Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

“My mother is in the hospital,” says Stanislav. “She is going there to have a baby. It is Mr Mayevskyj’s baby.” He smiles his dimpled chipped-toothed smile.

“No! No!” Vera jumps to her feet. “It is not my father’s baby! It is the fruit of adultery!” Her eyes are blazing.

“Please sit down, Miss…er…Mrs…er…” says the judge. His eyes meet Vera’s and hold them for a moment. Is it the heat of excitement, or do I see her blush? Then without another word she sits down. Ms Carter scribbles frantically on a piece of paper and passes it across to the barrister, who steps forward at once.

“There was an offer,” he says, “of £20,000 upon evidence from a paternity test that the child was his. But the offer was refused. A lower sum, not conditional upon a paternity test, was-proposed. That was refused by Mr Mayevskyj.”

“Thank you,” says the judge. He writes some notes. “Now,” he turns to Stanislav, “you have explained why your mother is not in court, but not why she is not represented in court. Does she not have a counsel, or a solicitor?” Stanislav hesitates, mumbles something. The judge orders him to speak up. “There was a disagreement,” says Stanislav, “with the solicitor.” He has gone scarlet.

There is a loud coughing sound on my left. Ms Carter has buried her face in her hankie.

“Please go on,” says the judge. “What was the disagreement about?”

“About the money,” whispers Stanislav. “She said it is not enough. She said he is not a very intelligent solicitor. She said I must come to you and ask for some more.” His voice is breaking up and there is a glint of tears in his eyes, “We need the money, you see, sir, for the baby. For Mr Mayevskyj’s baby. And we have nowhere to live. We need to return to the house.”

Aah! A silence of held-in breath possesses the courtroom. Ms Carter’s eyes are closed as if in prayer. Vera is tugging nervously at a tortoiseshell button. Even Pappa is transfixed. In the end, it is the judge who speaks.

“Thank you, young man. You have done what your mother asked. It isn’t easy for a young person to speak up in court. Well done. Now, go and sit down.” He turns to the rest of us. “Shall we adjourn for an hour? There’s a coffee machine, I believe, in the entrance hall.”

Vera nips out the back for another cigarette. The court is a non-smoking building, and like most such buildings it has a stub-strewn area outside where smokers have unofficial licence to congregate. Father refuses coffee, and asks for apple juice. There is none in the court building, so I step outside to see whether I can find a carton in a local shop.

There is a newsagent further along the road, and I am making my way towards it when I catch sight of Stanislav disappearing round the corner. He seems to be in a hurry. Without quite knowing why, I slip past the newsagent and up to the corner, watching where he goes. Stanislav is almost at the top of the road. He crosses, and turns left, up past the Cathedral grounds. I follow. Now I have to run to catch up, as he disappears from view. When I get to the spot, I see that there is a narrow snicket that leads round the back of some shops and into a maze of shabby terraced houses. It is a part of town I do not know. Stanislav is nowhere to be seen. I stand and look around me, feeling rather foolish. Did he know I was following him?

And now I realise that my hour is almost up. I hurry back, stopping in the newsagent’s I passed on the way to pick up a carton of apple juice with a straw. I cut through the car park and approach the court from the rear. Here there is a bay where bins are kept and a metal fire escape clinging to the back wall. At first-floor level on the left, I can make out Vera in her stylish peach two-piece, leaning on the railings and puffing away. There is someone else there beside her, a tall man in a suit, surreptitiously stubbing out a cigarette with his foot. As I come closer, I see that it is the judge.

Ms Carter is waiting inside with Father. He has spent most of the hour in the lavatory, and now he is in an excited mood, swinging between hope (“The judge will give her two thousand pound, and I shall be left in peace, with only memories for comfort”) and despair (“I will sell all and enter old person’s home”). Ms Carter does her best to calm him down. She is relieved when I hand over the apple juice carton. He pierces the foil with the pointed end of the straw and sucks greedily. Then Vera returns, and sits beside Father on the other side. “Sssh!” she says, trying to quieten Pappa’s noisy slurping. He ignores her. Suddenly, at the last minute, Stanislav comes running in, all out of breath and covered in sweat. Where has he been?

The usher opens the doors, and we are all summoned into the courtroom. A few moments later the judge comes back. The tension is unbearable. The judge takes his place, dears his throat, welcomes us back. Then he delivers his judgment. He speaks for about ten minutes, enunciating carefully, pausing over the words ‘petitioner’, ‘decree’, ‘application’ and ‘relief’. The barrister’s eyebrows rise a fraction. I think I notice a movement at the corner of Ms Carter’s lips. The rest of us watch blankly-even Mrs Divorce Expert. We cannot understand a word he is saying.

He finishes speaking, and there is silence in the court. We sit as if enchanted, as if the long incantation of incomprehensible words has cast a magic spell over the courtroom. The low sun throws a slanting beam of light through the tall window which catches the gold frames of the judge’s aviator-style glasses and the silver of his hair, making him blaze like an angel. Then the charm of silence is broken by a loud gurgling sound. It is Father, sucking up the last dregs of his apple juice with the straw.

Am I imagining it, or does the judge’s inscrutable face register a brief smile? Then he rises (we all rise) and he walks silently across the blue carpet in his shiny black cigarette-stubbing shoes and out through the door.

“So what did he say?”

We are all gathered around Ms Carter in the lobby, drinking coffee out of polystyrene cups from the machine, though caffeine is the last thing we need.

“Well, he granted Mr Mayevskyj a divorce, which is what we applied for,” says Ms Carter, with a huge smile on her face. She has taken offher black jacket and there are circles of sweat under her English-rose armpits.

“And the money?” asks Vera.

“He made no award, since none was applied for.”

“You mean…?”

“Normally, an agreement about finances would happen at the same time as a divorce, but since she was not represented, no claim was made on her behalf.” She is struggling to keep a straight face.

“But what about Stanislav?” I am still uneasy.

“A good try. But it needs to be done formally, with proper representation. I think that’s what Paul is explaining to Stanislav.”

The young barrister has taken his wig and gown off, and is sitting in the corner next to Stanislav with his arm around his shoulder. Stanislav is crying his eyes out.

Father has been following the discussion eagerly, and now he claps his hands with glee.

“Got nothing! Ha ha ha! Too greedy! Got nothing! English justice best in world!”

“But…!” Ms Carter raises a warning finger. “But she could still make an application to the court for maintenance. Though in these circumstances it might be more usual to apply to the child’s father. If she knows who it is. And if…and if…” She can no longer control her giggles. We wait. She pulls herself together. “If she can find a solicitor to represent her!”

“What do you mean?” asks Mrs Divorce Expert. “Surely she has a solicitor.”

“You know,” says Ms Carter, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but in a town the size of Peterborough, everybody on the legal scene knows each other.” She pauses, grins. “And, by now, everybody knows Valentina. She’s been through virtually every practice in town. They all got fed up of her, marching in with her ridiculous demands. She wouldn’t take advice from anyone. She had got it into her head that she was entitled to half the house, and she wouldn’t listen to anyone that told her otherwise. Then she insisted that she should get Legal Aid to fight for it in court-so arrogant, swanning in with her fur coat and fish-wife manners, demanding this and that. And all on Legal Aid. The rules are quite strict, you know. Some firms went along with it for a bit, while they were getting the fees. But if they didn’t do what she wanted she just stormed out. That must have been what happened when we offered £2,000. I bet her solicitor advised her to accept it.” She catches my eye. “I would have done in her position.”