Andrei takes it from her. ‘How old is this, Anna?’
‘I don’t know. We’ve always had it.’
‘From last century, I’d say.’ Andrei turns the lid around and then picks up the base and scrutinizes it. ‘The writing on the bottom is English.’
‘Oh my God, it’s a capitalist biscuit tin. Just as well we’re going to bury it. Let’s see if the manuscripts will fit.’
The tin is large and square, but of course all the manuscripts can’t possibly fit into it. There are wads of stories and poems, half finished and scored through with corrections. Anna packs in as much as she can, crams on the lid, and seals it with tape. Andrei weights the remaining pile in his hands.
‘I’ll ask around for some oilcloth at the hospital. If it’s tightly wrapped it’ll be all right. How important is this stuff, Anna? Are there copies?’
Anna is taken aback by his question. No one ever asked whether or not her father’s writing was important, in all the years that she was growing up. It was taken for granted, like the sun in the sky. Whether it was published or not made no difference: plenty of books were written ‘for the drawer’. She had never asked herself – had never had to ask herself – whether her father was actually a good writer or not.
‘His diary was good,’ Andrei continues thoughtfully.
‘How do you know?’ she snaps out.
‘He read out an extract one evening, when we were sitting by the campfire. You know, when we were in the People’s Volunteers. It was nothing much, just a description of a deserted farm, but I’ve never forgotten it. He could make you see things. There’d have been a lot of fine stuff in those diaries.’
Andrei looks at the familiar handwriting, and remembers the first time he met Anna’s father. For some reason he’d blurted out, ‘My father is also called Mikhail,’ and then blushed. But there was a connection between them from that moment.
‘He wrote his diary every day, didn’t he?’ he says now. ‘He never failed.’
‘No,’ says Anna.
‘Pity they’ve disappeared. He must have destroyed them before he died. Or else he got Marina to promise him she’d do it.’
Anna turns away. This is the moment to tell him, if she’s going to, but she already knows that she won’t.
Goodbye to the English skaters, goodbye to all those manuscripts her father had slaved over and never seen published.
‘Better get this lot out of sight before Kolya comes back,’ says Andrei.
9
Lyuba has just finished wrapping Gorya’s stump. It’s a long business. First the wound dressing has to be changed, and the stump examined minutely for signs of healing or infection. Dr Brodskaya’s directions are specific, down to the precise width of the elastic bandage and the siting of safety pins and adhesive tape. Lyuba takes pride in carrying out the doctor’s instructions to the letter. Brodskaya’s not a nit-picker; she thinks like a nurse and she knows that if you put the safety pin in the wrong place it will chafe the patient’s other leg.
Lyuba hasn’t worked with Brodskaya before, because Brodskaya’s not usually in Paediatrics, but you can see straight away that she’s not just good, but tough too. The best sort, Lyuba thinks. She can’t stand any kind of sloppiness herself. It was Brodskaya who got the private nurse taken off the job. ‘She’s not qualified to carry out this level of care.’ Everyone on the ward was talking about it when Lyuba arrived that morning.
The poor kid would be better off in the main ward, in Lyuba’s opinion. There’s no chance of forgetting about yourself when you’re all on your own. It just goes to show that the high-ups, for all their privileges, don’t always get what’s best. Anyway, as far as she’s concerned the boy is just a boy. She’s not going to think about who his father is – or at least, not unless she has to.
The mother’s useless. She fusses all the time and comes in with swollen eyes, complaining about her bad nights. Just what Gorya needs to hear. She’s probably not all that bright either. According to her, her little boy should just lie nice and still and get better that way. With his stump covered up in bedclothes, so she doesn’t have to see it.
But Brodskaya wasn’t having any nonsense. She came in a couple of days ago just when Polina Vasilievna was spooning porridge into Gorya’s mouth – or trying to do so, at least. Gorya kept his lips pressed together, as mutinous as a two-year-old. Lyuba had to laugh, looking at the pair of them – although of course she didn’t, not aloud.
‘Please put that spoon down, Mother,’ said Brodskaya in a voice so clipped and clear that Polina Vasilievna immediately dropped the spoon, turned red even through all her make-up, and started to sulk just like her son.
