Expulsion

by Marina Sonkina

  Nothing lasts, wisdom says, even the most exalted love. But time had been cruel to Tanya and left her own love intact.

  She had no gift for words and had to borrow from others to fill the painful gap between the radiant landscapes in her soul and ways of expressing them. She grew fond of Central Asian poetry, its intricate laces beguiling her soul. One particular poem enthralled her. A young Tajik woman sends her beloved a pinch of tea, a blade of grass, some sugar, a pebble, an eagle’s feather, and a palm nut. The gifts are accompanied by a letter: “I cannot drink tea anymore. Without your love I grow as sere as a blade of grass. You are as sweet as sugar but your heart must be made of stone. I would have come to you if I had wings, for I am to you like a palm nut to its tree.” Tanya was just about to slip the poem into her husband’s pocket, when she imagined his coldly quizzical gaze and thought better of the idea.

  At the Aviation Institute where young men trained to be pilots, junior accountant Tatyana Perepelkina moved abacus beads back and forth all day long. Her diligence did not go unnoticed. At the end of each day, piles of new documents made their way to her desk. “Could you finish this report by tomorrow and check the figures for me? I’m not sure they add up.” A son had got into trouble at school, a husband was drunk — women with children always had problems to deal with, whereas Tanya was unencumbered. She had no children, and most evenings she was free to work late, while her d’Artagnan was out fooling around, as everybody knew. And Tanya’s help was certainly needed by her friend, Zoe. Zoe was clumsy with figures and had got her job through her connections. How could Tanya refuse to help her, somebody she confided in?

  “I wasn’t planning on staying late today, if I didn’t have to. Can I take a look at your balance sheet tomorrow?”

  “What’s up?” Zoe asked. Tanya paused. She avoided looking at her friend.

  “All I want is to go to bed. Sitting still hurts,” she said covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Yeah, you look like death today. You didn’t have another one, did you?”

  “Yes, three days ago . . . They gave me nothing for the pain, as usual. I’ll die if I have to go through that again.”

  Zoe quickly glanced up from her balance sheet.

  “Good Lord! You have to be crazy to abuse yourself like that! Letting him enjoy himself at your expense!”

  “But what else can I do, Zoe? Practically speaking?”

  “Practically speaking, you can tell him that, if he gets you pregnant again, you’re going to have the baby!”

  “He doesn’t want children. He sleeps on the couch now. He says there’s no pleasure in it for him anymore, since I’m, you know, so paranoid about it.”

  Zoe leaned back in her chair, stretched out her feet in their high heels, and stuck a pencil into her pile of hair, scratching her scalp and fluffing her coif at the same time.

  “Not smart, babe, letting him sleep on the couch! Men can’t live without it. You know how that always ends up. He’ll find himself a lover.”

  “What if he already has?” Tanya whispered.

  “See? What did I tell you?”

  It occurred to Tanya that her friend wasn’t exactly unhappy about her misfortune, but she suppressed the thought.

  “Listen, what are you getting out of the marriage, anyway?” Zoe sat bolt upright and moved her face close to Tanya. “Children he doesn’t want. Money he won’t provide. Why don’t you divorce the rat?”

  Tanya blinked and reached for her handkerchief. Zoe, obviously, didn’t believe in suffering. Unlike Tanya, she was a free spirit.

  The two friends resembled each other in that nature’s initial design for them was the same. But Zoe had bravely twisted nature’s arm towards the exotic, her preferred look. Her naturally straight, light-coloured hair had become curly and black, her pale eyes were thickly outlined à la Nefertiti, and she stood taller, thanks to her spike heels.

  “I have an idea. Why don’t you get baptized?”

  “You mean . . . Like how?”

  “Just like I said. And then you just go ahead and do it and see what happens.”

  “You think it might actually help? In my situation?”

  “Your situation’s pretty shitty any way you look at it. But miracles can happen.”

