Alina Bronsky - Baba Dunja's Last Love

At lunch I eat my eggs with a piece of bread and wash it down with kvass that the doctor has brought in a plastic bag from a street merchant. I think about Irina and Alexej and wonder whether they did everything properly today. I can’t call them because we have no phone at home. We are on the waiting list for a phone line, but it’s expected to take at least another five years. But the children know how they can reach me at work, and I cringe every time the phone rings here. The device was similar to Sidorow’s, and I would have cut off a finger to have one like it at home.

In the bathroom I wash my hands and put on lipstick. A worn-out woman with drooping eyelids looks out at me from the mirror. I feel ancient and look it, too. I haven’t seen Jegor for three days and have no idea where he is hiding. I take off my shoes, sit on the lid of the toilet, and do some vein exercises that I read about in Woman Farmer .

When I come to, it is ten at night. The children are sleeping back to back in the big bed, and I pull their notebooks out of their satchels and correct their homework. The dishes are washed, the socks are stuffed. I’m no good at homework, but I do my best. I go to the kitchen and drink a glass of tap water. It tastes salty because my tears are dropping into the glass. I’m just a woman like millions of others and still so unhappy, I’m an idiot.

“Tell me what I should do,” Petrow demands, jarring me from my reverie. “I’m full of nervous energy.” As proof he hoists his scrawny little arms and balls his bony fists. “Shall we burn him like the Indians do?”

“Where do you get such garbage in your head?” He has succeeded in perking me up, but I don’t show it. “Nobody will come to get him. We have to dig him a grave.”

“We’re not qualified. But I’m with you.” He wanders off and returns with a shovel that looks suspiciously like one that belongs to the Gavrilows.

We wait until the sun isn’t beating down and then get started. Or rather, Petrow does, beginning to dig. He has overestimated himself. After every scoop he has to catch his breath for a few seconds, and after five he has to take a break for a few minutes. But he keeps going. He is a man, so I can’t say anything. I bring him hot water with mint.

“I’d rather have a cola with ice cubes,” he groans, propping himself up on the shovel.

“Cold chemicals in the heat will kill you,” I say.

Every now and again he sets himself down in the grass, at which point I pick up the shovel and ignore the pain in my ribs. I’m surprised how difficult it is. The fact that I’m apparently weaker than the infirm Petrow frightens me, but I don’t think about it for long. The rich, reddish-brown dirt piles up in puny molehills.

“You are not allowed to say that we cannot do it. You have to believe in us,” says Petrow, but I ignore his nonsense.

Flies buzz above the tarp. Time is working against us. Sweat runs down our faces, but the molehills barely get bigger. I sit down next to Petrow and close my eyes.

When I open them again I see Marja shoveling.

I have to say, she is of a completely different caliber. I’ve never seen her work before, and I didn’t know what I was missing. Her huge white body proves strong. She shovels like a backhoe and is barely breathing hard. It must be all the pills she gulps down daily, or her iron constitution that even the pills can’t weaken.

Petrow and I watch speechlessly. Marja doesn’t look at us. She concentrates on shoveling. The dirt flies into our faces. She pauses only to wipe her brow. Her round cheeks have reddened and her braids are coming undone. She could be the featured soloist in a folk-dancing troupe.

Maybe she once was, who knows.

When she takes a break on the grass next to us, Petrow tries to stand up again. He can’t. He makes a few jokes about it, that we might as well dig a grave for him while we’re at it, but Marja ignores him. She reaches out for some juicy burdock leaves, rips a few off with a precise motion, and puts one on her forehead and two smaller ones on her cheeks.

Soon Sidorow takes up the shovel. He looks over at me proudly but a moment later nearly falls into the hole. Marja takes the shovel from him. He props himself up on his cane and watches her with a look that betrays the fact that he hasn’t given up on finding a good match.

Marja takes off her wool jacket. Her upper arms are round and quiver like jelly. The flesh is so pink that you want to bite into it. Mr. Gavrilow comes and watches silently. Marja indulges him. At some point she takes off her kneesocks and puts her shoes back on. Sidorow wipes his face. Gavrilow gulps loudly. Only Petrow keeps his eyes closed.

Marja shovels with a victorious smile on her face. She is now standing in a knee-deep pit. She shakes her head like a wild horse and then hands the shovel to Gavrilow.

Mr. Gavrilow, whom I have never seen doing anything that doesn’t directly and exclusively benefit him, takes the shovel. His hand brushes Marja’s. She shows her teeth, her laugh sounds fake in my ears. The fact that she’s younger than I am does not make her a spring chicken. Gavrilow doesn’t seem to notice. Under Marja’s watchful eye, he begins to dig wildly, furiously, like an anteater.

His rhythmic grunts spur Mrs. Gavrilow into action. I fear that he’s earned himself a smack on the head later. But for now, Gavrilow is king of the pit and we are his audience. We breathe in unison. The mounds of earth grow.

Jegor comes, too. I want to deflect his attention toward Marja — he always knew when there was something about a woman to look at — but he fixates on me the way a cat fixates on a bottle of valerian. Other dead gather as well. Glascha’s father isn’t one of them; I’m happy about that. His body lies under the tarp and his blood has seeped into our earth.

It is getting dark by the time Gavrilow retrieves from his house a tattered bedsheet splattered with pale stains. I pull the tarp away. A swarm of flies rises. Marja turns away and throws up in the raspberries.

Pooling our strength we wrap Glascha’s father in the sheet, tie it head and foot, and pull him into the grave. We all push and pull together. Our hands brush one another in the silence that is broken only by the scraping sound and our breathing. The body lands with a thump in its new bed.

Filling the hole back in goes more quickly, even though we are tired. When everyone has left, I stomp the soil smooth on top. My bones feel hollow from fatigue.

Nothing in the world is as horrible as being young. It’s okay as a child. If you’re lucky there are people to look after you. But from sixteen on it gets harsh. You’re really still a child, but everyone just sees you as an adult who is easier to step on than one who is older and more experienced. Nobody wants to protect you anymore. New responsibilities are constantly foisted upon you. Nobody asks you whether you understand the latest thing you are supposed to do.

It really gets bad after marriage. Suddenly you are responsible not only for yourself but for others, and there are always more and more who wish to ride on your back. In your heart, though, you are still the child you always were and will remain for a long time. If you are lucky you’ll be half-mature by the time you get old. Only then are you in a position to be able feel sympathy for those who are young. Until then you begrudge them for whatever reason.

Those are the things that go through my head when I think about Irina and Laura.