The Road Home (23 page)

Lev reached out for Sophie. He pulled her to him and sat very still, with his arms round her, resting his head against her scarlet curls. He loved the smell of her. Knew the scent alone could drive him wild. Wondered how crazy, in time, he would allow himself to get.

11

Flooding Backward

ON THE MORNING before the restaurant reopened, Sophie said, “Lev, you have to go home today. I’ve got stuff to do.”

Stuff? What stuff? But he didn’t argue, even though the day yawned in front of him, long and lonely without her. He told himself he had things to occupy him: his room to clean, money to send to Ina. And he remembered Christy, alone in the flat. Perhaps he and Christy would walk to Hampstead Heath and watch the kite fliers and the hardy swimmers breaking the ice on the frozen ponds.

Before he left, Sophie offered to cut his hair. She shampooed it and rubbed it roughly with a towel. Then she positioned Lev at her wooden dressing table, and he could see himself, brightly lit, in an old, three-sided mirror, with the towel draped over his shoulders, and he stared at his two profiles and at Sophie’s soft hands caressing his damp head.

Clustered round the mirror were a collection of cosmetic products and a jewelry stand, in the shape of a tree, hung with necklaces and beads. In whichever direction Lev looked, he saw his own image framed by these objects. He sat obediently still, staring at the lotions and creams. And he remembered how, when Marina had been alive, he’d loved this scented, intimate paraphernalia, the modest vanities of her life as a woman: the smell of lipstick and foundation, the one precious bottle of perfume, eked out over time, the stubby pencil with which she drew out the elegant line of her eyebrows . . .

He felt tempted to talk about Marina now, to remind Sophie that he’d been loved before—as if this fact would make him more beautiful to her, more visible and strong. But she was absorbed in the hair cutting. She arranged his head this way and that. She kept telling him not to move. She was tender toward him, but part of her, he felt, had left him already. The flat had gone still and silent.

Marina became Lev’s companion in this silence. It seemed a long time since she’d been there with him, but now she was . . .

She and Lev were traveling in a bus going from Auror to Baryn in the heart of winter, and on the way, their baby began to arrive. Little Maya. She beat with her fists and with her feet inside Marina, to throw out the fluid in which she’d been floating, and suddenly the floor of the bus was drenched, and when the driver saw this, he began swearing and swerving all over the icy road.

The bus skidded to a stop. A fellow passenger covered Marina with her woolen shawl. Other women clustered round. The men stared from a horrified distance. Lev asked the driver to go straight to the hospital in Baryn. So the driver let the bus hurtle on, ignoring its scheduled stops, leaving people waiting in the sleet, waving their arms in vain. Marina’s contractions were coming every three or four minutes. Lev knelt by her and held her hand. When the pain came back, she didn’t cry out, but tightened her grip on Lev’s hand, and her nails dug into his palm.

The road seemed long and gray and unforgiving. One of the women, a
babushka
with a lined and suffering face, whispered to Lev, “Comrade, you may have to be a hero and deliver your own child. Do you have vodka for sterilization?”

Vodka for sterilization.

The phrase later passed into hilarious usage between Lev and Rudi. When the small frustrations of life got them down, Rudi would say, “Shit, Lev. We need vodka for sterilization.”

Lev smiled at the memory of this, and Sophie said, “What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing,” said Lev. “Only thinking about Rudi.”

She went on snipping and shaping. Lev looked at the gray drifts of hair on the floor beside his chair. He returned to the bus and the shadowless landscape going by the window and the
babushka
rolling up his sleeves for him and pouring vodka over his hands and forearms. And he remembered that, instead of feeling alarmed or afraid, he’d begun to feel excited at the idea of bringing his child into the world on the road to Baryn. He began, even, to hope that the bus wouldn’t reach the hospital in time. He recast himself as a hero, steadied himself for what might prove to be his finest hour . . .

“Okay?” said Sophie. “I think that’s finished. Now you don’t look so 1970s, man.”

Lev stared at his face, shorn of his long hair, and he thought that it had never appeared to him quite like it appeared now. He reached up a hand and touched his neck: it was unexpectedly smooth and cold. He tugged the towel off his shoulders and held it in an awkward bundle in his lap.

“Okay?” said Sophie again.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s good. Thank you.”

Sophie took the towel from his hands. “It’s a bit short, but in a week it’ll look brilliant.”