  “Isn’t baptism only for newborns? I’m a little past that, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t be silly. You won’t have to get into a font naked. There are other ways.” And Zoe gave Tanya an appraising look from head to toe.

  “Let’s go have a smoke,” she said. “I’m dying for a cig.”

  Zoe took her first puff sitting herself on the marble windowsill in the ladies’ room down the hall. Her tight mini skirt moved up baring her plump thighs. Zoe noticed a run on her stockinged left thigh. A toilet flushed in one of the stalls. They waited until the occupant had left the room.

  “Somebody I know knows somebody who’s friends with a dissident priest. The guy can baptize you at home. All you need is a white robe.”

  “A white robe? Where would I get a white robe?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly! Make something. Just like a night gown, only with long sleeves. He’ll sprinkle some water on your head and voilà! Then you’ll wait and see. You never know what could happen!”

  On her way to work every day, Tanya passed the Elokhov Cathedral of the Epiphany, a gorgeous mint-green, gold, and white empire-style edifice sitting on the corner like a queen upon her throne. But Tanya had never been inside the church, let alone talked to a priest. It was rumoured that they all collaborated with the KGB, anyway. Before baptizing people, they would ask to see their passport, the only identity document recognized by the state, write down the information, and then pass it on to the authorities.

  Zoe flicked her cigarette ash onto the tiled floor.

  “Somebody I know with a tumour in her head this big,” she said, sticking her fist in Tanya’s face, “got baptized, and — wham! — the tumour was gone in a day. You think that God couldn’t keep your hubby from fooling around?”

  Tanya promised to give it a try.

  She took a half day off to give herself several hours before d’Artagnan came back from what he called work, since he had said he would be having supper at home. She got out two bed sheets and her ancient Singer sewing machine, which she hadn’t used in years. She struggled with it for half an hour. First, it wouldn’t start, and when it finally did, it spat out bits of oil-blackened thread before coming to a stop for good. Tanya panicked. Sew the robe by hand? It wouldn’t look good. How did she ever get talked into the whole thing, anyway? A stupid and possibly dangerous idea! She was about to call Zoe to say that she’d changed her mind, when there was a knock on the door. Her heart sank. But it wasn’t her husband, who she thought had perhaps forgotten his key, but a short little man holding a scuffed leather bag.

  “Repairing old Singers, repairing old Singers,” he said with a lilt just like the one knife-sharpeners used when she was a little girl. “Have you got an old Singer?”

  “Me? Yes, but how did you . . . I mean, how is it that . . . ?”

  “Don’t worry. I know how to fix them. My grandfather fixed Singers, my father fixed Singers, and I can fix them too.”

  Astonished, Tanya invited him in.

  The little man seemed to know right where to go. He crossed the living room to the tiny bedroom where the sewing machine sat on Tanya’s dressing table. He opened his bag, took out some tools, did some tightening here and adjusting there, and then asked her to try out some stitches on an old oil-stained rag folded in two. The ancient Singer now ran with perfect smoothness.

  “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  The little man then quickly gathered up his tools, clicked shut the rusty clasp of his bag, and was gone as if Tanya had had just made him up.

  After finishing the g
own, Tanya went into the kitchen to make d’Artagnan’s supper. Outside on the courtyard pavement wet from a recent rain, two little girls were playing hopscotch.

  God had just bestowed his first, light-handed miracle on Tanya.

  2

  The next day the dissident priest, a mild, amiable man with a fatherly smile, baptized Tanya at home. She felt awkward in the white gown with only her bra and panties underneath in front of that robust, still handsome man with his neatly trimmed black beard and lively dark eyes. Zoe confidently played the role of Godmother. When the ceremony was over, Tanya felt greatly relieved. She offered to pay the priest, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  Now Tanya lived very carefully. She made an effort to notice every little thing, so that she wouldn’t miss the next miracle when it came. That another was on its way, she had no doubt. But just how or when it would grace her she had no way of knowing.

  Zoe had brought some candy and champagne. Baptisms need to be celebrated, she winked at Tanya — it’s the rule. In addition to being her friend, she was now Tanya’s godmother, and that meant responsibilities.

