Squirrel

“Mum, he has strong paranoid and narcissistic traits. There’s nothing you can do about it. It isn’t treatable.” Rita fell silent for a moment, then added, “I stopped getting upset with him or expecting any normal human reaction a long time ago.”

“How can you say such things?” Bella protested. “He’s your father!”

“So what? Doesn’t that make him human?”

“Exactly! He is human. And he’s the person closest to you. You’re just like every medical student: the moment you learn about some new disorder, you start diagnosing everyone around you with it.”

“I’m studying psychology so I can sort out the problems you and Dad have dumped on me. So your cosy little family home doesn’t make me want to put a rope around my neck. That’s the only reason I’m still alive and not on drugs.”

“How can you say such things?” Bella repeated. What else was there to say?

Her parents had named her Bella, but to everyone she immediately became Belka — “Squirrel.” She graduated from university with honours. Postgraduate studies? Easy! Her dissertation defence? Brilliant... And then... somehow, things began to go wrong.

Vitaly called her Belka too. Belochka. Little Squirrel. Affectionately, tenderly. Or rather, she thought it was tenderly. They seemed made for each other — everyone said so. Serious, ambitious, ready to move mountains for the sake of a goal.

Of course, Vitaly set the pace, in everything. He suggested they work together, and their research took off. The dean was delighted — one paper followed another. Naturally, the dean’s name came first, while theirs appeared somewhere down the list. Then, once, Vitaly was listed as first author, although the data collection, the experiments — all the actual work — had fallen to Belka.

Of course, she still got her name on the papers — third or fourth in the list of authors — but she never complained. Once, she published some side results as first author, and Vitaly caused a scene. She was undermining him! Betraying their interests! They had agreed, hadn’t they, that they would put all their effort into building his reputation first, and then hers. They would both get their turn, but the important thing was to concentrate their efforts on one career at a time, not spread themselves too thin.

Of course, she agreed.

The paper turned out to be unexpectedly successful, and she was invited to join another department and offered an interesting project. She had almost said yes when she saw the look on Vitaly’s face. His expression was dead. And once again, he called her a traitor.

“You’re trying to push me aside! They were going to invite me to join them, and now you’ve ruined everything!”

Of course, she turned down the offer. But they didn’t take Vitaly either. And somehow, once again, that was her fault.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, she had a daughter, though Vitaly made his displeasure perfectly clear. They had agreed, after all: career first, and children later... Bella refused to have an abortion, and the crack between them widened.

Little Rita was often ill, but somehow that seemed to put Vitaly’s mind at ease — Bella stayed at home, though she continued writing his papers, finding the information he needed and corresponding with journal editors.

Meanwhile, he finally became a professor. He celebrated with his colleagues at the department while she stayed home on sick leave with their daughter.

Almost without Bella noticing, Rita grew up and finished school — with top marks, just like her mother. Bella went to the graduation ceremony alone and watched happily as her daughter received her school-leaving certificate — proud, beautiful, independent.

When Vitaly heard about the graduation, he immediately ordered Rita to start preparing to enter his faculty. Rita responded by packing a suitcase and leaving without a word. Some time later, she called her mother from another city and told her that she had enrolled in medical school.

She came home from time to time, each visit a little more grown-up, more interesting, somehow new. She brought souvenirs and talked about her new life, while her father would stalk angrily out of the room, casting a look of icy contempt at them both.

He never forgave anyone.

“You betrayed us,” he would hiss through clenched teeth whenever his daughter left again.

Rita would only smile calmly, and there was something in that smile that surprised Bella and made her think. Somehow, it gave her strength. But that strength was still sleeping.

Finally, the rector invited Bella in for a quiet word and suggested that perhaps she might consider taking early retirement. There were cuts in the department, several members of staff had to be... ahem... well, she understood.

Bella sat there in shock, unable to make sense of it.

Retirement? Already? When had that happened?

Yes, she signed the papers, as always — without complaint, without argument. Silently, as always. Then she left work early.

On wooden legs, she climbed the stairs to the flat, opened the door — and saw a pair of shiny red shoes beside her husband’s.

A few steps farther — quiet steps on soft soles — and she saw Vitaly hungrily embracing and kissing some young woman, pulling off her clothes.

Bella simply stood there until Vitaly finally noticed her.

“What the hell do you expect me to do?!” he shouted. “Look what you’ve turned yourself into! A scarecrow! You’ve completely let yourself go! And all the while you’ve been scheming behind my back! Trying to undermine me. You betrayed us! You’ve always betrayed us! I need loyal people around me, people who are always on my side! But you always have to go against me! You’re like a squirrel in a wheel — always running, always busy, just so you can do something against me!”

She walked out of the flat and kept going, with no idea where she was headed.

A squirrel in a wheel. A hamster. Running and running. For ever.

She wanted to scream: I never betrayed us, because there is no “us”! There never was! There’s only your insane obsession! You’re the one who betrayed me! And everyone around you. Everyone!

