All That Is Solid Melts into Air (19 page)

“My husband is missing. Where can I find out about his arrival?”

The woman snorted through her nostrils. “Look around. Everyone’s husband is missing.”

They looked and could see very few men.

“A representative from the secretariat will visit this afternoon. We will know more then. Food will be handed out midmorning. Have your cards with you at all times. If you cannot present your card, we will confiscate your food. That is all.”

“One last thing.”

The woman paused, resenting the time that was being demanded of her.

“Do you know how long we’ll be here?”

“As long as you’re told.”

The woman turned away and sat on a chair against the wall and picked up a magazine.

They walked through the maze of carpet and cardboard and sprawled limbs, finally finding their area, a space just big enough for the three of them to lie side by side. At the farm, whenever a cow was sick, they would section it off in its own pen until it recovered. That pen was bigger than their area. Probably more comfortable too, Artyom thought, if the straw was fresh.

Sofya sat on the roll of undercarpet, and said, “So this is home.”

Artyom’s mother chewed her gums and nodded, not looking at them.

Artyom walked outside. He could hear his mother calling instructions to him in frustrated whispers, but he didn’t care. He needed to be alone. At least he could take in the peace of the morning. Everything that his eyes set upon was made of steel and concrete. A line of pylons stretched out with corkscrew endings, which balanced a series of buzzing wires. Trucks passed on the roadside; so fast and heavy that he could feel the concrete bounce under his feet.

Not a blade of grass to be seen.

Nothing breathing, not even himself.

All that had come before erased in a single day.

“HE’S ASLEEP NOW.
We can get to work.”

Grigory’s voice brings Artyom back to the room. It takes a moment for him to readjust, to concentrate on the job at hand. He looks down and sees the dog at rest, a comical leer on its lips, its molars showing. He puts his hand in its coat. It’s good to touch the hair of an animal, coarse and alive.

Grigory says something, and Artyom turns around, not comprehending. Grigory repeats the word: “Ready?”

Gently, they turn the dog onto its back and Grigory clips its hindquarters, then shaves it with a razor, so that eventually the dog looks like a creature of two halves: hair and skin. Artyom can’t help but smile at how strange it looks, can’t help but think that if a dog has such a thing as vanity, it’s in for quite a surprise. Grigory instructs Artyom to hold its hindquarters off the floor, and he does so and is surprised at the weight of the animal. Grigory wraps plaster of Paris around its pelvis, dipping the swatches in the bowl of water before he does so, then has Artyom help him fold the dog’s legs into its body, so it can drag itself along while it recovers. They both take pleasure in their actions: healing something that contains no mystery; a broken bone that will be fixed, that is definable, a medical problem that has a resolution. And they both quietly look forward to the day when they will cut the bandage away from this animal and see it walk, unsteadily, across the yard, its trauma behind it.

Artyom is surprised at how quickly the bandages dry and, when the cast is set, they lay a blanket over the dog’s hunched form and Artyom looks at Grigory, a shine in his eyes.

“It’s yours now. You can take care of it,” Grigory says.

“We can’t move it. It’s asleep.”

“Of course not, but when it wakes.”

Artyom shakes his head sadly. “I can’t, my mother wouldn’t allow it into our quarters. Besides, what could I feed it? We barely have enough food already.”

“Well, let’s keep it here then. It’s your dog, but it lives here. I’ll have a word with the supply secretary, see if we can get some scraps.”

Artyom smiles wide and bright, and Grigory takes this as a gift for carrying the animal here, tending to it, a reward that makes it all more than worthwhile. They shake hands, an exchange that has a strange solemnity to it. The boy has an aura of experience, of gravitas, any youthful naivety long since departed.

“Batyr. I’m naming him Batyr.”

Artyom nods, taking in the fact with eagerness, the anticipation of a new parent stirring within him.

He repeats the name before he exits. “Batyr.” It’s the first good thing he’s done in months.

