Prison had become his home. And what’s to keep him from coming back home if he’s got a good reason? He had decided to erase Ieva from the face of the earth.
And then there was that unforgettable fall day — icy moisture dusted the skies, mud splashed up over his shoes and the frost bit through to the bone — the day Andrejs had wound up at the furnace.
Bound stacks of paper were brought to feed the zone’s boiler-room furnace. Leftover magazine issues, failed books, educational materials. And on that day, a blue, cloth-bound book of Ancient Greek myths for high school courses was lying among the frozen clumps of sawdust. Almost without reason, but mainly driven by curiosity and laziness, Andrejs smoked a cigarette and read a page in the book, then found himself unable to put it down.
There! He dug his unshaved chin into the collar of his down jacket. If only Ieva would come see him again, he’d read this book to her — there was no clearer way to say it. What Andrejs’s people referred to as love was complete bullshit. Talking nonsense by candlelight.
The Ancient Greeks knew that the gods were immortal, and told immortal tales. Once he’s placed in time, a mortal isn’t able to think of an immortal tale, much less tell one. A person’s existence winds around birth and death like a ribbon around two magic wands. He was curious to see how they’d solve the issue of immortality — if a story has a beginning, but no middle or end, what kind of skeleton is the meat of the story holding on to? If a god isn’t moved by his own death to act, then what does that god think about? It turns out — the gods think of nothing but power. The principle of power classifies existence under immortality.
Andrejs took the book. He tucked it under his shirt instead of throwing it into the furnace. And at night, he read about Odysseus by flashlight:
“After many days traveling they came to a place where thick osier bushes and tall poplars hid the entrance to the underworld; the travelers pulled the ship ashore and stayed to guard it. Odysseus went on alone. When he came to the entrance of Hades, he proceeded as Circe had instructed him: he first poured the libations of milk, honey, wine and water, then, to draw out the ghost of Teiresias, killed a black ram and spilled its blood into the pit he had dug in front of the entrance. A swarm of ghosts appeared at the pit to drink of the warm blood, but Odysseus kept them at bay, so that he may first hear the ghost of the graying Theban augural Teiresias, which was slowly approaching the pit.”
Andrejs thought of Aksels. If Andrejs had a blood-filled pit at the entrance to the underworld like that, then Aksels would definitely be lurking by with a ravenous stare.
“Then Odysseus’ mother neared the pit; she had died of grief in her son’s absence.”
Andrejs thought of his own mother. When Ieva stopped coming to see him, his mother slowly took her place. But that was completely different. His mother brought him a bag filled with bacon, eggs, onions, black tea, and cigarettes, made him dinner and then fell asleep exhausted from the work. In the evening she’d wrap up her hair, kiss her son once on both cheeks, and cry when they parted the next day.
Her visits to her son in prison were like visiting a ready-made recreation center.
She’d quickly tell him a few important pieces of news — what was new, who had died — and then was quiet.
“Then Odysseus’ mother neared the pit; she had died of grief in her son’s absence.”
Andrejs thought of his mother’s large, overworked hand as it hung over the side of the bed, where she slept like a log facedown on the pillow.
“Then Odysseus’ mother neared the pit; she had died of grief in her son’s absence. She told Odysseus that his home in Ithaca was still amass with relentless suitors for Penelope, who faithfully awaited the return of her husband, but that his son, Telemachus, was too young and weak to drive the suitors away. Old Laërtes, who grieved the fate of his son Odysseus, had left the city and was living in the countryside among slaves.”
Andrejs thought of his father. His father didn’t care about Andrejs’s fate. Maybe a quiet ache smoldered somewhere deep down in him. The rest had been eaten away by a lifetime of hard work. He knew how to take good care of his tractor — but never of himself. His father hadn’t let himself want anything for a long time. Not his son, not his future, not even his past.
His father’s two great thoughts:
— you have to live the life you’ve been given;
— a person lives and works, and then one day he’s clocked from behind with a shovel and pushed into a grave.
“Old Laërtes, who grieved the fate of his son Odysseus, had left the city and was living in the countryside among slaves. In winter he sleeps on the ground by a hearth, and in warmer months sleeps in an orchard on a bed of soft leaves.”
And yet. Andrejs’s mother had said his father had been getting soft in the head with age. He was supposedly dried up and fragile as a bird, and cried a lot. He’s on his way out, that’s why he’s grown as brittle as shortbread, laughing through his tears.
He doesn’t want to experience that, wouldn’t be able to watch it. This abusive, hard, and spiteful man who didn’t have a heart — a crier?
Anything but that.
Once, his mother came with a secret. Unlike the other times, she was kept awake by an unusual restlessness. She sat on the bed, chewed the hard candies she’d brought for him, swung her leg back and forth, and watched him as he smoked by the window. Outside it was a hot summer afternoon.
Andrejs looked back at her and finally asked her straight out:
“What?”
His mother blushed, wiped a handkerchief across her forehead, then spoke rapidly:
“Ieva came to visit.”
Andrejs sat backwards on a chair and drilled his stare into his mother’s lowered eyes. She glanced up at her son and grew frightened, understanding that she had to quickly finish saying what she’d started:
“She’s a big deal now, been to all kinds of schools, has a car. She went up to Dad, and he flung his arms around her neck and cried, told her she would always be welcome in our home. But I… I couldn’t just stand there… Eh, and how could I, I had to say it, told her she’d damned and betrayed my son, left him to rot, and for her to keep far, far away from my house, or I wouldn’t be held responsible for my actions!”
His mother grew red in the face as she spoke, and gestured wildly as if trying to push the image of Ieva away from her:
“But about your girl, I told her she could hide her wherever she wanted — when Andrejs gets out of prison he’ll see his daughter, no doubt about it!”
Andrejs turned back to the window. Mom, you’re lying, I know you too well — he could have said it. You know you love Ieva, he could have told her. But he said nothing. Outside a cat walked along the carefully raked strip of sand.
Having unloaded the weight on her heart, his mother fell asleep quickly.
Outside it was a hot summer afternoon.
He had found his religion in the Ancient Greek myths. He read about Scylla and Charybdis, about the Cyclops Polyphemus and the nymph Calypso, about the suffering of Prometheus, and the courts of Hades. Andrejs, who spent his days and nights with murderers and thieves: he read and understood.
A son who, instructed by his mother, took a sickle and castrated his own father, whose blood mixed with sea foam to give birth to the goddess of love. A father who, terrified of the power of his own sons, swallowed them whole. The Graces, muses, and Moirae — almost every prisoner had his own; distance, isolation, and desire raised them above the gods. Zeus was Andrejs’s favorite. Thirsting for knowledge and afraid of losing power, this guy had swallowed his first wife, which was what his mother had wanted. “Zeus swallowed wise Metis, in doing so both eliminating an heir and gaining Metis’s wisdom.”