Andrea Bennett - Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story

Zoya snorted, and licked her lips with a sharp, reptilian tongue. ‘No, he’s not a doctor.’

‘So…?’

‘So, Galia, I knew Pasha was sick. Anyone could see that he was… not right. It was a favour to you. I wanted to help.’

‘Well, yes, he wasn’t “right”. I was told it was… cancer, that it affected his mind.’ Galia’s voice became a whisper, and she looked over her shoulder as if saying the word might summon up the cancerous devil himself. ‘That’s what I was told.’

Zoya continued to sew, keeping her eyes on the velvet and beads, and then cocked her head to one side. ‘Then that is what it was, Galia,’ she said, with a sudden, direct look.

‘But why was it a secret?’ Galia asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, all this time?’

The young couple smooching long-distance across the top bunks looked down suddenly, frowning and hard-eyed. Both women ignored them.

‘Galia, this is hardly the place! Do you remember how difficult it was back then to be referred for any sort of treatment? For any kind of holiday? It was beyond my powers to get him that place at Kislovodsk: I had to ask Grigory Mikhailovich to step in and… use his influence. And that is all classified! I should never have mentioned it.’

‘Yes, but you have now, so it is too late to backtrack, my dear. I was – am – grateful.’

Zoya looked Galia in the eye again, leaning back to focus her gaze, assessing her.

‘Pasha was at Kislovodsk for a cure,’ she rumbled, eventually. ‘But it never came.’

‘Yes, that I know, Zoya. But at least you tried.’

‘I’m not sure you—’ Zoya’s voice rustled like paper in her throat, and she broke off to cough loudly.

‘And I’m also a little surprised,’ Galia continued. ‘You never liked him, did you?’

Zoya shuddered slightly at Galia’s words.

‘Did you like him, Galia?’ she asked.

‘Well of course I did!’ Galia whispered fiercely, suddenly rather cross. ‘Yes he worked very hard, and left me alone a lot, and had nasty habits. We didn’t really talk, I have to admit—’

‘That’s not all you didn’t do, so I heard?’ Zoya interjected, smiling slightly, but her eyes like pebbles.

‘That is none of your business!’ Galia huffed, plopping her hands into her lap and turning to the window for a moment, before turning straight back to her troublesome friend. ‘He was a difficult man, and annoying, but he was still my husband, Zoya. And his death… his death left me all alone.’

Galia’s tone was harsh against the cosy backdrop of the carriage. The Chinamen looked up from their game of cards to stare at the old women, catching the sadness if not the actual meaning of their words. The other travellers had gone peculiarly silent.

‘But you had your friends, Galia.’ Zoya patted her hand slightly, but the action lacked conviction. Galia found it irritating.

‘I had my friends, Zoya. But I didn’t have… oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t I? Why are you so sure of that?’ Zoya rasped, and stood up swiftly, throwing on her kimono. She stalked off to the end of the carriage, a pack of Malboro clenched in her scrawny hand.

Galia’s mouth dropped open, and she felt almost tearful. She hadn’t thought about Pasha’s death for years, and now a chance comment by her friend had brought all sorts of strange emotions bubbling to the surface like gasses in a stagnant pond. She didn’t like these sensations: she liked her routine, and her certainties. And she didn’t like upsetting her friend. She rested her head against the side of the carriage and closed her eyes, wishing that she had a warm furry body next to her to stroke.

As nightfall approached and the queue for the two toilets grew longer and more disgruntled, Galia and Zoya sat on the same bunk, an uncomfortable and rather lumpy silence stretching between them like a poorly mixed pudding. Galia resorted to studying the world atlas to try to focus her thoughts. Zoya sewed eye upon eye on to the thousand-eyed sea serpent, occasionally humming a jolly seafaring song that Galia knew was supposed to make her think that all was well. She knew she had offended her friend somehow, but didn’t understand why. Maybe they had talked enough for one day, and dredged over too much old history. The carriage was becoming restful, dark, soporific. The queues gradually melted away like the late evening shadows, and the tea urn hissed softly in the corner.

‘ Blin! ’ cawed Zoya as a handful of serpent eyes splashed over the carriage floor around her feet, rolling in every direction and making directly for the crevices and corners where no human finger would ever be able to retrieve them. ‘Sorry!’ she grinned as the young couple on the topmost bunks looked down at her with a mixture of disdain and something uncomfortably close to pity. Zoya began to scuffle about on the floor, and Galia sighed, shutting the atlas and easing herself on to her knees to help.

‘Serpent eyes, everywhere! That’s the influence of Jupiter on Uranus, I’d say. Oh yes, Galia, you may scoff, but it is all in the stars. I say, careful, young man!’ Zoya’s cry caught the attention of the sailor striding back from the toilets, and he turned his head towards the noise just as he put his left foot straight into a puddle of beads. He skidded as if on buttered skates and flew up in the air with a whoosh, becoming momentarily horizontal and level with the Chinamen’s heads as they looked up, startled, to see him flying by their card game before crashing to earth with a tearing sound followed by an agonised howl. Splintered shards of eye-beads were scattered across the entire carriage like pellets from a shotgun. ‘ Blin! ’ cawed Zoya again, softly this time. Both women bent their heads to collect up the evidence.

The carriage stewardess was upon them in a matter of seconds, arms held wide and head swaying heavily from side to side, taking in the situation, breathing deeply, and not grinning. Her eyelashes took in the injuries sustained, and wavered in Zoya’s direction on detecting the smashed beads.

‘You, young man, get up and stop playing the fool. There’s no harm done. You’re a sailor, aren’t you? So stop crying like a little boy. Your mama’s not here to help you, but I am. Go into my compartment, take your trousers off and I’ll bring you some iodine. Come on!’ and she levered him upright with one arm, dusting him down with the other.

‘And you, Babushka , should know better than to have glass beads in a train carriage. They are a controlled substance. Read the regulations, please.’

The young sailor groaned and held his backside, his eyes watering, before being propelled down the aisle by the stewardess. Zoya pretended to cry and faint and lay back on her bunk to wait for the furore to pass. Galia and the Chinamen cleared as many bead shards as they could, fingers prickled by the broken glass and plastic.

‘OK, no more tea, people. It’s bedtime now,’ commanded the stewardess as she poked her golden head out from her compartment. The carriage drew a collective sigh as she turned off the tea urn and dimmed the lights, before disappearing behind her door. Zoya lay on her bed humming a sea shanty, but occasionally remembering to groan softly. She held a crystal ball in her tiny hands and squinted into it, sometimes smiling, sometimes stern. Galia decided it was definitely time to call it a night, and gingerly mounted the tiny metal ladder to her bunk on the next level, feeling a twinge of vertigo nip along her spine before her second foot had even left the floor. She eased herself into a horizontal position and nudged the crackling pillow into the crook of her neck. It was very warm on the bunk, and even the thin sheet laid over her legs felt too heavy. But the rhythm of the train worked its magic, rocking her gently from side to side, and despite the late-night card games and conversations going on around her, she felt her eyelids becoming thick and heavy, and her thoughts muddled. She said a quick prayer, to no-one, for her Boroda and that old Vasya, and nestled into the arms of sleep. It had been a very long day.