2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (21 page)

Now my father stands up and answers questions in a voice so faint and quavery the judge has to ask him to repeat himself several times. His English is correct and formal, engineer’s English, yet there is a clever touch of drama in the way he raises his shaking hand and points at Valentina: “I believe she wishes to murder me!” He looks small, wizened and bewildered in his crumpled suit and thick glasses; his frailty speaks volumes. The judge orders that Valentina and Stanislav must leave the house within a fortnight, taking all their possessions with them.

That evening, my father and I open a four-year-old bottle of my mother’s purple plum wine, to celebrate. The cork bursts out and hits the ceiling with a thwack, leaving a dent in the plaster. The wine tastes like cough-medicine and goes straight to the head. My father begins to tell me about his days at the Red Plough Factory in Kiev, which, apart from today, he declares, were the happiest days of his life. Within thirty minutes we are both fast asleep, my father in his armchair, I slumped across the dining-table. Some time very late during the night, I am woken by the sounds of Stanislav and Valentina letting themselves into the house and creeping upstairs, talking in quiet voices.

Although the psychiatrist pronounced my father all-clear, Valentina may have been closer to the truth than she realised, for only someone who has lived in a totalitarian state can appreciate the true character of paranoia. In 1937, when my father returned to Kiev from Luhansk, the whole country was bathed in a tniasma of paranoia.

It seeped everywhere, into the most intimate crevices of people’s lives: it soured the relations between friends and colleagues, between teachers and students, between parents and children, husbands and wives. Enemies were everywhere. If you didn’t like the way someone had sold you a piglet, or looked at your girlfriend, or asked for money you owed, or given you a low mark in an exam, a quick word to the NKVD would sort them out. If you fancied someone’s wife, a word to the NKVD, a stint in Siberia, would leave the coast clear for you. However brilliant, gifted, or patriotic you might be, you were still a threat to somebody. If you were too clever you were sure to be a potential defector or saboteur; if you were too stupid, you were bound to say the wrong thing sooner or later. No one could escape the paranoia, from the lowliest to the greatest; indeed the most powerful man in the land, Stalin himself, was the most paranoid of all. The paranoia leached out from under the locked doors of the Kremlin, paralysing all human life.

In 1937 the arrest of the renowned aircraft designer Tupolev, on suspicion of sabotage, shocked the world of aviation. He was imprisoned not in the gulag but in his own institute in Moscow, along with his entire design team, and forced to continue his work under conditions of slavery. They slept in dormitories under armed guard, but were fed the finest meat and plenty of fish, for it was believed that the brain needed good nourishment in order to perform. For an hour or so each day, the engineers were allowed out into a caged enclosure on the roof of the institute for recreation. From here they could sometimes watch the aeroplanes they had designed wheeling in the sky high above them.

“And not only Tupolev,” says my father, “but Kerber, Lyulka, Astrov, Bartini, Lozinsky, even the genius Korolev, father of space flight.” Suddenly aviation was a dangerous endeavour.

“And such imbecile types now in control! When the engineers proposed to build a small two-stroke emergency gasoline engine in place of bulky four-stroke engine, to run the aeroplane’s electrical system if generators should fail, they were forbidden, on grounds that switching from four-stroke to two-stroke in one step would be too risky. They were ordered to build three-stroke engine! Three-stroke engine! Ha ha ha!”

Maybe it was the arrest of Tupolev, or maybe it was the poisonous effect of the paranoia, but it was now that my father began to switch his allegiance from the soaring firmament of aviation to the humble earth-bound world of tractors. So he found his way to the Red Plough Factory in Kiev.

The Red Plough was a paranoia-free zone. Nestled in a curve of the Dnieper River, away from the main political centres, it got on with its humble work of producing agricultural implements, construction machinery, boilers and vats. Nothing had military implications. Nothing was secret or state-of-the-art. Thus it became a haven for scientists, engineers, artists, poets and people who just wanted to breathe free air. My father’s first design project was a concrete mixer. It was a beauty. (He whirls his hands around to demonstrate its motion.) Then there was a twin-furrow plough. (He slides his hands up and down, palms outward.) On summer evenings after work, they would strip off and swim in the wide sandy-bottomed river that looped around the factory precinct. (He demonstrates vigorous breast-stroke. The plum wine has really gone to his head.) And they always ate well, for as a sideline they repaired bicycles, motors, pumps, carts, whatever anyone brought to the back door, and took payment in bread and sausages.

