Mikhail and Margarita

by Julie Lekstrom Himes

  “I saw Stanislawski tonight.” His mind raced ahead. “I wasn’t going to say anything—I didn’t want you to worry. Perhaps it’s nothing.” He glanced away. “He seems concerned.”

  She slowed her movements. “What is it?”

  “The censors want another viewing.” He wondered how to modulate the tone of his words. Fearful? Resigned? He maintained a flatness instead; she seemed not to notice.

  “It’s already passed. Why another?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t know. Of course he can’t refuse them.” He wondered how she might discover his lie. On the rare chance the director attended a Party event, she was never there.

  “This is just muscle-flexing,” she said. “Some bureaucrat trying to show how important he is.” She patted his leg and went back to her stocking.

  “There’s something else,” he said. He thought quickly. “There’ve been other visitors from Lubyanka.”

  Her seriousness returned. “Ilya Ivanovich?”

  “No, not him,” he said.

  “He’s been there before. Remember?”

  He’d forgotten. They’d seen each other there—or she’d seen him.

  “It wasn’t him,” he repeated. “Someone else. I don’t know who.”

  “Maybe it’s nothing,” she offered. “Maybe they are no one.”

  He was conscious of his own breathing. “Stanislawski doesn’t think so. He’s started rehearsing Hamlet. He’s talking of it as a replacement.”

  “Oh, my dear,” she said. Her stockings were forgotten. She touched his hand.

  He thought, first, not of the pleasure of her touch. He thought of his betrayal of Stanislawski, who’d stopped all rehearsals weeks before; who’d embraced him warmly. Here he’d delivered an image of the director’s cowardice, of his expediency. He’d besmirched his name in the necessity of a lie. To seduce a woman.

  “Perhaps I’m overthinking this,” he said. If he sounded miserable, he thought, this was an honest thing.

  She kissed him. He was conscious of the texture of her lips in a way he hadn’t noticed before. As though this was their first kiss—or, he thought then, their very last.

  She eased back on the bed, urging him back with her. For a time they simply lay next to each other, still clothed. She kissed him purposefully, as though she could expunge his sad and fearful thoughts. When she went to unbutton his shirt, he started a little.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Whatever for?”

  What was he sorry for? Her head was bent slightly against the pillow as she worked. He was sorry that somehow she needed to feel pity in order to find love for him.

  “I’m sorry you have to worry,” he said.

  She brought her face close to his, her expression resolute, and for a moment he was uncertain of what she intended. Her lips touched his and she filled his mouth with her tongue, as though to fill it with something other than words. It seemed, then, gloriously full. He began to pull her clothes from her. Flesh-to-flesh—he couldn’t be close enough. Somewhere below, he heard what sounded like the distant tattling of fireworks; the fabric of clothes ripping. It grew louder.

  Later, they lay together, her cheek against his shoulder. He touched the smoothness of her stomach; he spread his hand, his fingers wide, over it.

  He could push away these last few weeks. There had been the pressures of the play. The worry of secrets kept; barriers between them. He could imagine these things gone, the whole of Moscow laid flat for their pleasure. There would remain only the two of them.

  Would she want that? She seemed so still. Perhaps there was less love on her part and more pity; itself not an antidote, but a poison to love.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “About the play. Stanislawski is overreacting.”

  “I’m certain I’m right.” She patted his chest, then sat up, her legs over the edge of the bed. She seemed suddenly tired. She scratched a patch of skin just above her elbow. He bent forward and kissed it. When he was done, she rubbed it absently, as though wondering how exactly he thought that would be helpful.

  “We can hope that the actors won’t confuse the Danish for the French.”

  “Hmm?” she said.

  “Those rehearsing Hamlet.”

  “Yes. Of course. They won’t.” She didn’t react to his humor. They were words to quiet him. She stared at one of the bare windows. It reflected the interior of the room. As though a chorus hovered invisible on the other side, some congregation to whom she must answer.

  “Are you missing the curtains?” he asked.

  “No.”

  The skin of his chest where her hand had been felt strangely alive, strangely empty.

  “It’s funny—when you think I’m not doing well, you seem to find it easier to love me,” he said.

  She turned—her expression was inscrutable. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Maybe I’m wondering if you just feel sorry for me.”

  “You’re picking a fight again,” she said, as though making a casual observation.

  He stroked the back of her arm, then he kissed it. She let him.

  She got up and crossed the room, naked as she was, and turned off the light. The window became immediately translucent, revealing the exterior night. Any watchers, be they angels or demons, vanished in that moment. She came back to the bed in shadows.

  He wondered if Ilya had been outside, witness to it all.

  He decided, in the morning, he would ask her to marry him.

  CHAPTER 19

  She feigned a headache at work and was told to go home for the rest of the day. At Lubyanka she gave her name to the clerk at its entrance. She admitted she didn’t have an appointment and was directed to a row of chairs. Once there, she decided it was ridiculous that she’d come, though where she would go now in the middle of the day in the middle of the work week she couldn’t imagine as though the world outside was transformed during those hours and she in its midst would be lost. Ilya appeared from a side corridor and she stood; he took her by the arm and walked with her out the door. They crossed the street and continued down the sidewalk.

