Grandma Katya also feels sorry for the children. Whenever they run over to her place, she feeds them. The older ones are now embarrassed and don’t go so often. They find crusts at home – spread them out on the floor, pick through them to find the good ones, and soak them in tea. And Svetlanka crawls all over, back and forth, until she falls asleep on the crusts and pees herself. Or sometimes she also sleeps standing, like a horse – she puts her head on the couch and sleeps.
Nadka makes 100 rubles a month at the sailing club – she washes the floors there. In summer, she makes another 70 for cleaning the toilets at the tourist camp. There, they also give her leftovers from the kitchen, soup or meat entrees – in summer, the kids eat well. Sometimes she also goes into town and gets her state aid for multiple children – then she buys a bottle of liquor, and spends the rest on the kids. She brings kvas for Svetlanka, and little one says: “Mom, it’s beer! It’s beer, mom.” It makes Nadka laugh: “It’s not beer, sweetie, it’s kvas.” Svetlanka then smiles – like a fox – and washes her hands in the kvas. Or drinks it. Or the other kids drink it. Kvas is tasty.
First thing when he comes home – Svetlanka. She says, “Papa!” And her papa, if he’s able, picks her up, and strokes her head sometimes, and sometimes tickles her velvety cheek with his stubble. On Nadka’s paydays, he gets drunk and wants to beat Nadka. This is why Nadka now runs away on her paydays – she takes the money and goes to town. Before, she used to run away without the money, too – someone gave her booze in town – and now she only does it when she has cash. Is she now paying for someone else’s? She’s gone two or three days, then she comes back. Broke, of course. Eyes bulging. She lies on the couch and moans, and the kids tiptoe around, fetching her tea. They love their mommy.
He’d come home, take one look at her there on the couch, and go to his bench outside. When she’s lain for a bit, she’ll feel better and grope her way out. She’ll sit next to him, and they’ll eat sunflower seeds together, and she’ll complain about her gallbladder. Or tell him she’s sorry and would he forgive her. Or not. Sometimes they just sit there.
If they see people walk by, they say hello. People say hello back, and then go on their way to gossip about Nadka. What else can they do? They feel sorry for the kids.
He does, too.
He sits on his bench until late. Nadka, inside, watches a movie. She’s big on movies. The kids also watch, until they fall asleep – wherever they were sitting.
He sits. If he cries, that means he is really drunk.
He is 36. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He’s forgotten already when he came back from the navy. He served on a nuclear submarine. Then he came back and got Nadka – he won her over, she used to go with another guy. She’s been on her own since she was 17 – her folks threw her out. And he was a catch – he was handsome then. Then they had kids. Not right away, though, after five years or so. He’d actually gone to the doctor after the submarine, and the doctor said he’d never father his own. But then added the good news: otherwise, everything works just fine!
He’d came back decorated, all stripes and ribbons. Petty Officer First Class. He’s got a picture to prove it. Grandma Katya has it on the wall above her bed, with the pictures of all her other kids and grandkids.
“Say what you want, he came back a prince – any girl would go for him. Why’d he have to choose that slut is what I don’t know,” mutters grandma Katya sitting on her bench.
Two doors down, he is sitting on his bench, crying. He’s crying for the kids, and himself, and Nadka – he’s sorry for the whole world.
Next door there isn’t anyone left to feel sorry about: the neighbor killed his wife with an axe a month after the wedding. He thought he saw something about her he didn’t like. Now the family sends him packages somewhere up North.
Star
Sunday. The morning tea is finished, but the garden can wait. Maxim Maximych kneads a filterless Belomor cigarette with his fingers, lights up, and watches the street through the window: he wonders if his daughter will bring the grandkids from the city today, or if she’ll stay there to party again. Everything went out of whack when she got mixed up with that highway criminal of hers. She was sorry for him, you see... So she had the twins. Then got divorced. Said, Papa, I’m not ever getting married again – won’t touch that mess with a ten-foot pole. And what’s the point of going out then? Soon, though, she’ll have to bring the kids for the summer – the school break has already started. And it’s only 20 minutes by bus... Half-an-hour tops.
