giving birth any more. Inside her furry mittens, her fingers were sweaty and so swollen that she couldn't clench her fist any more. Her kerchief slid away and for the first time in her life she felt wrinkles gathering on her forehead. If she could see herself in the mirror, she would be terrified of this change in her appearance. Now, however, she had no energy left to feel fear just like that time when she was drowning in the Dnieper all those years ago.
"God, when will the baby finally come?!" I moaned while clutching Senya's hand and subsiding into a temptingly warm snow mound. "Poor women, why do they suffer so?!.. Jesus, why do I say 'they' if I'm one of them?"
He was on the verge of tears and as he was kissing my mittened hands, he tried raising me out of the snow mound.
"Klarochka," he was saying, "let's go, we are really close. When we get there they will help you undress, get this stupid fur-coat off you…"
"And everything else, too!" I gasped, not even trying to get up because the pain was more than I could bear and I had no more energy to keep bearing it.
"Of course, they will take everything off, just like they should, and you'll forget ever dragging all this heavy stuff around. They'll give you some medication, put you on a comfortable table, you'll make one last effort, and give us a son or a daughter."
"A son!" I barked confidently, getting up almost in spite of myself.
"A son!" she told me in a whisper but firmly.
"A son!" rang out in the trolley through the closed window.
And Klara strode to give birth to a son, strode instead of trudging.
Or rather, they strode together, as usual.
II
Now Klara temporarily forgot – how could any one remember anything any more? – that she strove, or rather dreamt, of getting past New Year's. There were many reasons for that but the main was to delay her son's enlistment for a year. In any case, one was always better off being considered born a year later, of course, just considered.
"And what if it's a girl?" asked or maybe just said Maria Isaakovna, with a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm.
"Mama, such things don't just happen," Klara answered reassuringly and went back to her Roman Law textbook. Professor Fuks delivered his lectures as well as any famous actor would, let alone any Roman tribune. So many students gathered to hear his lectures that not only was there no room to swing a cat but even the tiniest kitten could hardly be swung in the lecture-hall. Passing Fuks's final exam, especially while being pregnant, was harder than conquering the Roman Empire. Klara, however, never doubted herself and neither did Samuil. Vladimir Fedorovich didn't doubt her either, although when Maria Isaakovna spoke, he remained mostly silent and sometimes smiled, albeit not sarcastically but in agreement.
"Volodia, why do you keep smiling?" Maria Isaakovna asked in a voice of a temporarily dethroned empress. "No, this man will drive me crazy one day! A serious issue is being discussed, and he's sitting here like nothing's happening and keeps smiling. Volodia, stop smiling right now! I'm talking to you!"
"What do you think I should do, cry?" Vladimir Fedorovich smiled broadly and shrugged his shoulders.
How can one be expected not to smile if the war has been over for six and a half years, and even though they share their apartment with neighbors, it's still better than some shack in the evacuation to the Ural Mountains, everybody is healthy and sound, and the ration cards are no longer in use, Samuil is about to graduate from medical school and Klara from law school? And I will soon have a grandson, or maybe a granddaughter, which is just as well, even though Klara is certain she will have a boy. Should this make one cry, or what?
"This issue isn't being discussed, Mama," Klara observed without raising her eyes from her notes, written in a soft, leftward-sloping handwriting. "This issue was resolved a long time ago. I can remember the approximate date this issue was resolved and even the time of day or, rather, night. Of course, I can't be completely sure about that since the occasion was both solemn and significant."
Even though she stopped short of clarifying what the occasion in question was, her statement made an impression. Samuil was the only one who was one hundred per cent content with it, given that he was in possession of all the facts, which allowed him to admire the precision of his wife's description. Vladimir Fedorovich smiled again, while Maria Isaakovna flashed like a lightning in response to Klara's comment, Vladimir Fedorovich's smile, and Samuil's contented thoughtfulness.
III
Before the war, Klara, Maria Isaakovna and Vladimir Fedorovich lived in a privileged two-bedroom apartment that, of course, they didn't have to share with any neighbors. It was located in what was maybe the coziest neighborhood of Kharkov, called Nagorny neighborhood. Maria Isaakovna worked as a construction engineer. She supervised extremely important construction projects and designed huge power plants at Lakes Sevan and Balkhash, and in many other parts of the Soviet Union.
Maria had been born in Byelorussia in a Dnieper shtetl called Rechitsa.
Her real name was Mary and not Maria, but Mary sounded too British, which made little sense when one was from Rechitsa. Isaak, her father, was the best cabinet-maker in the entire province, while her mother, Klara, was considered illiterate and had given birth to eight children. It was true that she didn't know her letters but that hardly made her illiterate. It was just that she had no time to learn, what with eight children and a husband permanently stuck in his cabinet-making workshop.
Still, she was smarter than many of those who knew how to read and write. People from all over the shtetl came to her for advice, just like they did to Sancho Panza on his island. The advice she dispensed was very good. Not once in her life was she known to offer a bad piece of advice.
Among her eight children, there were two girls – Mary and Haya, the rest were boys who – once they grew up – became socialists and died. That is, some of them died because they were socialists, while the others died in the war, which had nothing to do with them being socialists.
One of Mary's brothers turned out to be a mathematician. He proved a theorem that couldn't be proven. Or, rather, aided by his very Jewish spirit of contradiction so disliked by many, he disproved an axiom. Of course, it wasn’t really an axiom since if it were one nobody could have disproven it. Aaron disagreed it was an axiom and this allowed him to prove it wrong. The Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg appreciated his outstanding capabilities and awarded him a silver medal on the condition that he would change his unscientific Jewish name of Aaron into a more Russian-sounding Arkadi. His last name, Krupetsky, sounded almost like the aristocratic Russian family names of Obolensky or even Golitsynsky. If only, of course, one could forget about needless particularities.
Her older siblings were always busy, so Mary learned to entertain herself. When she was little, she went to the Dnieper which was so wide it touched the horizon. Only an inexperienced and excessively romantic observer could perceive this river as tranquil in a calm weather (to use Gogol's famed line). In reality, even next to the river-banks there were scores of pits and breakers. One can only imagine how many there were in the middle of the river, which Mary’s four-year-old height barely permitted her to see.
Nobody had taught Mary to fear the river. Nobody had taught her anything except reading and writing but these skills turned out to be useless in dealing with the river. So she entered the water just like she entered her father’s workshop to stare at a new cabinet and holiday chairs or her mother’s kitchen to try knodel, latkes, or gefilte fish. She had no idea she could drown because she didn’t know what drowning was. This is why Mary just started swimming and discovered she liked