Brodskaya went through the rehabilitation plan while Mum sat there goggling. No one is to assist Gorya with his basic functions. He can perfectly well manage the bed-bottle himself, and tomorrow he’ll be getting himself from wheelchair to toilet with the assistance of the support pole. The physiotherapist will be on hand to teach him the correct technique. The aim is to get Gorya doing as much for himself as he can. Gorya’s exercises must be done exactly as directed, and at exactly the times on the exercise sheet. Painful? The correct level of analgesia will be prescribed at each stage. The physiotherapist will be in at two o’clock. The aim is to keep stump oedema to a minimum. Flexion of the hips from the earliest stage is crucial for later mobility. Gorya’s exercises are designed to minimize the possibility of contracture.
Brodskaya went on and on, but Lyuba could tell that Polina Vasilievna wasn’t really taking it in. Partly it was because she didn’t understand the doctor’s language, but mostly it was because she’s mulish. The sort who’ll put up with the doctor’s instructions just as long as the boy’s in hospital, but all the time she’ll be planning to ‘do things her own way’ as soon as she gets Gorya home. She’ll turn him into an invalid by thinking he is one. As for the father – well, Lyuba keeps her eyes down when Volkov’s in the room.
Andrei Mikhailovich came in later and went through pretty much everything Brodskaya had said, but he put it into words everyone could understand, even Gorya. It was Gorya he talked to the whole time. He’s good with children. Fair play to Brodskaya, though, she’s not a paediatrician. It’s different with Andrei Mikhailovich. He even had the mother nodding her head and agreeing that it wouldn’t be long before Gorya was on the parallel bars in the hospital gym and learning to walk again. Gorya relaxed, too. As far as Andrei Mikhailovich was concerned, it was perfectly normal to have a stump. Of course there were going to be problems, but each of them could be sorted out, one day at a time. Gorya’s hard work and commitment were the key to everything. Lyuba could tell that the boy liked that. He was sick of having things done to him, and his mother hanging over him, going on and on about what a tragedy the whole thing was for her poor little boy.
‘Your level of fitness is going to help you, Gorya. You’ll have lost a bit because of the operation, but people who’ve got good basic fitness get mobile really quickly. And once your stump’s healed we’ll be looking at the best kind of prosthesis for you. You remember what a prosthesis is?’
‘It’s a false leg.’
‘Yes, but that’s not really an accurate description. It’s not a false anything. It’s a real prosthesis and it’s going to open up your life.’
Gorya’s eyes were fixed on the doctor’s face.
Poor kid. The tough time comes when they go out. In hospital people don’t stare. Everyone’s got something wrong with them, and often it’s worse than an amputation. Well, thinks Lyuba, you can’t do anything about the world. The thing is to be sure your bandage is perfectly smooth and just tight enough to support without too much compression.
‘There,’ she says to Gorya, smiling, ‘my masterpiece is finished. Now let’s get you comfortable. You remember, Dr Alekseyev’s coming in again after his clinic, before you see the physio. Now, where’s that book of yours?’
‘Under the bed.’
‘Did you just throw it und
er there, young man?’
‘I did when Dr Brodskaya came. I didn’t want her to see it.’
‘That’s no way to treat a book –’ She bends down and retrieves it. ‘There you are.’
It must have cost a fortune, that book. Great Engines of the Soviet Union. Thick, glossy pages, full of photographs and information. She riffles the pages. It looks a bit technical for a child of his age.
‘Do you understand all this, Gorya?’
‘Course I do!’
‘Then you’re cleverer than I am. Here you are. Going to be an engineer when you grow up, are you?’
‘I don’t know.’ His face clouds. She knows what he’s thinking.
‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ she says briskly, ‘if you work hard and get your qualifications. We need engineers. Now, let me have a look at those hands … Even lying in bed you get dirty hands. Wait while I bring you a bowl of water and your flannel and you can give yourself a good wash.’
