Zoya observed their progress from her chair in the kitchen. Occasionally she rose to stir the soup, still simmering on the stove. She pinched her nose. 'Why do we have to lay him out here? He stinks.'
An old and slow-burning irritation flared inside Olga's chest. 'A wife should not have to lay out her husband. We'll do this for Azade and mark my words—she'll thank us for it later.' Olga leaned over Mircha, polished the prized Zhukov medal, brushed the stiff shoulder boards. She made one last adjustment to his collar and then returned to the kitchen for the salt. Olga handed Zoya a small blue bowl filled to the rim with salt. 'Put this on his stomach,' she said.
Zoya brought her hand to her face. 'Oh, no. I'm not touching him.'
Olga sighed. It was the way of these younger girls, she knew, to turn their noses up at antiquated ideas like duty or compassion. But what are we without our traditions? Olga wanted to ask the girl. Who are we if we will not honour our dead?
Just then Lukeria and her granddaughter, Tanya, pushed through the door. Lukeria wore her second-best dress, the one peppered with the tiny periwinkle- and violet-coloured flowers. She kept her chin tucked to her chest and shuffled towards the bath, ignoring Tanya's attempts to guide her toward a chair. Approaching the tub, Tanya drew the sign of the cross with her forefinger and thumb, and sat in a chair, that tattered notebook pinched between her elbow and her side. A thinker, that one. Given the trouble her own words had been causing her, Olga understood the need to set things down, peg them right and true.
Vitek arrived next, his crow-black hair stiff with shoe polish. He'd slathered thick layers of the blacking on every crease of his leather jacket as well and now that the polish had hardened, Vitek had to walk in a most unnatural way, lest the jacket shatter. Following Vitek was Azade's goat, Koza, and lastly Azade, the widow herself, red in the eyes and looking altogether like a wet newspaper wearing boots. Mircha was no treat to live with—anyone could hear their arguments from the first floor to the fifth, carried through the heating pipes. But Olga understood her tears. Women needed men. What was a woman to do if she fell down some steps and broke her leg? It was only one of the many permutations of fear, that unrelenting contract holding so many unhappy marriages together. Each of them—Olga, Lukeria, and now Azade—had one way or another been left behind. And now Olga knew it was the one thing, this fear, about which they'd never openly talk.
'I'm so very sorry,' Yuri murmured, setting a chair for Azade near the head of the bath. Zoya handed Azade a tissue. Olga brought more chairs in and placed a large chunk of ice in Mircha's outstretched hand. At such occasions it was customary to gather around and think of complimentary things to say about the dead until the ice melted, the signal that they could begin long rounds of toasting.
Five minutes passed, then ten. Drops of water pooled on the floor beneath Mircha's hand, and still no one said a word. The man had loved the bottle. He said strange things. He believed absolutely that all the transcaucasus people—Laks, Avars, Circassians—mountain people at heart—should unite and secede from Russia. Steppe Jews like Olga, who could be more mountainly in their thinking if they tried a little harder, could possibly be grandfathered into the cause. 'Just think—a free state for all of us misfitted types. Free and autonomous. After all, who can deny that Russia has been and will always be a mother to some and a stepmother to others? This is the only solution really, and I can be president. And you, Olga, you can be my secretary.' All this he had said just days before he leapt from the roof.
Olga scooted her chair a little closer to the bath, adjusted a stray strand of Mircha's silver hair. Now just what had changed, what unexpected reconfiguration occurred in his thoughts so that jumping from their roof was the only acceptable solution? When a man loses his dream, he ceases to be a man, he ceases to be alive. Now wasn't it Mircha who said that to her Yuri once? Olga wagged her head back and forth and made her signature sad clucking sounds.
Finally, the last bit of the ice melted. The vodka had grown warm where she'd been holding the bottle next to her body. Olga cleared her throat. 'He was a good man in a tangential way. You could feel that behind the vitriol, the bile, and rage, really he meant well.'
Another long moment of protracted silence, and then Yuri coughed. 'He was in terrible agony,' he said. Yuri touched Mircha's creased forehead, the source of so many of Mircha's agonies.
'He might have jumped sooner,' Vitek stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. 'But at least he did it.'
'He always was one for grand gestures,' Lukeria added.
'A mule among stallions,' Azade whispered.
Olga filled everyone's glasses. 'Well, that's that and God rest him, he's settled now and at peace.' Olga raised her glass and they all swallowed.
'He was never a good-looking man,' Zoya started off.
'But God rest him, he's got both arms and legs now,' Tanya replied, her open notebook balanced on her lap.
'And may he have better boots for longer journeys.' Azade raised her glass.
And may he teach the angels how to fish the glass sea,' Yuri said, bringing his sleeve to his nose.
And then they grew quiet again, thinking.
'It is just me, or is the stink in here worse than ever?' Lukeria said suddenly.
'The soup!' Olga cried, rushing for the kitchen.
'What I don't understand,' Zoya turned to Yuri, 'is how a Sabbath soup can double for a funeral soup.' Now Zoya turned to Tanya. 'You should write that down in your notebook.'
Vitek leaned toward Tanya. 'Zhirinovsky will save the country. Write that down in your notebook.'
'Please.' Tanya, overwhelmed by the combined odours of Vitek's breath and Mircha's body, waved her hand near her nose. 'There's a man dead here.'
'Zhirinovsky is an idiot. He sleeps with a pogo stick,' Yuri said.
'Please.' Olga returned with the tureen of soup, set it down on the table with a loud thunk. 'There are women here. Jews.'
'Zhirinovsky is a Jew.' Vitek smiled broadly.
'He's a madman,' Zoya said.
'He's inspired,' Vitek said.
'The things people like him call people like us.' Olga looked at Zoya, who looked at Yuri. Olga distributed the bowls, the bright orange ones with the white polka dots.
'Zhids,' Yuri wagged his head from side to side.
'Kikes,' Azade said.
'Dogs,' Tanya whispered.
'Swine,' Lukeria said nostalgically.
'Rodents and murderers,' Vitek sang.
'Well, thank heavens nobody thinks like that anymore,' Yuri said, his voice bright.
At this the room fell silent. Unnaturally silent. Olga saw that Yuri's ears were beetroot red and she knew he was not altogether the child that he so often pretended to be.
'Let's eat,' Olga said and they dragged their chairs to the other side of the room, where she ladled out the soup and they fell to eating in silence. After each mouthful of soup Azade licked the spoon, tucked it into her left boot and pulled a different spoon from her right boot. On this went until Azade had gone through at least twenty spoons and the sheer wonder and excess of it mesmerized Olga, who could not take her eyes off the woman.
'It must be a Gypsy thing,' Lukeria whispered in a voice so loud that everyone could hear her plainly.
'Avar,' Tanya whispered back. 'I think she's Avar or perhaps Lezghin.'
'Well, whatever she is, clearly she's quite mad with grief.' Lukeria paused for a split second and then added as if as an afterthought, 'This soup, it's got a distinct something about it.'
Zoya hooked her chin toward Olga. 'That's because she burned it.'
'In that case,' Lukeria stood slowly and patted her busy print dress into place, 'I won't ask for the recipe.' Lukeria turned to Tanya. 'Let's go. The smell in here is slapping me in the face.'