My father worked at the Red Plough from 1937 until the outbreak of war in 1939, while my mother attended the Veterinary Institute on the outskirts of Kiev. They lived in a two-roomed apartment on the ground floor of an ‘art nouveau’ stuccoed house on Dorogozhitska Street, which they shared with Anna and Viktor, a couple of friends they knew from university. At the bottom of their road was Melnikov Street, a wide boulevard which leads down past the old Jewish cemetery into the steep wooded ravine of Babi Yar.

I awake late next morning with a splitting headache and a stiff neck My father is already up, fiddling about with the radio. He is in excellent spirits, and immediately wants to continue where he left off about the fate of Tupolev, but I shut him up and put the kettle on. There is something foreboding about the stillness in the house. Stanislav and Valentina are out, and the Rover has disappeared from the front drive. As I walk through the house clutching a cup of tea, I notice that some of the dutter in Valentina’s room seems to have been cleared away, some pots and pans are missing from the kitchen, and the small portable photocopier has gone.

The psychologist was a fraud

O
nce the court has granted the injunction, I telephone my father every day to see whether Valentina and Stanislav have moved out yet, and his answer is always the same: “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

They have removed some of their possessions, but left others. They stay away for a night or a day, then they come back. My father does not know where they go, where they stay, or when they will return. Their movements are mysterious. Valentina no longer speaks to him when she passes him on the stairs or in the kitchen—she does not even acknowledge his presence. Stanislav looks the other way and whistles tunelessly.

This war of silence is worse than the war of words. My father is beginning to crack.

“Maybe I will ask her to remain after all. She is not such a bad person, Nadia. Has some good qualities. Only has some incorrect ideas.”

“Pappa, don’t be so stupid. Can’t you see, you are at risk of your life? Even if she doesn’t kill you, you will have a heart attack or a stroke if you go on like this.”

“Hmm. Maybe. But is it not better to die at the hands of one you love than to die alone?”

“Pappa, for goodness’ sake. How could you imagine that she ever loved you? Just remember how she used to behave towards you, the things she said, the pushing, the shouting.”

“True, this is the defect of character which is typical, by the way, of the Russian psyche, in which there is always the tendency to believe in violence as first rather than last resort.”

“Pappa we have all been running round in circles to achieve this injunction, and now you suddenly want to change your mind. What will Vera say?”

“Ah, Vera. If Valentina does not kill me, surely Vera will.”

“Nobody will kill you, Pappa. You will live to a ripe old age, and you will finish writing your book.”

“Hmm. Yes.” His voice perks up. “You see there was one other very interesting development during the Second World War, and that was invention of the half-tractor. This was in fact a French invention which was remarkable both for its elegance and its ingenuity.”

“Pappa, please listen carefully. If you choose to stay with Valentina now, I shall wash my hands of you. There will be no calling for help to me or to Vera next time.”

I am so angry that I don’t telephone him the next day, but late in the afternoon he telephones me.

“Listen to this, Nadezhda!” he shouts down the telephone, his voice fizzy with excitement. “GCSE result of the Stanislav. Grade B in English! B in music! C in mathematics! C in science! C in technology! D in history! D in French! Grade A in religious studies only!”

I can hear Stanislav faintly protesting in the background, and my father’s voice taunting, “Grade C! Ha ha! Grade C!”

Now I hear a terrifying screech as Valentina pitches in, then a crash and the phone goes dead. I try to phone back, but get an engaged tone. Again and again. I am beginning to panic.

Then after about twenty minutes a dialling tone but no reply. I put on my coat and grab the car keys. I’d better go and rescue him. Then I dial once more and this time my father picks up the receiver.

“Hallo, Nadezhda? Yes, good job we discovered the truth. Psychologist who wrote IQ report was a fraud. Stanislav is not genius, not even very clever. Merely mediocre.”

“Oh Pappa…”

“There can be no excuses. In English, yes, science even maybe command of the language is a factor. But mathematics is pure test of intelligence. Grade C! Ha!”