  “Next time,” he began. It seemed he would say something else, but he finished differently. “There are better ways to meet.”

  A block beyond Lubyanka he slowed his pace; the grip on her arm relaxed as well. He glanced at her. She expected him to make a comment about her appearance but he said nothing. He directed her to an outdoor café, to a small table set back from the street; it was late morning and there were no other diners. The waiter came up; he wiped his hands on the towel around his waist and looked ill-prepared for customers. Ilya ordered for both of them: two café au laits and for her a large serving of their okroshka.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  Ilya nodded to the waiter and he withdrew.

  He offered her a cigarette; she declined and he lit one for himself. She watched the pedestrians pass on the sidewalk nearby. She looked back and found he was watching her.

  “You must stop that,” she said quietly. He looked away.

  Sitting together as they were she was reminded of their last meeting in the park. She glanced at his hand where it rested on the table.

  The waiter appeared with their coffee. He apologized for the delay; the okroshka was not yet ready. He told them it would be provided shortly, then retreated.

  “This is a surprise,” said Ilya, as if explaining his behavior. She didn’t say anything.

  “You are a surprise,” he said.

  “Not really.”

  She’d rehearsed what she would say to him.

  A breeze lifted for a moment, it was cool on her skin. Morning’s condensation beaded on the table; she drew her cup toward her, holding it for warmth. The drops coalesced around its base into a crescent-shaped puddle.

 
“Did Bulgakov tell you I gave him a ride home last night?” he said.

  She retraced their conversation. Why wouldn’t he have mentioned it? For a moment she felt confused, uncertain why she was there.

  “You must stop harassing him,” she said suddenly.

  “I paid for the cab.”

  “I saw you at the theater,” she said. “Talking with Stanislawski.”

  He fingered his cup but didn’t drink. “I saw you there, too,” he said.

  She thought to tell him that that hadn’t been her intention.

  “How is our writer?” said Ilya.

  “He wants us to marry.”

  Ilya drank from his coffee.

  The waiter appeared with the okroshka and set it in front of her. She felt strangely hemmed in by it.

  “He’s made all of the changes requested by the review board,” she said.

  “Then my additional scrutiny should pose no problem.”

  “Why him?”

  He hooked his arm over the back of his chair. “You should try it,” he said, indicating the stew. “It’s quite wonderful here.” He seemed distracted, bothered in some way, and she wondered if she’d touched on some hidden discomfort. Or was it something else, and she was given to the sense that she’d endangered herself, and somehow this was what distressed him.

  “It’s only a play. No one should live or die over it.” She echoed Stanislawski’s words.

  He pressed the cigarette to his lips, then quickly pushed it away again. His hand was shaking. She was startled by this.

  “It’s true,” she insisted.

  “Please stop talking,” he cut her off.

  What else could she say? She felt desperate to undo any damage she might have caused. “Can you not leave him alone?”

  “Was this his idea? Your—meeting me?” He looked off, shaking his head, as though amused by the morning sky. “You’re not going to marry him,” he said to it, as though the real absurdity was in the sky thinking itself capable of marrying anyone.

  She got up but his hand was already around her wrist, holding her there. She stared at it, at his arm. Strangely, she didn’t mind it. It worked to infuse her with calm and she didn’t pull away. “It was my idea,” she said. “And now I’m sorry for it.” She could see he believed her; that he was perhaps even hurt by it, and he released her. He stared where his fingers had been. She crossed her arms over her chest. He smiled a little at her then, as one who acknowledged her power.

  “Please stay,” he said. “I don’t wish us to part under these circumstances. Please. I’ll ask nothing else of you.”

  It was only with his request that she then wondered where she would otherwise go. The sun hung at an unnatural angle; the rhythm of the street was unfamiliar. The world at this hour appeared uncharted and uncertain for her such that even going to a store or a movie house would require extraordinary physicality. Where would she go—home? She imagined Bulgakov at their apartment, at the table, his head bent over it; the sound of his pen against the paper. She imagined him rising at her appearance, concerned. Beside her now: this table, its chair, both were solid. The stew waited. The breeze came again; it’d warmed slightly as though in service to Ilya’s request, to provide encouragement. To suggest she needed a small reprieve from the other thing. To tell her the apartment would still be waiting; she would return to it soon enough. Had her friends not told her to get away for a little while? Was this not better? To do this small thing for herself was not a betrayal. Such a word made no sense. It was a table, a chair; someone had ordered a bowl of stew. All for her.

  She sat down.

  Ilya showed obvious pleasure and seemed determined to direct the conversation toward more agreeable topics. He encouraged her again to try the stew. She drew her spoon through it; steam rose from the seam she’d created.

  “You are considering marriage? I think that will be a good state for you,” he said. “I think that for most women. I suppose I’m old-fashioned in that way.”

