A Question of Return

by Robert Carr

  Afterward, Joan Geraldine claimed it had been obvious to her that first evening in Zamoskvorechye that Laukhin and Tanya were not together anymore. Perhaps. Joan Geraldine had made clear what she wanted the first time they slept together. He dutifully mentioned love, and she laughed and said, in English, “There is no need for porkies, Art.” No one had called him Art before, and the word porky—he guessed its meaning—was also new to him. He’d hear it often afterward, because it was a favourite of hers, but the first time she used it she’d added, “I have a fiancé waiting for me in London. Your English will improve, and so will my Russian. And I’ll learn how poems come together.” Such frankness annoyed Laukhin, but she was delightfully mad, full of life. She had smooth white skin and breasts with large, pink nipples.

  She wrote very short stories and brief poems—English haikus, she called them—but told Laukhin she knew she was not a writer. She wanted to be a translator of Russian literature, and that was why she’d decided to spend two years in Moscow. “I have creative spark,” she said to him once, “but it’s only a spark, short lived. I cannot concentrate for long. A translation keeps me on track, focused. I had dreams of being a writer once. No more. Life highlights one’s limitations. I can see my future in a country house in Dorset or Hampshire. Three pink-faced children and a husband who commutes to work and fucks me on weekends. The house—it will be a big house, Art—the garden, the children and their schools, the family meals, the occasional dinner parties, all these will keep me busy. I’ll do my translations, small pieces to start, more after the children are in school. Slow, finicky, unpressured work. But they’ll be translations of the highest quality, and the praise I’ll get will remind me of my early dreams.”

  Her Russian had been very good when he met her. She had studied it at Cambridge, and told him she’d had several Russian lovers already. In England. Laukhin wasn’t sure whether to believe her, since Joan Geraldine was given to exaggerations, as she was the first to admit.

  * * *

  Of course, Erika Belov-Wang had to raise topics she knew would be uncomfortable for him. She was paid to do that. Some of the things he had said in the heat of the interview might have to change. He wouldn’t claim he hadn’t said them, he’d simply cross them out. He could correct or delete anything he didn’t really mean or want to have published. This was agreed to at the start, part and parcel of the way the Paris Review did its interviews, one of the reasons they were so readable.

  He’d told a few porkies too, and they showed up in the transcript. He wasn’t sure now whether he should fix them; it would only take more of his time.

  The lie about Poets in Heaven had not been premeditated. It had been a surprise to him that Erika Belov-Wang wanted to talk about it. It had not seemed right to tell her that he was still working on the poem (although he hadn’t touched it in more than a year), that it was troubling to him, a difficult poem which he just might not be able to finish, and that its premature publication had been much more than a passing irritation.

  There was one porky he wouldn’t be able to do much about, the one regarding his son. He had told it many times since his defection, and he really had no choice. The interview made it clear he had left Tanya, at the time pregnant with his son, in Moscow. It sounded awful, and the awkward way he’d ducked Erika’s follow-on questions—“Don’t you want to see your child? He’s, what, six years old now?”—was even worse. Well, he could always ask her to delete that entire passage. Should he bother?

  * * *

  The sound of the lawnmower startled Laukhin. It was still light outside, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. He thought it was Ivor Bendiksen, his neighbour to the east. Ivor was retired and obsessed with his lawn. Laukhin wouldn’t be surprised to see him one day sprawled out on it, measuring each blade of grass with a ruler. But the noise came from his own backyard—one of Efim Apelbaum’s underlings was cutting the grass to a civilized length. Laukhin had told Efim he’d mow the lawn himself, even buy a lawnmower, but the big man wouldn’t think of it. “You’re my guest, Tyoma,” he’d said as he squeezed Laukhin’s shoulder. “It’s better that someone lives in the house, anyway.” The only favour he had asked of Laukhin in return was to find out whether Bendiksen or any of the other neighbours was thinking of selling their houses.

  In high school they called Efim “The House” because he was built like a house and was a head taller than anyone else in their class. He had not minded it. He’d been the one Jew in Laukhin’s class—there were a handful—who struggled academically and only just squeezed through from one grade to the next. After high school Laukhin lost touch with him. They met again in the early eighties in Toronto, at a store in Finchurst Plaza that catered to Russian tastes. As he went in, Laukhin noticed the man towering above everybody else at the other end of the narrow store. It was Efim. This time they kept in touch. A year later, when Laukhin mentioned he was looking for a new place to live, Efim told him he had a small house that was empty. He had bought it as a tear-down and intended to build a larger house, but he was too busy with other projects to do it right then. Laukhin would be doing him a favour if he moved in. The location was fine—although the subway was a twenty-minute walk away—and so he agreed. The rent was ridiculously low. At first Efim said it would be rent free, but Laukhin balked. He said he’d pay the property tax. Efim wouldn’t hear of it, and eventually they agreed on utilities and half of the tax.

