The Flight

by Gaito Gazdanov

  It was past two o’clock in the morning. Lola was beginning to drift off, when suddenly the telephone rang. Feeling an inexplicable, rapturous presentiment, she picked up the receiver.

  “Madame Aînée?” the voice said. “There’s been an accident: your husband has been seriously injured. He has been taken to the Beaujon Hospital.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her eyes glittering.

  She dressed at once and, having hailed a passing taxi, made her way to the hospital. By the time she arrived, Pierre was already dead. She insisted that they show her the corpse. What only a few minutes ago had been Pierre now lay hunched over on its side, the left arm twisted in one final movement, still wearing a gold wristwatch; at the cold wrist, the clock hand, dark blue and invariably accurate, continued its ticking race about the dial. Lola stood before the body; at this moment, she was truly happy. She fleetingly considered the wonderful publicity that would appear in advance of her music hall’s opening night: the sudden death of her husband in tragic circumstances, which police investigations… With slight squeamishness, she undid the strap of the wristwatch, took it and placed it to her ear, although it was already quite clear that it was working—then she walked out of the room, covering her transformed, joyous face with a handkerchief. The policemen who had brought Pierre to the hospital told her that there had been a firefight between some pimps at the cabaret her husband had been visiting, and that a stray bullet had hit Pierre; the wound, alas, had proved fatal. As she left, Lola mused that there could have been no happier an omen for the opening of her theatre than this unlikely, attractive coincidence of her wildest dream and plainest reality. She returned home, completely drunk with happiness, and, purely for pleasure, from the necessity in some way to mark her happiness, took a second dose of salts—the first she had taken some time ago, before the telephone call, which had been nothing out of the ordinary, for Lola took it every evening—drank a whole glass of port wine, lay down and slept soundly, such as she had not slept for many months.

  FYODOR BORISOVICH SLETOV had already installed himself for the night in one of the guest rooms in Sergey Sergeyevich’s apartment; the latter bade him sweet dreams, saying that he needed a good night’s sleep in order to be ready for new adventures, with all their possibilities—and, as always, Sletov replied that his life was over.

  “It’s been over so many times, Fedya…”

  “No, this time… you know, after such a blow…”

  “Thank God you’re still alive,” said Sergey Sergeyevich.

  Suddenly Sletov turned to him—he was undoing his tie in front of the mirror—and said:

  “You know, Seryozha, there’s something dead about your face.”

  “You’re no expert when it comes to men’s faces, Fedya.”

  “No, Seryozha, I’m not joking. You know, that constant smile of yours, as if you’re always happy about something—it’s like a wax figure in a museum. Such jovial eyes and teeth that are too regular, like an advertisement for toothpaste, there’s something very unnatural about it.”

  “What’s to be done? Nature has wronged me.”

  “No, on the contrary. But something’s missing.”

  “A heart, Fedya, a heart.”

  “That is also true.”

  “Well then. Goodnight, for the moment. And to think that at this instant Lili might be—”

  “Don’t mention her name. She no longer exists.”

  “Yes, Fedya. Life is over. Goodnight.”

  “Sleep if you can. I cannot.”

  Yet half an hour later Sletov was rattling and crying out in his sleep; then he sat up in bed and opened his eyes, but he could see nothing—everything was dark, and only from a distance could he hear the muffled sound of running water: Sergey Sergeyevich was drawing a bath.

  Sergey Sergeyevich did not go to bed until much later. He slept six hours a day, no more, no less; he would drift off instantly, seldom dreamt, and never woke up during the night; yet in the morning, upon opening his eyes, he would regain in that very instant all his faculties. He did not know that half-state, familiar and pleasant to the majority of people, between dreams and reality. Since long ago, even in his Russian days, he had maintained the habit of keeping a revolver under his pillow and checking every night whether it was loaded, although for many years already his life had not once been threatened by any danger. He, however, was always ready for it, ready in theory, for there was no immediate physical danger, nor did he foresee any.

