The Funeral Party

FIFTEEN

Lyuda stood irresolutely at the door, looking in.

“Go away all of you, all of you!” Nina’s gesture was majestic, even theatrical.

Gioia sat in the corner resting her chin on her knee, and said in surprise: “But Nina, I was going to sit with him.”

“Everybody out, I said!”

Gioia flushed, shook herself and ran to the lift. Lyuda stood distractedly in the middle of the studio. The sleeping guest snored on with the blanket over his head.

Nina ran to the kitchen and groped in the back of the cupboard for a white porcelain soup tureen.

For a moment she recalled the marvellous day in Washington when they had bought it. They had been staying with their friend Slavka Crane, a cheerful double-bass player who had retrained as a sad computer programmer. They had eaten breakfast in a small restaurant near a little square in the Alexandria district. Some pensioners were playing astoundingly bad but free music on the street, and afterwards Slavka had taken them off to an open-air market. It was such a happy day that they decided to buy something beautiful, but for a few cents (as always, they were very short of money), and a handsome grey-haired black man with a withered arm had sold them this English soup tureen dating from the time of the Boston tea party. They had spent the rest of the day dragging around with them this large, inconvenient object which they couldn’t fit in their bag, and Slavka had gone in his car to meet someone or see them off.

“This is why we bought it,” Nina thought now, filling it with water.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she solemnly carried it into the bedroom, holding it to her face and pressing her lips against its sides.

She’s really crazy now, Fima frowned, what will she do next? She had already forgotten that she had just sent everyone out.

She placed the bowl carefully on the stool, took three candles out of the cupboard, lit them and melted their bases, then stuck them to the porcelain rim of the bowl. She did all this quickly and effortlessly; it was as though everything she needed was coming out to meet her.

She took the paper icon from the wall and smiled, remembering the strange man who had left it there. He was one of the many homeless emigrés who had stayed with them. Although Nina had been generally indifferent to their guests and barely noticed them, this one she had asked Alik to send away. But Alik had merely said, “Shut up, Nina, we live too well.” He was an odd, mad young man. He didn’t wash and wore what appeared to be chains on his body. He hated America, and the only reason he had come was that he had had a vision that Christ was living there, and he had come to find Him. He chased around Central Park all day looking for Him, then someone helped him to see the light, and he went to California, to a fellow seeker, an American this time—Serafim or Sebastian or something—also mad, apparently, and a monk.

Nina propped the icon against the bowl, gazed at Alik and thought for a moment. Something troubled her—his name. His name was a problem: although people always called him Alik, he had been registered as Abraham in honour of his dead grandfather. Before his parents divorced, they had quarrelled about whose idea it had been to give their child this stupid, provocative name; even some of his closest friends didn’t know his real name, particularly since he had put it down as Alik on his American papers.

Whatever the name, the man destined to bear it hadn’t much longer to live. He gasped convulsively from time to time. Nina rushed to the bookshelf, looking for a church calendar. At random, she pulled out the right volume from behind a jumble of books. For 22 August she read: “Martyrs Fotii and Anikita, Pamphil and Kapiton. Holy Martyr Alexander.” Everything was right again, the name was right; everything was coming out to meet her again. She smiled.

“Alik!” she cried. “Please don’t be angry or offended, I’m going to baptize you.”

She took from her long neck the gold cross that used to belong to her grandmother, a Ters cossack. Maria Ignatevna had told her what to do. Any Christian could do it if someone was dying; just a cross made with water or sand, a gold cross, or even some matches tied in a cross. Now she just had to say a few simple words she had memorized. She crossed herself, dipped the cross in the water and said in a hoarse voice: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost …” She made the sign of the cross in the water, dipped her hand in, scooped up a handful of water and sprinkled it over her husband’s face. “… I baptize thee, Alik, servant of God.”

At the critical moment she didn’t notice that the truly suitable name of Alexander had flown out of her head.

She was unsure what to do next. With the cross in one hand she sat beside him rubbing the baptismal water over his face and chest. One of the candles bent over the rim of the bowl and, in defiance of the laws of physics, fell inside the now holy vessel. It spluttered and went out. Nina laid the cross on his neck. “Alik, Alik!” she called.

He didn’t respond, just gave a throaty snore and fell silent.

“Fima!” she shouted.

Fima walked in.

“Look what I’ve done. I’ve baptized him.”

Fima retained his professionalism. “Well, fine. He certainly can’t get any worse.”

The marvellous feeling of certainty she had had earlier suddenly deserted her. Moving the stool back to the corner, she lay down beside Alik and gabbled something Fima couldn’t understand.

The door opened slightly and Kipling the dog walked in. For the past three days he had lain by the door waiting for his master to return. He laid his head on the bed. I should take him out, Fima thought; it’s time for me to go to work. Gioia had gone off offended. Lyuda too had left in the night. Fima roused the sleeping man in the corner, who turned out to be Shmuel, not Libin, as Fima had supposed, which was just as well, since Shmuel was in no hurry to go anywhere; he had spent his entire ten years in America on welfare. Fima hastily explained to him the emergency procedures and left his telephone number at work. Now he would take Kipling out, who was waiting patiently by the door wagging his tail. After that he must go to work.