Baba Dunja's Last Love (17 page)

One of them steps forward, stoops down to me, and says loudly that our president has pardoned me.

 

 

Our president is a good man. He looks a little like Jegor in his good years. Except that Jegor was a dishrag and our president is a man of iron will. With a man like him I would have had more respect for my marriage. He wouldn't have shown any fear of Tschernowo, he wouldn't have let himself be forced to abandon his village, he would have laughed at the offer of compensation and at the pointless vision tests and the vitamins that you received for free as a reactor victim.

Because our constitution is celebrating an anniversary, the president has pardoned a lot of criminals. I'm one of them. My crime is more serious than many others, but my age must have swayed him. Maybe he read about me in the paper and thought, Baba Dunja from Tschernowo should not die in prison. He has a soft heart, like all great men.

I'm just sorry about the pillowcase I've started. I make every one like it's my last, and this one isn't finished, and it bothers me. I'm urged to hurry along because I'm now free. I'm not prepared for this. I don't know what to do. Pack up your things, they say. So I pack.

I don't have much, the clothes belong to the prison, I lay them out tidily. Someone keeps looking into the cell. I hiss at him, hasn't he ever seen an old woman fold three pairs of underpants. I make the bed and fluff the pillow. My things I place in the pillowcase, which I then tie closed.

I'm not surprised to see Arkadij. He probably wants to make sure everything is done properly and that nobody swaps my blood thinning medication for toilet cleaning fluid, as happened recently.

Arkadij urges me to hurry. So that I can leave in peace, the press has been told that I won't be released for another three days. But soon the first of them will arrive, as rumors travel fast. He braces me, I have to make an effort to keep up with him step for step. We cross the yard, I want to go to the workshop one last time to say my goodbyes. Arkadij holds me back as if his only concern is to get out of here as quickly as possible. The young woman who sits next to me runs up and shoves a rolled-up piece of paper into my hand.

“English vocabulary,” she whispers. I run my hand across her delicate cheek and wish her many more healthy children. Then I turn toward the workshop. Women in gray prison clothes are standing at the window. And then they applaud.

 

Arkadij Sergejewitsch drives a dirty little car. He has brought me a new, slightly too long winter jacket and gloves because I had to hand in my warm clothes to the prison. I feel bad that criminals like me keep him from making decent money. He didn't get a single ruble from me for his work. I'll have to give him some money from Laura's tea caddy.

“As soon as I get home I'm going to send you money.”

“Better just to hurry, Baba Dunja,” he says and holds open the car door for me. And so in my old age I take a ride in a private car.

Arkadij says we can get everything I need at the airport.

“Get what? At what airport?”

“You are flying to your daughter's in Germany. It is all arranged.”

“I am not flying anywhere,” I say. “I am going home.”

Arkadij understands immediately.

The little television on his dashboard that tells him where to go doesn't recognize Tschernowo.

“My garden is surely overgrown,” I say. “Maybe you can drop me at the bus station.”

“Your daughter would kill me,” says Arkadij.

He stops briefly in Malyschi to buy a chocolate bar and a bottle of water. Never before has a strange man spent money on food for me.

“You are a good boy,” I say, sticking the things in my pocket.

He just looks at me. It's the same later during the drive. It would be a shame if I were to die in a car crash now, of all times, and just because he didn't keep his eyes on the road.

I ask him about his life and work. We'd never had the chance to talk about anything but the axe in the head. He answers cautiously, as if every word were a step in a minefield. Then he says he's going to become a father in two months.

“Congratulations from the bottom of my heart!” I say. “The child is surely healthy? These days you can see right inside.”

“My wife isn't here,” he says. “I sent her to England.”

I nod. Then I tell him about the flowers in my garden as he drives along a country road. The landscape stretches out cheerfully white before me. The winters keep getting milder. When I was little we had more snow. Nature needs the snow in order to rest.

In Arkadij's car, you sit much lower to the ground than in a bus and you hear the pebbles stirred up by the tires. The drive goes by quickly. He stops in front of the abandoned candy factory, next to the green shelter of the bus stop, which is dusted with snow. This is where I always recuperated after my long marches. On the path through the fields you can see the prints of rabbit paws.

