Life Stories

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  It was almost dark when they drove up to their building.

  "Oh, what amusing benches they put in. Just what we need, how sweet," his wife said.

  Dima looked and, sure enough, he saw that they'd installed some new benches near the entrance. When did they put them in, he wondered? Dima hadn't noticed.

  "Yeah, we didn't waste our time here," Dima answered right off.

  He kissed his wife, then slowly and carefully drew his daughter from the car, while his wife got the suitcases and bag from the trunk. They walked to the entrance. His daughter was sweating in her sleep. Dima held her closer; she was drooping and felt heavy and large. Her hair smelled of sun, wind and sea.

  "You're warm..." Dima said to himself. "My beauty," he said almost silently.

  As his wife opened the door to the building, Dima quickly looked back at the courtyard. He looked up at the top of the huge maple tree that towered above the birches and the ash. The maple was tall, very tall. Against the almost completely darkened sky he could see that the maple was stock-still, not quivering in the least. Dima winked at it, turned away, and, as he entered the building, smiled... saying a reluctant goodbye...

  September 15, 2004

  Translation by Paul E. Richardson

  Shelter

  Alexander Kabakov

  The street flew into the sky. It was as if the clouds were swimming slowly through the sky, yet, at the same time they rushed along, constantly changing their color and form. It was true theater: turn away for a moment, and you might miss the most important thing.

  * * *

  In the early '70s, people of his generation moved en masse from the ranks of researchers and engineers into those of elevator attendants, boiler room technicians, parking lot security guards, or mere jobless loiterers with fake employment papers obtained from a low-level boss of one's acquaintance in exchange for a dog-eared foreign edition of Lolita or a scratched Sergeant Pepper LP. As soon as they left their posts, they would sit down to write the unprintable great novel or to cover canvases with abstract yet brilliant swirls, or else with concretely merciless visions of their contemporaries' abominable mugs and grim landscapes of the Motherland... They all drank port—"Kavkaz" or "Agdam"—and strummed on guitars, singing their harmless dissident songs late into the night in basements and unkempt apartments.

  But he was cautious. Well, it was not because he was afraid—although he was—but mainly because he rejected on principle this self-satisfied idleness and unfounded faith in one's own exceptionality. All the same, he went to the same parties, drank the same port—preferring vodka, but one should blend in—and conversed about art and cursed the state that held them all by their throats. With respect to the state, he was in complete accord with the others, though his reasons for disliking it were somewhat different from his friends'. As for art, he questioned its value most when he surveyed the heaps of unframed paintings that leaned against the walls or listened to a chapter of the latest immortal manuscript.

  Once, his doubts got him into a fight.

  It happened at a farewell party organized for some hapless graduate of the Surikov Art Institute. With his Israeli visa, he was about to depart first for Vienna and ultimately, of course, for New York City, that acme of contemporary culture. The artist had quietly worked as a trolley-bus driver and never made a fuss in the reception room of the Supreme Soviet until the time allotted for tormenting the would-be immigrant came to an end and he was finally free to leave. Now he was taking with him some surrealist canvases, re-primed and painted over with kitschy and twisted likenesses of his relatives. Everyone present had helped with the priming; the emigrant himself painted the portraits inspired by pre-war photographs of girls in berets and men in military-style overcoats. They were all to pass for family relics, but once transported to freedom, the silly portraits would be removed, revealing the true stuff, fit for an immediate exhibit somewhere in SoHo—oh, SoHo! But at the Tretyakov Gallery, a dour dame with the unmistakable stamp of KGB service upon her face, glancing maliciously at the con artist, stamped the back of each painting with the following formula: "Artistic value negligible. Not to be transported." So the painter could neither move his masterpieces from his socialist Motherland—the Motherland that gave him "a happy childhood and free education"—nor sell them, even to the lowliest of galleries, since their artistic value was officially negligible. And so the guests helped themselves to the spooky portraits, for safekeeping till better days: who knows, perhaps they could be carried across by some Western diplomats. The paintings without takers were hauled outside by the drunken, furious artist and thrown into the perpetually burning dumpster. He then doused them with turpentine for dramatic effect.

  No one came to extinguish the fire. Those were quiet times, no one expected trouble, and besides, it was only a dumpster—let it burn.

  Together with everyone else, our hero, who came to say goodbye to the artist—let us call him, as usual in literature, "N"—wrapped the painting he was given in some newspapers, while cursing the laws. More precisely, he was bewildered: what kind of idiots were these communist bosses? They created their own enemies. What harm could have come of letting the painter show his canvases in the foyer of some "palace of culture"? Who would have been hurt if the main gallery in Saratov—the town he had left to compete for entrance into the Surikov Institute—had bought a couple of his clever imitations of de Chirico and hung them in the room with "The Works of Our Compatriots"? Nothing, absolutely nothing would have happened to their omnivorous power, no one would have died, and these old fools would carry on kissing foreign leaders, embracing other cannibalistic regimes around the globe, and building their stinking rockets. The painter would not have left the country, filled with hatred. He would have intrigued quietly at the Artists' Union, hatching plans to get himself a new studio, and, given the opportunity, would have preached to foreign guests about freedom of creative thought in the Soviet Union. What idiots.