She lightly kissed his mouth. He got up, brushed the hair from his knees, and went into the bedroom, where he began to pack his things. He looked out of the bedroom window into Rossvale Road, and it, like the landscape on the route to Baryn, seemed to be without shadows. He watched a young woman walking along, pushing a baby in a buggy. A small dog followed at her heels. Lev sighed as he folded his checked shirt.

For all the dramatic preparations, he’d never had to become the hero in the story of Maya’s birth. The bus drew into the Baryn hospital compound in time, and the passengers cheered, the
babushka
smacked a kiss on Marina’s cheek, and the driver wiped his forehead, which was oily with sweat. Orderlies came running out of the hospital doors with a trolley and Marina was wheeled away. All Lev could do then was follow, aware of the vodka fumes that still emanated from his body.

The hospital corridor was painted green. Lev jogged behind the trolley, trying to keep one hand on it. But then a set of swing-doors loomed up at him, blocking his way. The doors swallowed the trolley with Marina on it, and a white-coated doctor, who appeared from nowhere, instructed Lev to wait on a wooden chair of the kind that furnished the Office of Public Works.

Lev sat down. He could hear his labored breathing. He was alone in the waiting area, and he stayed sitting on the wooden chair for a long time. A tin ashtray piled up with his cigarette butts. The vodka evaporated on his skin.

Then, at last, a nurse came through the doors and held up a tightly wrapped bundle. “Daughter,” she said curtly. “Yours now.”

Lev sat with Christy, drinking tea. They smoked and coughed in a kind of unison. He looked up at Christy and noticed now that his eczema had retreated, that there was some color in his thin face.

“Must be the sleep,” Christy commented. “Slept for thirty-nine hours—just to be on the safe side, so as not to experience a
chink
of Christmas Day. You know? Heard the phone ringing coupla times. Got up to piss. Drank a glass of milk. Those pills gave me excellent dreams, too. Chipper as a spaniel, I was.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. You know your hair’s feckin’ short, fella. Was that deliberate?”

“Sophie said I looked like 1970s person.”

“I think it suited you long, but never mind. To go on with me dream: I was at Silverstrand, in Suffolk, where Angela and I once or twice took Frankie. Lovely sea there. Beach nice and clean. I floated along the shore, light as the wind, with all me worries gone. The breakers came tumbling in, and the sun put a glint on the foam, and I saw all the beauty in that, every speck.”

“That’s a nice dream, Christy . . .”

“Well, it is. It was. And when I wake up finally, when the pills have worn off, I feel all optimistic suddenly, and think to meself, maybe, with Sophie as, like, the female chaperone, we could make a day out with Frankie—without Angela peering down me neck. What d’you say, fella? One Sunday. We could all go to the zoo.”

Lev stubbed out his cigarette. “Or go to that place in your dream,” he said. “Silverstrand. Why not there?”

Christy stared at Lev. His eyes began their familiar, nervous blinking.

“I don’t know . . .” he said. “In the dream it was lovely, but it’s a while since I visited . . .”

“Walk by the waves,” said Lev, “or run.”

“Run?”

“Yes. Along the sand.”

“Easy on, fella. Not sure I’m up to running! Might end up facedown in a rock pool. Then the gulls would start circling the territory.”

As Christy began to laugh and the laughter turned to a cough, Lev’s phone rang, and he walked with it into his bedroom because he thought it might be Sophie, summoning him back to her, but it was G. K. Ashe.

“Nurse,” said G.K., “how was Christmas?”

“Good,” said Lev. “Thank you, Chef.”

“Okay. I’m glad. Well, now listen up. We’ve got a crisis. Tony’s left.”

“Yes?”

“Fuck him. Gave me no decent warning, and he’s dumped us in the
merde,
because we’re full New Year’s Eve, absolutely sodding chocka. So here’s what I’m doing. I’m going to put Sophie in as the second sous-chef. She’s overdue a chance, because she’s dedicated, and she watches and learns, so I think she can hack it. Right?”

“Good, Chef.”

“And I want you to take on the veg prep. It’s not difficult. It’s not rocket science, it just needs care. Are you up for it?”

Lev sat down on his bunk bed and looked at the shop and the old-fashioned storekeeper still lying prone behind his counter.

“I will do it, Chef,” he said.

