Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

But still, like a voice far away, he heard the green crayon calling to him.

‘I’m sorry for the disturbance. Sometimes I feel I have remembered too much, and it all comes rushing… it scares me, confuses me.’ He raised a hand to tickle the green crayon and then caress the sugar paper. ‘Drawing is my love. It has always helped me straighten my mind along life’s higgledy-piggledy road. I remembered a lot with Vlad the other day. Maybe too much? He hasn’t come back, and since then I—’

‘Forget that Vladimir! Who does he think he is, telling me to wash my hands between patients? Such a know-all. You shouldn’t eat cheese at bedtime,’ said the orderly, and puffed into her chest, chin down, to push the porridge trolley towards the door.

‘This is also true,’ said Anatoly Borisovich after a moment, with a kindly smile. ‘Not that cheese is a staple here. But I wish he would come back.’

She shrugged and turned back to the trolley, the wheels clacking as she heaved. ‘He’s around. He’s probably finished with you for the moment. Enjoy your drawing.’

He listened as the wheels trundled under their weight of porridge to the next room: the peremptory knock, the vague sound of voices as the door opened and she went in. He had never met his neighbour. He still couldn’t remember how he had come here. He couldn’t remember the journey, or what the outside of the building might look like. He couldn’t remember the summer even. Sixty years ago, yes, that was clear enough, but six months ago? Three months ago? He had yet to fit those pieces into place. He scanned the grey horizon, the mud flats, the tree, and shoved the ugly porridge aside. In its place he laid four sheets of paper and all the crayons. He started with circles, squares, geometric patterns, thinking hard and not at all, his hand shaking with the effort.

He began with the easy: remembering where he lived. It wasn’t out here by the sea though. It was in the town: in Rostov! Of course, how had he forgotten that? Rostov was his home town now! His fingers curled around the blue crayon. He gradually recalled his apartment, his home for many years, and the lovely things he’d filled it with. A jumble of furniture and long-forgotten artefacts dropped into his mind like rain into a bucket, getting steadily stronger, the surface of the water dancing. He could see them: the sheepskin on the wall, the mannequin in its shaman’s cap, the books across the shelf, his easel, the maps and papers sprawling on his desk, and best of all, his shoe box, home of special treasures, hidden beneath his chair. He remembered the view of the trees in the courtyard: a proper copse, right by his window. He remembered its stillness. Cats and crows, chessmen and playing cards; he remembered them all, piece by piece, putting together the puzzle. His hand moved on: more patterns, bigger, bolder. He could smell the wallpaper now, and feel the fuzz of the carpet under his toes. He sensed the creaking of the shoe rack in the hall, and the lazy buzz of flies in the kitchen. He caressed the cracked plastic receiver of the phone that never rang, and heard the hum of the lift out in the hall.

It was all there. The tick of the heating system, the crackle of the radio. The tin of lemon sweets on the side by his hiking sticks. But something was wrong. He tried to think and etched big circles, circles over circles, ripples in a pond. He recalled the maps had become prisons, the chessmen his enemies. They’d laughed at him, tortured him: the wiggled lines and hard faces had eaten into his mind. There was medicine: it came to him, the sour taste of the syrup, the bottle smashed on the floor. He’d had a fever! That was it! He’d lain in his apartment, glued to the sofa, unable to walk, sweating and shaking. He’d stared at the calendar, the harsh, stand-offish numerals, and he’d known… something. He had the expectation, he’d waited and waited. Someone was coming. But…

Eventually, a neighbour had thought it odd: he had not called for promised vegetables, had failed to collect his post. There were raps at the door, tap-tap-tapping, but he couldn’t answer. All he could do was rave. He was afraid. Alone and forgotten, feeling abandoned, he’d waited for death as the sun rose and set, and the trees tapped on the window.

Instead of death, an official had come, with dirty shoes and a big black briefcase, the caretaker in tow. They’d let themselves in and covered their noses as they spoke. The doctor had been called, the union, and more.

The leaves had still been on the trees, there had been warmth in the air, the sound of bees…

So he’d let them take him, like a child: a brown-paper label tied around his wrist, they had packed him off, no goodbyes or hellos, to a place with mud and wind and salt marshes, and a lone pine tree. He’d lost himself along the way, like a leaf blown on the wind. The crayon rubbed the paper. He could smell the wax.

Shortly before supper, he dropped the crayon stub, exhausted. There it lay before him, the map of his recent past. He could follow it, tracing with his finger, right up until Vlad.

Vlad, who had let him speak, who had nodded, smiled, questioned, and most of all, listened.

When would Vlad come back? He had a tickling in his bones, a clawing in his brain, something trying to get out. The story wasn’t quite finished; it wasn’t quite right. If only he could work it out!

The door scraped.

‘Do you need the toilet?’

Anatoly Borisovich did not turn his head.

Sveta regarded herself in the full-length mirror of the bathroom as the horizon swallowed the sun. Electric light was supposed to be flattering, but the black polyester dress stuck to her every dimple and bulge. A slip would be unavoidable.

‘Mama! Come out of the bathroom! You’ve been in there for ages!’ Albina shouted, hammering at the door with her fists. Sveta smiled: the door had been closed for no more than twenty seconds. The child was a live-wire. Such spirit!

‘Yes, baby-kins, I’m coming.’ Sveta’s sweetness at home, around Albina, was a secret she treasured closely. By day, in her persona of Svetlana Mikhailovna Drozhdovskaya, part-time teacher of English, she was strict, often demanding, blessed with an eagle’s glare and a sigh of admonition that could knock a goat off its feet. She took her teaching seriously. After all, Years 2–6 presented a critical stage in pupil development: they could still be encouraged, their horizons expanded. Occasionally she scared the more timid ones with her passion: she could see their bottom lips trembling, their brains churning to butter as she demanded more of them than they were used to. But they would thank her when they were older if just a grain of that passion was left imprinted on their souls. Sveta knew she did a good job. She received the largest bouquets on leavers’ day, as well as the best fruit each new term. And, of course, a large dollop of the children’s respect, which was at least as important.

She leant towards the mirror and applied a rich clot of lipstick. She considered its effect, head on one side, and decided it would do very well. In her bones, she knew her talents were wasted. It was all very well making future plumbers and book-keepers recite Shakespeare with something approximating a British accent, but it lacked challenge. There was a hole in her life. Not a man-shaped hole, but a hole, nonetheless. Maybe that was why she loved mystics and psychics, and maybe that was what had made her answer Gor’s advert. The excitement of… something else. She gazed into the mirror and imagined the fit of the bodice, the feathers at her shoulder, the glint of the tiara. The magician’s assistant, or the acrobat’s assistant: this was the life she had not lived, yet.