“I think so,” he said.
“You think so? You only think so? You don’t know for sure?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything. What does everyone expect from me? There’s nothing I can do.”
I punched him between the shoulder blades. My fist sank into the expensive leather of his two-year-old shearling coat. I made sure he dressed well. He was after all my husband — and he also had an important position at the workers’ union. I left him standing there and walked on ahead. He grabbed me and I hit him again. He was a turd, but he was the husband I was stuck with.
Then I forgot about Kalganow for a second because somewhere a child started to cry.
“Do you hear that? Do you hear that? Is it her?”
“What?” My husband stood there looking around.
“That. A baby crying.”
My husband strained to hear. I had the impression that beneath his fur hat his ears perked up to hear better.
“I don’t hear anything,” he said.
“You’re deaf.”
We walked up and down the street a little more.
I looked at the buildings, the balconies, the windows. Skis and skates sat on the balconies. Bags of deep-frozen meat hung from the windows. Inside on the windowsills were houseplants and cats. A few of the balconies were piled with dilapidated furniture, worn-out shoes, and empty bottles. These people had just moved in and had already created such pigsties. In the window boxes fresh snow covered dead flowers. Here and there I saw old Christmas trees draped with tinsel.
My husband swore that Sulfia hadn’t given him her address. She had probably suspected he wouldn’t be able keep mum.
“I don’t know the address, Rosie, scout’s honor,” he said.
Several thousand people lived in the buildings here on this street. I tried to figure out how long it would take to go into every building and ring every doorbell.
Just then a woman came along pushing a stroller with a snotty little brat in it. I wasn’t fooled for a second: the child was too small and ugly to be Aminat.
My husband’s nose was running. Tears began to trickle from his eyes. It was extremely cold and he looked miserable. Why was I, of all people, stuck with someone like him at my side? At least he wasn’t complaining.
“We’re going home,” I said.
“Really?” He was as happy as a child. He lacked perseverance and just wanted to get warm, drink a cup of tea, eat meatballs.
“We’re going back to the bus stop, for your sake, you snake,” I said, turning toward the bus stop and walking off.
I went back five times, alone. I walked up and down the street at various times, day and night. I stopped people coming out of buildings and asked them whether they knew a Sulfia Kalganova. Nobody knew her. I asked them whether they’d seen a scrawny Tartar woman holding hands with a pretty little girl. Nobody had seen them.
Three weeks later I finally ran into her.
It was both of them. Sulfia held the hand of my little girl. I could see immediately that Aminat was carelessly dressed. She didn’t have a scarf on, and her hat had shifted so that her ears were exposed to the biting cold. Her black hair hung in her face. Her nose was red. She definitely had a cold, and no wonder with this mother.
I took a few steps to the side and hid behind a dumpster. Sulfia and Aminat walked past me hand in hand. I watched them turn toward a building and saw which doorway they entered. I hurried after them. I listened to the elevator go up for a long while, up to the top floor. Somewhere way up above I heard a door close.
It smelled good in the foyer of this building because it was still new. The scent of paint and chemicals hung in the air, a very clean smell, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. A year from now the freshly painted walls would be covered with scribbling, drunks and cats would have pissed in every corner, and it would be lucky if even a hint were left of the hope for a better life that was built into every new house.
A short time later I stood on the ninth floor, just beneath the roof of the building. There were four doors on this floor. Behind one of them I heard the warbling of a child’s voice I recognized.
I didn’t ring Sulfia’s doorbell. Not yet. Stepping lightly I descended the stairs, went outside, and breathed in the cold, watermelon-scented winter air. Hope filled my lungs; I could have floated off like a balloon.
To talk about atoms?
“What does Sulfia’s husband do? This guy Sergej?” I asked Kalganow as he sat in the kitchen cutting up meat-filled blini with a fork.
He mumbled something. As always, his mouth was full.
“Some kind of physicist,” he said finally, a leftover piece of onion between his teeth.
“Aha,” I said pensively. “Not bad.”
I didn’t really believe it. What would my daughter Sulfia, who wasn’t bright enough to read before the age of nine and who to this day had trouble with numbers, want with a physicist? And more importantly, what would a physicist want with her? To talk about atoms?
One morning at nine I finally rang the doorbell of Sulfia’s apartment. I had on my nice long fur coat, a fur hat, heels, and tasteful lipstick. And I had a box of chocolate-covered meringues under my arm. The candy was a bit old — I’d been holding on to it for an important occasion. And now that occasion had arrived.
At first all was quiet behind the door. Then I heard rustling, coughing and cursing, and bare feet on linoleum. The door opened and for the first time I glimpsed the living, breathing man who actually lived with Sulfia — my son-in-law.
My first impression of him made me doubt even more that he really was a physicist. He looked scatterbrained. But he must have been some sort of academic because he didn’t have to go to work on time. He was apparently home alone late in the morning. Big as a bear, with hair the color of wheat at harvest time, long, curly, mussed. The hair on his chest was somewhat darker. His legs. .
With a start, the man hid himself behind the door.
“What is it?” he asked, with just his head peeking out now.
“I’m Rosalinda,” I said, putting on a sweet smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Ro-sa. . lin-da?” he said, pronouncing each syllable. Yes, I did have a pretty name, like something out of a foreign romance novel. I wasn’t just another Katja or Larissa.
“Rosalinda. . ” he mumbled. “You must be. . ”
“I’m sure you have heard a lot about me from my daughter!” I said, placing one of my high heels across the threshold.
He reacted quickly; perhaps he was a physicist after all.
“Oh, how awkward. You are healthy again?”
“Healthy?”
As I answered his question with a question, I pushed the door open with both hands. It was difficult, as he was standing behind it. I must have bumped something, because he let out a stifled cry. He let me into the apartment and begged my pardon a thousand times.
I nodded majestically as he dashed around the corner. At his size and stature, it wasn’t a given that he could move like that. His underpants were new and clean.
Kalganow needed some new underwear, I decided.
“Please make yourself comfortable,” called my apparently well-mannered son-in-law from the depths of the apartment. “I’ll be right back.”
The apartment had a living room, a kitchen, and at least one bedroom. I took off my jacket but decided to keep my heels on. I went into the kitchen and sat down on a stool.
The kitchen was nice — it must have been 100 square feet. The table was new, as was the plastic tablecloth on top of it. Next to a couple of plates set out to dry was Aminat’s cup, the one with the rabbit on it. The stove wasn’t too clean. Glasses of water sat on the windowsill with onions sprouting in them, the green shoots straining toward the ceiling. Sulfia learned that from me: it was an inexpensive way to get vitamins in the winter.