“Good. Good man. If it goes a bit pear-shaped tomorrow evening, it’s not so catastrophic, because we’re clientele lite, but for the New Year we’ve got to be up to par. Go and buy some proper knives. Get down to those catering suppliers in Swiss Cottage. I’ll reimburse you. And then pick up some stuff—salad, endive, potatoes, carrots, whatever you can find—and start practising, okay? Try to get your chopping speed up. Remember, it’s the body of the knife you move, not the tip. And endeavor not to sever your fingers or your hand. I don’t want to see blood in the gratin.”

“Yes, Chef.”

“And don’t worry about the KP work. I’ll find a new nurse. Nurses aren’t hard to get. I’ll give you and Sophie a week’s trial. If the week goes all right, I’ll put your money up. Seven pounds an hour. If it’s crap, you’re back at the sinks. You understand me, Lev?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Good. So it’s up to you. Everything now is up to you.”

The call ended and Lev sat still for a moment, staring at his mobile. Then he walked through to Christy, who was clearing away the tea things. “Christy,” he said, “I’m going shopping now. Cook a nice vegetable stew for supper.”

“Yes?” said Christy. “Well, don’t let me stop you, fella. Make a lovely change from milk and pies.”

Little Gem lettuce:
pare away stalk, separate and rinse leaves, spin dry, leave ready for the chefs in colander, covered with clean wet towel.

Baby carrots:
slice tops, leaving half-inch of clean green, scrape and rinse, leave ready.

Spinach:
rinse, wilt over low heat, if requested, leave for chefs to drain and season.

Rocket:
rinse and spin, leave in colander.

Haricots:
pinch out tops, discard oversize beans (stockpot), wash, leave for chefs.

Zucchini:
top, wash and drain, slice or baton-up as requested.

Tomatoes:
Blanch and skin. Deseed before chopping . . .

Sophie had written out and pinned up for Lev what she called her “Veg Blueprint,” and now he was hunched over his new station, cutting, rinsing, scraping, separating, slicing. “Keep your ears pricked,” G.K. had told him. “If I need spinach, I’m going to shout out, so will Pierre and Sophie. If we need carrots batoned up or fennel sliced, again, we’re just going to shout it. And then we’ll need them fast. You got it?”

“Got it, Chef.”

“Keep your chopping boards clean. I don’t want to experience a zucchini seed on my endive. And if you cut your finger, rinse it, dry it, dress it quickly, and carry on. Elastoplast and stuff is up there, above your head. Always put on a fingerstall to prevent blood leaking through.”

Lev’s bandana had been replaced by a cotton cap, identical to the ones the chefs wore. It fit snugly over his shorn head.

Now and again, Lev glanced up at the thin, seventeen-year-old boy who had replaced him as nurse in his old kingdom of the dishwash. This boy wore the bandana now. He looked, to Lev, like an apprentice pirate, nervous of the vast, steel-colored sea that surrounded him. Tendrils of his brown hair escaped from the scarf and clung to his neck, damp with steam. His name was Vitas and he was from Lev’s country. Lev felt protective toward him, but had no time to give him. The chefs’ demands came fast and didn’t slacken. Laboring his way through the skinning and seeding of tomatoes for a
coulis,
he was aware that Pierre needed spinach, and G.K., who was molding zucchini cakes, shouted to him that he’d run out of mint leaves. Lev left the tomatoes sliding in a bloody mass to the far edges of his chopping area, tore a bundle of mint from the chiller, rinsed it, and began picking off the leaves and hurling them into a colander.

“Lev!” shouted Pierre. “Spinach! You’re holding up table six.”

“Coming, Pierre . . .”

The mint leaves stuck to Lev’s hands. He realized he should have picked the leaves off first and rinsed them afterward. He saw juice from the tomatoes begin to drip down the front of the work station. He wiped his hands, ran water into his sink, threw in the spinach, then returned to his mint, shutting off the cold rinse faucet with his elbow. He glanced up to see G.K. pausing in his own work to stare at him, and he knew the import of this electric stare by now. No words were needed.

He thought about the promised seven pounds an hour. With that, he might be able to increase his payments to Ina by about ten pounds a week. And then, instead of bleating on and on about his return, she might at last begin to be proud of what he was trying to do . . .

“So rescue it,” he instructed himself, imitating one of G.K.’s peremptory commands. “Stay calm, like you stayed calm at Ferndale Heights, and rescue it.”