All That Is Solid Melts into Air (30 page)

“Actually, I loved them. I remember very little of school. But I remember the nuclear drills. I remember how we’d do them sometimes on rainy days, straight after assembly, when everyone’s clothes were still wet, and we’d crouch under the tables and I’d smell the damp and steam and feel close to everyone.”

“People talked of nothing else. There were plenty of grand statements about our absolute power, but the fear was so immediate, naturally. Those missiles sitting in Italy and Turkey, pointing straight at us. I’m sure you felt it too as a child, probably more so.”

“I remember raising my head during one of the drills—we were under strict orders to lie still—and looking around and thinking that this is what it would look like if a bomb actually hit. All of my friends crumpled on the floor, only the teacher still standing.”

She laughs at this detail.

“At that age you think teachers are indestructible.”

Mr. Leibniz pats his wife’s clenched hand. “If only that were so.”

After a silence he says, “Katya brings the past in here, she guides my memories, makes me relive the things that departed from me as a young man or things which I chose to ignore.”

“Are there particular years that she remembers more clearly?”

“Yes. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she sits up in bed, listening, hearing things. She has an incredible sensitivity to noises in the night. I know she’s reliving the Stalin years, the months before I was taken away. We had so many nights when we were waiting for a knock on the door.”

“It must have been terrible when it finally came.”

“Not so terrible. There was actually a great sense of relief. I stood in this room in my robe and slippers, and they pushed through from the corridor, surrounding me, and told me to get dressed, and I remember an odd sense of justification, that at least I hadn’t made the whole thing up in my mind. Waiting in dread is an incredible strain.”

“How long were you in the gulags?”

“Ten years. Then they closed them and I came home and stayed out of sight. I tuned pianos and walked in the park.”

Maria rises and steps to the piano near the door, taking it in; it strikes her as being much bigger than the proportions of the room would seem to allow.

“It was a gift. It belonged to an engineer, a lonely man, very respected. When he died, it was passed to me according to his wishes.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Do you ever play?”

“No. I don’t have that kind of patience. My husband used to, occasionally.”

“Used to?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Leibniz doesn’t press.

She runs her hands along the marquetry designs on the side, takes pleasure in the feel of the curve; like a hip bone.

“Would you have done things differently, before you were arrested, if you could have those years back?” she asks.

“What could I have done?”

“I don’t know. Surely people put up some kind of resistance.”

“There was no resistance. Resist what? There were no rights or wrongs, no grey areas, there was just the system. I did all I could do, I survived. I’ve lived long enough to take care of my wife. That was my only ambition.”

It’s time to go home. Alina is working late and Maria will need to cook. She takes Mr. Leibniz’s hand. His wife is elsewhere.

“Thank you for speaking with me. I’ll make sure Zhenya doesn’t miss any more practice.”

He senses a change in her, a doubt in her grip. He dips his head, seeking eye contact.

“I speak to you as a man surrounded by forgotten years. The only change for my wife and I will be death. Resistance is for the young. And you, whether you realize it or not, are still young.”

Maria smiles and squeezes his hand, a flush of deference in her cheeks.

In the corridor she looks down at the pools swelling around the mat, solid snow transformed into liquid, trickling down into the stairwell. On the floor below she hears movement and the groan of the irritable step. It fires an image in her mind and she continues the sound in her imagination, boots trampling up the stairs, the arrogant strides of authority pacing their way to this landing, knocking on this door, standing where she is standing. Soldiers filling up the corridor. Mr. Leibniz in his robe, dream-muddled. That feeling of utter helplessness, not a single person to speak out for you, a feeling so strong she could reach out and touch it with her hand.

Chapter 25

A
t half past ten Grigory finishes his shift and makes his way to the cafeteria. The place will be closed, but he has a key. If he hasn’t eaten, they leave a meal for him in the fridge. A tub of mackerel with beetroot and mayonnaise, or sometimes cow’s tongue and roasted turnips. He hardly tastes it, eats it cold. Often he has to concentrate just to lift the fork to his mouth. He rarely uses a knife; the instrument has shed its innocence for him.

First he sees the strip of light below the door. As he nears, he can take in the smell. He recognizes it instantly: zharkoye
.
One of the other surgeons must have finished as late as he; the nurses and attendants rotate surgeries so their meals are earlier in the evening. He pauses, thinks about turning back for his room; conversation is inevitable. But the smell of onion proves irresistible, the thought of a warm meal so comforting.

He opens the door and sees a woman standing over the cooker. The mother of the boy.

She turns, smiles.

“They said you were almost finished. It’s ready for you.”

The surprise makes him wary.

“How did you get in?”

“One of the nurses.”

“She should have asked permission.”

“From who? No one’s going to deny you a decent meal. They practically kissed my feet when I suggested it.”

“I’m not your responsibility.” He says this and then regrets his words. He can leave his authority back in the surgical ward.

She slides the wooden spoon back into the pot, leans against the counter facing him. She speaks slowly, gently, aware of his tiredness. Perhaps it’s the light, but he seems even paler than those few days before.

“I understand. I’m not here to mother you. I’m here to thank you. It’s a celebratory meal.”

