try to help you at all last night.”
“You helped me,” said Lev. “You gave me lovely food . . .”
“I mean for the future,” said Lydia. “I want you to have a future.”
Lydia crossed the room and came and sat on the floor by Lev’s sofa. The street had gone quiet again and Lev could hear a night bird singing softly in one of the deep-shaded gardens. He began to roll his cigarette. Lydia touched his arm.
“I would like to try . . .” she said. “I would like to help you and be close to you, Lev,” she whispered.
Lev was glad he had a cigarette. He lit it quickly and inhaled.
Lydia’s face was very near to his. “I know you may not want this,” said Lydia. “I know you are still mourning your wife. I respect this. But I was thinking, I have a good job now. I could help you —”
“That’s a kind thought,” said Lev. “So kind. And I’m pleased about your job with Maestro Greszler. But that’s your new life, Lydia, and tomorrow I must follow your example and find mine.”
“I don’t mean money,” said Lydia, flustered. “I mean just helping each other a little. Spend time together . . .”
“Yes,” said Lev. “Sure. And I’ll accept your help with the jobs in the paper.”
Lydia looked down. “On the bus,” she said, “I got so used to being with you. Side by side. It’s ridiculous, I know. But I pretended to myself we were traveling together. And when I said good-bye to you . . .”
“Lydia,” Lev said gently, “we weren’t traveling together.”
“I know. I know. This is really stupid of me.”
“No, it’s not stupid, but . . .”
Lydia put her hand round Lev’s wrist. She held it tight. “Can I touch your hair, Lev?” she whispered. “You have beautiful hair. So thick and nice. May I just touch that?”
Lev looked down at Lydia’s shiny face, with its splash of brown moles. There was something about her that had moved him from the beginning—the way she’d eaten those neatly packed hard-boiled eggs, the quietness of her voice—but the idea of being touched by her terrified him.
“Listen . . .” he began.
“Just your hair,” said Lydia. “That’s all.”
“My hair’s dusty,” said Lev.
“I don’t mind.”
“Listen . . .” he began again. But now Lydia reached up and put the back of her hand on Lev’s head, just above his ear. Lev didn’t move. Lydia’s hand didn’t move. The cigarette kept burning. Lev though
t how, during the evening, he’d been close to feeling happy in this room, but now this happiness seemed shallow and compromised. He cursed himself for telephoning Lydia.
“Lev,” said Lydia, in a quiet little childlike voice, “you know you’re a very handsome man. It would be so sad if you decided to be alone always. Don’t you remember how a kiss can feel? Do you?”
“Yes,” said Lev. “I do. But now we must both go to sleep.”
As gently as he could, Lev reached up and took hold of Lydia’s hand and placed it in her lap, and he watched her lower her eyes and stare at her own hand as though it were some unexpected gift he had put there.
“It’s nearly morning,” said Lev. “Can you hear the birds singing?”
“Well,” said Lydia, “I am not particularly interested in birds.”
5
Two-point-five Meters of Steel Draining Top
WITH LYDIA’S HELP, Lev found a job as a kitchen porter in a restaurant kitchen in Clerkenwell. It paid £5.30 an hour.
The chef-proprietor of the restaurant, called GK Ashe, was Gregory (G. K.) Ashe. The restaurant manager, Damian, who interviewed Lev at three in the afternoon, said, “GK Ashe is the next big thing in this city. Are you hearing me, Olev?”
“Yes,” said Lev.
Damian was a pale, middle-aged man with a shaven head. He was dressed smartly in an expensive suit and a shirt the color of lemonade. He had the kind of smile that faded and died as soon as it touched his lips. Damian looked intently at Lev, his glance moving over the other man’s body, frisking him with his brown, wide-awake eyes. Then he said, “You’re skinny. That’s good. Mr. Ashe likes his staff to be skinny. Because it’s a sign they’re nimble. And everybody in this kitchen has to be nimble. Nimble, fast, and tireless. D’you understand what I’m saying?”
“Tireless?” said Lev. “What is that?”
“Never tired. Never showing you’re tired, even if you are. Because the shifts are long and you’ve got to be up for it. Nobody yawns here. Okay? You just stifle it. Catch you yawning and you could get a bainmarie chucked at your head.”
“Bainmarie?” said Lev.
“And you never, never eat the food, right? If Mr. Ashe sees you put so much as a slice of lemon rind in your gob, you’ll be history. So don’t do it. There’s a staff meal at five p.m. It’s light, because we don’t want the workers’ guts weighed down with protein, but you’ll survive. And—if the service has gone exceptionally well—Mr. Ashe is sometimes overcome with magnanimity at one in the morning and he makes crostini for us all. And we open a few beers. And we’re like a family then. You’ll see.”
Damian smiled his fast-vanishing smile, and Lev said, “Family is good.”
“Yes, it is,” said Damian. “It certainly is. I expect you’ve got a family at home, have you? That’s what you boys do—I’ve seen it— send all your money home to some village, right?”
“For my mother and for my daughter.”
“Yes? Well, you’re a kindhearted bunch, I’ll say that. Is your wife here in England with you?”
“No,” said Lev. “My wife . . . she died.”
“Right,” said Damian. “Right. Okay. Sorry. Now come and see your sinks. Here they are. Two sinks and two-point-five meters of steel draining top. State-of-the-art hygiene area. Racks here for service platters and plates. Multiprogram dishwashers here for glassware. Jet scourers. Temperature-controlled rinse faucet. Okay, Olev? You could wash up for a regiment in this facility.”
Lev stood at the sinks and looked at the length of steel-tiled wall behind them and at the clean-laundered linen tea towels hung up in a neat line on steel pegs. He wished Rudi were here to see all this and be awed. Heard him say, “Jesus, Lev! Take a look at this ravishing shiny shit!”
