Fandango and Other Stories

by Bryan Karetnyk

  Corpulent, wearing his dressing gown, S. T. thoughtfully scratched his beard and yawned, saying: “Well, well …”—and began drumming his red fingers on the table. Meanwhile, I drank his genuine Chinese tea, ate his ham, his bread and butter, his eggs; I was hungry and gauche, and I spoke with my mouth full.

  S. T. stirred his glass with an engraved gilt teaspoon. He lifted the spoon out, took a sip, and said:

  “Why don’t you get it for me? I’ll give you fifteen percent, and if it comes in at under two hundred, the difference is yours.”

  I am relaying the figures in today’s money, for I should now find it difficult to reckon the chain of zeroes that would have been placed after the two hundred back then.

  In those days, thirty gold rubles were the equivalent of a thousand today in real terms. With thirty rubles in your pocket, you understood the line, “Man! How proud the word rings!”* They turned the scale at a quarter-ton of bread—half a year of life. What was more, I could haggle lower still, get it for less than two hundred, and in so doing earn more than thirty rubles.

  I was spurred to action by a glance in the cupboard, where there were empty saucepans, a griddle, and a pot. (I lived like Robinson Crusoe.) They reeked of hunger. There was a little rust-colored salt, some cowberry tea bearing the endorsement “tea-lovers’ choice,” some dry crusts and potato peelings.

  I fear hunger—loathe it and fear it. It is the corruption of man. This tragic but most banal of feelings spares not even the soul’s tenderest roots. Hunger supplants true thought with false thought—while retaining the same outward form, it acquires a different quality within. “I’ll stay honest,” says a man, starved so cruelly and for so long, “because I love honesty. But I’ll kill (or steal, or lie) just this once, because I must if I’m to stay honest in the future.” Public opinion, self-respect, the suffering of those dear to us—it all exists, but it’s like a lost coin: it is there, and yet it isn’t. Cunning, slyness, tenacity—it all aids the digestion. Children will eat up half the kasha they are given at a canteen on the way home; the canteen administration steals, the hospital administration steals, the warehouse administration steals. The head of the household secretly cuts into a loaf of bread in the pantry and devours it, trying not to make a sound. The friend who shows up, having followed the pathetically steaming trail of some measly spread that has been procured with heroic efforts, is met with hatred.

  But that isn’t the worst of it, for all that is done out in the open: worse still is when some outrageously painted doll, the spitting image of me (or you, or him …), unashamedly drives our soul from its weakened body and joyfully runs after some crust in the firm and sudden belief that it is the very same person whom it has just laid hands on. That person has already corrupted everything: taste, desire, thought, and his own truth. Every man has his own truth. And he keeps saying “I, I, I,” meaning the doll, which repeats the same thing and with the same connotations. When looking at cheeses, cold cuts, or bread, I’ve often experienced an almost spiritual transfiguration of these “calories”: they seem to be written all over with paradoxes, metaphors, the subtlest arguments in the brightest and gayest of tones; their logical weight is equal to the number of pounds. And there is even an ethical aroma—which is to say, a particular hungry lust.

  “How plain it is to see,” I would say, “the path from counter to stomach is so natural, so sensible, so simple.”

  Yes, that was the way of it, with all the false sincerity of such ravings, and that is why I cannot, as I said, abide hunger. Even now I meet strangers with such vivid memories of two ounces of oats. Their recollections have been drastically altered by the introduction of a romantic note, and this musical vibration is beyond my comprehension. It may be regarded as an original form of cynicism. For example: a man standing before a looking glass may give himself a gentle slap in the face. This is disrespect toward oneself. However, if such an experiment were to be conducted publicly, it would denote disrespect both toward oneself and toward others.

  II.

  I overcame the frost by lighting a cigarette, warming my fingers as I cupped the lit match between my palms, and whistled a tune from a Spanish dance. For several days already I had been haunted by this melody. I had begun hearing it whenever I lapsed into thought.

