The Summer Guest

by Alison Anderson

  The pub began to empty as people returned to work. Katya seemed to be in no hurry; she did inquire politely whether Ana had to be anywhere. Ana thought wistfully of Cambridge but said nothing. It was too late, and she was reluctant to leave the pub, with its fug of prosperity and cheer, the wine-induced, congenial complicity with this woman, no longer a hostile stranger who did not return emails or pay her translators. She, too, had read the diary; for the time being, Katya was the only person with whom Ana could share her knowledge and understanding of the friendship between Zinaida Mikhailovna and Anton Pavlovich.

  They talked about poetry, lapsing into Russian now and again; Katya recited whole poems by Akhmatova and Pasternak in a grave, faintly tremulous voice, her tone like that of a cello. Never hesitating, as if she gave readings regularly. She would reach over, place her hand on Ana’s forearm, and her eyes, oddly, seemed to go blue, as if growing brighter with excitement. At one point she raised her voice and looked out at the room. A few diners were staring; one young man had his elbow on the table, chin propped in his palm, and was listening intently, as if he understood the Russian.

  But now, a different drama is unfolding:

  This time, let me be.

  Ana heard the words, and she was back in her brief Russian summer under an open sky full of stars and satellites—perhaps Yves had been there that night, too, she must ask him. There was a guitar, and a campfire, there were songs by Vysotsky, there were blini together with stews and salads, and she saw it all again through the rhythm of the words, the language working on her the way the vodka and the samogon had back then, and the wine now, intoxicating, yet reaching somewhere inside where nothing else had ever gone, not in that way, a depth charge of significance and understanding. When Katya fell silent, Ana looked at her and said very softly, Thank you, that was beautiful.

  Yes, well. Katya smiled. I don’t have many opportunities to share poetry these days. Let alone write it.

  You write your own poetry?

  I used to. But I think I lost my inspiration when I came to the West. She shrugged, gave Ana an almost apologetic smile, then looked away again, her gaze filled with something like regret or longing. She said, I’m very nostalgic for the nineteenth century, you know. The life that Zinaida Mikhailovna describes. Even that hardship, as a woman. I would be very happy there. Not you?

  If my standard of living were at least that of Natasha or Masha Chekhova, I could be happy there, I suppose. I am happy there every morning when I go to work, so to speak.

  Again Katya’s gaze wandered, and she said, almost as if Ana were not there, I do hope others will feel that way as well. It’s so important—for me, for my husband, for the press. So much on Zinaida’s frail shoulders.

  She smiled and looked at Ana and saw that she understood.

  They talked until all the other diners had left and midafternoon drinkers were beginning to take their place. Ana asked what she thought about the situation in Ukraine; Katya replied that although her English side agreed it was a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, her Russian side reluctantly and irrationally supported the recent referendum in Crimea and their “decision” (she held up her fingers, indicating quotation marks) to be part of Russia.

  I used to go there as a child, I had my first kiss on the waterfront in Yalta! It’s a very emotional place for Russians, we never thought of it as a separate country. But now there are these people stirring up trouble, occupying buildings in Kharkov and Donetsk and that region and calling for independence—they are thugs, supported or sent by Moscow, I’m sure. Nothing good will come of their actions. I’m worried. Very worried.

  Katya’s phone rang again. She pulled it out of her bag, looked at it, gave a sigh of exasperation, and did not answer. My husband, again, she said with a short laugh. He cannot manage on his own sometimes.

  Before they left the pub, Katya handed Ana a check, apologizing that it was not the full advance. You’ll get the rest when you send us the translation, she said. I promise.

  They lingered for a moment outside, and she said, Forgive me while I call my husband, then I can walk with you to the Tube.

  Ana looked away while she was on the phone, and she tried not to listen to the conversation, though she could not help but overhear.

