House of Many Gods (39 page)

Gena came out of the kitchen with a beer, exhilarated from the
march. They sat out on the steps in the jungle of tattered slippers and running shoes.

“A good day,” Ana said. “The gods marched with us. Lopaka must be proud … Where is he?”

“Passed out. That boy’s been up four days and nights. We’ll celebrate tomorrow.”

They gazed into the night, a coiled indigo shimmering through fog. They heard a peacock scream. In spite of her euphoria, Ana felt great fatigue and a recurring sense of nausea.

Gingerly, she touched her eye. “Passive resistance really works. I always thought some of us would have to die to make our point. Well … what good is life without a point?”

Her voice was soft, devoid of edge. Gena silently reflected on how Ana had changed in the past few months. She came home to the coast more often, sitting in at community discussions on women’s health issues, on ways to combat crime and drugs amongst the young. She addressed folks more caringly.

Looking back, Gena saw that the change had begun with Makali‘i’s death. After that she saw an idling in Ana’s gestures, a hesitation in her walk as if not sure which way to turn. Since Niki’s departure, she watched her sit for hours staring out of windows, as if the calligraphy of windswept leaves would tell her what to do, how to behave.

“Ana, remember those long-lost nights at the Humu Humu Lounge? The two of us counting our waitress tips?”

“I remember. What happened, Gena? How did we drift apart?”

“I’ve got a theory about that. We’re role models, you and me. First-generation college grads. First-generation not-hula-girls-or-chambermaids. We’re talented, ambitious, but not too confident. We don’t have enough peers to bounce ideas off of … so we disagree, and take it personally.”

She played with her beer, scraping the label from the bottle.

“And then, there is Lopaka. I have always known how much he loves you. It’s deep, real deep. Maybe I’ve been jealous.”

“
He lalau!
Nonsense,” Ana said. “You’re what he wants. And what he needs. He loves you! I’m sorry for that thing I said way back, that where he’s concerned your brains were between your legs.”

“Well, where he’s concerned, sometimes they are.”

“I see now I was lashing out, at everyone. Trying to hide how terrified I was. Even six, seven years after surgery, sometimes I’m afraid to fall asleep. Afraid I won’t wake up.”

In the silence, Gena moved closer. “Ana. I’ve got to tell you something. I mean … I’ve got to give you something. If Lopaka finds out, he’ll kill me. I don’t care.”

Ana leaned back slightly.

“I stole something. It’s for you. He doesn’t think you deserve to have it. That’s not for him to say.”

Gena held out a long, white envelope. “I took this from his files.”

“What is it?”

“A letter. From Niki. The day he left, he asked Lopaka to give it to you.”

“But that was five weeks ago.”

Gena looked down, embarrassed. “When you let him go, I thought, ‘the hell with her.’ Now I realize, it’s not for me to judge. Not for Lopaka, either.”

Ana stood holding the letter as Gena slid into her car, her head thrust out the window. “Whatever happens, whatever you need … I’m here for you.”

Beloved Ana
 …

It is late at night, and I depart tomorrow. I write this by candlelight so I do not wake you
.

I look at you across the room, lying on your side. Outline of your shoulder and your hip. You will always be beautiful to me. A woman of extravagance and moral force. Though I think you do not know this. When I have seen you coming down the street, I think, “She is my lover, and my friend. A miracle!” I do not know why you chose me. I maybe will never understand
.

Yes, I have been a liar all my life. Is how I survived. Until I met you I never knew this luxury of speaking truth. I was impaired. My past, my poor homeland, these made sense of my impairment. I think my behavior does not make sense anywhere else. This is why Russians do not adapt. But every word I write now is from my heart. Pu‘uwai … as you say in your beautiful language. And I hope you will hold a long time these words in your heart
.

I leave you my collection of Pushkin’s poems. And those of Anna Akhmatova. They speak from the very soul of my country. Rare birds who froze to death midflight. In Moscow, I will read them again. Maybe you will be reading them, too, and we will be connected through their thoughts
.

“…  I loved you with such purity, such passion/ As may God grant you to be loved once more.”—Pushkin
.

Oh, Ana. I have wanted life too much. I have wanted you. Maybe with completion of my film, you will see a better me. Maybe in such work, I will become the man I wanted you to love
.

In Moscow I will return to Old Arbat district. Friends are there, many ill like me. They cough, smoke cigarettes, drink vodka, like good Russians. Probably some of them are dying. Some have already fled, but those who stay continue painting, writing poetry, pretending there is a future
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My friends will call me mudak, fool! for coming back. Will tell me how that neo-Tsarist, Yeltsin, is starving everyone to death. But they will welcome me, ask about my travels. There is an old, smoky shashlik restaurant. I will sit with friends, remembering you but will not talk much about you. It would make me joyful, and joy is so exhausting
.

Now you turn in sleep, flinging your arm across the bed. I remember first time I saw you after Hurricane ‘Iniki. Your hair so wild, your face so stern and angry, at first I found you scary. But then I listened, how you comforted that child. And I watched how you listened when I told my stories, some of which were lies. Maybe I began to love you then. O! How to conjugate that great, slow word. Yes, even then I wanted to stand beside you, help you do something, maybe something you could not do alone. These were new sensations
.

After Irini died, I was like an animal. Even filming sick and damaged people, I sometimes spoke brutishly to them. She was dead and they still lived. I walked out of people’s lives in middle of their sentences. I was again that scavenging orphan with head of lice, knowing only how to scratch. But that campfire night in my cheap leather clothes, I was already adoring you
.