“What are we celebrating?”

“My Sofya is getting better. She has been in bed with a temperature, diarrhoea, having trouble holding down food. Of course I thought the worst. But they did some tests and she’s a lot healthier, eating her food, colour back in her cheeks again. It turns out it was only an intestinal infection. It feels as if she has been brought back to life.”

Grigory runs his hand through his hair. He’s still not sure he wants to discuss someone else’s situation. Even if they have good news.

“And we’re celebrating the return of my Artyom. That dog has brought him back to me again. He’s talking again, telling me things. That crippled dog has helped more than you know.”

Grigory nods, relenting, and slumps into a chair.

She serves him and they eat without speaking. The beef and garlic steams up into his face and he drags down the smell and eats heartily. When he finishes she fills his plate again. She waves her finger before he can refuse. “We have enough. It’s a celebration, remember.” She watches him eat, a satisfied smile on her face.

Now that he can look at her, properly consider her, he sees lines of worry etched into her forehead and around her mouth. But her smile is a flare of crooked teeth, a burst of energy and light.

When he finishes she pushes aside the plate, takes a bottle from one of the cupboards, and fills his glass.

“I shouldn’t.”

“None of us should.”

She dips a finger in her glass, then kisses her fingers and flicks a few drops of vodka on the floor. They drink and crack their glasses down.

She puts an elbow on the table and rests her chin on her palm.

“Tell me why you are here.”

This woman can change the tone of the room in an instant. Her manner is both open and direct. Not aggressive, simply without triviality. He puts his two hands flat on the tabletop, tucks his thumbs underneath, settles himself, and thinks about his reply.

“Well, my superior at the hospital recommended me to an advisor at the Ministry of Fuel and Energy. I was sent to Chernobyl, and then they transferred me to a resettlement camp.”

“That’s not
why
, that’s
how
, but no matter, we’ll get to it.”

“What about you? Did you come from Pripyat?”

“We lived in the Gomel region. A small village near the plant, obviously. But I’m from Moscow originally, like you.”

“Artyom told you?”

“Don’t worry, we all know about you. Silence is no defence around here.”

He doesn’t test her statement, doesn’t want to know. Grigory takes the bottle and pours both of them another glass.

“How did you end up in Gomel?”

“I fell in love.”

A meandering smile on her mouth.

“Did he . . . your husband . . .”

The words came stuttering out. Without his white coat, he is lost with such a topic. He has no idea how to discuss such things outside the realm of professional expertise.

“Yes. He died before they moved us to this camp. He worked as a liquidator for the plant. They gave him the job of cutting down the neighbouring forests.”

“I’m sorry.”

A pause.

“Thank you.”

He considers changing the subject, but there is no other subject here.

“How did you meet him?”

She thinks about her reply. She’d like to describe it all to someone. Why not this doctor? She hasn’t had a chance to relive it in a story. The day Andrei walked into the tailor’s workshop near Izmaylovsky Park and was introduced to the assistant, who was chalking up some suit material for cutting. Pins clamped in her teeth, her jaw clenched in concentration. She looked up at him in acknowledgement, and immediately his blue eyes were the only colour in the room, eyes as resonant as a lingering piano note. She stopped what she was doing to look, and he looked back at her. She took in the way he stood, feet planted on the floor, shoulders back, a man who knew the world, who was equal to its vigour. She slid the pins from her mouth and had to make her apologies and leave, confused. She walked for hours that afternoon, trying to locate the sensation within herself, but she couldn’t read her own feelings, they were new to her, and it was only later that she realized it was the elusive sensation of love that had crept up on her unawares, a sensation for which she had no reference point. And when the thought began to develop into realization, her inclination was to dismiss it: such things are the preserve of adolescents, not someone as old as she. She told herself she is someone who knows the hardness of the world, who understands that to survive is to nurture the practical, to keep steady and quiet and choose things based upon their value.

A week later, he was there again, as she had hoped, modesty and confidence combined in his honest face, back for his second fitting. When the tailor left the room for more pins, Andrei stood there, wearing the frayed material, unable to move, a living dummy, and she approached and put her hand to his waist, folding the swatches for a better fit, and adjusted the angle of his lapels, her breath rippling over his chest as she did so, and he gathered her neck in his hand and they kissed briefly, in the moment. When he returned, the tailor tweaked and tucked the material while they stole glances at each other, the gorgeous pain of anticipation.

Later still, when the streetlights had come on and the tailor had walked away in his hat and coat and she had locked the door, she saw Andrei silhouetted in an alcove, and she unlocked the door again and his shoes clicked against the wet cobblestones and she let him into a darkened corner of the vestibule under the stairs. He bunched her hair in his right hand and placed his left flat and vertical on the downward valley of her smooth stomach, and they kissed a kiss that was a language unto itself, a kiss that was a separate country, until she pulled away from him and smoothed her hair behind her ear, and he saw her flat lobe with two elliptical holes and a small crescent-shaped scar just under it, the healed skin whiter than the rest of her. She, in turn, rotated his face into the light and traced a finger along his jawline. Not speaking, just watching, each of them observing the other.