  “What’s the occasion?” d’Artagnan asked the two giggling women when he got home and saw the champagne.

  “Maybe I got a raise. Would that be a good enough reason?” Zoe said with a chuckle.

  “It works for me! Are we sharing three ways?”

  Tanya chuckled too while marvelling at her friend’s instant ability to come up with a good fib.

  “I’m hot! Do you mind if I take these off?” Zoe started tugging on her knee-high black patent leather boots. The tops collapsed like an accordion, but the boots wouldn’t budge.

  “Tolya, give me a hand!” She stuck out her feet to d’Artagnan.

  He placed her leg on his knees and pulled the boot abruptly off exposing her pink, plump knees and thick ankles. There wasn’t anything unusual about those ankles, but for some reason the sight of them made Tanya feel ashamed as if she did something awkward.

  D’Artagnan was at his charming best with both ladies that evening. With his arms around their shoulders, he first kissed Tanya and made Zoe count the time, and then he kissed Zoe while Tanya counted. The three of them drank and laughed, and then Zoe suddenly buried her face in d’Artagnan’s shoulder for some reason and started to sob.

  “Have some more champagne, you silly goose,” he said, patting her shoulder.

  Zoe became a regular visitor at her friend’s apartment, and that brought another benefit: instead of wandering off somewhere after work, Tolya now spent every evening at home. Only once did he revert to his old habit, coming in loaded and falling asleep on the couch with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

  Tanya’s new vigilance was unceasing — even in her sleep. She smelled the chemical odour of smouldering fabric in the other room and rushed to her husband’s rescue. Sending her in time was God’s second miracle.

  Tanya now walked the earth with a firmer, more confident step. She felt herself to be under God’s protection. And the proof of it was Tolya’s new attention. Love may get a second wind, Tanya thought. It only needs patience.

  But the silver belly couldn’t camouflage the darkness of the cloud crawling over — this time — her work. Nothing was said directly, just malicious whispering in the corridors. As usual, Tanya was the last to learn what everybody else already knew: that one of the institute’s students had just, only two months short of graduation, been exposed as a churchgoer. He was a widower, in his early 30s, who was raising his son alone after his young wife had succumbed to cancer. The rumours claimed that he had been baptized five years earlier, while (and this was the most outrageous part) still in his first year at the institute. The administration and his teachers would certainly be reprimanded for having failed to notice.

  Tanya was alarmed by the coincidence and, bent over her abacus, wondered if she would be exposed too.

  The accused was to be “dealt with” at a closed meeting of the Young Communist League. At 28, Tanya was in her last year of membership, and she asked permission to attend the meeting. Her zeal surprised the administration. It was out of character, but one more vote against the offender certainly wouldn’t hurt, given the administration’s plan to use the League to disgrace and expel him, while keeping its own hands clean.

  The institute auditorium was full, and nobody paid attention to the small figure of the accountant pressed against the wall. The director of the institute gazed out over the throng, and then addressed the offender, who was standing in front of the dais.

  “Student Markov, are you a Komsomol Member? Explain to us then where your political consciousness was when you got baptized? How have you combined the proud name of Soviet student with such . . . such mumbo-jumbo?”

  Complete silence descended on the auditorium.

  “What’s the matter with you, cat got your tongue?” said Tamara Semyonovna Titko, the chair of the union committee, slapping the table for emphasis. She got to her feet revealing to all her impressive bulk. “Give us your answer! The collective is waiting!”

  “Politics and religion are separate in our country as a matter of law,” the lean young man replied in a careful monotone. “I’ve neglected none of my social or academic duties.”

  “We all begin at our own altitude and then soar higher, carried aloft by our own daring, and at some point we exchange our simple gliders for great aircraft,” someone blurted out from the side of the room.

  Everyone turned to look. It was the clown Zhorka, leader of the institute’s amateur theatre group, paraphrasing a popular song of the 1930s.