Chapter 14

M
aria is three hours into her shift when it happens. The commotion comes from above them, the metal stairway to the management offices. Shouting. A scuffle. At first they think it might be an argument between two senior managers, which would be a juicy piece of gossip in itself, but it’s a woman’s voice. There are no women on the management committee. Maria’s comrades stop and look up. They all instinctively press the suspension buttons on their machines before turning around. The whole place, powering down momentarily, the sound of forces slowing, cooling. Maria looks around and can see others looking around, captivated as the great beast to which they have chained themselves quietens its roar.

The void is replaced by a murmur. More shouts from the stairway. Those who can’t see spread word to those who can. It’s Zinaida Volkova. They can’t believe this. They ask those nearest to confirm and see a bundle of black cloth being ushered by three officials through the doors that lead to the reception area.

In the forty years Zinaida Volkova has worked in the plant, she has never been known to raise her voice.

Zinaida is a senior committee member of the workers’ union. Everyone knows her, knows her story. After the war, at twenty-four, she had become a member of the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya work brigade. A welder with two Hero of Labour medals. Zinaida is who you go to if you have a personal problem. She organized extended maternity leave, secured concessions in working hours for those who had obligations to a sick relative. Half of the factory have stood before her at some stage, had her listen with that alert stare of hers, twitching like a bird, doling out advice and reassurance.

Even the line supervisors are in shock. They can’t treat a Hero of Labour this way.

When Zinaida’s protests fade, a menacing silence takes over. Some machines tick in their state of rest, parts cooling and contracting. Nobody moves. They see a man in a grey suit walk hurriedly along the metal walkway in front of the plate-glass windows. Mr. Shalamov.

The line managers look down at the floor, or stroll as casually as possible to the toilets.

The plant chairman, Mr. Rybak, emerges from the glass door of his office.

“Start your machines.”

Silence.

“Who here can do without their job? Put your hand up.”

Silence.

“I will stand here with a clipboard checking off names if I have to. Ask yourselves if you want to go home to your families and tell them why you will be standing at some other gate to some other factory tomorrow morning. Stomping your feet in the freezing cold. Turn on your machines or explain it to them.”

A slight shuffling across the building, like a breeze has floated through.

A machine purrs, revving up.

The line managers return to the floor. They say nothing, just stare at the workers. The sound spreads, flywheels gaining speed, moulding machines reaching full pressure and, in Maria’s section, router blades becoming invisible as they turn. Industry washes forward once more, and everybody is filled with self-loathing.

At lunch Maria sits, as usual, with Anna and Nestor, her strongest friends in the factory. Anna has a two-year-old daughter, so she feels particular loyalty to Zinaida. The extra maternity leave was a godsend.

“So,” Nestor says. Nestor is a construction draughtsman and therefore has direct contact with different processing areas. He has a wan, thin face, his jawline meeting at a dimpled chin. “She’s been trying to set up an independent union. Apparently, the last wage cut sent her over the edge.”

Their wages have been decreased three times over the past six months, the union barely raising an objection, the officials getting kickbacks from the management. Everybody knows this. But they aren’t in a position to object.

As wages come down, food prices have been rising. Sugar has doubled in price in the past eighteen months. Bread and milk have risen by 60 percent, meat by 70. All of them know how to readjust a household budget, to cut corners an extra millimetre or two, to scale back and scale back. You still need to eat something, though. Some of the older workers have been fainting at their stations. People have been getting ill with much greater frequency, and Maria has noticed other, more subtle, changes that the body takes on. She notices how Nestor’s gums have receded. He has three children. He takes on the majority of the sacrifices. People’s skin has greyed, their hair has dried, become fragile. Each evening, on the bus home, she notices strands of dislodged hair resting on the shoulders of their dark jackets.

Nestor lowers his voice. “She might get her wish now. I can’t see people continuing to be represented by the rest of that gang.”

“It’s not as easy as you think, Nestor. An independent union is quite a fight.”

“Other places have got concessions. The dockers in Vladivostok. The railway workers in Leningrad,” Anna says.

“Only because they had to—they are crucial industries. The authorities are getting a lot more hard-line about this. They don’t want protests like that to spread. One place gets concessions, they come down even harder someplace else. Why else would they fire Zinaida?”

Nestor looks at his lunch with distaste and lights a cigarette instead.

