“I know all the arguments. Of course you’ll say it’s a good opportunity, and it is. But I can’t think about coming home, after my day, and opening that book and taking notes for hours on end. Three, four, five years of this. Already I can’t face that thought.”
“But you said you never get to use your brain. You’d be pushing yourself, thinking in a new way. That’s good, surely?”
“I don’t have a natural aptitude for it. I could do it, but I’d have to grind it out. I’d have to study harder than most other people.”
“And there’d be classes. You enjoy classes. Other engineers with opinions, curiosity.”
“But I already have classes. They respect me in the Lomonosov. There’s talk of giving me more hours—even a junior position. I was hoping that by next year they’d offer me some lectures, give me a research brief. You want to know about longer term, the Lomonosov is longer term. It holds more possibilities than being another clipboard holder in a factory. And it wouldn’t take years of drudgery.”
“And now this.”
“And now this.”
“We can’t do without your teaching money for a few years. There’s only so much ironing that will fit in this place.”
They both look around. There are stacks of finely pressed sheets everywhere. They have to tiptoe around them. Shirts hang from a specially constructed rail, dozens of them. They sit in a sea of cotton and polyester.
“They’re saying, ‘We own you, you can’t do something else.’”
“Well, maybe show them your fidelity, prove your love to them, they might move on to some other person.”
“So I make a gesture?”
“Yes. Show how it benefits them to have you do other things. Show them you bring them something of benefit. You’re cultured. They respect culture. Bring that to them in some way.”
“What about a recital? If they come and they like it, they donate. Use it to get Zhenya a rehearsal room. It might even brighten everyone up a bit.”
“So then. Zhenya will play.”
“You know how he is, though. Maybe he can’t handle it.”
“It’s for his aunt. If I asked, maybe not; but you, he’d learn to walk on his hands for you.”
They finish their tea and unfold Maria’s bed and Alina helps her to change her sheets and pillowcase and they turn off the lights and settle down in their separate rooms and think about how they’ve survived together. No husbands or parents to rely on. If they disagree on their past, then they disagree on their past. It can’t separate them. And each of them thinks how good it is to have a sister.
In the morning Maria walks across the courtyard and watches the watchers. Curtains flick overhead, figures stepping away from the glass. Nothing that happens in this stretch of land goes unseen. She steps over the kerbstones that are half painted, a job which the maintenance men occupied themselves with for a few days, before finding some other distraction.
She hasn’t slept well, her mind ticking over after her conversation with Alina and then one thing leading to another, thoughts whirring uncontrollably in the dark. When this happens, which isn’t often, she thinks of it as her mind unspooling, all those blank working hours being cast out, reclaiming their freedom.
She passes a car with brown tape in place of a back window. There are great mounds of uncollected rubbish on the sides of the pomoyka. Plastic bags stacked upon plastic bags. The children use them as combat shelters for their snowball fights, and she can conjure up the sour stench that will rise again when the snow melts and the air heats. The smell of a new spring.
Children adapt.
They take an untreated football pitch and use it as an obstacle course. They play volleyball with taped-up wads of newspaper. They don’t have basketball hoops here, so they kick the seats out of old kitchen chairs and lash them to drainpipes. They spend their young lives inventing games with stratified, nuanced, ingenious rules and spend their adult lives resenting the constraints around them.
The bus steams up and bobbles to a stop.
Maria looks at bare branches set against the sky, lines running into one another, sturdy boughs tapering off into a fine filigree.
She wants to make love on a warm night with moonlight shimmering down rain-slicked streets.
When Mr. Shalamov arrives Maria’s waiting in the armchair outside his office. The secretary refuses to look at her, resenting her intrusion. A different species from the people that inhabit these rooms, with their well-cut suits. Even the secretary in a matching jacket and skirt. Maria wonders if the secretary changes into her work clothes, just like everyone else. Surely she can’t wear a skirt like that outside in such cold, even with thick tights on. She can’t have a locker room, and Maria thinks of her changing in the management toilets, rising in status as soon as she slips on the soft material, and in the evening shedding that skin again, becoming just another nameless face, sneaking onto the bus home, averting her eyes, hoping that she won’t see a worker she recognizes. Or more likely she feeds off the high-powered lives that surround her, massaging their bodies as well as their egos, sharing their beds.
Maria stands and speaks before the secretary has a chance to interject.
“Mr. Shalamov.”
He stops and looks at her and then looks at the secretary.
“I’m sorry to intrude. I just wanted to continue our conversation from yesterday evening.”
A glaze in his eyes. She can tell he doesn’t recognize her.
“We talked about the Lomonosov.”
He turns when recollection strikes him.
“Yes. We’ll pick the matter up another time. Anya will set up an appointment. You’ll be notified.”
His back is to her and he’s moving towards his office door. She rattles off her prepared lines.
“I would like to make amends for my lack of participation in some of our previous cultural activities, I have a suggestion for an event that would be good for morale.”
He stops and turns.
“Is there a problem with morale?”
His voice is icy. He’s focusing intently on her. A cool, dispassionate glare.
Maria’s nervousness melts away, instinct kicks in. She’s faced a look like this dozens of times, someone uncertain about her intentions. She slows her pace, lifts her shoulders, talks to him clearly and warmly, like an equal.
“Let me begin again. My nephew is a talented pianist, a candidate for the Conservatory. I’d like to arrange a concert, in recognition of the abilities that are nurtured here. So many of our workers are gifted. Of course, you’re in a better position than anybody to recognize this. I would like to arrange an evening in celebration of such great talents, an evening that honours the efforts of the simple worker, our ability to work in harmony. Perhaps some Prokofiev sonatas.”
He nods, taking in her words.
“A fine suggestion Mrs.…”
“Brovkina.”
“Mrs. Brovkina, but perhaps now is not the right time.”
“I should mention that my nephew is nine years old. The evening could function as a symbol of our potential.”
“Nine years old. The child can play Prokofiev?”
“Yes, sir. He’ll be auditioning for the Conservatory in the spring.”
He looks at the floor and looks up again.
“I’ll think about it. As you say, such an event may contain a powerful symbolism. And we do our best to support talents, in whatever form they appear. I’ll discuss it with our director of culture.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He turns in to his office. The secretary looks at her. Maria smiles.
“Thank you for your patience.”