In Times of Fading Light (14 page)

Kurt knocked on her door.

“I’m going to give him a jar of pickled gherkins,” said Nadyeshda Ivanovna. “Or isn’t that good enough?”

“That’s a very good idea, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, yes, you give him a jar of gherkins.”

A good man, Kurt, always polite, always called her by her first name and her patronymic, Ira could think herself lucky to have found a man like that, thought Nadyeshda Ivanovna as she hauled herself up, he’d been a camp inmate, yes, he’d been in the camp, but back in Slava she’d noticed that the former inmates were decent men, more so sometimes than that drunken lot the camp administrators, but to think he’d rise so far, get to be a professor, going to Berlin every Monday with a briefcase, he did something or other there, she didn’t know just what, but it was all in the cause of the state, and he earned good money, he’d bought Ira a car, no one back in Slava would believe her. The wife driving the car, the husband going on foot, come to think of it, where was Ira?

“Where’s Ira?” asked Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

Kurt shook his head.

“She’s not coming with us,” he said.

“What, not coming with us? On Wilhelm’s birthday?”

Kurt pointed upward. Now Nadyeshda Ivanovna heard the music coming out of Ira’s room, she knew that music, Ira had been listening to it a lot recently, it was Russian music, a Russian singer bellowing for all he was worth, but it wasn’t the music that worried Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“Isn’t she feeling good?” asked Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“She isn’t feeling good,” said Kurt.

“Because of Sasha?” asked Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“Because of Sasha,” said Kurt.

Which was no reason for drinking, all the same, thought Nadyeshda Ivanovna. It wasn’t right for a woman, where did you ever hear the like of it, the wife drinking while the husband stayed sober, enough to put you to shame, and smoking, she smoked as well, none of it was right, getting drunk on Wilhelm’s birthday, as if Sasha would come back if she got drunk upstairs there.

“Take my arm, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, or you may fall.”

She took Kurt’s arm and went down the steps outside the house, one step at a time. The weeds in the cracks between the paving stones needed pulling out, she thought, as they went to the garden gate, but that was none of her business.

“So long as he’s all right there, that’s the main thing,” said Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“Yes,” said Kurt. “That’s the main thing.”

Charlotte and Wilhelm lived in the same street, not very far away, but not really close either when your feet were worn out. Luckily the sidewalks in Germany were paved. Kurt was carrying the jar of pickles, they went along arm in arm, taking small steps. Maybe he simply wasn’t firm enough with Irina, thought Nadyeshda Ivanovna. Irina wasn’t going to listen to anything that she, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, said, she always knew better, whether it was about pickles or the dough for pelmeni, it wasn’t supposed to have eggs in it, and just try telling her she ought to drink less, all hell would be let loose, what do you think you’re doing meddling in my life, we’re not in the Urals at the back of beyond now, well, excuse
me,
but if they were in the Urals,
at the back of beyond,
you can just close your door there and have some peace and quiet. It was probably because she hadn’t had a father, her grandmother Marfa had spoilt her, of course, at the start it was all
oh, the shame of it, a child by that dark man,
she always said the dark man, the
Zigan,
but he wasn’t a gypsy at all, he’d been a trader, they’d bought kerosene from him, he was a good man, Pyotr Ignatyevitch, not a drinker, not like the mujiks in Gríshkin Nagár, he was a gentleman almost, with his coat and his good manners, three horses to his cart, there weren’t as many as that in the whole village, and although yes, it had been a sin, and she asked God’s forgiveness, secretly she felt innocent, because if her mother, Marfa, hadn’t intervened they’d have been married in church before the eyes of God, he’d promised her on his word of honor.

“
He
wanted to marry me,” said Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“Who?” asked Kurt.

“Why, Pyotr Ignatyevitch,” said Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

“Ah,” said Kurt. “Yes, of course.”

But she sensed that he didn’t really believe her.

“He would have married me,” she persisted, “if Marfa hadn’t interfered first, and then we went away from Gríshkin Nagár, then later, when Ira was a big girl, we went to Slava.”

“What year was that?” asked Kurt.

“When the Soviets came.”

“When the Soviets came, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, you were just ten years old.”

“No, no.” Nadyeshda Ivanovna set him right. “I still remember, it was when our cousin slaughtered the cows, because he heard that anyone with more than three cows would be dekulakized, and then they dekulakized him all the same
because
he had slaughtered the cows.”