Now I wonder, will you remember me? Will you remember my sad stories, life seen through a dirty glass? You said I have lived very hard. Yes, I lived enough for two. I see that now. If there is afterlife, I have already lived mine. When I’m dead, I’ll just be dead
.

I always thought I would die young. But those who loved me died young instead. You came in the part of my life when death seemed to be sleeping. Maybe I felt safe too soon. But you brought out my innocence, that unbreathed part of me strangled as a boy. I was my best self with you. Was someone I had never been. Not even with Irini, because first I had to know deep suffering
.

I understand now, much of my life I hated myself. I longed for everything which stood outside me. You taught me how in some ways
I am lovable. I could be witty, people could be drawn to me. I know you could not love me, but you cared. Enough to make me think that on my own I will be all right. That maybe I can stand myself. You helped me see parts of my past I had forgot. Little miniatures that made me happy. Moments when I made others happy. You taught me many things. Only you did not teach me how I should forget you
.

This was meant to be thoughtful letter of farewell. It seems instead letter of extreme longing. Maybe this is good for me. You said without longing, bones lose calcium. If so, I will grow well! Maybe, if granted time, I will go back to mathematics, study of which expresses human will to live. Once this old professor told me a place is nothing but a place. Is just long chains of molecules occupying space. Beach resort, prison cell. Both same. Just occupied space
.

He said we think of things, places, as composed of solids. But are not solids, are just energy trails. By the time we see them, energy is moving on. So. A place is just where our corporeal bodies exist at given moment while our minds explore past, present, future. “Remember that,” he said, “and you will never be unhappy.” I try to remember such a thing as I prepare to leave you
.

Ana, you have just sat up in your sleep, talking to a patient, then lay down again. This makes me smile. There is such quality, such depth to you. You do not know yet how to reach it. It is in the darkness waiting. One day it will come to you through work, or love, or sacrifice. Something will challenge you, make you rise to your extreme
.

Einstein said all knowledge floating in the universe will only amount to half of what we are. Half of what I am is that boy born in ice hut in Archangel’sk. Half of me is my parents. And maybe part of me is gangster, stealing, maiming for a living. Part is a young man undressing his wife, watching her turn blue in snow. Flinging her ashes in the air so she will soar forever
.

And part of me is coward. Who then lay down in grief and snow, trying to join Irini in her soaring. Should I tell you my scars were from Afghanistan, when I as mercenary soldier was taken prisoner of war? But I was never soldier. My scars are wild-dog scars. Who knows why I came conscious when he gnawed my frozen flesh? Or how I found strength to fight him while he lunged and danced away with bits of me. All I remember is warm cadaver breath, his mouth of clashing knives. My fingers closing on his throat
.

Farmers found me mummified in frozen blood and insects. They
carved this hard pelt of filth from me and with it came sections of my skin. They bathed my raw flesh in vinegar. Is true, a half-dead man can faint, many times. An old babushka poured oil in my furrows like how in the Bible. And, slowly, in such a way I healed. Sometimes even death does not want us. This is my true history. So maybe part of me is also dog, part insect. These were truths I kept from you. Now you even know my scars. My real name is Nikolai Volenko. I, who have loved you
.

I used to lie beside you full of plans. I would fix my crooked teeth. Learn how to dress. Stop carrying spoon in my pocket. I would eat like human, not a wolf. Would cook for you, keep house for you. Would teach high-school mathematics. I would marry you. We would make love on little beaches in moonlight and would aways cry out so nature thinks we are virgins! Our children would be made in acts of love. Now my exalted dreams abash me. I am only a stranger looking in window. A man passing who leaves his face hanging there with longing
.

I think of St. Petersburg, called Leningrad when my parents were alive. If I begin to feel less well, I will go there. I will want to die there. I will make my way from Moscow, relive their lives for them. Surely as children they were hungry. Did they steal offerings from cemetery graves? Did they suck icicles to quench winter thirst? And did they play the icicles like bells? As lovers, did they crawl half-starved from catacombs of Hermitage, scavenging for food while Germans bombed their city?

Leningrad no longer exists. Renamed Petersburg, is now a city of gangsters. But Leningrad must still exist, because I remember it! I will go and blow dust from its magnificent palaces and cathedrals. I will breathe in moldy air of rivers, parks. My cheeks will shine from light reflected off golden wings of bronze lions on Griboyedov Canal
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Ana, if you think of me, think of me there. Probably I will live to be an old man who sits down to urinate. But if my body begins to fail, if lungs to weaken, I will go where instinct takes me, to my mother and my father’s past
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I want to sit under a special tree in tiny garden, behind old Sheremetievsky Palace on Fontanka Canal in heart of the city. In this garden is a huge old maple tree. Here Anna Akhmatova sat, cold and hungry, writing her poems. If I can see this tree, I will be happy. I will drag my feet through the drowned city of Leningrad, shouting Russian
curses at the past. Your face beside me to correct my grief. I will go out singing Russian songs of joy
.

Maybe one day in some great obscurity we will meet again. We will stroll aimlessly by an endless sea, freed from all things so important to humans which we soon forget. We will talk openly like monks at confession. You will tell me your secrets and I will tell you mine. Then maybe you will finally understand me. I have been living in a world not mine. I have not earned your world. Even so, you thought you could rescue me, and heal me. I did not want just healing. I wanted you to love me. Again, my dreams abash me
.

Already I feel Russia reclaiming me, two squeezing claws of an eagle on my shoulders. I will take very little back. Back there nothing I possess will help me. There are not yet words to describe our new condition. Yet all Russians ever wanted was to be normal, to work, have food for our children. To have a bed, and sleep with our windows open. To talk in our sleep and not be afraid. Was it so much to ask, I wonder? It seems so little
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