‘Is that done?’
He sucked in air with a jolt. The spoon in his hand was hovering over the pan, not stirring but making useless round movements in the air. The porridge looked stodgy, and was drying at the edges.
‘Yes, it’s done, Baba.’ He nodded and smiled, and carefully scooped a good serving into each of their bowls, adding a peck of salt as he went.
‘Eat well, Tolya. We have a Subbotnik tomorrow: you will need your strength for the voluntary work.’
‘Another Subbotnik! But Baba, it’s Saturday! I want to play, and help Papa in the yard, and teach Lev how to march!’
Baba gave Tolya a tired look, and sighed into her lumpy porridge. ‘Tolya, that’s the point of a Subbotnik. We do good works on our day off. Well, we who have no choice do. And everyone reaps the benefit. It is our duty.’
‘But that’s not fair!’ The boy’s bottom lip started to tremble.
‘Life’s not fair, Tolya, life’s not fair. Now eat your porridge, and grow big and strong. Then you can tell them what to do with their Subbotnik.’ She laughed, the sound gravelly and low. Tolya cuddled up closer to her, sharing her warmth, and chewed on his black bread and buckwheat, determined to grow big and strong.
Later that night, as they lay side-by-side in the big wooden bed in the corner of the room, Tolya listened to his baba’s breathing. Steady, big breaths whistled in and out of her chest, making the quilt rise and fall, rustling slightly. She was warm and solid, like a living stove. He knew she wasn’t asleep.
‘Tell me a story, Baba.’
‘Get to sleep, boy – it’s late. Too late for stories.’ She turned onto her side towards him, plumping up the straw pillow with her shoulder, and tucking down her head so that her nose and mouth were under the covers.
‘Tell me the moth boy story, Baba.’
‘Akh, I wish I’d never opened my mouth. Moth boy … what nonsense! There is no story. It’s just a myth; tittle-tattle. I’ve never seen him …’ Baba’s voice trailed off and she yawned, ‘And it was all so long ago.’
‘Not that long ago, Baba. Not like when you were a girl.’
‘Ha!’ She chuckled and opened her eyes. ‘No, not that long ago … yes, when I was a girl … that was another century! There were no radios, no mobile cinemas, no electricity, not anywhere – and no one could read! No one like us, I mean. There were no communes, no soviet councils …’
‘But that was before moth boy?’ prompted Tolya.
‘Akh, moth boy. No, moth boy’s not that old – although, if he’s a spirit then … he’s as old as water, as old as the stars. Maybe the shaman knows, eh? You know the local people believe, don’t you? And who’s to say they’re wrong.’
‘What did you see, Baba?’
‘Nothing. It was a dream … a story. The story got into my dream. Some words people were saying.’ She began to doze off.
‘But what about the story?’ He pressed his elbow into her chest.
‘A boy ran away to the forest; a strange boy. He wanted to be a shaman, that’s why he went. He hid in the trees, shaking the leaves … but the moonlight slid into him, through the cracks round his eyes.’ Tolya felt around his own eyes with soft fingers, looking for cracks. ‘It shone in his brain, you see. And once it got into him, he couldn’t come back, no matter how cold and lonely he was. He was moonstruck; a lunatic, half boy … and half moth. He taps at the windows, but he can’t come back.’ Baba’s voice was becoming thick with sleep.
‘I’ve heard him, Baba!’ Tolya rocked his blond head into Baba’s shoulder to rouse her. ‘He’s real.’
‘Oh, my boy! Real, not real: what’s the difference, eh?’ She smiled and patted his hair with a heavy hand as her eyes fell shut. ‘Nothing lasts forever, except stories.’
‘But we believe in him, don’t we Baba?’
‘Go to sleep. We believe what we want to. And what we believe must be real, mustn’t it?’ Tolya nodded. ‘Maybe you’ll be a scientist when you’re grown up, and you can tell me if spirits are real or not.’
‘I will, Baba. I’ll be a scientist. Then we’ll know.’
‘Good. But now it’s time to sleep. Papa will be home soon, and he’ll be angry if we’re awake.’
Tolya closed his eyes and pressed his nose into the pillow, nestling into the warmth of his babushka, and imagining how his laboratory might look, when he was grown and big and strong. He would get to work in a flying machine, and eat only sausages and sweets.
‘Next time you see moth boy, Baba, you know what to do?’ She did not reply, but he carried on talking, looking down into his own hands. ‘Just close both your eyes, and cross both your fingers, and say to yourself, as loudly as you can, “Comrade Stalin, protect me!” and all will be well. That’s what the boys said. All will be well. Just believe. That’s what they told me.’
Baba grunted and stroked his head. The warmth of the bed spread through his limbs and over his mind as he fell into the velvet nest of sleep. A sleep so deep, he heard nothing, sensed nothing. Not even the lonely sound on the windowpane.
tap-tap-tap
The old man’s head snapped up.
‘You see, Vlad, moth boy is as old as the wind, the water. The story … I didn’t make it up! Ask anyone!’ He rubbed his eyes with a sticky, squelching sound. ‘They go to the flame, they get too close and – fssssst!’
Vlad stared at the old man, puzzled, and then turned his eyes to the fine grey mist rising from the mud flats beyond the window. He blew out his cheeks.
‘We didn’t really get very far, did we, Anatoly Borisovich?’
‘I was too young … too young to know the half of it! I thought Comrade Stalin would protect me! What did I know?’
Vlad glanced at his watch.
‘Indeed. Anatoly Borisovich, I’m sorry, I have to go.’ It was gone four o’clock. He licked his lips at the thought of Polly. ‘I am sorry to leave at such an interesting moment.’
‘Interesting?’ Anatoly Borisovich yawned. He felt warm inside. He hadn’t talked at such length for a long, long time, and had forgotten how energising it was to converse with another person, instead of muttering to himself. He also felt extremely tired.
‘I’ll come again, maybe later in the week? Perhaps then we can get to the research part? What you’ve told me is fascinating, thank you, but I can’t use it. It doesn’t help me understand what has been troubling you recently, you see, and what caused your collapse, and your memory loss. That is the point of my research.’
‘Research?’ repeated the old man absently. ‘Collapse?’ He frowned. ‘Oh yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You couldn’t see your way to bringing me a little morsel to eat next time, could you? We don’t get much that is sweet here, Vlad, and I do find talking exhausting. Do you like a bit of cake, yourself?’
‘Cake?’ Vlad looked hurt. ‘I don’t eat cake. I’m an athlete – or at least, I was.’
‘Oh really? That’s a story!’
‘Not really.’
The old man’s eyes rested on Vlad’s arms as the muscles flexed under his sweater, then travelled to his legs, slim in their close-fitting jeans.
‘I’ll see what I can do to find you something sweet. And hopefully next time we can make some progress on how you got those scars. It will help us make sense of what is … going on now.’ Vlad was shuffling his papers and jangling his keys.
The