She tried to cut off the screaming inside her head. He would never hear her. And even if he did, every word she said would be met with a thousand words of his own. There would be no way to squeeze her truth into that endless torrent of accusations. But the words — unspoken, festering for years — were swelling inside her like pus that had to find a way out.

Her legs carried her onwards into the unknown. She walked down the dark street towards nowhere, stumbling, sobbing convulsively, almost falling, sometimes catching hold of a railing to steady herself...

Until at last the vastness of the river at night struck her full in the face.

The deserted embankment lay in the moonlight. A grey sheet of ice bound the river, and the stone parapet stood guard over its stillness.

Bella stared at that kingdom of ice and granite and wondered: how had she ended up here? In this place? In this world? Everything around her, everything in her life, was just as cold and motionless. Dead. Like her life...

Retirement...

Worst of all, the argument in her head would not stop. It drilled into her brain.

Yes, I haven’t finished that part of the project, but I can’t finish it until they bring me the results from the others. I can’t report on data I don’t have! Not even approximately! And I need a rest! I haven’t had a holiday in four years! Rita doesn’t write, she doesn’t call, and you act as though you don’t even care. You don’t notice anyone... And at home I never stop either — cooking, cleaning, you bring your students round and I have to feed them all, and then I’m the one who cleans up afterwards... What am I — your wife? Your deputy? Your secretary? I’m all of them! Without complaint, without rest, without so much as a thank-you! You’ve worked me into the ground!

And again she saw him in her mind, greedily embracing that girl, pulling off her clothes...

Retirement...

Useless to argue. She might as well try to prove something to the granite embankment.

She wanted to smash her forehead against the parapet.

And the drill in her head kept grinding away, an unrelenting torture. Because every time she screamed something in her mind, his answer came at once — always quicker, louder, more forceful. And her own arguments went round and round because there was no answer to them.

No human answer. Only his answers.

And then she screamed — a loud, animal cry flung out across the vast expanse of the frozen river.

“Are you all right?”

The voice beside her came like a thunderclap. Bella flinched. She shook her head and tried, out of habit, to say,

“I’m fi... fine...” Her voice was still breaking. “Sor... ry...”

Then she fled along the river, away from the voice, from that accidental touch of human concern, from her own shame. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to master the spasms and the trembling that shook her whole body.

She simply had to stop. Stop arguing. Let it go.

To hell with it. No more.

Enough.

“Enough!” she screamed, and struck the parapet with her fists.

And suddenly there came a roar. Like cannon fire. Like a slow explosion.

For a moment Bella could not understand what was happening. Then suddenly she realised.

The ice was breaking up. The spring ice had begun to move.

Dark-grey slabs, catching the shimmer of the moon, heaved and piled upon one another, crushing together, opening black stretches of water between them. The river was casting the ice from its body, and suddenly Bella felt its strength. Its freedom. As though the river itself had answered every question she had been asking.

She was still wiping away her tears when suddenly her phone rang.

“Mum, hi. It’s me.”

“Ritochka, my baby, finally!” Bella tried not to sob. Not knowing what else to say, she fell back on the familiar. “How are you? Are you well?”

“Mum, I’m calling to... well... tell you that you’re a grandmother!” Her daughter giggled.

“What?” Belka froze in surprise. “How? When?” And finally it occurred to her to add, “I didn’t even know you were...”

“Mum,” Rita interrupted, “I just didn’t want to distract you and all that. Anyway, it’s all over now! A girl, three and a half kilos, everything just as it should be.” She was laughing, utterly happy.

“My God, what a miracle!” Bella laughed too, gazing at the black water streaked with moonlight — and then fell still. More than anything in the world, she wanted to see that baby.

“Mum, would you like to come and stay with us?” Rita asked cautiously. “We asked Senechka’s mum, but she’s terribly busy with her exhibitions. And you’re busy too, we know... But maybe for a month or so? Just to help us out a little...”

“For a month? Couldn’t I come for a year?” Bella laughed. “Or two...”

“What — you could?” Rita asked in astonishment.

“I’m retiring,” Bella said quietly. “Just signed the papers.” Then, after a pause, she added, “And I’m leaving Dad.”

She waited for an explosion of emotion from the other end. Instead she heard:

“I’ve always wondered how you managed to put up with him for so long... Are you really coming?”

There was no laughter in her daughter’s voice now. It was filled with such serious wonder that Bella could almost picture her holding her breath, afraid that the slightest movement might frighten the moment away.

“I’m coming. I could go right now. Straight to the station without even going home...” She laughed. “Though I suppose I’ll have to go home after all. Pack some things and all that.”

“Mum, you’re a hero,” her daughter whispered. “I’ll be waiting for you. And I love you so much.”

Bella stared at the river in wonder and watched it carry all that rubbish away — the endless pointless arguments, the resentment, the accusations...

None of it had any power over her any more.

The wheel was broken.

And new pictures began to spin through her mind...

Bella gave a quiet laugh, wiping away her tears and sniffling.

A grandmother...