There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

a human being!”
    “Anyway, she cannot go to the hospital—they won’t take her. So you’ve got to decide. The paperwork’s ready; tomorrow they are taking her. Don’t worry, you don’t have to come.”
    “Is there anyone in the office?” The boy takes a step back and punches me in the kidneys with both fists. “Valechka, dear, what’s the urgency?”
    My mind is racing. If they move her, we lose her pension. This means we’ll be completely and totally screwed. Her pension arrives two days from now—can we still get it? Oh horror, horror. One lives from day to day, admittedly badly, but then something happens and the previous existence seems a quiet harbor. What a disaster. They die like flies at that facility.
    Suddenly I hear, “There’s no urgency. You were informed a long time ago. Really, you shouldn’t worry.”
    “No one’s informed me of anything! Which facility is she going to?”
    “Outside the city. We’ll get her ready and everything—”
    “That’s two hours one way!”
    “More like three. But there’s no need for you to be there. They have everything they need. Okay then, I’ll need your signature, but that can be done later.”
    “What signature?”
    “Saying you agree—”
    “But I don’t agree!”
    “Are you taking her home, then?”
    “No signature! Forget it!” I hang up.
    Now we must hurry to the reading. The usual tantrum unfolds: Tima refuses to put on his warm felt boots with overshoes and a wonderful fur hat that used to be Andrey’s. But it’s cold outside! Do you want me to stay up all night, bleeding my heart out, while you are in bed sick? I implore you, and so on. In the end we agree on the combination of a flimsy hat and warm boots. Subway tickets cost a fortune, but then we were promised a ride by car. The car turns out to be a drafty pickup truck, but even for this I’m grateful. We are accompanied by a lady in a torn sheepskin coat and a homemade foxtail hat.
    “Ma’am, your sleeve’s torn. . . .”
    “Again! I keep stitching it up. . . .”
    Her outfit betrays a feeble effort at luxury, but later she gets paid the same miserly fee as I.
    “What are you?” I ask her. “I’m a poet.”
    “I’m a bard.”
    “A bard?”
    “That’s what they call me. I tell stories using puppets. It’s very simple: I make these funny puppets with potatoes for a head. Your girl will enjoy it.”
    Right—can’t tell a girl from a boy, this so-called bard, although Tima’s curls have confused many. My girl stares with puffy eyes at the window; his hat is off, the car drafty.
    “Me, I’m a poet. (Put your hat back on!) A namesake, almost, of the greatest one. . . . (I’ll tell the driver to stop the car!)”
    “Which greatest poet?” the bard wants to know.
    “Guess. I’m Anna Andrianovna. It’s like a mark of fate.”
    “Oh, names are always a mystery! Take mine: Xenia.”
    “What’s the mystery?”
    “It means unknowable to all .”
    “Nice one.”
    My stomach is howling, my heart pounding in alarm. After the call from the hospital I didn’t eat; I tried to track down a psychiatrist I knew a long time ago, but at his home they said only “such and such doesn’t live here anymore,” very bitterly. But I’ve fed Timochka: sugared bread and cold tea. We call it pastry. He’s still hungry, but first we must rattle around in this unheated, stinking tin can, our stomachs rumbling. What a bitter, hungry lot. My mother is still in the hospital, in her bed; she is eating well, I was told on the phone. I’ve tried to find that Valya, but no Valya seems to be working there. I know how my mother eats: sucks in food greedily with her toothless mouth. Last time I saw her, her shoulders were nothing but bones. Look at her! Let her be, let her die in bed. No. That’s when we get punishment—right before the end, when there’s so little left of us that it’s unclear who’s being punished.
    “Children are the best audience,” the bard drones on.