  I’m seldom morose, least of all in restaurants. Of course, I’m talking of the past as though it were the present. It would happen that I’d arrive at a restaurant in high spirits, simply in high spirits, without any notion that “Here, now, it’s a good thing to be in high spirits, because …”, and so on. No, I was in high spirits, just as it is a man’s right to be in any mood. I would sit there, listening to “Autumn Violins,” “Have Pity, My Love,” “What Do You Want? I Want Nothing” and other such talentless, hysterical nonsense, with which a Russian typically rides roughshod over his merriment. When I had wearied of this, I would give the conductor a nod, and, running his fingers over his silky moustache, the Romanian would acknowledge this, accepting in his other hand, like a doctor, a folded banknote. Turning back his head ever so slightly, he would say to the orchestra in a hushed voice:

  “Fandango!”

  With this short, energetic word, a tender hand in a glove of armor was placed upon my head—the hand of a dance as impetuous as the wind, as reverberant as hail, as melodious as a deep contralto. A slight chill passed from my feet to my throat. Some drunken Germans, banging away with their fists, vociferously demanded “Haff Pity, Meine Liebe,” which had brought tears to their eyes, but a tap of the baton against the music stand informed them that their number was over.

  The “Fandango” is the rhythmic hypnosis of passion, of a passionate and strange exultation. In all likelihood, it is the transcribed warbling of a nightingale, raised to the highest degree of musical articulation.

  I put on my things and left; it was eleven o’clock in the morning, cold, and hopelessly light.

  Along the road a long trail of officeworkers was hurrying to the various commissariats. The “Fandango” grew muffled; it retreated into my pulse, into my breathing, yet the impetuous passage of the measures was still distinct—even in the scarcely audible humming through my teeth, which had become a habit of mine.

  The passers-by were dressed in overcoats refashioned from soldiers’ greatcoats, sheepskin coats, elkskin jackets, gray trench coats, service jackets, and black leather peacoats. If one came across a civilian coat, it was sure to be old and narrow-fitting. A pretty young lady in a head scarf came tramping through the snow in enormous felt boots, emitting puffs of blue and white steam from her mouth. With a hand encumbered by a mitten, she awkwardly clasped a briefcase to herself. Weathered, like limestone—down to the pores of her wanton cheeks—briskly trotted an old woman smoking a fat Zephyr and wearing a bowl haircut and yellow high-heeled boots. Gloomy young men shuffled along with a strange, alien look. I was interested in everything and had often asked why pedestrians avoided walking on the sidewalk. The answers I received were various. One man said: “Because it’s easier on the shoes.” Another replied: “On the sidewalk you have to step aside, judge when to give way and when to press on.” A third explained simply and wisely: “Because there aren’t any horses” (which is to say, no coaches would get in the way). “Everyone else does it,” declared a fourth, “so I do, too.”

  Amid this scene I marked a certain confusion created by the appearance of a group that was sharply distinguished from the rest. They were gypsies. A great many of them had turned up in the city that year, and one would come across them every day. Their itinerant troupe came to a halt around ten paces from me, chattering away among themselves. There was a stooping old man with bushy eyebrows wearing a tall felt hat; two other men wore new dark-blue peaked caps. The old man had on an old tobacco-colored wadded jacket, and there glittered upon his wrinkled ear a fine gold earring. In spite of the frost, he wore his coat open, revealing a mottled velvet waistcoat with a buttoned collar and crimson braiding, plush pantaloons, and high, well-pol
ished boots. One of the other gypsies, who was around thirty, wore a quilted plaid kaftan adorned at the back with huge mother-of-pearl buttons; he had a rounded beard and splendid, luxuriant moustaches the color of pitch; they were of such proportions that they recalled a blacksmith’s tongs, gripping him across the face. The youngest gypsy, well built and with a thin, thievish face, looked like a highlander—a Circassian or a Hutsul. He had fiery eyes, with blue marks about the bridge of his aquiline nose, and carried under his arm a guitar wrapped in a gray kerchief; he had on a new sheepskin jacket trimmed with lambskin.

  The old man was carrying a hammer dulcimer.

  A brass clarinet was protruding from the middle gypsy’s bosom.

  Apart from the men, there were two women: one young and one old.

