“I’ll be there.”
Andrejs hangs up.
Ieva has a brief vision of Andrejs hanging up the phone and looking out the kitchen window. She’s seen it so many times before. Over the wood panel table covered with a white tablecloth; the kitchen is filled with the brilliant light reflected by the snow-covered pine trees, the blueness of the sky, and the glistening sun over the wintery fields. It’s unbearably cold in the kitchen, the winter dust collects on every dark-stained surface and rough wooden shelves.
Even back then, Andrejs never kept the house warm enough when Ieva wasn’t home.
She doesn’t pack anything to take with and dresses for spring, even though outside is a bright January morning. Aksels says something about anticyclones. That they’re mountains, invisible mountains, radiant and bursting with sun — with diamond surfaces.
Surfaces shift, golden ridges collapse and crumble into little ripples in the windshields of passing cars, in window blinds. Yellow sparks melt in the whites of both their eyes. Ieva asks:
“So what are cyclones?”
To Aksels cyclones are the depths of the sea, rolling streams, and fertile dampness.
They’re sitting in the kitchen. Before, Aksels never ate much because he smoked weed. Now he’s nauseated from the pills and drinks just a bit of coffee with milk. Ieva’s nauseated from life. From everything that’s happening. She stopped eating when Aksels stopped eating. Not on purpose, no. Just — it’s the two of them. And in a way Ieva is Aksels. When he stopped eating, so did she. It’s simple, really. Now they’re like bony scarecrows with only a little straw left. Monta is plump and energetic, she knocks over her cup of milk and lets out a squeal.
Ieva says to Monta:
“Why does Monta knock her milk over every morning?”
“No! Mommy knocks milk over every morning!”
“Monta does!”
“Monta doesn’t know!”
“Then Monta has a bad memory!”
“No! Mommy does!”
It’s hopeless to argue with Monta, especially on the mornings she wakes up terribly happy.
Ieva dresses Monta. Monta grows suspicious.
She whines:
“No wool tights!”
Ieva says:
“Monta isn’t going to daycare. Monta’s going to Grandma’s! Grandma has cold floors.”
“No Grandma’s! Spiders!”
It’s strange with Grandma. Sometimes Monta’s happy to go to Grandma’s, but other times she sees spiders when she’s there. Today is a spider day. Monta protests and squirms, but Ieva finally gets her dressed.
Ieva’s also dressed; she turns to Aksels and says:
“I’ll take Monta to my mom’s, and then we’ll go.”
Her voice catches in her throat when she sees his face. How he’s watching her and Monta. He’s caught them being full of life.
In the moment she was dealing with Monta, Ieva forgot. Forgot everything else in the world, Aksels included. She lost herself in the action and became the action herself. The sun plays on the ridged icicles behind the window. Ieva holds Monta’s scarf in her hand and can no longer find words. There’ll be many more scenes just like this one after Aksels has died.
Aksels is sitting in a chair with his bad leg stretched out in front of him and is intently watching Monta. His expression belongs to him and him alone, and God only knows if he’s even aware of what lies behind it. It’s some kind of great vibration, the nature of things, that pulls him in. He watches Monta run through the hallway and for a moment sees the turning of the world’s gears. Like some incredibly old toy, a teddy bear handed down from child to child and loved to the point its worn, plushy seams suddenly burst, spilling dust and stuffing and sand — and you can see that the bear’s voice box still worked, crackling as it forms the words: I love you, you love me, I’m alive, you’re alive…
These words gather in the gap, the distance, the space between them. Aksels touched by death, and Monta touched by life.
And what Aksels has asked Ieva to do — wasn’t it in actuality a childish thing to ask? Wasn’t it something a monarch would ask? Death wanted to take him to that faraway pasture, but Aksels had Ieva, thank God, he had Ieva. He could count on that even in death. And now he will walk ahead like a lord, Ieva will follow behind him leading Death by the reigns, that greyish horse with the dark, ugly muzzle of a hyena, she’ll lead it and saddle it, and Aksels will get up in the saddle instead of being tied up and dragged behind… Aksels will get up in the saddle. Yes, it really was free will.
Ieva calms down and wraps Monta in the scarf. She’s realized that she constantly continues the dialogue in her subconscious — is it right, the thing Ieva’s promised to do?
Like a clock — tick tock, tick tock.
They hadn’t done anything yet. Everything could still change. And yet — nothing could change ever again.
Every few moments there had to be an affirmation, a contribution. And if a moment came and the affirmation wasn’t there, it could only be undone by a hundred other moments that did have affirmations.
It was a massive military draft, and Ieva had been called up.
Ieva says to Monta:
“Give Ocela a kiss!”
Monta goes to Aksels and gives him a kiss. Ieva’s scared — Monta will say something, something that will make him realize he’s seeing her for the last time; today and tomorrow will be the last time for scenes and observations.
“Hurry up, Ocela, she’ll overheat!”
Aksels throws her a surprised look — she’s being pretty harsh! But he immediately understands that it wasn’t out of place. Ieva is organizing his death, that harshness is clearly to be expected, so he says nothing. Ieva doesn’t apologize, not even with a look. Better to be harsh than to break down.
Ieva and Monta head out the door.
That evening Ieva and Aksels go to the bus station. Ieva is ready to say to everyone they pass — hey, look at Aksels! This planet will disappear tomorrow! A star will fall! You can look at him and make a wish, and he’ll make it all come true! Aksels looks at her disapprovingly, as if she’s stupid. But there isn’t even a hint of irony in Ieva as she buys two outgoing tickets knowing full well that she’ll only be buying one for the trip back.
The bus is warm, narrow, and dark. A strip of tiny blue lights lines the sides of the aisle. Aksels isn’t able to find an empty seat that would let him painlessly position his bad leg. He sits on the raised floor at the back of the bus; rather, he lies down on it and leans on his elbow. The other passengers stare at first, but quickly forget their surprise and doze off. Not a whole lot can be seen in the dark. Ieva crouches down next to him.
“Even the tiniest bumps are like earthquakes,” Aksels says.
Ieva touches her lips to his forehead, which is damp from the pain.
Another hundred and twenty-four kilometers.
When they get off at the stop for Zari, at the intersection of four roads, Andrejs is already waiting for them. The car is thumping with music, and when Ieva sees his face through the window she grows annoyed. Aksels stands with his body twisted sideways and breathes in the night air.
“Greetings, kids,” Andrejs says. “Hop in!”
There are two gypsy hitchhikers already in the car.
The kitchen at the Zari house is warm when they get there. The rest of the rooms are unkempt and cold. Andrejs and the gypsies drink champagne and talk about the forest. Where they can get wood, and how much money they could make sawing lumber.
Andrejs says:
“I want to go back. I’m sick of that city. Ieva, what d’you say we move back out here, to the countryside?”
Ieva sits next to the stove warming her hands, seething. She drinks a glass of champagne and waits for the gypsies to get out. Aksels sits at the end of the table and drinks nothing. Just answers if someone asks him a question.