by Teffi
“Harry,” I said finally. “We need to talk.”
“Hang on a moment,” he said confusedly. “What’s the date today?”
“The twenty-seventh.”
“The twenty-seventh! The twenty-seventh!” he muttered despairingly.
What was so astonishing about this I really don’t know, but his repeated exclamation made the date stick in my mind. And subsequently this turned out to be important.
“What’s that dog doing in here?” he shouted all of a sudden.
I turned round—there in the corner of the room was the dog. Taut, pointing, it was looking at Harry intently, as if it were nothing but eyes—as if its eyes were now its entire being.
“Get that dog out of here!” Harry screamed.
There was something excessive about his fear. He rushed to the door and flung it open. Slowly the dog began to move towards the door, not taking its eyes off Harry. It was slightly baring its teeth, its hackles raised.
Harry slammed the door after it.
“Harry,” I began again. “I can see you’re upset, but I just can’t put this off any longer.”
He looked up at me, and then his whole face suddenly twisted in horror. I could see he was now looking not at me but past me. He seemed to be looking at the wall behind me. I turned round: there outside the window, with both paws on the low sill, was the reddish-brown dog. It dropped back down at once, perhaps startled by my movement. But I managed to glimpse its raised hackles, the muzzle it had thrust alertly forward, its bared teeth, the terrible eyes it kept fixed on Harry.
“Go away!” Harry shouted. “Get rid of it! Drive it away!”
Trembling all over, he rushed into the hallway and bolted the door.
“This is terrible, terrible!” he kept repeating.
I sensed that I too was shaking all over, and that my hands had gone cold. And I understood that we were in the middle of something truly awful, that I ought to do something to calm Harry, to calm myself, that I had chosen a very bad moment indeed, but for some reason I was quite unable to stop and I hurriedly, stubbornly, went on:
“I’ve taken a decision, Harry.”
His hands trembling, he struck a match and lit a cigarette.
“Oh, have you?” he said with a nasty smirk. “How very interesting.”
“I’m leaving. I’m going to my aunt’s.”
“Why?”
“It’s better not to ask.”
A spasm passed across his face.
“And if I don’t let you?”
“What right do you have to stop me?”
I was speaking calmly, but my heart was racing and I could hardly breathe.
“I have no right at all,” he answered, his entire face trembling. “But I need you here now, and I won’t let you go.”
With these words he pulled out the drawer of my desk and immediately saw my new passport and papers.
“Ah! So it’s like that, is it?”
He snatched the entire sheaf and began tearing the papers first lengthways and then crossways.
“For your dealings with the Whites I could easily…”
But I was no longer listening. I leapt on him like a mad-woman. I was shrieking; I was clawing at him. I hit him on his hands and arms. I tried to tear the papers out of his hands.
“Chekist! Thief ! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
He grabbed me by the throat. Really he was not so much strangling me as just shaking me; his bared teeth and staring eyes were wilder and more terrible than anything he actually did. And the loathing and hatred I felt for those wild eyes and that gaping mouth made me begin to lose consciousness.
“Somebody help me!” I gasped.
Then it happened—something truly weird. There was the sound of smashing glass, and something huge, heavy and shaggy jumped into the room and crashed down on Harry from one side, bringing him to the floor.
All I can remember is Harry’s legs twitching. They were poking out from under the red, tousled mass that covered his body, which was almost completely still.
By the time I came to, it was all over. Harry’s body had been removed; the dog had torn his throat out.
The dog had disappeared without a trace.
Apparently, some boys had seen a huge hound, leaping across fences as it ran past.
All this happened on the twenty-seventh. That is important; much later, when I was a free woman, in Odessa, I found out that Kolya Katkov had passed on to Tolya my appeal for help, and that Tolya had dropped everything and rushed to my rescue. That meant trying to slip through the Bolshevik front line. He was tracked down, caught and shot—all on the twenty-seventh. The twenty-seventh, that very day.
That’s the whole story; that’s what I wanted to tell you. I’ve made nothing up; I’ve added nothing, and there’s nothing I can explain—or even want to explain. But when I turn back and consider the past, I can see everything clearly. I can see all the rings of events and the axis or thread upon which a certain force had strung them.
It had strung the rings on the thread and tied up the loose ends.
1936
Notes
1 Vanya is referring to an old Russian saying that a person in love will oversalt their dishes when cooking.
2 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Hermann Friedrich Eilers supplied flowers to the court and owned a large florist’s shop opposite the Kazan Cathedral.
3 The Stray Dog was a café in St Petersburg, a famous meeting place for writers and poets. Between 1911 and 1915 nearly all the main poets of the time—regardless of their political or artistic affiliations—gave readings there. In its critical portrayal of at least some aspects of this legendary institution, Teffi’s story in many ways anticipates Anna Akhmatova’s Poem without a Hero.
4 Mikhail Kuzmin (1872–1936), a homosexual, was known as “the Russian Wilde”. A gifted composer as well as a major poet, he sang his own songs at The Stray Dog, accompanying himself on the piano. Both in a newspaper obituary and in a later memoir, Teffi writes of Kuzmin with considerable respect, but she is critical (at least in the obituary) of his followers, whom she saw as affected and talentless.
5 Oscar Wilde used to wear a green carnation in his buttonhole. Wilde owed his fame in early-twentieth-century Russia mainly to his trial and imprisonment, but many of the leading poets of the time—Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Nikolai Gumilyov, Mikhail Kuzmin and Fyodor Sologub—translated his work.
6 ‘The Waves of the Danube’ was a popular waltz composed in 1880 by Iosif Ivanovici, a Romanian. In the United States it has become known as ‘The Anniversary Song’.
7 That is, officers of the Cheka—the first of the many titles given to the Soviet security service.
PART V
Last Stories
THE BLIND ONE
THE DAY WAS WAN. Tear-stained.
The sea was grey and bled of colour. It was merging with the sky, yet that did not make it seem without boundaries. Rather, it seemed to be coming to an end somewhere very close, creeping dimly and hazily upwards and dying away in the heavy fog. It wasn’t even lapping against the shore. It was utterly stagnant and dead.
The sea had died; it had come to an end.
On a bench at a right angle to the shore sat a lady in a hat and city clothes. She wasn’t from anywhere nearby. The locals didn’t dress like that.
She had turned away from the sea and was looking down the lane. Here the park came right up to the shore. On her face was an expression of boredom and displeasure. It was clear she was waiting. It was equally clear, from the movement of her lips and the nervous shifting of her brows, that she was mentally composing unpleasant comments.
Sitting on a bench somewhere off to the side, nearer the park, was another woman, somewhat older. On her knees was a board covered with a piece of paper, and she was pressing something into it with a little stick.
The first lady stood up and began to walk towards the shore. From somewhere to her right came the
sound of voices. Holding one another tightly by the hand, three young women in coarse calico smocks were entering the water. They were taking awkward steps and letting out little squeals. From the shore an old woman was calling, “Don’t let go! Don’t go far! Have a dip and come back out again. I’m telling you—don’t let go! You’ll drown.”
The old woman was sitting on a rock. She had a beaked nose and was wearing a white headscarf.
“Darya Petrovna!” the girls called back. “It’s all right. We’ll keep together.”
“Who are these girls?” asked the first lady, now close to the sea.
“They’re our blind lasses from the orphanage,” replied the old woman. Then she started calling again: “I’m telling you, come back towards the shore. No one’s going to be dragging you out of the water.”
From behind the bushes emerged another three girls. In grey chintz dresses with short calico capes, they too were walking along hand in hand. They were walking awkwardly, stumbling and needing one another’s support. Suddenly they began to sing:
Oh, open up! Oh, open up
The joyous doors to our bright heaven!
They sang simply and earnestly, in the manner of Russian laundresses and other working women. Two of them were singing in unison; the third was singing a very beautiful accompaniment.
Oh, won’t you shine! Oh, won’t you shine
A friendly light on my dark land!
The sorrowful sky, and the wan sea, and this cheerless blind song were so perfectly in harmony, so of a piece, so unbearably painful, that the lady in the hat was afraid to come face to face with the girls. She was afraid of seeing their faces, their terrible eyes. She hurried back to her bench, sat down and began looking down the lane. The lane was deserted. She turned back the glove on her left hand and glanced at her watch.
“He’s late. That’s all I need!”
She took a rusk from her handbag, broke off a piece and put it into her mouth. Then, turning to one side, she saw a lean man of medium height wearing a straw boater. He was coming unhurriedly down the lane towards her.
She quickly took a powder compact from her bag, turned away a little, but then crossly snapped the compact shut.
“To hell with him! I shan’t!”
The lean gentleman stopped for a while beside the woman with the board, exchanged a few words with her and then, in a leisurely way, went over to the lady who had been waiting for him.
“You’re at least half an hour late,” she said abruptly.
“Only a quarter of an hour,” he replied, a smile creasing his hollowed cheeks.
“And yet you found time to start a conversation with that peasant woman.”
“She’s not a peasant. She’s a very cultured lady. She’s working for the blind, transcribing Anna Karenina for them.”
“I can just imagine how important Anna Karenina is for those fools. Ugh—it’s the last thing they need!”
“What’s the matter?” he asked in a tone of affectionate reproach. “Surely it can’t be wrong to be caring for these unfortunates?”
“Thank you for the lecture,” she said with trembling lips.
“Well, it’s all been thought out very cleverly, you know. That board has grooves in it and she uses a little stick to press points into the paper and arrange them in a different way for each letter. On the other side of the paper the points come up as little bumps, so the blind can read by feeling these little bumps with their fingers. It’s extraordinarily interesting.”
“Well, I think it’s uncivilized,” she said, interrupting him.
“What?” he asked in surprise. “What’s uncivilized about working for the blind?”
“It’s uncivilized to keep me waiting. You could have amused yourself with Anna Karenina later, after I’d gone.”
He shrugged and sat down.
“I can see you’re not in a good mood today.”
“Good heavens, how absurd! Obviously you’ve decided to compensate for your stupidity by being rude,” she muttered, and turned away.
He leant forward and looked at her benignly.
“Hold on there,” he said. “What’s the matter? Is it your nerves? Or have I done something wrong? Hmm?”
His feigned affability utterly enraged her. Instead of answering him, she silently took the rusk from her handbag and began nibbling it.
“Why are women always munching on something?” he asked with a smile.
He had to respond somehow or other. And so he had. But even as the words were coming out of his mouth he realized he was saying the wrong thing.
Her nose turned white with fury.
“Women munch on something because they haven’t even had time to drink a little tea… because they didn’t want to keep someone else waiting… because of their delicate sensibilities… and now I’m starting to get a migraine. That’s why women are always munching on something…”
She knew she was speaking stupidly, like the very worst of fools, and this only enraged her still more. Yet she could not bring herself to stop. It was as if she was racing headlong down an infernal railway track, drunk on her own despair, mindless and furious.
“Better to be late, I’d say, than to get yourself so worked up,” he said. “And in half an hour we’ll be able to have some breakfast.”
She looked at his face; it was close to hers. She saw the deep folds around his mouth and on the left a porcelain tooth with a gold band. The tooth decided everything. She shouldn’t have seen it. For the sake of beauty, this tooth had been inserted into that pale, elongated mouth, the corners of which had a lilac tinge. It had been put there to please, to captivate, to attract love, so that others would come running when he called and then wait for him. But he—he would be late, he would allow himself to make fun of her and her nerves. Oh! What a beast!
Oh, open up! Oh, open up
The joyous doors to our bright heaven!
The girls’ voices, sad yet unaware of their sadness, were ringing out from the bank.
She looked at him again and saw that he had slipped a large ox-eye daisy into the buttonhole of his coat. This was the last straw.
“Well, aren’t you the dandy!”
Overwhelmed by a surge of inexplicable loathing, she snatched the flower and flung it onto the bench.
“How vulgar!” she said with a gasp, almost a groan. “That is you through and through. Through and through! Go away! For heaven’s sake, just go! Otherwise I—”
“All right, Vera Andreyevna. Calm down. If I annoy you as much as that, I’ll go.”
He had already taken several steps, but he paused in sad bewilderment.
“I am utterly at a loss… Perhaps you’ll allow me to accompany you, even so. Forgive me, I don’t even know… Well, then, God be with you.”
Impatiently she turned away.
By the time she raised her head he was already in the distance.
“Will he turn back or not? Will he or won’t he? No, he won’t.”
Something like a heavy wave seemed to roll down from her head and shoulders. Her eyes darkened, her ears began to ring, her heart thumped. So, now it was over. She felt utterly drained. She was so tired, so deflated.
“What have I done? How crude! How stupid! The devil knows why! What’s wrong with me?”
Her entire body began to shake with a strange, mirthless laughter.
“Heavens! I think I’m weeping…”
Probably it was because on her way here, to the sea, to meet this sweet, wonderful man, she had been thinking of another sea—a sunny, southerly sea. And of cheerful friends, a chic restaurant on the waterside, and a young Italian woman who had sung in a passionate voice to the strumming of a guitar: “L’amore è come lo zucchero!”1 And of dear eyes that had gazed at her with adoration and love.
Oh, won’t you shine! Oh, won’t you shine
Your friendly light on my dark land!
Beneath the wan sky the freaks were still singing; the sorrow of their voices was floating into the
bitter fog.
Now another two girls emerged from a side path and walked towards the bench where she was sitting and weeping. One of them was thin and dark. Her eyes had sunk deep back into their sockets and her eyelids were firmly stuck together. Only a black strip of eyelash indicated where her eyes would have been. The other girl was tow-headed, with cloudy grey eyes both turned towards her nose. She was snub-nosed and a little plump. The girls were walking hand in hand. In a fluid voice the snub-nosed girl was saying, “It’s just too beautiful to describe. The sea is brightest blue, and suddenly it becomes angry and dark. Then it’s all a deep dark blue, with little white sea-sheep prancing and playing on it. And it’s so pretty and gay that some sailors don’t want to go home—not for anything. And how beautiful the shore is! There just aren’t any words for it. The grass is a darling green and the little flowers in the grass are white and red and yellow and deep blue. And above each flower dances a butterfly. And whatever colour the flower, that’s the colour of the butterfly.”
“Why are they dancing?” asked the dark one sceptically. “Don’t they need to eat?”
“It only takes them a minute to eat. They swallow the dewdrops from the flowers—that’s all they need. And then they dance some more.”
“But you’ve never seen them,” said the dark one, suddenly irritable. “You haven’t seen since you were born.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’ve seen them. I know anyway.”
“You think everything is beautiful. Probably you even think Darya Pavlovna is beautiful.”
“Darya Pavlovna is like a flower of God.”
“But what about her voice? ‘Don’t let go!’ She screeches like an owl.”
“Her voice is neither here nor there. Darya Pavlovna herself… Oh, what’s this?”
They had reached Vera Andreyevna. The snub-nosed girl felt the bench with her hands.
“Sit down,” she said. “My, what have we here? A little flower? You know what? A very handsome boy came and saw us and threw us this flower.”