The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (31 page)

'But it is your birthright,' the girl said, squaring her shoulders.

The driver ground the gears and the car rounded the corner to her street. Tanya's thoughts were a whirl. Acid rose to the back of her mouth. This girl sitting beside her—what a confusion, what a piece of chaos, what a strange contradiction she was. The babies, or rather, the foam replicas of the babies, whose lives had simply been foreshortened but were now remembered and loved by everyone who saw them, repulsed
her utterly. But she couldn't wait to get out to Perm-36 where she would no doubt touch the fences where prisoners were routinely lined up and shot. This girl would fold her so-tall body into an isolation cell to see what such torture felt like for a mere twenty seconds and she'd look at the glass display case of bones and hair, shoes and glasses—the things that outlasted the men and women who'd died so horribly in a place that was nothing short of hell on earth. She would do this, and if not here in Perm, then somewhere else, Tanya was certain of it, because she felt entitled by distant heritage to some portion of collective suffering, as if suffering were something one could lay claim to and collect. As if this kind of suffering were something one should wish to remember.

The microvan suddenly lurched for the kerb. The driver hopped out as if his shoes were on fire. He opened the hood of the car and inspected the engine. There wasn't a thing in the world wrong with it, Tanya knew. He was simply feigning a breakdown so that he could affect a miraculous repair at the sight of a few extra roubles.

'What's wrong?' the grandmother asked.

'A small paper shortage,' Tanya said, climbing out. She fished in her purse and retrieved all the items she'd co-opted in the event of such an emergency: one of Zoya's bottles of nail-varnish remover, a vial of Russian Forest perfume, one of Daniilov's beloved wrenches. But the driver shook his fist and cursed bitterly at her anyway. They'd run out of petrol, really and truly, and nothing short of fuel falling from the sky would
console him now. From a box beneath the dash, he withdrew three bottles of vodka and a garden hose, currency he'd co-opted in the event of such an emergency, and stood in the street, waving the bottles at passing cars.

'What now?' the mother asked.

'We walk,' Tanya said.

'But our bags,' the girl said.

Tanya hefted a bag onto her shoulder. 'They'll have to walk, too.'

***

Outside the news building the pigeons lifted from the trees. The skins of the lime trees had thawed and the sun shone horizontally just as it should this time of year. Whatever disaster was brewing inside the
Red Star
offices, it had not stalled the cautious approach of a new season. Olga trudged through the muddy square behind Arkady, who slowed every now and then to offer her his arm. When they reached the metal bench, Olga brushed aside some trash and sank down gratefully. Though sitting on metal benches, according to Vera, put the ovaries in jeopardy, Olga was long past the age of caring about such things. And sitting, she'd learned from her years at the
Red Star,
made a shaky situation more stable, dropping nearly any disaster to a more manageable altitude.

Arkady lowered himself carefully beside Olga. 'Thank God!' he sighed. 'I hated that job.'

Olga started. 'I thought you liked that job!'

'I hated every minute of it. The only reason I have stayed on this long is because of you. Because, Olga Semyonovna, I have always liked you.'

Olga stared mutely at Arkady.

'In fact,' Arkady continued, 'from the first day I saw you, I loved you. All these years I have pried myself out of bed and trudged to work only because I knew you would be there. That we would talk, however briefly. That we would drink a little tea, however lukewarm, together.'

'I had no idea, no idea whatsoever,' Olga muttered, her numb gaze trained on Arkady's shoes.

'You possess a rare and noble soul and though I cannot offer you much, you have my heart, if you want it, and of course, my unfailing admiration.'

'Why?'

Arkady blinked rapidly. 'Because of the nature of our work and the quintessential nature of who we, Jews, are—lovers of words and seekers of wisdom. We have suffered alongside each other and, therefore, we understand each other.'

As he was speaking something liquid shifted behind Olga's ribs, something anciently familiar, light and heavy at the same time. Olga jolted upright on the bench for sheer shock of it. Could she really be feeling the first giddy rushes of the possibility of love? And for such a man as Arkady? And Olga could not help allowing herself to smile. 'It's quite a lot to consider. All at once, that is,' Olga managed at last.

Arkady rose to his feet and laid his gloved hand over hers. 'That is all I ask. Consider it. Incidentally, this is for you.' Arkady withdrew an envelope from his coat pocket, then pulled his coat collar around his neck and walked across the square.

