The Summer Guest
Page 30
Instead, she went once again to stand by the entrance to Zinaida’s house. Steps leading up to where there used to be a door. She waited—for a sign, an epiphany. There was only the loud croaking of the frogs in the pond, and birds calling. Children’s voices in the distance; a motorbike.
She saw some wild strawberries growing amid the unruly vegetation in the yard. She picked one and ate it slowly, thinking of Zinaida Mikhailovna and Anton Pavlovich. At least she had come to Luka, and they really had been here, 125 summers ago. She had to believe what Katya had dared to write, she had to believe in the truth of the imagination. She was glad she had come, despite what she had learned.
So for a moment she allowed the wild sweetness of the berry to connect her to them, to those moments when they paused in conversation to share some fruit, their words suspended in the still summer air.
AFTER LUKA
THERE WAS PLENTY OF time to think on the train from Sumy to Kiev.
This strange interlude in her ordinary life. The uprising of her well-planned, obedient days, in defense of the absurd and the sublime, from her near-encounter with Léo in London, to this wild-goose chase to eastern Ukraine.
Now she just wanted to get home, to Doodle, the mountains, tranquillity, her own firm pillow and fluffy duvet. It seemed so far away. For a while she gazed restlessly at the fields, the villages, the abandoned factories. Then she began to read.
She had brought along a slim volume of Chekhov stories—fortunately, as she hadn’t seen a single bookstore in Sumy. She read two late stories, “At Christmas Time” and “The Bishop”; they suited her mood of puzzled melancholy. An illiterate peasant and his wife pay a shifty soldier to write a Christmas letter to their daughter, whose brutal husband has neglected to post her own letters to her old parents all along. A bishop senses he may be dying and questions the significance of his life.
The straightforward precision of the language; the lightness of the irony. As if the author were shaking his head or shrugging, with a smile, a nod to the never-ceasing human struggle to give meaning, to put a brave face on mortality and incomprehensible suffering. Our failures to communicate with others, with ourselves. That late in life, sick with tuberculosis, Chekhov would have understood his characters’ confusion and helplessness only too well, thought Ana. And yet his lucid, tender portrayals were, in their way, a source of hope, or at least of comfort.
She put the book down and folded her hands over her waist, looking up and out the window at the lush early-summer landscape. How easy it was, amid the superficial pressures—of society, of one’s own making—to forget what really mattered. There had been other reasons for her desire to translate Chekhov’s lost novel, she saw that now. All reasons that had nothing to do with careers, recognition, or the light a great author casts. She was indebted to Anton Pavlovich for the vision he gave her—that vibrant grasp of life, the next best thing to being in love, without all of love’s blindness. If Ana had longed to be his translator, it was so she could take his Russian words and, with each moment of slow, considered re-creation in her own language, enter the prism, where sunlight refracted vision, and know that she was living well.
Ana went to the Maidan, saw the piles of tires, the shields, the tents. Memorials with candles and photographs. A gas mask dangling from a wooden board. People milling about, curious, expectant, some of them ordinary tourists like her, others edgier, rougher regulars, men who hadn’t slept, whose blood ran with vodka and outrage. She found the photograph of Oleksiy Bra-tushko from Sumy at the memorial on Instytutska Street. His smiling, hopeful face. She left a flower and whispered a short, private prayer, as if she had brought it to him from Sumy.
People were friendly and open; they seemed grateful to see her there, just as Yves had said they would be. She wandered through the city and let her mind go blank, the better to absorb the colors and smells and sounds around her. She visited the Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves and was stunned by the contrast between the gilded domes and the sepulchral gloom where the mummies lay; she gazed at the aptly named House of Chimeras; she strolled up and down Andreevskiy Descent and lingered sadly outside Bulgakov’s house: The museum had already closed for the day, and she was leaving the next morning. She had comforting food and cool beer. She sat on a square in the sunshine. War seemed impossible, despite glaring headlines at newspaper kiosks and heated discussions in multiple languages all around her, and as she looked at passing faces she realized it wasn’t only about Ukraine—yes, she was here, now, but so was Russia, in her heart, and she was torn, angry, outraged by what seemed, as always, a cynical tragedy scripted by politicians and their propagandists. From all sides, including her own. Because when people heard her accent, they asked where she was from; when she told them, they smiled indulgently, as if they both envied her and knew she must be naive.
Ana could not help her naïveté; she could only show them her sincerity and share her hopes for the best possible outcome to the conflict, and soon, so that people could get on with their lives in the future they had fought for.
