Lullaby
By
Maria Rybakova
Billy who had cut his roommate into pieces and stuffed the pieces into black garbage bags told Dr. Chaikin during lunch that a Russian woman was teaching them a story about a card game. Billy said there was a man in the story, named Hermann, who made an old lady tell him the secret of winning:
“His only dream was to win at cards, and he thought the lady knew how. But the old woman had tricked him, and he lost it. Then he killed her.”
Dr. Chaikin said he knew the story, it was a good story, and there was an opera about it, too. Billy said that they’d prepared questions for the Russian professor, to have a good discussion.
Dr. Chaikin said he would like to meet the Russian woman, since his grandparents had come from what was, then, the Russian Empire.
“Did your grandparents speak French,” Billy asked, “Did they have a snuff box, did they know how to play the card game?”
Dr. Chaikin thought about it and said: “Perhaps.”
“The Russian woman is very smart like you,” said Billy, “She’s a Doctor. But in Literature. She speaks with an accent.”
“Fascinating,” said Dr. Chaikin, “It would be very interesting indeed to make her acquaintance.”
After lunch, Dr. Chaikin asked the guard for permission to talk to the Russian woman before starting his own class, since he was teaching biology to inmates at the same time on Wednesdays.
#
A guard walked Milla to her classroom. They passed through the double doors, along the long corridors, across the square courtyard. Milla was looking forward to her class. She told the guard there was never a lull in her classroom. The inmates all wanted to say something, to impress her. The guard shared his own views on prison education. He had to pay college tuition for his own daughters, he said, but these jailbirds got a free education at the expense of taxpayers.
“Well, maybe there’s some sense in all this learning,” he said, “less trouble for everybody.” The talkative guard had a big mole on his nose, and another one on his chin. “What’s a nice girl like you doing here?”
Milla said:
“It’s extra money. I need money.”
He nodded approvingly.
All eight pupils were in class already, all wearing their orange uniforms: four murderers, a rapist, a bank robber, a gang member, and a middle-aged burglar, Mr. Trevor.
Another man she’d never seen, perhaps eighty years old, stood waiting at her desk. He looked so frail that the orange prison uniform seemed to be sliding off his stooped frame.
“Are you the teacher from Russia?” the old man asked. His big glasses made him look like an owl. She nodded. He stretched his thin lips in a smile and held out his hand: “I’m Doctor Chaikin. Pleased to meet you.”
He went on asking her questions, persistently. His dry hand clutched hers and did not let go. Which part of Russia was she from? Where were her parents? What was she doing in America? His eyes pierced her face from behind the glasses. How old was she? Was she planning to stay indefinitely? His grandparents came from Russia, too, he said. He knew some Russian. Did she know this lullaby?
He started singing in a language that only Milla could understand. The others listened, enchanted with unfamiliar sounds, delighted by the sudden entertainment. His voice was feeble: the voice of an old man. Uzh kak son hodil po lavke… “There walked a dream on a bench. There strolled a nap across the floor, it sneaked into her bed and lay down on her pillow…”
Dr. Chaikin kept singing, tenderly and forlorn, his eyes on Milla’s face, her hand in his hand. Perhaps he was expecting her to sing along. Milla nodded, smiled, said she knew the hypnotic lullaby. A long-forgotten corner of her childhood was, briefly, illuminated by that melody. It felt for a moment as if there were just the two of them there, she and that man, two children singing a children’s song in that room with a barred window and a low ceiling. Why are we here, she thought, who are we? But the bell rang and she shook off the daze.
The guard shooed the old man into another classroom and closed the door. He stayed outside, pacing the corridor. Sometimes he looked into the classroom through a peep-hole.
Billy, formerly the object of Milla’s erotic fantasies (before she learned about the roommate cut into pieces) said:
“Dr. Chaikin is the smartest man I’ve ever met.”
The others nodded.
“Dr. Chaikin can teach anything,” Billy continued, “Biology, mathematics, history, you name it.”
“Once he saved a choking man,” added Mr. Trevor, “Others wouldn’t have known what to do. We must thank God for having Dr. Chaikin in this facility.”
Everybody nodded again.
“Alright, let's turn our attention to Pushkin’s ‘Queen of Spades’ now,” said Milla. She was talking almost without thinking, for she couldn’t get that song out of her mind. “Has everyone finished the story? Good. Let’s start our discussion with the following question: Why does such a rational like Hermann believe the magical story of the three cards?”
The opinions differed. Some students suggested that it was a popular superstition, and even enlightened minds like Hermann’s couldn’t overcome it. The others pointed at the fatal flaw in Hermann’s character: He was a greedy individual, no matter how rational he may have believed himself to be. The greed blinded him to everything. Plus, he thought he was smarter than everyone.
“Did Hermann ever love Lizaveta?” asked Jose.