  He confessed to his traditionalist view in the manner of one who was comfortable with this in himself. But was marriage a good state for him? Men such as Ilya were capable of setting aside love for their own interests. If this was the case, he hid it well. His gaze seemed to harbor true interest and concern. She didn’t doubt he could be at times unyielding. Yet she remembered in the restaurant, the night of the sturgeon, when he’d begged her pardon for the most minor of slights. There had been a vulnerability he’d revealed as though offering it for her to examine. She’d sensed her power then. She wondered now if it was a flimsy thing, an infatuation that could quickly disperse. It seemed as though she was tapping forward on ice, staring hard at its surface; coming to realize that it would be impossible to gauge its thickness without applying her full weight.

  “Do you feel women are the weaker sex and should be cared for?” she asked. He looked as though she should already know this answer.

  “I’m not a romantic,” he said. “You shouldn’t confuse me with one.”

  She wanted to say that she hadn’t, but found it uncomfortable to confess that she’d given any thought to it at all.

  “I don’t believe women, as individuals, are fully realized until they marry. Men too, for that matter. Too many these days—and I believe men are more guilty of this than women—remain in an extended childhood. They focus on their particular needs and wants—they react instinctually like children. Marriage insists that one grow up. That one think of someone beyond oneself. I believe this comes more naturally for women.” He shrugged then, as if he’d gone on too long. “I believe it is a more natural state for them. A good state.” He paused as if conscious of what he might next say. “A good state for you in particular.” He seemed not at all embarrassed to admit that he’d given this quite a bit of thought.

  She looked at her stew. “I think I’d like to know someday why you never married,” she said.

  “Perhaps someday I’ll tell you.”

  Something in her middle moved as though whatever she’d been ignoring those many weeks and months had now aroused itself, opened up, and yawned with sudden ferociousness to be filled. The aroma seemed to want her to faint from it. Her appetite raged at her. Her stomach ached. She drew her spoon through the stew again, almost fearful of its power. She felt like a child, she thought; she desired as a child desires. She only wanted to be filled.

  It’s obvious—you’ve been starving, my dear.

  Had he spoken? It was his voice, but it could not have been him; he looked only about to speak.

  “Please eat,” he urged her.

  “Do you need to leave?” She thought she would immediately follow, as soon as he was out of sight. She’d leave the stew behind if she could manage to lift herself from the chair. She had hardly accomplished what she’d hoped. She would return to Bulgakov. She’d confess it to him.

  “I feel compelled to watch you finish this,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “I believe you can,” he said. Not in the fashion of insisting on his way, but rather as an expression of a kind of faith in her. “I’m in no hurry, Margarita. You may take your time.”

  Was it hunger she felt? Why had she come?

  Was she not complicit in everything that had befallen her? In her future, as well? Knowing this, would she have come anyway?

  “You’ve done terrible things,” she said.

  “I have.” She was uncertain if he sounded apologetic or not.

  She thought of Bulgakov, home, writing. She studied the stew; then she tasted it.

  She returned the spoon to the bowl and stared out at the street. It had brightened from before, its edges softened.

  He didn’t ask what was wrong or why she was crying. It didn’t seem to trouble him, as if he had expected it.

  She’d never tasted anything so wonderful before. And briefly s
he thought she would never be satisfied again.

  She had decided to accept Bulgakov’s proposal. She wouldn’t tell him about Ilya. She told herself there was no point to it.

  When she opened the door, Bulgakov was at the table, pages in disorderly piles around him. He didn’t seem as surprised as she’d expected. He reached for his pocket watch and she turned to put her satchel away.

  “They called from the paper,” he said. “They asked if you were feeling better. I was worried.” His words seemed to have been crafted earlier when the call was taken. His tone no longer agreed with their meaning.

  She felt sudden remorse for her lie to her colleagues. She thought of their concern for her over the past months.

  “I had a headache,” she said.

  He looked helpless at her words. “Are you better then?” he asked.

  She nodded. “But tired.”

  He said something about how headaches could do that. She noticed how he stared at her.

  “I may lie down for a while,” she said.

  She didn’t make a move for the bed, nor did he return to his work.

  “It was your editor who called,” he said. “We talked for some time. He’s worried about you. I felt like a young boy again, being called to task by the headmaster.”

  “It was only a headache,” she said, trying to press truth into her words.

  “Have you lost weight?” There was an echo of self-reproach in his question.

  “Do you know if we have any powders?” She pulled open a cabinet door and began moving things around.

  “I thought you said it was gone.”

  “It may be coming back.” As though he was causing it. That was what he would think she had meant. She closed the cabinet and sat on the sofa.

  “It took you a long time to come home,” he said. He sounded nervous.

  “I walked for a while. It seemed to help and I kept walking.”

  Again he was quiet. Then—“Where did you walk?”

  “Does it matter?” She immediately regretted her answer. His nervousness visibly grew.

  “You walked for two hours?” he said.