  Sitting in an armchair and holding a book he was not reading, he thought how and with what means he might solve this intricate system of relationships that bound him to varying degrees with different people, and principally with Liza and Olga Alexandrovna. He sincerely wanted Olga Alexandrovna to find a man who approached her restless ideal of happiness—he had long known that he himself was infinitely and unequivocally far from this ideal. Besides, there was nothing left of his love for Olga Alexandrovna apart from those good relations, which she would speak of with such indignation. “What do they need?” he thought with sudden vexation. “Fedya Sletov, who’s a good man, but a sentimental fool and nothing more?” Thus Sergey Sergeyevich conversed with himself: the doors to the room were securely locked and no one could hear him; in any case, he uttered only a few fragmentary phrases, the chief part of the monologue taking place inwardly. During those rare times when he allowed himself the luxury of such introspection, he was quite unlike his usual self. His face would ordinarily express disgust and ennui. He mused on the current affair between his wife and Kuznetsov, and shrugged, imagining this Italian trip. Perhaps, this time… But he had little hope: Sergey Sergeyevich knew Olga Alexandrovna too well. His thoughts then moved on to Liza, and he reproachfully and ashamedly shook his head. “The same family, the same blood,” he said aloud. And his obedient, infallible memory conjured up the entire history of his relationship with Liza.

  Liza was six years younger than Olga. She had arrived in the Crimea when Seryozha was three years old—this was during the second year of the war—having come to say awhile at Sergey Sergeyevich’s dacha. She was almost the same then as she was now: that same oval face with smooth skin and almond eyes, those same sparkling teeth, with which she could lift a rather heavy suitcase off the floor, her hands clasped behind her back, leaving two wet semicircles on the leather strap, that same astonishing—for a woman—service at tennis, that same assuredness of her intrinsic wonder and that same unshakable will. She had grasped immediately that relations between Sergey Sergeyevich and Olga Alexandrovna were already not as they ought to be, and regarded her sister disapprovingly; however, as was her custom, she said nothing. The inevitable happened when Olga Alexandrovna went away for several days on a private matter. Sergey Sergeyevich had noticed how Liza was going about as though she were drunk, her eyes having lost their usual sparkle; and when, one evening, he embraced her and bid her goodnight in his usual, distant voice, he felt her body tremble. Her firm, cold hands grasped his neck with ever greater strength. She said: “Don’t torture me.” And then her hands suddenly grew weak.

  Both she and Sergey Sergeyevich had been so secretive that no one, not even the maid, knew of their relationship. Olga Alexandrovna was too much consumed by her own private affairs to pay the slightest bit of notice to the relations between her sister and her husband. And so this relationship had gone on now for thirteen years. However, Sergey Sergeyevich had never been able to break Liza’s will or to force her to do something she found unnecessary. He proposed that she live apart, but she just shook her head in response—although even the most resolute refusal could have been no more categorical. She was inconsistent in her affections for Sergey Sergeyevich: periods of scornful frostiness would be exchanged for fits of tempestuous love—yet irrespective of the state of affairs, her face, in the official family life of Sergey Sergeyevich, retained a classical equanimity, while he equally kept up his conventional joyous smile. Never would she yield to Sergey Sergeyevich in conversations with him. O
nce, when they were alone together, he said to her:

  “There are some things you’re incapable of understanding, Liza. You just come up against a wall.”

  “Do these things matter?”

  “In a general sense, Liza, yes. You see, I cannot address any reproach of a personal nature to you; you’re too perfect.”

  Liza looked at him ironically. His full lips were drawn out in a rapturous smile.

  “Very well, what are these things?”

  “You are utterly incapable of forgoing anything for the sake of others. There would come a point when the following would happen: if someone were to get in the way of your happiness, to put it rather grandly…”

  Sergey Sergeyevich extended his right hand and with the index finger pulled the invisible trigger of an imaginary revolver.

  “You think I’m capable of…”

  Sergey Sergeyevich’s smile grew even broader and he nodded several times.