  “He’s already made the exchange. He’s flown so high that the next thing you know he’ll grab old man God by the beard!” somebody in the back responded to widespread if nervous laughter.

  “Cut your inappropriate quips!” the dean intoned in a base.

  “Student Markov, did you not take Atheism in your first year?” asked a professor of Marxism-Leninism, which like Atheism was also a required course.

  “Yes, just like everybody else.”

  “What was your grade?”

  “I don’t remember. Good, I think.” He was tall, gangly and his right shoulder twitched as he spoke.

  “You don’t remember?” the Professor of Marxism-Leninism said. “Wasn’t too important to remember, was it? Perhaps, it wasn’t ‘good’ after all? Apparently, you change colours like a chameleon! You betrayed our institute, the mother that nurtured you from your first year.”

  “That isn’t true,” Vitaly Markov replied in the same deliberate monotone. “And I’ve also been working nights to support myself and my son.”

  “Haven’t you been getting a stipend?”

  “Yes, like all students. Twenty-eight roubles a month. Not nearly enough to feed my son and me.”

  The director shuffled through papers in front of him on the lectern.

  “It states here that you participated in extra-curricular activities and volunteered. Further evidence of your duplicity.”

  “As a citizen of this country I respect its laws.”

  “A man who wears a cross can’t be a Soviet student,” the director replied.

  “How do you know he’s wearing a cross?” came a voice from the audience.

  “Why did he want to become a pilot anyway?”

  “Maybe he thought it would bring him closer to God!” somebody added to subdued laughter in the back.

  The director rapped on the lectern with his knuckle, calling for order.

  “Those who think this is a joke may leave the room. Let’s put the matter to a vote. Vitaly Markov doesn’t deserve the title of Soviet student and is thus to be expelled from the institute. All those in favour, raise your hands.”

  “Hold on, comrades! There’s no legal ground for . . . for such a vote . . . It will be, that is, it might be unjust, comrades. Freedom of religion is guarantee
d by the Soviet Constitution! You can check for yourselves . . .”

  It was a weak, high-pitched, girlish voice speaking haltingly from emotion. Nobody knew its owner. All heads turned toward the small woman standing next to the wall by one of the windows. She was pulling at the sides of her dress with her fists while thrusting her body forward from the effort of speaking.

  “Anti-Soviet propaganda!” came a shout.

  “But she’s right! Respect our own Constitution, comrades!” somebody else yelled.

  A student in the back jumped to his feet.

  “I know Markov as a reliable friend. He has helped me when I needed it!”

  “A father raising his son by himself!”

  Soon many people were getting up from their seats and shouting.

  “Markov got baptized five years ago! How did that become known? Isn’t baptism supposed to be a private matter?”

  “Stop the debating at once!” the director thundered, as if suddenly coming to his senses. “The picture is clear. Those in favour of the expulsion of Vitaly Markov from the institute, raise your hands!”

  “I disagree. There’s no basis for expulsion!” the same girlish voice cried out again.

  “She’s right! The woman is right!”

  “Who is she? How did she get in here? Who allowed her?” shouted the director. “Ah, it’s our accountant! Congratulations! You’re encouraging anti-Soviet agitation and an attempted coup!”

  Tanya wasn’t really scared. The majority was holding to the right position. God, as always, was up there doing his job, while she was down here doing hers.

  Still, she was dreading work next day. But she had to go. The best thing, she decided, would be to immerse herself in her balance sheets as if nothing had happened. And her colleagues in fact made it easier for her: nobody asked her of any favours anymore. Zoe didn’t take her eyes off the papers. Hubbub that hovered over the room where only women worked, now ceased. Nobody stepped behind the cabinet crammed with file folders to try on a new jacket or blouse the way they usually did on Wednesdays when the black market dealer Zhanna came by with Finnish pantyhose, French push-up bras, and other appealing items, and then, with a sniff of the air, left just as stealthily as she had come. In that new silence, the constant clicking of abacus beads was especially audible.