by Janet Fitch
“Sit down,” I said, indicating the bed. There was that or the desk with its one chair. Gingerly, he sat on the sagging springs, as if afraid he would break it. He kept spinning his cap. Although I was only twenty, I felt like the elder—his teacher, and a poet. His nervousness gave me confidence.
I set some water on the boil for carrot tea. The room seemed less frosty with two of us in it. When I glanced across Bolshaya Morskaya at the house opposite, a man’s face appeared in the window, just for a moment—a tall man with a stoop, and white hair. He seemed to be saying something, but what? A message from the future? Go back. I wished I had curtains, but there were none, the last tenant had used them—for a new skirt most likely, or a shirt, or to pad an old jacket. Who had cloth to spare? Soon the panes would frost over and I wouldn’t have to see out at all.
Voices traveled from the hall and the other rooms, just the normal sounds of the building. My left-hand neighbor, Shafranskaya, was talking to someone in her famous reading voice, and old Petrovsky on the other side coughed up a lung.
“Are you still married to Kuriakin?” he asked, flipping his cap in his calloused hands. He tossed it up, tried to catch it on his head and failed.
Talking about Genya could lead nowhere good. I wasn’t going to display the tattered rags of my life like some saint’s relics. “Listen. I like you, Pasha, don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “But don’t ask me anything, all right? Let’s just be together.”
“Never?” He raised his bushy eyebrows and his forehead wrinkled.
“No,” I said. “Tell me something about yourself instead.” I dumped carrot scraps into the hot water, set out two cups.
Around and around went the flat sailor’s cap. Was he regretting having come? “What do you want to know? About girls? The old folks at home? The war?”
“God no. Tell me about the sea.”
He gave a startled half laugh, the sound of someone who can’t quite believe something unfamiliar but pleasant was being done to him. I doffed my fur hat, plumped it on the desk like a cat, combed out my hair with my fingers in a scrap of mirror. It was still too cold to take off my coat. He watched me primp, fascinated, as if he’d never seen a girl comb her hair before. “How did you get to be a sailor?” I asked.
“Well”—the hat must be getting dizzy by now—“I come from a village near Yaroslavl, Mologa it’s called. My father was a bargeman. I dropped out of school to work on the boats. It’s a big port—not big like this, but a big one.”
“I’ve only been to Nizhny.”
“The Volga’s beautiful but it’s not the sea. Anyway, when the war came, I joined the navy. I told them I was eighteen, but I barely shaved.” He rubbed his fingers over his square chin. Few of the sailors grew beards, unlike most of the men in Petrograd. “Nobody cared. I took the training. A lot of the boys had never been on a boat before. I was posted to the Petropavlovsk. We were part of the insurrection.” He glanced over at me to see if I was impressed. His eyes, turquoise in a bright light, seemed more gray in my sad, cold room.
No, not so sad. Not with Pasha in it. “I think a lot about the sea.” I poured water into a small metal teapot with the carrot shavings, moving the manuscript of The Valley of the Moon to one side. “We have our origins there,” I said. “And it lives on in us, like blood. The smell sometimes makes me cry, I want it so badly.” I stopped, avoiding the topic of sailing, and my brothers, which would require mentioning a lieutenant in the White Army, perhaps even a captain by now, and a cadet dead by the Kremlin wall. No brothers. No fathers. No mothers. No past. Only now, these few living moments.
“I’ve sailed my whole life,” he said, elbows on his muscular legs. “Out at Kronstadt, of course it’s all battleships and gunboats. But we’ve got a basin of schooners, they teach everybody to sail under canvas—canvas, that’s what I like. No engine, no noise, no stink. Maybe this spring I’ll take you out. Would you like that?”
“I would.” I would like it better than chocolate, or silk stockings, or jewels. I handed him his cup of chipped porcelain, filled my own, made of tin.
I waited to see what came next, half expecting him to throw himself onto me like a beast. But he was surprisingly talkative. Maybe he’d had a woman more recently than I’d imagined, his desire wasn’t as urgent as I’d supposed. “It’s fantastic. Out there, all by yourself, the ropes in your hands. Don’t you ever feel there’s just too many people?”
I could smell the ocean spray on him, the salt air, seaweed. I ran my hand through his short wooly hair. “I wish we were there now.”
