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

‘You must have known?’ Zoya’s look was all concern.

‘But it’s preposterous!’ Galia slapped her own forehead instead, and Zoya quivered.

‘How can you not have known?’

‘But he was married to me!’

‘That means nothing, Galia… you know that. People get married for all sorts of reasons: to get a flat, or get their dinner cooked, or just because it’s a thing they think they should do. I’m sure he liked you… at some point, and thought it was a good thing to do.’

‘Well that’s big of you to say so, Zoya!’ Galia turned her head away and stared down the gangway at the backs of the rows of grey heads and the shafts of sunlight that picked out the dandruff on all of them.

A long silence ensued.

‘Galia, it’s not as if you were desperately in love with him, was it? You couldn’t stand him after a while, that’s what I seem to remember. There was always trouble and silence at your flat. It wasn’t a… a happy home.’

‘For what it’s worth, that’s not strictly true, Zoya. I think I loved him at the start. Well, I’m not sure… but I definitely needed him. He was there for me and, yes, well… maybe we needed each other. Sometimes.’

‘Exactly! He needed a wife to cook and clean, and you needed a man to do whatever it is men do. Although in view of the fact that he—’

‘Enough, Zoya! How dare you! This is just gossip! You think you knew him better than me?’ Galia’s chest heaved with indignation.

‘You asked for the truth, so here it is. It is my truth. I thought you needed a break, and I thought it might do him some good. I knew that Grigory Mikhailovich could book people in to the sanatorium, so I used my connections.’

‘He wasn’t gay, Zoya.’

‘Well, you choose to believe what you like, Galia. It doesn’t really matter now. I wanted to help… but it seems that I actually may have made things worse.’

‘Ha!’

‘But I am sorry, Galia, if what I’ve said has upset you.’ Zoya reached out a shaky, wizened hand and clasped Galia’s arm.

Galia looked away from her friend and out of the small, oval windows across the gangway into the deep blue sky. She could see the ghost of last night’s moon still hanging there.

‘I thought you were a seamstress, Zoya. Through all these years of being friends, you told me you were a seamstress. Were you a seamstress, Zoya?’

‘Partly.’

‘And what was the other part?’

‘To know things, Galia. To keep my eyes and ears open, and to know things.’

‘Oh, Zoya!’

‘It was the right thing to do at the time.’

‘Keeping tabs on everyone.’

‘Helping to build Communism. And it was nothing compared to what my cousin used to do.’

‘Ha! And I thought he was just a harmless old man.’

‘He is – now. Just a bit confused.’

‘Confused? That’s one way of putting it.’ Galia shifted in her seat and began to twist the air-conditioning nozzle, trying to coax the tiny stream of cold air to reach her over-heating body. ‘Well, how do you like your Communism now, comrade Zoya?’

‘It was a good theory, Galia, but the execution was lacking somewhat. And the beer is better under capitalism.’ Zoya’s eyes strayed again towards the broad and sweating air hostess, who was bearing down on them with a little silver trolley that refused to run in a straight line and clipped each passenger’s toes in turn.

‘You’re unbearable,’ Galia muttered, and signalled to the stewardess for a beer. She poured the golden liquid into a soft paper cup and took two large mouthfuls. The bubbles bit at her tongue and sent froth up into her nose. She sneezed loudly, eyes watering, and tutted.

‘Galia, think about it. Everyone was doing it. Snitching on their friends, keeping tabs on their neighbours, using their connections—’

‘I wasn’t doing it, Zoya.’ Galia’s voice was flat. ‘And Pasha wasn’t doing it either.’

Zoya carried on, seemingly not hearing the words. ‘It was just… part of the times. It was almost expected, I think. It did no harm. And it was interesting!’ Zoya added quietly, the hint of a smile playing across her thin lips.

‘Interesting? But don’t you see how meddling and gossiping makes things worse, Zoya? Interfering and making your mind up about people with absolutely no foundation or proof?’

‘Proof? Well…’ Zoya muttered the words to herself, and was thankful that Galia did not hear. In a louder voice, she added, ‘I thought the Kislovodsk trip would do you both good, my dear. I didn’t realize his cancer was so advanced. I only wanted what was best for you.’

‘But you sent him there because you thought he was gay! You didn’t think to speak to me about it?’

‘You would have been upset, Galia.’

‘Well, yes, Zoya, well spotted! You just thought you knew best, but you didn’t.’

Galia took another gulp of her beer. On her empty stomach, it was going straight to her head. The aeroplane whined as it banked right, tipping one wing into the air as fields and farms came into view ground-ward on the opposite side. The motion made Galia feel a little nauseous, and the nausea made her feel very tired.

‘What nonsense! One minute he’s a spy, the next he’s gay! You and your cousin – you think you know about these things. You don’t know anything. You’re both just confused old baggages.’ Galia’s tongue felt thick in her mouth and the words spilled out on top of themselves.

‘Sometimes the past is better left buried, my dear.’ Zoya patted her hand.

‘Baggages with brains like cabbages, ha!’

‘We have a busy morning ahead of us, my dear. Maybe you should get some sleep?’

‘With your connections and your ministries and your limos. But it was me: I did the deal with Roman Sergeevich. And I know the truth – about Pasha, about me, and about you now, Zoya,’ Galia tapped Zoya’s chest with her broad, brown fingers.

‘Yes, my dear. You know the truth. And you need to be on top form, now, too.’

‘Oh I know, I know. I can’t leave it to you. You’ll be making up stories about Boroda next. You’ll be going to the SIZO asking them to take her in too!’

‘Now, Galia, you’re being silly. I don’t think beer agrees with you.’ Zoya was becoming indignant, but trying not to become impatient. She would have loved another beer, but felt it would be imprudent to ask.

‘Did you know she was a deviant? Oh yes, better run and tell Grigory Mikhailovich. My dog needs to go to the sanatorium too.’

‘I’m not going to discuss it further.’

Galia crumpled her beer can with one brown hand and shoved it in the pocket of the seat in front of her.

‘Think of the living: the here and now. Think of Boroda, and Vasya: they need you, Galia. So get some sleep.’

‘I don’t feel like sleeping, Zoya. I’m too angry.’

Thirty seconds after those words were muttered, Zoya heard Galia begin to snore quietly, her head nodding to her shoulder, hands loose at her sides. Thirty seconds after that, Zoya too was sound asleep, dreaming of ballet, and old friends, and policemen, and secrets.

Vasya Volubchik eyed his porridge with caution. He had had a difficult night. It wasn’t so much the constant bad air making his clothes damp and sticky, or the droning noise of his fellow prisoners as they shuffled backwards and forwards, occasionally swearing and cursing, or crying out in pain or anger. It wasn’t even his neighbour Shura, whose curiously attentive stare infiltrated most of the two men’s shared waking moments and seemed to slither into his very soul. It was the blurred line between day and night, the twilight of existence here that really got to him. His reality, the brightness that had been Vasya Volubchik’s life with its club meetings, kitty cat, veggie patch and well-pressed trousers, seemed to have been completely extinguished. Sometimes, at moments of horror, he wondered if he had made it up: maybe he was mad, and perhaps it had never happened at all. Maybe he had been here for too many years, a petty criminal and hoodlum, who had simply dreamt up another life outside this cell, and was destined always to remain within these dank walls, always eating thin porridge and listening to the ramblings of his fellow prisoners, hearing their bellies rumble and their farts pumping out in to the shared air like fumes from rotting cadavers in a morgue.