“No, I think he just used her to get to the old woman,” answered Billy, “Hermann was a user.”
“And later, do you think the ghost of the dead woman really appeared to Hermann?” said Milla.
“No, it was just his conscience talking to him,” suggested Mr. Trevor, “Or maybe we can’t know. Maybe that’s the whole point. Perhaps the card trick was a real thing, or perhaps it was just his madness talking. He’d never know, and we’ll never know. But he was one greedy bastard, that’s for sure.”
They laughed.
After class, on the way back to the prison gate, the guard seemed even friendlier. His shift was ending soon.
“Do you know whom you met today?” he asked, and continued: “That old man who wanted to talk to you? Doctor Chaikin? Doctor Chaikin’s our oldest inmate! Been behind bars for the past thirty years. He’s never getting out. A famous case. Murdered his patients after he had made them change their wills in his favor. At least four ladies. He claimed they were mercy killings. They’d left him money in return for his understanding. Compassion and understanding! That’s what he said, the weasel. Finally pled guilty. Would’ve gotten the electric chair otherwise.”
The sun was already setting when Milla got into her car. She had a two-hour drive before her. The woods on both sides of the highway loomed darkly, and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. What kind of life lurks there, in that thicket, in that murk, wondered Milla. Her old car had no heating. After about an hour, she could barely feel her fingers. She got out at a rest stop and went into the roadside diner, the yellow light of the windows beckoning to her.
Inside it was all steel, and Formica tables, and fake leather booths, and, fortunately, no music. Only three tables were occupied. A baldy in a tracksuit looked up at her from his plate briefly, then lowered his mournful eyes back to his potatoes. At another table, a man and a woman were talking astrology.
The coffee was hot and weak. Milla tried to warm up her hands with the mug. She imagined Dr. Chaikin slipping poison into her drink and making off with her wallet. He had sung so sweetly, held her hand so tenderly. As if nothing bad had ever happened. As if he wasn’t a murderer, and they weren’t in prison. The world was innocent when he sang the lullaby.
“I just need the date and time of your birth, and the geographical coordinates of the place where you were born,” said the man to his companion loudly at the next table. He sounded enthusiastic and a little bit desperate. Milla turned and caught an oblique glance from the man. He wore an old jacket and a scarf that, a long time ago, might have been expensive. Perhaps he bought his clothes in a charity shop. He looked down on his luck, but hopeful. From the corner of his eye, he peeked again at Milla. He met her eyes and looked away, for he was shy and preoccupied with Jupiter at the moment.
Milla took her cell phone out of her bag, googled Dr. Chaikin’s name. It was right there, the famous case. Suspected of having poisoned many of his patients. First denied his guilt. Finally confessed to four murders. Perhaps confessed under pressure? Said they were mercy killings. Maybe he had, indeed, put an end to their sufferings? Out of his compassion and understanding. Evil couldn’t look so frail, so stooped, so old, for God’s sake. Lurking behind those thick glasses. Singing in her own language. Clutching her hand.
She thought of his crimes. Old women who would die soon anyway. Just a small injection. Yet so much to gain. She would never have to work again, she thought, and corrected herself: he would have never had to work again. Was she beginning to confuse her own self and the killler, just because their hands touched? A word formed in her mind: seduction. He had taken her by her hand and had led her somewhere, singing. The murderous greed and the absurd belief in winning – our real nature, our true motherland.
She was sliding into a stupor. She was tired after all that teaching, and the road was so dull. She needed to shake it off at once and be on her way. Get home, grade some papers. She forced herself to pay, get up, find the way to her car. The thin voice of the old murderous man still crooned, still sang to her that a dream was walking on a bench, that a nap was strolling across the floor to take her into its arms.
#
Later she almost forgot that encounter, yet sometimes it came back to her over the years. Milla would even brag sometimes about having met the “compassion killer.” “He used morphine injections to murder these ladies,” she would say, “The same man who has taken me by the hand and sung me a lullaby. Isn’t that creepy?” Then she would always laugh, letting the others marvel at how close she had been to evil.
When alone, she’d look at her reflection in the mirror. Could she ever commit a murder? How would her face look in a mug shot? At night, she dreamt of guilt sometimes: of having killed. Waking up brought no relief. There always remained a vague awareness of having committed a crime, as if Dr. Chaikin had transmitted the burden of his guilt to her by clutching her hand, by his lullaby, by how close he had stood to her. It had been so cold that day, she remembered. And such a long way home. Frozen fingers, a dark forest, a road-side diner, a conversation about Jupiter at the neighboring table.
Maria Rybakova is a bilingual author of fiction. Her most recent work is "Quaternity: Four Novellas From The Carpathians" (Ibidem Press, 2021). A former Fulbright Grant recipient, she teaches literature at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, and is working on a travel memoir.
