High Tide (16 page)

 

Ieva, Monta, and Dārcis stand in the front hallway of the apartment. Monta leans against the wall and holds Dārcis by his collar. Ieva puts on the necklace Andrejs gave her—the Virgin Mary hanging from a woven cord. We're all set to go with our collars on, Ieva thinks.

“Let's go!”

And they go.

 

She drops her daughter and the dog off at Pērnavas Street, where Monta is quick to fish her mother's white guinea pig from its sand-filled aquarium and drop it on the ground—much to Dārcis's barking delight and the guinea pig's mortal fear. Ieva listens through her mother's complaints and suggestions, then heads back into the street after a wash of goodbye kisses from Monta. She puts on her headphones and turns on her CD player, listens to Laurie Anderson's album “Bright Red.”

 

Remember me is all I ask

And if remembered be a task forget me.

This long thin line. This long thin line.

This long thin line. This tightrope made of sound.

 

This music is like a frosty glaze forming over an oppressive heat. Over life's distorted faces, broken-down by the black ice of passion, over the fire-filled bodies, markets, sales, weddings, births, and funerals. The music climbs over the dusty streets and freezes these things in moments, echoes, reflections. It fits in perfectly with Ieva's own Ice Age.

She turns the volume up as far as it will go and shrinks into a corner of her world. Her mother just told her, “Read your life like a book, and with pleasure! It's your privilege and yours alone.” Ieva skips ahead few tracks and watches as the city shifts in crystalline arcs.

All of these faces, her species. Ieva is able to participate when the music plays, to once again breathe in the air so many others have breathed for millions of years.

Watch your life as if it's a movie—with an aching.

 

You had that rusty old car

And me I had nothing better to do.

You picked me up. We hit the road.

Baby me and you.

 

We shot out of town

Drivin' fast and hard

Leaving our greasy skid marks

In people's back yards.

We were goin' nowhere.

Just driving around.

We were goin' in circles.

And me I was just hanging on.

 

In the Central Market Ieva breaks through the hundred-headed mass and thinks about Monta. Her soft, silk-like skin, her clear eyes, the warmth so newly ignited in her heart! The way she looks along at the road ahead.

Stay with Grandma, be good, don't give Grandma any trouble! Mommy's going to go see your father. To visit.

For now Monta doesn't have any questions. It's what has to be done, obviously the entire world works like this. Mommy has to go see Daddy, who Monta doesn't remember. She doesn't know where he lives; all she knows is that she has to wait for him to come home. A priori love. She has to wait for Daddy like she has to wait for Santa Claus. But even Santa comes around more often—once a year.

Now and then Monta throws out a question that's like a slap in the face—she asks Ieva about Aksels. She still remembers Aksels.

Where's Ocela?

Ocela's in Heaven.

There's no use waiting for Ocela.

 

Ieva fills her prison-visiting bag with things from the Central Market. Black tea, the simplest kind, loose, granulated if possible. Bacon. She spends a lot of time looking at the hanging hunks of pig meat at the stand; she'll miss the train if she doesn't hurry. But she has to hope the bacon will be the real thing, smoked in alderwood, not chemically dyed brown. An entire kilogram of onions. Herbs, cheese, mineral water. Candy—thin, chocolate-filled wafers coated with a sugary glaze.

And the most important thing—cartons of cigarettes. She won't buy them at the store, but at the market pavilion at the intersection where they're cheaper. Where under-the-table merchants with raw and weathered faces shout into the crowd:
Spirt, vodka, sigareti!
Ieva gives one of them twenty lats, takes the cigarettes, and waits for her change. The man turns his back to her, as if she didn't even exist.

When he starts to walk away, Ieva grabs his sleeve.

“What do you want, lady?”

“Ten lats.”

“You nuts?”

The man swears and shakes Ieva off, but as he turns to leave his eyes flick to the opening of her shirt above her breasts.

Ieva automatically brings her fingers to her chest.

