All That Is Solid Melts into Air (20 page)

Chapter 15

N
o talking.

You form the line and when in the line you do not deviate from the line.

You stand an arm’s length behind the boy in front. You place your hand on his shoulder to judge the space between you, and then you release your arm and take a half step backwards.

When the gym master blows his whistle you begin the exercise. When he blows it again you stop. You count out loud to eight when performing the exercise. When not performing the exercise you count to yourself. When counting out loud, you do not mumble, you shout it clear and crisp, separating the numbers: one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight.

You start with star jumps, then tuck jumps, to warm the body. Then you do press-ups, sit-ups, and squats. Then you repeat them all again.

Yevgeni has a slit on the side of his shorts—not a large rip, but a worrying one, worrying because it’s growing exponentially. He has a choice to make. When doing the star jump he can extend his legs to full width and risk tearing them more, or he can keep his legs in a little but risk the gym master making him run laps for the next half hour. He has only one pair of shorts; there used to be another pair, but he’s grown out of them, they rode up his thighs like a pair of swimming pants. The other boys laughed at him so he had thrown them out. This was six weeks ago. His mother had promised to take him shopping for a new pair, but she never did. He asked her to give him the money and he could get them himself, but she never had it on her. He suspected that she didn’t want to give it to him, that maybe he would spend it on something stupid, or he would meet Ivan or whoever and they would force him to hand it over. He reminded his mother after the last gym class, told her he had a rip in the side of his shorts, and she got angry and said he could mend it himself. But he didn’t know how to sew and, anyway, men don’t sew, even he knew this. She was sorry for being angry and promised she would get him a new pair before the next class. Well, the next class is this class.

He should have asked his aunt. She’s always good with anything to do with school. She helps him cover his copybooks with old wallpaper, and sometimes when he opens his lunch box he’ll find a square of chocolate inside. When this happens he has to stuff it in his mouth at once, in case any of the other kids see it and take it. Six months ago a kid called Lev saw him put the square in his mouth and ran over to him and jammed his fingers in the joint where Yevgeni’s jaws meet, and his mouth opened before he had time to swallow and Lev picked the square out, nearly dissolved, drenched in saliva, and ate it. Then he punched Yevgeni in the stomach for being so greedy.

Everyone has the same gym uniform. Red shorts and a white singlet. Some of the older kids have hair under their arms, and Yevgeni thinks it a strange place to have hair.

He listens to each popped stitch during the warm-up. Every time he does a squat he can feel the strain on the material. Maybe it would be better just to be obvious, just run the laps, but he’s been doing it a lot recently and it’s embarrassing. When he runs along the wall behind where they do their press-ups, the kids in the back row always stick out their feet to trip him. Yevgeni knows the gym master sees this—the gym master sees everything—but he doesn’t say anything. It’s an extra, unspoken, part of the punishment.

They finish the warm-up and then form lines behind the mat. When you do your floor routine, you stand totally straight and raise an outstretched arm to the master, to let him know you’re about to begin. This is how they do it in competitions. This is how they do it in the Olympics. Everyone says the gym master was in the Olympics when he was younger. Yevgeni told his mother this, but she laughed: she knew the gym master when he was younger, when the Olympics were held here. “He was at the Olympics all right. He won the bronze medal for sweeping floors.” Yevgeni has never breathed a word and still the gym master doesn’t like him.

It’s his turn for the floor routine. The kid behind shoves him forward.

He pulls his shoulders back and raises his arm to the gym master, nice and straight. First is a forward roll. He likes these. The secret, he has found, is to bend your knees really low and to look straight ahead. He rolls to the end of the mat, feeling the particular kind of head rush that comes from turning your brain upside down, over and over, the cool, white swirl that spirals down from the top of his skull.

Now a backward roll. He has never quite understood the moment when you have to lever your bum over your head. Sometimes, when he’s getting frustrated with it, he’ll tuck his bum over his shoulder rather than his head. It means he’ll be crooked when going backwards, but it’s always quicker. Sometimes the gym master gives out to him for it, and sometimes not. Yevgeni senses that the gym master doesn’t really care what he does anymore.