  And what time? . . . Will you be there? . . . Peter, we can’t afford . . . No, I haven’t . . . She is . . . Please don’t bring that up again . . . Do what you like . . . I have an appointment . . . No, no, I’ll be home in time, but can’t you at least start the dinner? I see . . . No . . . I can’t discuss that now, I told you. Bye . . . Sorry . . . No problem.

  Ana followed her through the crowd. When they parted, about to go their separate ways inside the station, Katya hugged her lightly, but for a long time. As she pulled away, Ana thought she saw tears in her eyes. But Katya was smiling. She gave a little wave before she headed down the tunnel to the westbound District line.

  August 21, 1888

  I have found a hiding place for the diary, so that no one will come upon my thoughts about this situation with Elena and Aleksandr Pavlovich. One volume is full; I had to ask Georges to fetch me a new one from Sumy.

  Will my niece Ksenia read these words someday?

  Under the mattress, inside the bed frame, there is a trapdoor hiding a deep square well, just the right size for these notebooks. This was my great-grandmother’s bed. She’d had it built when Napoleon’s army was advancing, with this well to hide her jewels. (That is something for Ksenia to know, too.) We used to hide our dollies here as children, and other things we didn’t want the boys to find. I can leave the trapdoor open to reach my notebook more easily; no one will see it.

  August 22, 1888

  Anton Pavlovich has left again for Poltava on his search for a farmstead. I do so hope he succeeds! I told him to be sure of a river (or a lake) and a western exposure—it’s best to have the sun at the end of the day. At least in my opinion, for lasting warmth. The rest—views, space, the condition of the estate—won’t matter so much if his heart and mind find a place where they can belong.

  I did not have time to discuss the issue of his brother and Elena. We were numerous around dinner the night before he left—his mama invited us all—and all I could do in saying goodbye was to whisper that he was quite right where Elena was concerned, and his brother ought not waste his time, unless . . .

  There I would have needed to see his expression to ensure that he knew what I meant by unless. So much contained in a little word. But he held me back, the time to say good night to Georges, then he whispered, Agreed. Only if his heart so dictates.

  You’ve understood me, I concluded, and we said good night.

  Sometimes I suffocate within these pages. The darkness seems to spill out of the ink and engulf them, as if all I am writing is a great swath of black. I cannot describe a smile—Tonya’s smile or the proud gleam in Pasha’s eyes, or the sunset, or Anton Pavlovich’s hand rubbing his beard in thought, or Grigory Petrovich’s toothless grin. Although I know these things exist: I have seen them before, I have heard them.

  The voices of the Chekhov brothers as they laugh and prepare their lines for fishing, little suspecting that it is somewhere deep inside me that they cast their lines. They pull me up toward an ever brighter light. I can almost see it glinting on the surface.

  Anton Pavlovich once asked me what was the last thing I remember seeing before the light departed. There was a long shadowy period: I could see form and color but not details. I remember the market in Sumy—a blur of movement beneath a sharp blue sky, then a woman in a red dress. A long vivid red dress in the crowd; all the other colors—blues, browns, black, the odd white peasant’s shirt—had run together like failed colors on a novice’s canvas, but then that surge of red . . .

  Long before that, the last sharp detail was Mama’s face, I told him. As it should be. I’d just had my first real seizure—when we knew that something was wrong beyond a cold or fatigue—and I was in bed. I awoke when she came in the
room, the bright flame of her candle lighting her face, a pale copper glow effacing the lines of worry and the life she’d lived, and restoring the youth to her features; it was as if I were a small child again and my mamochka was there to be sure I was sleeping as I should, that I had not been awakened by some nightmare.

  In the morning I could not tell Mama’s face from Natasha’s or Elena’s. They had become shadows against a wall or the sky. I lurched toward them, hoping closeness would restore their features. Over time even their shadows yielded.

  You never think, I said to Anton Pavlovich, when you examine a patient, that such a calamity might happen to you. And when it does, there is a moment of shock when you know nothing will ever be as it was, you are wrenched from your dreams, your expectations, above all your illusion of immortality—but then life unexpectedly gives you another birth, another chance. I can’t explain it—a different way of apprehending the world. Grandiose words, but . . .