On the stairs they were all decorum again, playfully affecting nonchalance, both understanding that once through the door there would be a torrent of hands and tongue and want, and she even made a little game with the keys, as though she couldn’t quite remember which was the right one, playing with him, drawing the tension out, until it seemed that Andrei was likely to put his shoulder to the door and pop it off its hinges, and then she did a double take with him. She looked at him casually and put the key in the slot, then paused and turned and looked into his eyes, serious as fire, then turned the key fully and pushed her way in, and his hair was on the cusp of her neckline, his hands on her upper arms, before they even managed to close the door.

She understood the word “belonging” then. Inside herself she was honed and made real and cast around his form, morphing into the same shape, and there was heat and lust and strands of thread in her hair, and a pincushion by her right ear and the dummy looming over them, sides filleted out, and she was there but not there, experiencing everything in the moment, consuming every detail of the experience but also outside herself, fragments of her past blurring through her mind, and he smiled reflectively in the middle of it, their thoughts linked, and they broke somehow into giddy trills of laughter, almost losing the moment and then serious again with a twist of his pelvis and a tightening of her mouth.

TANYA WOULD LIKE
to explain some of this to the tired surgeon. She would like to talk about love once more, to share her experiences, but the wounds are still too raw.

She answers his question.

“I worked as a tailor’s assistant and he came in one day to get a suit adjusted.”

“And you moved soon after.”

“A while after. He was doing his military service. When it finished, then I became a farmer’s wife. A life, I’m surprised to admit, I loved. Feeding chickens. Milking cows. Who knew a city girl like me would adapt so well?”

Tanya rises quickly and takes their empty plates and places them in a plastic container. She’ll wash them later. When she returns Grigory offers her a glass and they drink and he waits for her to continue.

“Sometimes on TV they show things from the area. One night they showed people swimming in Pripyat River, people tanning themselves by the banks. The reactor in the background, smoke still coming from it. They get an old lady to milk a cow, she pours the milk into the bucket, and a man comes over with a military dosimeter and measures the radiation level, and it’s normal. Then they measure some fish on a plate. It’s normal. Everything is fine, says the commentator, life is going on as normal. In the shelter, after we were evacuated, some of the other women would get letters from their husbands at the plant. Same thing. Life is returning to normal. Everything normal.”

There is a box of matches on the next table. Grigory reaches over for it, takes one from the box, lights it, and watches it burn down to a stub in his fingers. He lights another. Then he speaks.

“I had a contact in Minsk. A surgeon also. In the earliest days I approached the hospital to tell them what was happening. There was a radioactive cloud hanging over the city. We were forbidden to speak officially of this. So, I spread the word any way I could, talked to people who were in contact with large groups.”

She sits back in her chair, folds her arms, listening intently.

“I talked to this surgeon and he was already aware of the situation. Nobody was coming in yet with radiation poisoning; that would happen in the following weeks. But there were plenty of people, many of them prominent Party members, who needed to get their stomachs pumped after overdosing on iodine tablets. So the medical staff naturally drew their own conclusions. But then he said something else. He said his friend was a librarian and that, the day after the explosion, four KGB guys came into the library and confiscated any relevant books they could find. Anything on nuclear war, radiography—even basic science primers, books to get kids excited about physics. They went to such lengths, of course people believe the propaganda.”

Tanya shakes her head.

“Did you meet any liquidators?”

He’s unsure if she wants an answer. He looks up to see how he should reply and she stares back calmly, waiting for a response.

“A lot of people volunteered. Thousands, not just locals like your husband. That first week they brought in busloads of factory workers, students. They were throwing people at the problem, offering them three, four times the average wage. Not everyone came for the money, though. Some were just put on a bus. They thought they were coming for just a weekend, a reward for their productivity. I saw people taking photographs of each other in front of the reactor, to prove they were there, as if it were a tourist stop.”

He runs a match through his fingers. He would like a cigarette.

“At first they treated it like a holiday camp. They worked of course, shovelled topsoil, dug drains, and in the evening they’d get smashed. There was plenty of vodka to go around. Although eventually that ran out and they started drinking anything they could get their hands on: cologne, nail polish remover, glass cleaner. By then they were drinking to blank out their days, to forget what they’d seen.”

“Why weren’t they replaced? Why were they made to stay for so long?”

“At first they were supposed to be there for two weeks. The initial guidelines made sense—I myself demanded many of them—but they quickly became compromised because of budgetary restrictions, or stubbornness from some senior official. Every man had a radiation meter around his neck. No one was supposed to be exposed to more than twenty-five micro-roentgen, the maximum dose the body can withstand. We gave each of them three sets of protective outfits. But my superior revoked his decision to supply washing machines; he wanted to save whatever clean water sources we had left. So the men had no way of washing their gear. After the third day, they were constantly wearing radioactive clothes. After those initial two weeks, they decided not to replace the liquidators, not to sacrifice others. In the morning planning meetings they would calculate how many lives they’d use up on a particular task. Two lives for this job, four for this. It was like a war cabinet, men playing God. Worst of all, it did no good. Those people were replaced anyway, they became too sick to work.”