  “In that case, don’t you fear for your own life?”

  “No,” said Sergey Sergeyevich.

  “Because you think you’re stronger than me?”

  “No. Because it isn’t worth it, and you know I wouldn’t stop you.”

  The conversation had taken place after tennis. Several times Liza had tossed her racket in the air and caught it. Then she raised her eyes to look at Sergey Sergeyevich and said in a particularly quiet, insinuating voice:

  “Therein lies your fault, Seryozhenka.”

  “Fault? In which sense? There are two in this arena.”

  “The latter.”

  “A delusion, typical of dear Olga Alexandrovna.”

  “And of any woman, Seryozha, if she’s worth anything.”

  “In other words, you want me to wield a club and fend others off for you?”

  “Precisely.”

  “La charmante sauvage!”* said Sergey Sergeyevich. “Poor, poor Immanuel!”

  “Who’s Immanuel?”

  “Thus was called, Lizochka, a certain thinker from Königsberg, who falsely supposed—”

  “…that his wisdom would be assimilated by your mistress?” said Liza, her eyes darkening.

  “And what could a woman like that ever see in me?” said Sergey Sergeyevich with mock contemplation.

  “Listen, Seryozha,” said Liza, “I know you. I know that you’re steeped in lies from top to tail. Even your muscles lie.”

  “A physiological phenomenon, which modern science—”

  “And what’s more, you’re a clown.”

  “It would appear entirely inexplicable, then, why, in that case—”

  “Because you know all you need to know, and you know what others know, only they think you don’t.”

  “They do. But not you.”

  “No. I know everything there is to know about you, and you would do anything I wanted.”

  “There is something infinitely feminine and helpless about your charm, Lizochka.”

  Holding the racket in her left hand, Liza raised her right—half joking, half serious—and in that fraction of a second, with gentle precision Sergey Sergeyevich’s soft hand stopped hers in mid-air. Then Sergey Sergeyevich lifted Liza’s hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “That’s so typical of you, Seryozha,” said Liza. “I’m sorry I’m so irritable.”

  “It’s all right, Lizochka, I’m inured to it.”

  There had never been a serious argument between them, but only because—as Sergey Sergeyevich knew perfectly well—there were no grounds for one. Liza’s suppressed furore would occasionally erupt in a purely physical way: she would pick a fight with Sergey Sergeyevich and feel beside herself with rage while he, pinning her arms to her body, calmly and slowly lay her on the floor, without ever causing her any harm. Her bites would leave deep and painful marks. One day, Sergey Sergeyevich nearly lost consciousness after Liza punched him in the stomach, which at that moment he had entirely failed to anticipate. He swayed back and forth, his vision dimmed; he could barely stand on his feet, and through the sudden darkness he saw Liza’s rapt face and bared teeth.

  “That wiped the smile off your face,” said Liza.

  “That’s because you’ve distressed me. I wanted to see what lengths your destructive instincts could lead you to.”

  Sometimes Liza would go away—not like Olga Alexandrovna, but differently, carefully picking out all the necessary items for the trip—always alone, and she would usually be gone for a month or six weeks; however, in all this time she would never send word, and what she got up to remained a mystery. Then she would return—exactly the same woman she had been when she left, so utterly unchanged, even in her complexion, that one might have though she had not gone anywhere. There were times when she would take hardly anything with her: this meant that she was simply moving for a while to her own apartment, which Sergey Sergeyevich had rented for her long ago and about which, other than the two of them, nobody knew. Once, during one such period, she ran into Olga Alexandrovna in the street; the latter looked at her in astonishment and asked her whether she were not dreaming.

  “No, Olya,” said Liza with her usual composure. “No, you aren’t dreaming. Shall I give you the answer?”

  And so she explained that she had returned to Paris half an hour ago, deposited her things in the left-luggage office and gone to buy something before returning home. She added that she would be home for dinner, kissed her sister and disappeared.

