Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself

Every night after work she flew home, skipping groceries. She cleaned, cooked, and scrubbed, barely understanding what she was doing. She couldn’t eat, and lost a lot of weight. He came every night, always bringing the same pastry. They had tea, then he read to her or scribbled formulas. Her daughter and son-in-law quickly got used to the visitor and greeted him politely but didn’t linger with conversation, so purposeful did he look, as did Pulcheria when she arrived home to greet him.

At work Pulcheria kept her nose to her desk. Olga lost interest in her. In a reverse move, Olga joined forces with Tsarina against young Camilla, who was always late or on sick leave but otherwise got her work done and indeed recently submitted a substantial article. Eventually it became clear that Camilla was expecting a baby and needed to keep her job until her maternity leave. Tsarina and Olga started a search for Camilla’s replacement and interviewed candidates right in Camilla’s presence. Poor Camilla tried to protest but continued to swell and barely dragged her feet. Clearly Olga and Tsarina needed a constant target for their warfare, and at least it was Camilla for now, but Pulcheria knew her turn would come eventually. A rumor spread through the institute that Pulcheria wasn’t all there because she was late with her reports, never came to the cafeteria, and spent her lunch breaks buying groceries. But how could she write her reports if he sat in her room every night like a rock? She worked at night, and in the morning she dragged herself to work, where she scribbled meaninglessly on her index cards, barely awake.

After eight weeks of this, her mystery guest vanished. Three horrible days later Pulcheria forced herself to go to the cafeteria and to join Olga and Tsarina at their table. They were glad to see her and advised her to get a consultation with a good shrink (Olga offered her contacts). Tsarina praised Pulcheria’s article, which was finally finished; Olga praised her thinness; and then the two resumed a conversation that almost made Pulcheria faint.

“So I won’t be here till lunch,” Olga announced meaningfully.

Tsarina replied that she could do as she wanted.

“Because, you see, he is in the ward for the violent, where he can easily be killed—the orderlies can do it. He needs to be transferred to the second floor, where they know him. Where he is now they’ll make him a vegetable or an impotent.”

Tsarina smacked her lips in sympathy.

“When I called the ambulance, he wouldn’t go peacefully and screamed for help—that’s why they put him with the violent.”

Here Pulcheria asked whom they were talking about.

“My husband,” Olga said. Her cheeks were ashy. “And guess what he yelled? That I was his enemy! He tried to push the window out with his head, cut himself, and then our cat ran in and began licking his blood like a cannibal….”

“How did it all begin?” Pulcheria asked, barely breathing.

“The usual way: he started to disappear from home, then come back a day or two later, dirty and hungry….”

She’s lying, Pulcheria thought.

“What else. . . ?” Olga continued. “Couldn’t sleep, didn’t talk to anyone, went to work once a week; but you know what they think of him—a genius! He submits an article once a year, and the whole pack write their dissertations based on it. I went to talk to his boss, who promised to send him to a health spa…. Then he tried to jump….” Tears were streaming down Olga’s unlined face.

Now Pulcheria knew. She just needed to find out where they were keeping him.

“He’ll be out,” she promised. “My brother was at Kashchenko Asylum, and they let him out.”

“Well, we haven’t been to Kashchenko yet,” Olga replied wistfully. “We go to the clinic that took him the very first time, when he was calling for Anya. He almost smashed a brick wall there with his fist.”

Tsarina remarked that everything would be fine—they’d let him out, and things would resume their normal course.

“Maybe, maybe…. Still, how much can one take? Listen to this….” And Olga related that “the bitch”—that is, her son’s wife—wanted to sue Olga and her husband for housing—again!

“I keep telling that son of mine, ‘Whatever you get through the courts will eventually be hers; she’ll divorce you as soon as you have a place of your own!’”

It was the righteous rage of a person who fought a long and dirty battle to be alone in a huge apartment.

Pulcheria, petrified, listened attentively.

“The funny thing,” Olga observed, returning to her husband, “is that he always finds some slut to look after him. They visit him at the hospital, bring him chicken soup. Thank God they don’t let anyone in now because of the flu epidemic. Only letters. He refuses to eat anyway.”

“Just like my brother,” Pulcheria said. “But he was a political dissident, so they fed him through a tube.”

“I don’t know about dissidents,” Olga replied irritably. “This one wouldn’t eat because of schizophrenia; it’s a form of self-cure—that’s what the doctor said. On the floor for the violent, they don’t fuck around, you know. The moment you stop eating they electroshock you: it feels like an electric chair, they say, only you get many jolts.”

Pulcheria held herself together with her last reserves of strength; she knew Olga was waiting for her to squirm like a lab mouse. Finally the lunch ended, and Pulcheria could crawl back to her desk. Her suffering had ended and his begun, on the floor for the sick animals. From a woman rejected by her lover, Pulcheria had transformed into a woman forcefully separated from him—an enormous difference. She even felt some small sympathy for Olga. She was thinking calmly, resting after the horror of the last three days. Waves of love rocked her over the unwashed floor of her office, over dusty letters, and she whispered words of affection, sending him strength and support. Someday his suffering would end, she told herself, but she must act with the utmost caution, calculate every step until the final victory, his freedom—although, as she knew from her brother’s experience, things were not so simple; and getting the person out wasn’t the end of it. The issue of violated human rights was the easy, formal aspect of the problem; the real problem was forcing the person off his perch, his customary place in life, even when the place was such as his. One must never force anyone; people must do everything themselves. Think of all those who tried to help him before, all those women with their chicken soup—where are they now? They all vanished into oblivion, but she, Pulcheria, must stay in his life, remain his loyal, humble wife. She must wait. Victory would come. What had been done to him was too fragrantly unlawful—his son would get him out. Victory would come, but without her. Oh pain of pains—not to know anything! Not to see him!

“Would you like to come to the hospital with me?” she heard Olga’s voice over her shoulder. “After all, you were sitting next to him at the party; you talked to him all night, forgot about the rest of us.”

“So that was your husband?” Pulcheria asked in an even tone.

“Of course it was. He took you home, didn’t he? I asked him to.”

“He walked me to the bus stop, that’s all. How was I supposed to know he was ill? I’m afraid of mental patients; I don’t even write to my brother in the U.S.”

“Still, I wonder,” Olga announced, staring at the dirty wallpaper above Pulcheria’s desk. “I wonder where all these sluts come from—the ones who chase after sick people.”

“Well, I haven’t chased after anyone,” Pulcheria objected coldly. “He invited himself. We only walked to the bus stop. I had no idea he was sick.”