The Funeral Party

EIGHTEEN

Irina came out of the café and stood on the street, wondering what to do next; she must go home, Teeshirt was probably there already.

Just then a van with an air-conditioner on the roof drove up to the doorway of Alik’s building and parked under the “No Standing At Any Time” sign. Two young men in uniforms jumped out, followed by a third man resembling a bald Charlie Chaplin, who minced after them with a suitcase.

“The corpse-carrier,” Irina thought. “I’m going home.”

Fima met the undertakers. Some stage management was required. He nodded to Valentina: “Keep Nina in the studio.”

But Nina wasn’t going anywhere; she sat in the battered armchair and muttered enigmatically, mentioning herbs, Alik’s character and God’s will.

The two sturdy young men and their puny boss shut themselves in the bedroom with Fima; it was sad that Alik couldn’t laugh at this comical trio, he thought.

As they were running through the funeral arrangements, the two young men pulled from the suitcase a large black plastic bag, like the rubbish bags that line the streets every evening, and with three deft movements they slipped Alik inside as though putting shopping in a carrier bag. Charlie Chaplin stood watching.

“Stop, wait a minute,” Fima said. “I don’t want his wife to see.”

He went to the studio, pulled the unresisting Nina from her chair and carried her into the kitchen. Holding her gently against him, he brushed his unshaven cheek against her long neck, etched with tiny wrinkles, and said: “Well Bunny rabbit, what can I get you? Shall I run out for some grass?”

“No, I don’t want to smoke, I want another drink.”

He clasped her wrist and held it for a moment.

“Do you want me to give you an injection? A nice little injection?” He stood barring the kitchen door with his broad back, trying to decide on the best cocktail to knock her out and disconnect her for a bit. As he did so the undertakers carried out the black bag, as though taking out the rubbish.

Irina was already heading for the subway as the workers opened the boot of the van and pushed the black bag inside.

Fima gave Nina an injection, and soon her eyes closed and she slept until morning on the same orange sheet from which they had just removed her husband. It was strange, but she didn’t once ask where he was, she merely smiled tenderly from time to time before falling asleep, and said, “You never listen to me, I told you he would get better.”

People kept coming. Some didn’t know he had died, and had just come over to visit. A number of his friends arrived, including several from outside the city’s Russian-Jewish community. There was an Italian singer, one of Alik’s friends from Rome, and the owner of the café opposite, who brought Nina a cheque as he had promised. Libin, in accordance with Russian tradition, collected money. Some people from Moscow came, one with a letter for Alik, another saying he was an old friend. Some street people whom nobody knew turned up. The telephone rang, with calls from Paris and Yaroslavl.

Father Victor, when he learned of Alik’s deathbed baptism, gesticulated in the air, shook his head and then said that everything was God’s will. What else could an honourable Orthodox man say?

That morning, the day before the funeral, he picked Nina up in his old motorcar and drove her to the empty church—there were no services that day—and performed a funeral service for the dead man in his absence, who had been baptized virtually in his absence too.

In a low, resonant voice the priest chanted the best of all words, invented for just this eventuality. Nina shone with angelic beauty. Valentina stood holding a candle behind her in a dusty shaft of light from the ceiling window, and absolved herself for having loved this other woman’s husband.

As the last echoes of Father Victor’s voice died away in the dust-filled air, Valentina took from his hands a square packet containing some earth, a white ribbon with a prayer, and a small reproduction of an icon to put in the coffin. Then she grasped Nina’s trembling arm and pushed her into a taxi. Nina inclined her small head as she got into the battered yellow jalopy, as though it were a Rolls-Royce taking her to a reception at Buckingham Palace. This little bird has landed on my head, Valentina sighed. Lord, did I really hate her for so many years?