Then the coffin was removed to Donskoi Crematorium. The secretary didn’t accompany it, prevented by the infirmities of age. The coffin was placed on a special pedestal, and at this height Antonina Naumovna’s gray face, with its sunken mouth and prominent nose, looked like it was made of cardboard. Music played until she had sunk through an opening in the floor, and the doors to the subterranean realm folded shut.
Kostya held his arm around his mother and could feel through her coat how narrow her shoulders were, how small she was, and how infinitesimal the span of a human life was—even a life as long as his grandmother’s. And how sad was the funeral of a person whom no one loved, or pitied …
They threw her away like an old felt boot on a garbage heap, Kostya thought bitterly. He acknowledged that he hadn’t loved his grandmother, either.
After the coffin was consigned to the artificial underworld, Ari Lvovich pressed Olga’s and Kostya’s hands and said that if they wished to submit a request for material assistance, he would see to it that it landed on the right desk.
After the cremation, it would be two weeks before they could pick up the urn.
Why can’t she go into the ground right away? Kostya wondered. Who knows where she’ll be for the next two weeks? It’s like they’ll be taking her to a left-luggage room.
* * *
Olga invited everyone home to a wake for the deceased. Her daughter-in-law, Lena, had rushed off early to tend to the small children. Ari Lvovich considered it his duty to be in attendance until the late evening, and he opened the door of the bus, admitting the dreary women. Kostya got in last. He had wanted to sit with his mother, but she was already seated next to the newly arrived aunt. The aunt was younger than Antonina Naumovna, but she had similar features and a sharp nose. Ari Lvovich looked out the window. He had a lot to think about.
Olga had set the table before leaving home. Her mother’s body had been taken directly to the morgue after she died, and Olga had had plenty of time to put the house in order, airing out all the rooms. Even after three days had passed, however, the smell of medicine still overpowered the smell of resin and floor polish.
They all sat down at the long, oval table, which had been restored by Afanasy Mikhailovich, and Olga, placing her clean hands on the rough linen tablecloth, suddenly felt a pang of longing for her father. She remembered his fleshy nose, his slightly protruding upper lip, his boyish seriousness when he was busy with his woodworking at the dacha, and the smell of furniture polish and wood shavings that always clung to him. This was toward the end of his life, when he was already retired. Because of her own foolishness, that whole mess at the university … Her mother had been beside herself with fury, and had screamed in rage; her father, impassive, his eyes closed, had observed a strict silence. He had remained silent—and just as silently had gone into retirement.
“Father, Father,” Olga whispered.
Tamara, who was sitting next to her, heard. A perceptive soul, she understood the words in her own way. She whispered:
“Yes, Olga. I also think that your parents have found each other there and are reunited.”
Ari Lvovich, examining the valuable furnishings restored by Afanasy Mikhailovich with a trained eye, revised his estimation of the family’s status. Empire furniture was fashionable in prosperous households, and he hadn’t expected to see such rarities in the home of the deceased, a simple Party functionary. Very, very interesting. Holding back just to be sure that no one more significant would take the initiative, he stood up:
“Let us drink, according to old custom, to dear Antonina Naumovna. Don’t clink glasses, don’t clink glasses!”
Everyone drank. Kostya took a sip, then put down his glass. He didn’t like vodka. He would have preferred wine, but no one offered him any.
Olga drank her glass and grew tipsy almost immediately. The warmth from the alcohol rose to her head, then dropped to her feet, and she seemed to go soft and limp. She sat, resting her haggard cheek on her palm. Her freckles grew more vivid, and her face grew rosy and more youthful. Her hair, which had fallen out completely after her long course of chemotherapy, was growing back again. It was new, fresh growth that even curled above her forehead a bit, and the color—the dark, lustrous amber of Easter eggs dyed with onion skins—was the same as it had been before the terrible treatment.
Her friend Tamara, surprised by her new loveliness, rejoiced: Olga had risen up again, she had revived after her grave illness. And she also thought: Antonina Naumovna took Olga’s illness into herself. These were Tamara’s new thoughts, flowing seamlessly from her Orthodox mindset. Now she no longer viewed all the movements of life, the turns and twists of fate, as random or fortuitous, but as though they were filled with meaning, unequivocally purposeful and wise.
Olga’s thoughts moved in another direction altogether: If she had left with Ilya, who would have been there to bury her mother? But now, after her parents had both died and Kostya had married, it was just the time to leave. How much longer would she have to wait until she and Ilya were together again?
Valentina, Antonina Naumovna’s sister, sat timidly off to the side. Her appearance was not exactly provincial and backward—just somewhat homely and simple. She lived in Protvino, sixty miles from Moscow, a scientific research town. And she was not at all the cleaning lady or housekeeper she resembled, but a respected biologist with a Ph.D. Olga did not know this, however. She only recalled that her mother had not had a very high regard for her, and had spoken, not without mockery, about the sheep to which her sister had devoted her whole life. And this was true. Valentina had graduated from a veterinary college. But her older sister, a big Party boss, clearly viewed this with contempt.
Valentina was seated next to Olga. She looked neither to the left nor to the right; her eyes remained fixed on her plate. Suddenly, she turned to her niece and said, “I’m going to leave soon, Olga. I’m spending the night here in town, with a girlfriend of mine. But I’ve brought something to give you. It’s our family…”
This took Olga by surprise, but she stood up from the table and led her aunt into her mother’s study. Her mother had spent the better part of her life here, sleeping seldom and working long hours, writing about weavers, carders, and milkmaids, drafting reports and speeches, composing official orders and reprimands. She once wrote a novel for which she almost received the Stalin Prize. The ancient typewriter with its faux leather cover, which the writer lovingly called “the martyr,” stood in the middle of the table like a tiny coffin. It was an Underwood. Next to it stood an iron receptacle for writing utensils depicting a muscular laborer, a bust of Tolstoy, and a photograph of herself—the most flattering picture ever taken of her: a girl in a leather jacket, her lips firmly compressed.