The Seventh Woman Published by Carelinks Publishing, PO Box 152, Menai NSW 2234 AUSTRALIA, March 2012 ISBN 978-1-906951-42-9 [c] Duncan Heaster, 2012 The Seventh Woman CHAPTER 1 Marlboro Burning Slowly CHAPTER 2 The Bomzh CHAPTER 3 The Gulag Archipelago CHAPTER 4 Running for the Door CHAPTER 5 The Hitman CHAPTER 6 The Brothers Karamazov CHAPTER 7 The Laima Clock CHAPTER 8 Springsteen and Streisand CHAPTER 9 Event and Meaning CHAPTER 10 The Hard Drive Man CHAPTER 11 Tears In The Breaks CHAPTER 12 Operation Quartz CHAPTER 13 Crossing the Rubicon CHAPTER 14 The Idiot CHAPTER 15 Crime and Punishment CHAPTER 16 The Sauna on Zirgu Street CHAPTER 17 The Last Gauntlet The Seventh Woman CHAPTER 1 Marlboro Burning Slowly Marlboro burning slowly, the night drifting by in Iļģuciems; snow softly falling, flakes of two minds as to whether to settle on the window sill or drift on to the apartments below. Awake, asleep, an endless scheme within Alison’s head. England, London, Grove Park, walking the dog in the park, early morning train to London Bridge, change there for Victoria. Just 8 minutes from LB to Vic. Depending on the signals. Her Christadelphian, small time Protestant religious past, baptism in the dimly lit back room at Linden Hall, mum and dad, Alan. Alan. Alan. Now it’s Penny, first of all it was Karen. The Bible. The brethren. The brethren. “The brethren want to interview you”. Wedding day smiles, walking down the aisle photo, there on the mantelpiece in the flat. University, that was “not the thing for a young sister in Christ”, let alone studying Russian. They’re going to invade Israel. The Bible says so, Ezekiel 38. Yeah, Sunday evening lectures. The blow-up in the business meeting about whether to change the time from 7 to 6:30. Mum in tears. Grace. Jim Proctor giving that talk about it. Unforgettable. Changed me for life. Really. Gotta keep at it. But dad... was so angry about that change in time of the lectures, driving home from the meeting, he was so mad he couldn’t even talk. Another one? Must really try to quit. Lighter getting empty. One of those cheap ones from the Statoil filling station. Jim. Such a nice guy. Man with the face of Jesus. And they disfellowshipped him. And now, he’s struggling with cancer. Should’ve stuck up for him, when they came for me there was nobody left to stand up for me, how did that Nazi era poem go. Some smart guy. “Upholding the Truth in its purity”. And now. I’m not really a lesbian. Ilze, well yeah, she was just a friend. Someone. Who also got divorced. Men. And all that. But grace. Gotta do something with my life. Can’t leave Him. He’s not left me. No... no. He’s not. I don’t think so. The next story for the paper. What is there to write about here in the Baltics. Really. Ought to be asleep. Alan. Alan, Alan. Well at least I got a good settlement. Can live here and do my thing. Can live on the interest and still eat out most days. But... Did I pray tonight? The “business meeting”. With great sorrow... withdraw our fellowship... for behaviour unbecoming of a sister in Christ. There must be... must be... Dawn breaks hard in the Baltic Winter. When the weak sun finally emerges triumphant after 9 a.m., it seems but a pyrrhic victory, a victory at too great a loss to the dingy greyness to really be much to glory in. Alison’s stop was near the start of the number five tramway, so she usually got to sit down most of the journey in to the office. Amidst the glum-to-suspicious faces and human silence of the early morning tram, about the only glimmer of humanity was the hangover from the Soviet era of giving up your seat to someone older or sicker than yourself. But not too many old or invalid folk ventured out in the rush hour, so Alison settled herself defensively on the seat as she usually did. Tucked up her coat beneath her, white earphones sticking out against her blond hair, Roger Waters singing a bit louder than she realized, to the evident suspicion and furtive stares of the neighbouring passengers. Satchel now on her lap, she pulled out a battered pocket Bible and an even more battered hardback reading planner, the once gold letters of The Bible Companion long faded. Today... Genesis 24. Until Uzvaras Boulevard. She glanced up at the war memorial, to check the flame of socialism was still being kept burning by the Russian faithful. Alison liked to imagine that the older woman in front