It’s not until six days after the operation that Andrei sees Volkov again. He’s intending to pop in and see Gorya on his way back from a lecture on gold therapy, but Gorya’s room is empty. The bed has been made, with the sheets and blankets pulled back. He looks up and down the corridor and at that moment Volkov appears, pushing his son in a wheelchair. He doesn’t notice Andrei, because he’s leaning forward to listen to something Gorya’s saying. Their heads are close and their hair is almost exactly the same colour. Volkov looks up, sees Andrei and acknowledges him with a nod.
‘We’ve been to the gym,’ says Gorya. ‘I’m not allowed on the parallel bars yet so we just had to look at them. There was a girl like me, only she lost her leg when she fell under a tram. She’s got a new leg. Her leg was cut off even higher than mine, she told me. She’s not in hospital any more, but she comes in for physio.’
There’s a touch of colour in his face. Lyuba would have suggested going to the gym, thinks Andrei. She believes it’s bad for Gorya to be stuck in a room on his own, not seeing how the other children manage. ‘Let him see there are plenty worse off than he is. He’ll soon be racing them on his crutches.’
‘That’s good. Now, are you going to show your father how you get out of that wheelchair and into bed?’ asks Andrei.
‘No need for that,’ says Volkov. ‘I can lift him.’
‘He knows how to do it. It’s quite a complicated technique but Gorya’s a quick learner.’
Volkov frowns, but doesn’t resist. They back the wheelchair parallel to the bed, and lock the wheels.
‘Now, Gorya, remember: step one.’
Gorya grips the wheelchair’s arms. Slowly, he levers his own weight upwards.
‘Foot off the footrest. Good. Now let your weight go down on to it. Slowly. Shuffle your bottom forward, remember. Good. And now here’s your right crutch. Got it? And the left one coming up. Ends of the crutch firmly on the floor. Test them. That’s right, you remembered. And now, slowly, up you come. Good, Gorya, much better than yesterday. Stand still while I get the wheelchair out of your way. Excellent. Now you turn until the back of your leg touches the bed. Don’t worry about looking round, the bed’s not going anywhere. Let yourself down. Good. Sit back as far as you can. Check you’re in position. Slowly, move yourself round, bring your leg up and use it to push yourself up the bed a little. Well done. Have a rest now, that was pretty tiring.’
Andrei adjusts the cage over Gorya’s stump, and then brings up the bedclothes. The boy slides a sideways glance at his father. He wants praise, doesn’t Volkov see that?
‘Gorya’s working very hard,’ says Andrei at last, to break the silence. ‘The quicker he can regain his fitness, the sooner he’ll be fully mobile.’
‘How long will that be?’ asks Volkov abruptly.
‘His wound is healing well. Dr Brodskaya’s very satisfied with his progress.’
Volkov makes an impatient gesture. ‘It’s you I’m talking to. My son is no longer Dr Brodskaya’s patient.’
Andrei looks at him. Does he means that he’s spoken to Brodskaya – maybe even dismissed her, as you’d dismiss a servant? No, that’s impossible.
‘Excuse me,’ he says quietly, ‘it’s vital that Dr Brodskaya continues her post-operative care.’
Volkov does not reply. Gorya has shut his eyes. Andrei knows him well enough by now to realize that this means Gorya wants to block out what’s happening. Why couldn’t Volkov have praised him? A few words, that’s all it would have taken. The boy wants so much to please his father.
‘Gorya,’ he says, ‘I have to go now. Remember about lying on your stomach for a while, won’t you? Use the correct technique for rolling yourself over, and then you won’t put pressure on your stump.’
He uses the word ‘stump’ deliberately. It’s no good for the child to hear euphemisms, as if the reality of his body is too obscene to be named. Of course Volkov cares about the boy. Any fool can see that. But how is Gorya supposed to know that his father isn’t angry with him, but with the rest of the world that is still walking around on two legs? If you want to turn your boy into a cripple, thinks Andrei furiously, just carry on like this.