  I did not dare tell him that perhaps he, too, was in some way responsible, simply by being there.

  He was very quiet for a while, then said something about his brother Nikolay, the artist who is unwell. He wished Kolya had my courage, or philosophy, or something to that effect, and then he said something terrible: Kolya is mourning his life as he lives it. Drinking, carousing, to forget his troubles, and then weeping at dawn when the shock of illness pins him to his bed.

  I did not tell him about my dark days when I, too, mourn. They all think I am terribly brave. That in my place . . . They do not know that there are times when their discourse tires me, annoys me, as if they suppose I am already dead. It is in part their apathy toward life and fear of death that I am fighting.

  But it is also purely selfish: I love the world, I love life, and I want as much of it as my darkness will allow. I think grandly of Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama—there are still worlds for me to explore.

  I don’t explain this to Anton Pavlovich, either; it would sound too far-fetched. And indeed rather grandiose. I must think of a better way to share it with him.

  (And do I flatter myself that he might remember me someday in a story, in a novel? Let me be the black ink on the page.)

  August 26, 1888

  Late-summer storms. For several days now. I have been feeling them, sensing them in my blood. I am nervous, as if I am a cloud charged and ready to burst. The thunder rumbles from far away, then everything begins to fly around in a petulant wind, and the storm is upon us, cracking and booming, hurling the rain. I sit on the veranda with Georges or Natasha or Elena. They watch the lightning—they gasp—and then we all shriek like children when the thunder breaks over our heads.

  One morning Anton Pavlovich came to me. He had returned from Poltava, and he described being caught in a storm not once but several times, drenched through, indignant in his person.

  The ladies could see how skinny I am, he said, most unflattering—and what to do with a soggy hat?

  He was coughing, however, and admitted that he must have caught a cold.

  His trip has not yet yielded results. I was hoping he would find a farm right away, so that he would stay in the region; now he must defer his purchase and return to Moscow for the winter. He has made an offer on a little place near the Smagins’, between the villages of Khomutets and Bakumovka; he is very happy with the farm and says they need a doctor there, so it would be the perfect spot, but the owner wants three hundred rubles more, and Anton Pavlovich won’t go higher, he says.

  (If I could give those three hundred rubles, just to be sure he would be nearby, it would be a happiness cheaply bought. But of course I can’t.)

  The others were talking and laughing. He was describing his stay at the Smagins’, and naturally, they wanted news. Anton Pavlovich was there during harvesttime and was much impressed by the huge threshing machine, which he described in minute detail, I think more for the pleasure of refining his description than to inform us of the intricacies of threshing machines. We have them here, too, sniffed Natasha. And the mysterious Smagina sister: There was some muted laughter, and there must have been some miming or raised eyebrows or facial expressions that left them all sniggering and sighing until Natasha burst in: She’s unhappy, that’s all, I don’t blame her.

  I could have felt left out, but my heart was still pounding with hope that the recalcitrant owner of the farm would yield. In October, said Anton Pavlovich, he would know whether his offer had been accepted.

  We were in the garden after dinner. It had rained earlier and the evening was fresh, fragrant. There were children by the river, and their cries and shouts and splashing came to us, mysterious and thrilling, on the breeze.

  I have made good progress with the novel, Zinaida Mikhailovna, he said. I’m pleased with what I’ve done, if for no other reason than I do it without the slightest thought for anything pecuniary. My characters are truly free men and women, with no thoughts of how to put bread on my table.

  And on their own table? Or are they wealthy aristocrats?

  Ah, no, Zinaida Mikhailovna, they are simple folk, like you and me.

  We burst out laughing.

  Let’s say, he continued, they are ordinary people, with ordinary human aspirations, and yet . . .

  He paused. I encouraged him with a wave of my fingers.

