Deathless (38 page)

“He’s there,” growled Zvonok, her voice scratched and ugly with disuse. Marya knew hers sounded much the same. The domovaya pointed to the frosted bed, and Marya saw how the hillocks were shaped something like a man.

“Zvonok, what’s happened to you?”

“The house is sick, so I am sick. All the houses are sick. Everyone is dying. The winter will never end.”

Marya shut her eyes. “What year is it? How long have I been gone?”

“Nineteen forty-two. It is February. If such things still existed, it would be the end of Lent now. But of course they don’t, even though we fasted so well this year. So well we could be mistaken for pious. I think that’s funny. Isn’t it funny? Last week a man held a concert at Glinka Hall. Snow fell in through the broken roof the whole time, piling up on the oboist’s head. The air raid sirens played, too. We all listened from the roofs. Like cats. But not like cats. There are no cats left in Leningrad. Ivan said,
If only we could eat violin music.
I kissed his thumbnail. He said he was glad of me. Then he crawled into that bed, and I don’t know if he’s dead or not, but I will be, soon, I think. I wonder how Comrade Chainik has fared? Old Chairman Venik? I would like to think they are fat, still. I remember what it was like to be fat. Wonderful, it was. You could roll them down the hall like marbles. Those were days I wish I could eat now, but remembering is like eating, don’t you think? Gobble up the past to keep warm. I hope it was warm, where you were.”

Marya Morevna lay down on the frozen floor of the house on Dzerzhinskaya Street, the house on Gorokhovaya Street. Zvonok crept into the crook of her neck, near her ear, where the blood flows so close to the skin, where warmth stays when it is gone from everywhere else. She kissed her there, and held her arms wide to embrace the whole of Marya’s face.

“Where were you?” the domovaya whispered. “Where did you go?”

And then she vanished, arms outspread, melting away like vapor.

Marya stood up, her mind expecting her Yaichkan body to respond, young and full and strong. But her Leningrad body answered, creaking, wizened, brittle. She limped to the bed, not wanting to see what lay beneath the frosted covers, to pull back the blankets and find herself too late for anything, useless to both her husbands, in the end.

“Ivanushka, are you alive? Are you awake?”

From under the linens, a moan, tapering into a rattling breath, then a cough. “Leave me alone, Zvonok. Don’t, not today. Don’t pretend to be her.”

“It is me, Ivanushka, it is me. Come out; look.”

A hand rose out of the bed: blackened around the fingernails, fingers shrunken into claws with huge knuckles, grey as the frost. It could not be Ivan’s, not Ivan, always so warm, always so big. His eyes peered up at her, sunken and old, the same starveling, feral flame in them that the domovaya had. He was so thin, so thin she could not imagine how he still lived. But somehow, Marya Morevna felt that she saw him naked for the first time, the intimacy of his bones showing through his skin, his helplessness. He was beautiful, still. She felt as though she looked at him from a long way off, through a telescope, at the bottom of a well.
Bounce up,
she thought. Bounce up and become Ivan again.

“Oh,” he rasped, “oh.”

“I do not know if I ought to say I am sorry,” Marya said, putting her hand gingerly on his head, on his matted hair. “It seems too small a thing to say.”

“I will say it,” Ivan whispered. “I was harsh with you. You did not make me a criminal. I should not have said such a thing. In fact, when I forged our wedding certificate, I was so happy to write your name beside mine, so happy to hold in my hands evidence of us, something to carry between us, this falsified document which told the truth even while it lied. I’m sorry, Masha. I should not have said half again the things I said.”

“Hush, Ivanushka. It doesn’t matter.” It didn’t. She had said cruel things in both her marriages. She had never begrudged him his share of barbed words. Marya lifted him into her arms—he weighed so little, so little, and if her muscles were shrunken and battered, still they remembered Yaichka, still they remembered being strong. In her grey arms she wrapped her grey boy, and the snow fell outside without sound, and no one talked on the streets or played guitars, and no one came to any door looking for any girl in any window. Leningrad lay so empty, as empty as an old bed.

