This Is All a Lie

by Thomas Trofimuk

  So on the morning of April 4, when the Jackdaw comes looking for Anatoly at the window of his dacha, he is gone, but not gone in the sense that he is dead. He is removed. He is no longer there. Maybe he woke up on the morning of April 3rd, took a deep breath and realized there was a different kind of duty; a duty to keep breathing, a duty to try and give something back. He decides to honour the gift of his life. Did he have a dream about his mother, or his sister? Did an old lover visit him in his sleep? This lover would be naked and dark and luxurious, and she would whisper the truth to Anatoly. “Forgetting is not courageous,” she might say. “There is no honour in forgetting. Forgive yourself and move forward.” And then she would lean in to kiss him hard; a sweaty and desperate kiss that would draw Anatoly back toward life. He would never take another drink. Sometimes he would want to drink but he would never again need a drink.

  Maybe he moves to Kursk, assumes a new name and opens a bookstore across from Killfish Discount Bar on St. Petersburg Street. He starts to look for ways to make a difference. Then one day, a woman to whom he once delivered bad news walks into his bookstore, and even though he is much too old to be in love, he is smitten.

  Chapter 3

  “I feel certain that I am going mad again”

  “You do not need a whip to urge on an obedient horse”

  – Zhanna Petya

  The darkness came for her again, a week ago and it was a devastating bleakness. The sound of the wings was in her dreams. It was so loud and she could not move. The sound enfolded her. She was in the middle of it. Wingtips brushed her face and the air was a mayhem of back and forth, and up and down. She startled awake, and managed to lean against the headboard but she did not get out of the bed. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she’d already slept eleven hours. She does not want to think about what the spark was. There were a few therapists over the years that wanted her to go back to the onset of the darkness and try and find the trigger. What’s the trigger? they would ask. What happened just before the sound of the wings?

  She and Ray had made love the day before. He’d arrived just before 3 p.m. and left at 5:20 p.m. After loving each other he’d asked her about her hometown.

  “Kursk?” she said, coming out of the bathroom. “It’s old. And relatively small.”

  “Did you live in a house?”

  She looked hard at him, suspicious and unsure. He was sprawled on the bed where she left him. His cock was spent and limp, and flopped onto his leg. She’d made sure to cum. In fact, she’d orgasmed twice. It was almost too much pleasure and she felt drained by it. She was unapologetic about getting her own orgasms. She pursued this release aggressively and rarely failed. Talking about sex would have been easier than responding to these queries. His questions disturbed her. It was almost too personal. She was being asked to open up and it felt too vulnerable. It was confusing. Why was he interested in the place she grew up? Why now, and not any other time over the past year?

  “It was a kind of row-house, so attached to others.”

  “Were you a happy kid?”

  “No, Ray,” she said. “For the most part, I was not happy. My father died and my brother left. My brother and I were best friends. And it was Russia before Glasnost.”

  “No moments of joy? No happiness?”

  She sighed, closed her eyes and drew on the well of her memory. “There was one time when I went fishing with my brother and it was beautiful. And there was a teacher of literature who encouraged me to write poetry.” She would not tell him about her father. Her father would not have approved of this adulterous entanglement. He would have thought it harmful to her in some way. He would have told her she is diminishing her soul. He would have been right.

  “Do you still write poetry?”

  “Poetry?”

  “Yes. Do you still write poetry?”

  She can’t decide if she wants to tell him about her poems. As if writing poetry is more intimate than what they just did. As if poetry is more exposed than sex.

  “Not for a long time,” she said.

  They went back and forth like this, and while it made Nancy uncomfortable, she had to see where it was leading. As he was getting dressed he told her he was embarrassed about how little he knew about her. These were normal, everyday questions. Her answers were the little things that lovers knew about each other.

  He stopped in the doorway, the edge of the door in his hand, and turned around to look at her. It was a long look, as if he was trying desperately to remember her, the light on her face, the mess of bed behind her, the curve of her belly, the smell of sex in the room. He’d never looked at her like this before.

  When he was gone Nancy reached for the remote and turned on the television. She started to flip through the channels but nothing appealed to her. Nothing stopped her. After a half-hour of flipping and trying to be interested in something, anything, she quit. She muted the television. She left it on because it was a flickering light, and that was something. She found three-day-old pizza in the fridge and warmed three slices in the microwave. She ran a bath and poured green bath salts into the bubbling water. She lit candles and slipped into the hot water. There were a dozen books piled in the window beside the tub but none of them was the right book. She could feel the darkness coming and wanted to say no. She wanted to reject the darkness before it arrived. She wanted to return it unopened. After two hours in the bath, she was still twitchy and anxious. The looming darkness was almost worse than the darkness itself.

  There were so many pharmaceutical options. She’d been diagnosed properly a few years ago as a mid-level bipolar. “It’s not as frightening as it sounds,” the doctor had said. “It used to be called manic depressive disorder, which is a kinder term I think.”

  Nancy had glared at him, her face a flat and focused disapproval.

