After Love (27 page)

There were
babushkas
outside the Metro standing behind little tables. One of them was selling a few carrots, two cabbage leaves and some misshapen sweet potatoes. The woman next to her offered two tubes of German toothpaste, an ancient hairdryer and two plastic aprons. An old man in an army uniform sat on his stool, his medals set out on the ground, waiting for a buyer. A retired nurse, his wife perhaps, held out an album of wartime photos. A blind man played his accordion and sang out-of-tune songs. A young man with a Lenin-beard stood on a wobbly table and declaimed poetry. A woman nearby was dressed as a clown, juggling with five knives while holding a wooden spoon with an egg on it in her mouth.

Shurik was right:
perestroika
had turned the whole city into a marketplace.

The stately Metro, jewel of the capital, was shabby. The escalators were dirty and the air heavy with moisture and dust. Shurik had warned me about what it was like. ‘The ventilation doesn't work properly and no one replaces the lights. It isn't safe down there any more.'

I got into a carriage, found a seat and opened a book. But I couldn't concentrate. I was having second thoughts about visiting Aunty Olga and Leonid Mikhailovich. It didn't seem right. I got out of the train at the next station, walked up the steps and found an empty bench on the street.

A teenager with dark hair and bright red lips came and sat beside me. ‘I am Lolita,' she said, ‘and you are a foreigner with dollars. Do you have dollars?' I didn't answer but thought of the three boxes of Belgian chocolates I had bought in Berlin for Aunty Olga. I opened my bag, gave one box to the girl and walked away.

The bag also contained two Dizzy Gillespie cassettes for Leonid Mikhailovich. ‘It would be silly not to deliver them,' I thought. ‘And they would be offended if they found out that I had been in Moscow and didn't visit them. They can ask me whatever they want. Who cares? It doesn't matter now. I should meet them, Anna or no Anna. Now it's just between them and me.'

I was certain they had always liked me. At least Leonid Mikhailovich had. Aunty Olga? I wasn't so sure. According to her, I had never been the right man for Anna. I was too reserved, too serious and too full of myself. But once Anna had made up her mind, the matter had been settled. Aunty Olga had had no choice but to accept her decision.

‘Perhaps I'm wrong,' I thought. ‘But so what?' I knew that if I wanted to leave Moscow feeling I had done everything I needed to do, I would have to get rid of my terrible angst about the past.

I didn't want to go inside the Metro station. I soon found the right bus and reached the block of apartments without much trouble. I pressed the button for the lift and only then read the handwritten note:
Out of order
followed by
most of the time
and
forever
in different hands. I started to walk up the stairs. I finally reached the third floor, located the door and rang the bell. I heard it echo inside and waited. When nobody came I pressed it again, but still the door didn't open.

I had turned and started to walk downstairs when I heard a door open. A middle-aged woman from the neighbouring apartment called me back.

‘I'm looking for Leonid Mikhailovich and Olga Mikhailovna,' I said. ‘They used to live here.'

‘Yes, they used to. When did you last see them? You're a foreigner, aren't you? You must be one of his students.'

‘Ten years ago I was a student – but not one of his. I knew Anna quite well.' I was embarrassed. Maybe she knew the truth.

‘Please wait. I'll get my husband,' said the woman. She called to him to come out and talk to the foreigner from India. ‘A good friend of Anna's,' she shouted.

The husband came out, shook my hand, glanced at his wife and turned to face me.

‘I'm afraid Leonid Mikhailovich is dead. He passed away two years ago.'

I was stunned. ‘And Aunty Olga?'

‘She's well. A few health problems – nothing major, just old age,' the woman replied. ‘She must have gone to the shops. She should be back soon. You're welcome to come in and wait.'

I thanked them for their information but didn't go in. I knew where the shops were but decided to wait for Aunty Olga in the park.

It was cold and windy. I recalled the family's frequent complaints about the location of the apartment block. I also remembered how Anna used to enjoy walking in the forest, especially in winter.