Amazon.com : Maria Rybakova
By
Maria Rybakova
Billy who had cut his roommate into pieces and stuffed the pieces into black garbage bags told Dr. Chaikin during lunch that a Russian woman was teaching them a story about a card game. Billy said there was a man in the story, named Hermann, who made an old lady tell him the secret of winning:
“His only dream was to win at cards, and he thought the lady knew how. But the old woman had tricked him, and he lost it. Then he killed her.”
Dr. Chaikin said he knew the story, it was a good story, and there was an opera about it, too. Billy said that they’d prepared questions for the Russian professor, to have a good discussion.
Dr. Chaikin said he would like to meet the Russian woman, since his grandparents had come from what was, then, the Russian Empire.
“Did your grandparents speak French,” Billy asked, “Did they have a snuff box, did they know how to play the card game?”
Dr. Chaikin thought about it and said: “Perhaps.”
“The Russian woman is very smart like you,” said Billy, “She’s a Doctor. But in Literature. She speaks with an accent.”
“Fascinating,” said Dr. Chaikin, “It would be very interesting indeed to make her acquaintance.”
After lunch, Dr. Chaikin asked the guard for permission to talk to the Russian woman before starting his own class, since he was teaching biology to inmates at the same time on Wednesdays.
#
A guard walked Milla to her classroom. They passed through the double doors, along the long corridors, across the square courtyard. Milla was looking forward to her class. She told the guard there was never a lull in her classroom. The inmates all wanted to say something, to impress her. The guard shared his own views on prison education. He had to pay college tuition for his own daughters, he said, but these jailbirds got a free education at the expense of taxpayers.
“Well, maybe there’s some sense in all this learning,” he said, “less trouble for everybody.” The talkative guard had a big mole on his nose, and another one on his chin. “What’s a nice girl like you doing here?”
Milla said:
“It’s extra money. I need money.”
He nodded approvingly.
All eight pupils were in class already, all wearing their orange uniforms: four murderers, a rapist, a bank robber, a gang member, and a middle-aged burglar, Mr. Trevor.
Another man she’d never seen, perhaps eighty years old, stood waiting at her desk. He looked so frail that the orange prison uniform seemed to be sliding off his stooped frame.
“Are you the teacher from Russia?” the old man asked. His big glasses made him look like an owl. She nodded. He stretched his thin lips in a smile and held out his hand: “I’m Doctor Chaikin. Pleased to meet you.”
He went on asking her questions, persistently. His dry hand clutched hers and did not let go. Which part of Russia was she from? Where were her parents? What was she doing in America? His eyes pierced her face from behind the glasses. How old was she? Was she planning to stay indefinitely? His grandparents came from Russia, too, he said. He knew some Russian. Did she know this lullaby?
He started singing in a language that only Milla could understand. The others listened, enchanted with unfamiliar sounds, delighted by the sudden entertainment. His voice was feeble: the voice of an old man. Uzh kak son hodil po lavke… “There walked a dream on a bench. There strolled a nap across the floor, it sneaked into her bed and lay down on her pillow…”
Dr. Chaikin kept singing, tenderly and forlorn, his eyes on Milla’s face, her hand in his hand. Perhaps he was expecting her to sing along. Milla nodded, smiled, said she knew the hypnotic lullaby. A long-forgotten corner of her childhood was, briefly, illuminated by that melody. It felt for a moment as if there were just the two of them there, she and that man, two children singing a children’s song in that room with a barred window and a low ceiling. Why are we here, she thought, who are we? But the bell rang and she shook off the daze.
The guard shooed the old man into another classroom and closed the door. He stayed outside, pacing the corridor. Sometimes he looked into the classroom through a peep-hole.
Billy, formerly the object of Milla’s erotic fantasies (before she learned about the roommate cut into pieces) said:
“Dr. Chaikin is the smartest man I’ve ever met.”
The others nodded.
“Dr. Chaikin can teach anything,” Billy continued, “Biology, mathematics, history, you name it.”
“Once he saved a choking man,” added Mr. Trevor, “Others wouldn’t have known what to do. We must thank God for having Dr. Chaikin in this facility.”
Everybody nodded again.
“Alright, let's turn our attention to Pushkin’s ‘Queen of Spades’ now,” said Milla. She was talking almost without thinking, for she couldn’t get that song out of her mind. “Has everyone finished the story? Good. Let’s start our discussion with the following question: Why does such a rational like Hermann believe the magical story of the three cards?”
The opinions differed. Some students suggested that it was a popular superstition, and even enlightened minds like Hermann’s couldn’t overcome it. The others pointed at the fatal flaw in Hermann’s character: He was a greedy individual, no matter how rational he may have believed himself to be. The greed blinded him to everything. Plus, he thought he was smarter than everyone.
“Did Hermann ever love Lizaveta?” asked Jose.