  “Or, we could just go right on calling it bipolar.”

  The term bipolar made her think of two polar bears and that cheered her up a little.

  She knew what to do. She knew there were drugs that would take the edge off. She had a lot of pills in her bathroom cabinet, Valproate and Zeldox among them, but for now, she rejected these. She decided to call her brother first. It was 9 p.m. in New York. Her brother could talk her through. He always made her feel better. He was able to even her out to the point where she was thinking straight. She punched his number and the phone rang six times. A woman answered. Her voice was hard but it was definitely a woman. And just like that, Nancy knew her bother was dead. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating.

  “Yes?” the woman said.

  “I was…I was looking for Slava,” she said, hoping against what she already knew.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is his sister, Nensi.” Oh God, she was thinking. Make this quick. Please don’t fuck around.

  It sounded as if the woman was shuffling through papers. Finally, the shuffling sound stopped. “Slava was killed yesterday,” she said. She switched to Russian. “Your brother is dead. I am sorry.”

  * * *

  Nancy takes a breath. She exhales without thinking. She takes another breath, and in slow motion she places the phone down on the couch. She should have asked ‘how?’ She should have uttered that one word, ‘how?’ But she could not form the word. It would not come. And what does the ‘how’ matter? ‘What’ was devastating by itself. It did not need the ‘how.’ He was killed. That’s all she needs.

  She sits and does nothing. She sinks into a paralysis. She can’t comprehend what the woman on the phone has said. She is thinking only in Russian. The woman told her something she already knew, some news she does not want. She wants to reject this woman’s message. It could be this woman has found Slava’s phone and she is making a joke, a cruel joke. But when, in ten years, has Slava ever not answered his phone? No, she was not joking. She was telling the truth. Nancy decides she should call her mother but s
he’s confused about what time it is in Kursk. She does not want a drink but she thinks she should have one. It’s what people do. When someone...when someone...people drink when that happens to someone you love. She will call her mother tomorrow. Tomorrow is a long time from now, perhaps. And she will be more focused tomorrow. Perhaps she will never leave this room. She will sink into the couch and she will dissolve and no one will be able to find her. Police detectives will form hunches about her whereabouts. One smart detective will drop a line into the couch. The line will have a sharp hook. He will be hoping to catch her. But she will be so dissolved and small she will be able to just sit and watch the hook glide through the subatomic matter all around her.

  She should stand up and pour a drink, because this is what is done. People have drinks to blunt the edges of hard realities. But she can’t move. And anyway, she is already standing. She is standing inside a memory. She is fifteen years old, holding a fishing pole on the shore of the Seym with Slava. He is down on his knees, helping her with her hook. They are fishing for perch and he is fixing a minnow for her.

  “Okay,” Slava says, checking the hook one more time. “Throw it just at the edge of the weeds. See?” She winds up and casts the line and hook toward where Slava is pointing. She remembers the feel of the line going out, the pull of it. The tiny clicking of the fishing rod sprocket. The sound of the river, constant and unwavering. The clouds bundled grey above them. When she catches her first fish, Slava is ecstatic. He is jumping up and down and hugging her. The fish put up a fight. It ran and jumped and swerved, and Slava talked her through it. He did not even begin to grab the pole. He only encouraged. Nancy does not remember feeling happier. He loved to fish, and yet all afternoon, his one job was to help her. He baited her hook, and taught her everything he knew. She remembers he was a beautiful teacher, down on his knees in the river stones, giving her encouragement, giving her all his attention. His gear was untouched, in a pile with his coat. She pulled five fish from the river that day and they ate those fish for dinner.

  * * *

  Sometime before 4 a.m., but after 2:30 a.m., she decides she will hold this grief. She will place it in a room and shut the door, and only open it when she feels she can take it. She will grieve in pieces, in small chunks. This is her plan. This is the only way for her to survive. At around 5 a.m., she remembers Slava never called her Nancy and she decides to change her name back to Nensi. Just because and fuck all those who can’t handle it.

  Eventually she gets off the couch and pours herself a mug of frozen vodka. She drinks half the vodka and crawls into bed. She wonders if she will disintegrate into particles when she falls asleep. She wonders if in the morning she will be less than dust. Perhaps she will disappear into the subatomic particles of grief. Why Slava? she thinks, and then she is asleep.

  * * *

  “I’m so tired, Ray. I want nothing. I want nothingness.” Nancy pulls the phone away from her ear and looks at it as if she doesn’t quite recognize it, as if it is some artefact that has no meaning. She moves it back to her other ear and smiles. “I want to feel nothing,” she says.

  Ray has been using the speaker function for the past hour because the phone was getting too hot. “Stop it. Enough.”

  “Why? Don’t you want me to be honest?” She takes another drink of scotch.

  “Sure. But nothingness is overrated. It’s not much fun feeling nothing. I’ve been to the land of no feelings and it’s just grey and depressing. It’s not a nice place.”

  “When have you ever felt nothing?”

  “Before I met you. It really scared me so I got some help.”

