23 February 2010 – Cyprus
It had never occurred to me, and for good reason, that so much could depend upon a mattress. Love, life, happiness itself, lay in the incarnate hands of this not-so-humble rectangle of springs, stuffing and sheet. The curse of the common matrimonial bed (so I was told) had long plighted man with its dampness, dirtiness and deformity, wielding an unprecedented influence over mind and body as he slept, uncomfortably unaware. I could not say what bemused me more: the fact that someone had formulated this narrative, or that people were so easily taken in by its faintly religious rhetoric (“Out of Eden and Into Bed”) shored up by a pseudo-scientific appeal to experience.
‘Who’s thirsty in the morning?’ the blonde, blue-eyed presentress asked.
Everyone murmured that yes, they were all thirsty in the morning.
‘So why are we thirsty?
One gentleman said dehydrated.
‘And what does “dehydrated” mean?’
We’ve lost water, declared a veteran at the front, more eagerly than expected.
‘Exactly,’ said the presentress, beaming with sophistry. ‘And where does this water go?’
In chorus now, a collective and incontrovertible agreement: into the bed.
A half-filled pitcher, on the table opposite the exemplar divan, now explained itself; as did various devices, anecdotes and empirical proofs which revealed the utter inadequacy of the conventional mattress and, ultimately, the timely solution offered by Messenger Mattresses (sent by God, presumably, for Heaven On Earth or Rest In Peace). By adapting materials from the Apollo space programme, they had developed a mattress which not only was water-resistant but shaped itself to the very curve and weight of a body under gravity. They called it Memory FoamTM.
It was spring in Cyprus, and this time of year brought with it the elderly of northern-European nations who sought refuge – in warmer, drier winds, full-board, saunas and kilns – from their arthritic aches and pains. The words on their lips were not Mount Olympus, in the Troodos just 20 miles off, but Mercury Direct, the travel company. And now, murmuring collectively as they tested, re-tested and marvelled at the softness and yet sturdiness of this planar panacea, they echoed the entitled slogan: Forget Your Troubles While Your Bed Remembers You.
I was not nearly interested enough in sleep to sit through this seminar without yawning. Only hindsight can garner any interest from this peculiar phenomenon which, as the stipulation of a free trip to Lefkos, I had found myself amongst. A quarter of their age and one-sixteenth of their purchasing-power, finally I sidled out of the stuffy room and left my partner pondering over the Tempur-Pedic catalogue.
It was windy outside, and cool. The early Cypriot sun back-lit a screen of thin clouds, and so bathed in white the upward rise of sea, coast, banana field, rocks, roads and, to the right, our burgundy coach. But before all this a woman stood, small and black against the tousled milieu of green and blue and grey in which, at last, her loosely-pinned hair was lost. Beside her now, I shared her view, and nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Hello,’ she said, in the universal greeting of the English language – and yet, as if carried on the wind, with notes still ripening, flavours farther off.
I replied and asked her how long she'd been out here.
‘I never went in,’ she said, with a sly smile that melted into my own.
I noticed now she had tears in her eyes. But it only took a moment to realise a mix of age and wind, not nostalgia, had unearthed these tiny trickles – which she would occasionally mop away with a handkerchief.
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I said. ‘I can’t say how long they’ll be in there.’
‘Likewise,’ she said, taking my hand in what became a scene of old-world civility. ‘My name is Alina. And yours?’
‘Adam.’
‘How do you do?’
‘How do you do?’
.x
22 October 1942 – Heist
Alina was from Russia, but she wasn’t Russian anymore. She was Slavic. Operation Barbarossa had been underway for four months when the Germans invaded the small village of Oryol, just west of the river Oka, with orders to kill, deport, or enslave “Stalinist civilians”. At fifteen, Alina was neither threat nor burden: she was assembled with the suitable women and promptly set off on the march which would dictate the rest of her life. As then, as now, as ever, there are not words which can comprehend the actual loss, of family, community, identity, all, which Alina suffered – and yet was but one thread in the loom. There are no words, and neither should there be, and nor will I attempt vain intimations of Hell. It was 1000 miles to Berlin, which was mostly made on foot, through the long winter of that year, amidst a train of returning troops, battered vehicles, burdened horses, the injured, the captured, and the walking dead. They marched through snow and slush in speechless, grimly endurable oblivion, as German boys watched from the backs of trucks, with eyes like caves, and smiles like swords. They were taken into Berlin by night, and placed in barracks on the outskirts. They were briefly rehabilitated: washed, clothed, and shorn. Some say this was for hygiene, others to prevent escape, but it is now known that women’s hair was used for a variety of purposes, such as in the making of hair-yarn socks and the filling of U-Boat mattresses. The following day they were set to work, hired out to Berlin under armed guard. They were the wartime Trümmerfrauen – the rubble women – or, if they refused, Kopfschuss. The work was hard, and no attempt was made to mitigate its harshness. Boulders were broken, rubble was cleared, and discovered daily were the dusty, grey limbs of once-German civilians and – once – the straightened black cap of a SS General, perfectly preserved. At night, as the sirens sounded, the flash flared and the earth trembled underfoot, they would wonder who their enemy was, the Nazis or the bomb, and how all Europe had conspired to prolong their Sisyphean task. Each new dawn would bring a city unmade, and each eve a city saved. Amid this diurnal dilapidation – in every sense of the word, to take apart, lapis per lapis – the war was over stones, no sooner raised than razed to the ground.