“You mean they shot him.”

“They’ll probably have shot him, it’s a long time ago.”

“And then you went to Slava.”

“Well, yes, Marfa didn’t want to go at first, not to Slava, because the Soviets were there.”

“But the Soviets were in Gríshkin Nagár too, you just said so.”

“Yes, but in Gríshkin Nagár, you see, there wasn’t much for the Soviets, six houses, not even a church to tear down. People said they were tearing churches down in Slava. Making electricity instead. My mother didn’t want anything to do with that, not her. She was against progress. I wasn’t against progress. It was a shame they tore churches down, but electricity, why not? And school, they said, people go to school in the city, so then we moved to the city, mainly because of Irina.”

“What city?” asked Kurt.

“How do you mean, what city?”

“You said you moved to the city.”

“Yes, you know we did.”

“Then you mean Slava.”

“Yes, of course, Slava. Where else?”

“Of course,” said Kurt, “where else?”

They crossed to the other side of the road. The sun was shining through the sparse crowns of the trees, warming you through your clothes, all the way to your bones. Nadyeshda Ivanovna enjoyed walking along beside Kurt, arm in arm, it was almost flattering, she’d even forgotten her feet with all the talking. Maybe she’d go to church again, to an Orthodox church, you could go some of the way on a tramcar, she could light a candle for Sasha, even if he didn’t believe in all that, maybe it would help him find some peace all the same, poor boy, or she would give something for the collection if that was what you did, after all, she had money.

Charlotte and Wilhelm’s house was beautiful. The little tower sticking out on one side of the roof even made it look a little like a church, her mother, Marfa, would have taken it for a church, though in fact she took any stone house for a church. The entrance was almost at ground level, that in particular seemed to Nadyeshda Ivanovna very grand, you had only to go up one step and then you were in front of a massive wooden double door, even with carving and two gilded fish heads on it.

A young man in a suit opened the door to them, Nadyeshda Ivanovna knew him, she’d often seen him at Charlotte and Wilhelm’s house, a cheerful person who was always laughing, and who welcomed her exuberantly.
Babushka, Babushka,
he said, and Nadyeshda Ivanovna said: God be with you, my son.
“Bogh s taboyu, synok.”

First you went into a little front room, from here a glass door led to the spacious hall, there was even a cloakroom alcove for the coat stand, which looked just like the front door of the house, carved wood, except that Wilhelm had painted it, but tastefully, not like Ira, who painted furniture white so that the place looked like a hospital.

Now Charlotte came bustling along, she too was older than Nadyeshda Ivanovna, but her legs were still fine and she had a hairstyle like a young girl. Although the conversation between Kurt and Charlotte was in German, Nadyeshda Ivanovna grasped the fact that Charlotte was asking how Irina and Sasha were, and she could tell from Charlotte’s face that she wasn’t happy about what Kurt told her, which was, or so Nadyeshda Ivanovna suspected, that Sasha was in America. Still, she took it with composure, just so long as Wilhelm heard nothing about it,
ni slova Wilgelmu,
she repeated in Russian for emphasis.

“You see, Nadyeshda Ivanovna, he’s not at all ...”

And she gestured in a way that was difficult to interpret. What was the matter with Wilhelm? Wasn’t he well?

It was a fact that Wilhelm had lost weight since Nadyeshda Ivanovna last saw him. He almost disappeared into his huge armchair. His glance was gloomy, and his voice quavered as he welcomed her.

“For you, little father,” said Nadyeshda Ivanovna, giving him the jar of pickles.

Wilhelm’s eyes brightened. He looked at Nadyeshda Ivanovna and said, glancing back at the pickled gherkins,
“Garosh!”

But they weren’t peas.

“They’re gherkins,” Nadyeshda Ivanovna explained.
“Ogurzy!”

“Garosh,”
said Wilhelm.

“
Ogurzy,”
said Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

But Wilhelm, as if to prove that there were peas in the jar anyway, had it opened for him and fished out a gherkin. And although it really was obviously a gherkin that he was biting into, he said,
“Garosh!”

Nadyeshda Ivanovna nodded. So that was it! On the way out, poor old Wilhelm. Now she understood the darkness of his gaze; she’d seen it before in those about to die.

“
Bogh s taboyu,”
said Nadyeshda Ivanovna.

