Inga Abele - High Tide

“Prisoners. We’re prisoners in this life. Us. Everyone.”

He yanked on the door.

“Unlock it!”

The woman obediently found the key in a basket and put it in the lock. When Andrejs was already on the threshold, she suddenly and quietly asked:

“What about the roast?”

Andrejs hugged her to him. Strange lips like an undiscovered steppe.

Screw the steppes, Ludmila, let’s forget the steppes and our words, you were Ruslans’s Ludmila, but you’ll be my Demeter, the fertile earth herself! Someone discovered us long ago, gave us words hundreds and thousands of years ago. How I ache, how I search for this Giver of Words, I want to shake his hand and thank him for his creation — I sense that we won’t be the ones to give words, that time will grind us down and scatter our dust thrice over a broken field, the goddess Demeter and me, your mortal beloved — but I’d still like to look into the face of the Giver of Words, he is all-knowing! Look into the eyes of the Giver of Words, and finally find peace.

And then came the abyss, she embraced him, absorbed him, took him in and swallowed him like Calypso swallowed Odysseus, while he inwardly longed for the coldness of night, the bridge over the river and his moment of existence, his long-standing sentence of loneliness.

Too tired to object, he quietly prayed to the Lord, and the Lord came over him and he finally grew calm, having sunk his thorn into His hot center.

When he woke up the next morning, he was alone in the room. The smell of the roast and the woman’s singing floated from the kitchen.

It was a harsh morning, misty and cold. They ate. The food was delicious, rich, like her.

He asked:

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

“But today’s Saturday,” she answered.

As if he didn’t know.

“These days some people have to work Saturdays, too.”

“Oh, that. I work in accounting at the prison.”

Andrejs was speechless:

“So you do!”

“When he died in the hospital in Riga, the kids and I left the city. Took a train on a whim, the farther away the better. Got off at the last station, rented an apartment, asked around for work. Turns out this town has a prison and the prison was looking for an accountant. Might as well, I thought! If it’s a prison, it’s a prison. No reason trying to run from your destiny. Nothing wrong with work, either. It’s a good job, stable.”

“Yeah it is,” Andrejs laughed.

“A person’s got to eat. We’re prisoners in this life, you said it yourself last night.”

They watched some TV. There was a commercial for some movie playing at Cinema Riga.

“Would be good to see a movie,” she suddenly said.

“Go to Riga?”

“Why not? I haven’t been to the movies in ages! Or to Riga.”

He was horrified by the idea, but she was already getting dressed and humming. So be it, he thought, feeling very unexpectedly generous.

The woman had dressed up nicely for the event — she’d done her hair and put on makeup, put on a light dress under a short jacket, silk stockings and heels. Like a girl, he thought. It didn’t suit her. But what can you do if a trip like this to Riga happened only once in a while?

The train was full, but they were able to find seats facing each other by a window. Andrejs was embarrassed to look at the woman, her legs seemed too naked for the winter weather, so pornographically, screamingly lewd. This nakedness radiated toward Andrejs and completely unsettled him because something in it was meant only for him, aggressive like a good poem. Oh, Demeter, he thought, staring stubbornly at the reflection of his own dark face in the window, not looking at her once, even though she now and then touched his leg with her shiny, stocking-clad ankle. He even ignored her questions until she grew annoyed and glared straight ahead, the smile gone from her face as she was rocked by the rhythm of the train. Then he could safely scowl at her hair in the reflection in the window.

There was no snow, and after three and a half hours they stepped out onto the black asphalt of the Riga Passenger Station platform. The wind was biting, and the train’s passengers burrowed deeper into their coats and quickly disappeared into the belly of the station.

“The movie theater’s back this way,” Andrejs said. “Let’s go along the tracks, and then we’ll head down into the city.”

“Why that way?” the woman was surprised.

“No point in wasting money for the tram.”

The woman hesitated. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her, just leered at her sidelong like a wolf. She was close to tears, trying to keep her jacket closed with one hand and beginning to think something wasn’t quite right.

“Let’s go! It’s not far.”

They started to walk along the side of the tracks. Andrejs in front, hands jammed into his pockets and shoulders hunched forward. The woman behind him, with her exposed, white legs and heels, jumping over the ties and rusted iron of the switches. The wind blew open the slit in her dress and her legs were covered in goose bumps. Her nervous footing caught in the gaps between the ties.

The woman finally spoke up:

“So this is taking a trip to Riga, to the movies, huh? You could’ve come up with a better idea!”

Andrejs answered curtly:

“This is the fastest way.”

“We could’ve taken the tram like normal people!”

“What a princess! Keep moving!”

The massive train track field was at least half a kilometer wide at this point; electric trains went back and forth, signaling their approach from the bend with a whistle, then coming into sight themselves. A fence ran along the tracks, as did paths worn down by bums and bushes containing piles of garbage — below it all were the wavering city lights and din of traffic.

The train to Moscow slowed down and passed them on its way to the station. Andrejs froze in his tracks. He and the woman looked in the direction the train was going. The last car slowly rolled by.

“What are you looking at?” the woman asked.

He didn’t answer.

Dogs.

Guards who shove you against each other, throw you, toss you like lifeless sacks… But first — dogs, the wild barking of dogs, sinister, horrible… Dogs — the devil incarnate… Cerberuses… Then the soldiers, their boots…

On the ground!

On your knees…

Hands behind your head!.. Move, right, left, we’ll shoot without warning!.. Days and nights of waiting in the half-dark without food, water… Then suddenly a light, shouting, barking, the wind in your face like rye bread, so fresh, so alive and rich… You eat it half-blind, chew it, swallow it — fresh air… Until you’re herded into a new cell, where they de-lice you, re-clothe you, shave your head, and save you from yourself. On the ground!..

On your knees…

Prisoner transport cars.

And, having lost all other characteristics of being human, you’ll latch onto your kind, will remain nailed to your kind.

“What are you looking at?”

“Prisoner transport,” he finally said reluctantly. “You see that last car there on the train to Moscow? The last one’s a prisoner transport car. It gets hooked on at some point — in Daugavpils or maybe Krustpils. When all the passengers get out, a locomotive will come, unhook it and push it onto the side tracks. Maybe overnight. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe they’ll take it right away to Central Prison. Who knows — maybe only the day after tomorrow — to Jelgava or Liepāja.”

This Russian woman had the knowledge of transport cars in her blood; knowledge about where prisoners spent the night before they got put in the stocks, before the sentenced whippings, before being branded with the symbol of shame and exiled to Siberia, when every condemned soul is to be pitied, when you feel compelled to give them a warm sandwich, to drop an apple into their laps, to force your way through the crowd so you, too, can press a coin into their hands.