The Time Of Women

I. The Mother-2

She was growing up smart – not a bumpkin like me. She drew pictures a lot. She learnt the alphabet at four. She understood everything. But wouldn’t talk. She turned five, then six, and still wouldn’t talk.

It was all my fault anyway. I kept silent until my belly started to stick out.

They transfer pregnant women to other shop floors at the factory. You can bring a certificate from the health clinic and they’ll transfer you out of the hazardous jobs. Give you a position as a cleaning woman or at the storehouse. The married ones don’t mind telling. Why would they? They’re in the right. But people like me… how can you admit it? It’s shameful…

Before the decree came out, you weren’t even allowed to think about an abortion. If you get knocked up, you have the baby. But no one could keep the girls from doing it. At the first alarm, they’d get rid of it in secret. One, they say, really took to it. The guys joked that she tired out a whole team of workers, b***h. Well, she wasn’t bothered – she lies in bed for a little while, gives it a rest and she’s at it again. Two girls died, though, they say. From blood poisoning, it seems. Now the decree came out, you can do it every year if you must. It’s still scary, of course: they make it hurt as much as possible. But there wasn’t much to be done. So I made up my mind.

I went to the hospital, but the doctor said: “It’s too late now. It’s too far along. You’ll have to have it.”

So I got some pills from the chemist. I thought I’d miscarry if I took them. I took them for a week. But no…

She turned three, and I took her to the clinic. The doctor examined her mouth, spread some pictures on the table. It seems that everything is all right, she said. She hears, she understands. It’s some kind of developmental delay.You’ve got to wait, she may start talking.

She said there was a professor in Moscow. That means I have to take her there. And where do I get the money to do that from, I wonder? As it is, I can hardly make ends meet from one paycheck to the next…

At first I cried a lot: I thought she’d grow up to be a freak… I can’t send her to school or summer camp. And the worst thing is, she won’t have a family. Who’ll marry a mute? She’ll die an old maid. Unless she finds a mute like herself.

The grannies, thanks a lot, tried to comfort me.. Everything is in the hand of God. When the time comes she’ll talk. But sometimes, you’re just walking along the street. And all around, you hear other people’s children talking. Your heart contracts and you turn away, swallowing tears.

The grannies advise me: don’t you talk about it at work. If they ask you, say everything is fine. People have long tongues, evil tongues. All woes come from tongues. They’ll tell you they sympathize with you to your face but behind your back, who knows? They may slander you.

“Would you like some cabbage soup?”

They would. Soup is good for you. I got a nice piece of meat yesterday at the grocery store on the square. Brisket. With fat on it, the way they like it. And with the bone. It’s a good marrowbone. “Leave the marrow for the little one,” they say. “We’ll do without it…”

I have basins in the corner, with linen soaking. I’ll leave it there until the evening now, until after the shift.

No one knows about the grannies. I said I had sent for my mother from the country, and she is the one looking after the child. Zoya Ivanovna asked me about it too. No, I say, she doesn’t get sick at home. And she says: it’s all right while she’s a baby, but when she grows up a bit you should send her to kindergarten, to be among other kids. Because, she said, she’ll have a bad time at school if she’s not used to being with other children. I thought about it. Maybe she will be more at ease with other kids after all. She might come out of her shell and play and start talking. The grannies never let me, though. Leave her at home, they said. There’ll be plenty of time for her to suffer later on. And now they’ve thought up a new one: they want to take her to the theatre.

To a New Year show, I ask them5? I got the ticket already. They were giving them out to everybody with kids. I got the ticket out, showed them. A coupon comes with the ticket. Santa Claus gives out candy, sweets of all kinds, wafers. Santa Claus is all very well, of course, but it’s really the factory that pays. On the shop floor, they say that it’s a good present. They put in some chocolate too. We never buy it. She doesn’t know what it is. I get soy bars or caramels from time to time…

The grannies looked at the ticket and said – No. You’ll go get the present yourself. But she won’t go. She’s going to another theatre, the Mariinsky. And she doesn’t need a ticket, they’ll let her in without it. They have a friend there. They go to church together. She’ll let her in, find a seat for her and look after her. The friend doesn’t have anybody either: no children, no grandchildren.

They told me to get her a suit: a woollen, Chinese one. A jacket with buttons, tights and a hat. All children have them, they say. It must be expensive, – about six rubles. And ribbons for her braids. Silk ones, of a matching colour.

Can they be nylon, I ask. No, they say.The nylon kind split at the ends. The ribbons she wears at home are soft, the grannies make them out of old rags.

