In the little square halfway between the verandah and the summer kitchen, Georgii was unpacking two boxes he had brought and Medea was deciding what should be put where. It was a ritual moment. Every new arrival brought presents, and Medea received them as if not for herself but on behalf of the house.
Four pillow slips, two plastic bottles of imported washing-up liquid, some household soap which had been unobtainable last year but had reappeared this year, some tins, coffee—the old lady was pleasantly excited by it all. She put it away in the cupboards and dressers, told Georgii not to open the second box before she returned, and hurried off back to work. The lunch break was over and she didn’t usually allow herself to be late.
Georgii ascended to the highest point of his aunt’s domains, where the wooden hut of the toilet erected by the late Mendez rose like a watchtower. He went inside and sat down without the least need on the smoothly planed wooden seat. He looked around. There was a bucket of ash with a broken scoop beside it, while a faded cardboard notice on the wall gave instructions for use of the toilet written with his characteristic wry humor by Mendez himself. It concluded with the words, “When departing, look back to ensure that your conscience is clean.”
In a contemplative mood Georgii looked over the short door, which shut off only the lower part of the toilet, into the rectangular window formed above it and saw the twin mountain ranges falling quite steeply away to a distant scrap of sea and the ruins of an ancient fortress visible only to a keen eye and even then only on a clear day. He loved looking at this land, with its weathered mountains and its rounded foothills. It had been Scythian, Greek, Tatar, and although now it was part of the Soviet farming system and had long been languishing, unloved and slowly dying from the ineptitude of its masters, history had not forsaken it but was hovering in this blissful springtime, every stone, every tree reminding him of its presence. Medea’s relatives had long ago reached consensus that the best view in the world was to be seen from her lavatory.
Just outside the door Artyom was dancing from one foot to the other, waiting to ask his father a question which he knew would get him nowhere right now but which, when his father did finally emerge, he asked nevertheless, “Dad, when can we go to the sea?”
The sea was a fair distance from here, which was why no tourists stayed in the Lower Village, let alone the Upper Village. You had either to take the bus to the municipal beach at Sudak or walk to the coves twelve kilometers or more away, a major expedition which could last for several days and involve camping.
“Just grow up!” Georgii snapped back. “This is no time to be thinking about the seaside. Go and get yourself ready, we’re going to the graveyard.”
Artyom didn’t want to go to the graveyard, but now he had no choice and went to put on his sneakers. For his part, Georgii took a canvas bag and put a German sapper’s spade in it. Then he hesitated over whether or not to take a tin of silver paint and decided to leave this time-consuming chore for the next occasion. He took down a faded hat from a hook in the shed, part of a Central Asian soldier’s uniform which he had brought here once himself, banged it on his knee, releasing a cloud of fine dust, and, after locking the door of the house, popped the key in its special place, his heart warming in passing to the triangular stone with its double point, which he remembered from his childhood.
Georgii had been a geologist and loped along with an easy professional gait. Artyom scurried behind him. Georgii didn’t look around. He could see Artyom rushing along, breaking into a run, with eyes in the back of his head.
“He isn’t growing. He’s going to be like Zoyka,” Georgii thought with a familiar pang of regret.
His younger son, three-year-old Sashka, was much more to his liking, with a scowling fearlessness and indeflectable stubbornness which suggested he would develop into someone much more unambiguously masculine than his firstborn, with his diffidence and girlish chatter. Artyom for his part worshiped his father, was proud of his so evident manliness, and was already coming to realize that he would never be as strong, steady, and confident; and the sweetness of his love for his father had an aftertaste of bitterness.
But right now Artyom was feeling as good as if he had succeeded in persuading his father to take him to the sea. He himself didn’t fully understand that what mattered to him was not going to the sea but stepping out together with his father on this road, which had not yet become dry and dusty but was fresh and young, and just walking along with him whatever the destination, even to the graveyard.
The graveyard sloped up from the road. Above was the ruined Tatar section with what remained of the mosque. The eastern slope was Christian, but after the deportation of the Tatars, Christian burials had begun to creep over onto Tatar territory, as if even the dead were involved in depriving them of their land.
All the Sinoply forebears had been laid to rest in the old Theodosia cemetery, but by this time it was closed and in part even demolished, and Medea had buried her Jewish husband here with an easy mind, a good distance from her mother. Redheaded Matilda, a good Christian in every respect, was zealously Orthodox, had no time for Muslims, feared the Jews, and had an aversion for Catholics. Her views on sundry Buddhists, Taoists, and the like are not known, if indeed she had ever heard of them.
Over the grave of Medea’s husband stood an obelisk with a star on its point and an inscription in flattened letters on the pedestaclass="underline" “Samuel Mendez, Soldier of the ChON Special Detachments, Party Member from 1914. 1890–1952.” The inscription was in accordance with the wishes of the deceased, expressed long before his death, soon after the war. Medea had amended the symbolism of the five-pointed Soviet star, silvering not only it but also the point of the obelisk to which it was attached, with the result that it acquired a sixth, inverted ray and looked more like the Christmas star as depicted on pre-Soviet greeting cards and also hinted at more ancient associations.
To the left of the obelisk stood a small stele with the oval photograph of round-faced little Pavlik Kim, with his clever, narrow, smiling eyes, Georgii’s nephew who had drowned in 1954 on the beach at Sudak in front of his mother, father, and grandfather, Medea’s older brother, Fyodor.
Georgii’s critical scrutiny failed to find anything out of order. As usual, Medea had beaten him to it. The railing was painted and the flower border dug over and planted with wild crocuses taken from the eastern hills.
For the sake of something to do, Georgii firmed the edge of the border, then wiped the blade of the spade, folded it, and threw it in the bag. Father and son sat for a time on the low bench, and Georgii smoked a cigarette. Artyom did not interrupt his father’s silence, and Georgii placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder in gratitude.
The sun was declining toward the western ridge, aiming at a gully between the rounded Twin Hills like a billiard ball heading into a pocket. In April the sun set between the Twins: the September sun disappeared behind the horizon, slitting its belly on the pointed hat of Mount Kiyan.
Year by year the springs were running dry, the vineyards dying, the land falling into decay, a land he had hiked over as a boy, and only the outlines of the hills maintained the familiar structure of the region. Georgii loved them as one can love a mother’s face or the body of a wife: by heart, with your eyes closed, for all time.
“Let’s go,” he said abruptly to his son, and began the descent to the road, striding in a straight line, oblivious of the broken slabs with their Arabic script.
It seemed to Artyom as he looked down that the grey road below was moving, like an escalator in the underground, and he stopped short for a moment in astonishment. “Dad!” Then he laughed out loud: it was the sheep coming up, blocking the road with their brown mass and spilling over onto the shoulder. “I thought the road was moving.” Georgii smiled indulgently.