Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

‘Ha, but people need money, they don’t need magic!’ the girl said confidently.

‘Are you sure?’ he paused, squinting at the drizzle that had begun to fall from the grey sky. ‘Maybe you’re too young. When you’re a child, there’s magic in everything. But it slips away, slowly, without you even noticing. And suddenly you’re grown up, old even, and you wonder why you stopped feeling… wonder. What good is money, without wonder? People need both.’

‘Huh! So, you need magic more than money?’ she was smiling her fox’s smile. ‘Probably because you’ve got gold in your cistern and a bank full of cash!’

‘That’s not true, Albina.’ He chewed his lip for a moment, hollow black eyes moving from table top to tree to the girl and back again. ‘But we’re not talking about money at the moment, are we?’ He took a sip of tea. ‘I loved entertaining people, stupefying them.’ He drew out his handkerchief and coughed into it. ‘But then… after my own daughter went, when she was small, I found the shows just got too… painful. I missed the sound of her laughter, which I used to find so distracting, annoying even. I missed the wonder on her face. I stopped doing shows. The children’s clubs, the hospital, birthdays and New Year. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t bear to see their… faces.’

‘I didn’t know you had a daughter. Did she die?’ Albina frowned.

Gor was startled. ‘No, nothing like that. I had a wife, too.’ He looked up and smiled at Albina’s shocked face. ‘Once upon a time…’

‘No! I can’t imagine… What happened?’

‘Nothing, really. Nothing dramatic. I… forgot to look after them. I was doing my duty – I worked all the hours in the day. It made me tired, bad-tempered. My wife decided I didn’t love her. So she went away, and took our daughter with her.’

‘So she’s still alive?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘You don’t even know?’ Albina almost choked on the last of her egg.

‘No.’ Gor frowned, and knocked mud flakes from his trouser leg. ‘They left. Some time later I received a letter telling me where they had gone, and that they were both well. I… I thought, well, she’s made her choice, let her get on with it.’

‘You never went after them? To get them back?’ Albina leant forward, incredulous.

‘No. She didn’t want me. And I couldn’t look after our daughter alone: I had to work. It was for the best.’ He shrugged.

‘What’s her name – your daughter?’

‘Olga.’

‘Were you sad – when they left?’

Gor looked into the bottom of his mug, swilling the tea leaves around in little golden-brown clouds. ‘I am sad every day that they left. And as I get older, I get sadder still. You may say that I am an old fool, but now, from this great age, I can see clearly: I let them slip away. And I shouldn’t have.’ Albina’s hand crept out for a sugar cube, and Gor’s hand joined it. Together they crunched on the solid sweetness, the sound echoing in their ears and off the veranda roof. A crow cawed in the hedgerow and flapped its damp, oil-slick wings.

‘Is there anyone else?’ she asked eventually.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Family?’

‘Well, yes. I have a cousin. Actually…’ he kicked a stone off the veranda, observed the damp patch it left on the wood. ‘I’m a bit worried about him. I have been trying to phone him, but he doesn’t answer. And…’

‘And?’

‘Well, at the sanatorium on Friday… you said you saw an old man in a room. You said he was creepy.’

‘Yes – the old man who was talking to himself? The old man who was scared?’

‘Yes. Well, what you said he was saying, doing… you know—’

‘Fingers crossed, asking Stalin to protect him?’

‘Yes… My cousin used to do that, when he was little.’

‘But this man was an old, old man. He wasn’t little.’ Her eyes were round. ‘Oh! You don’t think… he was your cousin?’

‘Maybe, yes. I’m not sure.’

‘Aren’t you going to check?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Go and see him!’

‘It might not be him. It probably isn’t. But—’

‘But you’re not sure! Just find out!’

‘It’s so simple?’

‘Yes!’ Albina took another sugar cube and nibbled its corner, sucking loudly. ‘Go and see him when we go to visit Mama! I don’t see what the problem is.’

‘The wisdom of youth!’ Gor snorted and finished his tea, fixing his eyes on the furthest plum tree. ‘What you don’t realise, is that life is full of misfortune. Most of it we create for ourselves. And as you get older, nothing is simple. Everything is wrapped up in some spider’s web of… hurt.’

‘You are very gloomy,’ said Albina with a frown. ‘You’ve really no reason to be.’ And after a pause. ‘Go and see him. It won’t be so bad.’ Her hand patted his on the table, and he looked up, startled. She smiled. ‘I will try some tea. If that’s OK? As long as I can put some sugar in it? Mama says I eat too much sugar, and that it’s bad: she makes me have myrtle-berry jam in drinks. She says it’s good for the skin. I hate it.’

‘You don’t like myrtle-berry jam?’ Gor raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at her. ‘It could be worse: it could be turnip jam.’

‘Ugh!’ cried the girl, and then, ‘More sugar please.’

Gor poured out the tea and pushed the sugar box towards her. She selected three cubes, dropped two into the tea and the other into her mouth, and warmed her hands on the sides of the cup. She blew into it, enjoying the blossom of steam on her face. ‘Hmm, it smells OK,’ she said.

‘It is “OK”, I assure you. Now, drink up, and then we’ll finish off the digging, tidy up the compost, and maybe have a little bonfire.’

‘I wish we had a dacha ,’ said Albina, wistfully.

Gor sucked in his cheeks. ‘It’s hard work, you know. Especially in spring and summer. You have to come every day, no matter how you feel: sowing, watering, weeding, cropping: it’s not a hobby. I don’t suppose your mama has the time for a dacha. ’

‘But I could help.’

Gor shook out tea drops from his mug onto the soggy grass. ‘I’m sure you could.’

‘When will she come home?’

‘Well, we’ll telephone to the Vim when we get back, and see what they say. Tomorrow, hopefully, when we visit?’ Gor’s spade bit into the earth.

‘Why can’t we visit today?’

‘The rules: patients need a proper rest, and visitors,’ he pointed at her, a mock glower on his face, ‘spread infections. Especially at weekends, apparently. We all have to be brave. And she’s being very brave. As are you.’

Albina sniffed and stamped her spade into the soil.

‘Tell me a story while we work?’ she asked.

‘A story? I don’t know any!’ Gor found it difficult to dig and speak at the same time. The soil needed more compost: it was heavy, water-logged.

‘You must do! Any sort of story.’

‘I really don’t know stories, Albina.’

‘But it’s easy!’

‘Well, if it’s so easy,’ he said, giving up on the digging and standing up to ease his back, ‘please, by all means – make one up, while I’m digging this over. It will give me something to listen to, and you something to think about.’

‘Very well!’ She tossed her spade away and stooped to the broken earth. Carefully, she looped her gloved fingers around a shiny, purple worm, and raised it to her face. ‘Once upon a time,’ she breathed to the worm, ‘a long, long time ago, there was a rich banker. He had everything: a car, a piano, a record-player, and even fluffy white cats. But one day, a wicked Siberian witch turned him into a sad little earthworm—’