“Masha, do you know, I tried so hard to find you!” Ivan coughed, and Marya wiped his mouth a little, but her hand only opened up the pink sores there.

“Don’t speak, my love. Talking isn’t worth the strain.”
And I cannot bear to hear how loyal you were. Do not tell me.

Ivan rasped; his throat rattled like stones in a jar. “Talking is the only thing I can do! I cannot take you in my arms, or kiss you, or make love to you as one should to a wife who has returned after a long journey. I cannot make you understand that I forgive you, that I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough, which was my crime. After all, I took you from him to begin with, so I cannot begrudge him taking you from me—” Marya Morevna tried to protest, to absolve him or herself or both. But he looked at her with eyes leached of color and tried to lift his hand to hush her. “Oh, don’t interrupt, Masha! If I stop I shall never start again. I know I did not take you and he did not take you. I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard—one choice is never the end of the story. Gamayun told me this was all a story, and I had to be sure to love you, or else it would not work out as it should. He needn’t have worried: In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you, like one of those dead soldiers made of cloth. And I have had such a long time to think about it, Marya! Such a long time to lie in the basement in the ropes that held him and wish that they had held me, because that would have meant you wanted me enough to keep me secret, the way I wanted you, and kept you secret.” Ivan rested his ashen hand on her arm. It was so dry, so light. She could feel his bones, as she had once felt Koschei’s bones beneath his skin. “But do you know, after you disappeared—I had forgotten you could do that—and after they cut the rations again, and then again, I thought,
Why did she stay so long?
And that was comforting, because you must have stayed for me. Don’t answer. I don’t want to be corrected. But do you know, I looked for you? All over the city, over thrice nine districts, thrice nine prospekts. I asked everyone for news of you. I went to Maklin Prospekt, to Decembrists Street, where that house you liked used to stand, the one with all the paintings on it? It burned down, did you know?”

“Yes, I knew.”

“Zvonok cried when she saw it. But I went to that house and I saw bits of the paintings in the rubble: golden like a girl’s hair, like chicken legs; and red like a firebird; and green, where the coat of Ivan the Fool once was. And I laughed because of course I am Ivan the Fool, of course I am. Only a fool is so innocent as to think he can measure up to a woman’s first love, can measure up to deathless. You know, it’s like when the Tsar was killed. I think maybe Russia had two husbands, too, and one was rich and one was poor, one old and one young, and the poor husband shot the rich husband in the chest, and all his daughters, too. He was braver than I am.”

Ivan shut his eyes. His brow furrowed as though he might like to cry, but had no strength for it. “I went to the house on Decembrists Street, and I saw a rook in the ruins, just as black as if he’d been burnt himself. I looked at the rook and he looked at me, and I thought I had never seen such a big bird, so fat, such a sheen on him, like a duke among rooks. Even before we ate all the birds we could shoot, I had never seen one with such a sharp glance for me. My stomach said,
I’ll have that bird.
But my heart said,
There are few enough fat and beautiful things left in this city.
And you were not there, not in the rubble, not in the snow. I walked home, but as I walked the rook followed me, hopping from stoop to stoop, flying down the dead power lines, his sharp glance bouncing off the roof tiles and down and down to me. When I turned back onto Dzerzhinskaya Street and touched the door of our own house, the rook flapped his wings and spoke to me from the branch of the cherry tree.

“‘Give me something of hers,’ he squawked. ‘And I will help you.’

“All I could think of was the red dress I bought you so long ago. It hung in the closet; it still held your shape. I pressed my face into it, but your smell had gone. I fed it, inch by inch, out the window, and the rook took it with his curved beak.

“‘Forget her forever, that is my help,’ he squawked. ‘But if you cannot, let me keep the dress. She is my family. I will look on it and remember her. It would not be the first time some good has come from remembering.’

“I did not want to, Masha, but I gave him the dress. He turned up his black throat to the sky and choked it down until the fluttering red sash disappeared into his mouth. Then he flew away.”