In the end, everything she had learned about Zinaida Mikhailovna’s diary, about the Lintvaryovs, about Chekhov’s novel—these were things she could have learned without leaving her desk in the village. That Ukraine belonged to novels and history books, beneath a layer of dust, behind a scrim of romanticism. But the Ukraine where she was walking now, in the late afternoon sun, smiling at strangers, was a place for which she already felt the nostalgia of imminent departure—a place that did not exist, or did not exist yet, a country that was changing by the hour. She remembered the French map with its polite degrees of warnings. She had reinforced her vigilance, but not in the way the cartographer had intended.
DOODLE MEOWED ALL AFTERNOON upon Ana’s return, as if what the cat had to say about six days spent at a chatterie was far more interesting than anything Ana could possibly have to tell her. Ana opened her laptop cautiously, as if it might bite her. But there was nothing from the Kendalls.
Yves had written to say he was still waiting for his mongoose. My mongoose now, she thought. She wrote and told him briefly what had happened, but concluded that if they didn’t have a mangouste at his local pet store, some langoustines chez Lipp would suit her just as well.
Lydia Guilloux had written to Ana to congratulate her, somewhat belatedly, on the prize nomination, and to ask her to translate her latest novel, Rencontre mélancolique. She hadn’t found a British or American publisher yet, but she was optimistic. After all, she wrote, it’s full of sex. Sex was the hardest thing to translate, Ana knew, but she felt up to the challenge.
Not quite three weeks after her return from Ukraine, Ana went out to the mailbox and found a thick business-size envelope with stamps from the UK (Winnie-the-Pooh, how lovely, she thought) and a London postmark. No return address. The envelope was addressed by hand.
Inside were a check and two letters, one wrapped inside the other. She glanced at the check in surprise: It was a personal check in the full amount owed to her for the translation of Zinaida Mikhailovna’s journal. She didn’t recognize the signatory’s name. She began to read the first letter, printed on Polyana Press letterhead.
Dear Ms. Harding,
First of all, my sincere apologies for taking so long to get this to you. I have had to close down the press, at least for the time being. My brother-in-law has been kind enough to advance the money so that you will not have to wait any longer—hence the unfamiliar name on the cheque. You need have no fears for his solvency.
We have been going through a very difficult time lately. The enclosed letter from my wife will explain. She wanted you to know how pleased she was with the translation, and she asked me to send you this to thank you personally. I join her in expressing my gratitude for your good work and patience beyond the call of duty.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Kendall
The second letter was handwritten on plain rough paper. Ana recognized the scrolling Russian handwriting that t
ranslates so oddly into Latin script. It was dated ten days before Peter Kendall’s note—while she was in Sumy, she realized, trying to call Katya.
Dear Ana,
I have read your translation and I’m very happy with it. I did not trust my English. Besides, I needed to write in the language of my childhood and youth, and to rediscover the reasons why I so loved Chekhov, and still do.
Because, you see, and I’m sorry, as I know this will come as a shock or a disappointment, I am the author of Zinaida Mikhailovna’s journal. Last year I was diagnosed with a form of leukemia that sometimes responds to treatment, but in my case it has not; I have fought, but I have lost. At the time of my diagnosis I was reading Chekhov’s letters: in one of them, Anton Pavlovich spoke of Zinaida Mikhailovna’s incredible courage, and the obituary of course is authentic. I wanted to understand that courage, to try to find it in myself, and to make it known to the world. Just spending time with Anton Pavlovich and Zinaida Mikhailovna has been good for me, has helped me both in my struggle against the disease and in learning to accept. I was able to live normally and hide it from Peter until relatively recently.
Our business has not been going well, so when Peter read my book, he decided to try to find a Russian publisher naive enough to believe it was the authentic diary of Zinaida Mikhailovna Lintvaryova; failing that, he would publish it in English himself. He thought it had potential because of Chekhov’s presence. I kept telling him you cannot fool a Russian where their language and their great writers are concerned. And yet I suppose we both hoped I might be wrong, that it would save us. Now, for my sake, he has agreed to send it out as the novel that it is and was always meant to be. I have just finished the final touches. Polyana can no longer publish it, for obvious reasons, but if Peter is able to find a home for it, you will have full credit as the translator for the English version. I am sorry we have deceived you until now.
I went to Luka last year to do research on the book. I was very well received. Do try to go there someday. Sadly, it has changed since the Lintvaryovs’ time. Who knows what will remain a hundred and twenty-five years from now?
But let us hope that people will still be reading Anton Pavlovich (one sometimes wonders where literature is headed) or at least going to see his plays. I think there must be something of Luka in each of them.
