Vanja flushed. “What, don’t I normally?”
Nina shook her head. “No. And that’s a shame, because your whole face lights up. You’re so serious all the time, all worry lines.”
Vanja scraped at the bottle’s label with her thumbnail. “Maybe.”
Nina reached out and stopped her fidgeting. “Hey. What happened to you?”
“What do you mean, what happened to me?”
“You know, when we were at the clinic. Down at the fert unit.”
“Oh. That.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s not much to say.”
Nina took the bottle and mixed them a new batch of coffee and distillate. “It happened to me, too,” she said. “Before I had Tora. Ivar and I had been inseminating at home, you know, with one of those baster things…”
“Inseminating?” Vanja said. “I thought you were…”
“What? No, no.” Nina laughed. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we have separate rooms?”
“I thought it was so there would be fewer empty rooms.”
Nina laughed again and shook her head. “No, no, no. See, we’re best friends since the children’s house. We’ve always lived together. It was just more practical to make a couple of children together, instead of standing in line at the clinic or trying to pick someone up at the leisure center.”
“I see.” Vanja started picking at the bottle label again.
“Anyway… we’d been trying for a good while with that syringe. And then I thought it finally worked. But I had a miscarriage more or less straight away. It was horrible.”
“But why?” Vanja said quietly. “Why was it horrible?”
“Because I’d been hoping, you know? And because I wanted to have children, and, well, contribute. Do my part for the commune. According to my ability, right?” Nina shrugged. “But then Tora and Ida came. I guess I’m trying to say that things might go better next time.”
“There is no next time,” Vanja said. She pinched a corner of the label between her thumb and forefinger and tugged at it. “They’ve given up. It didn’t work.”
Nina sighed. “I’m so very sorry to hear that.”
Vanja tore the corner off and rolled it between her fingers. She downed her drink. “But that’s not why.”
“Then why?” Nina tilted her head.
“I mean. What if one doesn’t want to.” The words seemed to have a will of their own. “If one doesn’t want to have children. One waits, and sort of hopes that it doesn’t have to happen. And then one turns twenty-five, and the questions start coming, and they put you in a room with a counselor who explains that it’s one’s communal duty, and finally one gives in, one goes to the fert unit and shakes hands with some pitiful man who has to masturbate into a cup so the doctors have something to impregnate one with, and one resigns and puts one’s feet in the stirrups because one has. No. Choice.” She was out of words. She rested her face in her hands.
Nina got up from her chair and sat down next to Vanja. She pulled her close and held her without speaking.
After a while, Vanja straightened up. She wiped her face with her shirtsleeves.
Nina put a hand on Vanja’s knee. “I’m sorry you’re in pain, Vanja. I really am. But both you and I do know why everything is like it is. It’s so that we can survive.”
Vanja stood up. The room seemed to tilt sideways ever so slightly. “I’m going out.”
She went up to her room and stuffed two blankets into her satchel. She looked into the kitchen on her way out. Nina sat with her chin in her hand. She was topping off her cup again.
The raw lake air was refreshing, even though everything still felt remote. Vanja walked north along the beach. Tundra, shingles, grass. She came to a spit of land where a group of boulders offered shelter from the wind and a place to sit. She spread out a blanket and sat down with her back to one of the larger rocks. Dusk was falling. Slow waves lapped against the beach; the rush of water on stone was unfamiliar and calming at the same time. Her eyes felt crusty from tears and alcohol. Vanja tied her earflaps under her chin, leaned her head back against the rock, and closed her eyes.
They were always kind. The doctors, the nurses, the technicians. It was always with the same polite care that they showed her to her room, established that it was time, examined her. A nurse held her hand and gently pushed her shoulders back into the chair when she panicked. They tried to comfort her, telling her that it was normal to be nervous, that she was such a good girl, while they attempted to plant a little parasite inside her.
The sound of footsteps made her open her eyes again. It had grown darker, and the waves had abated. A figure stood a few steps away. In the fading light, it was hard to make out features, but the posture made it look like an old woman in a pair of overalls. She was holding the end of something resembling a stick, or a pipe, which she’d plunged into the water. The woman turned. It was too murky to see her face. She nodded at Vanja and turned back toward the lake.
When the water whitened, the old woman raised her arms so that the end of what she was holding hung just below her chin. She supported her elbows on her stomach and remained standing like that while the water froze. Vanja tried to keep her eyes open, but the drowsiness was overpowering. She managed to raise her eyelids a couple of times. The woman was still there, unmoving.
When Vanja managed to open her eyes one last time, all she could see was the woman’s silhouette against the light from Amatka’s plant houses; the lake was a still, black expanse, inseparable from the night. The woman took a deep breath and put her lips to the thing she held in her hands. Vanja felt rather than heard the note vibrate through her body. It continued for a long time. Finally, the sound faded. The woman straightened and pulled the pipe up. It ended in a narrow funnel. The woman slung the pipe over her shoulder and left.
It was warm between the blankets. The rocks around her were comfortable if Vanja just adjusted her position a little. She leaned back, turned her head, and closed her eyes again.
It happened at dawn. Something like a chorus of discordant flutes rang out. Vanja turned her head. A group of people were approaching across the ice. She couldn’t quite make them out; their shapes wavered as if in a heat haze. She was so tired. Her eyes fell shut again.
The beach bathed in the light of morning. She must have slept through the breaking of the ice. Her neck ached. When she stood up, the hangover hit her.
FIFDAY
Nina sat by the kitchen table with her head in her hands. If she’d been sitting there all night, or if she’d just sat back down, was impossible to say. The bottle and the cups were cleared away, in any case. She turned toward the door when Vanja entered.
“Where have you been?”
“By the lake.”
“All night?”
“All night. I fell asleep.”
“How stupid can you get?” Nina stood up. “You walk off just like that and don’t come back. Do you think that’s fair?” She was standing in front of Vanja now, gripping her shoulders. “And you can’t just spend the night there. People have disappeared that way, Vanja.”
Vanja looked down at her shoes. Nina let go of her shoulders and rubbed her face.
“I’m sorry,” Vanja said. “I didn’t know you’d be worried.”
Nina lowered her hands and stared at Vanja. “You are stupid.”
Vanja stared back. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, that much is clear.” Nina took one of Vanja’s hands in hers and trailed her fingertips over the red knuckles. “You’re all chapped.”
She abruptly let go and went into the bathroom. After rummaging around for a moment, she came back out, a jar in her hand. “Sit down.”