“Winter’s the worst.” He picked up my foot and pulled my boot off. “Everything’s all locked down, there’s nothing to do but polish brass.” He removed the other one. “I hear they’re going to send us to work in the factories, now that the war’s ending. The Labor Army.” He snorted, massaging my feet. His hands were strong and felt good. “That’s not going to sit too well with the boys. It may be fine for the army, but not for us.”
I lowered my feet, put my fingertips to his lips to quiet him, raised my mouth to his. He tasted of tobacco and hemp. All of us, Peter’s children. Our blood was salty and turned with the tides. I kissed his rough cheek, and the wave of desire rose. The tide turned. I pressed my mouth to his, and sat on his lap. My body reminded me there was more to flesh than simply the hollowness of one’s gut and one’s sore bloated feet and standing in queues and wolfing down inedible scraps of food, all of the indignities of slow starvation. My body sparked and ignited like a neglected brush pile, like an abandoned house.
I unbuttoned the bodice of my dress, pulled it off over my head. I knew how dirty and unkempt I was. You got one bath a month in the Eliseev bathroom downstairs. I took off my slip and my underpants—though it was freezing, I wanted to let him see me before we made love. My body altered by childbirth, the white marks, my breasts larger and lower than they had been. I was a bit ashamed—sailors were cleaner than poets now, but Pashol didn’t seem to notice or care. I couldn’t wait to see his skin—oh, so white! He pulled off his shirt and struggled to loosen his pants in the cold. Lean—but not starving, just hard and flat muscled like a coil of rope. Like a big cat that could take you by the neck and kill you with a shake if it wanted to, but it didn’t want to.
He took handfuls of my hair, ran his fingers through it, smelled it, I was sorry it was so dirty. He felt the scars on my back, and his blue eyes glanced at me with their intelligent wryness, his forehead wrinkling into a series of parallel breakers. But true to his promise, he asked me no questions. Our bodies were not even bodies, the body was simply the tinder, the precious wood, and the fire we raised sought more fire. I flamed with his touch. His hands were rough but brushed me lightly—teasing, in no hurry.
I don’t know how long we made love. Until I was too sore to go on. And how we laughed. God knows what Shafranskaya and Petrovsky thought. I’d been as quiet as a nun since I’d moved in—surely they couldn’t have expected that to last. I tried to keep my voice down, but it was such a joy to shout, and I had always been noisy in bed. I tried to stifle my cries, planting a hand over my mouth. But sometimes I was not quick enough. I imagined a sea as green-blue as his eyes, with blue and white villages on islands breaking straight upward on craggy islands blazing in the sun. I heard the sails crack overhead, the halyard clanging against the mast, felt the bed unmooring.
Afterward, he brought out a bar of chocolate and shared it with me. “You have to keep up your strength,” he said.
I dragged my quilt up over us, and we lay, my head on his outstretched arm, dancing my hands above us in their own joyous semaphore. I should write an aubade. How long had it been? I felt beautiful again, desirable, young. And if I became pregnant? It was unlikely. I had not bled since Iskra was born. A child from Pashol would smell of tang and brine and foreign lands. It would have those eyes.
But there would be no child.
We slept a little, the stove went out. I yawned and stretched. He sat up. “I
have to go.”
I watched him clothe that whiplike body. Oh the Gods…I couldn’t wait to hear the gossip tomorrow. My presence already an anomaly, the only girl among the younger poets living here in my own right. Would they kick me out? Oh, I’d worry about that if it happened. Tonight I was alive again—I’d recovered part of myself. I felt like a pirate on the deck of a ship, knife in my teeth, face to the wind. I wouldn’t give this resurrection up for all the disapproving fogeys in Petrograd. Even literary ones.
Man does not live by vobla alone.
47 The Guest
Something must have shown of my pleasure. People scented it like a perfume. Colors seemed brighter, I laughed more, felt warmer, even in cold rooms. I took more care to wash and launder my underthings, even when it required staying in my room until two pairs of bloomers had dried. Or going without on occasion—a bit naughty, to stand in the drafty hall talking to Anton or Khodasevich with the December wind blowing up my skirt. Men attempted to be charming. They wanted to stand close—Tereshenko, Nikita, and even Shklovsky—to warm themselves at my hearth. Guests wanted to meet me. I could feel myself returning to life, thanks to my sailor.
