by David Park
They find a seat in one of the parks to allow him to regain his breath. There are children at play under their mothers’ watchful eyes. The weather is warming and in the lake some young boys sail a model boat. On their journey into exile they had transferred to a river steamer at Solikamsk and the kindly leader of their three guards – simple peasant soldiers more used to transporting those convicted of spying or sabotage – had helped them to gain a cabin where Osip could rest. They had stayed on deck – the greatest distance they had permitted themselves – obviously having decided that his physical condition and his crime of poetry rendered him unlikely to present the possibility of problems. Psychologically he was in a bad state then, the worst she had ever seen him. She had tried to calm him, soothe away the reverberations that echoed discordantly in his head. All those things that allowed him to be a great poet – heightened sensitivities and senses, the sharpest perception – now conspired against him to flood his mind with what he didn’t want to remember in all the starkness of their horror and gave him no peace.
A breeze catches the sail of the boys’ boat, sending it curving through the water, bisecting the shadowy surface with a bevelling white. The boys’ cries of pleasure accompany it even when it seems to lean precariously close to the surface. Suddenly he gets up and walks to the edge of the pond, each step accompanied by the piping, wheezing descant of his breathing. She watches him stand with his back to her and yet is still able to see the pleasure he takes in the boat’s untrammelled flight as it runs before the wind. He takes a child’s delight in it, even holding his hand up in alarm as it finally slips sideways and its sail flops into the water. There has always been something childlike about him but she isn’t sure if it’s something that she admires or is irritated by. He turns again to resume his seat beside her. Even that short exertion has tired him and when he takes her hand she isn’t sure whether it’s from affection or merely to assure himself of her presence and support.
They watch the boys squabble amongst themselves until the tallest takes off his shoes and rolls up his trousers before carefully feeling his way, stepping with exaggerated caution. One of the other boys picks up a small stone and gently throws it to make a splash but is rebuked by the others and he wanders off shame-faced.
‘Children still play,’ he says. ‘Whatever happens in other places children still play.’
But she won’t let herself take any comfort in whatever he has to say about children’s play and tells him that soon they must be moving again, reminds him of their need to find money and help before they have to return once more. She knows he would be content to sit in the warming sun and watch everything the park has to offer, to devour it voraciously and find in it some sustaining sustenance not open to her because already she can hear the low rumble of her stomach and feel the sharp stirring of a headache. There is no sunlight or reverie that can banish their insistent clamouring for her attention. Carefully she takes the cloth-wrapped portion of bread and the hardening wedge of cheese from her pocket then spreads a white handkerchief on her knees like a tablecloth and places the only food they have left on it. With a stub of a knife she slowly divides the bread and cheese into two portions and hands him his half. They have nothing to drink but perhaps the park will have a drinking fountain they can find when they have finished. She is instantaneously pleased but then irritated again by the look of gratitude and joy on his face. ‘A feast fit for a king,’ he says and there is no sarcasm in his voice. She hears herself reply, ‘A feast only fit for a king in penurious exile.’ Then they eat in silence, concentrating on prolonging the meagre meal, carefully retrieving every crumb that falls, trying perhaps to conjure some greater sense of pleasure than the stale ingredients afford.
‘We must go soon,’ she tells him when they have finished, suddenly conscious of how often she speaks as if a mother to her child. ‘There are places we need to try. Time is getting on.’
He nods but makes no effort to move. Out in the pond the boy has retrieved the boat, pulling it towards him with a long hooked stick. Its sails are bedraggled.
‘They’ll dry soon in the sun,’ he says loudly and she isn’t sure if the words are for her or for the boys but she feels a flurry of anger at his capacity to be positive about so many things and tells herself it is a delusion, a dangerous delusion. On some whim that she doesn’t fully understand his life has been momentarily allowed to him but he stands at the very edge of the abyss, exposed, vulnerable, and when the wind changes it will topple him into the pit as surely as night follows day. So what right has he to sit there and let the sun warm his face and believe that it will dry the sails? But she understands that there is another reason why he doesn’t want to leave and for a second she too almost believes that if they sit still and quiet then time and the future might simply pass over them leaving them eternally in this moment, preserved like insects in aspic.
‘You’re right,’ he says after a few minutes, ‘we must go on, rattle our begging bowls, throw ourselves on the kindness of others,’ and he brushes his coat as if there might exist the possibility of spilled crumbs. She folds the handkerchief away and arm in arm like some elderly couple they make their way out of the park and she is conscious of his breathing that sometimes brushes her cheek when he turns his head towards her. She is grateful that the intensity of the sun has slipped a little and welcoming of the breeze that is sneaking its way between buildings and stirring the awnings of shops, wakening the furled and sleeping flags. She tries to think her headache away but it feels as if the noise and grit of the city streets have taken lodgings in her brain and she wants to be in the park again watching the boat’s sails drying in the sun. She also tries to tell herself that there is dignity in struggle, in not simply giving up, but at two houses where they had hoped they might find help they are turned away, one with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders through a partially opened door, and one with a welter of platitudes and excuses that embarrassed the deliverer even more than them.