“I'm sorry, Baba Dunja,” says Arkadij, avoiding my gaze.

“Don't let it trouble you,” I say. “I'm very grateful to you.”

“I just don't know what to say.”

“Then don't say anything.”

I have to struggle to get out. He opens the door for me and waits patiently. He hands me the pillowcase with my things in it.

“You still know the way?”

“You bet I do.” I brush a few snowflakes from his sleeve. “Thank you for your dedication.”

Then he is gone. I throw the half-full pillowcase over my shoulder and head on my way.

I walk not one hour or two. I walk more than three hours. It's as if the way has lengthened, as if Tschernowo has receded during the time I wasn't there. Something is singing inside me even though I am having trouble breathing. I limp since the stroke, and everything hurts when I walk as a result. I keep stopping to catch my breath. I wonder whether I should just leave the pillowcase behind.

On the other hand: Who would leave their underwear in a field except in an emergency?

I sing “The Apple and Pear Trees Are Blooming” to regain my strength.

Fortunately it's not summer. The heat would kill me.

Soon spring will come to Tschernowo. Fresh grass will sprout, the trees will subtly start to green. I will go into the woods and tap birch sap. Not because I want to live to be a hundred but because it is a crime to reject the gifts of nature. The birds will twitter in the blossoming apple trees. The biologist told me why the birds are louder here than elsewhere. After the reactor, more males survived than females. This imbalance persists to this day. And it is the desperate males who belt out their songs in search of good females.

I wonder whether I will still run across Petrow. Probably not. I wouldn't bet that Sidorow is still around, either. Maybe they will greet me as ghosts. My cat is surely still there. And Mrs. Gavrilow's chickens. The house will certainly need to be made inhabitable again. Jegor will be there. He will always be there.

I catch my breath again. My leg hurts, but I must keep going. The houses of Tschernowo rise on the horizon like a set of loose, crooked teeth.

Hopefully nobody is there, I think. If nobody is there, then I will live alone with all the ghosts and animals. And wait to see who all comes along.

I think of Laura. I will always think of Laura. I think about how nice it would have been if we had overtaken the bus on the drive here, and inside the bus had been a blonde girl. A short-haired, tattooed blonde girl for all I care. She would have hopped out and I would have taken her by the hand and taken her home. That is what has always been missing for this girl. She never had a home because I never taught her mother how to feel comfortable in life. I learned it too late myself.

I will study English and read Laura's letter. I will stay alive until I can read her letter.

I take the chocolate bar out of the pillowcase to strengthen myself.

The main road is covered in fresh snow. Smoke rises from the Gavrilows' chimney. And Marja's goat is nibbling on the bark of my apple tree.

“Pssst,” I call. “Get away from there, you stupid animal!”

The goat jumps to the side. Marja appears in her window.

“Who's yelling at my goat?” she shouts.

I have the feeling that I'm seeing double. Just a second ago she was in the window and now she is storming out the door. She runs up to me and nearly crushes me in her embrace.

“Let go of me,” I scold. “You're going to break all my bones. I'm not eighty-two anymore.”

“I knew they would release you,” she whispers. “I knew it all along.”

“How? I didn't know.”

“You have to come to my place, the spiders have taken over yours.”

“First I have to have a look.” I turn my back to Marja and my face to my house. It is still my house, the spiders will understand.

“Eat something first!”

“Later,” I say. I walk over and put my hand on the door handle. A meow wafts out of the shed and a little kitty, gray like smoke, straggles out.

“Your cat had another litter,” shouts Marja. “One of them is missing an eye.”

“Don't yell like that,” I say. “You're not alone anymore.”

And then I push open the door and once again I am home.

Russian-born Alina Bronsky is the author of
Broken Glass Park
(Europa, 2010);
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine
(Europa, 2011), named a Best Book of 2011 by
The Wall Street Journal
,
The Huffington Post
, and
Publishers Weekly
; and
Just Call Me Superhero
(Europa, 2014). She lives in Berlin with her family.