  * * *

  Should he work on the transcript, or answer Kyril’s odd letter? He felt like doing neither—he should work on the galley proofs. He wasn’t even sure that Kyril expected an answer. Laukhin switched on the table lamp and picked up the letter. He’d read it several times and still couldn’t be certain what his friend meant to say. He’d been away for too long and had lost the ability to read between the lines. Kyril had written to him before. The first letter had reached him via Colson, who brought letters back from Kyril and from his sister in Leningrad each time he travelled to the Soviet Union. The letters Kyril sent on his own arrived from everywhere. One seemed to have been written in a hotel in Budapest. One was posted from Krakow, another from Lyon, both likely taken abroad and mailed by visitors or travelling friends. Kyril had signed them all with a straight, unadorned K. Each letter had a postscript saying that there was no point in writing back because the demands of his work kept him constantly on the move. There was no return address on any of the envelopes.

  He decided to have a drink before he re-read the letter. Still holding it, he made his way down to the kitchen. The bottle, kept in the freezer, was covered with minute ice crystals. He once heard a wit say Russians drank a lot of vodka because it was the only thing they had that didn’t freeze during the winter. He poured the clear liquid over ice cubes, feeling as if he was watching a commercial with the sound off. Vodka on ice—most of his Russian friends would be puzzled. Kyril would be incensed. He was probably drinking when he wrote this last letter. It had also been posted in Krakow, but it was signed with the familiar curlicued Kyril, where the K was four or five times the size of the other letters. Kyril’s Tverskoy Boulevard address was on the back of the envelope, a first, and the postscript telling Laukhin not to reply was missing.

  What should he make of such openness? Why was Kyril being less careful? The part that baffled him most began on the second page.

  I am too old or too cynical to write such things, but here I go. There’s something happening here, something hard to define or pin hopes to. There is talk of a new thaw, and there are novel fancy words to define it. You’ll say it happened before only for the freeze to return. True, and I’m as weary of false hope as anyone here, but people are bolder and they talk louder since the new vozhd took over. He’s only four years older than we are, Tyoma, practically our generation. Maybe that’s what’s needed—new, less tainted blood, less affected minds.

  I was summoned to Vorovsky Street the other day by the first secretary. Markov is still the big shot at the Writers’ Union, but not for
much longer. He told me he had neither the strength nor the stomach to carry on. “It’s not my fight anymore,” he said. An odd statement from somebody like him. He didn’t hide his displeasure at the way things were evolving.

  The village hooligan—remember that old portrayal of him?—has mellowed, though. He’s well over seventy now, probably seventy-five. Bent, lined face, second chin. Still a full head of hair.

  Here’s the startling news, Tyoma—they want you back.

  Did you just sit down? Have you decided you needed a drink before you read on?

  Yes, they want you back in the Soviet Union. Not old Markov—he was only the tired messenger, at least that’s what he kept saying. He let me understand that the call came from the highest levels. Not from the new vozhd, not that high up (he wouldn’t have time for this), but from high up nevertheless.

  I’ll try to reconstruct the discussion I had with him word for word, because it’s important you get it with as little retelling as possible.

  Markov said, “It will be as if he, Laukhin, never left. He’ll be received back in the union, of course. And if teaching literature is something he wants to go on doing, they’ll see to it. He can’t return to his old apartment, but he’ll get an equivalent place—they’ll see to that as well. And he’ll be published—yes, all his poetry, including Bolshevo Days. And—have another sip, Tyoma—Pavel Laukhin’s journal will also be published.” Now, as regards the journal, Markov added, “they (and they from what I understand, includes the union and our literary generals) might call for some minor adjustments, but they’d be kept to an absolute minimum.”

  I asked, “Why?”

  Markov reiterated he was only the messenger. He then said, “Why would Laukhin publish his father’s journal abroad? Why give ammunition to our country’s enemies? Surely, he wants to come back to his own country and people and language. Seven years, and Laukhin has not published anything except Poets in Heaven. Those who’ve read it say it’s full of nostalgia, of regrets, of the author’s inability to write anything good where he now finds himself. Laukhin needs Russia, and Russia wants him back. He should not waste his talent and life over there.” He stopped and frowned, the village hooligan at his thoughtful best. “There is the personal situation too,” he added.

  I said, “Personal?”

  Markov said, “Surely, Laukhin wishes to see his son. He has not remarried, and has no other children. His son is six years old, and if he wants to be at all close to him he should return to the Soviet Union as soon as possible.”

  I said, “I seem to have been chosen as the messenger to Laukhin. Why me?”

  The village hooligan dismissed my query with a “not worthy of you” gesture. He said, “Kyril Innokentievich, we know you send letters to him now and then. It’s fine, it’s fine,” he assured me, “there isn’t much harm in that, it’s how old friends are.”

  He left it up to me to write to you whichever way I saw fit. I was given carte blanche. He said, “Kyril Innokentievich, you know the best way to reach Laukhin’s heart and mind.”

  I asked, “Am I allowed to talk about this?”

  “You mean to friends?”

  “Yes.”

  Markov shook his head and said, “It’d be better not to.”

  I said, “Send me there. Send me to Canada. I’ll be a better messenger face to face.”

  Markov laughed. He said he’d relay my suggestion to those who decide such matters, but he didn’t believe it would be approved.