Yevgeni makes it to the end of the mat, and the next kid stands up. He makes his way to the back of the line. He really needs a drink of water, but they aren’t allowed to bring water into the gym. They can have water after the session, but there’s always a long line at the fountain and by the time he gets a drink he’s already late for the next class.

Yevgeni scratches his bum and, as he does so, he realizes that one side of his shorts, the side with the bad rip, flips up behind him. He looks down and realizes just how serious the situation is. Now, they’re torn almost all the way to the top. He looks at the clock on the wall. There are only ten minutes left of class. If he times it properly, he can tie the laces on his gym shoes and move straight away to the back of the line and then take his chances with the warm-down exercises. He’ll have to untie his shoes without anyone noticing and then tie them again. He might still have to run laps, but the situation is getting desperate. Why does he have to do gym if he hates it so much? Adults don’t have to do gym. His mother isn’t forced to go on the vaulting horse or the trampoline, although he has to admit that it might actually do her some good.

A blast of the whistle.

“Line up before the ropes.”

He hates the ropes. The ropes are the worst thing he could be asked to do in his current predicament. There are five ropes hanging in a line, and there’s usually a race between five pupils at a time. Yevgeni isn’t very strong, so he usually loses. Everyone sprints towards the ropes, and the gym master looks at him. He can’t fake the shoelace trick now.

“Yevgeni, go to the front of the line. You can give us a demonstration on how it’s done.”

A titter around the class. If you’re in charge, you’re always funny. The gym master could give them a lecture on how to manufacture a gym mat and everyone would still laugh. Yevgeni wishes he could refuse, wishes he could run out of the door, but he isn’t suicidal. He’d prefer the class to see his raggedy underwear than face the gym master after an episode like that.

He walks towards the front of the nearest line, his lips pursed in defiance.

“No walking,” the gym master shouts.

As he reaches the front, Yevgeni is struck with a moment of genius. He’ll run to the other side of the rope and climb up facing the queue. This way the tear in his shorts will be nearest the wall, the side opposite side to the gym master.

Why has his mother not bought him a new pair? He has asked her. She said she would. And he knows that when he goes home and tells her what happened she’ll scold him for not reminding her. “I can’t be expected to remember every tiny thing,” this is what she’ll say.

The gym master blows his whistle and Yevgeni sprints forward. He reaches the rope, runs around the other side of it, and begins climbing. Already the other kids are laughing at him, but it can’t be helped. What he’s done is still the best option.

The gym master looks at the queue of kids and tells them to be quiet and, while he does so, the bottom falls out of Yevgeni’s world. The worst thing that can possibly happen happens. Arkady Nikitin, the sweatiest boy in the class, is climbing beside Yevgeni and is even lower down the rope—due to his sweaty hands—and so he sees the tear in Yevgeni’s shorts and sees the gym master looking away, and so he tugs hard at the shorts and Yevgeni hears the rip and looks down to see his shorts floating to the ground away from him, taking his scraggy underpants with them. And then the whole class sees this. They look up and see Yevgeni stopped in shock, almost at the top, his grey underpants lying sprawled on the floor in full view of everyone, like a rat that has lain in the middle of the road for weeks, entrails spread out in opposite directions.

A gale of laughter, the whole class dissolving, and Yevgeni can see the gym master laugh too, briefly, and then he starts to shout at Yevgeni to get down at once.

The gym master has a bald spot, which can be seen clearly from up here. Yevgeni stays frozen, clutching the rope, and the longer he holds on, the more irate his gym master becomes. He can see the man’s face turning red. Yevgeni clamps his feet around the rope, the way they’ve been taught, and closes his eyes. There’s no way he can come down now and face the embarrassment, the rage. He seals his lids shut and hums the beginning of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, the notes dropping their peace on him. The sound of rain ticking on a glass windowpane; leaves rustling with falling water. The notes caressing him, refreshing him, sweet Chopin drenching him. He can feel the rope swaying wildly: the gym master is trying to shake him down. But Yevgeni isn’t moving—if he wants him to come down, he’ll have to climb up to get him. Yevgeni clings on for his life, ten metres in the air, the rope burning his fingers, chord sequences pattering along his shoulders.