The House of Arts assembled a dinner for the English writer H. G. Wells when he came to visit that winter. Such a flurry! I knew his works well—my father had been a devoted fan. An important leftist in England, Wells knew Gorky from before the war, he was staying with them on Kronverksky Prospect. None of the younger members were invited to this dinner, only those in the inner circle. So we hung about in the salon, hoping to catch a look at the great man. We watched our elders arrive and enter the icebox of the dining room in their coats and gloves, all but Gumilev, who wore a dinner jacket and a flower in his lapel—which would keep as if in a florist’s refrigerator. Talk about fortitude! There was a smattering of applause, and Gumilev bowed, ironically.
Now the Gorky party arrived, Moura leading Wells through the public rooms, introducing him to the uninvited. A well-fed man with drooping eyebrows, he seemed personable, and Moura clearly thought so too. She was in her glory, animated, plump, laughing, laying on the charm. Wasn’t Gorky jealous? I watched Alexei Maximovich across the room talking with Kuzmin, seemingly indifferent to his mistress’s flirtation with the foreigner. Didn’t he notice the way she bared her white throat as she laughed? The way she leaned in, taking his arm. But perhaps it was part of a wider plan to get something out of him. Who knew what was going on behind the scenes? Inna Gants said that Wells was quite the womanizer, had children by any number of women, but it was hard to picture this portly, avuncular fellow as a figure of romance.
Moura saw me and said something to the author, pointing me out. They came right over. “Marina Dmitrievna Makarova, this is Herbert Wells. He wanted to meet you.” He shook my hand. His eyes were a transparent green, like sea glass, and his touch was warm and he smelled like leather. His smile endeared. Yes, perhaps there was something to the rumor at that.
“How lovely to meet you, Miss Makarova. I’ve been looking forward to this—but hadn’t expected such a lovely young lady. I might have known.” He put his other hand on top of our joined ones. There was something to him. Like Kolya. Yes, I recognized that warmth, the intimacy, the charm. “I believe I knew your father. Dmitry Makarov—the lawyer, yes?” Moura’s face went white, as I imagined my own did. “Knew him in London. Brilliant man. Could talk about anything. How is he these days?” Moura shot me a look of alarm.
“He passed away,” I said. “This summer.” My throat closed. I didn’t trust myself to say more. I composed my face as if his death were a solemn but not dangerous event, as if it had been from some sort of disease. Which it was, of course. Not typhus, but a virulent strain of retribution.
“So sorry to hear.” Patting my hand. “He was devilishly witty too. A wonderful man. My condolences.” I nodded, as Moura exhaled. What did she think I would do? Discuss my father’s political murder in the salon of the House of Arts?
“Marina Dmitrievna is one of our most promising young poets,” she said.
An understanding smile from the Englishman. Oh, another Charming Man. I could tell he would be a fountain of trouble for the next unfortunate woman. “Well, I happen to be carrying a letter for you, Miss Makarova. From London.” He patted his pockets, handed it to me. Marina Makarova, House of Arts, Petrograd. But Moura was already tugging him away. “I’d love to hear more,” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe afterward, if there’s time.” And she led him toward the icy dining room, where the long table had been set with the Eliseev china. We’d all had a peek, a sight enough to stop all our mouths. They went in, and the doors closed.
I tore open the envelope, glanced down at the signature. It was from Clyde Emory.
Dearest Marina, it began. I hope this winter is finding you well. I worry—the news about Russia is grim. I cannot bear the thought of you cold and hungry. I sent some things with Wells. I hope they will make your winter a little more bearable. I hate to think of you suffering.
A package? Hallelujah! Food rations had been cut again, worse than they’d ever been—half a pound of bread a day for the intelligentsia, and the bakeries regularly ran out. Without my students, I would have already boiled my sheepskin and eaten it. I was half out-of-body, and no longer had the trick of inflowing that Ukashin had taught. I skimmed the rest of the letter, typewritten and single-spaced. He had pressed so hard, the o’s had punched through.
I want you to know that I’ve submitted one of your poems to Clarion and they want more. I’ve sent another two to The Dial. I don’t necessarily think they’ll publish, but they should know you. Send more stuff via H. G.
