by Colum McCann
You see him refuse the Komsomol because it interferes with his training, something nobody has ever done before, and he is brought before the committee, where he leans across the table to say, Excuse me, comrades, but what exactly is political naïveté?; you see him nod and apologize, move away down the corridor, cackling to himself, never to attend the meetings anyway; you see him in the library copying the musical scores, the dance notations, his shirt splattered with ink; you see him rushing to the master’s rehearsal simply to watch and afterwards he moves his body to the memory of the dance; you see him doing what you used to do; you see him doing it better than yourself and then you see that he does not need to do it at all because it has become him; you see him lurking in the wings at the Kirov; you see the older dancers beckon to him; you see him feigning no emotion at the bulletin board when he is given the role you always wanted.
You see him everywhere, on the footbridge over the canal, on the benches in the Conservatory park, on the embankment down by the Winter Palace, in the sun outside the old Kazan Cathedral, on the grass of the Summer Gardens; you see his black beret, his dark suit, his white shirt, no tie, and he haunts you, you cannot shake him; you see him walking with Pushkin’s wife, Xenia; you see the way she looks at him, you are sure she is in love with him, you have heard rumors, but you’re convinced that it’s impossible; you see Pushkin himself say he might one day go straight to the Kirov as a soloist, even though you know—you know!—you are a better dancer, and you wonder where you went wrong, when it was that you slipped, because your technique is better, you are more accomplished, more sophisticated, you have a better line, your dance is cleaner, you know there’s something missing, you’re not sure what it is, you are scared and ashamed and you hate when people say his name; and then one day you see him—in class, in the hallway, in the canteen, in the fifth-floor rehearsal rooms, it doesn’t matter—and you believe you are seeing yourself, you want to move but you can’t, your feet are nailed to the floor, the heat of the day rises through you, it will not stop, and you think you have stepped into an acid bath, the liquid is above you, below you, around you, inside you, burning, until he moves away and the acid is gone, you stand alone and you look down and realize how much of yourself has disappeared.
Respected Comrade,
In response to your directive of last Thursday it must be said that indeed the behavior of the young man leaves a lot to be desired, but the nature of his talent is such that the rigidity of the program suggested might dampen his abilities, which are clearly prodigious if undisciplined. He hardly knows what he does and yet he strives not only to know but to achieve beyond what he knows. His sporadic nature is still malleable. He is after all only eighteen years old. I hereby formally suggest that he be allowed to switch residencies so that he come live with Xenia and me in the courtyard residence, at least in the short-term, whereupon the discipline he so sorely lacks will become his through a calculated osmosis.
As always, with great respect,
A. Pushkin
* * *
Shortly after getting my father’s letter, I began to go down to the Big House on Liteiny Prospect to see about the feasibility of getting a reprieve for his exile. My mother could have visited Leningrad by herself, but she refused to do so—she would have felt one-footed without him. Yulia, she wrote, I will bide my time. In the past I had tentatively inquired about the process of getting them out of Ufa, but it had been fruitless, yet now with the thaw firmly in place the possibility seemed stronger. I pondered that they wanted to spend time with Rudi more than with me, but it hardly mattered—the notion of a visit from them set my spirit echoing.
At the Big House there were gray faces at the partitions. The wooden counters were scratched and scored where people had leaned too heavily with their pens. The eyes of the guards were glassy as they fingered their rifles. I found out exactly which forms my father should fill in, what he should say, how he should present his case, and sent letters to him with all the exact instructions. Months passed, nothing happened. I knew my actions were dangerous, perhaps more perilous than anything I’d ever done—it felt as if I were hanging my heart outside my body, hardly clever. I wondered if I’d compromised everyone around me, even Iosif who, despite all, had even more to lose than I.
RosaMaria said that her own father, influential in Communist circles in Santiago, might be able to do something, but I thought it would be far wiser for her to remain outside the fray. It was quite possible that the bureaucracy would catch up on my history, carbon copies revealing truths far different from the originals, as in some dark European novel.
But almost nine months later—while I was doing a translation of a Spanish poem for the State Publishing House—I received a telegram:
THURSDAY. FINLANDIA STATION 10:00 A.M.
I cleaned the room from floor to ceiling and bought whatever provisions I could find. Iosif made space by saying nothing.
When I arrived at the station they were sitting on the bench underneath the giant clock, having come in on an earlier train. At their feet was a giant wooden trunk with a crude lacquer pattern. The trunk was covered with labels, though most of the lettering had been scratched out. My father wore his hat, of course. My mother was in an old coat with a fur-lined collar. She was sleeping with her head against his shoulder, her mouth slightly open. My father touched the inside of her wrist, just beneath the sleeve, to waken her. She opened her eyes suddenly, shook her head. I went to hold her, and she felt unusually brittle.
My father rose from the bench, spread his arms wide and said in a loud voice: Look, I have been rehabilitated! Then he lowered his tone as if in conspiracy and added: Well, for three months anyway.
I scanned the station for guards, but it was empty. Mother shushed him, but he leaned towards her and said enigmatically: Until morning comes, we are not yet free of journeys.
My mother said: You and your poetry.
