Lydia Tkach’s hearing was poor. She resisted the urgings of her son and daughter-in-law to get an electric thing to stick in her ears. At the Ministry of Information Building where she worked filing papers, she was not a popular woman. The primary reason for her lack of popularity was that she called attention to herself by the volume of her conversation. She would, in addition, when able to trap a listener, be sure to get in the information that her son was a high-ranking government official. And so people avoided Lydia Tkach, which made her lonely and crotchety, which in turn made her turn her son and daughter-in-law into a captive audience at home.
“Something’s wrong,” she shouted with satisfaction when Sasha tried to enter the small apartment without calling attention to himself.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he answered, looking around for Maya. “Mother, I’m just tired.”
“You look tired,” Lydia shouted. “You look tired and dirty.”
“Mother …” he said in a loud whisper.
“What have you been doing?”
“My job,” he said, taking off his jacket and looking at the closed door of the bedroom, slightly more than closet-sized, that his mother slept in and in which Maya sometimes sought refuge after her long day of work. “Is Maya home?”
“Resting,” Lydia shouted, holding up a finger to her lips to indicate that they should both be quiet, which was exactly what they were not being. “She’s going to have a baby.”
“I am well aware of that, mother,” he said, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He wanted to look in a mirror to see if guilt were on his face. Sasha was very good at lying with his face, with his eyes. He had learned to develop it in his work. It was a skill that went well with his youthful, open face, but Marina, the car thief, had seen through it and through him, and now he moved to the table near the window with no place to hide.
“We’re having dinner,” his mother yelled, a knowing smile on her face. She was a frail woman with an iron will under which Sasha had frequently been broken. Lydia had never been physical, never hit him. She simply kept up her barrage of words and fierce determination until she achieved victory or drove her opponent from the room.
“We usually do, mother,” he said, his stomach growling, wondering how he could face his pregnant wife.
“For dinner we’re having kulebiaka stuffed with salmon and cabbage soup,” she said, walking over to him. She was wearing her at-home sack, a simple baglike creation with three holes, one for the head and two for her arms. Lydia claimed it was the fashion in France to wear such things. Neither Sasha nor Maya had argued with her.
“And you want to know what else?”
“What else?” he asked dutifully, wanting to put his head in his hands, wanting to take a shower, wanting to emigrate to Albania.
“Cherry vodka, a whole bottle,” Lydia said, putting her hands on her hips and waiting. Obviously, there was a question to be asked by her son, but he was too distracted to know what it might be.
Sasha loved his mother, truly loved her, but it was his dream to create some space between himself and her. With the baby coming, Maya was getting increasingly annoyed with the older woman. There was no room to get away after a hard day of work, and there would be less room when the baby came. It had been agreed, primarily by Lydia, that when the baby came, she would stop working and take care of it as soon as Maya was prepared to go back to work. Sasha and Maya had reluctantly agreed. There really was no choice.
“Do you want to know what we are celebrating?” she finally said.
Grateful for the help, Sasha said dutifully, “What are we celebrating?” He looked about for the bottle of cherry vodka so he could start the celebration.
“Guess. If you don’t feel well enough to guess, I can understand.”
“I’ll guess.” He sighed, sure that their conversation had roused the napping Maya. “I’ll guess.”
“Then guess.”
“I’m trying,” he said. The idea came to him quite madly that they were celebrating his moment of infidelity with Marina, that Maya had heard about it, had left, and Lydia had been so struck with joy at her daughter-in-law’s departure that she had prepared a feast. But that made no sense. She stood waiting over him, about to shout.
“The baby,” he said.
“We celebrate the baby when we get the baby,” she said impatiently. “Don’t be stupid. You’re a smart boy.”
“Ah … you’re moving in with Aunt Valentina. Uncle Kolya died, and you’re moving-”
“That would be something to celebrate? What’s wrong with you?” She reached over and slapped the back of his head. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you- Did you shoot somebody again? Like last time? You shot somebody.”
He got up from the table and began to search in the small cupboard for the bottle of vodka. He found it, grabbed a glass, and turned back to the table, glancing out the window at the steamy after-rain street below.
“I didn’t shoot anybody. Nobody shot me. I haven’t lost my job. I don’t know what we are celebrating. For the love of reason, mother, let me breathe.”
“You are a hopeless case, Sashkala. Sometimes you are a hopeless case. I’ll tell you what we are going to celebrate.”
He opened the bottle and poured himself a large glass of vodka.
“Without eating? You are going to drink like your father without eating?” She reached atop the tabletop refrigerator behind him and pulled down a loaf of bread as he began to drink. He accepted the torn handful of bread she handed him and bit off a hunk to follow the half glass he had just downed.
“We are celebrating, mother, remember? But what we are celebrating not only eludes me; it is beginning to fill me with indifference.”
She pulled out the chair across from him, reached for the bottle, and poured herself a healthy glassful of vodka. Sasha noticed that she did not accompany it with bread, but he said nothing.
“We are-” she began.
“-going to have a new apartment.” Maya’s voice finished from behind him.
Sasha turned to face her, expecting his eyes to betray his feelings, wanting to shout out his guilt, ask for forgiveness. He did not really hear what she had said. He took her in, her dark eyes, her smile, her simple brown dress, and the clear small circle of her growing belly. Her eyes met his and noticed something. Her smile dropped for a part of a heartbeat and then came back.
“Sasha,” she said, moving to him, “are you all right? Do you have a fever? Did you-?”
“He didn’t shoot anyone,” Lydia shouted, taking a drink of vodka.
“I’m all right,” he said, trying to smile. “I-did you say something about an apartment?”
“Our application was approved.” Maya beamed, taking his head in her hands. “I went down today.”
“We went down today to the housing ministry,” Lydia amended.
“In North Zmailova,” Maya said excitedly. “Much bigger than here. One bedroom and a small extra room, big enough for a bed. Lydia can have it. We’ll have our own room with the baby, and later he can go to sleep in the bedroom and we can move him into a bed in the living room. It’s right near the metro station.”
“I get a television,” Lydia said.
“Look happy, Sasha,” Maya said, examining his face.
He smiled, but she could see tears.
“He was always like that,” Lydia said, reaching for the bread and tearing off a piece. Crumbs fell on her dress. She swiped them off. “Emotional. Like his father after a drink or two. An emotional policeman. You have to control your emotions if you are going to be a success. I told your father that. Did he listen?”
Sasha wasn’t listening to his mother.
“Let’s eat,” Maya said softly.
The dinner went well, and Sasha, after the bottle was finished, determined to devote himself to being a good husband, a good son, a good father, and a good policeman. A few minutes after making that solemn resolution to himself, he had some difficulty remembering just what it was he had resolved to do. He knew it involved his family and recalled, perhaps, that it had involved working to get his mother a television set.