‘The smell,' she used to whisper, ‘the beautiful smell. I'd love to turn into a squirrel and scurry up the trees to talk to all the handsome owls sitting there looking at me with their glassy eyes, and hooting. And you know what? Each owl would have your face.'

As it got later and later I had almost decided to leave. Then I saw an old woman walking bent over on a stick, moving slowly and holding a shopping bag in her left hand. It was Aunty Olga. I stood up as she approached the bench. She seemed to recognise me at once, which was good, since I didn't want to frighten her.

‘
Zdravstvuite
, Olga Mikhailovna,' I said. ‘It's me, Vasu.'

‘O
bozhe
(Oh God)!' She nearly lost her stick. She tried to retrieve it but then dropped her bag and the milk bottle inside shattered. There was a sharp crack and milk started leaking out. I picked up her stick and escorted her to the bench. Then I went to rescue the bag. I removed the broken bottle, shook off the spilt milk and shoved the loaf of bread and packet of cheese back in.

I must have cut my finger on the broken glass, because there were drops of blood on the ground.

‘Blood,' she said. ‘Have you cut yourself?'

‘Yes, but don't worry.' I took out my handkerchief and wrapped it around my finger.

‘Where's your hat?' she went on. ‘You'll catch cold.'

‘I'll be fine. It isn't too cold. Let me go to the shops and get you milk.'

‘I don't need it. I still have half a bottle in the fridge and a few cans of condensed. I don't need much.'

We sat silently together on the bench, wondering what topics we should avoid. The neighbour came out of the building with her dog. Aunty Olga was by then ready to move. ‘Let's go up. I feel cold. I'm not young any more and the autumn this year hasn't been kind.'

We walked together, Aunty Olga doing her best to avoid talking with the neighbour.

‘She's very nosy,' she grumbled, ‘and gossips shamelessly.'

The climb up the stairs to the third floor was hard for her. We had to stop every few minutes. ‘My knees hurt,' she said, ‘and there's something wrong with my hip. I'm falling apart. Just like everything in this country. Luckily, the kids from the primary school sometimes come and help me.'

Very little had changed inside the apartment although it seemed run-down. The wallpaper was peeling, the taps dripped and the enamel on the bathtub was coming off. Aunty Olga still lived in the same room but the other two were shut up. The piano still stood in the library but the mahogany table had been cleared of its books and papers. The bookshelves were neatly ordered, each volume in the company of other books of the same size and shape.

In the kitchen, Aunty Olga asked me to help her boil the kettle. The tea she brewed was strong and black, and I was told to take out a bottle of fresh blackcurrant conserve from the cupboard. She also opened a packet of gingerbread.

As we were about to sit down to eat and drink, I opened my bag and took out the chocolates and the cassettes.

‘These are for you, Olga Mikhailovna.'

‘Call me Aunty Olga, as you used to. No need to be formal.' She looked at the cassettes. ‘You know about Leynya, don't you?'

‘Yes, the husband of the woman with the dog told me.'

‘Cancer, may God bless his soul. He just wouldn't stop smoking those awful cigarettes of his. Died before finishing the proofs of his jazz book. I had to do it for him. I didn't mind. Anna helped as well. She came for the funeral. She brought Maya with her. Leynya didn't see her before he went. He died here, at home, in his room. Didn't want to go into hospital.'

She took a sip of tea. ‘Anna must have been at the airport when Leynya died. We took the ashes to Tatyur, found the wooden cabin and the birch tree and scattered the ashes around it. I have a photo of the tree.'

‘Who is Maya?' I wanted to ask, but Aunty Olga ordered me to go to her room and fetch a photo album from a drawer in the bedside table. As I walked in I saw that, amazingly, it hadn't changed at all. The bookshelf looked a little fuller but the icon of
Bogomateri
was still squashed in between the books.

I stood for a few moments waiting for the door to open and Anna to walk in, take off her nightshirt and—

‘Have you found the album?' I heard Aunty Olga call. ‘It's in the top drawer.' Then after a pause: ‘You men are all the same. Can't ever find anything.'