of her was wiping a tear from her eye as the conductor called out the name of the stop. ‘Victory Boulevard’ was to celebrate Latvia’s independence from the USSR, her supposed victory, and they went and called the tram stop right next to the Russian war memorial just that... yes, they do provoke them. But maybe that older woman in front was just yawning and rubbing sleep out of her eyes. After Grēcinieku Iela, time for a change. Funny that, “Sinners street”. Strange the Soviets didn’t change that one, a bit too religious, surely. Maybe they did, and it’s been changed back by the Latvians. The change of book meant the Bible went away and out came Buzzard’s latest book about the historical background of the Trinity, and another 101 Biblical reasons why the Trinity isn’t supported in the Bible. It’d been working out at a chapter a day. And they were short chapters, and someone as fluent in it all as Alison could ghost read it quickly. Off the tram, now that pleasant walk through the corner of the park, past the tomb of Oskars Kalpaks. Nearer to the office on Elizabetes Iela. What ever to write about... Thirty four years ago, well let’s say thirty years ago, it had been “Daddy! Give me a story!”. Same scene... give me a story, please, someone, anyone... a good one, too. Now that daddy... doesn’t want to talk to his little girl any more. Because she’s “out of fellowship”. “Chow Alisa!” rung out down the cold and grey stairwell. The kind of stairwell that it seemed had never been anything other than cold and unwelcoming, right from its first construction. “Chow Ilze”, Alison less enthusiastically responded. “I’ve this great idea for a story, you know it could even be a series”, Ilze enthused. “Series? Ah, well, not often you can get a good series. One off shots are the best”. “Ya but this is different. You know the black guys, the, you know, well, Asian looking guys, that we’re seeing around Riga now, well, I tracked it down to the kind of asylum centre down in Olaine”. “Olaine?”, Alison queried. “Olaine, well it’s about, well I don’t know, but, say, 40 minutes on the bus out of Riga, on the A7, the road down toward Lithuania, the one that goes through Jelgava. They’re asylum seekers, imagine, how they got here, their story, all that stuff, how Latvia is bankrupt and can’t support them, racism and all that”. With a very slight element of needing to politely justify disinterest, Alison parried: “Sure, maybe you’re onto something, but for me, well, you’re a local journalist, I’m not, I’m kinda interested in... local people. Going to try to make some more contact with local churches, and get more into this Russian minority question”. Ilze’s Latvian silence about “the Russian minority” lasted for a second long enough to make it just perceptible, before she skated on with her enthusiasm for asylum seekers: “Oh sure, good stuff, plenty of, well, plenty of material around on that one. And your Russian, you know, it’s just the best, better than mine even! Just ask, well, any of those bomzh who are begging further down Elizabetes, you know, Russians are very talkative, I’m sure you’ll get somewhere. Anyway, so, you want to come to Olaine today with me?”. Still figuring out what bomzh must mean, Alison pushed forward to the tea and coffee table, and from that secure corner could decline with grace and fuss about how the powdered milk was nearly gone, yet again. But Ilze was back in the ring. She walked closer. “So, you don’t want to come, like, even with me? I mean, we could go together, have coffee together, I mean, doesn’t matter if it’s not your story, there are Russians you can talk to... well, everywhere. In Riga anyway. Alisa...”, Ilze mock pleaded and pouted her lips, “Even with... me? We could... be together and all that...?” With an unusual air of definite finality, Alison put one hand on her hip and with the other awkwardly held her skirt. “Ilze”, she said in tones of sober seriousness, “Please, well, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression that time we had coffee together and talked about our feelings, but, well, sure you and I are both disappointed with men and that, but, let me say, I’m not a lesbian. I don’t want you to, well, misunderstand. I think you’re a great person, I really do, really, really I do. But, well, in that area, you know how they say in Russian, in that oblast...”. “I’m Latvian, remember.