Lev would start the following day, reporting for work at four.
“Don’t forget, Olev,” said Damian, as he walked Lev to the kitchen door, “that a restaurant kitchen operates exactly like an orchestra. Everybody has to focus up and keep time. And there’s only one conductor, and that’s the head chef. So keep alert. Don’t rest. Don’t take breaks. Keep playing your instrument and play it in time. Then you’ll do well. See you tomorrow.”
Lev came out into the sunshine, rolled a cigarette, and lit it. On the other side of the street, a few drinkers still occupied a pub table, and their laughter was like the laughter of children, unrestrained and loud. Lev sat down near them, and one of the women, a smoker, said flirtatiously, “Hi, Peaches!” and the men turned round to look at Lev, but only for a moment, because their drinks were what they held to and no stranger could part them from their concentration on those.
Lev ordered a beer. He’d earned this small celebration. He was part of the British economy now. He didn’t have to go back to delivering leaflets for Ahmed. He could send another card to Ina, telling her he had a job paying £5.30 per hour, which was more than he could earn in Baryn in a day.
But then he remembered that money had a new terror here.
The room Lydia had found for him in Tufnell Park was going to cost £90 a week. Added to this would be his tube and bus fares, and his food and his cigarettes. How much would be left to send to Ina? Would anything be left? Lev looked at the young woman who had called him “Peaches.” How did she manage to live and grow fat and drink away the hours of a Wednesday afternoon? How did she afford it? The woman repelled him: her bulging belly, the greasy skin of her face flaming in the London sun. He preferred to remain alone, sipping the cold beer. He spread out his Underground map and began to plan his journey to Tufnell Park.
It was a street of choky little houses, called Belisha Road. Rowan trees cast a deep shade down one side of it. The pavement was cracked and lumpy and stained.
Number 12 was on the shaded side, and a high privet hedge, overgrown to wide proportions, made the entrance dark. Behind the hedge stood overflowing garbage bins and a bicycle, chained to the window bars.
Lev rang the top bell, beside a card marked C. Slane.
He waited. He placed his bag on the step beside him. Down the street, he could hear a dog barking and see a child kicking and shrieking in a pram. The berries on the rowans were beginning to turn gold.
When the door opened, Lev saw a small, elfin kind of man, with pale, nervous eyes and a flare of eczema across his nose. He wore an old white T-shirt and faded jeans too loose for his narrow frame.
“Mr. Slane?” said Lev.
“Yes. Christy Slane. Come in, come in. I was expecting you. Your friend Lydia telephoned about the room.”
In the dark hallway several pairs of sneakers lay in a sprawling heap, under a line of hooks, where anoraks, scarves, backpacks, fleeces, and leather jackets hung.
“None of this junk is mine,” said Christy Slane. “It belongs to the downstairs people. They don’t want the stink of the shoes inside the flat, so they leave them outside for me to trip over. They’ve no consideration and, of course, no imagination whatsoever.”
Lev followed Christy Slane up the stairs. He saw that the door to Christy’s flat was painted white and taped to it was a child’s drawing of a house. “My daughter, Frankie, did that,” said Christy. “She doesn’t live here anymore. That’s why I have the room to let. I should take the picture down, but I can’t quite come up to doing it.”
Christy closed the white door and Lev saw that the flat he was in was also painted bright white and it smelled of this fresh paint and of something else, which Lev hoped he’d recognized as cigarette smoke. He looked round at the doors leading off the small entrance hall they were in. He glimpsed a sitting room with a gas fire and two wicker armchairs and a dining table and a TV. A dented paper lampshade hung from the ceiling. The windows were uncurtained.
“Bare minimum furniture now,” said Christy. “My wife took her share and then she took half of my share. That’s Englishwomen for you. But she wouldn’t take any of the things I’d given her. Nor the things I’d given my daughter. So you’re going to share your room with a Wendy hou
se and a little plastic shop I brought all the way over from Orlando, Florida, and a cuddly toy or two. I hope this is all right. If you get peeved with them, you can help me get them up into the loft.”
Now Christy opened the door to the child’s room and Lev saw wooden bunk beds and a ladder leading up from one to the other, and bed linen patterned with giraffes. On the window ledge sat a huddle of soft toys. The floor was carpeted green. On it stood a tiny wooden house with red chimney pots and flowers painted over the door. By the bunks there was a multicolored rug, which reminded him of the rag rug in Maya’s room.
“Is it all right for you?” asked Christy. “It’s been cleaned and aired. Beds look small, but they’re full size. I’ll chuck your laundry in the washer once a week, all included in the ninety quid. You can be comfy here, can’t you? Not so different from my own little room. When I was a boy in Dublin, I had animals on me pillow. But if they bother you, we can get some other covers, cheap, on the Holloway Road. Okay?”
Lev walked into the room and set down his bag. He hadn’t understood all of what Christy Slane had been saying, except that he knew this had once been Christy’s daughter’s room and now that daughter was gone. He looked round at all the child’s possessions and then out of the window at a sycamore tree, whose wide branches almost touched the glass. Then he looked at Christy, standing in the doorway, as though not wanting to come into the room, his hands held at his sides in a helpless way, and Lev was transfixed for a moment, recognizing something of himself in the other man, some willingness to surrender and not fight, some dangerous longing for everything to be over.
“The room is very good,” said Lev. “I will take.”
“Right,” said Christy. “Good. Well, at least Angela left these curtains. And this is the quiet side of the house. Except when they have a barbecue in the garden, if you can call it a garden, the way they keep it, and they’ve got a puppy there right now that whines in the night sometimes, when they don’t bring it in, but otherwise it’s quiet. Now I’ll show you the facilities.”