Ivan’s Wife has been an interesting story to write but with more edits than others. I started wondering why this morning and realized it wasn’t a question I needed to dwell on for long— it was the characters. They are multi dimensional and have so many mood changes. Not that much different than my own life at times.
In this scene, the main character comes home from an extended stay in the hospital expecting a confrontational reaction from his wife. Her reaction throws him, creating doubt and confusion, which throws him off balance. So, now there are two characters in the story struggling with “how to feel.”
The sun, playing hopscotch behind the clouds, gave the air a sullen quality. My heart raced as I turned and watched Elena swagger toward me, her eyes narrowed and set on mine, her lips slightly parted. Her stride was edgy and deliberate, which made me wonder just how deeply she’d planned to wound me. No one could cut me into pieces like my wife—and I had it coming.
Instead of facing me, she stood behind me. It was an odd thought, I know, but I couldn’t help but reflect on a book I’d read about a battle between Russia and Germany and how the Germans attacked Russian forces from the rear. Elena was quiet; the only sound was an occasional hum as if she might be scoping her prey. This was not the homecoming I’d pictured, not even close. It took all my strength not to flip around and ask why she wasn’t giving me her usual chilly attitude along with a few choice words about my stay in the mental hospital.
Her peculiar reaction to my release threw me off balance. What had she been doing while I was getting probed and zapped in the asylum? How did Ivan play into the picture, and what the hell did he mean when he told her to remember what they had talked about? I wanted to know but hadn’t earned the right to ask.
I love the characters in the story, they are harder to write than Pages in the Wind, because they are so unpredictable. Again, all too often a mirror to the erratic nature of life.
I’m on my last author’s edit for Ivan’s Wife. I’m enjoying the last edit as I examine the words with a different “eye.” It is not purely mechanical – it’s from the heart too. The novel has well-developed characters but it also has some “passing” characters – those people who come in and out of your life and sometimes leave a lasting impression. I’ve known a few people like that also – some good and some not so good—but they leave a lesson, and sometimes regrets. The desire for missed love burns the longest.
My protagonist, Dimitri, fortunately speaks his mind without reservations.
In this scene, Dimitri is talking a walk after a particularly difficult day. He encounters an interesting older lady who instinctively knows the right thing to say:
Ivan’s Wife
An excerpt from Chapter Thirty-Two of Ivan’s Wife
I sat on a bench beside an older woman with a carpet bag full of yarn. She pulled out some knitting needles and began working on a blue scarf. I pulled out a cigarette.
The lady was cute. She wore a yellow knit hat framed with white spiral curls and spectacles too big for her petite face. Every few seconds, she sniffed and pushed them up her nose. Her hands were so swollen at the knuckles that I wondered how she could make the loop-de-loops to weave the yarn together.
“Making a sweater?”
“Yes, indeed. For my nephew. He lives in New Orleans, so I’m trying to finish it before the post office closes. Takes five days to get there, don’t ya’ know. You got young’uns, son?”
“No…I don’t.”
She turned and gave me a once-over. “Let me have a look at ya…come on, now. Take off those sunglasses, young man. Let Aunt Gina see your face.”
“Pardon me?” I asked, laughing at the absurdity.
She turned my chin to face her. “You got a wife, don’t ya?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there ya go. You got a young’un coming soon enough. You have a job, son?”
“Well, yes. I’m on my way there now.”
“Good…good,” she said, returning to her knitting. “You got kind eyes. You’ll make a good father. I can always tell. Just be nice to the miss and watch the drinking. Set a good example, and you’ll be fine.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her my wife had banned having a baby. “How do you know I drink?”
She turned and gave me a look that could only be described as a “mother” look. I’d seen it on the faces of my friend’s mothers. Kind of a “do you really think you can lie to me, boy?”
It made me smile. “You got me. Some people stuff themselves with chocolate or cry until their blood vessels pop. I drink.”
She gave me a stern, one-eyed squint. “And some people pray, young man.”
“Right.”
“Who do you have?”
“Have?”
“Someone you’d listen to if they were here.”
“My mother and brother,” I replied, not wanting to open that particular can. “How do you know so much?”
She tucked the knitting into the bag and turned to me. “I was never blessed with a husband or young’uns, so God gave me the time to mother whoever needed it. You’re troubled, boy. That’s why you sat next to me instead of the empty bench across from you. You have sad eyes, but there’s a lot of light, too. What’s bothering you, son?”
I put my shades back on and crossed one leg over my knee. I’d always been drawn to mature women, no doubt a never-ending search for a mother. “I have spells. Always have. Bad ones.”
She slid the carpetbag to her elbow and looked at me with searching eyes. “Spells, aye? What happens during these spells?”
“I hear music mostly. It’s run or die.”
“I see,” she said, still holding me in her gaze. “My grandmother had a terrible fear of spiders. Hear tell she would freeze and pass out if she saw one. Turns out a black widow had crawled into her crib and bit her on the cheek. Once she found out, the spells stopped. Once you figure out what’s scaring you, yours will, too.”
I felt like the air in my lungs had thickened. It was like there was a direct line between the lady and Alexander. “My brother said the same thing.”
She pulled the blue knit scarf from her bag and wrapped it around my neck as she stood to leave. “Here. I made this for my nephew, but you need it more. Remember, you don’t always have to find the answers. Sometimes, they come to you if you ask the right questions. And stop your worrying. Worry is like a rocking chair. It’ll give you something to do but won’t get you anywhere.”
Her words were like chicken soup injected into my veins. I watched her hurry to the post office, her carpetbag tapping against her paisley dress, reaching every so often to adjust her glasses. Her presence was like being wrapped in a blanket of optimism, a fairy godmother without all the glitter. I rubbed the scarf she gave me and got up to find a bus for Cielo’s.
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Ivan’s Wife is heading toward the finish line. The characters have been fun to write and sometimes heartbreaking. In this later chapter, Dimitri faces his death with unexpected courage. He has certainly evolved from the first draft—in a pleasing way—at least to me. In this excerpt, Dimitri is in a Soviet hospital heading to the toughest prison in Russia:
It was a march through hell. The clink of the metal shackles dragging on the cement floor was the only sound. The hallway stunk of ammonia and old pipes. The rooms were empty; the only inhabitants seemed to be the nurses and guards. Hadn’t seen a single patient. That made me wonder if this was a place Ivan had set up for my execution. Maybe I wasn’t on my way to the showers at all. Couldn’t help wonder if I might be headed for the dead end room the nurse had talked about. Maybe Ivan just wanted to get my death over with.
Logically, I should be shaking, pleading, hyperventilating, and coming out of my skin. But I wasn’t. I was pissed. Furious. My body stiffened, and I held my head up. Yeah, I was held captive and bound in chains, but I felt strong. Fueled by outrage and a shitload of anger. I never hurt anyone. Never cheated on my wife. I always opened the door for a woman and remembered my manners. I never took a penny from anyone that I hadn’t earned. The sorrow on a child’s face made me cry. The creases on an elder’s face and the weariness in their stride made me want to talk to them. Yes, I drank to excess, did drugs, and abused myself. I did. But the only person I never loved was myself.
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