The tin pendant Andrejs had given her, the Virgin Mary on a woven piece of string. Warm from her body heat. The merchant most likely has a similar one around his neck—and if he doesn't, then someone he knows definitely does. A pendant made in prison. A class marker.

The man mumbles something, gives Ieva her ten lats, and then they're parted by the flow of marketgoers. You don't touch your own. Don't screw over your own. Who were you planning on cheating? One of your kind? Have you completely lost it?

 

Eagle bites the weasel.

Weasel bites back.

They fly up to nowhere.

Weasel keeps hangin' on.

Together forever.

And me? I'm goin' in circles.

And if I open my mouth now

I'll fall to the ground.

 

Ieva pushes her way out of the pavilion. The sweat-drenched stench makes her dizzy, nauseated. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her mouth. Beads of sweat form at her temples.

She just has to get through it.

 

Summer has finally relaxed the muscles of its face.

If it rains, it's torrential, sudden and unruly. If it's sunny, the light is open and raw. The fields are cleared and filled with scavenging birds and dust clouds.

Ieva settles in the diesel train with her bag like she's planning on being there for life. For four hours she stares out the window, as if she could absorb the future through her pupils from the mute lips of the scenery outside.

 

The moon can do amazing things, her mother had said.

Ieva remembers the last time she visited Andrejs.

He'd given her his shirt.

Ieva remembers herself in the prison's hotel room, in front of a female guard. They stand face to face, both silent and with feet slightly spread apart.

Ieva unbuttons her dress.

For a moment their eyes meet. The female guard looks down. She puts her cool hands on Ieva's shoulders, then slides her fingers down over Ieva's collarbone, around her bra, and down her ribs.

Thighs.

Knees.

Ankles.

As she stands Ieva looks down at the wellspring at the back of the guard's head where her dark hair forms a small whirlpool. The axis of the skull, Ieva thinks offhandedly. Children are born with open wellsprings, and then the skull grows shut. Then they build schools, churches, and prisons. Someone has to do it.

The guard is squatting and inspects Ieva's sandals one by one. One winter, when it was ungodly cold, Ieva had lined her boots with folded newspapers. She remembers the female guard who had unfolded and skimmed over each newspaper in annoyance.

Someone has to do it.

Ieva buttons up her dress.

While she does that the guard prods the loaf of bread with a long needle; then the needle is dragged through the block of butter. The needle is put down and the guard opens the bottle of mineral water, puts it to her lipsticked mouth and tastes the contents.

 

The guard sits next to one of the nightstands. She methodically opens the carton of cigarettes, takes out each one and puts it back. Dumps the contents of Ieva's backpack onto the bed.

The guard flips through Ieva's journal, then tosses it onto the table.

The guard says:

“You can't bring that.”

Ieva nods. Thoughts are a scary thing—grenades, guns, narcotics.

“They'll come get you tomorrow at ten,” the guard says.

She gathers up all the items to be temporarily confiscated and leaves. Ieva sits down so her shaking legs don't betray her, and waits. There's a knock at the door.

Another guard brings in the prisoner and leaves. The prisoner is dressed up in a suit. He stays standing by the door, grinning stupidly.

He approaches her cautiously, stands for a moment, then pulls her into his lap. Her smooth cheek against the bristly roughness of his.

 

They lean with their elbows on the windowsill because there's nothing to really talk about. The window is open and sunlight streams in through the bars. Andrejs moves close to the bars and calls out—kss, kss, kss! A cat is walking along the meticulously raked strip of sand between the prison hotel and the zone fence. The cat freezes, looks up at the window, then walks on with purpose, its tail twitching.

Andrejs turns his head.

“Tell me what it's like out there.”

Ieva gets flustered.

“I can't.”

“Why.”

“It all changes so often. You'd have to see it for yourself.”

 

At some point the room is finally filled with the gentle shadows of twilight. Flies buzz around the final rays of sun over the strip of sand. These rays are so curious, so full of magic and freedom, that Ieva can't think of anything better than what those flies are doing—dancing for the setting sun. Except the window is barred.

