Igor Eliseev - One-Two

Remembering our soft bed with two pillows, I nearly started sobbing. You hadn’t planned for a delay. But, to my great surprise, you agreed without hesitation. I didn’t know how to thank you. For the first time in my life I realized how it feels to be truly happy.

Every morning, we rose at the earliest cock crow, had our breakfast, and then helped our granny-host do the work around the house though she never asked us to. After lunch we went into the woods where we wandered along familiar footpaths, always far away from the village. But once it started to get dark we grew sad as if our dream sank below the horizon alongside the sun.

I read a lot of books which I found in the house. While I was swallowing stories and novels, turning over dust-laden pages, you grew fretful and bored like the master’s cat with nothing to do, satiated with benevolence.

There was always plenty of food at Rosa Ivanovna’s house. She used to stock up with flour and oil. She was growing all kinds of vegetables and fruit, greens and berries, on her vegetable plot, and her small cellar was always packed to the hilt with various pickles and marinated goods. She never threw out stale bread: part of it she crumbed up for her hens and the rest she used for making rusks which we then had with tea and jam. Her wardrobe comprised three identical dresses and some old shawls. Four pairs of felt boots stood in a corner – every rag, every piece of cloth was useful. She adored speaking about people, their lives, their sufferings, about what everyone has to face. We heard a lot of surprising and often frightening stories from her. Rosa Ivanovna firmly declared that there was going to be another war and lived depressed by her expectation. She believed that the thirst for domination and the thirst for extermination overcame everything.

“I am lucky to have no children,” she said once. “God didn’t let it happen! And, after all, what would I tell them? About Satan or about our great leaders whose achievements we must be proud of; repeating the lie that everyone is forced to believe in? But how could I lie to my own children? I wouldn’t be able to do it; I would tell them the truth – that our leaders are inhuman and their deeds conceal numerous crimes against our nation. And then my children would have to live with the endless fear that their lives were in danger, permanently looking around and straining their ears, telling the truth only in whispers, and, behind closed doors, pretending, lying, wriggling like their parents. And what a life it would be. Eventually, not able to understand what truth is and what lies are, they would opt for the tried and tested method, that is, they would grass to the authorities and live their lives happily ever after. This would be a proven way to take part in the destruction of the world as a whole. So, thank you, God, for not letting it happen.”

She dreamt that after her death she would go to some mythical country – for victims of political repression, those gunned down, the fallen, to a superpower inhabited not by parasitic deceivers and cowards, but by real heroes, talented and courageous men and women. I think the reason for her saying this was fear and despair, because no one could truly believe in those kinds of things, right?!

After twenty long and lonely years from when her husband disappeared, Rosa Ivanovna still continued to wait for him, believing he would come back to her one day. Every week she went to the station, and we sometimes accompanied her, wrapped in a blanket, and stood with her on the platform, watching a train, any train, coming. I remember those days. I admired her for her strong, all-consuming, obsessional love; I thought that was the way real love should be. Hardly had the train pulled in before she was beside the first carriage, or else she stopped halfway, probably realizing the futility of her actions. She turned around and slowly trudged away, glancing into the face of every elderly man who had stepped down on to the platform. At that moment, her eyes expressed a strange, unnatural indifference which struck deep in my soul. Now I understand. Behind all those actions was ordinary habit, not love; she was afraid of meeting him, of changing her life of isolation and near death. She had nothing to do, just wait for something and worry about it. Her dismal habit gave her security.

One day, at the end of November, against all our expectations Rosa Ivanovna ordered us to go to the shed and not to stick our heads out of it until she called us. She had a visitor who brought her groceries from the village. While he was unloading the goods we languished in the shed and speculated on the isolation cell that had forced its way into our life again; we were condemned to sit there for misconduct which we had never been involved in. It seemed like nothing had changed in our life except the scenery; the essence had stayed the same.

“It is time for us to leave; our visit has lasted too long,” you said in a low voice, and your eyes sparkled either from tears or from indignation. “If we have started something, well, we are obliged to finish it.”

Arguing made no sense; hiding was intolerable. And even if I had known then the price of our operation, our separation, I would still have agreed to this, our second “escape”. I perfectly understood how important it was, not only for you, but for both of us; it was worth the risk. The good thing this time was we were able to tell Rosa Ivanovna of our plans.

So, when the old lady heard us out, she looked at us as if she was fated to bury us with her own hands. She sighed a few times, made a helpless gesture but didn’t take the liberty of discouraging us, only grunted in conclusion. For two days she made preparations for our journey, muttering to herself the while. As for me, I was happy to have the opportunity to stay for a little bit more, deeply regretting leaving this soft and cozy life which we were never going to live any more.

Rosa Ivanovna found everything we needed: two pairs of felt boots, sweaters, two quilted jackets and woolen shawls. After finishing finding us clothes, she rummaged in the dresser and took out ten red banknotes (A 10 ruble banknote is referred to here. The average salary in the USSR in the described period equaled to 200 rubles, or 345 US dollars at the average annual official exchange rate, or 1250 kilograms of potatoes according to then-current prices) from under the old, yellowish newspapers. She handed them over to us, just letting slip quietly:

“You can repay me when you get the chance to.”

“Thank you, we will repay the loan for sure.” Saying this, I sincerely believed in my promise, and the granny pretended to believe in it too, though she knew she was looking at us for the last time.

The next day she handed us the bag loaded with food, and our old blanket.

The way to the nearest settlement with a railway station lay through the wood, and the granny volunteered to help us through. On the way she mentioned the difficulties we would have to face and advised us to close our eyes if ever we were scared. It sounded a little childish; and in my mind I dismissed the idea, not understanding how valuable her advice would turn out to be. Reaching the middle of the wood, Rosa Ivanovna stopped abruptly as if coming to an invisible wall.

“From here on you go by yourselves. Alone, forever alone.” She spoke loudly, then turned around and walked away back towards her home. I wanted to call to her, to ask her to stop, to give her a last goodbye-hug, but for some reason I didn’t have the courage. We stood still for a while, watching her gray silhouette passing out of sight, and then, facing the direction in which we had to go, we trudged on in silence.

The fall was already coming to an end, gifting us with another cloudy day and a gray, smoky sky tightly lined with clouds. Trees had shed their leaves long ago, and now that fallen foliage was mixing up with dirt to make putrid, slippery slush. A little old waypoint station represented a colorless picture, reminding us somewhat of our foster home, and whispering into our ears that we would never escape its “house of desolation”.