  Upon returning, Olga Alexandrovna told Sergey Sergeyevich that she had met Liza. “Just imagine, Seryozha, she’d just arrived and gone straight from the train…” Then, perching on the arm of the chair in which Sergey Sergeyevich was reading a newspaper, she said: “You know, Seryozha… Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that Liza might have a life of her own, one we know nothing about? I’m not talking about today—that’s clear enough, it was nothing—but in general?…”

  “We each of us have a life of our own, Olechka. Philosophically speaking, of course.”

  “Well, yes, but a different one.”

  “The older you get, the more profound you become, Lyolya.”

  “No, Seryozha, seriously,” said Olga Alexandrovna impatiently. “Take you, you’re as immaculate as can be. You have no vices, no passions; you’re so kind, tolerant and good, without a single flaw; it makes one sick—although that’s another matter. You don’t have a second life. But what about her?”

  “In this sense, Lyolya, she’s more transparent than everyone. No, I think not.”

  “It astounds me,” said Olga Alexandrovna, “that she hasn’t got married, for instance. Really, it’s unnatural.”

  “For some it’s unnatural, for others it’s natural.”

  “You’re a machine, not a man,” she said with a sigh. “A dear, sweet machine, but a machine nonetheless.”

  “It’s a matter of reflexes, Lyolechka. Do you know anything about the theory of reflexes?”

  “To tell the truth, very little. Are you going to give me a lecture on this?”

  “If it would interest you.”

  “Go on, then, tell me,” said Olga Alexandrovna.

  Thus, the conversation about Liza really did turn into a lecture on reflexes. When Sergey Sergeyevich had finished, Olga Alexandrovna said:

  “What an interesting man you could be, Seryozha.”

  “Not in your sense of the word, Lyolechka.”

  “That’s just the point,” she said.

  Liza did indeed arrive for dinner, after which Olga Alexandrovna went into town, while Sergey Sergeyevich remained at home with Liza and did not ask her a single question—as was his wont. He knew, however, that Liza must have had a life of her own, but he never once referred to it and always attentively, with childlike trust in his eyes, listened to her tales of the weather in Switzerland or the waves on the Channel. Although Liza knew the true value of this trust, she usually gave herself over to its calming action. That, however, did not always happen, and there were times when it broke her. One day, after a trip to S
witzerland, from which she, for the first and last time in her life, had returned anxious and cross, she was telling Sergey Sergeyevich about the snow in Megève having been powdery, which made for poor skiing and on the whole ruined the trip. He shook his head, all the while maintaining that blissful expression on his face.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Liza suddenly, breaking off her monologue.

  “That’s not so difficult, Liza.”

  “No, I’m not talking about what you think I think you’re thinking.”

  “All this Dostoevsky is spoiling your style, Liza.”

  “No, that’s got nothing to do with it. You’re wondering how many lovers I’ve had. Aren’t you?”

  “Don’t cast aspersions on yourself, Lizochka,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “I think a rest would do you the world of good. Let’s be off with you, little girl.”

  He took her in his arms and carried her, and then Liza, burying her face in his chest, suddenly burst into tears and began stroking his clean-shaven cheek.

  Recalling all this now, Sergey Sergeyevich thought how his life had been built on tragic misfortune and how, for the most part, he had not been destined for happiness. Olga Alexandrovna, whom he had loved passionately at the outset and whom he still treated as a trusted friend—he never mentioned a divorce to her and always gave her to understand that, no matter what happened, she would always have a house, a husband and a son, and she could depend on this equally in those brief periods of happiness with another and in moments of disillusionment and despair—this Olga Alexandrovna had left him long ago, and he had been unable to stop her. Then there was Liza, whom he truly did love and over whom he also had no power whatsoever; one day she could leave him, just as her sister had done before her. “I would stand there on the threshold of my house as she forsook it, like a benevolent shadow eternally by her side. And this,” he continued to think, “is what Fedya Sletov has been granted and I have been denied.”