Chapter 16

T
wo hours later Maria leaves the principal’s office. She walks past Yevgeni as he slumps on a chair outside, and when she passes he picks up his bag and scurries after her. She moves quickly when she’s annoyed. So he can tell she’s annoyed.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“Well, you’ve caused it. You had me leave work early. I do this two times a year, maybe it’s okay. How many times is this?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know. It’s four. I’ll be lucky if I’m not fired.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry. This is not good, Zhenya, especially not now.”

It isn’t fair to blame the child for her problems at work. But still, he did call
her
. He could have called his mother. So maybe he deserves it.

“You could have called your mother.”

She realizes he’s not responding. She looks to her side, but he’s not there. He’s stopped. She’s the one walking quickly. She’s the one who’s angry. He’s the one who should be keeping up. She stops and looks back. He’s standing there with his bag around his ankles. They’re in the playground by now, in full view of how many hundreds, if not thousands, of kids, and yet Zhenya has no qualms in putting down his bag, causing a scene, his hands clamped to his head, holding clumps of hair in his fists. No wonder they pick on him—the child is a gaping wound. Maybe this is to do with not having a father, or with too much mothering, with the women being too indulgent because of his talent. Who knows? Let Alina deal with it. He’s not her child, after all, and she’s not in the mood for it today.

She paces back to him and grabs his arm and drags him back into motion, and he’s as raggedly obedient as a stitched doll.

This child needs to learn some things.

They get on the Metro and talk it out. Yevgeni explains what happened and Maria can see a kind of logic behind it. The things you can’t do as a kid, the actions you can’t take, how the smallest things become magnified, reaching crisis point.

She stops him midsentence.

“Show me your arm.”

“What?”

“Show me your arm.”

Yevgeni pulls his sweater back. Nothing. He knows what she’s looking for already, trying to look casual. Nothing escapes this kid.

“The other one.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Okay, it’s there, you don’t need proof, Mam has seen it already.”

“It’s a Chinese burn then.”

“Yes.”

“Do we need to be worried?”

“No.”

“Zhenya?”

“No.”

“Are there a lot of other kids getting them? Be honest now.”

“Yes. Loads.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“No. We do it all the time.”

Taunts, name-calling, ear smacking, spitting, kicking, teachers handing out beatings, snot flicking, note passing. Thank Christ she isn’t still in school.

She’ll let the subject rest, but she can’t guarantee that she won’t come back to it. It’s a fine balance, being a live-in aunt. She wants him to confide in her, but she feels many of the maternal responsibilities, the same irrational fears, as Alina does.

“I have a question,” Maria says. “Do you know any Prokofiev?”

“Eh”—he thinks for a minute—“no.”

“Do you know who Prokofiev is?”

He looks at her, eyebrows raised. Of course he knows who Prokofiev is. That’s like asking who Lenin is.

“My manager at work is asking about a recital. If you played for them it would be a big help to me.”

But he doesn’t know any Prokofiev.

“But I don’t know any Prokofiev. Do I have to play Prokofiev?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not. I’m just asking, in theory, if you had to. It might not happen.”

He says “yes.” He says “of course.” But he hunches in on himself in a way Maria knows. He doesn’t want to do it. He’s worried about his timing. He’s worried about everything.

The train pulls into their stop and they get out, the platform so empty, everybody still at work, and Maria feels an urge to get back on the train and make the most of the afternoon, take him to Red Square, have him walk around the shops in GUM, let him smell real food, perfume; touch fur. The child has never experienced what it’s like to run your hand along a shining pelt. Or they could have tea in the Metropol, have waiters bow to them, hear the clink of teacups, go to a show in the Bolshoi, put his hand on the appliqué wallpaper. Be other people for an afternoon.

But, they can’t afford such things, and he has laundry to deliver and she has a class to teach. And, besides, Alina would kill her.