  “You’re joking, right? You got help? What does that mean, Ray?”

  “A therapist. A psychologist.”

  “I didn’t think you had any cracks, other than an obsessive horniness for slightly used Russian women.”

  “You think I have no cracks other than my feelings for you?” He can hear her lighting another cigarette. “Look, this is nonsense. I’m going to have to hang up, eventually. I’m going to have to go.”

  “So will I,” Nancy says. She looks around the deck. She notices that Death is sitting and smoking in the chair across from her. He holds his cigarette funny – between his thumb and forefinger as if he is pinching it. He is a serious-looking, grey-haired man with a three-day beard. He says nothing but he watches her like a hawk as he smokes.

  “Nancy?”

  “Death is here, Ray,” she says. “He’s watching me.”

  Ray sighs. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” She wants to ask Ray what she should do.

  “What does Death look like?”

  “He kind of looks like Brad Pitt…No, George Clooney. No, Brad Pitt. No…”

  “…Are you drunk?”

  “Probably. But still, his looks keep changing.”

  “How do you know it’s Death?”

  “I heard the wings, Ray. I have always heard the wings. All my life. And anyway, who else would it be? Should I ask? I will ask.”

  “Jesus Christ, Nancy.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure this is Death. This is not Jesus Christ.”

  “Really?” Ray is beyond tired and now this new wrinkle, a new twist. Nancy has wound up the winding down clock.

  “Okay,” she says to Death. “Just to be clear. You are Death, am I correct?”

  Death tilts his head and looks at her silently, quizzically.

  Nancy tries it in Russian. “Preevyet,” she says. “Kak vas zavoot? Eto vashe imya smert?”

  Death smiles and nods.

  “Oh, my God. Death is Russian, Ray. I do not know if this is good news or bad, but Death is definitely Russian.” She ponders the idea that Heaven might be like Russia, and if so, there will be line-ups, and corruption, and ugly cars. But there will also be vodka, and generosity, and stoic people who can withstand much hardship. But in Heaven, there would be no hardships, so perhaps the Russian people of Heaven would become fat and lazy.

  Ray sits up straight in his seat. She sees the Angel of Death and she’s having a conversation with him. This is not good news. This is a complication that threatens to extend things. He’d been hoping this conversation would fade away – that it would expire because they’d run out of things to say. “Do you think you could do something for me?” he says.

  “Of course, darling. I love you. I would do anything for you. But you know, I feel certain that I am going mad again.”

  Mad again? What does she mean, mad again? Ray can’t tell if she’s drunk or engaged in some intense sarcasm. He decides to take her seriously.

  “Okay, would you please take the phone with you and crawl into bed? And I will call you later to see how you are. I promise.”

  “Why would I do that, Ray? I have a guest. Don’t you think I should offer Death some vodka? I will get the vodka from the freezer. And maybe some cheese. What goes with vodka? A little black caviar, maybe?”

  “What are you doing, Nancy?”

  “Me? I am having a drink with Death, Ray. What are you doing?” She is surprised that Death is not impatient. He seems dispassionate, almost uninterested – like a man in a train station who has resigned himself to waiting. While she loves the stoic Russian-ness of his demeanour, she would prefer that Death was eager, or intense. His indifference is disturbing. She would like Death to say what he is doing in her living room.

  “Stop fooling around,” Ray says. “I’m serious. What are you doing?”

  “I am seriously having a drink with Death.”

  “So you’re completely delusional? If you really see Death, you’re in trouble. It’s a serious thing.”

  “Perhaps,” she says. “It’s no matter. I want to ask you something.”

  Ray doesn’t say anything. He’s considering a mad dash across the sidewalk and into her building. She’s drunk and she’s probably not watching. But th
ere was the problem of the dead zone halfway up to her floor. The phone would cut out, or the call would be dropped, and she would know.

  “I need some sort of sign you’ve heard me and you’re okay with me asking you a question.”

  “Yes. A question. You have a question. What’s your goddamned question?”

  “What’s wrong with you? Why are you being mean to me?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. What did you want to ask me?”

  “Okay. If I die before you, I want to know if you will bring flowers to my grave? I’d like flowers. Not every day. Just once a month, or whenever you feel like it. Could you do that for me?”

  He sighs. “Hypothetically? Sure, I can do that for you.”

  “Good. But I don’t like roses. And I don’t like daisies. I actually don’t like any flower that looks like a daisy.”

  “What about yellow flowers?” he says. He remembers the sting of her rejecting his yellow flowers.

  “Yes, Ray. In this case, an even number of yellow flowers would be perfectly appropriate.”

  “But let’s be clear. You’re not dying today or anytime soon,” he says. “So, you can send Death away. He won’t be needed today.” He stops. “Jesus, Nancy. Do you see what you’ve done? Now you’ve got me talking about Death like it’s actually in the room with you.”

  “But we’re just speculating, darling. We’re just supposing. We’re just having a little fun.”

  “Do you really see Death? Or are you playing around?”