  The old woman was carrying a tambourine. She was enswathed in two tattered shawls: one green, the other brown; the edge of a soiled red jacket stood out beneath their corners. Enormous gold bracelets glittered whenever she waved her hand, which resembled a bird’s claw. Her dark, ugly face betrayed a mixture of thievery and arrogance, impudence and equipoise. Perhaps in her youth she had looked no worse than the young gypsy woman who stood beside her, exuding warmth and health. But it would have been very difficult to be certain of this now.

  The beautiful young girl had few gypsy features. Her lips were not thick, only a little plump. Her fresh, well-proportioned face, with its searching gimlet eyes, seemed to peer out from the shadows of leaves—so shaded was it by the length and luster of her eyelashes. Atop a warm fur jacket hung a fringed shawl, creased in the crook of her arms; atop the shawl flowered a silken Turkish kerchief. Heavy turquoise earrings dangled from her diminutive ears, and an austere black braiding with rubles and gold coins draped below the fringe of her shawl. A long skirt—the color of nasturtiums—almost concealed her new booties.

  There is a reason for describing these people in such detail. When I caught sight of the gypsies, I involuntarily tried to detect a trace of that unfathomable ancient path, along which they strolled past automobiles and gas lamps, like Kipling’s cat, who walked by his wild lone, called all places alike and never told anybody. What is history to them? Eras? Evils? Upheavals? I saw those same magic-eyed travelers, the kind this very city will see in the year 2021, when our progeny, decked out in India rubber and synthetic silk, will alight the cabin of his electric airmobile onto the surface of an aluminum aerial causeway.

  After speaking awhile in their barbarous dialect, of which I know only that it is one of the world’s most ancient tongues, the gypsies retreated into a back alley, while I set off straight ahead, pondering this encounter with them and calling to mind suchlike former encounters. They were always at odds with any mood and cut right through it. These encounters bore a resemblance to a strong-colored thread that can be seen invariably on the border of a certain fabric, the name of which I have forgotten. Fashion alters the design of the fabric, its splendor, thickness, and breadth; the market sets an arbitrary price, and it is worn now in spring, now in autumn, in a variety of cuts, yet in every instance the border retains that same many-colored thread. So, too, the gypsies—in and of themselves—remain the same, just as yesterday: throaty raven-haired creatures who inspire vague envy and an impression of wild flowers.

  I raked all this over again and again in my mind, until at last the frost squeezed the south out of me, which, out of season, had retreated to the southernmost corner of my soul. My cheeks seemed to be pricked with ice; my nose, too, was far from ablaze, and there was snow packed betwixt a torn sole and my little toe, which was now frozen numb. I hurried as fast as I could, arrived at Brock’s apartment, and started knocking on the door, where there was a notice inscribed in chalk: “Bell out of order. Pls. knock loudly.”

  III.

  Diminutive, sharp features, a goatee belonging to one of Chekhov’s characters, prominent shoulder blades and long arms, with a lean build and spectacles that made his lusterless, sunken eyes sparkle unnaturally—such was the figure that opened the door to me. Brock was dressed in a long gray coat, black trousers, and a brown waistcoat worn over a sweater. His thin hair had been smoothed down, but not everywhere did it follow the declivities of his skull; in places it stood out horizontally, as though he had stuck dirty feathers in it. He spoke slowly and in a deep voice, like a deacon, peered out mistrustfully over his spectacles, tilting his head to the side, and now and then he rubbed his flaccid hands.

  “It’s you I’ve come to see,” I said (there were others who lived in the apartment). “But let me warm up a bit first.”

  “Cold, is it?”

  “Yes, bitterly …”

  While talking on that subject, we passed through a dark corridor toward the bright rhombus of a door that was ajar, and, having gone in, Brock closed it carefully behind him. He proceeded to toss some firewood into a blazing iron stove and, nonchalantly twirling a cigarette, slumped down onto a dusty ottoman, where, leaning on his elbow and crossing his outstretched legs, he hitched up his trousers a little.

  I sat down, directing my palms toward the stove, and as I watched my rosy fingers in the light of the flames, I imbibed the blissful warmth.