So they have no other choice and as much as they don’t want to impose their need once more, desperation is always stronger than their sense of shame, and they make their way to the Shklovskis’ where they know they will not be refused. Victor and Vasilisa are out and so it falls to their two children to offer them hospitality and act as surrogates for their parents and they provide them with food and drink in the kitchen. Little Varia, taking obvious pleasure in assuming the adult role, plies them also with chatter and laughter while her older brother Nikita keeps a quiet eye on her to ensure she’s doing everything the way it should be done. It is a kindness they have experienced before but never take for granted and it is one of the few places, however briefly, they feel their life come closest to what they once knew. Osip jokes with Varia, tells her increasingly fantastic stories that make her laugh, and tries to provoke the taciturn Nikita into some similar response but the most he allows himself is a shy smile. She looks at the two children and wonders if he resents their absence then tries to balance out whatever pleasures they might have brought with the unspeakable difficulties that would also have come, not least the crushing worry about their fate in the event of their parents being taken in the night. She thinks of Voronezh where there is a feral gang of seemingly abandoned children who scavenge the streets before disappearing at night into some secret refuge. Soon the authorities will round these up too and they will disappear so suddenly that some citizens will question if they ever existed at all or whether they were merely a trick of the memory.
‘Nikita collects birds,’ Varia says. ‘He catches them – isn’t that cruel?’
The boy blushes and pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek before he says, ‘I treat them well, it isn’t cruel, and after a while I release them,’ and he glares at his sister, looking directly at her as he adds, ‘It’s a hobby – lots of people do it.’
‘And what type of birds do you catch?’ Osip asks.
‘Sometimes songbirds, but not always. There are collectors who
have large collections and some even train their birds to do tricks or sing.’
‘Just like the Union of Writers,’ Osip says and he laughs so hard at his own joke that they laugh at his laughter as he slaps the table with the palm of his hand and makes the cups dance.
Varia challenges him to a game of chess and when Nikita tells her that she isn’t a good enough player to challenge people she rolls her eyes and rattles on about how it’s the only way to learn. It’s been so long since Osip’s played chess and she watches him handle the pieces with curiosity, turning them over in his hands as if trying to conjure their names and roles through the touch of his fingers. He puts the king and queen on the wrong squares and Varia reaches across the board and rights them and he shakes his head in an exaggerated frustration at his own stupidity.
They sit at the kitchen table and play and she doesn’t know if he’s deliberately letting her win or whether what has happened has damaged his memory of even this. Each time Varia takes a piece she lifts it with a flourish of her wrist and a wide smile and he shakes his head again from side to side.
‘She’s too good for me,’ he says ruefully as Nikita gives a little snorting noise.
If she can only exist in the moment she could almost feel happy but as soon as she thinks this, the knowledge of where they must return and what ultimately awaits them prevents her. She touches the solidity of the table then searches for some residue of warmth in her cup but none of it is enough and frightened that it will show in her face she rises and walks into the hallway. Then on impulse she turns and pushes open the door to Nikita’s bedroom.
There are four wooden cages hanging from the wall. In each a bird, she guesses, but they are only vaguely glimpsed. She doesn’t know if they are songbirds are not. They are barely visible through the bars and her appearance evokes only their silence. The bars are not uniform but misshapen spindles of wood that look as if they might shatter under any determined burst for freedom. The fading afternoon light has dulled the room and as she stands in the doorway she struggles to see the birds but doesn’t want to intrude. Then one hops from its perch and the whole rickety cage moves slightly on its hook. Some small ends of straw or husks of seed filter through the bars and pirouette silently to the floor.
From the outer hallway comes the sound of the lift. As always it fills her with dread and she remembers the suspicious, screwed-up face of the doorwoman who scrutinised them from top to bottom. Perhaps she has informed on them, perhaps they have been followed, and now the Shklovskis will be exposed to danger because of them. One of the birds shuffles again in its cage. All sounds from the kitchen have stopped – they too have heard. There are footsteps in the hall approaching the door of the apartment. Nikita appears at her shoulder, glances briefly towards his birds then walks past her towards the door. He is already taller than her but the awkwardness of his gangly, spindle-thin limbs is suddenly subsumed into a gliding elegance that almost makes him look as if he is silently skating. She watches him press his ear to it and then there is the sound of a key turning in the lock and he’s helping his parents, Victor and Vasilisa, hurry through.
She has almost forgotten what it is to be greeted by the unguarded openness of a friend’s smile and in its warmth she feels resurrected from the tomb, called momentarily back into the land of the living by an embrace and simple expressions of kindness.
‘Have they looked after you properly?’ Victor asks, looking at Nikita who is carefully locking the door again.
‘Perfectly,’ she says and then Vasilisa threads her arm and takes her through to the kitchen where Osip and Varia sit, their game suspended, and then Osip leaps up and in his desire to embrace his old friend upsets some of the chess pieces. Varia squeals at the prospect of her imminent victory being thwarted and starts to replace them.