He grinned and pointed to the suitcase. Yulia, my darling, he said, carry us.
On the trolley bus he didn’t want to sit. Instead he clung to the pole with one hand and to his cane with the other. He grimaced as the bus moved, but his eyes darted around. Most of the time he seemed wounded—his city was largely lost after the Blockade and the rebuilding after the war—but every now and then he shut his eyes as if he were closing his whole self to a memory, and once he quietly whispered: Petersburg. His smile flickered, moving like a wavelength to my mother and then to me, so that his memory had a sort of domino effect.
Just off Nevsky the wire jumped from the trolley pole, stopping the bus in the street. My father went to the door to rejiggle the wire back into place, but the buses had been redesigned and he was standing in the wrong place, utterly lost. The conductor glared at him. The other passengers turned around, and I saw my father’s face flush with fear.
My mother beckoned him to sit down. He put his hand on hers and remained silent the rest of the journey.
Iosif greeted my parents expansively. My mother held his shoulders and examined him. She had only ever seen photographs. Iosif blushed and hurried to open a bottle of vodka. His toast was long and formal. In the room my mother touched things, the butter dish, my husband’s Party bulletins, the books I had half-translated. We had a fine meal together and afterwards my mother went down the corridor to the bathroom, ran the hot water tap, took a bath, while Iosif excused himself to the university.
When she returned my mother said: He’s not as tall as I had imagined.
My father stood at the window and said: Ah, the Fontanka.
By mid-afternoon my mother had fallen asleep at the table. I managed to move her to the couch. My father propped up her head with his overcoat. He stroked her hair while she slept, and even in his slight frame he seemed to surround her with his generosity. Soon he was sleeping also, but fitfully.
Early in the evening Mother woke to prepare for a visit from Rudi. She brushed her hair and put on a dress that smelled as if it had been hanging in a wardrobe too
long. Father took a long walk down to Nevsky, desperately wanting a cigar, only to find that the stalls were closed, but a neighbor gave me two, and my father sniffed the length of them, quoted some line from a Lithuanian poet about the deep mercy of strangers.
Rudi arrived late, of course. He was without RosaMaria. He wore a double-breasted suit and a thin black tie, the first I’d ever seen on him. He had wrapped a single lilac in notebook paper, and he presented it to my mother as he kissed her. She beamed and told him that he’d already grown beyond what she could have dreamed.
For the next hour they were like two cogs clicking together. She listened and he talked rapid-fire, endlessly, in a perfect pitch and rhythm—the slope of the school’s floor, the sweat stains on the gymnasium barre, the rumor of a certain move once done by Nijinsky, the books he was reading—Dostoyevsky, Byron, Shelley—and how he had switched dormitories to live with the Pushkins. He said: I am hanging in the air longer, you know!
My mother seemed lost. Rudi placed his hand on my her trembling fingers for a moment. The problem was that Rudi had learned too much and he wanted to tell her everything. The old teacher was being taught, and she was confused by it. She nodded and pursed her lips, tried to interrupt, but he was unstoppable: the routine for his classes, the Dutch masters at the Hermitage, a step that Pushkin wanted him to learn, a fight with the director, his fondness for Rachmaninov, rehearsals he had seen at the Kirov, nights at the Gorky theater. He seldom slept, he said, needing only four hours a night, and the rest of the day was packed with learning.
To control her trembling hand my mother twirled her wedding ring and it struck me how thin she had become, the ring slipping easily along her finger. She seemed extraordinarily tired but she kept repeating: That’s right, dear boy, that’s right.
Finally my father had a quiet word in her ear and she put her face to his shoulder, stood, tottered a little, apologized, said she had to rest. She kissed Rudi on the cheek, and he stood there, silent.
You’ve done well, my father said to him. You’ve made her proud.
But at the door Rudi fingered his jacket and asked: What did I do wrong, Yulia?
Nothing. She’s tired. She’s been traveling for days.
I just wanted to talk.
Come back tomorrow, Rudi, I said.
I have classes tomorrow.
The next day then.
But he wasn’t back the next day, or the next week. I had set up a screen to block off a corner of the room, put down the mattress for my parents, while Iosif and I slept on the floor. They talked about trying to find a room for themselves, somewhere to live, perhaps in the suburbs, the sleeping quarters, but first they had to sort out their residence permit, their pension papers and State bonds. Their visas were valid for only three months. Mother grew more and more listless, and Father was unable to deal with the bureaucracy, so it was I who tried to handle the logistics. Each day when I came home my mother was on the couch, head slumped against a pillow, while my father limped restlessly from window to window.
Somehow he had acquired a map of Leningrad, a difficult thing to find; maybe he’d bargained for it in a market, or run into some old friends somewhere. It was best not to ask. At night he spread out the map on the kitchen table and occupied his time by identifying street names that had changed.
Look, he said to nobody in particular, Ship Street has become Red Street, how strange.