  “At your service,” said Brock, removing his spectacles and wiping his eyes with the end of a snotty handkerchief.

  Glancing to the left, I saw the painting by Gorshkov hanging where it ought to be. It was a landscape of a swamp, with smoke, snow, and the obligatory dismal light between a spruce and a pair of crows flying away from the viewer.

  Paintings of this kind, following Levitan’s airy example, suggest an intended “idea.”* Of old have I feared these depictions, whose purpose is, naturally, none other than to provoke a deadening feeling of emptiness, submission, and indolence—which suggests, nonetheless, some impetus.

  “Twilight,” said Brock, seeing the object of my gaze. “A magnificent work!”

  “That is subjective. All the same, what would you take for it?”

  “What? You mean to buy it?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  He jumped up and, standing in front of the picture, stroked his beard with the tips of his fingers.

  “Ehh …” said Brock, casting a sidelong glance at me over his shoulder. “You don’t have that kind of money. I’m not sure, two hundred would be giving it way, but then again I do need the money. But you haven’t got that money!”

  “I can find it,” I said. “That’s why I came—to cut a deal.”

  A faraway knocking reached us from the front entrance.

  “Ah, that’ll be for me.”

  Brock rushed to the door, thrust his small beard through the chink out into the corridor, and shouted:

  “Just a minute, I’ll be right with you.”

  While he was gone, I surveyed my surroundings, as was my wont, to while away the time rather with things than with people. Again I caught myself whistling the “Fandango,” unconsciously fencing myself off from Gorshkov and Brock with the melody. Now the tune corresponded perfectly to my mood. I was right there, and yet I saw everything around me as though at a distance.

  I found myself in a rather large sitting room, with windows looking out onto the street. When I lived there, there had been none of this abundance of things that Brock had introduced since my time. Cluttering the passage between the chairs, which had been arranged haphazardly, were easels, gypsum, and boxes and baskets with clothing and underwear strewn all over them. On the piano stood a stack of plates; on top of them, amid cucumber peels, lay a little knife and fork. The dusty window curtains were parted at an angle, in a most slovenly fashion. By the stove, an old rug covered in holes, footprints, and wood chippings was smoking where a red-hot coal had fallen on it. An electric bulb burned in the middle of the ceiling; in the light of day it looked like a scrap of yellow paper.

  There were numerous paintings on the walls, some of which were by Brock himself. I did not examine those, however. Now warm and breathing calmly and evenly, I thought about an elusive musica
l idea, a firm sense of which always appeared whenever I heard this tune, the “Fandango.” Knowing full well that the soul of music is beyond comprehension, I nevertheless reeled this idea intently in, and the more I reeled it in, the more distant it became. The impetus for a new sensation was provided by a temporary dimming of the bulb; that is, within its gray glass there appeared a red filament—a phenomenon familiar to all. After flickering a few times, the bulb lit up once again.

  In order to understand the strange moment that then followed, it is necessary to call to mind our normal sense of optical equilibrium. I mean to say that, finding oneself in any room, we customarily perceive a center of gravity in the space surrounding us, subject to its shape, the quantity, size, and configuration of objects, and also the direction of light. All this can be schematized in a linear fashion. I term such perception “the center of optical gravity.”

  While I was sitting there, I felt—perhaps for a millionth fraction of a second—that the space before me, into which I was looking, simultaneously flashed both within me and without. It was in part like the movement of air and was accompanied by the immediate and unsettling feeling that the optical center had shifted. Thus thinking, I determined at last the change in mood. The center had vanished. I stood up, mopping my brow and looking about in the hope of comprehending what had just happened. I felt that absolutely inexpressible determinacy of the visual, while the center, that sense of optical equilibrium, fell beyond its limits, vanishing.

  Hearing that Brock was on his way back, I sat down again, unable to drive away the feeling that everything had altered while at the same time remaining exactly the same.

  “You must be tired of waiting,” said Brock. “Not to worry, warm yourself up, have a smoke.”

  He came in, dragging a painting of considerable dimensions, but with the back turned toward me so that I could not see what the painting looked like; he placed it behind the cupboard, saying: