The Singing Forest

by Judith McCormack

  After that, the other workers draw away from him, their faces stony. Even before then, he was not liked, although they had to admit that he was quick, useful. But he had made no effort to strike up an alliance with anyone, and now they are wary. Too late, he realizes that some other ties might have been useful. More than useful, in some cramped part of himself, he wanted their regard, their acceptance. Or at least to avoid their scorn. No longer, though, now he is angry again — although he is often angry, a crawling, prickly rage never far from the surface. What does he need them for, anyway?

  He eats his dinners by himself at a place near his room, whatever they have — soup with goose blood, offal pudding. Even so, it is more than he had on the farm, and his body begins filling out — he is no longer as gaunt. As he becomes stronger, though, so do his sexual urges, a stringy itch when he was exhausted all the time, now something that torments him, waking him up in the night.

  ···

  She is young, although not as young as he is, her eyes too small, her features too spongy, too uneven to be beautiful. But her brow is clear, and her hair gleams where it picks up the light of the oil lamp. She is wearing lipstick, rouge, and is dressed only in a pink and black lace slip. Aksana, she says, her name; when she talks, her breath smells of anise pastilles and onions. She is practical about the exchange — what does he want? Certain things cost extra. Just as usual, he says, without knowing what that is. She pulls him onto the bed, the bedclothes stained with semen. His fingertips are thick-skinned, but he winds his hand around her arm, kneads her breasts and belly, surprised that all this skin, this flesh, is in his hands.

  She is almost as clumsy as he is, pulling at his penis, moaning in an unconvincing way. At first her touch prompts a wave of shame and nausea, then suddenly he seems to be watching himself from a distance, his ears plugged, his mouth clamped shut. The nausea retreats and he watches himself push inside her, rocking frantically against her slight torso, his spasm of release fast, a blink of pleasure. Afterwards he watches her breathe, the skin of her fragile neck, her eyelashes, her hair twisted up at the base of her skull. She opens her eyes to see him staring at her, and she laughs, naturally and clearly.

  He is mortified, anger surges in him, anger and contempt — for her, for himself. He has a glimpse of twisting and snapping that thin neck, of her head lolling off the pillow, lifeless. Of hitting her with the base of the lamp, blood seeping out from under her hair.

  Here, she says again. He looks up. She is standing beside the bed. She has wiped herself with a cloth and is holding it out to him.

  ···

  Stars over the city, dots of light in an inky sky. Underneath them, far below, street lamps offer up a mellower glow, a boon for someone who is almost night-blind. And in a place where there is so much to see, to hear.

  They are drunk, these officers, five of them in serge uniforms, black boots. One stumbles in the street, another is singing loudly, tunelessly, his tunic ruched up over his belt. The young man watches them as they lurch around, holding on to each other’s arms, shoulders. A bottle of vodka goes from hand to hand and they join in with the singer for a few lines, a ragged chorus.

  The republic told us not to close our eagle eyes

  We cut the enemy’s claws

  We blunt the enemy’s teeth

  We are the defence of millions

  One stops to urinate in the gutter, and another guffaws.

  NKVD, says a man next to him. All that vodka, down Russian throats.

  Let them have it, he thinks. Who better? Let them drink a case.

  He is impressed by them, by their authority, their arrogance. By the insignia on their collars, the leather straps from shoulder to waist, the revolvers on their belts. They know who they are, what they are. They know they are people who command, not people who obey. Even drunk, they walk as if they have an almost visible force coiled behind them. As he watches them, he has only one thought in his mind: I want this.

  ···

  More orders come in for wineglasses, bowls, vases. Even in scarce times, there are people who need these things, who can pay for these things. Two of the glassblowers prefer them, these orders, there is more artistry, more skill required. More colours as well, not merely the never-ending green and amber of bottles and jugs. They add minerals to the glass, copper for red, nickel for violet, cadmium for yellow. To make milky glass, opaline glass, they add bone dust. When they can get them, they use pigmented glass canes — shipments from Germany, the tags still attached. Safran. Kobaltblau. Pomeranze.

  The canes stand in a tall box in one of the cabinets, a box with partitions for each colour lot. The young man wipes them clean so that the grit and dust that settle everywhere, even inside the cabinet, will not change their hues when they are melted. Even a little grit will darken the batch, they say to him.

  Irisgelb. Silbergrun. Dunkelviolett.

  They are muscular, the glassblowers, smelling of mahorka tobacco. Thick-armed from the heavy pontil rods. Coarse, jocular, they work in undershirts stained with sweat, or sometimes with no shirt at all, the hair on their chests damp. When they open the furnace doors, the heat blazes out, a naked sun trapped in each one.

  But when they handle the glass, they become makers, moulders, jugglers, their coarseness gone for the moment, their blunt hands full of knowledge. Stretching, shaping, twisting the glass, they make living things out of it, flowing from one shape into another. A strange, volatile thing — liquid one minute, rock-hard the next.

  The cane is added in small batches, the molten glass turns blue, amethyst, rose. Then they use tools to stroke it, pinch it, to push it in and out of the furnace. One of them talks to the glass while he works, coaxing, chiding it, murmuring endearments. Come on, lapochka. That’s it, my darling, that’s it. No, no, no, not that way, no, no, no. Ah, that’s it, now you have it. Now just a little more.

  These are special deliveries, these orders, packed in straw. Ay, ay, be careful, they say to him, reluctant to see this work handled by someone so awkward. He nods curtly. What do they think? He has not broken anything yet.

  And not all his deliveries are for them anymore. It began when one of the receivers at a winery suggested that he deliver some wine for them as well — some bottles to their customers, along his usual routes. A little extra for you, no one needs to know. The work, the little extra becomes larger, and now he is seeing Aksana more often, eating more.

  I know another man, says the receiver.

  Another receiver, more wine deliveries. They pay him less than their usual drivers — too expensive, they say. Then they pocket the difference. See how this is good, good for everyone.

  ···

  Aksana is telling a story, the story of how they will be, now that he has more money, when he has even more. They are lying in her bed afterwards, while she straightens her chemise, puts herself to rights.

  We will live in a house, we will have a Victrola of our own, we will go dancing every night. I will have a red silk dress, a necklace of black jade, we will have fine furniture — she stops to consider — of dark green velvet. We will drink wine out of thin glasses, we will eat meat every day off china plates. We will have a son, a daughter, and another son, and they will all live. We will have a maid, we will have a horse and carriage and also a car, we will have paintings on the wall. And we will have a dacha in the summer, like a Party official, with birch trees and a steam house.

  She is seventeen, she has no idea how much these things cost. But when she talks in this dreamlike way, it all seems possible. For a moment, he is drawn into the story, for a moment he is part of it, he can see the massive fireplace, the overstuffed chairs around it, the patterned rugs. He can see the flames leaping and falling, then rearing up again, the brocades reflected in their glow.

  Then he rolls off the bed, stands up, begins putting on his clothes.

  Why would I marry a whore? he says.r />
  ···

  A cold day, already darkening in the late afternoon. One of the unofficial deliveries. He parks behind a building, out of sight, and goes in to collect the boxes, pick up his pay for the last few days.

  One, two, three, five boxes, into the back of the van. But before he can get into the driver’s seat again, a man grabs him from behind, holding his arms behind his back. Another looms up in front, smashes him in the face. He can feel blood from his nose dripping down his mouth, his chin, he can taste it, an iron taste.

  A piece of rope is looped around his neck and twisted slowly, cutting off his breathing. He yells, but nothing is coming out, he claws for the rope soundlessly, but his arms are still pinned. He writhes desperately in the man’s grip, choking.

  The money, they say. The money.

  He nods towards his coat pocket, struggling for air, the street beginning to spin around him. They find it, then throw him to the icy pavement, kicking him in the back. He gasps and draws in a burning breath.

  No more deliveries, they say. No more deliveries from here. You can bring the bottles from the glassworks, but no more delivering the wine. Or we tell the manager, tell him that you’re a thief. And we will do this again. Only it will be worse.

  Then one of the men takes the key from the door of the van and throws it in a long arc, a brief flash in the dusk, landing on the roof of the building. They kick him again, and disappear.

  Good for everyone. Except the regular drivers.

  Granat. Brilliantrubin. Kirshrot.

  Seven

  . . . whatever other qualities Jews may possess,

  likable or the reverse, no one who knows them well can

  deny that they are personally interesting.

  Ernest Jones, British psychoanalyst, 1879–1958

  Her hand, her arm are wrapped in gauze dressings. Every night, she unwraps them, rinses the weeping blisters, gingerly dabs on the ointment they gave her, and then winds clean gauze around them again. She takes the painkillers at the appointed hours, attempting to avoid any gaps when the pain might come skidding back.

  A gas stove, they said in the emergency ward, nodding to themselves, not bothering to point out the foolishness of what she had done. Perhaps they were inured, oblivious to it, faced with the same or greater levels of idiocy every day. An ocean of folly that laps up at their doors, that they wade in from morning until night — the unwise, the careless, the ignorant, with a few unlucky people scattered among them.

  Three weeks, they said. And your skin may be discoloured afterwards, reddened. Although it may fade eventually.

  Stay out of the kitchen, says Gus.

  Stay away from the stove, says Rudy.

  Not like Val, the maker of pale food — lemon pies, soufflés, baked potatoes. She has taken this moment to fasten herself to them more closely, she is everywhere now, wiping baseboards, scraping ancient paint drips off the glass in the front window. If Leah sits down, Val is there shortly, settling into a chair beside her, as if they were about to share some confidence.

  We need more butter, she says.

  We, thinks Leah.

  She is beginning to despise Val in a small, ungenerous way. Despite her resolutions to think better of her, to be more gracious, to be glad for Gus, when Val appears beside her she has to resist the urge to flee to another room. And her cooking is insidious, she thinks, this is her way of sidling up to them, slipping her arm into each of theirs. The others know it, too — dimly, faintly — but they are too enthralled to care. As if they had fallen for it, fallen entirely, as if one by one they had pitched forward into a massive vat of cream. They seem oblivious to the idea that this might mean Gus will leave, that their rumpled household might fall apart.

  If he does leave, she thinks, they will become uncalibrated. Without him, Rudy will lose his balance, will become unmoored, and Malcolm, Malcolm will become intolerable. And then if she moves out — eventually — how will they survive, who will keep this small world together, who will take up arms in the feud against decay? Rudy looks after the kitchen, some of the cleaning, but only that — Gus is the fixer, the installer of small repairs, she is his assistant. They may not be very good at it, but without them, who will put up weatherstripping, poison the mice, seal the cracks? She pictures the others in a downward spiral, unshaven, the house deteriorating, sinks plugged, infestations of ants.

  It’s not your job to look after them, says Gus silently.

  Whose job is it?

  She tries to banish the idea of this constellation of people breaking apart, each of them spinning off into a lonely orbit.

  What if they have to sell the house?

  They probably will.

  No.

  ···

  He wants to see you, says Nate.

  Why? she says hopefully.

  He doesn’t confide in me, he says, also hopefully.

  Finally, they think.

  ···

  Don’t bother, says Louis, raising his hand to stop her, mid-apology.

  He sounds almost amused. Does he still feel betrayed? So difficult to tell. If only he were easier to read. Perhaps Rudy could create a diagram of the inside of his head, one of his illustrations — a finely detailed landscape of his brain. The temporal lobe in dark pink, the cerebellum, the frontal lobe in turquoise. Or — although this would be harder — a graph showing the movement of his thought patterns, darting and whirling in his skull. And while he is at it, perhaps he could even pinpoint the source of his lost moments, some black spots on a brain fold, some plaque in his grey matter.

  No, she will have to keep guessing. But if Louis is still holding a grudge, working with him will be difficult. She locks her fingers together and looks at him, surrounded by his open-flapped books. All those paper mouths, a chorus of sorts. Perhaps they will be consoling in some way, help to repair whatever muffled damage he feels he has suffered. Or perhaps he will read something forgiving, something benevolent.

  What are you waiting for? he says.

  ···

  She has a job again, a place, a paycheque. She wants to go sailing around the office, giddy with relief, running her hands along the surfaces of the desks. She wants to sit in her office, gripping the arms of her chair, sending it swivelling around on its axis.

  I work here, she says to a client in the waiting room, who nods, puzzled.

  I work here, she says to Isabel.

  Si, says Isabel happily, her hair floating around her head, looking like a cynical angel.

  For how long?

  He will get over it, says Isabel. Look, he has already taken you back, no? He will get accustomed to having you around again. You will make yourself esencial — what is the word in English? Yes, she will make herself essential. She will make her memos small jewels of clarity and insight, she will create arguments that are so persuasive, she will fall for them herself. She will prepare facta that will insert tiny, delicate fingers into the minds of judges, that will shape their thoughts, their suppositions, their perceptions.

  All you have to do, she says to him silently, is to pull yourself into position, fit yourself back into your skin. Retrieve yourself from the grip of this ailment, this disorder — whatever it is. Give that silver-haired head a shake, make all those synapses, all those neurons fall into place. Surely this is not too much to ask.

  Affidavit

  I, Pavel Makarevich, of the City of Minsk in the Republic of Belarus, make oath and say as follows:

  In 1939, I ran a flour mill in the country outside Minsk, where we ground wheat and rye grains, using water power from the river that ran there. The mill had not yet been collectivized because it was small and out of the way, and I was paying a subsidy to a local government official. Five other men worked in the mill with me, grinding, packaging, storing, and delivering the flour.

  I lived with my wife in one of t
he better areas of Minsk. However, my wife and I frequently argued, and often in the evening I would go out instead of staying home and meet a group of friends at a small bar, where we would talk and drink until late.

  Business began to decline, as a result of the growing shortage of wheat. I was reluctant to lay off any of the men, as I had worked with them for many years. Eventually, though, the mill was losing so much money that I had to do something, so I laid off Bogdan Zayats, the worst worker. When I brought him into the small room I used as an office and told him, he became very angry and bitter, shouting at me.

  Shortly after this, two NKVD officers came into the bar, and arrested me. They took me to the local NKVD building, where they demanded that I confess that I was a kulak, a well-off peasant. They ordered me to say I was a profiteer, and a counter-revolutionary agitator, and to name my friends as other enemies of the state. When I refused, they put me in an enclosed cell that was meant for four people, although there were already twenty-one people in it. As a result, we could not sit or lie down. We were forced to stand, packed together so tightly that we could hardly breathe.

  It was completely dark and extremely hot, with no water or food, no ventilation and no bucket for sanitary functions. The stench was very strong. Some prisoners told me they had been there for weeks, that their legs were swollen and blistered, and that the blisters had become infected.

  At night, they brought in planks and bricks to build layers so that we could lie down. The distance between each layer was less than a foot.

  Every few days, NKVD officers took me to another room, and beat me with a chair leg, an electric cable, or a rubber hose, screaming curses at me and calling me a kulak. Sometimes they would slam my head against the wall five or six times in a row. They knocked out two of my teeth with the butt of a revolver. One of them spat in my face and in my mouth. When I still refused to confess, they put me back in the cell, bleeding and bruised. It was still extremely hot. One of them said to me that if I did not confess, they would “cook” me along with the others.