Lyova by

Posted on: May 20, 2005 11:48 PM

You left the main road before noon, as the lorries and cars slowly disappeared and asphalt turned to gravel. It is a particularly hot August day. Men and women are working in the fields, their red faces gazing up from their labour to stare at your red Lada (the first in several hours perhaps). The hay is being stacked up by wooden pitchfork into neat piles that resemble men. The children are also here. In these flat grasslands, the road is straight and lined by trees that join arms overhead, creating a natural tunnel of rustling foliage, which throws its shifting shadows onto the path, as it filters through the odd ray of sunlight, a glitter of sun through the leaves, liquid light pouring in from above. There are horses too, pulling carts on the path, working in the fields. An old peasant sleeps against a tree, as his three cows graze nearby. Then the path forks off into woodland. Thick, ancient forests that stretch out for miles on each side. You guess at deer, boar and bison, though you will see none of them at this time, when the sun is high and everything seems asleep and silent - except for the creaks and cries of swaying trees. Every few kilometres, there are children sitting at the side of the road, selling the wild strawberries and mushrooms they have just picked in the woods beyond. And this reminds you of another place and time that you left far behind.

The workers' gardens of Grodno, a piece of the country within the city. It is also August perhaps. You are sixteen. You go there with A. and pick yellow plums that seem to belong to nobody. It is very hot and silent as Sunday. There are old apple trees, all rotten and twisted as snakes, little green insects that you smear underfoot, the sound of children playing in the distance. You are picking wild strawberries with this girl you could never dare touch. The sex hangs heavy between you but you are too young to know this, and even if you did, you wouldn't know what to do. And these fruits that burst in her hands and leave them stained with their red ripe juice like blood. And these blood-stained hands that smell of summer, earth, sweetness and her, with which she is feeding you. But these things escape your innocence and your words are detached from the fruits and the blood and the avid look in your eyes that is that of children who are tired despite themselves, by the summer heat and the turbulence of their age.

Or another time, when you both roamed the streets in the dead of night. It is winter now and there is a thick cloak of snow covering the streets. The flutter of snowflakes in the air. The freezing wind biting at your faces. Her cheeks are bright red. Her hands are purple. you take them in your own hands to rub some warmth back into them - to no avail. The birches now merge with the snow, so that everything here is white and everything above is black. There is always this tension at dawn, when the chill hits hardest and you realize you will have to go home alone. All night you have been roaming furiously, to stop your limbs from going numb. You stop to say goodbye when you really want to say something else, but the words never came. And later, in bed, you fight the dreadful pain, as you start to feel your body again and your face is burning and your head is a fever of missed opportunities.

Some years later, there will be E. And with her you will dare. It is a very soft autumn afternoon and everything feels stale. You are on a park bench below a high wall. Fat leaves are everywhere. The winds are stirring up the first chills of winter, even though summer is barely dead. You sit close to her and try to keep your eyes off her lips, turning away each time she looks at you. And perhaps you think you kiss her out of boredom. But you see: you really can't be sure, because this has never happened before.

For three years, she will be your life. You dream soft dreams together, of a home, of children, of being old. Your head is on her knee, as you picnic in the same place that was once stained with the blood of wild strawberries. Only this time there will be no adolescent unease. Or a spring day that turned into a storm, as you ran through the park, shirtless, shoeless, singing out your heart in mad rapture to her girlish glee. One day she took a ribbon from her plaited hair and gave it to you. And years later and ten thousand kilometres further east, you suddenly find it in the depths of your old wallet. And this makes you cry.

You drive out of the birch forest and the landscape suddenly changes. There is water everywhere. Thick clumps of reed and flocks of swans beating their wings against the lake. A lone fisherman in a rowboat. Children splashing by the water's edge. The flatness has also turned to hills. The path is now winding. And you know it is winding home.

Home is where you had to hide her shoes at night, so that your father didn't notice she had stayed, when he went out to milk the cows at 4 am. Home is where you both picked wildflowers for her hair. Home is where you waited in anticipation, then angst and finally resignation, when the storks didn't return to their nest on your roof one sunny spring. And this ill omen sparked another, when E told you she was going West, to find a better life. Her parents were old and sick and she was the oldest child. Someone had promised her a modeling job in Germany... Only recently have you realized what must have become of her.

For several years you blamed her for leaving. For not writing. For breaking your love. You grew harder as you slowly realized she was not coming back, concealing your pain under a hard disguise, seeing many women that each reflected a part of her: a childish glance, a tall neck, a way of walking, a whiff of flowers, a tone of voice... And then, when you understood her story, you made your own in her image, tarnished your body, hurt your heart, drove yourself into exile. To escape her binds. To find her solitude. To take the time to think your stories over and hopefully, forget.

There is a bend in the path, a few birch trees, and peering from behind them, your family house, the place where you grew up. You will stop the car, get out, and as the gate groans its welcome, you will realize that nothing fades. That these stories are shelved along with the pickled mushrooms, labeled '1986', contaminated by the Tchernobyl disaster, that no one will ever eat and your mother will probably never throw out. So they sit there in the cellar, collecting dust, as every few years, somebody notices them and exclaims: "Iza, did you know that batch of '86 is still down there?" and she replies: "Yes, yes, I'll throw them out tomorrow."

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