Though I could get used to them. Ultimately, these are my past lives. I recognize them: the old lady twirling in front of a mirror; the man gazing at the river; the young woman hugging her pregnant belly; the man crushing out a cigarette butt; the soldier pulling a grenade pin; the naked man cooking breakfast; the little girl staring at the Black Sea; the man dropping to his knees in front of his lover.
They shout, laugh, cry, moan, and sigh … Sometimes I feel like throwing myself open, embracing them, and saying,
But the incorporeal ghosts sway in the stratum of sleep and swirl in the murky corners of my huge apartment.
They’ve already lived their own lives; they’re not rushing, being sold off, drinking up the bitter water of earthly existence, or eating the bitter bread of posthumous exile anymore.
They’re always hungry.
They’re eating me from the inside out. My life is food for those I once was. They’re gnawing at my flesh—and every month blood flows out, attesting that the feast continues, the ghosts are not sated, they are still unhappy.
Every month, following the phases of the moon, plus or minus a day, I receive the same letter:
Dozing off, we hold hands. My Kolya, Kolya-Nikolai. I want to sleep facing you, but every month that gets harder. You might even say we’re sleeping for three, right? Only two months to go—and our bunny will be born. I wonder whether it’ll be a boy or a girl. The old women in the countryside always guessed—based on your walk, the shape of your belly, and other signs.
Just think, it’s been five years and I still can’t get used to the idea that my Berezovka’s gone. True, old Georgich’s great nephew wrote last month saying they were planning to build a state farm in its place. I don’t even know … I guess that’s good. The cows will moo again and the chickens will run around, as if there’d been no war. You just look at it and it’s all so horrible what happened; how are people supposed to live there?
I told Kolya about it, and he said,
Except that we didn’t have any fighters in Berezovka. Foolish Lushka hid two partisans—and that was it.
Nina looks at the street, lined with two-story wooden houses; an invalid on a bench is talking to two old women. The sound from a gramophone reaches her from a neighbor’s window.
This is Moscow, the capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first worker and peasant state in the world. Marina Roshcha.
Nina gazes at her round belly and tries to persuade the boy or girl to hold on a little longer and not kick but lie quietly. The doctor said she could talk to him already. Or her?
Nina’s waiting for her husband. She sits home for days on end, afraid to go out. Even in the daytime they could attack her on the street, take her money away, or just strip her. They could jam a knife into her, or a bullet. There are an awful lot of thieves.
Kolya says it all started after the war. Before, Moscow was different. But now that people have been taught to kill, they just can’t stop.
Nina doesn’t know how to kill. She only knows how to hide so she won’t die.
For two months she hid in the forests, surviving on berries and occasionally digging up potatoes in Berezovka’s charred gardens. At the sound of an engine she would fall to the ground, perfectly still.
Nina loved walking in the forest before. Her mama would laugh and call her
Her mother burned up along with the rest of the village.