They walk up the steps into the sunlight. The market is here, as always. Vegetables. Military wear. Resoled boots. Sunglasses for the November glare. You could probably get yourself some nuclear warheads here, if you had the money. There’s a container of figs with the lid off on one of the tables. It’s maybe ten years since she’s tasted one.

She moves on. She’ll buy something, an indulgence to make sure there’s no hard feelings. She’s said her piece. The boy has had quite an afternoon: it can’t be easy being a prodigy.

They stop at a blini stall and Yevgeni orders one with ham and egg and Maria says, “What? Everything I touch turns to gold? Come on now. Be reasonable.” And he smiles guiltily and orders one with red cabbage and sausage. Little runt, he knows the limits. The woman pours the mixture onto her round hot plate and then swirls it with the long, flat knife so it runs to the edge but doesn’t spill over.

Nearing the towers, the drunks have colonized the playgrounds, sitting on swings, glugging from bottles. One is lying flat on the merry-go-round, his head extending out one end, legs the other, a bottle of antifreeze lying on his chest, staring up at the photos of soldiers on the windows above him, memorials to family members who have died in service. All of them in their full dress, caps tilted high. The standard shots from academy graduation, faded with the weather. At night, when the lights are on, they cast a ghostly pallor over the place, giving a fleeting impression of stained glass. Maria knows that most of these soldiers were as stupid as tree trunks, fired up on their own testosterone, but she likes their glowing presence, a reminder that a home isn’t just comprised of furniture and electricity and plumbing. She understands why the babushkas can’t walk past one without blessing themselves.

Maria and Yevgeni climb the stairs—the lift is still out—and Maria turns the key and Yevgeni puts the greaseproof paper into the bin and lets out a belch.

“Don’t push it, Zhenya, just because your mother’s not here.”

“Sorry.”

“Wash your hands. We’ll get started. I’ll help you.”

His day is getting better.

It’s a Wednesday, which is the end of Alina’s laundry week, the day when the piles of freshly pressed sheets reach their peak, covering every available surface. Maria opens the door to the living room and steps into a tundra landscape. The place is so stark and pristine she can almost hear the Siberian winds whipping through the room.

Alina has pinned a tag on each stack with the owner’s name and address, and Maria begins to line up the piles in order of delivery. A stack has tipped over near the windowsill and Maria picks it up and shakes out the sheets for refolding. She hands two corners to Yevgeni, and they automatically go through the process. The ritual is not without its satisfactions. Maria loves the sensation of snapping the corners of a freshly dried sheet, yanking it between her and Yevgeni, the clean, sharp lines that emerge when they each pull tight, stepping forward and back, as though they were in the middle of a formal dance.

They pack up and start their deliveries in the falling snow.

They knock on doors in dimly lit passageways. Hand the bags over to people whose hands are dappled with liver spots, with raised veins. They smell smells they don’t want to think about, and hear rubbish flowing down the chutes around them set into the walls, arteries of waste running inside the building. They shoulder open doors of broken glass and doors where the glass has been replaced by wood or cardboard or not replaced at all, and with these ones, with the panels absent, they step through them, but first they place their hands forward, fingers splayed, feeling for what may or may not be there, like a blind man entering an unfamiliar room.

They go back to their apartment and restock and then head out once more, doing this systematically, building by building.

They walk up stairways with kids sprawled all over them. Kids not much older than Yevgeni, bottles of glue in front of them, and Maria doesn’t have to tell Yevgeni to be careful because the child already knows. How can he not, the synthetic leer on their faces?

They deliver a bag to a man with no hands, just bandaged stumps, and Maria walks inside and puts his laundry in the cupboard. The place is immaculately tidy and he explains that the woman next door comes over all the time to make sure he’s okay, and Maria feels good about this; it’s not all despair or spirit-stripping cynicism.

They see a birdcage that contains a cardboard bird, coloured in with crayon.

They see a red-candle waxwork of Lenin, burned down a little ways so that he looks as if he’s had a lobotomy.

They see a medical skeleton, standing in the corner of a room, wearing a broad-brimmed black felt hat.

Their last call is Valentina Savinkova, a friend whose husband works with Alina, and she doesn’t need to get her laundry done, but she wants to help out. Alina is a little embarrassed by her custom, but of course they’re not in a position to turn it down.

