I’m sorry it’s not all that tidy, she said quietly. As it happens, I have no help from anybody on this earth. My cousins, who are very sickly from Chernobyl, come and go as they please. Nadia laughed. You probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. Chernobyl was—
I know what Chernobyl was, said Frida with irritation, though while she said it, a fear shot though her that she’d be tested on the subject and fail horribly, like in a dream, mixing up Chernobyl with the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire or the Titanic.
A free sanatorium is what they take this for. They’re sensitive to light, to heat, to moisture in the air, to feathers, citrus fruit, drafts, the least echo of music. I’m not the picture of health myself, but to compare… I manage the best I can. But I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Otherwise I would’ve been prepared. I intended to have the renovations done by your arrival — you’ll just have to take my word on that. Nadia lay as if the sea had washed up her body, as if she didn’t have access to the biological pathways to wiggle a finger, and her voice was the result of some stirring and rustling deep within this senseless flesh. Now, tell me, she said, how are your parents?
Frida was suspended in the air by some highly delicate balance of forces, which could be thrown into disproportion by the least insensitivity on her part. The tiniest wrong move and she’d drop onto one of the iodine-stained mattresses, where for all she knew the cousins lay napping or telepathically chatting in irradiated invisibility. What to do? She took a breath. Her palms were planted in the burnt-orange stains, and her bare feet (she must’ve removed her shoes in an uncharacteristic display of politeness) were ankle-deep in dust. Ragged strips of sunlight divided the floor, serving as the gelatinous substance in which dust particles became lodged.
My parents are fine. They say privet.
Your mother was like a sister, whispered Nadia. And how is Robert Grigorievich?
Fine, said Frida. Getting older.
Aren’t we all! Robert Grigorievich is an exceptional man in every sense, but time makes no exceptions. Not even Pasha is spared, though I do believe he still isn’t convinced of that himself. But none of this unpleasantness. I remember you as a little fat dumpling, a little nasty fat dumpling resolved to not make life easier for anybody. And now am I to believe that the dumpling I remember so well has transformed into a young woman with an American accent and such an interesting top? And I must say, you really do resemble your uncle. But just look what Pasha did to me! Who could’ve known? Who would’ve predicted in a million years? Yet nobody on this earth feels a shred of sympathy for me.
Don’t stir the darkness, thought Frida. Keep perfectly still.
Except you, said Nadia. You feel sympathy for your poor aunt, don’t you?
Frida nodded.
As for the renovation, said Nadia, dropping an octave to the universal business baritone, I’m currently in the process of dividing the dacha in two. The part we’re in right now will be yours, and the other part will be mine. It’ll be exactly as it should.
Oh, thought Frida, so it’s a betterment process. She should’ve known that this was the case — in her own neck of the woods people acted impulsively, with little or no foresight, the result being fits and starts on every block. If they came upon the means to accomplish the first step of their Grand Plan, they didn’t hesitate to do so, trusting momentum to carry the rest to fruition. When the funds ran out, no one bothered to clean up the mess. In Brooklyn the guiding force, however disguised, was creation, whereas here it wasn’t so obvious.
I wanted to have the renovation done by the time you got here, continued Nadia, but who knew you’d be so quick? I was expecting the opposite problem. I figured I had another eighteen months at the least. But it’s all for the best. Truth is, I’m weak. There’s not a soul to help me.
What about Sanya?
If I can give you a piece of advice: Think twice before having a son. It may seem like a good idea at the time, but it never pans out. If you’re looking for affection, a bit of understanding, support in your old age, a son isn’t the way to go. Do you think Sanya would take an hour out of his day to visit his ailing mother all alone in the world? A helping hand he is not, never was. But the fact of the matter is, who needs him? You look sturdy enough. I can tell when someone eats her spinach. As you can see, there’s no shortage of beds. Just pick the one you want, and I’ll get some fresh linen.
That’s very kind of you, muttered Frida, but I don’t want to be any trouble.
Pooh! What kind of trouble could you possibly be?
The mattress nearest the entrance had almost no iodine stains; it was the most sunken in the center, as if a meteorite had landed there a few million years ago, but one couldn’t expect to have it all. The offer was, in many ways, a godsend. Spending another day in that apartment with Volk and his family was unimaginable. So was the idea of going back to Brooklyn and, in two weeks’ time, packing her bags to return to school for another year of somnambulating around a space-alien campus, snoring through amphitheater lectures, wallowing over the toilet seat, overhearing snippets of conversation about the awesome things her peers did with their preceptors, such as handing a needle during a paracentesis, how one person studied for forty hours straight but the other was already prepping for her Step 1, and shrugging it all off until finding herself alone at daybreak in her cell with the Krebs cycle and a bunch of amino acids or cranial nerves and anterior compartments of the leg. Another year couldn’t be endured. Yet staying on with Pasha and Sveta wasn’t an option — even if she wanted to, they wouldn’t have it. Then she remembered about the veranda, which was no longer a veranda — you couldn’t do such an injustice to the word. Because however highfalutin the word was, what good would it do to let the hot air out of it? The area of space in front of the dacha heap was no longer a veranda but a tattered cot under a chipped concrete awning with a tilt. Torrents of rain would enclose whoever lay there within transparent walls. She’d sleep out in the fresh air, with the porcupines at her feet.
Then you’ll probably need an extra blanket. Because — don’t let the daylight fool you — at night it gets quite chilly. The bedding was in an outdoor closet near the outhouse right around back and sort of diagonal. Be a dear, said Nadia.
Gray muffled light was like a sticky net out of which it was impossible to break free. It was sobering, neutralizing light. The gate through which they’d passed already looked like a different gate. How had she even recognized this dacha as her own? Looking around, she recognized nothing and couldn’t even say for sure from which direction she’d come. But she knew where she had to go: the closet. There was patchy shrubbery and twigs, powdery piles of dry leaves, a partially duct-taped hose spitting up bile, some wild berries trying to establish secret niches. Things were either dying off or scheming for diabolical proliferation. This was a real plot of land, instantly invigorating. Getting sheets and a pillow, when it involved stepping over malicious plants, shaking open the rotted door of a death closet, and watching slinky spiders and billowing centipedes scurry creviceward, wasn’t a chore but an ultimate test of will and character, and by succeeding, by making it back to shelter with sheets and a pillow, a victory of no measly significance was secured. No challenge was beyond her. Only she’d forgotten the blanket and towels, and a pillowcase wouldn’t hurt.