In this secluded part of the cemetery by the fence were numerous vertical gravestones; each horizontal was surrounded by vertical relatives, as though standing on one leg. The square, angular inscriptions giving the place of birth bore memories of clay slab and reed pen, all mixed up with a funny, gothically accented English, as though the stones carried in them the tastes of these long-gone people.
Alik’s closed coffin rested on the adjacent grave. Robins, who had hurried up to honour his unusual client with his presence, commanded the diggers with a conductorly flourish to lower it down. Valentina whispered something to Nina, who opened her lacquered purse and removed the packet of earth. Moving her lips, she scattered the earth over the coffin in pinches, as though putting salt in soup. The gravediggers leaned on their spades.
“Wait, wait!” came a shriek. Behind the mourners’ backs there was a sudden commotion. After much pushing and scuffling Gottlieb finally burst through, followed by a large number of bearded Jews, around ten in all. The party was rather late; they had poured out of their bus and had instantly got lost, since each had his own idea of where the cemetery office was. Now, pulling on their prayer shawls and phylacteries, treading on the women’s toes and pushing aside the men, they uttered the first words of the Kaddish: “May his great name be magnified and sanctified in the world that is to be created anew, where he will quicken the dead, and raise them up unto life eternal …” They chanted in their sad, shrill voices, although almost no one but Robins knew the meaning of their ancient lamentations.
“Where did these ancient Hebrews come from?” Valentina asked Libin.
“What do you mean? Gottlieb brought them.”
What they didn’t realize was that Reb Menashe had decided to take on himself the care of this poor “captive child.”
The suspicion dawned on Valentina that the Jews were a little too theatrical; maybe they were from one of the small theatres in Brighton Beach. We must ask Alik, she thought, and instantly realized what a multitude of things she had nobody to ask about now.
The funeral prayers were said, it didn’t take long. Then the people at the front stepped back from the grave, and the ones at the back trickled forward. The mountain of flowers grew until they reached Nina’s waist, and she stroked each flower, making a strange little house or mausoleum of them and smiling, so that people were now reminded of an ageing Ophelia.
Everyone began to move away. The Jews pulled their prayer shawls off their black, sun-charred suits. They were now at the back, but Nina waited for them and invited them back to the wake. The oldest of them, whose skullcap was attached to his bald head with sticking-plaster, raised two withered hands to his face and spread his yellow fingers, saying sadly: “My child, Jews don’t sit and eat after a funeral, we sit on the earth and fast. Although it’s very good to drink a glass of vodka too.”
They walked back across the cemetery in their steaming black suits and climbed into their minibus, on which were emblazoned the words “Temple of Zion” in dark-blue letters on the white.
TWENTY
“I’m going to study art,” she decided, forgetting that she had already dedicated herself to Tibet last week.
The paintings she liked best were the small and medium-sized ones, but one large work begged to be displayed on the end wall. She called Gioia and Lyuda over to give her a hand, and they hung up the three-metre canvas which for five years had stood with its face to the wall. There was a lot going on in the picture, possibly too much: an autumn party with grapes, pears and pomegranates, dancing women and children, jugs of wine, distant hills, a man walking under an awning …
Lyuda sliced cheese and sausage and made salads. Gioia dreamily laid out special dishes of quasi home-made Russian-Jewish food from the emigré grocer: herring, pies, meat in aspic, the salad known by Russians as Olivier salad and by everyone else as Russian salad.
The guests arrived all at once and in a large crowd; the service lift bore them up in three shifts. About fifty people sat around the table, made from boards and various bits of timber; the rest took their plates and glasses and wandered around like guests at an American cocktail party. It seemed strange that this concentration of people could produce such a feeling of emptiness.
The Washington gallery-owners were also present. They walked around the studio as though at an exhibition, examining the paintings with a dissatisfied air. Ten minutes later, before the drinking started, they kissed Nina’s hand and took their leave.
Irina watched them go without pleasure. They still hadn’t given Alik his money or returned his paintings; she would definitely have to proceed with her lawsuit against them.
Faika turned out to be one of those experts on ritual who are invariably to be found at weddings and funerals. She poured a glass of vodka, covered it with a piece of black bread and set it on a plate. “For Alik!” she cried.
This was how things were supposed to be done.
At the table people murmured expectantly; there were no loud conversations or splashes of separate voices, just a monotone hum and the jingle of glasses. They poured the vodka.
At that moment Maika appeared at the door. She was pale, with a swollen mouth and pink nostrils, and she was wearing a black teeshirt with an orange-yellow inscription. Her sweaty hand gripped the plastic box in her pocket; now it was time for her to take it out.
Nina perched on the arm of the white armchair, although no one was sitting in it. Fima stood, raised his glass and started to say something.
“Listen everyone!” Maika broke in.
Irina froze: she could expect anything from her strange little girl, but not a speech.
“Listen everyone! Alik asked me to give you this!”
Everyone turned to look at her; her face was crimson, like reagent paper during a chemical reaction. Next minute she squatted on her heels and pushed a tape into the cassette-player which stood on the floor. Almost immediately, without a pause, Alik’s clear, high voice rang out: “Boys and girls! My Pussy-cats and Cuckoos!”
Nina gripped the arm of her chair. Alik’s voice went on: “I’m right here with you! Pour the vodka! Let’s drink and eat, like we always do!”
In this simple, mechanical way he had broken down the eternal wall which separated him from them, casting a pebble from that other mist-covered shore and slipping away from it for a moment, stretching out a hand to those he had loved without recourse to the crude magic of necromancers or mediums, moving tables or restless plates.