“Zinaida gave the union credibility. It’ll be hard for them to carry on without her. There’ll be a petition started by the end of the week, mark my words.”

Maria snorts. “Names on a page. What good does that do?”

“It’s a start.”

“It’s not anything.”

Anna looks at Maria. “I didn’t see you walk away in protest.”

A sharpness in her voice.

“No, you didn’t,” Maria says. “I’m thinking of my wage, same as everyone else, pitiful as it is.”

“Maria Nikolaevna Brovkina.”

Mr. Popov is standing at the entrance to the canteen. It’s so rare for a line manager to come here, among the workers, that a silence descends.

“Mr. Shalamov would like to speak with you.”

Maria murmurs to the other two, “I’ll tell you later,” and walks through the door, whispers trailing in her wake.

This time, when she enters his office Mr. Shalamov stands and shakes her hand. She sits in the same chair as before. Mr. Shalamov leans forward, elbows on the desk, adjusts his glasses, smiles, leans back in his chair, smiles again.

“I would like to speak, Maria Nikolaevna, about your suggestion. You mentioned it would be good for morale. I think perhaps you are right. Let’s celebrate the talents of our workers.”

They’re watching her, of course, from the floor. Everyone sitting over lunch, clear to all of them that the management is trying to co-opt her. It’s her own fault for opening up the discussion in the first place, showing a willingness to play along.

“My nephew won’t be able to take on the extra rehearsals. My apologies. I approached you without fully checking through his commitments.”

Shalamov coasts on without missing a beat.

“I’ve done some asking around. He’s a very talented boy.”

“He’s been having trouble recently. His teacher is worried about his sense of timing, says he needs to go back to the basics. He wouldn’t be able to fit in any performances.”

“I know almost nothing about music. Is that serious?”

“It could be. His teacher says he is at a delicate stage, he’s not old enough to have mastered the necessary tempos. It can only be done by repetition. After some time it should come naturally.”

“Well, that is a shame.”

“Yes.”

“Who is his teacher?”

Maria shifts in her chair. “I can’t remember his name. My sister takes care of his tuition.”

“I see.”

He nods. Silence.

A child with skewed timing is not a sufficient excuse. They both know it.

He smiles. “I do have some friends involved in music. Perhaps we could get the boy another teacher.”

“That’s very kind, but he’s happy with the man he has. It seems he’s making good progress.”

“On the contrary, it sounds like he’s doing very badly indeed.”

A pause.

“My friend’s name is Yakov Sidorenko. Do you know of him?”

She exhales. “Yes. Of course.”

“Yakov Mikhailovich is a generous artist, a true friend to the worker and to youth. He’s offered to accompany your nephew in a recital in our own house of culture. Such a modest man, Yakov. You would never hear him speak about his achievements.”

Maria hates the patronizing tone. There’s no avoiding it now. She’ll be seen to take their side.

“I’ll have to consult my sister, and of course my nephew.”

“I would have assumed, Maria Nikolaevna, that you would have done this already, before approaching me.”

He takes a pen from his jacket pocket and starts looking over some paperwork. Maria waits for permission to leave.

“If you decide that your nephew is not up to it, if you were overstating his talents, then you may of course refuse. I wouldn’t wish to stand in the way of a boy’s development. But may I remind you that Yakov Mikhailovich is a professor at the Conservatory, not someone you would wish to insult. On the contrary, if your nephew is as talented as they say, I would consider it an incredible opportunity for him. Also, to refuse would greatly disappoint Mr. Rybak. He has invited along a committee member from the Ministry of Automobile and Agricultural Machinery.”

He points his pen in her direction. “Now would not be a good time to disappoint the chairman, believe me.”

“Yes, sir.” She says this without looking at him.

He nods and stands and offers his hand.

“You said it yourself: we have talented people here, why not celebrate our talents? I encourage you to think of this as a good opportunity for both of us, as well as for your nephew.”

She turns without acknowledging him; she doesn’t need to pander anymore. She’ll have a couple of minutes in the lobby to gather her thoughts, decide what or what not to tell them all. Perhaps the truth might be the best option. Though, in her experience, that is rarely the case.