Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

“The underwear is all right, that’s the main thing. Did you wash my bra and panties?”

“They’re soaking in detergent. All the bacteria are crawling out.”

“Good. But don’t forget to scrub them too. Meanwhile I can wear your clothes. Jeans and a flannel shirt.”

“They’ll be too big.”

“The people will think it’s the fashion in Lavath. I’m dozing off, OK?”

He covered her better. He went and scrubbed her underwear. Then he got into bed beside her. In the window was the rising sun.

Ra Mahleiné lay in bed all morning, curled up in his jacket, because she was cold. He put a bouillon cube in a pot of boiling water for her.

He went downstairs for only a moment, but long enough to get gum on himself: Zef had stuck a wad under the table. The young Eisler was maintaining his image. Edda offered to provide meals for Ra Mahleiné, at an additional sixty packets. Gavein agreed, though it was expensive. But Ra Mahleiné would soon be cooking for the two of them. Leo, he learned, had been referred to a neurologist, his dizzy spells becoming too frequent.

Gavein reminded them that he had a white wife. He wanted to get a sense of how she would be accepted at the table. There was no reaction, except that old Hougassian gave a faint smile.

Gavein brought two portions of pasta upstairs, then two of pizza. He and his wife ate together, alone. He noticed for the first time that she was missing a tooth.

“A woman pulled it. On the boat. It was growing crooked, sideways. She said my teeth all had to be at attention and used pliers on me, the hag. It hurt so much. She was the chief guard. Somehow she didn’t see that I had two other crooked teeth.”

The black eye was puffy but not as purple, and the split lip was beginning to heal. He inspected her face: there would be scars. Her nose had changed the most; it was flatter, maybe longer too. It gave her face an expression of reluctance, or dissatisfaction.

“They broke my nose at the beginning,” she said, seeing his attention to it. “It bothered them. Perhaps it was too regular. Then they operated and took cartilage out, so it would be soft, like the nose of a boxer, and not get broken again when they beat me.”

“Poor little nose.” He put out a hand to touch it.

“Don’t,” she said, pulling back. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

She made another sad face, which was even sadder because of the nose that drooped.

“Tell me about those years on the boat,” Gavein said. “Were they worse than your quarantine or better?”

“It’s such a chunk of time, those years. I don’t know where to begin.”

A long pause. Then:

“The crew were all from Davabel, all women, and all reds. Those born in Lavath have a complex about blacks, and they despise whites. As soon as you leave the port, they take away your name and give you a number. That number they pound into you. Get into trouble, and you scrub the deck or peel potatoes. I got into trouble immediately, because it seemed to me that the time of the voyage should count as time spent in Lavath, not in Davabel. I had some good arguments. They gave me my first beating. Then I was beaten all the time. I still think those years belonged to Lavath; otherwise it doesn’t work out.”

“You’re right. You finished your thirty-fifth year only at Port 0-2.”

“You see? But on the ship no one would listen. The guards had to have their fun.”

There were also small open sores on her temples.

“Here?” she asked, touching them lightly with a finger.

“Yes.”

“From the electrodes. They gave electroshock a lot. After a while, the skin doesn’t heal; it keeps oozing.”

“Are you serious? Mental patients once were given electroshock. But that barbarity was stopped long ago.”

“They used that or the whip, if you got on their shit list. I got on their shit list a lot, but one time they beat and kicked me until I wouldn’t stop bleeding, so the doctor told them to use only electroshock on me after that. They would kick everywhere, but especially, you know, in the crotch. Then my periods…” She looked at him, hesitated. “It was from that beating.”

“You have a problem with your period?”

“I bleed often.”

He put an arm around her. She was warm, close, and very dear. The same woman.

“They’ll send your medical file. Then we’ll see what the story is.”

“Like the description of parts of a cow,” she said bitterly. “Anyway, don’t be surprised—the story might not be good.”

“I love you.”

“How I missed those words,” she said after a silence. “You know, Gavein, a woman doesn’t require a great deal… I wanted to hear those words. I thought of you sleeping on the airplane, waking, and finding out that your wife was a cripple. And all around you, those blasted black women, red women, gray women.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Yes, silly. For you it was a couple of days. Oh, Gavein, I would gladly have betrayed you. Except there were no men. Nothing but women. But no, maybe I wouldn’t have betrayed you. Do you know why?”

He grimaced weakly.

“Because, Gavein, I knew you weren’t even thinking of betrayal, dozing up there in your precious altitude of seconds. That thought gave me strength. Some went mad; I didn’t. Maybe I would have gone mad in time. Oh, Gavein, how I cursed you for this decision.”

He listened. Four years of isolation were unthinkable to him. But what she said made many things clear.

“I hated you, but not completely. I knew for sure you wouldn’t betray me. You understand?”

He nodded so that she would continue. He wanted to hear what she had to say.

“At times it was very hard: hating you, hating myself, for the decision. But there was no way out, other than a jump into the sea. More than one did that. Every other month, a seaplane would land near our boat. It took some of us, left others, changed the guards.”

“If only I had known.”

“And? What would you have done? Changed something?” she said, bristling.

“I didn’t mean that… The important thing is that you’re with me.”

“After an absence of a month?!”

“Everything I say is wrong.” He searched for words. “It was a month for me, and you, in that time, lived through so much… So I can’t always keep up with you.”

“Don’t babble, Gavein. This is what I wanted and what you wanted. I endured it for you, and I am yours, your white Ra Mahleiné, for them Magdalena, who sacrificed four years of her life so you could write her into your passport.”

“The main thing is that you’re with me now. And that in our old age, we’ll be able to move to Ayrrah together. Nothing else matters. Why don’t I make you some herbal tea.”

“All right.”

“What kind?”

“Tansy.”

For a moment, she nodded like a nodding doll. “But how long will we be together?” she asked softly. “To me you’re like a memory come alive. And I have aged so much.”

“You’re not bad for a lady of advanced age. My age.”

“Is it true I haven’t changed so much?”

“Physically? You have a lovely body, as before. You’re a little thin, underfed. For the face, it’s hard to tell: it’s healing. It’s a little flatter—that’s a change. You’re missing a tooth. You look woeful. But that could be only because one of your eyes is still swollen.”

“Will I fit through the doorway, with that flat face?”

“I don’t know. I carried you in sideways.”

Ra Mahleiné slept a lot and ate little. Soon she was able to walk on her own. At first, only to the toilet, then more. Sometimes, when he saw her moving about, tears came to his eyes. She was a fragile treasure that he had almost lost and then recovered. He realized this more and more, hearing the tales she told about her nightmare voyage. He knew he would never be able to make it up to her; all he could do was remain at her side, get to know her again, keep listening.