Masha witnessed Alena's audacity again on the fourth day. That was when they first brought Masha's daughter, recovering at last, to be nursed. Once Masha's milk had come in, her daughter nursed well; she didn't have to express as much milk as before. But Alena had so much milk remaining after nursing that she spent half an hour expressing one breast while the other grew hard and reddened. She could not expel even a drop from it. It was as though all the fruit, pies, and chicken had been accumulating in her body and now there it all was, stuck in the path of the milk. By evening Alena's breast had swelled enormously, its color no longer red but crimson with shadings of violet. Masha attempted to help Alena, and the lactation nurse also bustled around her, but all in vain. At night her temperature rose. They couldn't reach the doctor because women were giving birth left and right in the delivery room. At first Alena got on the phone, calling friends for advice, but later announced she was going to file a written grievance with the Ministry of Health. At that, the doctor appeared on the spot. He held an ice bag to Alena's violet breast, waited for the pain to subside, then began expressing. The milk came in seven spurts.
«This is what you need to do; continue with that, and try to drinkless.»
Alena happened to have some coffee left in her thermos which she immediately offered Masha, even pouring it with her own hands. To refuse would have been silly, and Masha accepted the cup.
«It's so hot, it even made the milk stir in my breast!»
«This is one of those imported vaccuum bottles,» Alena replied happily, energetically expressing her breasts. «Well, comrade titty, it seems you're saved,» and she moved the ice bag to the other breast.
That very night the thought ripened in Masha's head that she too needed to write a letter to Moscow. It was five years ago, after all, that they had promised to demolish the barracks in their settlement, but to date, nothing had changed. Again that summer they'd whitewashed the entryway, which meant that no changes were foreseen in the next three years. The only hope was that the Belyaevs would start a real conflagration. But Masha did not want to wait for a fire. She might have to leave her daughter alone in the room to run out for food, and now the Belyaevs with their pyromania…
Masha spent all of the fifth day writing a letter to Moscow, while Alena waxed indignant over having to give presents to the pediatric nurses.
«It's their job to take care of people. Why must they be given something extra?»
«Probably because the pay is so low no one comes to work here,» Rosa said.
«For example, everyone wants to work at the food warehouse,» Masha added.
The next day they were discharged. While Masha was phoning Liza, Rosa's husband, surrounded by relatives, arrived to pick her up, and Alena watched out the window to see how they would all fit into three cars.
When Liza appeared, Masha showed her the letter first, then her daughter.
«Well,» Liza said, «They'll wear you out. They'll twist you around like a snail.»
«I only described matters as they are. I added nothing. Didn't they promise to demolish it five years ago? They promised.»
«Well, just watch out.»
In answer to Masha's letter, a large envelope arrived which proved to contain a map of the town and its environs. It was a very beautiful map: emerald green squares of parks, intricately scattered threads of railroads, the wide blue ribbon of the Kama River elegantly dividing the town into two parts. On official letterhead was written:
Dear Comrade Golubova, M. V.
In re yours of 9/30/82, we advise you that the Levanevsky settlement was demolished last year and replaced with Lake Jolly. We enclose a map.
And, indeed, on the map Masha found in place of the settlement a bluish spot with washed-out outlines along which the words LAKE JOLLY were written in capitals. The map gave off an impressive odor of printer's ink.
This was how everyone in the barracks learned that they were living at the bottom of a lake. Granny Anya humbly opined, «The people in Moscow, they know better.»
«At least we'll have fish to eat now,» agreed Granny Tanya.
«What's this about fish? I can't swim a stroke,» said Liza.
«But remember what I told you, Mama — buy a mask, I said.»
«What sort of mask?»
«For staying underwater. They have them in sporting goods shops,» Liza's son explained.
«Don't buy a mask; buy port wine,» was Belyaev's advice, «This calls for a drink!»
When the Belyaevs realized that no one was in favor of this idea, they resolutely refused to live at the bottom of a lake: «We have rheumatism, I'm telling you, and a touch of lumbago.»
«I mustn't drink — I'm a nursing mother,» Masha explained.
Masha was still nursing her seven-month-old daughter. Up to that time she had not had a single photograph made, remembering Alena's words that infants shouldn't be photographed until they were six months old — some old superstition.
«It's time to photograph her.»
«Will you photograph mine too?» Liza asked. «Tomorrow's May Day.»
came a snippet of song from the Belyaevs' room.
«They must have found a nip somewhere after all,» Masha surmised.
«Well, at least one good thing came out of all this — he taught me how to take pictures,» said Masha.
That night she went to sleep to the accompaniment of the ditties, and in the morning she awoke to more of the same.
Or perhaps the loudspeaker had already been set up on the street? She dressed her daughter in a white outfit and spent a long time taking her picture against the backdrop of the May Day parade. She ran out an entire roll of film and developed it that very evening, impatient to see what she had gotten. In the first photo, Masha's daughter was smiling in Liza's arms, coquettishly revealing her naked gums. On the right were the flags and the flowers, on the left the black outlines of their very own barracks.
«Here we are on Lake Jolly,» Liza said. «That photo should be sent to Moscow.»
«And I'll send it!» Masha promised.
«Well, just watch out,» Liza warned.