He was happy there.
Peter wanted me to write Anton Pavlovich’s lost novel, too. I tried, very briefly, but I could not. How could I! How could anyone! I am sorry, too, that when you and I met, I may have led you to believe that such a novel existed. But I went on telling Peter I would do it, to keep his spirits up. And mine, I suppose.
You see, when I was writing the book, I came to imagine Anton Pavlovich’s novel as a gift to Zinaida Mikhailovna, just as I imagined he eventually gave up on it—as history would seem to imply—and he left it with her as a token of their friendship. I like to think that is the way it happened, even if we do not know the truth—it is something he could have done.
He gave her a story without an ending.
Heartfelt regards,
Katya
Author’s Note
IN MY IMAGINED VERSION of Zinaida Mikhailovna’s journal, I have tried to be as faithful as possible to actual dates, events, and details; on occasion there were discrepancies between sources, and in these cases I opted to adhere to what seemed the most logical, appropriate version. The confusion regarding Ksenia Lintvaryova’s birth was first accidental, then deliberate. We do not know whether Chekhov actually did entrust a manuscript to Zinaida Mikhailovna; that is pure fictional speculation, as are their many conversations.
All the characters in nineteenth-century Luka are based on historical people. The Lintvaryovs invited many more guests over the summer, as did the Chekhovs, but for the sake of clarity, I have had to leave most of them out.
The characters in twenty-first-century Sumy are fictional but were inspired by people I met during my trip to Ukraine. I hope they will forgive me for the artistic license, as I remain forever in their debt for their help and interest.
The two kittens are real, the coincidence seemed too striking to ignore.
Polyana Press and the Kendalls, on the other hand, are completely fictional, as are the Fleur Mailly literary prize and the authors and translators mentioned in Ana’s story.
The primary inspiration for the novel came from Chekhov’s own letters: Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters, edited by Rosamund Bartlett and translated by Rosamund Bartlett and Anthony Phillips. I also referred to the letters in the original Russian and to earlier translations by Constance Garnett. The translations from Chekhov are my own, with the exception of the line from “A Misfortune,” which is Constance Garnett’s. The poem “Silentium” by Fyodor Tyutchev and the four lines from Boris Pasternak’s “Hamlet” are also my translation.
Among the many books I referred to in my efforts to respect the facts within the context of a fiction are Donald Rayfield’s Anton Chekhov: A Life; P. A. Sapukhin’s A. P. Chekhov na Sum-shchinye (in Russian); Rosamund Bartlett’s Chekhov: Scenes from a Life; Virgile Tanase’s Tchékhov (in French); Ivan Bunin’s memoir about Chekhov; and the book that launched me on the entire project nearly ten years ago, Janet Malcolm’s Reading Chekhov.
On contemporary events, Andrey Kurkov’s Journal de Maïdan, translated by Paul Lequesne, and published in French in 2014.
To Lyudmila Nikolayevna Evdokimchik of the museum-house in Sumy, to her colleague Anya, to her friend Lyudmila Stepanovna Pankratova, and to Irina Danilenko: serdechnoye spasibo. Not only did they answer all my questions and inspire a few plot twists and turns, they showed me, once again, the meaning of incomparable Russian and Ukrainian hospitality. Special thanks also to Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska of the Yalta Chekhov Campaign, and to Ala Osmond and Larissa Kazachenko at Exeter International: without them this book would not exist.
Warmest thanks, finally, to Dorian Karchmar, for her generous input, patience and persistence; to Courtney Angela Brkic, Maria Belmonte, Javier Fernández de Castro, and Mary Anna, for their early reading and support; to Ivana Bendow and Olga Proctor for their welcome and encouragement; to Aneesa Higgins, and to Steve Goldstein for his ever hospitable ear and some decisive inspiration over lunch at Café de la Presse.
About the Author
ALISON ANDERSON spent many years in California; she now lives in a Swiss village and works as a literary translator. Her translations include The Elegance of the Hedgehog and works by Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. She has also written two previous novels and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Translation Fellowship. She has lived in Greece and Croatia, and speaks several European languages, including Russian.
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Credits
COVER DESIGN BY GREGG KULICK
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS: © CULTURE CLUB / GETTY IMAGES (ANTON CHEKHOV);
© DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY / GETTY IMAGES (BACKGROUND)
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
THE SUMMER GUEST. Copyright © 2016 by Alison Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition May 2016 ISBN 9780062423375
; ISBN: 978-0-06-242336-8
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