The Flight

by Gaito Gazdanov

  And Lyudmila immediately translated in a feeble voice:

  “Allez doucement, chauffeur.”*

  The Englishman liked her apartment very much, but he was especially pleased to see the piano—to crown it all, he turned out to be a great lover of music. Lyudmila had not expected such blind luck, and tears welled in her eyes; she was so happy that she even exclaimed, “Oh, darling!” which she had planned to say, spontaneously and unexpectedly, only on the third day, as evening approached, possibly around six o’clock, following a conversation in which the Englishman had said that he would be only too happy to do everything in his power for her. For the first time in many years, the deviation from the plan had been instigated by Lyudmila. The conversation continued, already crossing over to that tone of instant understanding that usually precedes the most pivotal phase of a relationship; Lyudmila understood that she needed to “make the switch” and provoke un coup de foudre,† as she thought—otherwise she risked losing the advantage. Meanwhile, in her mind she feverishly hunted through her musical repertoire for something that might be of particular interest to her new acquaintance; she decided that after ‘Old Man River’ and ‘Charlie Is My Darling’ she would play some Chopin, whose lyric flights she greatly admired. This, however, could be deferred until the following day: today she would not play, on account of her weakness.

  The next part of Lyudmila’s plan witnessed no deviation from the script. They dined at La Tour d’Argent, then went on to Bal Tabarin, and afterwards Lyudmila drank some hot chocolate at Weber’s. Finally, after it had gone two o’clock in the morning, the Englishman saw her home; along the way, in the taxi, he twice kissed her hand, which she permitted. As she sat there absolutely still, reclining, she wanted to throw herself around his neck. When they said goodnight, there was a rather drawn-out conversation which lasted almost ten minutes; the Englishman asked whether he might see Lyudmila the next day, and she assured him that it was quite impossible, but ultimately agreed, with the condition that he telephone first. Lyudmila passed through the hallway, dancing and humming to herself, as though she were suddenly twenty years old again. Then she undressed, got into bed and stretched out with delight; when she glanced in the mirror, she saw her deep-blue eyes, in place of whose usual sorrow was sheer joy.

  The period leading up to the moment when the Englishman (MacFarlane was his name) would be in no doubt that Lyudmila, and only Lyudmila, could and should become his wife, and that it would be impossible for him to act otherwise—resting at home after a most hearty meal, Lyudmila had mulled over all these details at length and with great relish—lasted five days, precisely the same length as her monthly complaint. On the sixth day, in the morning, she took a bath and began getting ready for MacFarlane’s evening visit; that day, he was to dine with her, for to do otherwise would have created an array of technical obstacles that were always particularly vexing and had a dangerous effect on the spontaneity and surprise of everything that was to take place. God knows how or why.

  MacFarlane showed up half an hour before the appointed time; as always, he was very civil and amiable, although his eyes were those of a madman, just as they were supposed to be. After the meal, with long and deliberate pauses in the conversation, broken by Lyudmila’s expressly anxious laughter, she went over to the piano without turning on the light—outside, dusk was quickly falling—and MacFarlane followed her. When at last he embraced her, her fingers remained on the keys, producing at the final moment the prolonged sound of three individual notes slowly fading away. Lyudmila felt the muscles in her neck tense as she let her head fall back during this first, impromptu kiss.

  All the rest happened exactly as Lyudmila had envisaged it. His impeccable knowledge of intimate relations between man and woman, the fruit of long experience, could not fool her this time or any other. She knew that her future depended on the impressions left by her first night of intimacy with MacFarlane, and she would spare no effort in order to safeguard this future. Late at night, after MacFarlane had demanded several times that she give her outright consent to be his wife (in reply she had just stroked his round head with its terrible grey hair), she replied at last, smiling feebly, that she was very tired and would prefer to postpone the conversation until the morning. MacFarlane left with his head in the clouds; he was impossibly happy.

  The following morning a telephone call disturbed Lyudmila’s slumber. Not quite awake, she said in a sharp voice: “Allô!” But when she heard MacFarlane’s voice at the other end, sleep instantly abandoned her and her voice regained the delicate charm that was necessary in her intercourse with the Englishman.