Antonina Pavlovna is finishing her curd pancake.
“Do you figure they’ll come?”
“Huh?”
“You’re deaf as a post, aren’t you? Are you done there yet?”
“Aha.”
“Then grab the paper and read what the boys will tell me at the shift tomorrow.”
Maxim Maximych used to be a second lieutenant at the meteorological-station in Motovikha, and now guards the furniture factory. He goes in for a 24-hour shift, then is home three days to work in his garden. Antonina Pavlovna is also retired. She worked as an accountant at the city bakery, but quit a long time ago.
“Aha,” Antonina Pavlovna says reaching for the newspaper and her glasses. “From the beginning?”
“Of course not! Like you don’t know... Start at 1700.”
She begins to read:
“Monday, June 9, Channel 1. 17:20. ‘Sound your trumpets!’ A happy, joyful song opens the performance by the Pioneer propaganda brigade from the capital’s Kuybyshev district. The brigade is the winner of the Russian National School Propaganda Brigades contest. Its performances are fondly remembered by the builders of the Tomsk Chemical Plant, the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, by the sailors of the Black and Baltic Sea fleets, and by the hardworking kolkhoz workers of Udmurtiya. But the propaganda brigade is not the only brainchild of the Kuybyshev district Young Pioneers’ Headquarters...”
Maxim Maximych is unmoving. He listens; he no longer watches the street, however. Instead, he’s fixed Antonina Pavlovna in his motionless gaze. She takes a sip of her cooled tea and continues:
“Twenty-four years ago the Headquarters initiated an honorary guard and commemoration event ‘Remember Everyone by Name.’ Since then, every year, on Victory Day, the Young Pioneers stand to attention at the Defenders of Moscow Memorial in the Preobrazhensk Cemetery. This year alone, the boys and girls have raised 1,400 rubles to be distributed to the Peace Fund, Orphanage No. 73, and the Foundation for Battling AIDS. Neither do the Pioneers neglect those who live next door: Operation ‘We Care’ has become one of the headquarters’ biggest projects.”
Antonina Pavlovna looks up from the paper.
“It’s all pure torment for those poor kids. Boys told me, one of the girls at our school had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance after they stood guard at our Eternal Flame – it leaks gas, you know.”
“You know what, you better just stick to reading,” Maxim Maximych turns back to the window out of frustration. “That was about Victory Day they wrote – just one day, and our guys stand there all year round!”
Pavlovna nods in agreement and turns the page. She studies it for a while. Suddenly, she is transformed:
“Maxim Maximych! Hamiddulin, the one who stabbed Prokhorov! He’s now a star – fancy that!”
“Oh yeah?” Maxim Maximych turns back to face the table, much faster this time. “Come on then, what does it say?”
“It’s right here, let me mark it – I’d like to see it too: ‘Man and Law: Drinking Causes Crime.’ Channel 1. 18:40. Recently the Stargorod City Court sentenced the 28-year-old Hamiddulin to 14 years in prison. Hamiddulin was convicted of a serious crime: an attempt at murder. What began as an act of hooliganism ended in uncommon cruelty. So what really happened at Stargorod’s furniture factory, where Hamiddulin worked? One day, the young man entered the boiler room not having cleaned his muddy footwear, in direct violation of the factory’s operating procedures. The boiler room operator demanded that he leave the premises immediately and Hamiddulin was forced to comply. Several days later, in a state of drunkenness, Hamiddulin unexpectedly entered the boiler room, attacked the operator, and stabbed him 10 times before attempting to flee. He was detained. The surgeon’s skill and the EMTs’ quick response saved the victim’s life. But would the emotional wounds sustained by the boiler room operator that fateful evening ever heal? Would the shock loosen its grip on the minds of the operator’s family, his colleagues’ minds?”