‘I wouldn’t want to live in this building,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’ She tried to smile, but I could see something was bothering her.
The waiter brought us bowls of miso soup. I held mine with two hands and looked out the window. I could see the traffic thickening, cars crawling across the bridge with their windows open, then the river, dark and silent. The glass was thick and I could not hear the traffic or feel the heat. Like watching a silent movie.
‘We need to talk,’ Tatyana said.
This was unusual. Tatyana and I never needed to talk, at least not the kind of talk that needed to be announced. It had crossed my mind, walking in the heat on my way to Ris i Ryba, that she might want to discuss something in particular. Why hadn’t she suggested lunch before she left for work that morning? In fact, I had felt a slight distancing in the last few days, a small drop in the temperature of our relationship, as if she were holding something against me. Nothing dramatic, just the tone of her voice or the way she wouldn’t follow up on a conversation I initiated.
Perhaps Tatyana was about to suggest moving into my apartment on weekends as well, fully taking over what was once my separate life. I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up. I took a sip of miso soup and I prepared myself to defend the nature of our arrangement, to repel any threats to the status quo.
Tatyana left her bowl of soup on the table and held my hand. Her hand was warm from the soup.
‘Martin, I’m temporarily,’ she said, with a shaky voice, then stopped and looked at me, waiting for a reaction.
‘In what sense?’
‘You heard me.’
‘I don’t think I understood.’
Tatyana tried to smile. ‘You did.’
‘I didn’t,’ I said, a bit irritated. ‘Temporarily what?’
At that moment the waiter brought our plates of salmon roll and chicken and two small bowls of seaweed salad. I took a pair of wooden chopsticks from their paper wrapping, split them and offered them to Tatyana. She accepted them with two hands, somewhat ceremoniously.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. In case I still didn’t understand, she added, ‘With a baby in my belly.’
That’s when I really learned the difference between vremennaya, with a v, temporarily, and beremennaya, with a b, pregnant.
I saw that the line of cars was now stuck on the bridge, inching towards the centre, their exhaust pipes expelling smoke into the hot Moscow air. Old soviet cars, Ladas and Volgas, and new German cars owned by rich Russians. I could now recognise luxury models, at least those sold at Stepanov’s dealership.
‘How do you know?’ I said, turning to Tatyana.
‘Women know these things.’
‘Have you been to a doctor?’
Tatyana’s lips were shiny, the sunlight reflected on her lip-gloss. ‘I took a test. I’m probably five or six weeks pregnant.’
‘And you are sure it’s mine?’
‘Why do you even have to ask? You know you’re the only man in my life.’
Giving myself time to think, I gazed at the river, focusing my eyes on the closest of the fountains. The water was pumped high into the air, with strength, and, in the cloud of falling drizzle, I could discern the timid shades of a rainbow.
Gradually, Tatyana’s words started to become a reality, the concept of her pregnancy growing in my head, like a balloon inflating and occupying all the corners of my mind. But I wasn’t exactly thinking about the life-shattering implications of the news, or pondering our options. For some reason, I found my mind preoccupied with Tatyana’s teeth, the one imperfection on her face. It occurred to me that perhaps I should take Tatyana to the international medical centre and have her front teeth fixed.
When I looked back, Tatyana’s face was red.
I held her hand. ‘Everything will be OK,’ I said.
She smiled.
Sunlight illuminated her from behind, a halo of bright light forming around her loose golden hair. She looked prettier than ever.
I kissed Tatyana across the table.
‘Who have you told about this?’ I asked.
‘Nobody, I only found out this weekend. My breasts hurt a bit, and I was late, so I bought the test.’
‘I thought we had been careful,’ I said.
‘Most of the time. These things happen. It must have been at the dacha, in the forest. Remember?’
‘But you said it was safe.’
‘Martin, I’m a grown woman. I want to have the baby.’
‘We didn’t plan this,’ I said.
‘You can’t plan everything in life.’
A long-ago memory from a rainy day was now casting a shadow over my thoughts. ‘Sudba,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ Tatyana smiled. ‘It’s destiny.’
The food remained on the table, untouched. The waiter came to ask if everything was OK.
‘Everything’s good,’ I said. Then, turning to Tatyana, I repeated, ‘Everything’s good.’
I looked at my sushi roll, poked at it with my chopsticks, unable to eat. When I looked up, Tatyana was having a go at her chicken.
58
SATURDAY MORNING, THE RAIN is streaming down the old windows of my Amsterdam flat. At the dining table, under the dim light of a shaky floor lamp, Katya and I are having breakfast. Moscow is, at this point, nothing but a remote possibility. We finish our omelette, discuss our plans for the weekend and, over a second cup of tea, Katya says, ‘Martin, I’m pregnant.’
I remember the moment clearly because, later on, after she’d left me, I went back to it often, and the memory of that morning had a particular way of making me miserable. Katya is wearing a green Adidas T-shirt she used to borrow from me. We’ve placed a brick under the windowpane to lift the heavy wooden frame a little and let a fresh breeze into the flat. A few raindrops drip onto the carpet, but Katya says it’s OK, leave the window open for a while. We’re listening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a CD from Katya’s small, classical-oriented music collection. She has just refilled our mugs with boiling water, not bothering to replace the used tea bags.
It’s funny how the same episode of one’s own life, viewed from different moments in time, acquires a different significance. Later on, after she’d left, I saw that morning, and Katya’s pregnancy, not as a storm threatening to wreck my existence, but as a missed opportunity to start a new life.
But when she makes the announcement all I know is that Katya and I are not going to stay together much longer. Even if we haven’t worked out the details of our separation — or indeed spoken about it — we’re both aware that our cohabitation is a convenient and temporary arrangement, that, sooner or later, Amsterdam will come to an end. As far as I understand, we’re both fine with this.
‘This was not planned,’ I say, once I’ve realised the gravity of the situation.
‘So what?’ Katya says. ‘We can go ahead with it. I was planning to have children some day. It’s as good a moment as any.’ She’s sitting upright, holding the cup of tea with two hands, her long black hair cascading over the green T-shirt. Her tone is neutral,her voice and body language unchanged from our previous conversation.
‘But we hadn’t planned this,’ I insist.
‘You can’t plan everything in life,’ she says. ‘It’s destiny.’
In the beginning, when Katya had just moved into my flat, she had mentioned a couple of times the possibility of a long-term relationship, even hinting at marriage. But I hadn’t shown much enthusiasm for the idea and she’d never raised the issue again. Until that rainy Saturday morning.
‘You can choose your own destiny,’ I reply. I stand up, overcome by an urge to clear breakfast leftovers from the table. ‘There are so many things I want to do.’