  All too often their aspirations are—will be, because I haven’t written it yet—destroyed by others or left unfulfilled. Some of them will continue to hope, to fight, while others will give up, become cynical . . . Am I boring you?

  No, Anton Pavlovich, please go on, I just hope—

  It’s the scale of it, you see, to fill a whole novel, you need the trajectory of a life. It’s overwhelming at times, I think: Why can’t my hero just put his watch in his pocket and walk offstage? End of story? But no, he has to persevere, allow his love or his dreams to take him where they will.

  And can he not take them? Must he merely submit to life?

  He became excited, took my arm. Precisely, Zinaida Mikhailovna—do we forge life, regardless of other people, do we act selfishly at times and thoughtfully at others, but always in accordance with our own will? Or do we wait, attune the senses, allow fate to do the puppeteering work, while we preserve an immense respect for the mysteries—dare I say, the magic of life? Those inexplicable workings that elude the will?

  Do you believe, as I do, that there are two sorts of people on earth?

  Well, perhaps I do, but tell me what you mean.

  Take Natasha. She believes that she can forge her own life, to use your words. Georges, on the other hand, is a dreamer. He waits to see where life will take him, lets people, and love, toss him this way and that.

  And you?

  Well, me . . . I believe it’s obvious, no? Life decided to chew me up and spit me back out; I have had very little to do with it.

  And before?

  I shrugged. I struggled, more than Georges, less than Natasha, but I was always waiting for something grand to happen.

  I paused, then said ruefully, And it did, in a way, but not quite what I expected.

  He said softly, You are hard on yourself.

  No, Anton Pavlovich, if I cannot laugh at life’s ironies, what am I to do? You must bend, bend to the will of circumstances. Just because one is not strong-willed does not mean one necessarily manages badly; perhaps one is more sensitive, more attuned to life. Look at you: You did not set out to become a writer, yet you have, almost malgré vous. Speak to me of your will, Anton Pavlovich!

  Zinaida Mikhailovna, my sympathies do tend to lie with those who leave themselves open and vulnerable to life’s vagaries, that’s certain. But if they do nothing, do not turn their yearnings into gold, what then is the point of their gifts, their goodness? They must act. As for my own will, I must have a farm and a river full of crayfish, and the rest will follow.

  I smiled. The rest?

  Ah, you know, love, wife, children, renown as the best doctor for miles around, regular publication in thick learned journals.
And a novel that will be read from Edinburgh to Irkutsk.

  There was a short silence, and I said, I’m sure it will be.

  And if it isn’t . . .

  He didn’t finish his sentence, as if it didn’t matter; as if it mattered more than he cared to say.

  August 29, 1888

  Anton Pavlovich took me aside last night and told me he had written to Aleksandr Pavlovich regarding Elena.

  I felt alarmed, worried that my own part in this episode might have repercussions beyond what I could have anticipated. What if I had pleaded for Elena, instead of being so vague with my unless that Anton Pavlovich might have misinterpreted?

  But I do not know her feelings. Or perhaps I think I do, but I must not presume to speak for her.

  In his letter, Anton Pavlovich informed his brother that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of his marrying Elena Mikhailovna, but that he was going about it altogether in the wrong manner.

  I told him, Zinaida Mikhailovna, that he knows your sister no better than he knows the man in the moon! It’s true, you must agree! You don’t propose marriage on such short acquaintance, in such an anguished and drunken state of mind! He must be human about it. That is, he must behave as a proper human being and get to know her—come back here in the winter, for example—and see what her feelings are. For the time being, he only wants a nanny and a sick nurse for his loneliness. And your sister would surely not marry him out of philanthropy or principles.

  Oh, but that is what I fear, Anton Pavlovich, she does so want to help people and be useful.

  Well, it’s done, anyway, I think he has gotten the point. I will have to keep an eye on him, insofar as I can once I leave here, with me in Moscow and him in Petersburg. You will let me know if ever he shows up uninvited or unannounced?