We gathered for early tea in the kitchen. Here, before the child wakened, we discussed all the important matters, and made our plans. The day started with a dark dawn, like a long age. Daytime was a long road that rolled on, glancing back at striped milestones that fell behind – once and for all.

At nine it’s time to get up, get dressed, and wash. At ten, there’s a story on the radio. Lunch at two. After lunch, it’s naptime: you don’t have to sleep, but you’ve got to lie down for a while anyway.

Between the milestones, depending on the weather, there were things to do. The most important one was to take a walk. Here time would slow down and resign itself to the yearly cycle – like it does in the country.

In the spring we’d go to the little park near the Lion bridge. They close the gardens at this time of year to dry them out, because it’s too muddy. In the autumn, to the park near Saint Nikolai6 Cathedral: to walk under the oaks by the railing where there are a lot of acorns. In October, the maples shed their leaves. You walk, and the dead leaves rustle under your feet… In November, the first snow falls.

In winter, also to Saint Nikolai Cathedral, or to Soldiers garden. The slide there is so high… Children line up to go down the slide – on a sled or without it. We have a sled, and it’s old and good. But we didn’t let our little girl ride on it much. And we learned to walk along the edge, away from other people. With other kids, it was a real pain: “Is your girl a deaf-mute?” It was easier in summer, as there weren’t so many of them – some went to the country, some to summer camps.

Here, at the table, just after we got the baby, we all came to an agreement: the first thing was to baptise her. In secret, without the mother’s consent. She didn’t have a word in these matters. Thank God, we knew the bell-ringer at the Saint Nikolai Cathedral. He’s deaf, but understands everything. He agreed to talk to the priest, and ask him to come to the home.

She was called Suzanna in the birth certificate. What an unchristian name, God forgive us. In the olden days, they called whores that, so as not to dishonour the names of the patron saints… And now her own mother called her that – a name for a dog…

We thought and thought, and leafed through the church calendar. There are too many good names to count, but you can’t just take the first one you come across. Father Innokenty said: search for something resembling the birth certificate. You can choose by meaning, or by the first letter.

Glikeria came up with Serafima…. No. We decided to call her in honor of Saint Sofia.

In the evening when her mother was present we avoided calling her by name: her, for her, she. In the daytime we called her lovingly – Sofyushka. Among ourselves – Sofia.

Father asked: is anyone called Vera, Nadezhda, or Lubov7? She would be the godmother then so they could celebrate the Saint’s day together. We shook our heads: no. No Lubov, no Nadezhda, no Vera. While deciding, we almost had a fight over it. There can only be one godmother. And she’s the one that answers to God. The godmother is family, and so the rest of us will be…what – strangers? Father Innokenty made peace between us. God, he said, will hold each of you responsible in turn. The one who goes to Him first will be the first to answer.

And then it was hard to know whether to laugh or cry: we started comparing our illnesses. One had a bad heart, one could barely walk. Father Innokenty said: people cannot know when their time will come. Sometimes it happens that God takes the young and healthy but leaves the old and sick. Can one see into His design? We agreed. We remembered the young and healthy. Our own young and healthy.

As it turned out, Yevdokia Timofeevna had a baptismal shirt in her chest of drawers. It was amazing that it was still there after so many years. It had belonged to her elder son, Vasiliy. Even his bones had decayed long ago, but the shirt was still there.

The fabric was thin, as light as air: an angel’s garment. The lacework was a little crumpled though, like fallen-out feathers. Her grandson had had not been able to use it. Her son and daughter-in- law didn’t let her baptise him. They had their own religion, they said.

Her son became a big shot. “The people today are no match for me,” he said proudly. “I’ve been with the Bolsheviks ever since the Civil War.”

She didn’t dare to do it secretly. She was afraid of getting them into trouble.

We’re building a new life, they laughed at her, and you still long for the old times. You want to drag us back to the Tsarist past. Back on the old road. There’s no way back, and your religion is opium.

The things they’d come up with! Opium is sold at the chemist – the doctor prescribes it for pain. And the daughter-in-law chimes in with him. Look around you, mother. It’s too late for me to look around, I say. You look around. You’ll have to live this life. Then, before they had time to look around, they were taken away. And that was it, they disappeared in their Communism. Thank God, they didn’t take the grandson: the other grandmother took him.

A couple of months went by, then on Trinity Sunday I took a present I’d managed to save up, and went to see my grandson. And, stealing a minute when the boy went out to play in the courtyard, I brought the topic up. Let’s go together, I said. He’ll grow up to be a heathen. What a sin! The other grandmother grew frightened : “Don’t you even think about it! If somebody finds out, they’ll come for him straight away. And they’ll lock him up in an orphanage. He’ll never come out of it.”