  By midnight all the guests got sow-drunk and no one talked of going home anymore; instead, they all decided to go straight to the airport at dawn, to wave at their friend through the steel bars as he walked across to the plane that was to take him to paradise. To hell with the secret police—let them snap their photos and file them in their shitty dossiers—enough fear and trembling! N too was going to go, although it would be more dangerous for him than for all these street sweepers and plumbers: the cadres department of his thrice-damned institute might easily receive a very unpleasant communiqué compelling it to postpone his defense or simply kick him out, under the excuse of cutting lab costs.

  However, it was just then that the conflict erupted. As always when far from sober, he became unpleasantly sincere. Cornering the fresh "traitor to the Motherland" and making as if to proffer a pearl of wisdom, he plunged ahead:

  "Look, old man—" N said, swaying and bumping the artist lightly against the wall, which was a bit much. "You're right—life is passing by and you should live it there, so as not to feel the sting of impotent regret..."

  Here they both smirked at the popular adage of recent years, when so many were leaving, having suddenly "discovered" a Jewish branch in the family tree. For N, it would not have been difficult to obtain through friends an invitation from some "aunt" in Haifa—for who is to say that a Russian could not have such an aunt. In fact, only half of these exiles were destined for Israel; the rest were trying to get through Austria and Italy to the United States.

  "You see," N continued, not letting go of his captive, pinned up against the wall, "You understand, old man—you'll never have an exhibit here, I agree."

  They were all quite certain that there would never be anything here for them.

  "But listen, old man—" Here, N, luckily, lowered his voice, as otherwise everyone in the room would have heard him, and he was right to do so. "What if there you don't have—you know... Eh? Not because of ideology, but due to artistic merits. You know they're honest there, don't you? What if they say no—for artis
tic... you understand? Just imagine—what then? Tie a noose? Look at me—I'm not going anywhere—"

  He was not given the opportunity to explain why he wasn't going. He wanted to say that it was not because of the ban on exit within five years of leaving a job—which sometimes became an indefinite ban—although, of course, that was the first and main reason; but N also wanted to explain that he was scared of freedom, which is ultimately certain to reveal everyone's true worth; for it would be frightening to find, once freed, that one was worth nothing at all, whereas here there was a perennial consolation in blaming the communists. Therefore, one ought to think a hundred times before asking for freedom and N, for example, was not ready for such an exam. At his institute, it was plainly understood that he could have defended not only his candidacy, but his doctorate too—had he only joined the party. Here, he was an unrecognized genius, whereas there he might end up a recognized nothing.

  These thoughts were fairly insightful, and it is strange that N, a man of no particularly keen intellect, arrived at those conclusions as far back as 1972, rather than '92 or '96, when everyone realized these truths—when the other participants of that evening get-together (those that stayed behind or were still living) began to join the old women in red neckerchiefs and old men in felt fedoras in organized protests against freedom. That N's intellect was not so great was confirmed by the fact that he decided to share these insights with a man whose pocket contained a "certificate of divestment of Soviet citizenship on the grounds of his pending immigration to the state of Israel."

  And so, before N had his say, he received a weak, intellectual punch from half-clenched fist. He was lucky not to get a real punch: the artist actually could fight. All the same, blood rushed from his nose; there was an uproar; N stood with his head tilted backward; everyone urged the two men to reconcile. No one understood what had happened, and neither N nor the artist would explain. When it was time to go to the airport and those who snoozed had to be shaken awake—when everyone began to finish the unfinished drinks, either to muster courage or to soothe the pain of the impending eternal parting, and luggage had to be pushed out into the street, and the rare morning cabs had to be seized—N suddenly decided that, although they had been reconciled, it would be strange of him to wave through the bars at his now former friend. After all, his departure was the end, so former friends it was. So, instead, N shook the hand that had punched him in the face—picked up the rolled-up canvas and calmly walked to the metro to take the first morning train home and straighten himself out after a hard night before going to work. The artist, already emotional, understood the handshake to be an additional gesture of reconciliation and took no notice of N's absence from the farewell, with its crowds, tears and inanely cheerful jokes. As for the remaining company, N distanced himself from them little by little, over a year-and-a-half or so.

  Sadly, N had been right about the artist, although he did not hang himself, but set himself up well in Brighton Beach, remodeling apartments for his prosperous compatriots. There, on the wooden promenade, they met again, when N happened to be in New York on important, boring business and decided to spend the evening among near Russian speakers. The two embraced and went to celebrate at the famous "Odessa" restaurant, reminiscing about their past, except for the foolish farewells, and the painter kept trying to pick up the cheque, flashing his gold American Express.

  The painting N had got at the party moved with him from apartment to apartment for many years, rolled up all the while in a scroll. When finally he returned from America, he unrolled it at last, and, as he did, the paint flaked and crumbled from the canvas—not just the top layer and the primer, but with them the hidden, subversive painting too. Artists' materials were dreadful in the Soviet era.

