To the Lake

11 TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION

I stayed on my own and suddenly became very cold, it happened so quickly, as if the cold was just waiting for the right moment to creep up on me and freeze me – it was about minus twenty, and we had spent about fifteen minutes outside, but I hadn’t felt it until that moment. I couldn’t bend my fingers any more, my ears and cheeks had become ice-cold, but I still couldn’t make myself get up and follow her straight away. It’s silly, I thought, as I walked back to the warm lobby, it’s childish, there’s my husband and my son, I should be sitting next to them by the fire, at the table, because so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours that we need to talk about, and instead I’ve been here, in this sauna, with somebody else’s husband, whom I’ve never liked, while his wife, as well as this other woman, who has the amazing ability to make me feel guilty every time we talk – they’re both there, in this small house, only ten steps away from me, but I can’t make myself get up and walk that distance.

I pushed the door into the steam room and peered inside – it was quiet and warm there, the cloud of cold air I let in when I opened the door rocked the torches on the ceiling and made the orange flame of the kerosene lamp on the lower shelf flicker. Lenny was lying still, in the same position that we’d left him, and was breathing heavily and hoarsely, like a whale who’d been washed ashore; he was obviously struggling – probably uncomfortable lying on his back, with his head thrown back, on hard wooden boards. I looked around and found Ira’s forgotten jumper; I folded it up and put it under his head; the back of his head was damp, and beads of sweat were glistening on his temple. When I bent over him he suddenly opened his eyes, which seemed almost transparent, with fluffy, curled eye-lashes.

“Lenny, you need rest, don’t worry, the worst is over”, I said, looking at him, and I thought he was definitely going to ask ‘am I going to die?’ or beg us not to leave him, like his wife did a few minutes ago, and was prepared to answer something like ‘don’t talk rubbish’, or ‘shut up’, but instead he sniffed the air and asked:

“Is this spirit? Leave some for me,” and smiled. It was a feeble attempt but he smiled.

“I’ll turn off the light,” I said, and reached for the hanging torches above his head, and he, still smiling, started telling me one of his dreadful jokes about a power cut in a lift, and laughed first, as usual – he never waited for other people’s reaction – only this time he stopped, choking on his laugh and wincing from pain. I stood next to him, waiting for the pain attack to pass – he lay quietly, breathing through his nose and not uttering another word – and to my surprise I began stroking his hair and the wet cheek and said: “Go to sleep, Lenny. I’ll ask Marina to come over.”

I bumped into Marina at the door; I opened it to come in and she pushed past me and ran out without saying a word, not looking at me. The veranda was still dark and cold, and I struggled to find the handle on the door, leading into the warmth and light. When I finally found it, I had to narrow my eyes, in spite of semidarkness inside. Everyone was sitting around the table with plates in front of them; there was a nice smell of food and tobacco smoke. As I came in, I heard Ira saying:

“… what did I say? Oh come on, as if she needed to be reminded.”

Something wasn’t quite right there, – and it wasn’t that somebody was missing – everyone except Marina was there – but they all looked rather tense; at first I thought I had just come in at the end of some family brawl, which wouldn’t have surprised me, she had probably said something brusque, something curt – this woman was able to upset everyone she met; I saw an empty chair – probably Marina’s – and sat on it. I pushed away a plate with food leftovers, and only then did I lift my eyes and look at everyone. The house was already warm – the children had taken their jackets off, both Anton and the little girl had eaten and were nodding off, but continued to sit at the table, sleepy and indifferent to what was going on around them. In the middle of the table was a large, peeling enamel pot – probably from the dresser – with a little spaghetti and tinned meat with fat forming on its top as it cooled. As soon as I looked at the pot I realised that I was not in the least hungry, – maybe because of what we’d just been doing to Lenny, or maybe because of the spirit, still burning my insides.

“A-ny-a,” Boris said suddenly, but his voice sounded different – I turned to him, he was sitting diagonally from me, with a full plate near his right elbow; it was either his position, or the untouched food on his plate that made me take a closer look at him. He didn’t say another word or move, he was sitting in the same way, with his head low, but I realised in an instant that he was drunk, off his face, almost to the state of unconsciousness, that he could barely sit up on his chair.

