Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

In the morning, when the breakfast bell sounded, Sveta turned tired eyes to the pillow. No amount of buckwheat porridge would dispel this feeling of disquiet. The Vim & Vigour was haunted, and if she’d had anybody to talk to, she’d have told them so right then.

The second night proved different. She had no nightmares, because she had no sleep. She tossed and turned, tangling her feet, and gave up at around three a.m. to creep along the stuffy corridor in search of air and a drink.

The light of the moon pierced a window at the far end. Sveta stared into the cosmos. She was wide awake, the feeling of confinement itching across her skin. Instead of heading back to her room, she went left up the corridor towards yellowing way-markers that pointed to invisible delights: the massage cabinet, the office of dietary advice, the mini-cinema, ping pong tables. It was strange to see it all at night, quilted in eerie silence and shadow. She wondered when anyone had last played ping pong.

She headed right along the next corridor, comforted by walls dotted with dusty needlework and faded watercolours, and then, through another set of doors, found herself in the entrance hall. This time there was no typing, no droopy administrator, no smoke. She shuffled around the gloomy perimeter, eyeing the mosaic and displays of old photos: groups of jolly factory workers and serious party officials, festival days with bunting, huge mounds of healthy vegetables. In a cabinet along one wall lay a collection of cups and medals won by the staff for their endeavours in building Communism. A wistful chuckle escaped her throat.

As she examined the treasure in the half-light, she became aware of movement behind her, reflected in the cabinet glass. A door was opening, a dark shape gliding through. She turned, ready to scream, and shoved her fist into her mouth. A small elderly gent with wild grey hair was sliding slowly across the floor on silent moccasins, heading for the entrance doors.

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed on spying her.

‘Ah!’ squeaked Sveta in reply.

He pointed the moccasins towards her, but stayed where he was. ‘Good evening!’ he called across the hall.

‘Good evening!’ Sveta’s voice trembled despite herself.

‘Are you… are you a resident?’

‘I’m a guest,’ she said, staring hard at the old man. ‘Temporarily. And you?’

‘No. Well, yes. Sort of.’ He looked about him and waved his hands at the walls. ‘Terrible artwork.’

Sveta nodded, deciding he was probably harmless. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she ventured.

‘Me neither.’

‘Maybe it’s the moon?’

‘Not just the moon. This is a terrible place, for sleep. There’s something…’

‘Creepy?’

‘Yes, creepy.’ He nodded energetically. ‘I’ve had terrible dreams.’

‘Yes! So have I!’

‘And noises in the night. I thought there was someone hiding in my cupboard.’ He chuckled in his throat, but his eyes, startling green, were like a child’s.

‘Ah! I’m sure there wasn’t.’ Sveta shook her head.

‘Maybe not. But there’s something in the corridors. And there certainly was a fire!’

‘Oh, I know! I helped put it out!’ Sveta took a step forward and held up her bandaged hands.

‘Well done!’ He took a step towards her. ‘I tried to do that too, a long time ago.’ He stopped and scratched his head. ‘But I was frightened. You know, it shouldn’t have happened.’

‘They said it was a workman who started it. A decorator.’

‘That’s not right.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It was probably Yuri.’

‘Yuri? Ah. Maybe that was his name.’ Sveta smiled the smile she usually saved for upset Year 3s.

The old man sighed. ‘Do you want to go home?’

‘Yes. I am ready for home.’

‘I am too. These people… they don’t understand me.’

‘No? Well, maybe home is best then, if you’ve had your little rest?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can go if you want to?’ Sveta gazed into his eyes, and they glowed in response. ‘If you’re ready?’

‘I’m ready to go. Home to Baba.’

She nodded. ‘Well, I think I’m ready for bed now. I was just getting a little air, looking at the display.’

‘Yes? Oh, yes. Lots of cups there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. Well, goodnight then!’ He did not move.

‘You are going back to bed?’ She raised an eyebrow. The old man hesitated.

‘I think I’ll take a look at the display too.’ He skated towards the cabinet. ‘I love to look at things.’

‘Goodnight then.’ She shuffled towards the door. They passed in the centre of the hall and nodded, smiling to each other.

Sveta headed back down the corridor towards Tereshkova wing, still smiling. How very odd, and very similar, all people were.

Albina’s pink woolly leggings were caked up to the knee. She waddled around in the rubber boots Gor had found for her, oblivious to the clinging cold and the mud that was now dropping inside, encasing her socks. Dirt covered both her hands. Even her cheeks were liberally smeared. She brought to mind a Neolithic hunter-gatherer Gor had once seen depicted in papier-mâché at the Rostov Historical Museum: squatting in the dirt, half savage, using primitive tools to scrape sustenance from the cold earth. She grinned as she worked. He smiled to himself and pulled open the door of the old wooden dacha , heading inside to fetch the samovar.

On days like these, out at the allotment with only the drizzle and the wind for company, he fully appreciated the piece of ingenuity that was the Russian samovar: a thing of brassy beauty, both ancient and modern, designed to boil water, keep tea hot for hours, and give a man a place to warm his hands no matter how hard the wind blew. He tugged it from the shelf and placed it on the table out on the veranda. Removing the lid, he checked inside for spiders. Next came sooty lumps of charcoal, which he piled carefully into the central chamber, interspersed with a few bone-dry pine cones. Then, with the steady hand of experience, he poured water into the kettle chamber surrounding the fuel. He lit a long match, and with a little spirit and considerable puffing, was finally rewarded as the pine cones fizzed into golden flame. Content that the fuel was lit, he carefully replaced the lid, topping it off with the teapot to warm. He took a seat on the wooden bench, worn smooth and shiny with the years of resting backsides, and looked forward to when the steam would start to hiss.

‘Albina, what say you, time for a glass of tea and a biscuit?’ She was across the vegetable patch, exploring the area where next year, all being well, potatoes would multiply in the rich earth. He hadn’t expected her to be keen: he had, in fact, brought along a book for her to read, thinking she would choose to sit in the dacha and eat pryaniki while he dug. But although she had been sullen with the very idea of visiting the allotment, and sulked during the short car journey out of town, she had been spellbound by the smell and silence of the countryside as soon as they made their way down the steep path from the car park. She ran the final few steps, dashing between the allotments, craning into water-butts, peering into empty dachas , shaking gnarled trees for any forgotten fruit. When they reached Gor’s plot, she leapt straight in, exclaiming over the skeletal remains of the summer’s last crop, and excited to find the occasional berry or mushroom.

‘Don’t eat that!’ Gor said sharply, automatically, as her hand reached out for a softly undulating growth, the frills on its underside bright orange.

‘Eat it?’ said Albina, ‘Are you mad?’ She giggled, and Gor smiled. Children these days were quite different… It had brought to mind, with a clarity that made him catch his breath, a memory of his own daughter, in the park in Rostov, one autumn morning in the late 1960s. She had been fascinated by the thin layers of ice lying on the puddles: had prodded them with sticks, flipped them over to examine the rotting leaves and twigs stuck to their rough undersides, got her tights all wet and muddy at the knees. She had been so inquisitive, and so happy just to be. He wondered if she ever remembered that visit to the park. If she ever thought of him at all.