Sunday is bright but cool, with a few high clouds scudding in a sky the colour of a blackbird’s egg. Perfect for cycling out to the dacha. Anna cooks porridge for everyone, and packs bread, tea and sausage. Her panniers are full. As well as their own food, she’s bringing goods to barter: four tins of sardines, a bag of cooking salt, a couple of school exercise books, some HB pencils, and – the big prize –the bar of Petersburg Nights Special Chocolate that the Parents’ Committee gave to her on May Day. She has high hopes for what that chocolate will bring. Anna is never without her string bags, and an eye for what can be bought in the city and exchanged for butter, fresh milk, seed potatoes or a piece of pork.
For once Kolya doesn’t grumble at being turfed out of bed early, and by eight o’clock they are on their way. The wind of their passage lifts Anna’s hair as the scarred, exhausted city streets fly past them. The breeze is from the west today, and smells faintly of salt. It’s one of those mornings when gulls wheel lazily overhead and the city is like a ship about to launch itself on to the Baltic.
It doesn’t take too long to reach the edge of the city. Andrei says all this land is earmarked for housing. Nothing’s happened yet, but huge developments are going to be built all around Leningrad, to house the surge of migrants who came in post-war. To replace the ghosts, Anna thinks. She remembers how empty the city was when at last the siege was lifted. Since then people have poured in from all over the Soviet Union, looking for work and a place to live. The streets are full of strangers now, not half-familiar faces. But Leningrad knows how to make the newcomers its own, just as it’s always known how to transform each newborn baby into a child of the city.
She often thinks about the nursery children from before the war. She took it for granted then that they would grow up and that every so often she’d be stopped in the streets by a mother with an older child, dressed for school. ‘Do you remember our Nastya? Yes, I knew you would! She still remembers you teaching her “Magpie, Magpie”.’
Most of them didn’t grow up, and those who survived are scattered. Starved, shelled, sent off on evacuation trains that were bombed from the air, killed in German reprisals, orphaned and taken into children’s homes so that they forgot their parents and homes and even their own names. Very often those pre-war three-and four-year-olds rise into her mind, watering their sunflowers with proud concentration. ‘Mine’s the biggest!’ ‘No, it’s not, Petya’s is the biggest. It nearly touches the sky!’ They fly across the playground in a game of chase, shrieking with laughter. They arrive at the nursery on freezing mornings, their faces glazed with snot, and she helps to unpack them from their layers. She rubs Vaseline into their chapped cheeks.
Other children have taken their place. New little Leningraders play in the courtyards and fill up the schools. Anna glances around at the flat, marshy land with its scrub of birch an
d larch. It seems impossible that the city can really grow outward as far as this. People would be living so far from the centre that they’d have to get up at dawn to come into work. The thing about her city is that you learn it through the soles of your shoes. You walk it, day after day and year after year. From the day you are born you learn every possible permutation of bridge, water, stone, sky. Your own life becomes part of the alchemy. You’re born, and soon you’ll die, but meanwhile and for ever you’re a Leningrader.
‘Andrei! Kolya! Wait for me a moment!’
She cycles around a pothole. There are sharp stones all over the road and she has to swerve to avoid punctures. Has she remembered her repair kit? Yes, she put it at the bottom of her left-hand pannier. Andrei’s got the pump. It’s really warm now and she’s sweating. You’d think those two were in a bike race, the way they rush on ahead.
It’s beautiful here. Lots of people wouldn’t think it was. But when you’ve hunted mushrooms in the woods year after year, and you know all the best places; when you’ve fished every pool and stream and know where the trout hide on the stony bed while water ripples over their backs; when you’re covered with scratches from foraging for berries; when you come home dusty, sweaty and triumphant with a load of firewood; when the marshes have sucked at your boots as you’ve jumped from tuft to tuft; then you love it with all your heart. You want it to live for ever. Your own death doesn’t seem to matter as much.
But people need somewhere to live. They are crammed in, three families to an apartment. What if she had to share an apartment with the Maleviches? The thought makes her shudder, but it could easily happen. Plenty of people have to live in a nest of voluntary spies, with every word censored and every thought concealed. Or they live worn down by constant rows about slivers of household soap and by accusations of bringing up their children like hooligans because they make the normal noise of children. She’s had nursery mothers break down in tears after a vicious early-morning row over spending too long in the bathroom with the children.