Olga watched him go. Then she looked at the envelope, considering just what might be inside. At last she opened it. Inside was an official-looking letter and attached to the letter an official-looking card. The idiot card.

At the edge of the square Arkady had stopped to look at her sitting there on the bench, the letter opened on her lap, the card in her hand. They observed each other from across the square. Olga tipped her head, considering Arkady. That word
consider
tied her eyebrows in a knot. Built from the Latin root
siderus,
the word rested on two meanings. Just like the old parables in which two images lie next to each other and forced meaning from the ground between them, this word demanded that she reconcile two seemingly unlike meanings from the common core: 'to observe the stars'. But the other meaning: 'desire'. The very thought of the word was enough to make the ovaries jump—and her on a cold metal bench!

Olga lifted her hand in a wave. Arkady raised his arm, then turned and trudged on. Olga hopped to her feet, slid the card between her bra and breast, and hurried for home. All these years she'd looked at Arkady as a friend, durable as the desk they shared, faithful but unimaginative as an oar to a lock. The idea that Arkady could provide, for her and her son, in such a significant and tangible way was such a surprise to Olga,
who had learned over the years to expect so little from people, especially those who meant well. The idea that Arkady could surprise her, and that she might like this, that she could feel something for him and on such a hairpin turn, made her wonder what else about Arkady—about herself—she had miscalculated.

Azade leaned on her shovel and squinted at the festering heap. A real puzzle there, Mircha. Not at all following the rules of the old stories. She'd broken him with the needle. And in his body she could see that he was diminished. He clung to a rusted pogo stick anchored in the heap, looking very much like a human accordion bent by the wind. But his mouth! It still moved. And his voice carried all too well.

'Capitalism is brushing its teeth! Global corporate domination is on the march!' Mircha hooted towards the stairwell where Zoya emerged wearing a strapless dress with a bra that wasn't, as was the fashion. She stomped across the marshy courtyard to the latrine, where she rattled the handle.

Azade could smell the thermometer warming in the girl's pocket, the biting odour of mercury, and her quick irritation, which, as all things do, worked its complement through the bowels. Which is why Azade did not need to ask to know that Zoya would require ten squares of paper, at the very least.

Azade unlocked the door and held it open for Zoya.

Mircha cupped his hand to his mouth and hooted in their
direction. 'Behold, we stand at the crossroads. I speak to you as a prophet! The Japanese are stealing our icebergs and auctioning them on the Internet!'

Azade tipped her head, considering the largesse Mircha had acquired in death. Bodily he was smaller, dwarfed inside his service coat, but the sheer verbage issuing from his mouth and the stink of it—their little courtyard filled as it was with the heap—could barely contain it all.

'A story! A story! This one I think you will like.' Mircha balanced on the top of the pile. 'Actually it's several stories bleeding into one, a popular architecture, and none of the stories really finishes, but that just proves the best stories are like life, completely unresolved.'

After a few moments Zoya emerged from the latrine. She shielded her eyes and gazed at the heap.

'God, what a nuisance,' she said, dropping fifty kopeks into Azade's collection tray with one hand and pinching her nose with the other. 'If he doesn't shut up, he'll ruin what little chance we have for the grant.'

***

Yuri stretched his body over the bench and listened to the clouds. They spoke to him in familiar voices. Correction. They spoke in a familiar voice. Just one. Mircha's. Yuri opened an eye.

Mircha sat on the heap and made music with empty tins of sprats. 'Fish are birds without wings!'

Yuri smiled at the noise. Who would have thought the man had done so much thinking in his as-yet short afterlife! And it was all so very profound!

'Yu—ri!' Zoya's voice rang out shrill and sharp, breaking his name into jagged halves. Yuri raised himself onto an elbow and listened to the sound of Zoya's shoes punching angry holes in the soft mud. Punch—squish, punch—squish. Heel—toe. Heel—toe. How she managed that full-throttle approach, complete with her trademark hip thrust and wearing those shoes in this mud—and all without a single break in her stride—it was enough to send him reeling. And then there she was, bench-side and not a bit out of breath. Under the May slant light her hair cast a metallic borscht-coloured sheen. Yuri winced.

Mircha flung his arm at Zoya. 'The Mongolians are bottling ordinary air and peddling it as medicinal oxygen!'