“Pappa, are you all right? What was that crash I heard?”

“Oh, just the smallishbump. You see, she cannot stand to face the truth. Her son is not a genius, but she will not believe this.”

“Are Stanislav and Valentina still there with you?”

I want to shut him up, before she does him a serious injury.

“No is gone out. Shopping.”

“Pappa, it’s more than two weeks since the court granted you the injunction. Why are they still living there? They should have moved out by now.”

It is clear to me that Valentina has another base, maybe even another home somewhere, where she and Stanislav and the small portable photocopier are installed. Why is she still hanging around my father?

“Sometimes here, sometimes not here. One day is gone, one day is back. You know, this Valentina is not a bad type, but she cannot accept that the boy is not genius.”

“So has she or has she not moved out? Where does she live?”

There is a long silence.

“Pappa?”

Then, quietly, almost with regret, he murmurs, “Grade C!”

Vera has been on holiday in Tuscany, so I ring her to fill her in on what has happened in the last fortnight. I describe the scene in the courtroom, Laura Carter’s speech, and my father’s finger-pointing intervention.

“Bravo!” cries Vera.

I describe Valentina’s impassioned but unintelligible declaration of love, and our plum wine celebration.

“We both got a bit tipsy, then he started talking about his days at the Red Plough Factory.”

“Ah yes, the Red Plough.” Vera’s Big Sis voice makes me feel uneasy, as though something bad is coming next. “You know of course that in the end they were betrayed. Somebody whose bicycle they had mended reported them to the NK. VD. The director and most of the staff were carted off to Siberia.”

“Oh no!”

“Fortunately, that was after Pappa had already left. And one of the neighbours betrayed Anna and Viktor, and they ended up in Babi Yar. You know that they were Jews, of course.”

“I didn’t know.”

“So you see everybody is betrayed in the end.”

I had thought there was a happy story to tell about my parents’ life, a tale of triumph over tragedy, of love overcoming impossible odds, but now I see that there are only fleeting moments of happiness, to be seized and celebrated before they slip away.

“What I find hard to understand, Vera, is—why were people so quick to betray each other? You would have thought they would show solidarity in the face of oppression.”

“No no, that is the naive view, Nadezhda. You see, this is the dark underside of human nature. When someone has power, the lesser people always try to gain favour with them. Look at the way Father always tries to please Valentina, even when she abuses him. Look at the way your Labour politicians are creeping up to offer their homage” (she pronounces it
hom-aahj
) “to the capitalists’ (she pronounces it cap-it-alists) “whom they vowed to overthrow. Of course it’s not just politicians, it happens throughout the animal kingdom too.”

(Oh, Big Sis, what a nose you have for sniffing out the tainted, the soiled, the venal, the compromised. When did you learn to see so darkly?)

“They’re not
my
Labour politicians, Vera.”

“Well they are certainly not mine. Nor Mother’s, as you know.”

Yes, my generous dumpling-hearted stuff–‘em–with–food–till–they–burst mother was a devoted supporter of Mrs Thatcher.

“Let’s not talk about politics, Vera. We always seem to fall out.”

“Of course some things are so distasteful they are better not talked about.”

Instead, we make plans for the immigration tribunal hearing, which has crept up on us and is suddenly only a fortnight away. Vera and I have informally swapped roles. I am now Mrs Divorce Expert, or at least, it is my job to take care of the divorce side of things. Vera plays the part of Mrs Flog–‘em–and–send–‘em–home. She is superb in the role.

“The secret, Nadia, is in meticulous planning.”

Vera has visited the tribunal courtroom, checked out the lie of the land, and made friends with the usher. She has contacted the tribunal office, and without actually telling them that she is acting for Mrs Mayevska, has ensured that there will be an interpreter.

I travel down to London for the tribunal, because I don’t want to miss the excitement. Vera and I meet in a cafe opposite the building in Islington where the tribunal is to be held. Although we have talked on the phone, it is the first time we have actually met since Mother’s funeral. We look each other up and down. I have made a special effort, and am wearing a this-season Oxfam jacket, a white blouse and dark trousers. Vera is wearing a stylishly crumpled jacket and skirt in earth-coloured linen. Cautiously, we lean forward and each peck the air at the side of the other’s cheek.