“He’s… he…?” I shouldn’t have looked at Andrey and Natasha, who had nothing to do with this, or Ira, who was innocently eating her food, looking at her plate; Mishka had an unhappy and squeamish expression, and when I looked at Sergey, I saw that he was very angry – to the extent that he couldn’t look at me, as if he was cross with me for having to witness this, as if his dad’s condition was my fault.

“I don’t know when he managed to get so drunk,” he said abruptly. “I found one more stove in another room,” he waved his arm somewhere behind him. “And while I was sorting out the kindling… he was supposed to take the spirit to you, did he bring you at least a little?”

“He did,” I said. “The bottle was full…”

“Well perhaps there were two,” said Sergey angrily. “Damn him!”

We were silent; the silence was only broken by Ira clinking on her plate with her fork, then Boris suddenly started moving, rocking on his chair and trying to put his hand into his pocket but it helplessly slid down his worn out hunting jacket, missing the pocket – and after several attempts he stopped, with his arm helplessly dangling alongside his body. His head was hanging low.

“Perhaps we could put him to bed?” I said quietly. Ira suddenly gave a loud, clear giggle.

“Sure,” she said putting her elbows on the table. “And it would be good to lock him up, too. If I remember correctly, the next part of the show is just about to begin.”

“What do you mean – the next part?” I asked, feeling really stupid.

“Oh, you don’t know?” she said cheerfully. “Didn’t you tell her, Sergey? He likes a bit of a show, when he’s drunk, our dad.”

“That’s enough now, Ira,” Sergey said, standing from behind the table. “We’ll put him to bed in a back room. Will you help, Andrey? Mishka, hold the door, please.”

Boris didn’t seem to notice that he was being picked up and carried to another room – if it wasn’t for his open eyes, staring into distance, it was easy to assume he was fast asleep. They disappeared behind the door which Mishka held open, and came back a minute later, trying to squeeze a heavy metal bed through the door frame. Then they put it against the closed door so Boris couldn’t open it. “I’m sorry, Mishka,” Sergey said regretfully. “You’ll have to sleep here today, in the doorway.”

Mishka shrugged his shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed but almost immediately leapt up because both the flimsy wooden door and the bed, pushed right up against it, shook from a sharp blow from the other side, and we heard a voice, barely identifiable as Boris’s, so different did it sound:

“Open up, you bastards!” he shouted. “Sergey, and whoever else is there… Open the door!”

“There it is,” Ira said quietly, “the good old show we know so well.” And Sergey winced, as if in pain.

I came up to Mishka and held him for a few minutes; we stood by the door holding each other while Boris repeatedly crashed into it with his shoulder from the other side, pulled the handle and swore – desperately and angrily, and I thought, that’s probably why he didn’t come to our wedding, that’s why I had only seen him several times and Sergey never wanted to invite him to stay for the weekend and met with him in the city instead. The little girl suddenly burst into tears and Natasha picked her up, whispering comfortingly into her ear, and then Sergey kicked the door, which creaked – and shouted:

“Just shut up, damn you!”

“Oh c’mon,” Ira said, coming up to him. “You know it’s no use. The sooner you stop paying attention, the sooner he’ll calm down.” She reached over and lightly squeezed Sergey’s shoulder; he nodded and sat on the bed, looking down sullenly. He’d never mentioned this to me, the only thing I knew was that there was some kind of disagreement between them; I wondered what else there was that I didn’t know yet, how many of these important and unimportant things that had happened with him without me, before me, which he had shared with her and not with me. Trying not to dwell on it I joked:

“I suppose it’s not a good idea then to suggest a drink of a little spirit after dinner, eh?” and regretted saying that straight away. Andrey chuckled – he was the only one who reacted. Natasha was busy with the little girl, Sergey didn’t even turn his head, and Ira lifted her eyebrows and rolled her eyes.

After about ten minutes Boris finally calmed down; nobody was in the mood to talk any more as everyone understood – the best we could all do after this long day was to go to bed. One of the rooms was occupied by Boris; even if Marina and Lenny stayed in the sauna – the men took the mattress and several duvets there – there was still too many of us for the two rooms that were left – five adults and three children.