  “My God, I’m still sleeping,” she said, drawing out the words, which was, generally speaking, completely out of character for her, but came naturally when talking to MacFarlane.

  He turned up for luncheon, which was followed by a discussion of their joint future. Until now, Lyudmila had only mentioned in passing that she was married to a man with whom she had nothing in common. Arkady Alexandrovich, in Lyudmila’s descriptions of him, always had a strictly defined character, like the villain in a classic melodrama: a despot, a tyrant, a pathologically jealous man and—in the most catastrophic instances—a drunkard, possessed not of a single positive trait. He did not even love Lyudmila, but regarded her as if she were his property. However, now, for the first time in all these years, she altered the story slightly: MacFarlane would find it difficult to grasp—if she adhered to her routine version—what exactly was keeping her tied to this man. Therefore, although Lyudmila painted Arkady Alexandrovich in lurid tones, still she accompanied this with several lighter remarks that were designed to underscore not so much his only point of merit as Lyudmila’s own kind-heartedness. In other words, Arkady Alexandrovich remained, fundamentally, a despot, and, it could be said, even a tyrant, but when all was said and done, he was a weak man, whom Lyudmila could not bring herself to leave. She could not imagine what he would do without her. In the last instance, Lyudmila had spoken the truth; this indeed was the state of affairs—until recently, in any case.

  “Where is he now?” asked MacFarlane. “I think we should have a talk with him…”

  “He isn’t in Paris,” Lyudmila quickly ventured.

  The prospect of MacFarlane’s meeting Arkady Alexandrovich did not suit her one bit.

  “Then we ought to write to him at once,” said MacFarlane.

  It was decided that Lyudmila should write to Arkady Alexandrovich that very day, and after this conversation they moved on to the idyllic themes of the immediate future—Scotland, lochs, fishing, travel, trips to the Riviera. It was not without a degree of humour that MacFarlane spoke of his life in Britain, regaling Lyudmila with Scotch anecdotes.

  Evening drew in unnoticed. It was like the previous one in almost every respect, with the sole difference that after dinner Lyudmila spent a long time playing the most lyrical pieces for him. MacFarlane, who was a true connoisseur of music, could not but appreciate her artistry, which only endeared him to Lyudmila even more, if that were possible, and again, late at night, he left, having dressed slowly and reluctantly. Lyudmila waved goodbye to him, not even lifting her blonde head with its dishevelled hair from the pillow.

  The very next morning she telephoned Sergey Sergeyevich.

  “It’s Lyudmila Nikolayevna here,” she said breathlessly.

  “How kind of you to remember me,” said the calm, mocking voice through the receiver. “Good morning.”

  “Sergey Sergeyevich!” exclaimed Lyudmila. “Sergey Sergeyevich, I have a colossal request to make of you. Everything depends on you.”

  “Colossal? What is it exactly?”

  “I need my husband’s address, immediately, do you hear?”

  “I do,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “I’m afraid I do. You know, dear Lyudmila Nikolayevna, my acquaintance with your husband—I do not wish to conceal anything from you—has been until now rather superficial. I can’t imagine why.”

  “Sergey Sergeyevich, for the lo
ve of God, you don’t know how important this is to me!”

  “It’s possible, Lyudmila Nikolayevna, that it is important. Yet, however important it may be, it does not change the facts of the matter. In other words—and perhaps this may come as a shock to you—my correspondence with your husband has always been of a rather irregular nature. More specifically, it has never existed, and so, much to my dismay, I cannot give you his address.”

  “Sergey Sergeyevich, have you no heart? Your wife’s address—you know it perfectly well. My God, I simply can’t find the words.”

  “The state of your health is beginning to concern me,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “Take a sedative, refer yourself to the nearest pharmacy and—”

  “Your wife’s address, Sergey Sergeyevich. Surely you must know it.”

  “Indeed I do.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Sergey Sergeyevich, I give you my word of honour…”

  Laughter rang down the receiver. Then Sergey Sergeyevich said:

  “If that will be all, Lyudmila Nikolayevna. All that remains for me is to wish you the very best. Goodbye.”

