The Story of a Life

4

Pleurisy

Thunderstorms at Gorodishche were common. They began on the peasant festival of Ivan Kupala and lasted all July. They besieged the island with enormous multi-coloured clouds, which flashed and crashed, shaking the house and frightening Aunt Dozia half to death.

These storms are connected with the memory of my first childhood love affair. I was nine years old at the time. On the festival of Ivan Kupala the girls from Pilipchi arrived on the island in their finest dresses like a brightly feathered flock of birds to float wreaths down the river. They wove the wreaths out of wild flowers. In the centre of each wreath, they affixed a wooden crosspiece which held a wax candle-end. The girls lit the candles at dusk and then released the wreaths into the river. The candles told the girls’ fortunes – the one whose candle was the last to go out would know the most happiness. But the most fortunate of all were the girls whose wreaths drifted into the whirlpool and slowly spun around and around in the eddy just before the rapids. The air here was still and the flame would burn with unusual intensity such that you could even hear the wick crackle from the banks.

Everyone – children and grown-ups – loved these wreaths on Ivan Kupala Day. Nechipor alone grunted dismissively and liked to say: ‘Bunch of nonsense! Those wreaths are pointless!’

Hannah, a distant cousin, came with the girls. She was sixteen. She braided orange and black ribbons in her thick reddish plaits. Around her neck hung a necklace of dull coral. Hannah had sparkling, greenish eyes. Every time Hannah smiled, she lowered her eyes and then raised them slowly as if they were too heavy to lift. Her cheeks were always burning red. I used to hear Mama and Aunt Dozia speaking of Hannah with pity. I wanted to know why, but they always fell silent as soon as I approached.

One Ivan Kupala Day I went down to the river with Hannah to see the girls. On the way she asked: ‘Kostik, what are you going to be when you grow up?’

‘A sailor,’ I answered.

‘Oh no, don’t do that!’ said Hannah. ‘Sailors drown out at sea. Someone will then cry their eyes out over you.’

I didn’t pay any attention to what Hannah said. I held her hot, suntanned hand in mine and told her about my first trip to the sea.

Early that spring my father had taken me with him to Novorossiisk on a three-day business trip. The sea appeared to be far off, like a blue wall. For a long time I couldn’t tell what it was. Then I caught sight of the green bay and the lighthouse and heard the sound of the breakers, and the sea filled me like the memory of a confused but magnificent dream. Two black battleships with yellow funnels sat anchored in the harbour: the Twelve Apostles and the Three Bishops. My father and I visited the ships. I was amazed by the sunburned officers, with their white uniforms and gold-hilted daggers, and by the oily warmth of the engine room. But I was most amazed by my father. I had never seen him like this before. He laughed, he joked and he carried on lively conversations with the officers. We even visited one of the ship’s engineers in his cabin. The two men drank cognac together and smoked pink Turkish cigarettes with gold Arabic lettering on them.

Hannah listened with her head lowered. For some reason I felt bad for her, and I said that when I became a sailor, I would immediately take her with me aboard my ship.

‘As what?’ Hannah asked. ‘The ship’s cook or the laundress?’

‘No!’ I answered, fired by my schoolboy enthusiasm. ‘You’ll be my wife.’

Hannah stopped and looked me square in the eyes. ‘Promise!’ she whispered. ‘Swear on it in your mother’s name!’

‘I swear!’ I answered, not even thinking what I was saying.

Hannah smiled, her eyes turned as green as seawater, and she gave me a big kiss on the forehead. Her lips were hot. Neither of us said a word the rest of the way to the river.

Hannah’s candle was the first to go out. A massive dark storm cloud had appeared over Countess Branitskaya’s forest, but, distracted by the wreaths, we did not notice it until the wind struck, thrashing the reeds and bending them to the ground, and the first flash of lightning lit the sky in a blinding explosion of thunder. The girls ran screaming into the woods. Hannah tore the shawl from her shoulders, wrapped it around me, grabbed my hand, and off we ran. She dragged me behind her, but the downpour was catching up with us and I knew there was no way we’d ever make it home in time.

The downpour hit us near Grandfather’s hut. We were soaked through by the time we got there. Grandfather wasn’t there. We sat in the hut, clinging to each other. Hannah dried my hands. She smelled of damp calico. She kept asking in a frightened voice: ‘Are you cold? Oh, what will I do if you get sick?’

I was shivering. I truly was cold. The look in Hannah’s eyes went from fear, to despair, to love. She clutched her throat and began coughing. I saw a vein on her neck bulge beneath her smooth, clear skin. I flung my arms around Hannah and buried my head in her wet shoulder. All of a sudden, I wished that my mother were as young and kind as Hannah.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, confused and still coughing as she stroked my head. ‘What is it? Don’t be frightened … The thunder can’t hurt us. I’m right here. Don’t be frightened.’

Then she gently pushed me away and pressed her mouth to her sleeve, which was embroidered with red oak leaves. When she took her mouth away, I saw a small patch of blood, similar in shape to those leaves, splattered on her sleeve.

‘I don’t need your oath!’ she whispered, looking up at me with a guilty smile. ‘I was only kidding.’

The thunder had moved off. The downpour had passed. There was nothing now but the sound of rain dripping from the trees. That night, I caught a fever. The next day young Dr Napelbaum rode out on his bicycle from Belaya Tserkov. He examined me and said I had pleurisy. Napelbaum left us to see Hannah in Pilipchi. When he returned, I overheard him talking in a low voice to my mother in the next room: ‘Maria Grigorievna, the girl has galloping consumption. She’ll be dead by spring.’

I burst into tears and shouted for Mama. I threw my arms around her, and at that moment I noticed she had the same sweet vein as Hannah. Then I cried even harder and for a long time couldn’t stop. Mama stroked my head and said: ‘What is it? I’m right here. Don’t be frightened.’

I got better, but Hannah died that winter, in February.

Mama and I went to visit her grave the following summer. I placed a bunch of daisies tied with a black ribbon on the small grassy mound. Hannah used to tuck daisies into her plaits. For some reason I felt uncomfortable standing there next to Mama with her red parasol. I should have come alone.