‘Later, Varia, later,’ her father urges and she slumps back on her chair and folds her arms in sullen exaggeration.
‘She’s too good for me,’ Osip says in an attempt to mollify her and with a melodramatic gesture topples his king and slowly bows his head.
Vasilisa requests a detailed list of what her children have provided and then despite their protests cooks something more. She runs baths for them, finds fresh underwear and insists they rest while she gets the meal ready. When she calls them to the table they are embarrassed by the trouble she’s gone to and unsure whether to eat a little of the family’s hard-won provisions or to store up for the hungry days they know are coming. At times they can hardly eat for the conversation that flows – the discussion of their predicament, possible sources of money and information and as much as anything a welter of news and gossip – the latest symphony by Shostakovich, whose writing fortunes have risen, whose have fallen. After the meal Victor presents Osip with a coat and he models it with good humour.
While the men sit smoking in the kitchen, quoting poetry to each other, she drinks yet another cup of tea sweetened with sugar and finds herself glancing at the clock, wishing she could slow its hands. There is only one kindness they can give their hosts and that is to decline their invitation to stay the night. She knows the invitation is genuine and there have been times when they have slept on a rug-covered mattress but she cannot bear the possibility that accepting such kindness might result in consequences too terrible for her to contemplate. Nikita is filling a little glass dish with water and she assumes it is for the birds. She hopes he will release them soon. She tries to catch Osip’s eye but he is too deeply engaged in the pleasures of his conversation to notice. When Vasilisa offers to refill her cup she declines and tells her they must be going soon. It is as if her husband hasn’t heard her words and she understands that he has found a heady excitement, even a momentary fulfilment, in his dialogue about books and writing that he hasn’t been able to reach with her. So why should that be a surprise when they are locked together every minute of the day, their lives so tightly knotted that she no longer has any concept of one independent of his? She didn’t have to go into exile with him and she tries to remember whether there was ever a moment when she made the conscious decision to accompany him into the wilderness, but it was a question that simply never arose and so needed no answer.
As she looks about the kitchen – Osip and Victor debating some point about poetry as if their lives depended on it, Vasilisa busying herself with pots and pans, Varia sorting through her schoolbooks – she wonders if they will ever be able to allow themselves to come there again. They are infected like carriers of smallpox and the welfare of others demands they hold themselves in isolation. Does he realise this as he declaims some lines of poetry as if they are a sweet wine on his lips? And she feels a slow surge of bitterness that it was words on his lips that have brought them to this reckoning. A couple of minutes’ words slipping from his lips and the lives they knew taken from them. A particular set of words, the secret thoughts that swirl undetected in the mind suddenly made real and put in the world without thought for consequence. Was their release worth it, those words that now imprison their existence? And she wonders again how words can change a life so utterly. But of course they weren’t just words – ‘an act of terrorism’ was how the interrogator had described them. And now the terror is visited on them as she sits conscious of every time the lift approaches their floor in the apartment and wonders whether it will stop or pass by, remembers the glance given to them by the doorwoman, the constant feeling that they are being watched. It is surely one of their greatest skills that they let you, their victim, create and slowly imbibe your own terror.
As Osip and Victor sing in creaking harmony some old sentimental ballad they share from their childhood she wonders why he has set his mind so firmly against taking their own lives. Is there part of him that secretly believes this thing will pass over them, that they will simply be forgotten, or that some powerful influence affected by a warm memory of his past work will intervene on their behalf, allowing them to return to Moscow and resume their old life? Osip’s eyes are closed as if in some privat
e place he’s seeing the memories the song evokes. She wants to tell him if he believes any of these things then his eyes are closed to the truth.
It is getting late. They must leave soon but she knows a spell has settled on him and it’s the happiest she has seen him in a long time, so whatever she does or says now will serve to break it. Getting up from the table she goes and sits in a corner, lets him drain the last pleasure from his song. Close by, Varia is humming her attempt at an accompaniment to a song that she doesn’t really know so she follows a few notes behind the adults. She is sorting schoolbooks in a satchel, ostentatiously holding them up for her guest’s perusal. Then as the song sidles into a melodramatic, drawn-out conclusion the child hands her an open textbook to look at. She takes it in both hands and tries not to let them tremble. There are pages of photographs and names pasted over with thick paper. More and more of them as she turns the pages. Party leaders, old revolutionaries, she guesses, erased by directive and from history itself as one by one they get swept into the pit. So this is how it ends. Removed from existence, excised from public memory. She looks at the faces still uncovered and wonders how many of them will be sent into the darkness – a bullet in the head in some cellar or prison courtyard, worked to death in the tundra – and then disappeared into unmarked graves. She looks at Osip. He has tears in his eyes – the sentiment of the song has proved too much. He rubs them dry with the back of his hand. What remains for those eyes still to see? He catches her looking at him, their eyes hold each other for a second, then without words she tells him what he already knows, that the time has come for them to go.