“You don’t need to have us do this.”

“Of course I do. I don’t want to be washing my sheets. Think of the time it saves me.”

“You have the time.”

“I have the time, but I don’t want to be wasting it on ironing, washing. It’s not charity, believe me. I let Varlam think it’s charity, otherwise he wouldn’t agree to it, but all that walking up and down to the basement. All those dull conversations I’d have to get into. Please”—she swats an open hand past her ear—“your sister is doing me the favour.”

She pours vodka into three glasses and Yevgeni laughs. She looks up.

“Zhenya, of course.” It’s her turn to laugh. “I have some kvass.”

She goes out and comes back in with a large glass, a handle on the side.

“Here. You can pretend it’s real beer.”

Yevgeni doesn’t much like kvass, but he drinks a slug and pats his tongue off the roof of his mouth, the tartness of the drink drawing his cheeks together.

Valentina looks around the room. “I should have cleaned.”

“You’ve just talked about how you couldn’t be bothered doing laundry and now you’re saying you should have cleaned.”

“What, you’re the KGB now? I’m contradicting myself? Fine. Is this a crime now too? You send this beautiful child over as a spy. Yes, you, Zhenya, you’re a beautiful child. I’d come over and mush your cheeks, but I’m drinking my vodka and you’d probably disappear into the couch in shame.”

Yevgeni doesn’t know how to respond to this.

“So why are you here too, Maria? Did you think your little spy needs some supervision?”

“No, just help. It’s a lot of work for a kid and I had an afternoon off.”

“An afternoon off? Sounds mysterious.”

“It’s not. I had a meeting at his school. Alina couldn’t make it.”

“And so you’re seeing what the child gets up to on his rounds, extorting food from vulnerable, lonely women.”

“I’m thinking maybe he shouldn’t be doing this alone. Those kids on the stairs.”

“I know. The corners are darker lately. I know.”

“It’s not a good place.”

“It’s fine. There’ll always be a few. It’s fine. It’s not like Zhenya will be getting caught up in all that. Besides, I hear you’re bound for the Conservatory, Zhenya.”

“Not exactly.”

“That’s not what I hear. All the practicing is going well?”

He’s silent. He doesn’t like it when adults get together and then include him. He’s just not one of them. Why pretend otherwise?

“We got some fish. In the bedroom. Go and have a look.”

Yevgeni bounds off the couch. Maria waits until he closes the door.

“I’m worried about him. We still haven’t found a place for him to rehearse. An audition for the Conservatory in the spring—there’s also the possibility of a recital at my work—and the child practices on a keyboard with the volume turned down.”

“He can’t practice at his music teacher’s?”

“The man’s old, his wife is senile, we can’t ask more of him than we already do. You don’t happen to know of anyone with a piano?”

“Of course not. What kind of circles do you think we move in?”

Maria lowers her eyes. Valentina softens her tone, refills Maria’s glass.

“I’ll ask Varlam to keep an ear out.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring my problems here.”

“Don’t worry. I need something to keep my mind occupied. It’s a relief to hear about something practical. I’ve been worrying about the strangest things lately.”

“What type of things?”

“I don’t know. Just things. I’ve too much time on my hands.”

Maria waits patiently. This is always the nature of conversation with Valentina: she approaches the topic in waves, the tide of information coming gradually. Maria, being Maria, listens while someone talks themselves into understanding, or revelation.

“I don’t know. I’m forgetting things. My keys. My purse. I forgot my coat a few weeks ago. I was at a play at the Hermitage, on my own, and, afterwards, I walked for twenty minutes in the pounding snow before realizing I had left my coat behind.”

“Must have been a good play.”

“I’d tell you, but of course I can’t remember.”

“Are you worried? Do you need to see someone?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. There are people who’d kill to be in my position, you know. Just forgetting. Having no memory makes you innocent. You can’t obscure things.”

“Has something happened that’s made you want to forget?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Silence.

“There’s something. What is it?”

“I saw something the other day—a few weeks ago, actually. The strangest thing.”