Maybe that's love? Also love… (Pauses). I've gone over everything I've said in my mind… But to be completely… and totally honest… I'm still waiting for something… What am I waiting for?
VOICE THREE
He's walking along and… Sometimes, when I turn round, he's floating above the grass, his feet not touching the ground. That's the only way I see him in my dreams… I, of course… Talking about it has the same effect on me… (Fails silent. Then fast and full of joy). It's all sounds, sounds… But the music is inside me, I put that record on and it all comes back again. All I have to do is close my eyes… I used to be afraid of death, until I realized that nothing disappears, nothing turns to dust, everything remains. Everything that ever happened to us. You can't begin anything again. From the beginning. Sometimes I think: you don't write symphonies, don't paint pictures, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, there's so much we can't even guess at, and that leaves us hope. My God, how lucky I am to have this. I revel in my thoughts, revel in my memories, revel in myself now that I've understood. It's an androgynous existence, how could I want another man? I can't get any higher. I get as far as myself, try to catch those bits and pieces… I'm in despair sometimes, but never for long. I go on and on. The way is there and I'm in no rush…
My first husband… That was a wonderful episode. He courted me for two years, then we married and lived together for another two years. I badly wanted to marry him because I needed all of him, I didn't want him to go anywhere. I remember it as a sickness… I don't even know why I so needed all of him. Why I couldn't bear to be separated from him, why I had to see him all the time and pick fights, and fuck, fuck, fuck, endlessly. He was the first man in my life. The first time was really so… um… just interesting: I didn't know what was going on. The next time, too… and, basically… a sort of technique… And it went on like that for six months… For him, though, really, it didn't have to be me, it could just as well have been someone else. But for some reason we got married… I was twenty-two. We were students at the same music college; we did everything together. I can't remember now how it happened, the moment escapes me, but I fell in love with the male body when it belonged to me… At that point I didn't even know… I sensed it as more significant than just one man, to me it was something cosmic… You break loose from the earth and spin away somewhere… Try to spin away… (Smiles suddenly). It was a wonderful episode. It could have gone on forever or been over in half an hour. So then… I left him. Left him of my own accord. He begged me to stay. For some reason I'd decided to leave. I was so tired of him… God, was I tired of him… I was already pregnant, already showing… What did I need him for? We'd fuck, then fight, then I'd cry, then we'd fuck again. If we'd had a child… I probably should have waited but I didn't know how to then. How to wait. To have patience. I walked out, closed the door behind me and suddenly felt so glad to be gone. Gone for good. I went to my mother's, she lived here, in Moscow. He came after me that night and was completely bewildered: I was pregnant, but always dissatisfied somehow, as if something were missing. But what? I turned the page… I was very happy to have had him, and very happy not to have him anymore. My life has always been a treasure trove. Of beginnings and endings, beginnings and endings… I turned the page… (Again smiles).
Oh, giving birth to Anka was so beautiful, I liked it so much. First, my water broke: I'd been walking in the woods, for miles, and at some point, at mile X, my water broke. I didn't know what to do — did that mean I should go to the hospital right away? I waited till evening. It was bitterly cold. But I decided to go anyway. The doctor looked at me: «You'll be in labor for two days.» I called my mother: «Bring me some chocolate. I'll be here for a while.» Before morning rounds, the nurse said: «Hey, the head is already sticking out. Come with me.» I could barely walk… It was as if someone had stuck a soccer ball up there… «Quick! Quick!» the nurse screamed. «Call the doctor.» My stomach was so huge, it blocked everything, but then I saw the baby, it was coming out, that's when I began to shriek… Something started gurgling, quacking… The doctor said: «Here it comes. It's almost out,» and showed it to me: «It's a girl.» They weighed her: nearly nine pounds. «Listen, not one rip or tear. She took pity on you.» Oh, when they brought her to me the next day… Her eyes, the irises were like saucers, dark, floating, that was all I saw…
So then… It was a whole new life. I liked the way I'd begun to look. It's just that… I was suddenly so much prettier… Anka fell right into place, I loved her very much, but somehow she wasn't absolutely connected with men in my mind. Someone had made her… Conceived her… But no! She'd come from the sky… She was always independent. When she began to talk, people would ask:
«Anechka, don't you have a papa?»
«No, I have a granny instead.»
«Don't you have a dog?»
«No, I have a hamster instead.»
We were like that, she and I… All my life I was afraid of not being me. Even at the dentist's, I'd ask them not to give me any painkiller. My feelings were my feelings, good or bad: Don't disconnect me from myself. We liked each other, Anka and I. And then we met him… Gleb…
If he hadn't been who he was, I would never have married again. I had everything: a child, work, freedom. Then he appeared… absurd, nearly blind, short of breath… To let a person with such a heavy burden — twelve years in Stalin's camps, he was just a boy, sixteen, when they took him — into our world… With the burden of that knowledge… of the difference… Our life together wasn't what I'd call freedom. What was it? Why? Am I saying that I only felt sorry for him? No. It was also love. That's exactly what it was. (More to herself than to me). He's been dead seven years… And I'm even sorry that he never knew me the way I am now. Now I understand him more, I'm finally old enough for him, but he isn't here. So then… Even what I'm telling you… I'm again afraid… I'm afraid that I won't be me… It's terrifying sometimes… Like in the sea… In the sea I used to love to swim way far out until one time I became frightened — I'm alone, the water's deep, and I don't know what's down there…