x
1 May 1945 – Sieg Heil
Towards the end not even they could stem the swelling tide. Buildings came down like sandcastles, landslide, and flooded the streets with wreckage. Fires sparked amid the broken homes and, as if some last sanctuary gesture, provided warmth for their rudely evicted tenants. The Russians were coming. The remaining Trümmerfrauen were ordered to build barricades now, a vain attempt to reorganise the rubble the Allies had so successfully strewn into some form of defense. But the stones could not even hold people in. On the first of May a mass breakout began, of civilians, deserters, prisoners, a ramshackle riot which made it to the river Elbe where the Americans held the front. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
x
4 July 1945 – England
Alina gazed from the deck, as the victorious peoples of sunny England stood waving. Welcome Home, they said, to the soldiers, the sailors, the refugees. Disembarking into the wide, wooden port of this new world, Alina found herself the maid of an affluent London family; though with only a few words of English in her head, she showed a openness, potency and speed of sentiment which struck them as miraculous. Only eighteen, and blooming from a dream of human kindness, she was quite simply beautiful. Untainted England! How careful, how considerate, how conversational they were. Her heart warmed to them.
The house had never been so clean, and nor had cleaning ever been performed with such diligence, goodwill and happiness. Her work was now her own. Her small room was always warm, and she was paid ten shillings a week with an extra allowance for tea, sugar and beer. They called her The Girl from Russia. Not long after settling in, a family friend who was visiting had asked to see what all the fuss was about. Alina was halfway through her chores as the man stuck his neck round the door. ‘Ah! Excellent,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you all over.’
‘Hello?’ Alina said, turning with the feather duster.
‘My apologies, Let me introduce myself. Name’s Bert. How do you do?’
‘I do the cleaning,’ Alina replied, puzzled.
‘Ah, I see. Fine job of too! And how are you today?’
‘I am well, thank you. How are you?’
‘Oh, quite fine, quite fine. Bit of a hot one. The weather, I mean. But we can’t complain. I hear you’re from Russia? Do you like England?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very much.’
‘Delightful! Delightful! It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘Thank you,’ she smiled.
‘Well,’ he sighed, and awkwardly put on his hat. ‘I must be off. Busy day.’
‘Goodbye,’ Alina said.
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said, and left through the open door.
x
The next day Alina received an invitation to the Mayor’s Ball. In the note attached, Bert explained all the servicemen would be there with their friends, and she would be most welcome. He gave the address, and recommended catching the Number 7 from the end of her road. She had never been on a bus before, let alone a bus with stairs, but she managed it and greeted Bert in the lobby.
‘I have to introduce you to someone,’ he said, as they walked into the gay and vibrant dining hall. ‘A friend of mine was stationed in Russia for a while. Always likes to see a new face.’
‘Charles,’ he shouted. ‘I found you a bona-fide Russian. Howzat!’
Charles looked up from his seat, where he had been chatting amongst friends, and rose to greet them.
‘Thank you Bert. Very kind of you,’ he said, and now gazed graciously at Alina. ‘So I hear you’re from Russia?’
‘Yes, from Russia,’ she replied.
‘I have a great love for that country. Saw a lot of it with the RAF. Small world. Who knows, we might have been in the same city. I think I recognize you.’
‘Really?’ Alina said. She knew it was not possible, but liked the idea.
‘Yes, yes, I was in Tula. Pretty little town. Quarters right on the main street. I forget the name –’
‘Stalinstadt?’ said Alina. Every town had a Stalinstadt.
‘That’s the ticket,’ he said, and the music began.
‘Comrade,’ he said suddenly. ‘Would you care to dance?’
‘I would like to. But I don’t know how.’
‘That’s quite alright,’ he said, leading her to the dance floor. ‘All you have to do,’ he said, placing his right hand between her shoulder blades and the other about her own, ‘is follow me.’
x
23 February 2010 – Cyprus
Alina and I stood looking at one another, smiling, with tears prickling in our eyes. Neither of us could tell why this faculty was so deeply implicated, in feeling and in thought; why the eye is same organ which responds, in kind, to what it sees – whether in pools, or lakes, or seas; and why here were crystallized tiny drops which, neither coming nor going, needed only the tiniest grain, carried on the turbulent wind, to illicit these ancient pearls.
'I'm afraid I have made you cry,' she said.
'It's just the wind,' I smiled. 'It brings rain with it.'