There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In: Three Novellas About Family by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Author:Ludmilla Petrushevskaya [Petrushevskaya, Ludmilla]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Omnibus, Novella, Adult
ISBN: 9780143121664
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chocolates with Liqueur

1

The Housing Question

Nikita left his wife, Lelia, but for the time being he let her and their children stay in their two-room apartment.

He didn’t mention divorce.

Every night he came at seven and stayed in “his” room for two hours, watching television or talking very loudly on the phone.

The children were forced to sleep in these conditions. But they got used to the noise and to the idea that Papa was not to be disturbed.

He and Lelia agreed that he wouldn’t get there before seven. From seven to nine was his time.

Occasionally, the upstairs neighbor took in the children for those two hours.

To the children Lelia explained the arrangement as “Papa is working.” There wasn’t any need to explain anything, but Lelia tried at all costs to keep up an appearance of a normal family. The children, she thought, must not suffer—they must have a father.

In Nikita’s presence, Lelia made no demands, didn’t ask for anything, barely lifted eyes at him. Yes, no, as you wish. Even when she was in bed with a high fever and there was nothing to eat in the house, she said nothing when Nikita arrived at his usual time and turned on the TV particularly loudly. She was calm, with the serenity of someone who has hit bottom.

She and the children had nothing to live on. Nikita paid only for the utilities (having installed the weakest bulbs), and Lelia, a nurse, couldn’t work: her little daughter was constantly sick.

Lelia came from an educated family. After her father died, her mother took up drinking and, for some reason, sold their apartment. She bought a room in a communal apartment—to live in while she looked for another place—and that’s where they stayed. The money quickly ran out.

When Lelia was away at summer camp, her mother remarried. Her new husband was an out-of-town vendor who sold fruit at an outdoor market and rented a room in the same communal apartment. The mother registered him in their room—and his numerous relatives from his home village—and almost immediately died. All this happened within just two weeks.

When the poor girl arrived home from camp, she found the room where she had lived with her mother packed floor to ceiling with dark-skinned people who replied to all her questions with “no speak Russian.”

Later the fruit seller took her to see her mother’s grave and showed her all the papers. Everything was in order.

Lelia went to her only remaining relative, her grandfather, who lived in Sergiev Posad, forty miles from the city. Her grandfather went to the police, but they only shrugged: Lelia’s mother was an alcoholic. They advised Lelia to hire a lawyer—but with what money?

There was nothing to do but register Lelia at Sergiev Posad, where her grandfather owned half of a house with an orchard.

Lelia quit school and began training to be a nurse. As soon as she graduated and started her first job at a large hospital, her grandfather died of a heart attack.

Immediately, the owner of

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