Approaching my block, I glanced up over the trees, and searched among the hundreds of windows for my own. The cool light of the weak sun, veiled by clouds, reflected from the window, open slightly to let in a breath of air. Having mounted the stairs, I paused for a few moments outside the door of the apartment, listening. The idea of going into its silent emptiness sent a shiver down my spine.
Suddenly, crushingly, I missed my little daughter’s face, the soft sound of her breathing in the night, the tight clench of her small hand on my finger. I missed Daiva, the sweetness of her scent, the gentleness of her touch, the light ring of her laughter, which I had not heard in months.
I turned the key in the lock, quickly opened the door and stumbled inside. The apartment was cold and felt forsaken. I unscrewed the top of a bottle of vodka, and raised it to my lips, not bothering with a glass. The liquid was cool on my tongue and then the heat flared up from my stomach, burning its way to the back of my throat. I took another gulp and felt the pain in my chest receding, the tightness of my skull loosen.
I lay back on the sofa and closed my eyes. My breathing came more easily now and the pain had gone. I listened to the hiss of tyres on the road eight storeys below, the low throb of engines, the calls of children playing outside, a broken melody being picked slowly from a piano in the apartment above.
I thought back to the late October days of two years before. After some years together, in an attempt to solve some of the problems and tensions in our relationship, Daiva and I had married in the autumn. Vassily and Tanya witnessed our wedding. October had faded in a pale blue haze of bonfires that hung in the still air, in soft reds and the rich yellow of the leaves of the oaks and maple twisting to the earth in slow, dancing loops, crinkling under foot.
On the first of December Daiva woke early and ran to the bathroom. From beneath the sheets I could hear her vomiting. I pulled on a dressing gown and hurried to her. Her face was a pale shade of green. Carrying her back to bed, I tucked her beneath the sheets. When I returned from the kitchen with coffee and a glass of water, she was retching again, into the bin beside the bed.
‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she said, falling back against the pillows.
I lifted the covers and undid the buttons of her nightdress. Her body was warm. I ran my fingers down her chest to her belly. There was no sign anything had changed, no evidence of the miracle at that moment occurring in her body. I laid my head on her stomach and listened to the low gurgles of her digestive system, trying to imagine what was happening inside there.
‘What do you think?’ she said, her voice laced with concern.
‘What do I think? Daiva, it’s wonderful.’
‘You don’t worry it is all too soon?’
I lifted myself up so my chin was resting on her soft belly and gazed into her sleepy face.
‘No,’ I said. And truly I felt that. The past dropped away from me, the need for a past, a history. Everything lay in the future, in the slow growth of the seed within her womb, the development of its limbs, the swell of her belly- life, new life, gestating within her. All concern suddenly lay in the months and years ahead, not in the years that had gone.
By the time the worst of the winter was over, the swell of Daiva’s belly was noticeable. Her whole body seemed to blossom, like a bud on the first spring flowers, defiant of the frost, shooting up from the dark, cold earth, at first a bulging, tight calyx, then growing, swelling, the leaves stretching stickily around the maturing petals.
And as she grew and we felt the first tentative kicks against the inside of her womb, the stretch of the baby’s limbs, and as the days grew longer and brighter and the maples and birch budded beneath our windows, I allowed myself to believe I could hold back the darkness, that the fear would not return. When an engine misfired, when the telephone crackled suddenly and sharply, when a child screamed as I stood in the queue in the store and the cold prickling sweat jumped out on my forehead and my heart raced, I would stand aside, hidden in the shadows, and take a quick mouthful of the spirit in the small metal flask Daiva had given me for Christmas. Just one mouthful, to feel its heat burn its way up from my stomach, blistering my fear. Just one mouthful and then I would step back into the queue and make believe nothing had happened.
Daiva gave birth in the late summer. On each of the five days they kept her in the maternity ward, I went and stood beneath the window. Each time I came, she held the small parcel of blankets up for me to see. On the fifth day she stood in the hospital entrance, the plaster crumbling from the walls around her.
When I approached, she held out the bundle. I felt the light weight of the baby in my arms. Still so small. I kissed the little bulge of her cheek and her eyes flicked open and looked up at me. Her eyes were dark and honest, they examined me, her brow furrowing seriously. Her lips opened and she uttered a little growl and struggled beneath the tightly wrapped blankets. My heart leapt.
‘She’s saying hello,’ Daiva whispered, close beside me.
We drove back to the apartment and lay on the bed, the three of us, as the sun sank slowly behind the apartment blocks. Carefully I unwrapped Laura, allowing her to roll and flex her arms and legs. She squealed with pleasure. I gave her my thumb and her tiny fingers wrapped themselves around it, gripping it with a surprising strength. After a while she began to cry and Daiva fed her. I watched as the feverish sucking gave way to a soft pull at the nipple, a thin blue trail of milk dribbling from her full lips. Her eyes flickered and closed. Daiva’s eyes closed, too.
A little later, levering myself up from the sofa, I changed my clothes, transferring the fifty-dollar bills to the wallet in my new jacket. To get to Santariskes Clinic required taking a trolley bus into the centre of the Old Town and another back out to the outskirts of the city. I had contemplated telephoning the hospital, but realised I would get nowhere without the crisp American bills. Before I left the apartment, I telephoned Tanya to check she was OK. The telephone rang and rang but there was no answer.
I walked quickly to the trolley-bus stop, glancing over my shoulder, nervous of being watched, not relaxing until I had boarded the number 16 into the Old Town, certain I had not been followed.
Santariskes Clinic is spread over a large area with many different buildings. After only a moment’s hesitation, stepping down from the trolley bus, I turned to my left and entered the main reception area of the hospital. A middle-aged woman sat behind a desk, reading.
‘I’m looking for a friend,’ I said, approaching her. ‘What ward?’ she asked, not looking up from her book.
‘That’s what I don’t know,’ I said, forcing a jovial smile on to my face.
She glanced up, an irritated crease furrowing her brow. ‘What is your friend in for?’ she asked, not attempting to hide her frustration.
‘I’m not sure,’ I confessed. I smiled again, hoping futilely to find a chink in her steely demeanour.
For a moment she looked at me as if I were a cretin.
‘So how am I supposed to help you?’ she barked, openly aggressive now.
I sighed. I had little energy to go wandering around the many buildings of the hospital, hoping someone might have heard of, or remember, Kolya.