  She could not permit, following her undisputed and decisive victory over MacFarlane, especially when everything she had dreamt of had almost been realized—riches, status, she had only to reach out and take it—she could not permit this curious bit of good fortune to slip away from her on account of the silliest of misunderstandings, for want of a single address, which hitherto she had not required. She grasped the delicacy of the situation: to go to Italy to search for Arkady Alexandrovich was entirely out of the question. She could, of course, have explained all this to MacFarlane, but she considered it necessary in every way possible to shield him from too intimate an acquaintance with her private life. For the first time in a very long while, she was at a loss. In any case, something had to be done. She knew that it would be difficult to get anything out of Sergey Sergeyevich; he was unlike others in this respect, as she had ascertained on the occasion of her first visit to him, although her undertaking then had met with success, but that had come about purely by chance, and the reasons for its success were not those she had intended.

  She went out, hailed a taxi and set off for Sergey Sergeyevich’s apartment. It turned out that he was not at home. She stood on the landing, cracking her knuckles with impatience and generally going to pieces. A tall, unfamiliar man then went up to the door and, looking at Lyudmila with a certain degree of astonishment, rang the bell. The door opened, and he was about to enter the apartment without saying anything, when Lyudmila grabbed him by the sleeve. It was Sletov. She quickly said in Russian:

  “Excuse me, do you live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you work for Sergey Sergeyevich?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is your relation to him?”

  “Are you from a detective agency?” asked Sletov with curiosity.

  “No, I’m just a woman on the brink of despair,” said Lyudmila, continuing to crack her knuckles. Sletov looked her up and down again; judging by her apparel, she looked more likely to be a philanthropist than a beggar.

  “So you aren’t after any money?” he asked after a moment of hesitation.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Please, do come in,” he said, recollecting himself. “Tell me what the matter is, and I’ll relay it to Sergey Sergeyevich. What has happened?”

  Greatly unnerved at first but soon calming down, Lyudmila began relating her story. Sletov listened attentively. She said she just had met the man for whom she had spent her whole life searching. Sletov’s face was a picture of sympathy. She then explained that being forced to remain with her husband was absolutely impossible, that she needed to put an end to it, that life otherwise would not be worth living, and that if she did not manage to obtain what she needed from Sergey Sergeyevich, there would be only one option left… She extracted a small revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle. Sletov gesticulated wildly.

  “For goodness’ sake, you’ve gone mad,” he said. “I’m prepared to help you in every way that I can. I understand you perfectly, but what does Sergey Sergeyevich have to do with all this?”

  She explained even this point to him. Sletov shook his head.

  “He won’t give you the address; even the Devil himself won’t be able to help you there,” he said. “I know Sergey Sergeyevich well enough.”

  “I don’t need the address,” said Lyudmila, her eyes flashing. “I’ll write the letter in your presence; let Sergey Sergeyevich send it, that’s all I ask. I shan’t even seal the envelope.”

  “That is a different matter.”

  In her large handwriting, Lyudmila then wrote out the letter and handed it to Sletov, who saw her to the door and promised to do everything necessary.

  Sergey Sergeyevich returned half an hour later and found Sletov sitting in an armchair with a pensive look about him, playing with Lyudmila’s letter.

  “What are you doing, Fyodor Borisovich? Attending to correspondence?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” said Sletov, “though only indirectly. You’ve just missed Lyudmila Nikolayevna.”

  “That was to be expected. So you’re writing to her?”

  “No, she has written a letter.”

  “To me?”

  “That’s just it. No.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “She’s asked you to send the letter to her husband?”

  “Yes.”

  And so Sletov recounted his conversation with Lyudmila to Sergey Sergeyevich, adding that she had made a very sincere impression on him, that she was a woman who was very troubled and indeed, as she had said, on the brink of despair.

  “Did she also tell you she was a virgin? No? Well, thank God for that, otherwise you would have believed her. However, this is something new; I seem to recall that time was when she used to operate rather differently. Give me the letter.”

