• • •
AFTER SHE’D LEFT the courtyard behind, there was a lapse of several blocks. She hurried blindly, inserting distance between herself and the apartment, the icons and clocks, Volky and his wife on their precious city vacation as they kept referring to it, with no intention to seize the day and take advantage of the actual city. Was Frida one to talk? She had yet to stray from the half-mile radius of Pasha’s initial tour. She kept to the same side of the street, used the same crosswalks, passed between the same two paint-chipped colonnades, all the while noticing helplessly the rigidity with which she navigated.
The people on the benches in Sobornaya Square were ancient. It was hard to imagine them ever going home, and it didn’t help that the city had a fondness for the sitting statue. Leonid Utesov was sunning himself beside an old lady not at all averse to a distinguished bronze arm around her papery shoulders.
Crossing Preobrazhenskaya at the frenzied intersection where public minibuses convened in a chaotic grid-central huddle, Frida was blasted by their ferocious heat. She continued, coughing, along the gated perimeter of City Garden. Go inside, an inner voice instructed. Enjoy your life — explore! But the tangle of shrubbery was too thick, the trees screened out too much daylight. Hadn’t she been warned about this park? Under no circumstances go in the vicinity of City Garden! It’s the scene of gruesome murders and frequent robberies, and let’s not get started on the rapes. Or had that warning been tacked onto Park Shevchenko? One of them was a beautiful park, ideal for a stroll on a warm summer day such as this, and the other was where practically every Ukrainian female had been robbed at gunpoint, molested, viciously raped.
Sabaneev Bridge was also called Mother-in-Law Bridge. Prince Vorontsov had it erected after building his mother-in-law a house across a now-nonexistent river from his palace, a bridge that in the past few decades had acquired the tradition of newlywed lock-hanging. Sveta’s chirp, Pasha’s rabbinic profile. Were they having fun in Tbilisi? Were they at least a little bit worried, racked by guilt, having left Frida to fend for herself in a foreign city?
Two guards stared her away from a synagogue freshly painted or long untouched. Walking away was like cutting short an encounter with a prissy friend, an only child who’d been pampered from a young age, but probably for good reason. Cobblestones carved breath. Past the cream-puff-pastry Opera House and the gardened-off Literary Museum, down the quaint urine-dribbled steps to a narrow street at the tapered end of which was a cliff.
Nearby, construction workers were taking a lunch break. She yearned to feel disgusted at their ogling, if only they weren’t so engrossed in their sandwiches. She went up to them and asked a question. A gaunt boy gave no-nonsense directions while twisting the cap off a two-liter plastic bottle of beer. A couple of empty bottles lay at his feet, still frothy around the edges. His eyes were eerily striking, like toxic sunsets over polluted waters.
• • •
SHE FAILED TO NOTICE the proper things. Was everything smaller than she remembered — or was it supposed to be larger? Less daunting and serpentine or only more so? By the time she remembered the duty to make such observations, the window for them had closed — size was no longer relative or meaningful but an inarguable fact to be accepted at face value. The skyline was in disarray, everything in halted construction. An engine revved, releasing the smell of shashlik. The rusted gate wore a shaggy coat of ivy. Frida got down on all fours on the narrow dirt path and pressed her cheek to the ground, trying to get a peek through the crevice under the gate. There was no sign of life from within. As she was spitting out dirt, the ridiculousness of the enterprise dawned on her. It was as if she were taking orders from some behind-the-scenes charlatan who regularly guided foolish young people through these kinds of missions, from which they left empty-handed and only more spiritually bereft than before but convinced that their arduous floundering and grasping meant that something had been accomplished too great for their own comprehending. Frida collapsed and curled up in a ball. Think, she implored herself. Make a plan! But she was tired, tired in a new way. There was no end to discovering the subtleties of exhaustion. Or did they all fall under the rubric of self-pity? Relief came in the form of some shade. The sun had been taking a vicious afternoon angle.
The shade had voice — deep, resonant, husky. Get away from my dacha, it said. Find someone else’s gate to sleep on! That’s right, young lady. Shoo!
Frida looked up and was instantly recognized. It was a much-needed affirmation. Not only was she recognized, her presence induced an uplift of mood, a heightening of tonus, a surge of joy — it was treated as a stupendous surprise. The bloated yet mousy, yellowish gray woman overhead gasped and cried, Frida, it’s you! I don’t believe it! My God, let me get a look at you! and a succession of many more delicious exclamatory platitudes that occasionally were the only satisfactory response. The bloated lady was Nadia, but by the time that thunderbolt struck, Frida was already experiencing great surges in return, overcome by the desire to burrow her nose into the dark, glistening pocket of Nadia’s neck.
Bozhe moi, bozhe moi (My God, my God), Nadia repeated. It was as if Frida belonged to the top tier of guest, was the most special visitor. Any visitor would likely fall into this rank. The loneliness on Nadia’s face was glaring. The spools of golden sunshine would’ve freshened a corpse but did nothing to Nadia’s sewer-lady pallor. An entirely new face would be needed if she ever stopped living in a state of unvarying solitude. Bending down, she picked Frida up off the ground. Frida’s spiritual flailing felt proportional to Nadia’s physical effort. Come in, said Nadia, rummaging in her bag for keys. Her stooped figure labored over the giant rusted lock. She let out an exasperated groan. It wouldn’t give, defying her fitful attempts. She paused for a few gulps of air, pulled a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of her frock, and blotted her forehead. With renewed vigor she attacked the lock.
Frida said, Do you want me to—
Talk when inside, barked Nadia, jiggling violently.
I can come back another time.
Nonsense! The grimy metal cracked. The lock popped open and was tugged out. Nadia gave Frida a nudge inside and shut the gate behind her.
Frida had been worried that she would feel nothing at the sight of the dacha, no connection, no recognition, but she wasn’t prepared for the fact that there would actually be nothing. The dacha was demolished. The entirety was in ruins, as if leveled by a tornado. It struck the eye no longer as a single entity — a house — but simply a mound of rubble.
Hungry? Thirsty? After determining, with relief, that Frida was neither, Nadia explained that her legs weren’t what they used to be.
I’ll leave you to rest, said Frida, backing away.
Stop with this utter horseshit! Nadia screamed. Noticing that Frida blanched, she softened and said, An old lady could use some company every once in a while. And it has been a while, hasn’t it? This is your dacha after all. I apologize if it’s a bit dark inside. There’s no circuitry, as of the moment.
A lack of circuitry was no surprise, but the existence of an inside was. How could this heap of boards and debris have an interior? But one of the more upright boards served as a door, through which Nadia’s stocky frame just barely squeezed. Inside, it was narrow, bare, dark indeed. Several mattresses were distributed along the floor, stripped of bedding, iodine-stained. The last mattress was propped by a cot, and Nadia threw herself across it.