High Tide (9 page)

And then came the abyss, she embraced him, absorbed him, took him in and swallowed him like Calypso swallowed Odysseus, while he inwardly longed for the coldness of night, the bridge over the river and his moment of existence, his long-standing sentence of loneliness.

Too tired to object, he quietly prayed to the Lord, and the Lord came over him and he finally grew calm, having sunk his thorn into His hot center.

 

When he woke up the next morning, he was alone in the room. The smell of the roast and the woman's singing floated from the kitchen.

It was a harsh morning, misty and cold. They ate. The food was delicious, rich, like her.

He asked:

“Don't you have to go to work?”

“But today's Saturday,” she answered.

As if he didn't know.

“These days some people have to work Saturdays, too.”

“Oh, that. I work in accounting at the prison.”

Andrejs was speechless:

“So you do!”

“When he died in the hospital in Riga, the kids and I left the city. Took a train on a whim, the farther away the better. Got off at the last station, rented an apartment, asked around for work. Turns out this town has a prison and the prison was looking for an accountant. Might as well, I thought! If it's a prison, it's a prison. No reason trying to run from your destiny. Nothing wrong with work, either. It's a good job, stable.”

“Yeah it is,” Andrejs laughed.

“A person's got to eat. We're prisoners in this life, you said it yourself last night.”

 

They watched some TV. There was a commercial for some movie playing at Cinema Riga.

“Would be good to see a movie,” she suddenly said.

“Go to Riga?”

“Why not? I haven't been to the movies in ages! Or to Riga.”

He was horrified by the idea, but she was already getting dressed and humming. So be it, he thought, feeling very unexpectedly generous.

The woman had dressed up nicely for the event—she'd done her hair and put on makeup, put on a light dress under a short jacket, silk stockings and heels. Like a girl, he thought. It didn't suit her. But what can you do if a trip like this to Riga happened only once in a while?

The train was full, but they were able to find seats facing each other by a window. Andrejs was embarrassed to look at the woman, her legs seemed too naked for the winter weather, so pornographically, screamingly lewd. This nakedness radiated toward Andrejs and completely unsettled him because something in it was meant only for him, aggressive like a good poem. Oh, Demeter, he thought, staring stubbornly at the reflection of his own dark face in the window, not looking at her once, even though she now and then touched his leg with her shiny, stocking-clad ankle. He even ignored her questions until she grew annoyed and glared straight ahead, the smile gone from her face as she was rocked by the rhythm of the train. Then he could safely scowl at her hair in the reflection in the window.

There was no snow, and after three and a half hours they stepped out onto the black asphalt of the Riga Passenger Station platform. The wind was biting, and the train's passengers burrowed deeper into their coats and quickly disappeared into the belly of the station.

“The movie theater's back this way,” Andrejs said. “Let's go along the tracks, and then we'll head down into the city.”

“Why that way?” the woman was surprised.

“No point in wasting money for the tram.”

The woman hesitated. He still couldn't bring himself to look at her, just leered at her sidelong like a wolf. She was close to tears, trying to keep her jacket closed with one hand and beginning to think something wasn't quite right.

“Let's go! It's not far.”

They started to walk along the side of the tracks. Andrejs in front, hands jammed into his pockets and shoulders hunched forward. The woman behind him, with her exposed, white legs and heels, jumping over the ties and rusted iron of the switches. The wind blew open the slit in her dress and her legs were covered in goose bumps. Her nervous footing caught in the gaps between the ties.

The woman finally spoke up:

“So this is taking a trip to Riga, to the movies, huh? You could've come up with a better idea!”

Andrejs answered curtly:

“This is the fastest way.”

“We could've taken the tram like normal people!”

“What a princess! Keep moving!”

The massive train track field was at least half a kilometer wide at this point; electric trains went back and forth, signaling their approach from the bend with a whistle, then coming into sight themselves. A fence ran along the tracks, as did paths worn down by bums and bushes containing piles of garbage—below it all were the wavering city lights and din of traffic.

The train to Moscow slowed down and passed them on its way to the station. Andrejs froze in his tracks. He and the woman looked in the direction the train was going. The last car slowly rolled by.

“What are you looking at?” the woman asked.

He didn't answer.

 

Dogs.

Guards who shove you against each other, throw you, toss you like lifeless sacks… But first—dogs, the wild barking of dogs, sinister, horrible… Dogs—the devil incarnate
… Cerberuses… Then the soldiers, their boots…

On the ground!

On your knees…

Hands behind your head!… Move, right, left, we'll shoot without warning!… Days and nights of waiting in the half-dark without food, water… Then suddenly a light, shouting, barking, the wind in your face like rye bread, so fresh, so alive and rich… You eat it half-blind, chew it, swallow it—fresh air… Until you're herded into a new cell, where they de-lice you, re-clothe you, shave your head, and save you from yourself. On the ground!…

On your knees…

Prisoner transport cars.

And, having lost all other characteristics of being human, you'll latch onto your kind, will remain nailed to your kind.

 

“What are you looking at?”

“Prisoner transport,” he finally said reluctantly. “You see that last car there on the train to Moscow? The last one's a prisoner transport car. It gets hooked on at some point—in Daugavpils or maybe Krustpils. When all the passengers get out, a locomotive will come, unhook it and push it onto the side tracks. Maybe overnight. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe they'll take it right away to Central Prison. Who knows—maybe only the day after tomorrow—to Jelgava or Liepāja.”