I found the album and made myself leave the room. Aunty Olga opened it and showed me some photos. In them I could see no one but Maya. The rest of the world seemed to melt away.

Who is Maya? The question appeared out of place. I knew who Maya was. I knew it as soon as I had heard the name, from the very sound of it.

Aunty Olga watched me looking at the photo. ‘She's gorgeous, isn't she?' she said, and then after a pause added, ‘She's yours, you know.'

I know
, I wanted to say. But I couldn't utter a word.

I felt completely lost. As I tried to recover, I suddenly found myself stranded in an unknown street of my childhood. I was returning from school and my right hip and thigh hurt as the heavy canvas schoolbag rubbed against them. I had scraped skin off my thigh and there was blood, enough to stain my shorts. I was weeping loudly, taking no notice of the people around me. Huge tears rolled down my cheeks and my nose was running so that snot was everywhere, down the front of my shirt and the sleeve. I would run for a few metres, then walk, then run again.

I rushed into the house, threw my bag on the floor and burst into Jijee-ma's room. She had been sitting on the bed talking to a seamstress. I didn't care. I ran to her, buried my head in her lap and cried and cried. After a few minutes in Jijee-ma's lap I calmed down. ‘Govind pushed me and hit me,' I told her. My cuts were swabbed and I was given a glass of sweetened lemon cordial. ‘He wanted to see my new pencil-box and I didn't want to show him, because he's a thief. He snatched it from my hand and it fell on the ground, and as I went to pick it up he pushed me hard and kicked me. Govind is bigger than me but no one came to help me. They just stood and watched. Some even giggled.'

What I didn't tell Jijee-ma that day was that the big new hand-lens which Uncle Triple K had given me had been broken in the scuffle. It had been this that had made me cry and run. The cuts, blood and pain were not important. The lens had been more important than anything else in the world.

But that had happened many years ago, in that other world called childhood.

‘Yes, Maya is gorgeous,' I said, still in shock and confused. ‘Please tell me more about her.'

‘So you don't know anything?'

‘No.'

‘You didn't try to find out?'

‘No.'

‘You didn't suspect?'

‘I did, but—'

‘Didn't know what to do? You just let Anna go. And that was it.'

‘Yes, I suppose I did.'

‘Why, for God's sake, why?'

I was finding it hard to answer. ‘Perhaps I was selfish; perhaps I was too proud. I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned and hurt. I felt like a victim. Yes that's the right word: victim.'

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. Then she got up and walked out of the kitchen. I heard the toilet flush. She called me to help her back. We sat down and she picked up a photo. Then she returned it to the album and started talking.

She told me that Maya would be eleven in September; that she was a bright child, naturally gifted; that she was kind and sincere; that she spoke three languages, Russian, French and English; that she played the guitar and composed her own songs; that she wanted to be a journalist or a writer; that she came to Moscow every other year; that she hated boys and would never marry or have her own children, but would adopt a couple from Vietnam or Angola; that she didn't like the beaches and surf for which Australia is so famous; that on her sixteenth birthday she would go with one of her friends, a dancer, to the very centre of the country to spend a year with a community of what she called ‘real Australians'; that she hated her mother for being so selfish and self-centred and for deciding not to do anything worthwhile with her life; that she despised her mother's awful choice of lovers, who always turned out to be mean and arrogant; that she wanted her
babulya-
aunt to keep her grandpa's books and papers safe, because when she was twenty she would write a book about him and his agitprop wife; that she would read every single book of Marx, Engels and Lenin to understand what was wrong with the system that gave birth to a monster like Stalin; that she despised the multinational corporations which ruthlessly exploit the poor in Third World countries; that when she was eighteen she would release her first record of revolutionary love songs—

‘I like her,' said Aunty Olga, ‘Doesn't she sound like you?'

‘Just a little,' I wanted to say. ‘At eleven I didn't know much about the world.'