It was her decision, and although I wasn’t aware of the reasons why she made it, I accepted it, I let go – perhaps, too easily. I stopped asking questions, and the man who lived in the same house with me and who slept in the same bed as me, stopped talking about it, and this allowed me to forget about the situation, so much so that when this whole nightmare started, I didn’t even think of this woman and her child. That’s why he left last night without saying good-bye, without saying a word.
“Anya?” Boris suddenly said somewhere behind my back, and at the same moment the cigarette burned my fingers – I was miles away and hadn’t noticed myself lighting it. I crushed it in the ashtray, tightened the rug around me and said to him:
“Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll get dressed and wait for him… them, and you go and get some sleep, ok?”
“Mishka is next on the list to keep guard,” Boris said and looked up, over my shoulder. I turned round and saw Mishka coming downstairs. His face was sleepy and creased, but decisive – it was clear that he’d woken up to the alarm clock, which was unusual as I always had to wake him for school. Mishka looked at me and frowned.
“Mum,” he said, “why are you here?.. Go to bed, it’s my turn, Lenny will take over in two hours, we made a deal last night: the girls sleep and the boys keep watch.”
“What’s that got to do with girls and boys, don’t be silly! I’m awake anyway, and you need to get some sleep, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow,” I retorted, but Mishka looked annoyed, and Boris stretched his arm towards me, as if was going to usher me to the stairs, and said almost crossly:
“Go, Anya, we’ve got everything under control, you absolutely don’t have to sit here,” and I looked at him and said:
“Wait, you’re sending me away because you think I’m going to shoot her, aren’t you? You really think that about me?”
“Who’s – ‘her’? Mishka said, but I looked at Boris, who held out his hand, and started walking upstairs:
“You’re talking rubbish, Anya, just listen to yourself. As soon as they come back, Mishka will wake you up. Now go, come on, stop being a baby.”
And for some reason I listened to him, stopped resisting and went upstairs, just taking a moment at the top of the stairs to turn back and look at them again – it looked as if they had both forgotten about me already. Boris was explaining something to Mishka – probably showing him the best viewpoint in the lounge for watching the road. I could see that Mishka was impatient – he couldn’t wait to be left alone, watching the road with the gun by the window.
I went upstairs, throwing Sergey’s jumper over my shoulders – it had been on the floor among other warm clothes we’d prepared the night before – and moved the wicker armchair closer to the window. It was too low, and I had to put my elbows on the window sill and rest my chin on them in order to see the street. A few minutes later the square of light on the snow from the illuminated window in the lounge disappeared, which meant that Boris had gone to sleep on the sofa and Mishka had started his two-hour shift. Everything went quiet, the dogs stopped barking, and I could even hear the ticking of Sergey’s watch on the bedside table – my present to him for our anniversary. I sat looking into the darkness in front of me, uneasy because of the hard armchair, the cold from the window, and thought: ‘he didn’t even take his watch with him.’
When the study door slammed shut downstairs, showing that Lenny had got up to replace Mishka, I put my jeans on and went down. It was still a while before the dawn, and the ground floor was dark. The balcony door was open and the three of them – Mishka, Lenny and Boris – stood outside, talking quietly. I poked my head out and said: “Mishka, go to bed, your shift is over, I’ll wake you up in about three hours.”
The conversation stopped and they turned to me, looking embarrassed. Mishka caught my gaze and, without saying a word, pushed his way past me into the house. The men on the balcony watched me in silence.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked Boris.
“As far as I can see you haven’t been to bed either,” he said. His eyes were red and I suddenly realised that he’d only had a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, and felt bad for him.
“Let me make some coffee,” I said, closing the balcony door, and walked through the dark lounge into the kitchen and switched on the lamp on the table. Boris followed me from the balcony and stopped in the doorway, as if hesitating whether to come in or not:
“How about tea instead, Anya? My old innards can’t take too much coffee any more.”
Without answering I poured a kettle full of water and pressed the button – the light went on and the kettle started whooshing, but I turned away to get the cups, and a box with the tea – I didn’t want to look at him, just to keep busy. And then he said: “Anya, I couldn’t stop him.” I didn’t reply. I was looking for sugar, and couldn’t remember where the wretched sugar bowl was. None of us took sugar in our tea so we only got it out for guests. “He’ll be back, Anya, sixty kilometres one way, plus some time for packing, some kids’ stuff – where would you buy it now? It’s been only four hours, let’s wait, it’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
I finally found the sugar bowl, grabbed it and stood holding it for a moment, then turned to Boris and said:
“Of course it will. We’ll have tea together and then let Lenny go and do his packing – he could take your list and bring what he can while the girls are asleep. And you and I will watch the road, ok?”
“Sure,” he agreed, and relieved, he started walking back to tell Lenny about my plan – and I watched him go and thought, ‘I wonder if he sleeps in his felt boots.’
Lenny declined my offer of tea, and excited by our decision, ran across the road to his house. I didn’t want to go outside with him so I gave him a spare set of keys to our gate and watched him wrestle with the lock. As soon as he left, Boris and I took our positions near the window in the lounge – the loaded rifle nearby, by the wall – and we spent the next hour in silence, watching the dark, empty road. The sky started brightening up. We didn’t feel like talking. Sometimes one of us would change our position to stretch a numb limb or back and would startle the other, who would immediately look into distance, where the road showed in between the trees, framing it on both sides like black, dense fencing. God, I thought to myself, I used to love the view from our lounge window, but from now on I’ll never be able to look at it without remembering the thoughts that pop into my head now; my feet are cold and my back’s asleep, I need the loo, and I mustn’t move my eyes from the window in case, if I stop looking, I prevent the return of the black car I’m looking out for.
After the first hour of our watch (it was five hours since he’d left, something must have gone wrong), I got up and said to Boris, who had jumped and looked up at me:
“It’s time I did something useful. We need to go soon, and we haven’t finished packing yet. Lenny has gone, and we’re just sitting here wasting time. How about you watch the road, and I’ll check what we’re still missing?” and before he could say anything, I turned and left the lounge.