Olga Grjasnowa - All Russians Love Birch Trees

The mothers negotiated in the kitchen. My enemy and I stood in the parents’ bedroom, in front of the mirror of a large wardrobe. He chose a silken dress and I a white dress shirt. Above our heads hung a framed photograph of Saddam Hussein. The enemy assumed a Napoleonic pose and quoted his father. Said that Saddam was a real man. The only real man far and wide. Except for his dad, of course. Saddam’s dad? The redhead thought for a moment. No, his own father. Saddam is also the only one who can contend with the Jews. When I told him that I was a Jew, too, he wasn’t surprised.

Only a few weeks later he and his mother had to flee. The husband had told his wife that he could no longer guarantee her safety, nor the safety of their children. They had to leave the city immediately. He stayed in the apartment, even though it belonged to his Armenian father-in-law.

My mother tried to save a few things from the apartment, to send them to the woman who was now in hiding. His new wife had already moved in. An Azeri woman. While my mother packed up books and sheet music, the woman didn’t protest. She only cast around contemptuous glances, as if she was the one who was being robbed. When my mother started packing up the silverware that had been part of the dowry alongside the apartment, the new one perched her hands on her hips and threatened, “That you’ll leave here. Or else I call for my husband.”

The most difficult thing was to get home with the suitcase. Everyone carrying a suitcase was taken for an Armenian by the angry mob and instantly lynched. My father hid in the next driveway with the suitcase, while my mother stood at the entrance to the driveway and waited for a group of pogromchiki to pass by. Only then would he leave and run to the next driveway.

Elias was busy with the pots. I approached from behind, put my arms around his waist, and leaned onto his back. He didn’t turn around and I let go.

“Elias?”

He remained standing with his back to me. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. For a while I studied his back, then I sat down at the table.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

He turned around. His nose was red and his eyes were shiny. Then he asked unflinchingly: “Is anything going on between you and Sami?”

I took a plate from the table, smashed it against the wall with full force and only missed his head by a little.

I saw the uncertainty well up in his eyes and yelled: “Do you think I fuck him while you’re in the hospital?”

He shook his head.

“How’d you get that idea in the first place?” I asked.

“All this lying around is driving me crazy.”

“You’re full of shit.” My hands shook and I continued yelling: “Everyone loves within their limits. If that’s not enough for you …”

Elias looked at me, distressed, and I knew that I had gone too far. Now the ease between us was over. I turned to face the window and opened it. Tears filled my eyes. I shouldn’t have said anything. I had never before threatened Elias. Never exerted power and had hoped that we would never reach this point in our relationship. But now we had, and I was to blame. I heard Elias try to bend over to pick up the shards.

“Stop it!” I said.

“I’ll take care of it,” Elias murmured, and I couldn’t bear his pitiful glance.

“I said stop it.”

“No, I’ll take care of it.”

“But you can’t.”

Elias put the gathered shards on the table and hobbled into the bedroom. When he tried to open the door, he slipped. His body hit the floor with a dull thud. I ran over, tried to help him up, but he pushed me away.

I turned on the light. Elias sat upright against the headboard. His breath was labored, his hair drenched with sweat. All of a sudden I was wide awake.

“What’s going on?”

“Cramps,” he said.

“In your leg?”

“Yes.”

He shivered. Arms, legs, hands. The teeth, too, chattered. Pearls of sweat gathered on his upper lip. I opened the bandage. The leg didn’t look noticeably swollen, but the wound was red around the edges and pus-filled in the center.

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t want to go back to the hospital. Let’s wait until tomorrow.”

“No.”

“It’s only cramps. That happens. Tomorrow we’ll go back. I’m sure they couldn’t do much in the ER now anyway. I might just as well stay here. Get me some water, please.”

I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Up to the brim. Then I washed my hands, took two clean towels and poured cold water over one and boiling hot water over the other. Back in the bedroom, I tried to appear calm, to smile at Elias, but I didn’t succeed. I placed the cold compress on Elias’s forehead, and then with the disinfected towel went on to dab the pus from the wound. As soon as I touched the wound Elias screamed, jerked up, back bent, and then fell back with a groan. I dialed the number for the ambulance and wiped Elias’s face with the wet towel. The windows of the house across the street slowly lit up, one by one.

His entire body was shivering. I tried holding on to him, hugged him, but one cramp chased the other in increasingly short intervals. The wound dripped. I lay down next to him. Elias hit the headboard full force, cursed and whimpered. An eternity passed before I heard the siren in front of our house. From the window I yelled down the floor number and begged them to hurry up. Finally I heard the heavy steps of the emergency doctor and the paramedic on the stairs. I led them into the bedroom, where Elias was writhing in the sheets. I rattled off Elias’s medical history. The doctor nodded and put on white rubber gloves.

“Calm down,” he said to me while taking Elias’s pulse and patting down the wound. Elias screamed in agony. I tried to soothe him, put my hand in his. Nothing worked. The doctor took a syringe from his case and gave Elias the injection. Then he continued the examination. He studied the wound pensively and started patting it again.

Elias broke out in a cold sweat. “Stop!” he yelled. His hand clawed into mine and he turned his head away. At first I assumed he didn’t want to watch, but it turned out to be a cramp in his neck. For a couple of minutes, Elias convulsed in pain, hardly able to breathe.

“How long has there been pus in the wound?” the physician asked.

“Maybe a couple of hours. I don’t know. I slept through it. Can’t you give him something?”

“I already did.”

When the seizure ended, the doctor gave the paramedic a signal. Without a word the paramedic went down to the ambulance and a few minutes later came back with another colleague and a stretcher. Elias had calmed down a bit. His groans were quieter and he could breathe again. The neighbors peered out of their windows curiously.

As soon as we arrived at the hospital a nurse asked me when Elias had last eaten.

I knew it as soon I saw the doctor approaching. He was tired and pale and took me by the elbow and guided me into a separate room, where he had me sit down on an examination table. I only understood bits and pieces: emergency surgery, complications, outflow of bone marrow, complications, fat embolism, not rare, complications, drop in blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac arrest.

He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead.

“He couldn’t be revived. Do you want to see his body?”

Elisha lay on the bed. His body was cold, but not yet stiff. His eyes were shut. They had dressed him in a hospital gown. I opened it. The surgery wound on his thigh had been carelessly stitched. His chest had been closed in the same coarse fashion. I sat down on the edge of the bed. A nurse opened the door a crack, apologized, and came in. I waited until she had left, then locked the door. He couldn’t die. Only a few meters away. He should have waited for me. We could have died together. I wouldn’t have minded. I sang nursery rhymes for him, as if I wanted to cradle him to sleep. I sang badly and hoped something would move in his face, a brief twitch at the corners of his mouth, a flared nostril, a blink, a flick of his hand, but I knew that he was dead. With the nail of my index finger I traced his skin, at first with more pressure, then softly. He was motionless, cold. A ray of light divided the room in two halves. I lay down next to him on the bed as his body became increasingly stiff. There was no glowing sunrise. The sky was completely white. Elisha had always said that such light meant it was going to be a hot day. Somebody knocked. Morning came and the knocking became a hammering.