“No, I think he just used her to get to the old woman,” answered Billy, “Hermann was a user.”
“And later, do you think the ghost of the dead woman really appeared to Hermann?” said Milla.
“No, it was just his conscience talking to him,” suggested Mr. Trevor, “Or maybe we can’t know. Maybe that’s the whole point. Perhaps the card trick was a real thing, or perhaps it was just his madness talking. He’d never know, and we’ll never know. But he was one greedy bastard, that’s for sure.”
They laughed.
After class, on the way back to the prison gate, the guard seemed even friendlier. His shift was ending soon.
“Do you know whom you met today?” he asked, and continued: “That old man who wanted to talk to you? Doctor Chaikin? Doctor Chaikin’s our oldest inmate! Been behind bars for the past thirty years. He’s never getting out. A famous case. Murdered his patients after he had made them change their wills in his favor. At least four ladies. He claimed they were mercy killings. They’d left him money in return for his understanding. Compassion and understanding! That’s what he said, the weasel. Finally pled guilty. Would’ve gotten the electric chair otherwise.”
The sun was already setting when Milla got into her car. She had a two-hour drive before her. The woods on both sides of the highway loomed darkly, and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. What kind of life lurks there, in that thicket, in that murk, wondered Milla. Her old car had no heating. After about an hour, she could barely feel her fingers. She got out at a rest stop and went into the roadside diner, the yellow light of the windows beckoning to her.
Inside it was all steel, and Formica tables, and fake leather booths, and, fortunately, no music. Only three tables were occupied. A baldy in a tracksuit looked up at her from his plate briefly, then lowered his mournful eyes back to his potatoes. At another table, a man and a woman were talking astrology.
The coffee was hot and weak. Milla tried to warm up her hands with the mug. She imagined Dr. Chaikin slipping poison into her drink and making off with her wallet. He had sung so sweetly, held her hand so tenderly. As if nothing bad had ever happened. As if he wasn’t a murderer, and they weren’t in prison. The world was innocent when he sang the lullaby.
“I just need the date and time of your birth, and the geographical coordinates of the place where you were born,” said the man to his companion loudly at the next table. He sounded enthusiastic and a little bit desperate. Milla turned and caught an oblique glance from the man. He wore an old jacket and a scarf that, a long time ago, might have been expensive. Perhaps he bought his clothes in a charity shop. He looked down on his luck, but hopeful. From the corner of his eye, he peeked again at Milla. He met her eyes and looked away, for he was shy and preoccupied with Jupiter at the moment.
Milla took her cell phone out of her bag, googled Dr. Chaikin’s name. It was right there, the famous case. Suspected of having poisoned many of his patients. First denied his guilt. Finally confessed to four murders. Perhaps confessed under pressure? Said they were mercy killings. Maybe he had, indeed, put an end to their sufferings? Out of his compassion and understanding. Evil couldn’t look so frail, so stooped, so old, for God’s sake. Lurking behind those thick glasses. Singing in her own language. Clutching her hand.
She thought of his crimes. Old women who would die soon anyway. Just a small injection. Yet so much to gain. She would never have to work again, she thought, and corrected herself: he would have never had to work again. Was she beginning to confuse her own self and the killler, just because their hands touched? A word formed in her mind: seduction. He had taken her by her hand and had led her somewhere, singing. The murderous greed and the absurd belief in winning – our real nature, our true motherland.
She was sliding into a stupor. She was tired after all that teaching, and the road was so dull. She needed to shake it off at once and be on her way. Get home, grade some papers. She forced herself to pay, get up, find the way to her car. The thin voice of the old murderous man still crooned, still sang to her that a dream was walking on a bench, that a nap was strolling across the floor to take her into its arms.
#
Later she almost forgot that encounter, yet sometimes it came back to her over the years. Milla would even brag sometimes about having met the “compassion killer.” “He used morphine injections to murder these ladies,” she would say, “The same man who has taken me by the hand and sung me a lullaby. Isn’t that creepy?” Then she would always laugh, letting the others marvel at how close she had been to evil.
When alone, she’d look at her reflection in the mirror. Could she ever commit a murder? How would her face look in a mug shot? At night, she dreamt of guilt sometimes: of having killed. Waking up brought no relief. There always remained a vague awareness of having committed a crime, as if Dr. Chaikin had transmitted the burden of his guilt to her by clutching her hand, by his lullaby, by how close he had stood to her. It had been so cold that day, she remembered. And such a long way home. Frozen fingers, a dark forest, a road-side diner, a conversation about Jupiter at the neighboring table.
Maria Rybakova is a bilingual author of fiction. Her most recent work is "Quaternity: Four Novellas From The Carpathians" (Ibidem Press, 2021). A former Fulbright Grant recipient, she teaches literature at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, and is working on a travel memoir.
Amazon.com : Maria Rybakova