Then she set about greeting the guests. She knew many of them, if not by their names. She knew the silent man with the sad eyes who had opened the jar of pickles for Wilhelm. She also knew his wife, a blonde who always seemed to be a head taller than her husband—except when they were standing side by side. She knew the friendly lady who sold vegetables in the store next to the post office; she happily gave her her purse to take out the right money. She also knew the police officer and the neighbor whose hand was always damp and who always greeted her with the words
Da zdravstvuyet!
—long live, only he never said exactly
what
was to live long. They were all really friendly, even those she didn’t know, the men stood up specially, shook her hand and patted her on the shoulder, it was quite embarrassing. Only the friendly man in the pale gray suit who still used to speak Russian to her last year looked as if he didn’t recognize her, his hand shook and his face was frozen, and he suddenly looked like Brezhnev.

She sat down at the end of the long table, someone brought up a little armchair specially for her, a chair into which she sank so far that she hardly came up to the top of the table. She was given coffee and cake, thank God the coffee wasn’t too strong, and the cake was delicious, she ate two slices, balancing the plate on her knees while the other guests went back to their conversations. The Germans talked a lot, that was nothing new, all that university education, they had a lot to tell each other, for Nadyeshda Ivanovna it was nothing but the usual torrent of rasping, guttural sounds. Yes, of course she’d wanted to learn German when she came to Germany, she used to sit down and bone up on the German letters every day, but then, when she knew
all the letters by heart,
when she knew
the entire German alphabet,
she made an astounding discovery: she still didn’t know German. So then she gave up, it was pointless, such a difficult, mysterious language, the words scratched your throat like dry bread,
Kootentak
you said on meeting someone, good day, and
Affeederseyn,
until we meet again, on parting, or the other way around,
Affeederseyn, Kootentak,
such a lot of trouble to take over just saying hello and good-bye.

The man with the sad eyes pushed a small green metal beaker over to Nadyeshda Ivanovna and raised his glass.

“Nadyeshda Ivanovna,” said the man.

“
Da zdravstvuyet,”
cried the damp-handed man, also raising his glass.
“Zatchem?”
said Nadyeshda Ivanovna. What to?

It wasn’t really what she wanted, but suddenly they were all drinking to her, telling her to drink up herself, never mind, thought Nadyeshda Ivanovna, she would allow herself a little nip on Wilhelm’s birthday, she tossed the schnapps back, but at the very moment when she tossed it back it occurred to her that you didn’t do that kind of thing in Germany, in Germany you only sipped from a glass, she felt a little embarrassed to have made a slip like that, and furthermore the stuff tasted horrible, she wasn’t used to drinking these days, she felt the alcohol go to her head, and after a while it seemed to her that the people here were talking faster and faster, the rasping German sounds were rasping right in her ears, such an urge to communicate almost made her feel dizzy, so much as all that couldn’t have happened since last year, thought Nadyeshda Ivanovna, the only item of news she could think of was that Sasha was in America.

“
Sasha v Amerike,”
she told the man with the sad eyes.

“Nadyeshda Ivanovna,” said the man.

He reached for the schnapps bottle to pour her another nip, but Nadyeshda Ivanovna vigorously repelled the attempt. She was already so tipsy from one nip that she even began hearing Russian words among all the rasping German sounds, or to be more precise a name: it was
Gorbachev,
somehow or other she knew it from TV, or was she just imagining that, the man with that mark on his forehead, yes, there was a man like that, but why they kept showing him on American TV was a mystery to her, surely he was one of ours—wasn’t he?

Here came Melitta, Sasha’s ex. Nadyeshda Ivanovna knew her at once, although she’d dolled herself up like a
boyarina.
Now that she was divorced from Sasha, Nadyeshda Ivanovna felt less well disposed to her, she had to admit, the way he’d lost weight back then was a disaster, poor boy, and her great-grandson, Markus, very seldom came to visit now. When he was little he used to sit on her lap, like Sasha in the old days, and she’d sung him the song about the little kid, although he didn’t understand a thing, he didn’t understand Russian, Markus didn’t, they didn’t teach him Russian. For a while he used to come and see her now and then in her room to get a chocolate, but she wasn’t supposed to give him that kind of thing, Melitta carried on about it as if it was poison, and then he didn’t come anymore, she couldn’t even remember when she’d last seen Markus, he’d shot up tall but he was thin as a broomstick, and pale like Jesus on the cross, no wonder if he never had anything sweet to eat.