Голубые ступени / Stepping into the blue

«No, I’d better go moisten my cloth – I don’t like the way you look.»

She headed over to the tap – they hadn’t yet cut off the water for the winter – and wiped the face in the photograph, just as she had wiped his face so many times whenever he came down with a temperature. And each time she did this, just like now, the same thought would come to mind: «And who wiped your face while you were in prison? You can’t tell me you didn’t come down with a temperature the whole eighteen years!»

She neatly folded the cloth, placed it on the pediment behind the granite headstone, then straightened up and whispered directly to his face: «Konnst schon ein bissel rucken – ich welt sein bald – ja, ja! (You can start moving over, I won’t be long now – yes, yes!)»

The light had already dimmed quite a bit, and the workers who had passed by her quite a few times in their mini-truck decided they ought to tell Filippovich[13 - Filippovich – a patronymic, or second name derived from his father’s first name. Its use here all by itself (without the first name) indicates that he enjoyed a high degree of trust and friendship on the part of the people he worked with.] that this old woman had been sitting a long time there without moving. At first she had been chattering away and swaying back and forth the way all Jews did, but now she was sitting there stock still, like a statue. Who knows whether she might have died right then and there – it was pretty cold.

Filippovich let out an oath, pushed the table away with his bulging belly, and got up with a groan. As he ambled along the central allеe he thought: everybody dies the same death. Still, it was rare for people to go together. It was always a lot harder for the one left behind.

«There she is!» whispered a voice from behind his back. The worker who had been trailing him pointed. «She just sits herself there and don’t budge.» Filippovich paused by the low fence and coughed. The old woman wasn’t even moving a muscle.

«Hey, lady!» Filippovich called out softly, but with no response. «Hey, lady! The grounds are closing. Do you need help?» He was starting to get involved – you could hear it in his voice.

The old woman slowly turned her dark face toward him and tried to get up, leaning on her walking-stick, but she couldn’t move.

«Give us a hand here!» Filippovich gestured to the man behind him, and the worker, wearing a warm jacket, stepped out from behind his back.

«I’m all stuck here. Can’t do it!» he explained. Then the rotund Filippovich, who had a hard time bending over himself, leant forward and tried to take hold of the old woman’s elbow. She managed to get up, only to drop back to the bench.

«Hoo, boy!» By this time he was really upset, not so much because of the elderly woman’s infirmity as the unexpected challenges that had come his way. «How come you’re all alone here, and on the Sabbath yet?»

«No matter,» came the reply. «I’ll get up. I’ll get there. I wanted to do it on my own, ’cause…» She was wondering whether it was worth the effort to continue speaking, when Filippovich interrupted her:

«And at your age!»

«At my age I can do everything! I can go for a walk alone at night, even on the Sabbath!» Suddenly she gave a start and took a first step.

«Aha, it’s comin’!» the worker chortled. «Well, now, granny! How many years you got under your belt?»

«Ninety,» she answered, to the amazement of all.

«How many?» Filippovich echoed.

«You don’t believe me?» After a pause, she added: «It’s exactly seventy years today that we’ve been… like together.»

«What do you mean, ’like together’?» Filippovich marvelled, looking at the dates on the headstone.

«You don’t know how to count! Can’t count! Those years that went by – every one of them counted as two. So they add up to many more!»

While she felt a swelling in her legs, and wondered whether, indeed, she would make it home now, she was nevertheless completely free of not only fear but even concern. True, the thought did cross her mind that once at home she might go crazy, but since that had happened a number a times already, she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. In any case, she had done everything right. They had been so little together in life that Ziama was probably in full agreement with her.

«Bring the three-wheeler, on the double!» Filippovich barked, and the worker quickly set off back down the allеe. He presently returned with a rattling three-wheeled mini-truck sporting a fresh mat on the seat of the cab.

«Okay, granny, get in!» the worker chortled, and he and Filippovich lifted the old woman over the low running-board and sat her down on the seat of the cab.

«Head for the office!» Filippovich commanded as he started to follow them. Upon reaching the office the woman waited until he could catch up with them and help her out.

It took them quite a while to decide what to do next. She flatly refused to take a taxi, asking only that they accompany her to the bus stop. After extensive negotiations she finally agreed that Filippovich could take her as far as the trolleybus near her home, as it was on his way, but after that she would be on her own.

«My grandson wants to write the story of my life,» she told him as they drove. «I tell him there’s no point: we all lived the same kind of life, nothing special, and the fact that I’ve managed to stick around longer than others in this world, well, it still remains to be seen whether that’s an advantage.»

«Mm-hm!» sighed Filippovich, and took a good look at her. «You don’t look a day over seventy! You’re sure you’re not kidding me?»

«What for?» the old woman asked in surprise. «Just think: I was born when Alexander III was on the throne – I was born in the residency perimeter.»

«And what might that be?»

«What was that? A za jahr af mir! (I should have lived like that!) What was that, indeed? A perimeter for Jews.»

«What kind of perimeter?»

«Designating where we could live, where we couldn’t!»

«Some kind of border?»

«It’s obvious, isn’t it – you have to agree I’ve got to…»

«Got to do what?»

«Tell my story, of course! Seeing youngsters like you don’t know anything! Where did you go to school?»

«I graduated from the Bauman,»[14 - Bauman – the name of a well-known technical institute in Moscow.] Filippovich boasted.

«What’s that supposed to mean?»

«I was an engineer!»

«An engineer, and here you’re looking after a cemetery?!»

«Gelt (Money),» was Filippovich’s only answer.

«Maybe you’re Jewish?» queried the old woman in amazement.

«No, I’m just a regular guy. You think Jews are the only smart people?» Filippovich took offense. «Don’t you remember it all?»

The old woman didn’t answer for such a long time that the driver was already starting to get concerned and stole a glance over his shoulder.

«The things I remember – well, they’re better to forget,» she said quietly. «Back then I could have been sent to jail just for talking about them. Even now they still won’t publish my memoirs. Why get my grandson all worked up about it? Better they go to the grave with me. He’s not to blame that I’m his grandmother!»

«Know something? I’m going to drive you right home! Where are you headed? It’s dark out, and with those legs of yours?»

«No,» the old woman protested. «I ought to get home on my own. That’s the way it should be. Besides, I owe it to him.»

Filippovich didn’t understand who the «him» referred to, but he wasn’t about to ask for clarification. He let her off at the stop, helped her on to the trolleybus, and then spent a long time just standing there, reflecting on what had happened and envying a grandson he had never met. There weren’t any elderly relatives in his life. They were all dead and buried – either in battlefields far away on the western front, or in the Siberian labor-camps far to the east, and nobody could even tell him where to find their graves.

Спи, Малыш

Спи, Малыш, спи… Эта вечная луна тихонько положила на пол квадрат окна, часть его оказалась на кроватке и согнулась вместе со свисающим одеялом. Он сидел рядом на стуле уже который час, наклонившись вперёд и положив руку на маленькое горячее тельце ровно между лопаток. Вторая рука его свисала с распущенной ладонью и полусогнутыми пальцами.