  * * *

  The clouds began to swell somewhat, to turn into thick, blue thunderclouds; filaments separated from their outer edges and disappeared into the emptiness. In the distance, the thunderclouds fell upon the street where, like a thin blade, it sliced into the horizon; from that same spot spewed white fragments of lightning.

  * * *

  Thirty years went by. Everything changed. The old life vanished somewhere down those decades, and N had almost no complaints about the new life that took its place. At least not the same complaints that he had before. One could live any way one pleased, including the way N had always longed for: making lots of money in a variety of ways—and he had a knack for inventing new ways. Back when he had spent his evenings drinking with artistically inclined friends, all his schemes were good for nothing but a stint in jail, so he had settled for cursing the government along with the rest of the crowd. Now, however, all the reasons for complaining had evaporated. His friends, according to rumors that reached him, went on cursing the lack of freedom, the injustice, the pig-headedness, and the insolence of office. In essence he agreed with all of this, but now felt that these characteristics were probably—in larger or smaller degree, that was the key—innate to any state, which was shown not only domestically, but abroad as well, something he was now well familiar with. And if there was no other sort of government, he thought carelessly and typically, as he sat in an endless traffic jam that had nothing to do with stoplights or powers that be, why waste time being angry? His friends were unlucky, sure, but no one bothers them now, they live as they want and they manage okay, he thought. I, as it turns out, can...

  Much had happened in those thirty years, but N had forgotten almost all of it. And if something reminded him of something he had forgotten, he would only be perfunctorily surprised—after all, so much had happened and so much continues to happen, and then ruthlessly suppress the memory. For example, his family had disappeared, but how, he could no longer remember. He had no children: he and his wife had tormented one another for years as desire wilted, and finally they settled for the inanity of "it didn't work out." But even after N had gotten used to those words, even "it didn't work out" became a part of his forgotten past. He continued to rush from place to place, earning and spending, losing and recovering the losses, without questioning for a moment that this was the only way to live, that there could be no other life but this life, though one might be more or less lucky.

  For some reason, he counted everything from that year, 1972, when he separated from his company of friends. Only this accounting could, every now and then, break through his existence and possess him... could it really be that fifteen years had passed... twenty... a quarter of a century (that's crazy).... thirty.... Only this accounting truly distressed him: truly the end is near... near... who knows when, but it is always closing in...

  Once, at some forum or the devil knows what, with the usual empty speeches and the all-important small-talk during intermissions, which conversations being the reason that everyone came here, to this foolish resort he had long since tired of... in the evening hours of boredom, when most were up to their ears in champagne (which he could not stand—Sovetskoye champagne had disappeared and only this thousand-dollar stuff remained), on the second day, N sat in the hall and found himself talking to one of the tarts who had been flown in for the participants on a special airplane. The girl was excessively, disgustingly attractive, but, to N's surprise, she talked almost articulately, almost without any swearing or any provincial accent, and was not at all dull. She even spoke decently in English, having at first mistaken N for a foreigner. That she was unmistakably Russian was given away by the fact that she was overdressed in an evening gown at a cocktail party, and her meticulous grooming left no doubt that her occupation depended directly upon her body.

  "I would have never guessed that you were Russian," she repeated, emphasizing her surprise with a toss of her platinum mane. "By your appearance, by the way you speak English."

  "Everyone can speak English these days," he replied in the flirtatiously gruff manner of a bachelor, of a man ready for anything, then for some reason gruffly mumbled, "If only they learned to speak Russian as well."

  "But you are adult," she said, u
nthinkingly using a ridiculous euphemism for "elderly." Then: "I mean to say, middle-aged. We studied English... we, expecting to use it, but you—"

  Here, she became genuinely embarrassed, as "we" and "you" emphasized to both of them that he was at least twice her age.

  "And where are you from? And what are you doing here?" N asked almost rudely, in part because it fit, in part because it flowed naturally from the fact that he was offended by this "adult," "we" and "you."

  "Originally, from Volgograd," she said unexpectedly simply, and N again was again surprised by the simplicity of this clearly "Premium" class professional. "But I've been living in Moscow for the past two years. I am here as an interpreter."

  He chuckled in a fairly offensive manner.

  "There's not much demand for interpreters here, especially for English—"

  "But I am fluent in German." Now she was insulted. "And I know a bit of Spanish. And you seem to think that if a girl is attractive, then she must be, well—"

  She did not finish the sentence, and he really liked that. The girl seemed still to have one foot in Volgograd, where, as she told him over the next quarter of an hour, she had been living with her father, an engineer at a military manufacturing plant, and her mother, a teacher. She took her degree, with honors, in philology or something like that, and then went to Moscow to visit a girlfriend who had already settled there—and stayed longer than planned. She spent half of her first year there unlearning her native fricative "g"—"they pronounce it in Volgograd just as they do in Ukraine. I seem to have gotten over it, don't you think?"