Ivan stroked Marya’s arm thoughtfully. His skin rasped against her; they were both wrung down to nothing. Well matched, finally. “Still, I looked for you. All over the city, over thrice nine districts, thrice nine prospekts. I asked even the corpses for news of you. I went to the Haymarket, where we heard of that awful woman selling pies, do you remember? She is gone now. Other people sell the same horrible pink pies, and their faces are so heavy and full—heavier and fuller than mine, anyway—and I don’t want to tell you if I bought their meat. Don’t ask me. But I went to the Haymarket and I saw the pie-sellers, and the boot-sellers, and the bread-sellers. They wanted six hundred rubles for a hunk of bread that was mostly sawdust. Today it’s probably a thousand. Still, I wanted that sawdust bread. My mouth moved as if I were already eating it. A few months ago barkers hollered in the Haymarket, and people brought strands of pearls to trade for bread. Now everyone stands still and lets the snow pile up on their shoulders and they are so quiet. Either you can buy it or you can’t. They haven’t the strength to haggle.

“I saw a plover in the market, just as brown as if he’d been baked out of sawdust himself. I looked at the plover and he looked at me, and I thought I had never seen such a big bird, so fat, such a sheen on his white chest, like a baron among plovers. Even before we ate all the birds we could catch, I had never seen one with such a keen gaze for me. My stomach said,
I’ll have that bird.
But my heart said,
There are few enough keen and shining things left in this city.
And you were not there, not in the market, not in the ice. I walked home, but as I walked the plover followed me, hopping from stoop to stoop, flying down the dead power lines, his keen gaze bouncing off the roof tiles and down and down to me. When I turned back onto Dzerzhinskaya Street and touched the door of our own house, the plover flapped his wings and spoke to me from the branch of the cherry tree.

“‘Give me something of hers,’ he squawked. ‘And I will help you.’

“All I could think of was the silver hairbrush you loved so well, so long ago. It sat in a drawer in your dresser; it still held a few strands of your dear black hair. I brushed it through my own hair, so that our curls could take comfort in one another. I passed it out the window, and the rook took it with his short beak. The weight of it nearly toppled him.

“‘Forget her forever, that is my help,’ he squawked. ‘But if you cannot, let me keep the brush. She is my family. I will look on it and dream of her. It would not be the first time some good has come from dreaming.’

“I did not want to, Masha. But I gave him the brush. He turned up his white throat to the sky and opened his beak so wide! He choked it down until the carved handle disappeared into his mouth. Then he flew away.”

Ivan moved his eyes over Marya’s face, memorizing it. She memorized his in turn, both as it had been and as it was now, for in her memory she would be honest. “Still, I looked for you. All over the city, over thrice nine districts, thrice nine prospekts. I asked even the stray ordnance for news of you, squatting huge and grey and stubborn in the streets. I went to the Hermitage, where the statues of giants hold up the roof—do you remember? Their elbows are all full of bullet holes now. Still, they look so strong, and beautiful, standing there in the snow, carrying their burden, their knuckles frozen over. I admire them. I thought,
If only I could be like them
.

“I saw a shrike on the big toe of one of the statues, his cheek just as red as if he’d been shot himself. I looked at the shrike and he looked at me, and I thought I had never seen such a big bird, so fat, such a sheen on his black wing, like a prince among shrikes. Even before we ate all the birds we could shoot, I had never seen one with such an ardent eye. My stomach said,
I’ll have that bird.
But my heart said,
There are few enough ardent things left in this city.
And you were not there, not below the statues, not in the dark. I walked home, but as I walked the shrike followed me, hopping from stoop to stoop, flying down the dead power lines, his ardent eye following the snow, down and down to me. When I turned back onto Dzerzhinskaya Street and touched the door of our own house, the shrike flapped his wings and spoke to me from the branch of the cherry tree.

“‘Give me something of hers,’ he squawked. ‘And I will help you.’