“Andrey, you and Natasha should take the small bedroom, and take some wood with you, there’s a stove there,” Sergey offered. Wait, I wanted to say, you can’t do this, I can’t sleep in the same room with her, I don’t want to, this is wrong, but Sergey caught my eye, winked at me, and continued: “Ira, we’ll give you the space next to the stove – is the bed big enough for you and two kids?” She nodded. “I’ll bring you the sleeping bag. Come on, Mishka, let’s fetch it from the car.”

Crouching in front of the girl, who, now calm, turned into a quiet, absent-looking creature, like a stubby porcelain figurine – little eyes and puffy cheeks – Ira was taking off her boots, not paying any attention to me, but I still didn’t want to stay in the same room with her; I put my jacket on, came out onto the cold veranda and lit a cigarette. I could see through the frosty window the two of them walking over the snow-covered path, falling through the snow and lighting their way with a torch – the only people I had left in my life, my most precious and irreplaceable, the two people who meant the world to me.

As soon as I finished my cigarette and ground it out on a wooden armrest (forgive me, house owners), they came back, carrying two sleeping bags. Mishka headed for the front door, but I stopped him and hugged him once more– and was surprised, again, that my skinny, funny boy was already a head taller than me; I’ll probably never get used to it, his cheek was cold and prickly – just a little bit, he had soft, adolescent bristle. He stood still as usual, patiently letting me embrace him, while holding the bags with both hands. You saved our lives today, I thought, and nobody even thanked you properly, nobody patted you on the shoulder and told you that you’d been great, that you’re a real grown-up now; but you know how much I love you, even if I don’t say it often, you know, don’t you, you should know. In the end he, as usual, carefully released himself from my arms, murmuring something, pushed the door with his shoulder and disappeared inside the house, and there were just two of us left on the veranda – I could only see Sergey’s dark silhouette against the frosty window, and as soon as the door closed behind Mishka, he stepped towards me and said quietly:

“Come with me, baby. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

The stairs were shaky, narrow and every step creaked as we walked up; the room was something in between a garret and an attic – the ceiling was slightly taller at its highest point than an average human height but was sloping down so suddenly that you needed to crawl on all fours if you wanted to touch the wall. There was the usual clutter that people keep in their attics, and a small window right underneath the roof – the only one that hadn’t been boarded up; I came closer and saw the sky – black and clear, with stars scattered all over, looking like pin prickles on navy blue velour paper – and below the window a low ottoman-bed. Sergey threw a sleeping bag on top of it and his jacket, and turned off the torch.

“Come here, little one,” he called quietly. “I miss you so much.”

The mattress was hard with old squeaky springs which I feared were going to rip the worn out fabric of the bed I – could feel them even through the padded sleeping bag. It smelt of dust and mould but it didn’t matter because I pressed my lips and nose against Sergey’s warm neck above the opening of his jumper, breathed in and held my breath, and closed my eyes. This was my place, where I should be, the only place where I felt really calm; I could spend a week, a month or a year lying like this, and to hell with everything else. He drew me close to him and gave me a long, gentle kiss, his fingers were suddenly feeling the whole of my body – my thighs, my neck, my shoulders, then the buckle of his belt clanked, the zip on my jeans slid undone… “Wait,” I whispered. “These walls are really thin.” We could hear Ira hushing the children to sleep. “They’ll hear us,” I said. “I’m sure they will.” “I don’t care, baby,” he said, his hot breath burning my ear. “I don’t care, I want you.” The springs moaned, he covered my mouth with the palm of his hand and everything disappeared – like it always had done, from the first time, and the world around us shrank to a tiny dot somewhere at the back of my conscience and disappeared, too, and there was only Sergey and I, and nobody except us.

Then we were looking at stars and sharing a cigarette, flicking off the ash straight onto the floor.

“Somebody should keep watch,” I said sleepily. “Don’t worry, baby, go to sleep, Andrey will wake me up in three hours.” “Would you like me to sit with you – why don’t you wake me up when it’s your turn?” “Don’t be silly, go to sleep, little one, it’ll be ok,” he replied. And I fell into a deep sleep, without dreams, pressing my cheek against his warm shoulder – just slumped into the warm, noiseless, safe darkness, without any thoughts or fear.