She didn’t say anything.
That night, toward morning, the light of an unusually bright full moon flooded the room. He tried hard to convince himself that he was asleep, but in reality was laying wide awake with a deathly weight on his chest, hugging the precious body next to him — and then she woke suddenly with a scream.
He wasn’t able to calm her down, even though he was able to pull her into his lap, stroke her hair and her ribcage and knobby knees. She sat there, curled into a ball, and whispered that she’d sensed an evil in the room!
The devil had been in the room. Andrejs rubbed her back and tried to calm her, said the devil didn’t exist, it was something people had made up, but she cried and told him her dream: she and Aksels had been standing high up on a hill, everything was green and happy, and there was a rainbow behind them. But when they had taken each other by the hand, gashes appeared on their palms and blood streamed onto the ground.
Jesus, at that moment Andrejs would have been ready to shoot Aksels ten times over, riddle his dead body with more and more holes, so he would go to hell once and for all. That little shit, that son of a bitch! He was in Ieva’s dreams, even though he was long dead. He stomped around Ieva’s dreams!
Andrejs wasn’t able to fight him, no one can fight in dreams, because you don’t break into dreams, you’re invited in. Andrejs could only hate him — hate him more than he had ever hated anyone else in the world.
And he said this to Ieva — said that at this exact moment she was with a murderer.
Told her not to call it what it wasn’t.
And that she was a bitch if she let Aksels wander freely in her dreams, while she was sleeping with Andrejs. And that this institution, in case she didn’t know, was built for people just like Andrejs, because out of a hundred people who feel hatred, only one will actually pick up the shotgun, and that person is him, and he doesn’t regret any of it.
Ieva had looked at him with such fear, the bluish whites of her eyes glazed over in the moonlight. He could tell by her breathing that what he had said was slowly sinking in.
“You shot him only because you’d learned how to kill in Afghanistan?”
But of course! The shotgun had been right there, loaded, and what’s more — Ieva had handed the gun to him herself. But of course, love! When would he have had another opportunity to get rid of the little bastard who’d ruined his entire life?
But he didn’t say that—because that thought was as wispy as a rose-colored, papery autumn sky — that he had possibly caught himself in his own lies. Now he was saying one thing, but at other times, like when he was sitting in the dust of the prison yard, watching the wind tug at the leaves of the elm trees, and Ieva was so far away at the other end of the world past the barbed wire fences and one hundred twenty-four kilometers of forest, rivers and bogs, or when they made love, he was able to break free of himself, from the biting harness, he felt her contented breathing, and at those moments Andrejs could do the unthinkable — let all the happiness of the world flow into Ieva, because she herself was valuable, because she was worth it. And if she loved that son of a bitch Aksels, then at those moments — even though it was unthinkable — he was able to let himself imagine that she was even allowed to love Aksels. Even Aksels! And at those moments some kind of serpent, vibrant as a Latgalian wool mitten, would hiss into Andrejs’s ear that this was the kind of true love written about in the Bible. A love that didn’t hate, wasn’t jealous, didn’t destroy, wasn’t submissive, just carried you toward the sun — carried, carried, carried you, forever carried you.
But that wasn’t something Ieva needed to know.
He only added that he was the only one who could call her a bitch and, forgive him, but if he hears someone else call her a bitch, he’ll slit their throat.
“You’ve made me your personal swamp,” she said calmly after a pause.
Maybe it was then that she had already made up her mind.
Then they probably both finally fell asleep.
In the morning it was overcast, and the air was full of the bewitching scent of spring buds, but Ieva was unnaturally pale and silent. Even that usually beautiful final hour they had, during which they normally dressed, cleaned up, and wallowed in thoughts of parting, memories and glances — now it was hard as stone. And the guards had forgotten about them.
Once they’d dressed they sat stiffly on the beds facing each other, looking like they had met for the first time in their lives. The time came for them to go their separate ways, but the guards didn’t come. The black tentacle of the clock slowly slid to four minutes past ten, then to ten minutes past ten.
The room grew darker and darker, until finally the black-blue cloud outside broke open with a mighty crack, struck the earth with a blinding thorn, and unleashed a grey downpour. Rain beat against the windows with such force that it rattled the windowsill like a tin drum. Andrejs sprang to his feet and started pacing back and forth across the room, then suddenly took off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. It was a violet-colored shirt with dark stripes, possibly the nicest piece of clothing he had ever owned. And he put it around Ieva’s shoulders.
“Take my shirt,” he said, “you’ll get soaked.”
“That’d be just perfect — to forget about us in prison,” she said, letting out a fake laugh and glancing at the clock.
Five more minutes passed. Andrejs thought he was losing his mind.
“Just think, my shirt’ll be free in a few minutes,” he said, just to say something. Just to fill the eerie silence.
The sound of the rain droned on forever, then was suddenly extinguished like a candle that had been knocked over — the guards came in and Ieva and Andrejs both jumped up.
Andrejs obediently put his hands behind his back; there was the click of the cuffs, the jangle of keys, Andrejs at the door, her profile outlined by the flash of lightning, and then she was by him, close, close, a kiss, more like a bite in its desperation, warmth, her scent, the guard prying her fingers from Andrejs’s shoulders: “Your time’s up, ma’am!” Andrejs goes, turns a few corners down the hall, he knows which doors have glass windows, Ieva waves, hurries behind them, the fluttering of shirtsleeves and the hem of her white dress, she waves, her face, then another corner, then emptiness, the zone, and the storm.
The prison yard and silence, then it’s over.
Your time’s up.
And yes, after that at the next visitation time he waited for her in vain. All he got was her note: “Everything’s over for real now. Ieva.” And the shirt.
The hastily folded material still held her smell and the softness of her breasts. She had been here! She left a duffel bag with the shirt and the note. Stood in line some fifty meters away, shit, nothing between them but walls and guards — but he’d sensed nothing! His senses were deadened, she’d been here, but he hadn’t grown anxious, hadn’t moved, hadn’t felt anything — like an old camel, like a rundown Arabian horse whose nose can no longer sniff out water.
He hadn’t even dreamt of her.
Oh misery, godforsaken!
He hadn’t been prepared for the worst — for Ieva to leave him halfway, alone in prison. In the end it was betrayal; they were both up to their necks in the same shit. And then this!
She knew him too goddamn well, that was a fact. He’d carry his sentence until the end. But how could love so quickly turn into searing hate?
“Everything’s over for real now. Ieva.”
And the shirt.
But in living with Ieva, you had to be prepared for something like that. Naturally.
He wasn’t ready. He’d spent four years of his remaining sentence planning revenge.