  When he dismissed me, he said it would be best to post my letter to you from outside the Soviet Union. He smiled and added, “Use one of your friends.”

  There was more. After his tête-à-tête with Markov, Kyril had lunch at the club. There was talk about publishing Zhivago in the Soviet Union. And, listening to friends and sipping his last drink, Kyril remembered that it was the village hooligan himself who had demanded Pasternak’s ouster from the Writers’ Union at the time of the Zhivago scandal.

  Kyril had written a paragraph about himself too. He had not felt well in the last few months, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. Not yet—it was always like that. Maybe it was just not being young anymore. Young Irina, on the other hand, was fine. So were his children, whom he saw little of thanks to their mother.

  And there was a postscript:

  PS: The same infighting at the institute. I understand my students less and less. The lineups have not disappeared. We build whatever we build, although there’s some confusion lately as to what exactly it is.

  Laukhin understood the PS—daily life in the Soviet Union had not changed much—but the rest of the letter was baffling.

  Old Markov was an odd choice as a messenger. A reluctant messenger, most likely, as the first secretary couldn’t be looking forward to the journal’s depiction of his role in the Pasternak affair. Although his father had not felt well that day in October 1958—the first sign of the brain tumour?—he had insisted on attending the special extended meeting of the Presidium of the Writers’ Union. Laukhin knew about the vile speech Markov made that day on Vorovsky Street because his father had been very upset afterward and talked of little else for several days. During Markov’s speech, Ehrenburg leaned over to his father and whispered, “From village hooligan to union hooligan.” His father left before the vote to expel Pasternak from the Writers’ Union was taken; he was allowed to go only because he was clearly sick. He walked out, propped up by Ehrenburg and Tvardovsky, who were both glad to avoid voting too.

  To think that Markov was still alive and about. Too many people were still alive and about.

  What made them think he would return?

  He thought again of Tsvetayeva’s words, “Here I am unnecessary. There I am impossible.”

  Tsvetayeva wrote somewhere that emigration had made her a prose writer. She had exaggerated, because she wrote her best poetry while away from Russia. It had made him, Laukhin, a prose writer.

  Could he really call himself an émigré? That was the consecrated, if now tarnished, term for Russian fugitives from the Soviet regime, but didn’t emigration entail hardship, misery and grief? He experienced none, never had to struggle to keep “body and pen together,” as Nabokov put it. What a difference three decades and a war made. They found a chair for him, gave him awards. There’d been nothing for Tsvetayeva. She’d had it hard as an émigré, fully deserved the title. She left Russia after losing a child to starvation during the civil war—in itself enough grief, and it never really got better for her. She wandered—Berlin, Paris, Prague, Paris again. No one was interested in her poems. A destitute life. Poverty, the kind that sticks to you like dirt. She had lousy affairs, another child, a husband who couldn’t find a job or hold one. He did have a job, though, as an NKVD agent. He betrayed his comrades, and helped end the earthly days of a few sad men whom the motherland found undesirable. A job he kept secret from his wife.

  What made them think he would return?

  He knew of no happy returns to the Soviet Union. Tsvetayeva’s had been tragic. Prokofiev had regretted going back. Even Gorky’s return, despite all the honours and the flattery, the mansion with servants, and the special privileges, had not been happy. Stravinsky had been the clever one—he stayed put. He went back for a visit, but that was all. Lucky for him Stalin wasn’t still around. The physicist Kapitsa returned for a visit while Stalin was alive and wasn’t allowed to go back to Cambridge.

  Well, maybe Aleksey Tolstoy, the Comrade Count. That scoundrel had been the only one who had not minded returning.

  Fedya Malgunov thought long and hard about going back. Laukhin talked to him about it while Fedya visited him in Toronto. He had many problems, poor Fedya, not the least of which being his beastly wife who, after pushing him to flee the Soviet Union, left him for another man. Fedya told Laukhin he did not blame her. “She was tired, Tyoma, tired of counting pennies. It was fine to do that back home, everybody was doing it there, but here? The life she had with me, well, she couldn’t hack
it any longer. So she found Steve with his big house in Palo Alto.”

  What made them think he’d return?

  They were certain of two things, the literary sanovniky. Unlike here in the West, poetry and poets remained significant in the Soviet Union. Poets there had always had—what was the word he had used with Erika Belov-Wang?—traction. To be listened to, even if it meant being reported, was not something to be sneered at. It was important to feel important.

  Coupled to this was the privileged life poets led there—as long as they paid lip service to the Party’s dictates or their poetry remained sufficiently obscure. What better example than Pasternak? They attacked him in forums and newspapers, and he ignored it all, enjoying his large, beautiful apartment in the heart of Moscow, a year-round dacha in Peredelkino, access to the best doctors, and enough money to have a comfortable life and to support another family besides his own—his son and first wife, after he divorced her and married Zinaida, and later his lover Ivitskaya and her family. While he, Laukhin, now lived in a house belonging to a friend, had a modest university salary—well, he was doing little teaching, just as he had wanted—and his only hope for financial security were earnings from his father’s journal.