Zoya pointed her chin towards Mircha. 'Some people just don't know when to quit.'

'Oh, I don't know.' Yuri inhaled deeply. 'Even a fool can have a moment of primal wisdom.'

Zoya sat next to Yuri. 'But he doesn't make any sense.'

'Few prophets do. At least he's keeping all his clothes on.'

'Speaking of which,' Zoya said, whipping out her thermometer from her open purse. 'Look! I am ovulating. Right now.' Zoya hooked her finger between a shirt button and pulled. 'As in this moment exactly.' Now she had a hand on his knee. Who was this vixen with the sharp tongue and radiating hair, pulling on his shirt, yanking at his belt buckle?

Tick.

Yuri blinked.

Heapside, Mircha bellowed: 'Be a man! Fulfill your calling!'

Tick.
Yuri blinked again. Yes, the ticking was back. Distinct as ever. 'Now? This moment exactly?'

'Yes!' Zoya and Mircha cried in unison.

Tick.

Yuri held his hands up, as if in protest. Or maybe surrender. 'But the art-loving Americans are coming.'

'Yes. I know. They want to see how real Russians live.' Zoya smiled and slid her hand along Yuri's thigh.

He swallowed. His voice shook. 'But the timing is so delicate and the need for social graces so severe. I mean, honestly, how would it look?'

Zoya leaned and licked first one eyebrow and then the other. Yuri felt his chest tighten, his heart gallop. 'Who cares?' Zoya unhitched his belt and pulled him towards the darkened stairwell where his muscles seemed to move of their own volition.

Off went the belt. Down came the trousers. And then they were doing what two young people do when they are in love, or at least amiable towards the idea of togetherness even if it has nothing to do with love. And then: horrors. Malfunction. Negative lift. Complete and absolute system failure.

With a snort Zoya pushed Yuri. 'You really are worthless, you know.' Zoya sidled her dress over her hips.

'I'm sorry.' Yuri tried steadying his hands over his knees. 'I
just can't. Something's wrong, I don't know what. It might be that ticking.'

'Your problem is that you think too much. Or maybe not enough. Either way, you better pull your head out of your ass and soon!'

Yuri stood and yanked his trousers waistward. His face contorted with shame and more thinking. Yuri pulled on his space helmet. What did she mean, he did not think enough or possibly too much?

***

At the edge of the courtyard Tanya hesitated. Her every instinct told her to turn back now before it was too late. To herd the women to the city's only three-star hotel, where an earnest brass band and recently laundered bed sheets awaited them.

'Well,' the grandmother prompted.

Tanya cleared her throat. 'I suppose there are a few, er, things, I should mention.'

'Things? What things?' the mother asked, craning her neck.

The girl gazed over the top of Tanya's head for an unobstructed view of the portable latrine and Azade ferociously sweeping at the mud in front of it. Olga sat on the bench and contemplated the latest issue of the
Red Star,
the pages of which were utterly blank.

Lukeria leaned out her open window and shouted in English, 'Hey! American ladies! Are your suitcases made from real leather? Or are they Chinese imitations?'

The grandmother looked at the mother and the mother looked at Tanya.

'She says things. She is very ill,' Tanya whispered.

'Watch out for those conniving Jews!' Lukeria hooted. 'They engineered the revolution, you know.'

The girl turned to Tanya. 'Which revolution is she talking about?'

Tanya sighed. 'All of them, I think.'

The mother touched Tanya's elbow. 'Why don't you take her to the hospital?'

'Unthinkable.' Tanya shook her head. 'She'd never make it. One has to be extraordinarily healthy to survive a stay in a Russian hospital.'

The women gazed at the windows. Tanya couldn't decide if they were merely baffled or in a state of extreme consternation. But as they'd passed the latrine, Tanya decided to keep them moving through the courtyard. A good plan. And it would have worked, too, if only the women didn't have the Western lolling gaze so perfectly honed. For with every step they took, Tanya could see that they were taking in detail after detail, absurdity stacked upon absurdity. No matter where they looked, they saw something Tanya knew fell outside the realm of what they had hoped to see. True to her word, Zoya had hung the best of her laundry: her sheer nightgowns and tights.
Then there was Yuri sitting on an overturned bucket beside the gaping hole, a fishing rod in his hand, his whole face tortured by thought.