  “What?” said Sletov. “You’re going to read it? Someone else’s letter, not addressed to you? Seryozha!”

  “Trust me, Fedya, in dealing with notorious criminals, one cannot be guided by gentlemanly principles. From this woman, Fedya, we ought first to expect some underhand trick. Well then, what do we have here? ‘Dear Arkady, you know how much I have done for you; you know how often I have had to sacrifice absolutely everything, even my own self-respect. Being an intelligent and sensitive person, tu dois avoir apprécié cela.’‡ She’s so distressed that she’s even mixing her languages. ‘I now ask you to send to me, without hindrance or delay, as soon as you receive this letter, your informed consent to a divorce. What is to be done? Our lives are on different tracks.’ Indeed, one could put it that way. ‘I shall take upon myself all the expenses incurred in the process.’”

  Sergey Sergeyevich whistled.

  “‘I ask nothing of you other than this. I await your prompt reply. Send ahead a telegram stating your consent in principal, and then the paperwork. I wish you happiness. Your Lyudmila.’ This, Fedya, as fortune-tellers would say, is what’s called a turning point. But what poor man has fallen into her snare?”

  “It’s plain to see that she’s being guided by love,” said Sletov, blowing rings of cigarette smoke.

  “God knows,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “Perhaps it’s less absurd than it seems at first glance. In any case, she’s clearly disturbed. To think, taking on all those expenses.”

  “It’s love, I tell you, Seryozha. Love.”

  * Go slowly, driver.

  † Love at first sight.

  ‡ You ought to have appreciated this.

  THE TELEGRAM bringing news of Arkady Alexandrovich’s consent to the divorce arrived three days later, and Lyudmila wasted no time in showing it to MacFarlane. After a further three days came the official paperwork; Lyudmila took it to her solicitor, explaining that she was interested in obtaining the fastest possible resolution to the affair and that money
was no object. He promised to do everything on the shortest possible timescale, and she heaved a sigh of relief. MacFarlane proposed a trip to the Riviera, but Lyudmila demurred; she did not want to risk an encounter… while she was going through a divorce… She would prefer… MacFarlane agreed to everything. It was decided that they would go to the coast, and then take a trip around France. Early the next morning, they left Paris.

  For Lyudmila, the life of which she had until now only dreamt was finally beginning. Beside elementary comforts, such as travelling first-class, expensive hotels, that is, those things she already knew from before—although they had always been patently ephemeral and, as it were, contraband—she experienced a sense of gratitude and even love for MacFarlane, to the extent that she was generally capable of such feelings. Of course, had it suddenly come out that MacFarlane was completely ruined, she would have immediately—although, perhaps, nevertheless, with a certain fleeting sense of pity—left him. Luckily, this was impossible. Here was a complex emotion, a large portion of which consisted in a purely physical attraction; having dealt her whole life with mostly elderly men—businessmen, industrialists, speculators, whose general characteristics almost always featured a large stomach, shortness of breath, a degree of physical infirmity—she was not precious in this regard. MacFarlane was a tireless walker; he loved nature, knew every type of tree, all the flowers and plants; he rowed, ran and swam well, and was second to none when it came to fishing; he never complained of any ailments, as invariably did every one of Lyudmila’s former admirers. To top it all off—and again in contrast to his predecessors—MacFarlane was a man of culture. Lyudmila talked with him as she would with an equal. He was captivated by everything Lyudmila said and was especially touched by the fact that she felt at home with English literature. He did not suspect that a love of music, literature and art in general could be explained in some instances by spiritual wealth, and in others, conversely, by spiritual poverty; Lyudmila belonged namely to the second category of their devotees. However, one way or another, she and MacFarlane very quickly found a common language, the chief ideas of which were borrowed from Kipling and Dickens, his favourite authors. In one of her first conversations with MacFarlane, Lyudmila had told him that she had been raised on English literature. MacFarlane was amazed, as all the rest had been, by her fluent English; he could not have known that it was quite necessary in Lyudmila’s line of work, which might have caused it to depreciate in value, even if it did attest to her undoubted linguistic abilities.