They were publishing one of my poems? I wondered which one. Clarion was at Cambridge University, showcasing new poets like Amy Lowell and H.D. Emory had left me copies of the journal in his attempts to court me.
So my poems had arrived in the West. That message in a bottle I’d sent with Aura had found landfall. No news from Kolya, but instead—this. Life never gave you the thing you asked for, but sometimes something else. Like Pasha, and Clarion.
Please don’t fall in love with anyone until I can come again. I should have put you in a suitcase and taken you as cargo. Will you forgive me? Just enough of a joke to cover his dignity, in case I chose to be offended.
I see fox fur on women everywhere here, and the hairdressers are mad for henna. It’s enough to drive a fellow bonkers. I bought a recording of Aleko. It fills me with memories.
Then, he returned to the impersonal. Write to me, tell me how things are. As if one could get that news past the censors. The situation in England is galvanizing in support of Soviet Russia. The British longshoremen won’t allow arms to be sent to the enemies of Russia’s people. The workers are with you. And I, most of all.
Your servant, Clyde.
Thank God, not love. I could hardly still my racing heartbeat. I was going to be published in the West.
“Borscht,” Alla Tvorcheskaya hissed, spying on the supper through a gap in the dining room doors.
We uninvited guests crowded the hallway, trying not to drool as she whispered descriptions of the courses emerging from the kitchen, borne by the ancient Eliseev servants, who thought little of the writers and artists but preferred to stay on at the House of Arts rather than try their luck in the city at large. The repast was the finest we could offer—borscht, blini, fish in aspic, stuffed cabbage with meat—probably horsemeat. Not so impressive, compared to what that pudgy Wells probably ate for an average Thursday lunch, but the best we’d seen in years. Anton, standing behind me, craned his neck, trying to read the letter over my shoulder. “An English admirer?” he asked, a sarcastic edge to his voice.
“Someone I met at Gorky’s.” I quickly folded it away. “It’s nothing.”
“Then why are you hiding it?”
“Why are you reading over my shoulder?”
“Shh!” We were irritating the eavesdroppers.
Evidently things started to get ugly
over the fish course. Some of our more intransigent anti-Bolsheviks were harassing Wells over his political sympathies. We could hear far better than we could see, and they made no attempt to keep their voices down, growing louder and angrier as they piled on: “Kid-glove treatment.” “Potemkin villages, that’s all they are.” “You’ve got to ditch your minders.” “Don’t believe a thing.” We couldn’t hear Wells, he spoke too reasonably, but the others were unmistakable.
Here was Shklovsky. I recognized his voice, clear, wry, cutting socialist Wells for being “an unwitting toady for British capitalism.” Anton laughed out loud, and ruined the cigarette he was rolling. I could only cringe, imagining how mortified Gorky must be at this disgraceful performance. He was always embarrassed by bad manners. And Gumilev, in his dinner jacket, attempting to show some elegance to our foreign guest—Nikolai Stepanovich would be rigid with shame.
“Poliatnikov is taking his jacket off,” said Alla, peering through a crack in the door. A resident gadfly. The others crowded around. “Are they going to fight?”
“He’s showing Wells his shirt. It’s pretty bad, just collar and cuffs. Well, what makes him so different? Nikolai Stepanovich looks ready to explode.” Gumilev.
We heard his response clearly: “Parlez pour vous!” Speak for yourself!
What a horror show. The others were as thrilled as children when someone else behaves badly. But I felt shame, and pity for Wells, who’d come to do his best, to listen and learn.
I retreated to the hall to read Emory’s letter again.
“You’re missing the fun.” Tereshenko braced his arm against the wall next to my head. “Don’t you want to see the coup de grâce? See Gumilev punch out Poliatnikov?”
“Wells isn’t stupid, he doesn’t need to be shown our laundry.”
“Bourgeois,” he said. “He deserves it, looking at us like worms under a microscope. Telling us what to do. Like he knows what’s best for Russia. He should have stayed in England and just sent his money.” He was standing too close to me, as he often did, trying to push himself on me. He was attractive enough, with his boxer’s build, funny in a rough way. And a good poet. But I didn’t need another lover.