Soon Ella will no longer be able to manage the winding staircase. She should have fixed up a place for Francis down here, in the little kitchen. It’s nice here. A tiled stove. An inglenook on which she dries beans, herb teas, mushrooms. She’s got everything she needs at her fingertips – water, the garbage pails, an ironing board. Here she chats with the mail carrier who brings the two of them their old-age pension installments, and sometimes the neighbour stops by as she brings fresh milk to the houses of the well-to-do on her old Erenpreis bike.

Ella and Francis’ house is fancy too. When they arrived here, they wanted the biggest house in the neighbourhood. In those days they could afford it. They dug, planted, harvested, sold, sold, dug, planted, harvested. You could take in a good bit of money that way. In that whole muddle the kids scattered here and there, and the grandkids fled too.

Ella is of the opinion that all her life she has been very fair, and she has worked hard. Francis believes whatever Ella be-lieves, or else he keeps his opinions to himself. But why did they all leave?

Her son-in-law was a graphic artist, and after helping with the potato harvest or haymaking his hands would shake for several days from lifting the heavy weights – he was the first to stop coming. Ella thought he was a wimp. A doodler. As for her daughter-in-law’s profession, she couldn’t tell a soul about it. A doctor of women’s butts. When she was assigned to do her practical work not far from their house, Ella installed her daughter-in-law in the shed, for she had all sorts of outlandish instruments. Of course, the autumn mornings were chilly, but let her toughen up, let her toughen up. One daughter studied to be an actress. Ella liked that – actors are people the public respects, their anniversaries are remembered with such lovely ceremonies – onstage in a decorated chair, with everyone bringing them gifts and flowers, and the government awards them honorary titles. Her daughter was assigned to a job as a dresser in a provincial theatre. The trouble Ella went through – producers and actors sitting at her groaning tables weekend after weekend, drinking her homemade wines and brandies. Finally her daughter got the chance to read the story "White Bim, Black Ear" at the house of culture. Ella hardly missed a performance. She sat in the first row with a shawl around her shoulders and flowers in her hands, feeling like the mother of a real actress. And what a story! She could have a good cry. Those were the short moments when Ella felt happy, for the rest of the time her daughter came home to get some food, yelled at her that she had ruined her life and left. She had neither art nor kids.

Ella had no luck with the granddaughters either, later on. Her other daughter’s daughter took after her father, good at drawing, they said. Ella took her into her house as part of the work-training program. Forget about drawing pictures. Why not learn to play the ’cordion instead? That song, so pretty it just about tears your heart in two – "Stillness in the grove, not a rustling sound,/ Softly shines the moon clear and bright./ Dear, if you could know/ How I treasure so/ The most beautiful Moscow night . . ." The two of them sounded so lovely together. When her granddaughter got older, Ella found the ’cordion in the fir grove, and the girl was gone.

As for her son’s daughters, there was no way she could handle them. One she didn’t get at all, it seems she was teaching the cello in town. Another good-for-nothing. She got the other one for two weeks every summer. Oh? You like to make up stories and write? Get to work on that math! – Ella had a good prewar ruler. For rapping the kid over the knuckles. If that didn’t help, punishment worked fine – scrubbing the clay floor in the garden shed, where pumpkins, seeds, and other useful things were stored. As soon as she had some say in the matter, her granddaughter stopped coming.

How had it come to this? All she wanted was to raise decent human beings. Decent human beings.

Francis upstairs sort of gives a cough, or a kind of wheeze, mumbles something. Ella takes the clean gauze bandages, a package of Pampers, calendula ointment and heavily climbs the winding staircase. Graceful, narrow. Francis’ own handiwork. But not for her old, crooked bones, her aching back.

Francis lies there like an emperor. Smiling. What are you smiling at, you idiot, why can’t you die – thinks Ella. Wasted away like an old dog, but just look at him, still going strong.

Yepkepkepkep – Francis says to Ella instead of good morning.

Wanna pee? – exclaims Ella. It seems to her that Francis can’t hear.

Ella throws aside the blanket, takes a wide-mouthed bottle and stuffs the wrinkled little pecker inside.

Francis smiles.

Dope, thinks Ella.

This time Francis passes water in the bottle. But often he plays a trick on Ella. When, after holding the bottle for half an hour, she gives up, Francis gaily floods the white sheets. At such times Ella at first scolds angrily, then sinks down on the bed and wails that Francis will be the death of her. That it’s too early to tell which one will go to the Pearly Gates first. But Francis just watches calmly. What does he care, lying there like an emperor.

The worst is when he does his big business. Many times Ella sits there for an hour, having put a flat chamber pot under Francis, repeating, "Come on, go poopie, poop, poop, poop, go poopie now . . ." That’s how God tests her patience. If she does not pass the test, she is severely punished for her impatience – all the sheets have to be changed, Francis has to be washed from head to foot.

Ella wipes Francis dry, puts some gauze between his legs. Can’t always use Pampers, you can get a sore from them. Then she washes his face, fluffs up his pillows, combs his hair. Just look at that, like a prince.

Ella carries the pee downstairs. Goddamn winding stairs.

She likes the smells in her little kitchen. That’s her only refuge. But once, when her daughter came, she screwed up her face and said the kitchen smelled of pee and old herbs. Well, then those are my favourite smells, thinks Ella.

On three kitchen windowsills there are nine flower pots. An amaryllis in each. Ella’s favourite flower. It’s February and they’re all in bloom. The white one with rosy little veins, the carmine red one, the pale pink one, the pure white one, the bright red one . . . Each has at least four flowers on a thick, firm stalk. Amaryllises obey Ella, and look – here’s the result. They’re blooming like crazy to give her pleasure.