A massive force tries to break into her, it hurts, she moves away. Andrejs persistently follows her body, as if to say that it’s only in fairy tales that breaking happens without pain. Ieva’s eyes are full of tears, something in her bends like a footbridge over a river, and then gives, breaks.
Then the invisible river throws them ashore — the ground under her hips is hard and real like always. Andrejs lies on top of her, motionless as a rock. Then he kisses her, rolls off, and Ieva’s eyes again see the vibrant blue. A lonely bird circles high, high in the air. Ieva thinks — what is it like for birds? To grow up, love, and fly. So naturally. Does that also hurt?
“Let’s get married, Iev’,” she hears Andrejs’s voice. “No one will find us here. A marsh on one side, woods on the other, let’s live here.”
“I’m only seventeen,” she says.
“I’ll wait.”
It hurts.
Two currents struggle within Ieva, two lightning strikes, two destinies. Until now, her life has always gone according to her plan. Now she feels like a caged animal. She can’t go on living the way she did before, but she doesn’t know how to live any other way and has her doubts.
Exactly when did the first crack form in the wall of this house?
And the discrepancies in the assumed moral obligation of a person’s life?
At times fate gets underfoot like a stray dog, and sometimes it has rabies. It’s great if the cards that fate deals you seem good. But what happens to the simple freedom of your childhood?
They’d already moved into the Zari house, already spent their days and nights together, but at the same time she told Andrejs: Don’t wait for me, I’m not promising anything, I don’t even want to see you anymore! Some sort of insanity came over her. She wanted it to be like before, before she met Andrejs, to live as free as a bird in a tree. She said those harsh words, and her own heart almost broke.
It wasn’t possible to live simply anymore.
Andrejs said nothing in return, but got drunk by himself. Came to see Ieva looking wrecked. The tractor jostled along the road like a horse. Andrejs followed her through the rooms, crying, tearing, swearing oaths. Threatened to drive right then over the ice and into the sea! Ieva had never seen him like that. In the end she took pity on him, lay him down, took his heavy head into her lap, and watched as he fell asleep.
The first time she had looked into Andrejs’s big, green eyes, with their flecks of brown and curious melancholy, she had sensed how cruel fate was, about how she would fight to pull away from it, cower in fear from it. But how she would oddly enough always be subjected to it.
Now, with Andrejs’s head in her lap, she senses that twice as much. How can she escape it? Look at how comfortable he is right now, fast asleep! Does she love him? Supposedly yes. But at the same time she wants to run away.
Where is her freedom?
Even if she cried for help — she doesn’t think anyone would hear her.
She tried to talk about it with Gran:
“What do you think about Andrejs?”
“What’s there to think, sweetheart, he’s a handsome boy, and hardworking at that.”
“But something about him scares me, Gran. People say he’s moody.”
“Well, other people can think about him what they want, but for you he could be gold!”
The Seventies
The Extinguishing
How beautiful the clouds are!
Along with the wind and the sun, they’re the best painters in the world. The sky is a canvas. Sometimes the clouds are joined by the full moon and the reflection of the earth in droplets of fog.
Masters of the chiaroscuro.
And then there comes a day when, as the clouds are painting, a person happens to tilt his head back to look up at the sky. Rays of light slide across his face. A never-ending cycle of extinguishing and flickering. You don’t know where to take your next step because the earth blazes up in front of you, but in your eyes — it opens up wide. When it dies out it gets as dark as a peat bog pothole. You end up jumping from one spot to another so often that the earth trembles. When the clouds are painting light and dark.
The same thing happens in a person’s life — a sunny corner can suddenly become overcast.
The only remaining letter after Ieva’s brother Pāvils was born (from Lūcija’s sister to Lūcija).
Lūcīt!
I’m once again rushing out to visit you. Yesterday I ran around like a mad dog, but wasn’t able to find everything you asked for. I bought two bras, I could only find them in one store and only in a size 5. The sales lady said I should buy two sizes up. If they’re too big you can cut off and re-sew the buttons. I couldn’t find the straps you wanted, not even cotton or gauze. I’ll run over to the pharmacies on Ļeņina Street, maybe I’ll find something in that neighborhood, but I doubt it. There hasn’t been any cotton or gauze in the city for two months. We’ll have to think of something else.
I can’t get myself to calm down — I keep thinking and crying about the negligence of those doctors. It’s interesting that they all say the same exact thing, that the trauma will fix itself, but you say that your son is completely crippled. Maybe it’ll really be like that, a month or so will go by and he’ll be a normal boy. Definitely name him Pāvils. It’s an old, good name. But you haven’t even asked what his father thinks. Okay, I’ll stop here, I won’t wait for you to write back. If you can, call me, I’m putting in 2 kopeks.
With love to both of my heroes
(give the containers back right away, and wash the grapes)
This letter is addressed to Lūcija in the 7th ward. The word “ward” has been stubbornly crossed out, and the word “room” is penciled next to it in different handwriting. As if to say — there’s no one sick in here! And yet, and yet…
It’s been only a little over a year since Ieva was born, but that sunny corner is now overcast. Ieva’s mother has already yelled at her husband. Ieva’s father has managed to upset her. Any woman sitting at home with a child has an imagination more vivid than any writer — it doesn’t take much to get upset. They barely talk to each other anymore. Only when absolutely necessary: when it’s about food, the time, or sick relatives.
After a long and tormenting period of thinking it over and finally deciding to have a second child, Lūcija puts her trust in destiny and doctors, and her in mother’s words that everything with a second child is twice as easy, and silently, deep down secretly hopes that after the baby is born her sky will clear up again. Like it had with Ieva.
But it doesn’t. It grows even darker. Pāvils is in no hurry to be born. The doctors don’t properly monitor her. Then the baby is far overdue and the poisoning starts. The labor itself is difficult, and Pāvils survives, but his movements for the rest of his life are palsied, even though his mind is exceptionally sharp.
And there’s something else — a kind of malicious termite inhabits Lūcija’s brain after his birth. There are a few days in the first month where her head aches so intensely she throws up and she isn’t even able to take care of Pāvils herself. She lies motionless in a dark room. A typical, unexplainable migraine — so says the doctor. The forever-busy, mercurial Pauls is not happy about this. Even though he loves his daughter and son, he’s not ready to quit his job for them. And what’s more, Pāvils needs special care.
They decide to send Ieva to the seaside village where Lūcija’s parents live. At first the grandparents are concerned, but when their granddaughter arrives and laughs for the first time, they feel as if they’ve been given an unexpected present. Every night, Gran gives her granddaughter a bath in a large tin bowl set on a warm stove. As she scrubs Ieva’s back, Ieva faces the stove, inspects the kitchen utensils — clangs the pots, plays with the foam skimmers, touches the enamel cups and saucepans hanging from hooks.