This Russian woman had the knowledge of transport cars in her blood; knowledge about where prisoners spent the night before they got put in the stocks, before the sentenced whippings, before being branded with the symbol of shame and exiled to Siberia, when every condemned soul is to be pitied, when you feel compelled to give them a warm sandwich, to drop an apple into their laps, to force your way through the crowd so you, too, can press a coin into their hands.

But she'd lived with that two thirds of her life, and she'd had enough. She didn't want to deal with it tonight, and launched a rebellion. She whined:

“Let's go. I'm cold. C'mon, let's go, good God are you going to stand here for hours? We'll miss it!”

She walked forward a few steps, then stopped.

“That's where all your memories are, all your friends, right? Transport cars and shackles, and dogs, and railroads—right? Well go, run, beg them, maybe they'll let you into that car, huh? That's where your entire life is, snitch!”

“Shut up!”

“But it's over now,” the woman said from somewhere behind him, and started to cry.

“What's over?”

 

She grew scared and got quiet.

“Don't cling to any fantasies or hopes! Don't! You'll get exactly as much as you need. And leave the rest of it alone! I've put prison behind me. And I won't tell you anything more!”

The woman stood on the tracks in the fall drizzle in her see-through stockings and stupid shoes, and trembled. The wind tore at her jacket, hair, and tugged at her thoughts, she looked so pathetic in her fancy get-up and red lipstick… and so close.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “but it's over now.”

He spun around angrily and wanted to head back to the station. Ditch this drama and leave, like he'd done so many times before. But he suddenly felt that he couldn't. It surprised him. He'd told her everything on his mind, but these words suddenly meant nothing, and disappeared like they'd been dropped down a well. Sweetheart, she'd answered, and was still standing there.

And he couldn't go anywhere.

Strange. What's left to not experience, he thought sadly.

He turned back around and started to climb down the steep embankment. She stumbled after him, crying out quietly when her foot slipped in the mud, and balanced meekly on one foot like a child when he brought the stray shoe to her and put it back on. Taking each other tightly by the hand, they dove downward, into the bright city.

Father

 

 

Several
ducks and a goose idly putter along and nibble stalks of grass by the canal downtown. The weather is hot and humid as a greenhouse. A storm shifts tensely high overhead, but it can't pull itself together.

Monta and Andrejs, having left the apartment, sit outside at the café. Andrejs rubs his thumb over his train ticket—he always buys it ahead of time for the trip home.

Old men play checkers on a bench under the lindens by the café terrace. Squealing children run around the adjacent playground, where the blue and red plastic tunnels, steps, and towers radiate a poisonous heat into the absentminded dust of the city. Punks and National Bolshevisks lounge in the grass in their striped woolen sweaters. But for now, father and daughter have the café to themselves.

Monta tries to inconspicuously wipe the sweat from her upper lip. Andrejs watches the ducks, watches his daughter, does up and undoes the top button of his shirt. As if waking from a trance, they now and then hastily pick up their drinks. The tonic swims with the reflection of the trees overhead and the broken shadows from the straws. Andrejs's straw is yellow, Monta's blue. Andrejs has a strong, almost violent mouth set in a darkly tanned face. Monta's lips are sensual and soft, with traces of red lipstick.

Monta opens her mouth several times without a sound, then resolutely returns her father's stare with her icy blue eyes. When they're together there isn't much use for words.

Some mothers sitting on the long bench by the playground talk about something and then burst into laughter—the sound is sudden and free, like champagne bubbling from a bottle. Monta starts, then bites her straw. Andrejs hears the tiny, delighted squeal of a little boy and turns to wave to him. Monta sees the shadows of leaves chase each other across the aged skin of her father's neck. She looks up at the sky; it's sticky, it's suddenly and completely closed off, blackened by something stifling and dark like soot. But the sky won't open up for a while still, though the foliage might. Moisture gathers on the lindens from the humidity.

Her father faces her again, reaches across the table and touches the back of her hand, where the heat has drawn up a few bluish veins. Now the yellow-painted fingernail of her index finger traces vertical stripes in the condensation on her glass.

A small, mangy poodle runs into the flock of birds. He seems oblivious to the ducks, but aggressively herds the lone goose. The poodle's owner, an elderly woman with a pale face and arms crossed behind her back, turns toward the canal and looks at the bright green embankment on the opposite side. Her ankles are swollen beneath light-colored stockings, knotty like a tree stump at the roots.

Right now this woman is alive. The grass along the canal is unbelievably green. It's as if the thick air is seconds away from unrolling a rainbow over it all. Everything will smell like cool, wet dirt, and air.

That's all in the past, Monta had said—with that accidentally, but firmly dismissing Andrejs's usual landslide of memories. She keeps drawing her fingertips down the side of her glass. Monta feels guilty. She wants to bring her father out of the cave he finds so comforting. Wants his attention for the physical, flesh and blood Monta sitting across from her father on a woven metal chair. He can't reach that Monta anymore because he's still scattered somewhere in the past as Ieva Eglīte's misplaced object.

She'd be grateful if he'd listen to her selflessly. And he'd listen to her selflessly if he had any room in his heart. But he doesn't, Monta senses that. That's what we are, she thinks. A lost love tames the soul and drains it dry.

 

Why the fuck did you kill Aksels, Dad?

 

But she'll never ask him. The question has to do with an entirely different life of his. It would startle him. Maybe he'd feel pain like a snail being suddenly scraped out of its shell with a spoon?

He'll never talk about it. And it's his pride and his downfall.

They hug each other reservedly, then draw away and really look at each other. Then Andrejs leaves on the train, suspended by endless silver tracks that never intersect, never intersect.

And a few station stops later, his head drops to his chest as he falls asleep.