He marked all the changes, the post-Revolutionary places that had lost their history. English Embankment was now Red Fleet Embankment, Swimming Pool Street was renamed after the poet Nekrasov. Ascension Street naturally had been changed, along with Resurrection Street, where an Orthodox church had been converted into a department store. Small Czar’s Village had become Children’s Village. Policeman’s Avenue was now the People’s Avenue. Millionaire Street was gone. Christmas Street had been transformed into Soviet Street, which he found monstrous. Other lost names struck him as a great injury—Street of Little Mosses, Catherine’s Canal, Nicholas Street, Coachman Street, Miracle Avenue, Nightingale Street, Savior Street, Five Corners Street, Foundry Avenue, Meat Traders Alley, Big Craftsman Yard, Counterfeiters Lane. My father’s love of poetry made him find more than a political implication in the renaming.
One day they’ll name a street after the renamers, he said.
I whispered that he should be careful of what he said, to whom, and certainly when he said it.
I’m old enough now to say whatever I want.
It wasn’t that he had lost faith in his past, but it had become unrecognizable to him, as if he had expected to find the logic of his boyhood but found something else entirely. The old names seemed coded into his tongue and would never leave. His difficulty was that he was unable to move with the change, yet his good fortune was that he hadn’t been punished again for such stasis.
He gave up his obsession with the map when he saw that my mother was growing sicker. She refused to acknowledge that she was ill, but we took her to the hospital anyway, late at night in a taxi. The doctors examined her gently—my mother, by her nature, commanded that sort of respect—but they could find nothing wrong, even after a series of blood tests. She insisted there was something in the air that was making her feel drowsy.
Take me back, she said.
In the room everything felt tight, hampered, lifeless. Iosif disgusted me with his vague politeness. We hardly talked to each other at all anymore. For a number of years we had insulated ourselves from each other, and we had once even tried to think up a Russian word for privacy since it existed in the other languages I had studied. To some extent it existed for Iosif as a notion in physics, an unknowable place, but now it seemed that all the places we operated in were themselves unknowable. When I unpacked the few belongings from my mother’s hospital bag I felt, in a strange way, that I was unpacking my husband from my life also.
The only tangible link to an immediate past for my parents was Rudi—Our dear Rudik, my mother would say—but he had disappeared for quite a while, despite the fact that I had left notes for him at the Leningrad Choreographic, pleading that he come visit.
Eventually he did come around to announce that he was about to perform at a showcase in school. He stood stately in the center of the room, feet together, and it struck me that his body had now accepted dance as its only strategy.
I will be performing for just a few minutes, he said, but I’d like to show you what I’ve learned.
The idea of it brought the color back into my mother’s cheeks. She was astounded by his choice of dance, some terribly difficult male variation from a ballet based on Notre-Dame de Paris. He claimed that he had been practicing it with Pushkin and that he would be able to perform it quite easily.
But you’re too young, you can’t do a role like that, my mother said.
He grinned and said: Come watch me.
I had the Victor Hugo book on my shelf, and in the days leading up to the dance my father read it to my mother. His was a beautiful sonorous voice and he captured nuances in the text that surprised me. On the morning of the concert my mother plucked a special dress from the suitcase and spent hours adjusting it, then stood in front of the mirror with an elderly radiance.
My father put on a tie and a black suit. What remained of his hair had been combed back and I noticed that he had put the second cigar in the breast pocket of his jacket. He wanted to take a droisky for old time’s sake and could hardly believe that the horses and carriages were long gone. Instead we got on the tram, and my father gave my mother’s hand a secretive squeeze as we passed the all-weather KGB command post.
The showcase was in the Leningrad Choreographic, but we stopped for awhile outside the Kirov, its fierce elegance.
Anna, said my father. Aren’t we beautiful?
Yes, she said.
Two old fools.
Beautiful or fools?
Both, he said.
We were seated in an upper balcony that ringed the gymnasium. Most of the other spectator
s were teachers and students—they wore tights, sweaters, leg warmers. We were horrifically overdressed. My mother sat erect in a straight-backed chair. RosaMaria joined us and introduced herself to my mother in her broken Russian. They immediately conspired with each other, my mother and RosaMaria, whispering and smiling—it was as if they were parts of the same creature, living in different decades but linked through some odd emotional chain. My mother laid her hand on RosaMaria’s arm as the showcase progressed. The applause was polite for most of the students, who seemed to me accomplished and polished, if without spirit. Rudi was second last. When he came out he looked up to the balcony and my mother’s frame straightened even further.
There were mutterings around the room. He wore a belt cinched very tightly at the waist. His hair had been carefully snipped and combed, short at the back but long at the front, falling over his eyes.
Of course he danced perfectly, light and quick, pliant, his line controlled and composed, but more than that he was using something beyond his body—not just his face, his fingers, his long neck, his hips, but something intangible, beyond thought, some kinetic fury and spirit—and I felt a little hatred for him when the applause rang out.
It was RosaMaria who stood up first, followed by my mother and my father, who nudged me. Beneath us Rudi bowed and kept on bowing even through the appearance of the next dancer, who stood angrily to the side. At last Rudi swept his arm out and left the floor at a high trot. He was met by a small handsome bald man who clapped him on the back. My mother whispered to me: That’s Pushkin, he’s doing a wonderful job with Rudik.