Andrejs hands Ieva an icon stitched into a plastic slip.

“I wanted to give you this.”

Ieva reads it:

“‘Be not afraid! Open your heart to Christ—the Lord…' John Paul… Do you believe in God?”

Andrejs answers:

“Don't know.”

Ieva reads on:

“‘Fools—this life was meant to given away, and nothing more…' To who?”

“What do you mean ‘to who?”

She asks:

“Who are we supposed to give our lives to?”

Andrejs scratches the back of his head.

“Like I know… It was written in a book. Here we call those things icons. I make them myself. Got nothing else to do.”

 

Night. Light from the watchtower searchlights moves diagonally across the ceiling of the prison hotel room. Ieva and Andrejs lie in bed. Bodies rigid, naked, without touching. It's hot. Now and then the guard alarm sounds outside.

Ieva asks:

“Where'd you get the suit?”

Andrejs answers:

“From donated clothes. Norwegian.”

“It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

Silence.

Andrejs's hand moves and rests gently on Ieva's chest.

“You've gotten pretty fragile. Like a skeleton.”

Ieva laughs.

“Like a skeleton!”

“Don't do that. Eat more. You'll get ugly.”

Silence.

Ieva says:

“I've got to save up. I've eaten nothing but water for a while now. It's got nutrients in it, too, for real. Just have to get used to it.”

 

Ieva's eyes in the darkness. Andrejs also pretends to sleep.

Then she suddenly sits upright in bed.

“Something was here! In the dark. Something evil! What's that noise?”

After a brief silence Andrejs answers:

“The alarm outside.”

Ieva shouts:

“No, no! Here! There was something evil moving around in here.”

The massive May moon fills the window—an agitated red, and completely dead. The air is alive and pulsates with the chirping of crickets.

“This is a prison, Ieva. And you're sleeping next to a murderer, by the way. Or did you forget that?”

Ieva leans on her arm and looks into his face. The moon shines through her eyes, her forehead is white in the glow.

She says:

“Stop reminding me all the time! I'm sleeping next to a person. That's how I want to see it.”

Andrejs doesn't know what to say, and just waves her off like he would a fly. Ieva sinks back against the pillow and continues:

“We have a daughter. A daughter, Andrejs.”

“I want you to bring her with some day.”

“She'll never, ever set foot in here!”

 

Morning. Ieva lines dishes on the shelf. All that's left on the nightstand is a watch. Outside it's pouring rain and thundering. Andrejs sits on the bed, smoking nervously.

She sits across from him and picks at the corner of the blanket. He gets up and starts pacing the room.

He says:

“They've forgotten. It's already five after.”

Ieva forces a laugh:

“That would be just perfect—to forget about us in prison!”

Andrejs asks:

“How'll you get to the bus stop? It's pouring and cold—take my shirt.”

Ieva pulls the shirt on over her dress.

He says:

“Just think, my shirt'll be free in a few minutes.”

There's a knock at the door.

Andrejs looks at Ieva.

“Everything that's happened, and prison—but I haven't turned into some kind of animal, Ieva. You hear me?”

A guard with a wide, official face comes in.

They're taken away.

 

Prison hallways.

A maze of hallways, the door that opens and shuts with a bang. For a brief second they're able to see each other through the glass door.

 

The prison gate.

They return Ieva's passport.

She steps out into the rain, right into the core of it, this mess of intoxicating freedom, water, and sand. It won't even let her breathe in—just exhale. Endlessly exhale as she looks back at the white fence, then back out toward the city and the future, which slowly but surely draws closer through the slanted torrent of water from the heavens.

 

The moon can do amazing things, her mother had said.

Ieva snaps back from the window when she hears the station announced over the speakers, her stop. She turns the Virgin Mary pendant from Andrejs over in her fingers, and then she's on the platform. Dingy piles of leaves litter the concrete under the green benches, stray cats laze about, and everything is surrounded by a slow, small-town calm.